Stranger In Town

Stranger In Town

Friday, February 25th, 2005-6:16 P.M.

Reporting live from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  Absolute Comedy is nestled in the "Little Italy" neighborhood of Ottawa, and I visited a small Italian deli and grocery store to pick up some lunch.  As friendly as Canadians typically are, these Italian immigrants were very friendly, falling all over themselves to make me some delicious sandwiches (at bargain prices, I might add) while I immersed myself in the imcomparable charm of a real Italian import store.  The shelves had a modest selection of groceries, but I was dazzled by the jars of olives, peppers and marinated vegetables.  I bought a small jar of marinated artichoke hearts that were about the best thing in the world.  I'm glad I got a chance to check the deli out, and it was a nice brisk walk from the apartments where the club is putting us comics up, so I got a little excercise in for the day (and Lord knows I need it).

In other news, I received an e-mail from the one and only Kenny Robinson, one of the finest comics that Canada has ever produced.  When I started out in the business at the Yuk Yuk's in Rochester, NY, Kenny would come down and work pretty frequently, and I was always enamored with his ability to entertain an audience with the most in-your-face comedy imaginable.  At a time when Sam Kinison, Dice Clay and the like ruled the earth, I always felt that there were too many people missing the boat on Kenny.  I was pleased to find out, through internet investigation, that Kenny has achieved a good level of fame in Canada; it is certainly well deserved.  And Kenny, because I know you're reading this journal, I'm not just saying this to run hot water up your ass, I have other Canadian comic heroes as well, Wayne Flemming being the most notable, as well as Ronnie Edwards (your partner), Wayne Turmel (who I understand is now working as a successful corporate consultant) and Ron Vaudry (God bless his bitter comic ass).

A special "piss on you" to Cingular wireless, my cell phone provider.  Because of the ridiculous roaming charges I get for being in Canada, I haven't been able to speak to my wife for the last two days.  We've been getting around it by text messaging each other (hoping the charges won't be that much different) and using the computer to instant message each other, but I always hated cell phones, and now I know why; they make you dependent on them, and then they make you pay.  And we're going after the cigarette industry.....fuck, let's go after the cell phone companies first.  More people that I know use cell phones than smoke!

Sammy, our mc for the weekend, will be staying over tonight and crashing on the condo couch.  He's a very funny comic, and a headliner in his own right.  I finally got the living room TV to work (it was set up to run the DVD player....I pressed every button on the remote trying to get regular TV channels, and I looked like a lab monkey trying to get a banana), so now Sammy has better TV in his room than Jack Willhite or I have in ours....for some reason, the living room has 275 channels, and my room has 12.  Luckily, I'm not a huge TV watcher.  The DVD player (a new toy as far as I'm concerned....we just got a DVD player for the first time at our house this past Christmas) came equipped with a small wallet of movies on DVD either left behind by another comic or provided by Jason over at the club....in the last two days, I've seen Collateral, Spiderman 2, Swordfish (Halle Berry!  Halle Berry!), and today I fell asleep during I, Robot (not Will Smith's best work).  We also have Mystic Rive and Shrek 2, which I've seen, but am not against seeing again.  The road comic's curse is trying to kill time before the show, and tonight we only have one, and it's at 9:30 tonight!  TV becomes crucial in helping the time melt away.

It's cold tonight, so Ralph's tip is stay warm.  And if you're already warm, help someone else stay warm.  You know what to do.

 

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY