Tuesday February 8, 2005-10:49 PM
This is the second journal entry I'm doing for AOL. I'm on the fence between using it to catch up on the last 16 years of doing standup comedy, or actually describing what happened today.
Not much happened today. I guess I'll just jot down some history as I remember it.
The first time I stepped into a comedy club was like January or February of 1988. I was a student at Monroe Community College, and I worked in the campus radio station, WMCC. One of the other students who worked there was Elaine Macio, who was interning for Stephanie Miller who was the sidekick on the Brother Wease morning radio show on WCMF 96.5 FM at the time. Elaine followed Stephanie to Yuk Yuk's and started doing open mic, and got a guest spot on a Friday late show. She invited a bunch of us from the station to see her perform. She sucked enough that I thought "Hey, I can do this." A few months later, I took the stage for my first open mic.
That first night though, I heckled the middle act. He put me down pretty good. I was drinking, and I don't apologize for my behavior. I hung out afterwards in the lounge, and talked with some of the comics, and I was hooked.
Funny thing, I had parked in this lot where there was a pretty steep incline, so I put on my parking brake. Also, there was a lot of snow and ice on the ground, and it was mega cold. When my drunk ass came out to get to the car with my roommate Larry, the car wouldn't move....we figured it was frozen, and of course our drunk asses forgot we put on the parking brake. My brother came to get us a ride home, and the next morning I realized what happened and we set out to get the car.
Oddly enough, I look back on the whole episode fondly.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
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