Already Gone

Already Gone

Thursday, March 31, 2005-9:31 A.M.

I'm off to Spring Lake, Michigan today, and then on to Wisecrackers comedy club at the Raddison in Merrillville, Indiana.  I'm not looking forward to either gig, because Spring Lake is a very rednecky town when it's not tourist season, and while the weather is pretty nice this weekend, it's still not what you'd call tourist season.  The gig in Merrillville is o.k., the hotel is beautiful, but the club is run by a bunch of corporate drones who establish policy in a defacto sort of  way, and the club is really a hospitality afterthought, even though no one staying at the hotel goes to the club, it's all locals.  But if you've seen the movie "Office Space" or read a "Dilbert" comic strip, you know how useless it is to try to explain something to corporate types who already have their minds made up.  Ultimately, I'm happier to be working than not, but the whole reason for getting into comedy is so that it never hurts to go to work.  Today, it hurts.

I have no friends.  My wife was working yesterday, and I was on baby patrol again, and I had a hankering for dinner (real dinner, not something that was handed to me through my car window or something that I cobbled together in the kitchen, although I cobble pretty good) and I couldn't think of one person to call to go with me.  Actually, that's not true....I couldn't think of one person who was in position to go with me.  All my friends are comics, and they were either out of town, working at other money-making endeavors, or ironing out personal problems.  Either way, I came up dry, and wound up taking Harmony shopping, and ate a Burger King meal on the way home.  I'm definitely taking a vacation, just because the food's better than working another week on the road...I subsist on meals behind the wheel way too much than I should, but that's the nature of the beast.  I have a 480 mile drive today, I can't afford to sit down and take a lunch break for fear of not making the gig.

Speaking of not making the gig, I gotta go.  Don't forget to set your clocks forward one hour on Sunday night, and don't look at it as losing an hour, look at it as the blessed arrival of Spring, renewal and rebirth.  By Monday, you won't even notice that you're still tired.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY