Still They Ride

Still They Ride

Sunday, March 20, 2005-3:10 A.M.

Just got home from the lovely House of Comedy Club in beautiful Niagara Falls, Ontario. Tonight's show was pretty good, I did 50 minutes with only a slight lull towards the three-quarter mark of my set where I was trying to decide which way to go.  I was kicking myself in the car on the way home because I left out a chunk that I should have opened with (cue the mad scientist music "How could I have been so blind?!?) but that's o.k.  Everyone seemed pleased overall, and they want me back.  It's actually very nice to work and then be able to drive home in less than two hours and sleep in your own bed.

This week coming up I have a long string of one-nighters, starting in Liverpool, New York (near Syracuse) and then three nights in Michigan including Rockford, Michigan (I've performed here a couple of times....I either rock the room or leave them staring...no in-between) and then the towns of Big Rapids and Cadillac, two uncharted territories for yours truly.  I'll make decent money, but it's back to the grind and getting in the car and going.  In some small way, the motion keeps me alive, and I like it, and when I get time off, my body shuts down....I sleep more, get sluggish, and my energy goes to hell.  Still, I wish there were more structure.

I was working this week with a young guy named Ary Van Eyk, a funny guy who I had the chance to pal around with a little bit.  We got to talking about the standup game, and what it has to offer and we bounced some different ideas off of each other.  He's got a friend who is a budding filmmaker, and Ary wants to get some video projects going.  That's kind of what I'd like to do....I have some ideas for projects away from standup comedy that I'd like to work on, two different book ideas, and two different CD ideas, one a kind of "radio theater" type thing with "audio plays," and the other, a spoken-word sort of a thing.  Henry Rollins is one of my heroes, and I love the way that his spoken-word stuff borders on standup comedy, but also is moody and has a point.  I'd like to do some of that sort of thing, I've been writing gonzo poetry for years now, and I play bass guitar, and I'd like to combine those two voices into something organic.  It might be the kind of thing that college radio would embrace, and maybe it would open some doors in the college market.  That would be cool, because colleges pay good money....I know, because when I was in college, I was the guy that paid the comics.  We had Nick Di Paolo and Henry Cho on campus the year that I was involved...it was a great experience being on the activities board as a young comic back in 1989. 

TacoBell screwed up my order tonight.  Insanity is described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, like going to Taco Bell and thinking "they'll get the order correct tonight" and knowing in your heart that you're an idiot, and your wife is depending on a lovely, vegetarian-friendly seven-layer burrito, and damn if you get it home and it isn't filled with spicy beef, which a seven-layer burrito should never have.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY