Love Reign O'er Me

Love Reign O'er Me                                                 808

Sunday, April 24, 2005-6:31 A.M.

Just got back from Uncasville, Connecticut where I performed at the Polish American Club with headliner Paul Nardizzi and m.c. Ray Salah.  The drive was six hours down and six hours back, and it rained most of the way.  The show, however, was worth it.  The group was small, but was probably the best audience I worked in front of all month.  Compliments were passed around afterwards, and I just have to say they were the nicest people they could have been.  Exhibit A; I was concerned about the weather and the time that I had allowed for Ray and I to make it to the gig for an 8:00 P.M. show, so I passed on the opportunity to eat any food whatsoever all day long.  Now, some of you folks can probably pull that stunt off, but I'm on some medications that require that I eat a little something.  When I got to the gig after six hours in the car, I had eaten only a Slim Jim that Ray bought me while I was pumping gas, and I was ready to gnaw off my own arm.  When Ray and I got to the hall and introduced ourselves around, the first thing they did was walk us over to the hors d'ouvres buffet and instruct us to help ourselves; there were spicy chicken wings, mini quiches, potato wedges, clam strips, Italian style meatballs, and my favorite thing by far, jalapeno poppers.  As a comic, any time you get fed, even something simple as fried appetizers, it's really a show of hospitality that we're not used to, and goes a long way towards keeping the morale up.  Isn't sharing your food around the nicest thing you can do for someone?

WWW.RandMcnally.com, the website that I use to navigate when I'm going to parts of the country that I'm not real familiar with, almost caused a disaster for me today.  The directions that it provided got us to the proper exit of the expressway, but directed us to turn right instead of left, which would have sent us careening away from our destination like the Phantom Zone criminals in the plate glass window from Superman: The Movie, but the booker, Matt Jedynak happened to come up behind us in his jeep, and we were able to follow him to the venue with no fuss or muss.  Divine intervention occurs once again on the Ralph Tetta Comedy Roadtrip.

Last but not least, a short sidetrip past the Mohegan Indian Reservation and casino revealed gas prices at $2.47, $2.57 and $2.67.  I thought the gas was supposed to be cheaper on the reservation!  This is getting ridiculous with the gas prices...I always said, if Social Security ran out of money before I retired, I was going to douse myself with gasoline and light myself on fire, but now I can't even afford to do that!  I don't care where you stand in the politcal rainbow, be it red, blue or some shade of purple in between, we must elect representatives who will bolster our economy and bring fuel prices back under two dollars a gallon....if things keep going the way they are today, every product that we buy that is transported by truck, train or plane is going to carry a fuel surcharge in the buying price and it's going to hurt even worse than we can possibly imagine.  Vote your wallet in 2006!  And if that doesn't work, maybe we better start impeaching leaders with a bullet in 2007...that'll get some pens rolling and some ink flowing.

But hey, I'm just a comedian....wouldn't want anyone to think that what I write here is serious....it's all for entertainment value only.  Let's keep Ralph off the F.B.I. "nut" list!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY