Anniversary

Anniversary                                                           982

Saturday, May 14, 2005-12:58 P.M.

Hello, from Reading, Pennsylvania.  Well, my Friday the 13th fears were for naught, except for a little heavy traffic getting out of Allentown and into Reading.  The worst, however, was finding that the Sheraton had discontinued it's exquisite buffet and turned the Market Street Cafe into an ala carte restaurant with a limited menu.  Poor me!  I skipped dinner in favor of a well needed shower, shave and manicure (did the pedicure this morning...every 11 days, whether I need it or not).  Managed to catch some chow at the local 24 hour supermarket whose name escapes me after the show.  Dinner was an Italian-style sub, which was actually good...normally, supermarkets insist on putting bologna on their Italian subs, which I don't understand...bologna is German, to my knowledge.  I also had an apple (keep the doctor away), a quart of milk, and two eclair-style snack pies (a sugary treat that I shouldn't indulge myself with, but what the Hell).  Total damage, $6.47.  Not bad for a meal on the road. 

I indulged in my late night repast while enjoying Bill Maher's show on HBO.  Al Franken was one of the guests, and he's becoming one of my favorite political commentators, even though I never cared for his comedy.  Suffice to say, he thinks the way I do and says a lot of things I agree with.  Bill Maher does that too, but I always liked his comedy.  Gore Vidal was on, as well as a young lady who was a field correspondent for ABC news whose name escapes me, and I thought that she was going to be the token conservative that the three big-league liberals would gang-rape, but that was not the case.  It was a pleasant, if one-sided, panel discussion.  I prefer fair fights, with righties given the opportunity to defend their positions.  It usually makes for good television when righties have to shake and shuffle to defend their positions, because they can't come right out and say "I want it that way because I'm greedy!"

Oh, and before I forget, the Friday the 13th curse also turned out to be a false alarm, because I received a wonderful phone call from Joe Galanis of the Laugh-Inn Comedy Club in Fort Meyers, Florida.  It seems that Spanky Brown, a very talented comic out of Memphis, Tennessee that I had the privilege of working with in Knoxville last year, tipped Joe off to an outstanding comic from Rochester, NY who ought to be working his room.  After a brief conversation, we have all but named a date for me to venture down to the southern section of Florida's Sun Coast.  A very public thank-you to Spanky Brown for going to bat for a brother.  It's that kind of generosity and good will in this business that makes me proud to be a comic, and not an actor or musician.  We have our days, some of us, but for the most part, the fraternity is strong.

Last things last...since beginning this little journal last February, I've received almost 1,000 hits.  Now, some of those are just me going on to post...the counter considers each new view as a hit, and I have no control over that.  But I'm really interested in getting that number up over 1,000 legitimate hits, so if you read this journal with any frequency and enjoy it, why not be a pal and send the link to folks in your address book who might enjoy it?  I'm trying to become an overnight success, even though I've been doing comedy for 17 years, so any help you could throw my way would be appreciated.

It actually will be 17 years sometime this month.  May, 1988 was the first time I ever went up on stage at a comedy club (the exact date escapes me, but I want to say it was the second Wednesday of the month).  I thought about that achievment this morning, and not that I was impressed by it, but I really thought about what it must be to love something that much to continue to do it for that long.  My friend, Jamie Lissow, has a quote on his website, and I believe on his bio, that says "We are what we continuously do," and I consider that to be true.

What do you continuously do?  Love?  Laugh?  Help others?  Or complain?

Think about it.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY