La Bamba

La Bamba                                                                     999

Tuesday, May 17, 2005-8:02 P.M.

Hello, everybody.  Greetings from the second-floor apartment that is the home offices to Ralph Tetta Worldwide, as well as his wife Pamela and daughter, Harmony Rose.

Weekend wrap-up from Reading, Pennsylvania includes another drunken female heckler story.  The young lady came in drunk, second show, and we had a brief exchange at the door.  She was asking about re-entry policy, and I was happy to read her the sign on the door that said it was O.K.  Five minutes later, I'm on stage and she has no recollection of the conversation.  She also lit up a cigarette, which I had to remind her to extinguish (no smoking allowed in the club, so sayeth the signs posted on every vertical flat surface).

I put her down pretty hard, and while I don't like to be that kind of comic, her constant table chatter was irking the piss out of the other 75 people in the room, so something had to be done.  Sometimes, when I get too hard on a loud talker/heckler, it can backfire in my face because the audience gets the vibe that the "big mean comedian" is taking it out on some "poor little girl."  Luckily, it turned out not to be the case.

Special thanks to the gentleman who bought three copies of my CD, and was treating his son and the son's girlfriend to a night out before the lad gets shipped over to Iraq.  And good luck to the young man.

The last couple of days have just turned out to be workaday affairs for me, catching up on laundry and taking advantage of some restful time home.  Or, as restful as you can be with a 14-month old running about the house, picking up every sharp or harmful object you forgot to put in a lockbox and trying to put it in her mouth/up her nose/someplace equally or greater harmful.

I had two one-nighters cancel this week, so I'm working in Flint, Michigan on Friday and Saturday for the princely sum of $200.  And that's before gas, tolls, meals, and any other expenses I can't possibly forecast come into play.  Conventional wisdom says I should cancel the weekend, but I can't.  First off, I met some folks in San Antonio, Texas, when I was down there in March, and they indicated to me via e-mail that they're coming and bringing some people.  For that alone, I don't want to let them down.  If they don't show up, fine, they aren't obligated, but I said I would be there.  So I'm going.  Secondly, I can't just take a weekend off.  I don't know what that feels like, and I wouldn't want anyone to think I'd stopped trying.  I'm a comic, so every week, I feel obligated to go somewhere and be funny for a paycheck.  If I stop doing that, I'm officially unemployed, and to Hell with that.  Lastly, who knows what opportunities await me in that location?  God deemed it so that I would be offered the weekend in Flint, Michigan, so it must be in line with his grand and glorious plans for me.  And who am I to thwart the plans of God, hmmm?

For recreation, I'm reading "Straight Talk From The Heartland" by radio host Ed Schultz.  It's a good book with a lot of solid, common sense logic about the state of our country today.  I recommend it highly.  If you're a Bush supporter, wrap duct tape around your skull before you read it, because the truth put forth in the book will probably make your head explode.

A pleasant evening to all.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY