It Keeps You Running

It Keeps You Running                                                                1791

Friday, September 23, 2005-4:40 P.M. (Central Daylight Time)

Hello from the IceHouse Live! Sports Bar and Restaurant in  IceHouse Sports Bar and Restaurant - Omaha, NE  Omaha, Nebraska.  I'm here in Steak City (or whatever they call it....they do have good steaks, though) at the club taking advantage of their wireless internet for the first time ever with the new laptop.  It's great, learning this new technology, but I wish I was smarter about it.  Maybe I need to take a class or something.

I started driving Wednesday night around 8:00 P.M. and got as far as Chicago, about 5:00 in the morning.  I napped in the parking lot of a Pilot truck stop for about two hours, grabbed some coffee and headed west.  I arrived in Omaha around 2:00 in the afternoon, sixteen hours later; not bad for a one-stop drive.  During the second leg of the trip, I got a call from the booking agent indicating that the lodging had changed from a Best Western hotel to a house that the club bought.  It's nice, and close to the club, but because it's new, there's no phone yet and no cable TV.  Both of those are available at the club, but it's an inconvenience to have to get up, schlep the laptop over to the club, and try to wrestle the remote away from the other restaurant patrons.  Although, today they bought me lunch, and they had Spanish TV on the big screen.  I don't understand anything they're saying (despite four years of high school Spanish at my command), but one thing's for certain....Spanish TV sure knows how to trot out the T 'n' A.  It's nice to look at, but it just makes a man homesick.

The show last night was interesting....we had about 40 people, slow for a Thursday, I'm told, but the crowd was good.  I was sleep deprived and tired, and even though I thought my set was good, I knew it could have been better.  A guy from the show named Phil hung out with me at the bar for lunch...he's a salesman, and he took the day off,and we wound up doing the pal-around thing at the Ice House.  He's a regular here, and I did a mind-reading trick with the head server, and now she hates me (because I read her to a T).  Women like to be cool and mysterious, but they're generally all the same animal...they have wants and needs, and they want a man to supply them without being told what they are, but when you read their mind, they feel violated and resentful.  It's a very feline tendency, and I think it's tied to hormones.  Oh well.

Today I found a library and pillaged their used book section for a couple of interesting titles, including a murder mystery novel by a standup comedian named Dan Barton.  The book is called Killer Material, and I've already listed it for sale on www.half.com, but I may wind up reading it.  I'm not much into fiction, but if it involves standup comedy, I get interested.  I'm working on Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard, because one of the characters is a standup comic.  Leonard wrote Jackie Brown and Get Shorty, along with the sequel Be Cool.  I enjoy his stuff, and recommend it thoroughly.

I'm working on a book about standup comedy myself, and I did a little more work on it this morning.  It's coming along pretty good, but I'm a ruthless editor.  I have to just write the damn thing, and let a professional editor make the changes.  I'm getting hung up on tense and word choice and forgetting the meat of the book.  Still, it will be the first full-length thing I've written, so I'm proud that I'm making the effort.  So far, all I have to my credit is standup comedy, poetry and short stories.  And the songs that I make up and sing to my baby daughter.....

....who, by the way, is doing great, thanks for asking.  The other day, she said pop-pop, which to me is close enough to Papa, so I cried joyful tears.  She also picked up my wallet and started running through the house with it, which is a habit she picked up from her mother.  She had no problem picking up my wallet, because there's hardly anything in it, but that's another story.  When Harmony was born, I told Pam that I thought I was too old to be a father, because at 38, I would be 54 when the child turned 16, and I didn't think I'd have the energy to run after her.

She's coming up on 2, and the running has begun.  God help me.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

P.S.  I forgot to mention something....this club, the Ice House, is a new location for the former Joker's Comedy Club.  Last year when I played here, I was working with Chicago's Tim Joyce, who was born and raised in Buffalo and is a big Bills fan (like myself).  We wanted to watch the Bills play the Dolphins at the end of last year's NFL season, and came to the Ice House to watch the game, because each of the booths has their own TV.  Everyone in the bar was watching the Chiefs (Kansas City is the next closes NFL town) and I kept yelling "PAY-TON MAN-NING!" just to stir up the pot.

I feel like I'm back home.

RT

Rochester, NY