Thank You

Thank You                                                               2360

Thursday, November 24, 2005-12:54 A.M. (Friday morning)

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  I'm in Buffalo, NY, home of snow, sub-zero wind chills, and Witz End Comedy Club.  My wife, Pamela and daughter, Harmony, have accompanied me on the big 65-mile trip west for Thanksgiving weekend.

Yesterday was quite possibly one of the worst days on record for me.  It started innocently enough, with a meeting at the Comix Cafe in Rochester with owner-general manager J.J. Parrone, which was innocent enough.  I book mc's for the club, so I needed to sit down with him and go over guidelines for 2006.  We got done in just under half an hour, and then it was on the road to gas up the vehicle (cheapest gas in town at BJ's wholesale club....$2.33 a gallon), off to the bank, and then head home to pack up the car.

Things went smoothly, except that my wife is a typical female, and took a good long time to get packed up and ready.  As a comic, I like to get into town a few hours early for a nap, shower and a meal.  It puts us in the mood to put forth our best performance.  My wife dragged her feet, and we didn't check into the hotel in Buffalo until 6:30.  It didn't help that I had to drop my Toyota Corolla off to the shop to be worked on (bad alignment), that was just another delay.

So the show at Witz End wasn't my strongest.  Hell, it wasn't even in the top 100 for this year.  The crowd was small for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and we started almost 25 minutes late (not good).  There was one guy in the audience who wasn't even turned toward the stage....he was sitting on maybe a 3/4 turn, with the 1/4 considered to be looking at the stage.  I got some laughs, but it wasn't enough for me, and even though it might have been considered to be at least adequate, I immolated myself with too much self-deprecation.  I got laughs when I wanted to get them, and then would lose the audience with the very next line.  It was self-deprecation bordering on self loathing.  I think the problem is that I was trying to get out of 30 people what you would get out of 130 people.  When it's a small crowd, even if they all laugh, you still think you're bombing.  I definitely needed a nap.

I jetted early while fill-in headliner Steve Briscoe was on stage.  Normally, I would have stuck around to chat after his show, but I was tired, hungry and depressed, so I headed back to the hotel, stopping at Prima Pizza and Pasta for dinner to go.  They are a block from the hotel, and were a real lifesaver last night.  I went back for bottled water later in the evening because they were the only game in town at 3:30 in the morning.  More on that in a minute.

So I get back to the hotel and grab some sodas from the hotel vending machine, and the three of us have a nice dinner in the room.  I made the mistake of giving Harmony some of my Diet Pepsi, and the caffeine kept her up all night.  She was bouncing and shrieking and I was worried that we would be bothering other hotel guests with the noise at that late hour, despite the fact that we were on the top floor, all the way at the end of the hallway in the corner.  Later in the evening, Harmony was still up, and we decided that we should fix up a bottle for her, which usually helps her get to sleep, but no milk was to be had.  I headed down to Prima Pizza, hoping they would have some, but after I navigated the after-closing bar traffic, they informed me that they were out.  I grabbed some bottled water and headed back to the hotel, where some sort of drunken frat boy convention was going on.  There were people drinking in the lobby, drinking in the hallways, drinking in the elevator, and I think the girl at the front desk was writing a suicide note.  I told her my problem about having no milk, and she got me some from the breakfast area...not a lot, but just enough to do the trick.

When I was leaving the hotel, I took the stairs, which only went to the third floor, where the bulk of the revelry was happening.  There were hotel personnel in the halls and in the elevators, but you could tell that there was just too few of them to make a difference.  There were crushed potato chips in the hallways, empty beer cans and bottles stuffed in ashtrays, and just a general disrespect all around.  Today, I found a cigarette butt stuffed behind a display case in the elevator (this is New York...there's no smoking allowed in public areas indoors).  I didn't have to engage any of the drunks in conversation except one kid on the elevator on my way back, who asked me where I got my pizza...he was too far in the bag to be of any concern.

At the pizza place, I arrived at the front door to see a sea of people already inside and in line.  I opened the door to go in, and immediately two underdressed bitchy blonde girls started yelping at me to shut the door.  I politely told them to go fuck themselves, and the overwhelmingly male contingent in line got a good laugh.  I don't have a lot of patience for the self-centered, stupid or drunk, and when you combine all three, I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.  I had already been awake much too far into the evening after a bad show, so these girls didn't know what kind of a buzz-saw they were walking into.

We finally got to sleep sometime before dawn, and woke up in the 2:00 P.M. region.  We got showers and packed off to Old Country Buffet for Thanksgiving dinner.  I thanked some of the employees for working on a holiday, and Toya, the girl at the register, told me that out of 416 parties who had come in today, we were the first ones to thank them.  You could tell that they worked their ass off feeding the thousands of people who came in, and a little recognition was nice.  We had a nice meal, and being the only non-vegetarian at the table, I made it my responsibility to make sure that the turkey was moist and delicious.  It was excellent, bird-flu be damned.  I had cranberry sauce and stuffing with gravy, and felt better about spending the holiday away from home.  At least I had my family with me, and that meant a whole lot.

Tomorrow, we're going to hit the mall and get Harmony's picture taken with Santa.  She's not even two years old, so I'm sure she doesn't know what that means, but years from now, it'll be a nice picture to have.  Also, I have to pick up some clothing items because I under-packed (read: I didn't do any laundry and I'm short t-shirts and underwear...I'm sorry you had to visualize that).  Luckily, Pam the Coupon Queen has some Casual Male coupons on her, so that trip's on the docket for tomorrow.  Did I tell you that I love her very much?  Well, I do....we went grocery shopping last week, and by working the sales and using coupons of various origin (printed online, newspaper-clipped and store register tape) she saved 51% of our grocery bill.  That's not too shabby, my friend.

O.K., enough gushing.  Time to let the Soduku puzzle in the Buffalo News torture me some more before getting some well-deserved shut-eye.  It's back to work, tomorrow, too.

Hope you and yours had a great holiday.  And screw the Dallas Cowboys.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY