Kickin' My Heart Around

Kickin' My Heart Around                                     2780

Sunday, Christmas Day, December 25, 2005-5:46 A.M.

Good morning, and Merry Christmas, wherever you are.  If you don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays.  War on Christmas is over, if you want it (there was never a war on Christmas....it was just smoke and mirrors from Bill O'Reilly).  Happy Hannukah, whose first day is today, and commemorates the lasting of the oil; and at $2.36 a gallon, it better last for eight days, dammit.

Friday night at the Comix Cafe, two headlining shows with my buddy Joe Fico in the feature slot and Porter Matthews doing his thing up front.  First show, sparse but good.  I took my time and talked to them, intermingling humor with a call to tolerance and good will.  Am I finding my voice?  The audience liked it, with some good folks seated to the side of the stage rewarding me with a piece of their cake, celebrating a fellow's birthday.  I never wanted the show to end.

Second show, was like a fruitcake...nutty, fruity, and not really what I wanted.

Nuevo Los Angelino Marianne Sierke, formerly of Rochester and NYC, respectively, stopped in for a guest spot.  We chatted before the show and had a nice time of it.  As we spoke, guest after guest came up and said their hellos, several of them being classmates of mine from Monroe Community College, where I attended from 1987 to 1991 (don't judge me, ya bastard), and of course, friends of mine and Pamela's.

Before the show, local talent Danny Liberto, Annette Lorenzo and V.J. Stanley popped in to witness the revelry.  And boy, was it revelry.  Porter opens up to an audience that rewards him with a healthy round of indifference.  He brings up Marianne, who gets served a slice of the same.  It was right about then, as I'm watching two performers who are funny, energetic and professional, that I realized I was watching a Friday late show audience (the bane of any comic's existence) compounded with a holiday hangover.  There was chatting, indifference, and overall malaise.  I girded myself for the battle.

Joe Fico took to the stage, and even though he was feeling a little sick from his dinner(many of the choices on the Comix Cafe menu are great, but Joe had a gastric bypass less than a month ago, leaving him few suitable choices), he had what I consider to be a fine show.  I took the stage and began.

Being home in Rochester, I took the opportunity to unload a good portion of local reference and material honed through several years of serving as a house mc in the club.  It went dynamite, as much as I could have hoped, and then I went into my "road set."  Things were going well, until a kid sitting up front chose to heckle me.

"My friend's a virgin."  he said.  "Make fun of him."

Well, I'm certainly not in a position to do that....I don't even know the kid.  And is virginity such a bad thing?  I didn't save myself for marriage, but I know what the Bible says, and I wasn't going to betray my faith for some laughs at an unkown kid's expense.  Besides, what did he ever do to me?  I lit into his seatmate/tormentor.

So now, I'm going nowhere, beating up this Italian kid, and I dovetail back into material.  I'm doing fine, and I'm setting up a bit about how my wife has sharp toenails that scrape my leg while we're sleeping.  It sets up the second half of my road act, and is vital.  So I'm in the middle of a setup, mind you, and a woman yells out, "That's because you have no toenails."

I'm literally shocked speechless.  I sit on the stool onstage, and mug for a good 30 seconds, like I can't believe someone would say that out loud.  I milk it for all the laughs I can while I collect myself, and then ask for the house lights to be turned up.

It's some blonde girl....not too drunk looking.  I really can't figure out what the problem was.  If she was trailer trash, I would have dismantled her, if she was drunk, I would have dismantled her, if she was an airhead arm-candy girl, I would have dismantled her.  But she wasn't any of those things.  I have never been in that situation.  The comment was just so absurd, ridiculous, I wished she would have just yelled out "You suck!" and been done with it.

I gently chided her a few times, and went back on my way...unfotrtunately, a good portion of my set was gone.  I riffed madly to turn the direction back to my material, but I had disintegrated into a babbling mess.  They got me.

So I'm trying to finish, get back to my show, but I'm not interested and they're not interested.  It's like a bad blind date, and both of us are too embarassed to say, "Hey, let's just end it here...take me home."  I close as graciously as I can, one full hour plus five minutes after taking the stage.  The compliments after the show were plentiful, but dignity had been savaged and the good feelings from the first show washed away.

It's unnerving the way one bad show can take the piss out of an entire week....Wednesday, Thursday and first show Friday, I'm a superstar....second show Friday, I'm a local comic, a sham, and a disappointment.

Now, I know I'm better than that, but I won't be able to prove it until Monday, when I take that stage again for our special Holiday show, and have a good set.  I'm sure I'll do fine, and today, I'm going to enjoy Christmas with my family, and thank the good Lord that I'm allowed to do what I do for a living.  It certainly beats most vocations.

A footnote; I arrived home and checked my e-mail, and I received headlining dates from the House of Comedy in Niagara Falls, which was a wonderful tonic in light of the horror show that I had just suffered.  It goes to show what old-time comedy buddy of mine, Tiny Glover, always says...."Don't get too high in the highs, and don't get too low in the lows."

Sage words.

So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

                  P.S.  Here's a nice Christmas picture of Pamela, Harmony and myself....consider it a Christmas card of best wishes from me and my family to you and yours.                                

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If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning.
When you want to talk, He'll listen.
He could live anywhere in the universe and yet He chose your heart.
And remember that Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem?
Not to mention that Friday at Calvary.
Face it. He's crazy about you!
Remember: God answers knee-mail!

Merry CHRISTmas!!!

today'sTHOT============================

Jesus paid the price. You get to keep the change.

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