Feelin' Satisfied

Feelin' Satisfied                    2976

Saturday, January 7, 2006-4:31 P.M. CST

It's 4 hours until showtime, and I'm ready to bitch about it.

I'm playing at one of my favorite clubs in the country, the money is great for a change, and I was able to afford to fly in rather than drive.  Great, huh?  The bad news is that we're at the low point of the tourist season, crowds are sparse, the local NBA team had a home game last night that drew against us and absolutely killed us, the movie theater that the club gets free tickets to is showing absolute CRAP, and my mc is not up to snuff.

First things first.  The club is great, don't get me wrong.  It is also huge, and to me, that means you should be doing some aggressive marketing to have decent crowds in the joint.  There was an advertisement in the local daily, which is a lot more than some clubs across the country do, but seriously, 35 people in a room that is just a shade bigger than the ballroom of the Titanic is a little embarrassing.  What do folks think when they see a show with 35 people in the audience?  Even if everyone in the crowd laughed at full capacity at every joke, it's still a weird, empty feeling along the lines of "What did I just see in there?" versus "Wow, what a show I saw!"  The crowds this week were so small, I thought I was playing for the New York Jets.

The club has a nice reciprocal agreement with a movie theater in the same mall, and comics can go see films for free.  Last year I saw "Million Dollar Baby" which I liked, only because I didn't have to pay for it.  This year, they're showing "Hostel" (No), "Wolf Creek (See "Hostel"), King Kong (I know how it ends), "Cheaper By The Dozen 2" (Are You Fucking Kidding me?), "Rumor Has It" (Why do they even bother making films like this?), "The Family Stone" (Boo), "Fun With Dick and Jane" (Did Jim Carrey ever meet a paycheck he didn't like?), "The Chronicles of Narnia" (o.k., looks decent, but I can't get the "Lazy Sunday" rap out of my head, which would be annoying, and I don't think I have the patience to sit still for a movie that long), and finally, "Grandma's Boy" (Lord, please deliver me from idiot comedies).  How bad is a slate of movies when you can honestly say, "Gee, I wish 'The Ringer' was playing?"  Pretty bad.  I don't get the perks very often, so when they come down the pipe, I try to take advantage of them and be appreciative, but dammit, man!  I have to schedule a return date in the summer when some good movies are out.

Finally, our mc is about 100 years old, and he's only been doing comedy for a couple of years.  His crowd work is non-existent, and his material isn't even corny....it's just half-baked.  I'm in a position to book mc's, and I am remiss to book a comic until they show that they have at least a little bit of "it," the spark that they get it, that they understand the comedy stage and can bring something to it that's at least engaging.  The mc for this week is a great guy, nice as nice can be, but he just hasn't burst through the cellophane ceiling from open micer to qualified mc.  It's a little frustrating following 15 or even 10 minutes of comedy that is met with overall audience indifference.  Especially when there's only a few dozen folks there to begin with.  Comedy is fragile, and you don't give the fine china to a guy wearing goalie gloves...it just doesn't work.

I know that all my bitching makes me sound like some sort of prima donna, but I woke up today with a pinched nerve in my shoulder courtesy of the bed in the feature condo, replete with hobo linens and the mattress of a thousand spanks, and it's making me a little cranky.  I hope the shows tonight are better, and hopefully I'll check in tomorrow with some good news and rainbow thoughts. 

Have a great weekend.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

6:05 P.M. CST

P.S.  I fixed the crick in my neck, so I'm less cranky now, but my criticism of the movies still stands.