Heavy Metal Maniac

Heavy Metal Maniac                                                  3067

Friday, January 13th, 2006-7:15 A.M.

New York State drinking laws turned me into a standup comic.

I'm in Rockford, Michigan, having performed last night at the Crazy Horse Saloon with Chicago's Dobie Maxwell, a good friend and funny comic.  "Mr. Lucky" and I handled the Blue State Rednecks as best as possible, and sold a bunch 'o swag after the show, but wallowed in self-pity afterwards....why can't they just sit still and enjoy the show?  Don't they realize they aren't "helping" by shouting stuff out?  I guess I got the one guy riled up...he had a cheesy John Waters moustache, and I told him he looked like a fluffer on Brokeback Mountain.  My bad, Michigan.

The drive out was momentous, as it marked my return behind the wheel after carpooling, flying and doing mostly local gigs for the last month.  I did 450 miles in just over six hours...you do the math.  I cut across Ontario, Canada, which makes me a speed limit scofflaw in two countries.  Oh well.....

The long drive allowed me plenty of time to think and reminisce, and for some reason, I thought back to 1984.  In 1984, I was 17, and the drinking age in New York State was 18.  I wouldn't turn 18 until November, so I was looking forward to it, until they announced that the drinking age would move to 19 in September.  I was robbed!  A whole year of drinking, hanging out in bars, and invariably meeting people and getting laid was being swiped out from underneath me!  Funny how short-sighted we are at that age.  So the next year, 1986, I'm all primed to turn 19 and be legal to drink, and New York State decides to change the drinking age to 21, but won't enact it until December 1st.  I would be legal for exactly two weeks, November 15 to December 1st, and I had a lot of drinking and stockpiling to do.

On my birthday, I wandered into a liquor store in my neighborhood, Rochester's 10th ward, and bought a small bottle of whiskey.  I didn't even get carded!  I was worrying about being refused sale for I.D., and in my white-trash neighborhood, they didn't give a dribbly shit howold you were, as long as they could make the sale without being busted.  I found out that day that there were a lot of places you could buy booze without being carded, and bars that would serve you if you stayed in the back and didn't make a lot of ruckus.

I decided to celebrate by going to the House of Guitars (world famous music store in Rochester) and splurging some birthday cash on some albums.  I purchased Metallica's "Kill 'Em All" and Mercyful Fate's "Melissa" albums because they looked cool.  I didn't know about Mercyful Fate's music, but I already owned Metallica's "Ride The Lightning," their second album, and wanted to hear what the first one sounded like.  It was quite awesome to my young ears, as was the Fate, which sounded like really fast Judas Priest.  I was officially a headbanger!  I grew my hair long and developed a drinking problem.  I used to tool around in a green Zephyr, which was basically a Ford Fairmont with design issues, blasting Metallica, Mercyful Fate, Slayer, Metal Church, and a bunch of other bands you probably never heard of.

When I returned to school in 1987, I was a bonafide music nut with a prestigious record collection, and I gravitated to the campus radio station.  I wanted to share this music that had been the soundtrack to my drinking and partying life with the world! 

While I was in school and active with the radio station, there was a girl who worked in the campus radio station who was also interning at WCMF, the big rock radio station in town, and she was beginning to do standup comedy.  She convinced a bunch of us to go see her at Yuk Yuk's, the comedy club in town.  I went, along with my roommate Larry, who was more of a Led Zeppelin guy.  We put the car in the only parking spot I could find, one on a steep incline, and put the parking brake on.  After the show, it had rained and froze, and the car wouldn't move, and we were so drunk, we forgot about the parking brake and the car wouldn't move.  My brother had to come pick us up and shuttle us home, and by the next morning when I sobered up, I realized what happened and we went to go retrieve the car.  I felt pretty stupid. 

The good thing was that I was so enamored by the show, the comics were so funny (too bad I don't remember who I saw), that I decided I needed to try going up on stage.  Actually, I had a few beers in me, and I heckled the middle act, and he killed me.  But it felt powerful, and I wanted to feel that power.  I went up at open mic after about six weeks of planning and plotting, and was terrible.  And I stayed terrible for over a year.  Finally I got the hang of it, and now I'm doing it full time.  Also, I don't drink anymore because of health reasons.  Apparently I overdid it a bit when I was younger, and along with a lousy diet, I developed type 2 diabetes.  Live and learn.

In retrospect, I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.  I have the best job in the world, a great wife and a beautiful daughter.  It's too bad I had to come by them in such a roundabout way, but at least I did, and thank God for small favors.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you the story about how Dobie Maxwell almost killed my wife.  I'll let you know.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY