Blinded By The Light

Blinded By The Light                           3638

Friday, February 24, 2006-12:10 A.M.

Comedy is my life.  I perform comedy, book comedians, teach comedy, ran comedy clubs, managed a major comedy tour, and have generally immersed myself in the business of standup comedy, and it never ceases to amaze me.

Tonight at Connxtions in Lansing, Michigan with headliner "Chili" Challis, our show was augmented by an open-mic portion.  The first comic was blind, and they didn't tell him he was going on first.  Subsequently, when the mc called his name, the motherfucker was standing with me, way the hell at the back of the room, and they had to play the whole song to get him on stage as he had to assemble his stick and make his way up to the front of the room.  Now, if you were the mc, wouldn't you tell this motherfucker, "Hey, you're first, so why not take a seat like halfway up to the stage and I'll stretch your intro to get you up before the applause dies down?"  No, they didn't tell this man any damn thing, so he's talking to me back by the bar, and all of a sudden, he flips his collapsible cane open and starts ambling his legally blind but semi-sighted ass up to the stage.  And the applause predictably dies down as they're waiting for this guy to make it, so from the back of the room, I "jump start" the applause again so he doesn't get up to dead silence.  He was funny enough, but a rookie and raw, and the other two open micers were also raw and untested, and when I hit the stage to do my shortened set, I just started firing jokes at the audience like I was the last guy in my platoon and I was surrounded by Viet Cong.  I table-danced for three old women sitting up front (and I mean, they were *bingo* old) and really just assaulted the mostly college-aged and largely detached audience.  There was a big group in the back, like maybe 80 people, who were from some fraternity and it was "fraternity date-night" or whatever little thing it was called, and they were much more involved with talking and goofing around and comparing fake I.D.'s than they were in listening to the show, so I just went gorilla on them and subdued them with my manly comedy force.

I was a little worried about my physical health last night...lately, my left leg has been going numb from my hipto my knee.  A chiropractor informed me that it's caused by excess fat around the middle (of which I have no shortage) pushing on the main artery that delivers blood to the leg, causing numbness.  Numbness I can handle, but in some cases, depending on the length of the sets I've been doing, I've had shooting pain.

I decided that I need to shed some pounds just to be able to do my basic job, which is one or two 30-minute feature sets a night.  Today, I put on the sweats, headed for the hotel excercise room, and did 35 minutes on the treadmill.  And while I was excercising and sweating away, my mind started wandering and I came up with a comedy bit that I'm pretty sure will be a sure applause break when I fire it out.  I may try it this weekend, or maybe I'll save it for open mic on Tuesday back home in Rochester, I'm not sure.

After my excercise, I showered, and then went for a long walk to a strip mall across the street from the hotel.  Most of the stores were closed, but I managed to walk for about 45 minutes, in no way as high an impact as being on the treadmill and having to keep pace (I decided to start with 3.5 miles per hour, and as I get stronger, I'll ramp that up), but still nicer than laying in bed, doing Sudoku puzzles, watching CNN and getting mad at President Bush (although I managed to do all of that stuff today, too).

I just saw a promo on TBS for a showing of Swordfish, and they showed the scene where Halle Berry is reading a book, and drops the book when Hugh Jackman comes out on the veranda, and shows her naked breasts.  Somehow, she's wearing a gold bikini top...it ruins the whole movie!  I didn't plan on writing about this, but it just flicked on the TV and I felt it needed addressing.

I have radio tomorrow to promote the weekend shows, so I'm gonna split...morning will come soon enough.  More updates as the weekend progresses.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY