Welcome To The Working Week

Welcome To The Working Week                               3443

Friday, February 10, 2006-4:41 A.M.

It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.

For instance, today, I didn't leave my hotel room.  I had foodstuffs in the room, and cooked a variety of meals with my electric wok, kept stuff cold with a nice styrofoam cooler and ice (courtesy of the Red Roof Inn), and communicated with the world via my laptop and cell phone.  It was like I was running an actual business or something.

I sent out avails, the comedy term meaning open dates available for booking, around 8:00 this morning.  I put a call in to Joel Pace at the Comedy Zone and didn't quit calling until I got him on the phone.  I secured three weeks of work with him, and then moved on.  I got dates in Greensboro, North Carolina, Panama City, Florida, and Johnson City, Tennessee, the run where a redneck guy stuck his tongue in my ear on stage in Paducah, Kentucky.  I vowed never to go there again, but apparently that's where the money is, so I'm going.

I got a couple of e-mails back from some bookers who had ones and twos to offer, but the best score of the day came from Ken Muller from Comedy Productions in Sioux City, Iowa.  I sent him a tape a couple of years ago, but the sound was bad (my deck-to-deck VCR system wasn't duplicating the sound very well) and I never wound up connecting with him.  He's still on my list of bookers that I e-mail with avails, and he responded back with an offer to fill my remaining open week in April.  I called him right away, and he gave me the week (a decent paying week, at that) and offered me two more weeks.  I almost single-handedly booked the month of May today (I'm still short a week), and took big bites out of June and August.  By my estimation, I scored over $4000 worth of work in one morning!  Imagine if I really put my mind to this stuff on a regular basis instead of striking oil like Jed Clampett and a random shot.

The funny thing about the Muller discussion was that I sent him a copy of my DVD this week, and I couldn't tell if he was responding to my e-mail because he got it and watched it, or if he was just throwing the work at me because he heard good things from other comics who have worked with me in the field.  He threw a couple of names around which leads me to believe that there are individuals out there who are advocating on my behalf, but he wasn't sure who it was exactly, which means my policy of being nice to everyone is paying off.  I think that being funny may help a little, too.

So I spend the day in the room, working on comedy stuff, updating my AOL homepage with my newly scheduled appearance dates, doing Sudoku puzzles and just killing time until showtime.  I got to the club just a little before headliner John Roy and mc Kate Brindle, and we talked about comedy, career goals, traded stories and anecdotes from other comedians that we knew in common (Jef Brannan, if your ears are ringing, it's not the Crown, I was talking about you, brother....all from a place of love, though).  It was open mic night before the regular show, so my set got cut to 20 minutes, but I still had a good time and sold a decent amount of product after the show.  It amazes me that merchandise sales are good after short sets, I think there's an enormous amount of pressure to introduce myself and make an audience like me in such a short amount of time, and I'm really pushing this week because I want to sell enough stuff to get a transmission service done on my car (there's a Toyota dealership right up the road from the hotel) to minimize the chance of dropping my tranny on the way home on Sunday (or Saturday night, depending on the weather and how rested I feel).  If I do well with the merch on Friday night (2 shows, I think I have a pretty good chance), I can get the work done Saturday morning and breathe easy on the way home.  If not, then I'll have to white-knuckle it home.

My wife Pamela, the brains of our marriage, worked very hard and came up with a bumper-sticker design and a T-shirt design from my act that I may develop into a new merchandise item to offer after shows.  I don't even know how to test-market them, anything I've put out in the past usually sold itself and there wasn't a lot of thinking involved.  I have mixed feelings about offering a T-shirt, bumper sticker, CD and DVD after a show, which is what I would probably do; on the one hand, there are people who are predisposed to wanting a T-shirt over a CD or DVD, and vice-versa; older people generally would want the shirt over the electronic media, and in the South, I also find that the shirt is more popular as well.  Also, a bumper sticker is lower priced, and is often more attractive to folks who want a souveneir but don't want to spend a lot of money (or don't have much to begin with).  On the other hand, it seems a little bit whore-ish (it's a word, look it up) to tote the walking garage sale into the lobby of the club after your set, especially if one or both of the other comics also have merchandise...then it's just crazy.  Bottom line, I have a family to support, and I'm going to do what it takes to provide for them, and if that means toting the garage sale, well then, let the games begin...I'll find a reason to hold my head up.

O.K., I haven't been to bed yet, I think I may have overdone it with the caffeine, even though all I had was half a Diet Coke from before.  Maybe I'm still percolating with the excitement of the day, but I need to get some sleep.

I hope today is fruitful for you, gentle reader, and you get closer to your goals and dreams.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY