(We Are The) Road Crew

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(We Are The) Road Crew

Saturday, April 1, 2006-2:00 A.M.

What's better than being met in the parking lot by a club owner, sweating and wringing his hands, ready to recite a grocery list of things you can't say on stage?

The gig this weekend is Fat Cats, a hot little jazz club in downtown Corning, NY.  Pretty easy on the face of it, working with Miss Gayle out of Pittsburgh, PA.  She brought along her husband, who I affectionately called "Mr. Gayle," and we carpooled to the gig.  Hans, the club owner, had a retirement party booked for the comedy show, so we had to be on our best behavior.  It was a "blue hair" room...no salty language, overt topicality, or crowd abuse.  God, I felt like a neutered slave, but a gig's a gig, and tomorrow, hopefully it'll be more of a public show, with fewer language restrictions and a little more fun.  I can't complain too much...the club put a free meal behind us (always a nice touch) and the hotel is good (re: free high-speed internet access in the room).

The show went fine enough, and afterwards, it was back to the hotel for a little HBO.  Is this the best job in the world, or what?  Even when the gig sucks, I can't help but remember that half a million Mexicans just marched for the right to come to this country and clean hotel rooms and pick vegetables.  My people, the Italians, came to this country and did the crap jobs like pushing carts in the street, crushing grapes for wine with their feet, and let's face it, numbers don't run themselves.

I haven't adjusted to the warm snap in the weather...it feels like we didn't even get a winter this year, which is fine and dandy with me.  I sweat today like a runaway slave looking at a tree with moss on all four sides of it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll offer up an update with some pointed political commentary or just make with the chuckles.  Hope your weekend is nice.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY