Welcome To The Working Week

Welcome To The Working Week                                         4559  (409)

Tuesday, May 2, 2006-6:56 A.M.

Hey, I'm back...did ya miss me?

My desktop computer crapped out last week, courtesy of a faulty video card, and while I could have used my laptop to post a new blog, I decided not to; I even left it home this past weekend so Pam could get some work done. As it stood, in Traverse City, Michigan, the hotel I was in was a rustic little vacation bungalow near Lake Michigan that didn't feature phones in the room, so not only was wireless not availabke, but I couldn't do the dial-up thing either. I didn't miss it for the few days it was out, but I know dedicated readers probably thought I was sick or in jail or something.

I took most of last week to recover from the Minnesota trip. Just catching up with a stack of mail, doing laundry, doing high-shelf duty around the house for my 5' 2" wife, and reacquainting myself with a hyperactive 2-year-old baby daughter were strenuous enough without adding the task of writing a journal entry and making my slug-a-bed lifestyle seem interesting. Before I knew it, it was Friday morning and it was up with the birds to make the 538 mile trek to Traverse City, Michigan.

The Other Place comedy club in Traverse, so named because the first club was in Saginaw, Michigan, is a club that's been around forever. Traverse is a vacation resort-type town on the north shores of Lake Michigan, and the club only runs in the winter when the visitors to the town have gone...explain that to me if you ever figure it out. It caters to locals, although actor Bruce Willis, who has a place just outside of town, never shows up. I'm a fan, and it always seems like a missed opportunity.

Jack Paupore, the owner of the club, is 1,000 years old and wears the pelt of a dead animal on his head. It's the worst hairpiece ever, insert your own punchline here. He's so old, insert your own punchline here. My favorite one was, Jack always asks, "Do you remember where you were when you heard Jesus was assassinated?" He's the cheapest man alive, and his club reflects that. The in-house sound system is an FM radio, and when the show starts, he turns the music up loud, and the opener of the two-man show goes up (no intro) and starts the show. Sadly, at the top of the hour of 8:00 P.M., most stations are still playing commercials, so sometimes you go up to a spot celebrating the stomach-acid fighting power of Di-Gel.

Our crowds this weekend couldn't even have been called that. If Bruce Willis showed up each night and brought 10 friends to each show, our four show total attendance might have climbed into triple figures. As he chose to stay away, our figures stayed in the kiddie-coaster numbers and no one got a nosebleed counting the receipts at the door. I did three shows that were pure crowd work, because no one was going to sit still and listen to prepared material. They were coarse, unsophisticated and rude people, and wanted to be harassed and carry on a dialogue with the performers rather than be entertained. I was a little put off, because I had the big cancer benefit in Battle Creek on Sunday night, and I wanted to tune up a little for that performance. I soldiered on, and got a nice compliment from Jack about how I got the people to move up towards the stage rather than sitting in the back of the room...of course, there's no one at the door to seat the people in this final frontier of comedy, so you have to strap on the leathers and prepare for the gunfight. The good news is that Jack wants me to headline his room next time I come back. The bad news is that I would have to go back.

The highlight of the trip was working with headliner Demetrius Nicodemus out of Toledo, Ohio, a good comic and friend. We hung out together and helped alleviate some of the misery of playing such an unsatisfying weekend of shows by having lunch together, talking shop and we even hit a comic book store and killed some time. I picked up a Justice League special that I didn't even know existed, written by comedian Patton Oswalt. I'm not a huge Patton fan, but the comic was great! It was one of those issues that you read, and then instantly want to go back and read again. Great stuff, if you're into comics, you should check it out. It's been out for a couple of years, but should be available in backstock at your local comic book shop.

Sunday, I made the two and half hour trip to Battle Creek in just under five hours, courtesy of a car accident on route 131 south that backed traffic up for miles. I sat patiently while I watched cars and trucks pull u-turns across the divider and head back northbound, and after a wait made tolerable by calling home and talking to Pammey, we were moving again, and even though a light rain was falling, speeds were maintained and I pulled into Battle Creek in time to relax at the hotel a little, iron some clothes and get a nice shave 'n' shower in before the 6:30 report time.

The show at Gary Fields's comedy club was to benefit Relay For Life, a presentation of the American Cancer Society, to raise funds for cancer research. The call out to volunteer for the show happened last November, and I threw my hat into the ring right away. I was awarded headliner status along with Bert "Chili" Challis, who I've worked with three times already in this year that is only four months in the bag. Other comics who participated were Kate Brindle, Dave Glardon, Germaine Gebhard, Bob Stackhouse, Barry Fuller and organizer John Face. Gary Fields did the mc honors and opened the show with a nice presentation, and we were off to the races. Dave opened the show strong, with a longer feature set, followed by Germaine and Bob, who both impressed the crowd with very powerful performances. There were some new, emerging talents on the show, but no one that you would call "rookie." The stage was set for me, and it was like taking candy from a baby. The show started late, and was long to begin with, so I did somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes and got off stage, after which they gave the audience a 10-minute intermission to use the bathroom, stretch their legs, or God forbid, smoke a cigarette outside. Which begs the question, who takes a cigarette break at a cancer benefit? That's some black comedy right there, for sure.

Matt Holt took the stage after the intermission, followed by sets from Barry Fuller and Kate Brindle, who had excellent audience response. Chili ended the show strong, and after everything was over, we shook hands, talked with folks who hung out afterwards, and posed for dozens of pictures. I signed audience programs and basically got more attention than I felt I deserved; I didn't volunteer for this because of the fame, I did it because cancer has touched my life in terms of two lost grandparents, a father who is a cancer survivor, and several friends who are also survivors. I voluteered for the event, and then worried about lining up work for the weekend after the fact, I felt so strongly about participating. Mark Kolo from Funny Business, the agency that books Gary Fields, was in attendance, and I hadn't seen him in nine or so years. It was nice to be able to hang around socially with someone that I do so much business with, as well as seeing Chili and Kate again, and meeting all the others for the first time, especially Dave who I've had so much contact with via the comedian chat boards online. The rewards were there, even if I had to dig into my pocket for gas and lodging to get to Battle Creek to do the gig, which thanks to Hysterical Management (who books Traverse), I didn't.

The ride home was seven hours, a cakewalk through Canada thanks to the purchase of acouple of cans of sugar-free energy drink who's name escapes me. I was totally against the energy drinks when they first came out, it seemed like such a fad, and how could those things be any good, but I've warmed up to them now that they come sugar-free. The taste is a little bit like over-carbonated Mountain Dew (I'm not a fan), but I'm sure through experimentation I'll find one that I like. The boost is really the draw for me, and two cans kept me up eight hours past my bedtime, and alert enough to navigate my way home in the dark. Not bad for three bucks, I say.

This week I'm gearing up for headlining spots at the House of Comedy in Niagara Falls, and I'm looking forward to it because it's close enough to drive up and back each night so I can spend some time at home, also I'm working with comedy buddy Ray Salah, which is always a bonus. The money is short, but that's the trade-off you make I suffer next week with a haul out to Minot, North Dakota, which is forever and a day to get to. I should have tried to route it with the week in Moorehead, Minnesota, but I was so happy to get the work from a new agency that I didn't even look at the map. Next year I'll be prepared and plan ahead.

O.K., I'm going to finish up here and get back to bed. I'm only up because of daylight savings time and the sunlight streaming through my window. Am I the only one who thinks we should reset the clocks so that the sun doesn't rise until about 9:00 in the morning? Even that's too early, because I get up at noon, but I'm thinking about the folks who have to punch a clock and be in during the "working week." I pity those folks, and could never be one of them because I hate coffee, alarm clocks, and pretending to like the people I work with and for.

Have a Nice Day, and if you're reading this at work, get back to work, you slacker.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY