Cancel

Cancel                              4837  (687)

Friday, June 2, 2006-2:55 P.M.

Well, it's time for another installment of the Comedy Roadtrip blog, my window to the world to expose the day-to-day workings of a full-time comedian.

When I speak to non-comedians (and we call them all manner of names...non-coms, civilians, or my favorite, norms), the biggest misconception that I have to put to rest is that somehow, a circuit comic like myself, with no TV credits and whom they have never heard of before they've seen me perform, is somehow making bags of money.  I find this particularly annoying when I have to deal with someone that I'm about to do business with, like an auto repair shop.  If they knew the truth of the matter, they'd be less likely to squeeze a yacht payment out of me.

I've actually had a few inquiries as of late from comics who are part-time in the game as to what the actual economics of this full-time comedy career entails, and to put it bluntly, it ain't a pretty picture.  To the best of my knowledge, comedy pay hasn't changed since the mid 1980's, and in several situations, it's gone down.  Oh, don't get me wrong, there are a couple of bookers out there who have been able to squeeze an extra $25 out of their accounts to offset rising gas costs, but to say that the money is a living wage is to be fooling oneself.

The plight of the full-time comic is best described as a tenuous situation at best; case in point-this week, I was to work a show at Cucina Di Amore in Liverpool, NY, just outside of Syracuse, on Wednesday night.  This one-nighter that I was able to schedule, paid almost as well as a week of shows in Buffalo, NY, where I'm working at the Comix Cafe Thursday through Saturday.  I got a call, literally an hour before I was going to get into the car to head east to Liverpool, informing me that the show was canceled due to the great weather.  The club had no reservations, and therefore, the gig was off, and that's that.  No other explanation needed.

Now, there are no written contracts in comedy, outside of superstar performers who pay big dollar commissions to their management, publicists, etc.  Everything I generally do, outside of corporate work, is a phone call and a virtual handshake.  There is no unemployment insurance for the comic who's show is canceled due to good weather.  I might have a leg to stand on if I'd actually made the trip, I might have been able to haggle for partial payment, but in the long run, the brunt of the loss falls on me.

I'm not happy when a venue has to cancel a show, or puts one on to a small crowd, therein losing money.  I've worked the management side of the desk, and it's no fun knowing that you're taking a bath.  In that respect, I have empathy.  But it's also no fun as a performer seeing your pay for the week get cut virtually in half.  It's the nature of the business, and a tough pill to swallow sometimes.  The upside was that I got to spend a nice quiet evening with Pam and Harmony, having a family movie night courtesy of Blockbuster video.  Our selection was the 1986 classic "Crocodile Dundee," which amazingly, Pamela had never seen before.  I'd seen it dozens of times, and still enjoyed it.

Last night was the first night of a three-night engagement at the Comix Cafe in Buffalo, NY.  I'd played this particular stage more than a few times, and was excited to go back after an absence of over a year.  I'm working with Ward Anderson, a funny comic out of the Baltimore/D.C. area, who I worked with in Rochester a year or so ago.  We weren't expecting a big crowd, what with the Buffalo Sabres going to game 7 of their NHL playoff series with the Carolina Hurricanes.  They wound up losing 4-2, but put on a good effort.  Our show was decent, with about 50 people in attendance, about three times the folks I was expecting to show up.

It's been a weird week for weather...three days of heat up into the 90's, and then high humidity and pissy rain.  Luckily, I got the lawn cut before the showers.  We got a nice new mower Monday night, and this one has a bagger, which means minimal sweeping up afterwards.

So it's two more shows tonight and two more on Saturday, and then a nice, long week off until Friday when I travel down to Wilkes-Barre, PA, then a trail of tears out to Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa.  I'm expecting the weekend in Buffalo to be pretty good, and we'll certainly have fun with it.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY