Raw Deal

Raw Deal                5480  (1530)

Saturday, August 26, 2006-1:15 A.M.

Good evening from the Holiday Inn Select in Fort Myers, Florida.  I'm working the Laugh In Comedy Cafe with Amaru from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's been a great experience so far.  Pam, Harmony and I packed up the car and left my Dad's house around 1:30 on Thursday, and enjoyed a cool, refreshing drive down the left coast of Florida, thanks to $375 worth of new fan motor that Jenkins Mazda was happy to replace for me.  The AC had been shitting the bed, running intermittently or not at all, and it had to be replaced, especially with the triple-digit head indexes here in the Sunshine State.

We got to the hotel and checked in, and the show Thursday night was cool.  They ran open mic before the regular acts (Me and 'Ru) and there were the regular assortment of kids with potential and blooming assholes.  One kid made references to Nazi Germany and wondered why there were no Jewish football players.  He went over like a fart in church, and he used the worst word you can use on stage...I won't tell you what it is, but it starts with "C" and rhymes with "Cunt."  Another guy was a blatant Mitch Hedberg clone, with the rhythm down, but no material.

My show was decent, but it was a chatty crowd, filled with guests of the open mic comics, and once their friends had vacated the stage, they stuck around out of politeness, but talked out of impoliteness.  An Australian kid tipped me $20 as I was selling product, "For your kid" he said.  I'll take it, are you kidding me?

Tonight was fun, although my time got away from me first show.  I didn't look at my watch when I took the stage, and wound up running almost five minutes over, but the club was sparsely attended so I didn't catch too much hell over it.  If it had been a big room, they probably would have been pissed because it's hard to clear all the tables and get the new folks in, but that wasn't the case.  I got nice feedback from Chris, the mc (and one of the mangers at the club) who liked my material.  "You need to get on TV" he said.  No shit!  Easier said than done, my friend.

Second show was good, but one drunk girl kept "oohing" at my jokes.  Oooh?  Is that an appropriate response at a comedy show?  No, it's not.  It'sthe sign of a sophomoric mind raised by an uptight, white, suburban mother.  I scolded her and it felt good.  The rest of the audience fell in line.  I'm in charge, motherfuckers, don't tell ME!

Tomorrow I get to see my good friend, Rickey K.  I haven't seen him since my last southwestern Florida trip, about a year ago.  He was one of my closes comedy buddies before he moved down here.  I'm excited, he'll get to meet my daughter, and see Pam...he hasn't seen her in three years, since the last time she came down here with me and I played Sarasota.

Also, we hit the coolest Chinese Buffet that I've seen in a while.  They had the most *excellent* sushi selection, we decided that we better go back tomorrow.  Some of our dining choices have been sketchy this trip, so when we find something good, it seems like the thing to do to stick with it.

We're still trying to figure out what to do to get home, after the single one-nighter I have in Alabama, it's 20 hours home.  I can stop and see my sister in North Carolina, but that means eating the cost on a hotel room.  My friend Bruce is in the mix as well, but staying with him would mean negating seeing my sister or stretching the journey home one more day, in which case I wind up paying for a hotel room anyway.  I hope to get this figured out.  We're going to see Pam's uncle in Sunshine, Florida on Sunday.  We haven't seen him since we got married back in 2000, so that will be nice.

O.K., I'm going to vacate now.  Sleep doesn't come easy, especially when my roommates insist on watching Disney Channel until they fall asleep.  Pleasant dreams.

One thought before I go....my friend Steve Burr doesn't like the way I title my blogs with song titles, and thinks I should quit it.  What do you think?

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Talk Dirty

Talk Dirty                5424  (1474)

Sunday, August 20, 2006-11:36 A.M. CDT

I am in Florida and the humidity is killing me.  Last night I stepped outside of the comedy club to make a phone call, and it was so humid, I could smell the detergent my shirt was washed in.  Yeah, it was *that* humid.

At the same time, my nose has dried out something fierce, and I can't stop pulling out hard boogers plus hairs.  I know God had a plan when he designed us to have boogers, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. 

The show Thursday night with Dobie Maxwell was fun, in that way that I was suffering in a redneck hellhole, but with a buddy, so it was o.k.  The accomodations were freaking out my lovely bride Pamela, who couldn't believe that there was a crack under the door of our room at the Motel 6 big enough to see daylight through.  She was convinced that hordes of insects, of which she is deathly afraid, would enter the room during the night, which of course, is rank foolishness.  The room was pretty grubby, though, and if you walked around barefoot, your feet told the story of neglect that was the rug cleaning program at the Palm Bay Motel 6.

The show itself was in a quasi-sports bar in a strip mall, reasonably well attended and with a little more attention to detail than the usual one-nighter; the room with the pool tables was cordoned off by heavy curtains, so you didn't have to speak over the clacking of billiard balls.  It was a nice touch, and I appreciated it.  The only duress came during my set, when about ten minutes in, they decided to eject the only black man in the room, a drunken gentleman who couldn't resist the temptation to walk around the room and engage *everyone* in conversation.  I soldiered on during the bouncing, until I realized what was happening and took a break.  I managed to get the room back after he was ejected, and we were off to the races.  Dobie drew some hecklers, but we both just hit 'em with high speed comedy, allowing no seams with which to continue the drunken retorts.

The next morning, I had to attend to a brake light that had appeared on my dashboard.  A trip to Jiffy Lube, our oil-change destination of choice, yielded a full-service oil change, new air filter, and the service man was nice enough to inform me that while they do not add brake fluid, he walked me through the process and even took one of the front wheels off to inspect the pads, which passed our visual inspection.  A cup of coffee and a trip to Advanced Auto Parts for a $1.48 bottle of brake fluid, and the dashboard light was off, my stress level had dropped to normal (which is still pretty high).

The drive to Panama City, Florida, was a nut-buster, and my route nickel-and-dimed me every step of the way.  I blame it on the close proximity to Disney World and Orlando in general.  We made our way west to route 75 and then north to route 10, and then the trail of tears across the panhandle.

We arrived at the Warehouse Comedy Zone's Comedy Cottage, a two-unit dwelling in a somewhat shady neighborhood.  We punched our access code in and entered, to find a nice big bed, futon, our own bathroom (the bane of traveling comics....sharing a bathroom with the other guy/gal), wireless internet, a mini-fridge and microwave.  It's quite a pity that such a well-furnished and comfortable place would only be used for two days!  And after the myriad shit-holes I've stayed in during my comedy career, it was a breath of fresh air.

The shows on Friday night were sparsely attended, and first show, I was really showing how tired and road-frazzled I was.  I was all over the board, and turned in a show that was o.k., but not up to my standards, and certainly not what I wanted my first impression to be.  The itinerary for the club indicated that they wanted to be a "cleaner" comedy club, and a lot of my material is dirtier, loaded with language (because I talk like that) and reflective of my comedy upbringing: Canadian comics who have to win over the respect of loggers, hunters and fishermen, and ain't gonna do it with no pansy-pickin' language...the comics I came up watching.

Headliner Tim Statum, who I worked with before, went up and did his show with no sign of censorship, using whatever language and material he saw fit, and second show, I just let loose and did my show.  It went over well, and I even got accolades from the owner about how I handled some latecomers who interrupted the show.  Saturday night, I went up and did my thing, allowing myself to become loose and improvisational, and it paid off in spades.  Richard, the club manager, really thanked me for the great job all weekend, and I felt vindicated.  I have to remember to stick to my guns and ride the horse that got me here.  I can change the act as far as losing the offending language, but I can't meddle with the content and continue to be myself.  Second show I went into a mini-rant about how supporting the troops doesn't mean putting one of those asshole yellow ribbon magnets on your car.  I had punchlines prepared that I put in, but it was one of those things that I just went into and didn't plan on saying, and it got the laugh and applause.

Today, Pam, Harmony and I make the trip to Fort Walton Beach, another Comedy Zone room that I did last year on my Florida trip.  It's at one of those "Howl At The Moon" dueling piano bars, and last year I did really well there, so I'm looking forward to knocking one out of the park.  I have the confidence and know what to expect, so that's a big plus in my column.  Also, I did well with product there last year, but of course, that was before the hurricane hit.  This summer, product sales are sucking the pipe, and with $3 a gallon gasoline, I'm really taking a hit. 

I'm about to shower up and shake the sand of Panama City from my heels, but looking forward to coming back next year.  Have a great week, and I'll check in from Fort Myers next weekend.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

I Don't Remember

I Don't Remember                  5397  (1447)

Thursday, August 17, 2006-6:05 P.M.

Good afternoon from Palm Bay, Florida, just down the road from Melbourne on the beautiful Atlantic coast.  The great Florida summer tour continues, with bad news on the comedy front this week; my return trip to New York, which would be taking me through three different North Carolina cities, has been canceled.  That leaves me with a dead drive from Alabama to Rochester, New York.  I've been beating the drums to find work between here and home, but with only a couple of weeks to prepare, the prospects are dim.  My good buddy, R. Bruce, who lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has offered the hospitality of his home to me and my family, which would offer a welcome respite on our drive home without having to dig into my pocket for a hotel, so I'm thankful for that.  I met Bruce several years ago on a Keith Gisser run through Pennsylvania and Ohio as I accompanied my comedy buddy Ray Salah on the jaunt, and we've been friends ever since.  Bruce is the kind of friend that I can go a year without seeing, and still be able to pick right up where we left off when I see him again.  He's a great comic and a talented musician, and he's got stories galore.

Last night I worked in Sebring, Florida, just a couple of hours south of where my dad lives.  The gig was in the Four Points Sheraton, probably the nicest hotel I'll get to stay in this month, and the show was good, but didn't go off as planned.

The itinerary said the show was at 8:00, but Reinhard, the general manager of the hotel, informed me that the show was actually at 8:30, which gave me a little extra time to get situated.  Pam and Harmony and I ate dinner at a sketchy Chinese Buffet restaurant (our piggish dining companions at the next table over couldn't control their infant, about Harmony's age, and the tot pushed a cup of tea off the table, showering Pam and Harmony in cold Chinese Tea...and without an acknowledgement of regret, or an acknowledgement at all, which I thought was crass).

I arrived at the lobby bar at 8:00 P.M., and at that time, the headliner had not been heard from.  I happened to know the comic, and had their number in my cell phone.  I called, got the voice mail, and asked them if they were en route, or had forgotten the show, or what.  I got a call back and was informed that they were just getting on the road, and wouldn't be arriving until after 10:00 P.M.  "If the show is at 8:30, and I'm doing 35 minutes, then what good is arriving at 10 o'clock going to do?" I wondered.  The management, in their wisdom, decided to start the show at 8:45, and asked me to stretch.  The crowd was very elderly, as you would imagine a Florida audience would be, and I was requested to work clean.  I pulled every trick in the book and capped out at 55 minutes, closing at 9:40.  The host, a radio D.J., informed the crowd that the headliner wasn't around yet, but would be coming soon, and the old folks started heading for the door in droves; it looked like Bingo at the VFW had just let out.

The headliner (a friend of mine, mind you) arrived at 10:15, and only about a third of the house still remained.  I retired to my room and collapsed right away; I was pretty much emotionally drained.  The hotel paid me by check in a big white envelope marked "Thank You" and I thought for a second that there might be a little bonus money in there for the effort, but the only thing that was in there was a check for the contractually agreed upon amount.  To make matters even more disappointing, they wouldn't cash the check at the hotel, I had to run into town this morning and find the bank it was drawn upon, and then provide them with I.D., a Florida mailing address (I used my Dad's), and then get back on the road going the other way.

Tonight, I'll be working with headliner Dobie Maxwell out of Chicago, and he's a good buddy that I've been through the trenches with several times.  Last time we worked together was January up in Battle Creek, Michigan, so it's interesting to be working with him in Florida.  I have no idea who I get to work with this weekend in Panama City and Fort Walton Beach, but I'm sure it will be a good time.

Hope your summer is going well, and I'll send postcards if I find any.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Gator Country

Gator Country                 5349  (1399)

Saturday, August 12, 2006-6:24 P.M.

Standup comedy is not a team sport!!!!

Saying hello from Lady Lake, Florida, from stately Tetta Manor, home of my father here in the Villages.  It's a balmy 92 degrees under an unforgiving Summer sun, and I'm off on a Saturday night for the third time this year.  I don't mind saying that it's an ugly feeling.

The plan was to visit Poppa Tetta and bring Pamela and Harmony along, so Harmony could finally meet her grandfather.  I'm proud to say that the mission has been accomplished, and now I can die with no regrets.  We've still got Aunt Nickki to see up in North Carolina on the way home, but my father is in his 70's and a cancer survivor, so I didn't want to play with time.  My sister is still a youngster, so she's not as dire a circumstance.  Nickki is still young enough to travel and probably could meet Harmony somewhere along the line without my help, but Dad doesn't travel anymore, so I had to bring the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak.

I was originally supposed to be working in Johnson City, Tennesse tonight, but the hotel canceled the comedy, so we came to Florida a couple of days early.  I performed in three states so far this week, so having Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shows takes the sting away from being unemployed for the weekend.

We packed the car and left for the Volunteer State around 11:30 Monday night.  I packed the trunk as tight as I could, moved Harmony's car seat over directly behind the driver's seat, and loaded the back seat with the remainder of the bags.  I also had to pack a stroller and a pack 'n' play (that's a portable playpen/crib for those of you without children), and it turned out to be a real cumbersome load.  Anytime Harmony dropped something, neither Pam nor I could reach it, being blocked out by the bags and cases in the back.

We drove overnight, stopping around 4 A.M. for some eggs at a truckstop in Ohio.  Ohio's a bitch of a state to drive through when you're just going east and west, but we were driving diagonally from Cleveland down through Columbus and down into Louisville, Kentucky.  I pounded a sugar-free Red Bull (four hours of sleep in a can!) and the girls passed out about 5 A.M.  I drove until a red sun started peeking through dark rain clouds, and then drove some more.  We pulled into Clarksville, Tennesee, home of the Ft. Campbell Army base, and checked into the hotel around 1 P.M. Central Time.  I slept the sleep of the damned as Pam began baby-proofing the room and setting up for our one-day stay.

The gig was Tippers Pub, and from my experience last year, I knew it was a lot of youngsters and a fair share of enlisted men and women from the base.  An mc who's name escapes me got onstage and dug a hole that took me ten minutes to dig out of...and all he did was be unengaging.  I finally left the stage and climbed up on a chair in the middle of the audience and started barking at them in my best booming voice; that got their attention.  Hey, when you've got hot air like I have, microphones are for sissies.

Mike Armstrong, the ex-cop from the Bob and Tom Show, was the headliner, and we're old friends from back when I managed a club.  He did well and we did the pal-around thing until we got paid, then we got the hell out of there.  I got back to the hotel, and had a good night's sleep, readying myself for the drive to Atlanta.

The next morning, we packed up early and got on the road, heading for McDonough, Georgia, about 20 minutes south of Atlanta.  We had an uneventful day until a major traffic backup on route 24 East stopped us dead.  Pam had the foresight to go to AAA and pick up maps, so she navigated us out onto back roads that allowed us to circumnavigate the traffic jam.  At one point, we were driving on a river road and looking across the river at the stopped traffic on 24.  After about an hour, we hit route 75 and started our journey south.

We used the carpool lane (3 of us in the car, and one of the few benefits of taking the family along) and squirted through Atlanta pretty quickly.  We got to the Country Inn Suites and checked in just in time for me to get a shower, iron a shirt, and make it to the show.  The club, a new place called Cruizers, wasn't very well attended, but the folks who were there enjoyed the show well enough.  I worked with Kurt Green out of Augusta, Georgia, and we had a pretty decent show of it.  I was happy to have pulled a show on a day that was supposed to be a day off...the idea of paying for a hotel room just doesn't appeal to me after years of having them paid for by the clubs.  One lady at the show, an older woman who reminded me of Minnie Pearl, tried contributing to the show.  "What kind of bee don't sting ya?" she said.  "Boobies" I replied, trying to defuse the joke by providing my own punchline.  She said "Huh?" and I said "Those things in your lap, grandma!"  I hate to say it but it was one of my best laughs of the night.  I have no shame....if they're laughing, I'm working.

Thursday, it was back across 24 to Paducah, Kentucky, home of Froggy's, another Comedy Zone room.  I was back working with Mike Armstrong, and we benefitted from moving from the Eastern to Central time zone, and picked up the extra hour.  The show was great, there were twice to three times as many people there as there were when I played there the year before.  A young lady named Jennifer caught me at the bar before the show and asked me to rip on her friend, a clueless young man named Derick, but I wound up tearing her a new one when she started chatting with people at her table during my set (she was sitting in the front row).  Afterwards, I threw her a free CD as a goodwill gesture for being set up the way I did.  Frank, the owner of the club (and a hell of a nice guy) was very complimentary, and even though his club is a redneck hellhole, I would probably go back.  When I mentioned during my set that my wife is half black, you could feel the air suck right out of the room.  It was funny, but not funny at the same time.  Earlier in my set, I did a Klan reference, and got way bigger applause than I really wanted.  It's apparently a big area for that sort of thing, even though there were black and white people in the club sitting next to each other and enjoying each other's company.  Latent racism is a bitch, but it's better than the alternative.

Friday was the trail of tears drive to Florida.  I was supposed to have a replacement gig Friday night in Ocala, Florida, but that gig fell out, leaving us with no schedule or urgency.  We hit the road at 11:00 A.M. Central Time, and made the 13 hour trip to my Dad's house, getting in around 1:30 in the morning.  On the way, nothing really spectacular happened, but we did pass one of the most interesting vehicles I've ever seen.  The vehicle was a school bus that the owner painted olive-drab, with paisley designs on the back, and it looked like a hippy Army transport.  The thing that made it really stand out was that the owner had taken two Volkswagen buses, cut the bottoms off of them, and welded them to the top of the bus.  They had window-unit air conditioners in them, and we wound up catching up with the folks at a rest stop outside of Chatanooga.

I spoke with the young lady who was watching after her kids as her husband was talking on his cell phone, and she invited me to take some pictures and poke my head inside the bus.  There were ladders leading up into the welded-on bus tops, which were bedrooms in the vehicle.  The whole thing ran on french-fry oil, which she informed me that donut shops and restaurants were more than happy to give away.  I'm going to post some pictures when I get them developed, so stay tuned.  We gave them some snacks (Mama Davis had picked us up way more stuff than we were going to use, God bless her heart) and a copy of my CD, and we hit the road.

I have three days off before my two week tour of Florida starts, in which I'll be hitting the towns of Sebring, Palm Bay, Panama City, Fort Walton Beach and Fort Myers.  I'll be working for four different employers, and every year the work down here seems to get more plentiful.  I'm really thankful for the opportunity to play here because I get to see my dad, and the work helps facilitate that.  We've driven 2,500 miles so far and spent about $200 on gas.  It's another day (or month) at the office for me, but it's quite an adventure so far for Pam and Harmony.  Harmony has been a real trooper this whole time....if they gave out "Iron Baby" awards, she would be in line for one...except for some night terrors just before arriving here at Dad's house, she never cried or figeted in her car seat the whole way, and that's tough to do for anyone.

Pam has relatives down here as well, and we may get to see some of them before we start heading north again; I hope we do.  Chances like this don't come along every day.

Stay out of the hot sun, and I'll check in again if anything exciting happens.

Bullet With Butterfly Wings

Bullet With Butterfly Wings                    5245  (1295)

Friday, August 4, 2006-11:38 A.M.

Sorry I haven't checked in for a while, I've been busy; busy ducking 100 degree temperatures, trying to work and keep to somewhat of a regular routine.

Last week at the Comix Cafe went off without a hitch, except that the air conditioning was considerably less than somewhat.  I was running out of steam (no pun intended) on stage at various points past the 30 minute mark.  The shows went well, except for our Saturday early show, where mysteriously, a comic was given a guest spot which went long and turned my "co-headlining" spot into 20 minutes.  Regardless, we had a lot of good feedback, and one of my old schoolmates from grade school came out with his wife.  I hadn't seen this guy in 20 years or more.  His mother used to be my Sunday school teacher, and she flunked me in second grade because I didn't make enough days to pass.  I was the only kid in third grade public school who was going to second grade Sunday school!  Needless to say, I took a lot of razzing for that, and I did what any good Catholic would do...I quit, and renounced God. 

We caught a squirrel in our attic last weekend.  We hired an exterminator who came in and left some baited traps, the kind that captures the animal live in a cage.  I called Stan, the guy who comes and picks up the animal for transport and release, and he was on vacation.  He asked me if I could keep the animal alive for three days until he got back.  I decided that it was too hard to feed and water the little rat; the only way I could give him water was to put ice cubes on top of his cage and let them melt down into the cage.  I don't know if that was effective at all, so I just decided to take matters into my own hands.

I put on some heavy leather gloves, picked up the cage, and took my pony-tailed friend down to the car, putting him cage and all into the trunk.  I felt like a mafia hit man taking a snitch "for a ride."  I drove the little guy to the Ontario Beach Park, and because it was Friday night, the beach parking lot was abandoned, except for a car I parked next to that had people getting sweaty and exchanging fluids in it.  I considered flashing them a caged squirrel to give 'em a little thrill, but reconsidered.  I moved my car to a different, well-lit spot, and started to work.

Now, I had examined the other trap (the one with nobody home) to figure out how to release my rodent captive with the most efficiency, and without getting a rabid bite for my troubles.  The only problem was the little guy was freaked out, and it took me about ten minutes to realize he was standing on the bait pedal, and the trap wouldn't open in that position.  I finally got him off the pedal, and opened the trap, and after pouring water and beer on him, I got him to vacate the trap.  He sauntered off into the night, disappearing behind one of the beach pavillions.  I guess I can add "animal disposal" to my ever-growing resume, and if this whole comedy thing doesn't pan out, I can get into the extermination business.  Hey, it worked for Tom DeLay....

Tuesday, I made the trek down to Cleveland for a fill-in show.  I was performing as part of "feature night," sharing the bill with Maronzio Vance from Los Angeles, and Ryan Dalton from NYC.  I went on first, and had a really good show.  I got a couple of applause breaks, not patting myself on the back, but I didn't do anything out of the ordinary....the Cleveland Improv is just an exceptional room.  They had a huge turnout for a Tuesday night, and their audiences are primed to laugh...it's a comic's dream come true.

I left for the gig around 2:30 in the afternoon, made the four-hour drive, hung out, did the show, and drove four hours back.  I arrived home around 2:30 in the morning, capping a 12-hour day.  Not bad for a day at the office.

My corporate gig on Thursday fell through....they just didn't call me.  The last communication I got was from the buyer who received my DVD and said she enjoyed it and was passing it along to her bosses...I guess they didn't think I was appropriate, or funny, or that they didn't even want a comedian for their event, but they didn't even give me the courtesy of an e-mail saying no thanks.  Corporate gigs blow.  I applaud the comics who can jump through the hoops for the money, but I guess I'm not one of them.  I'm a club comic, pure and simple. 

Today and tomorrow, I host at the Comix Cafe for Aries Spears from Mad TV...he's a talented guy, so the club ought to draw pretty well.  They better get their air conditioning situation corrected, though, because I don't think Mr. Spears will stand for working in that sweat box that I tolerated all last week.

Next week, we're getting ready for the big trip south to Florida, with stops along the way in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama and North Carolina.  My little baby daughter Harmony is gonna get to meet her Grandpa Tetta and her Aunt Nickki and Uncle Dennis along the way, and that's exciting in itself.  I'm going to be working with some good friends down there, Al Katz and Dobie Maxwell to name a couple, Amaru (who I only know from the comedian online chat boards), and Mike Armstrong.  I'll probably work with some other names as well, I just haven't found out who they are yet.  It's a long march back to September, and I'm sure there will be plenty of adventures along the way.  I'll keep you posted.

Stay cool and enjoy the last throes of Summer!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY