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