In The Forest

In The Forest                   5689  (1749)

Wednesday, September 20, 2006-11:30 CDT

Continuing my whirlwind tour of the North American prairie, I'm in Spicer, Minnesota today.  It's a day off, and tomorrow I have a show at O'Neil's Irish Pub, which is downstairs from the Green Lake Inn, the bed and breakfast where I currently reside.

Saturday in Topkea was kind of a letdown after Friday night's standing ovation.  I went up and did basically the same show, but the audience just wasn't giving it back.  I know I should never blame the audience, it's my job to entertain them, but I just couldn't match the intensity of the night before.  Scott, the headliner, had similar problems and it wasn't like we did a bad show, but we didn't do the show we wanted to have.

The biggest problem I was facing after the show was how to get to Harris, Michigan in time for a 7 PM show, and losing an hour getting there by crossing from Central to Eastern time.  I decided that I should sleep a little, and then get in the car and do my best.  I couldn't wind down from the show until about 1:30, and my alarm was set for 3:00.  I got about an hour and a half's worth of sleep, showered and headed to the car.  After a short period of disorientation, I found my way to the expressway and started heading northeast.

I had coffee, courtesy of a 24-hour McDonald's....haven't they changed the game all the way around....and headed out.  I drove into Kansas City, and got lost due to the labyrinth nature of their downtown, the darkness which was pervasive, and an early-morning rainstorm that flooded the streets and drove me to piss in a one-liter water bottle rather than get out of the car to take a leak.  I finally got my bearings and headed north through Missouri and into Iowa, and the sun finally started coming up.  By the time I hit Wisconsin, somewhere around the noon mark, I started doing the math and realized that I was going to be cutting things rather closely.  In addition, the Green Bay Packers were playing the New Orleans Saints at home, and I would be driving right through Green Bay as the game was letting out....bad sign.

I hauled ass at some pretty ungodly speeds, and wound up passing the stadium as the game progressed.  The Saints and Packers were all tied up most of the game, which was good for my cause, because a Packers blowout would have sent the Green 'N' Gold faithful to the exits and jammed my route northward.  Even though the Saints pulled away with two quick scores in the second half, I was still able to whiz past Lambeau Field, admiring the full stands of Packer faithful.  The week before, the Saints had played in Cleveland, and I saw the stadium filled with orange and brown, and I felt a little deja vu for my troubles.

I wound up at the casino just a little past six, in time to get a nice shower and dress for the show.  It wasn't terrible as far as casino shows go, but the stage in Harris is just a little inconvenient for comedy.  The bar runs in a semi-circle in front of you, then an arc of video poker terminals, and finally the tables where the comedy audience is, the folks who are actually paying attention.  I gave them a solid feature set and then headed over to the restaurant for a much-needed complimentary meal (I had the meatloaf, which was excellent, if such a thing can be said about meatloaf).

The rooms that are provided in Harris are jacuzzi suites, and I took advantage of the pulsing water on my stiff, arthritic legs.  I had spent 14 hours in the car, pushing the gas pedal down to speeds of 80 or more, and I needed some relaxation.  I enjoyed the last bit of "Kill Bill Volume 2" which was showing on TBS, and after seeing it for the first time only last month, I can say that it's becoming one of my favorite films.  I'm a Quentin Tarantino fan anyway, so it's not that much of a stretch.  After the movie, I toweled off and decided that I couldn't sleep, so I went back downstairs to the casino, had a snack and a beverage, and made my way to the nickel slots.

I've had some good luck with the nickel slots at Harris in the past, and my luck was still running to the black.  I turned 20 bucks into just shy of 30, and satisfied that I probably wouldn't do much better by hanging around, cashed out and went back to the room, where I slept soundly, the events of the past 24 hours finally catching up with me.

The road to Duluth was uneventful and boring...I did get a chance to soak up the beauty of the Ottawa National Forest in Wisconsin, but I'd done that drive before.  It's just trees, trees and more trees, and the occasional gas station, small town, and then back to the forest.  I checked into the Voyaguer Lakewalk Inn, and met up with headliner Wes Zaharuk later for a  few beers at Carmoody's, an Irish pub just a few blocks from the hotel.  We met some interesting characters, including some of the members of a local band called Trampled By Turtles, and hung out until about 1 AM.

The show on Tuesday was almost a disaster; the mc didn't show up, so the door guy served up a butchered introduction and brought me onstage to a crowd colder than a penguin's ass.  They really didn't start coming alive until I started serving up the graphic sex stuff, then suddenly I was a superhero and they couldn't get enough.  Wes did his thing, which is a sort of magic/variety act, and afterwards, we had a lot of the college-aged kids coming up to us (mostly drunk) and offering up praise of the "You were really funny/you should have headlined/you were funny, too, but Ralph was funnier for the younger people" type.  I really hate those types of accolades, because they're tactless when the other comic is sitting right there.  The sad fact is that Wes is really a great act, and the kids just didn't have the patience to appreciate what he was doing, but that I scored great with the flagrant oral sex/masturbation stuff shows where their adolescent attention truly lies.

Tonight is another night off, and Wes apparently has decided either to stay in Duluth or he camped out somewhere else, because he's not here at the Bed 'N' Breakfast in Spicer.  I have sincere doubts of whether there's actually going to be a breakfast in the morning as there are dirty dishes on the table in the main dining room from a conference this morning, and the lady told me she hadn't had time to clean up after them.  If she can't find the time to clean some dirty dishes, I guess my toast 'n' eggs in the morning are a fucking dead issue, but maybe they'll suprise me.

My expectations of the show tomorrow night are also pretty low; the town itself doesn't have much of a population to begin with, and the room is so small that 30 or 40 people would send it into standing room only.  As I write this, though, the music is still coming up through the floor so the bar is hopping and it's only Wednesday, so maybe they really get a good crowd.  Either way, it's just a paycheck and a quick exit to Muskegon that I'm looking for.  I have Friday off, and I think I'll try to scare up some sort of guest spot somewhere, but I honestly don't know where I could perform between here and there.  Minneapolis and Chicago are both on the way, but I don't know my way around either city and I probably won't wind up going anywhere, but maybe some opportunity will drop in my lap....you never know.

With that, gentle reader, I'll sign off.  I picked up quite a few books, courtesy of a few small town libraries that I stopped at along the way, and I'm enjoying some quiet time just reading and relaxing.  Tomorrow will have problems and challenges of it's own, so today I'll just let myself off the hook and let Harlan Ellison tell me stories until I fall asleep.

Take care,

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY