Halloween

Halloween                            5944  (2004)

Saturday, October 28, 2006-2:15 P.M. CDT

Wow...tonight, I'm doing three shows....I can't remember the last time I did that (did Iever do three shows in one night?  I'm gonna have to look at my old road journals).

I'm working at the famous Giggles Comedy Pub in Germantown (Milwaukee), Wisconsin.  I got in Thursday afternoon to find no one at the club to give me keys to get into the condo where the comics stay, had to call the owner's cell phone and wait around for an hour.  I made the mistake of going to the old apartment where the comics used to stay, to find a locked door and a barking dog...they moved the accomodations to another complex, and somebody has rented out the old place.

Thursday was kind of stiff, a little older crowd and an early start.  It was nice getting everything done by 9:30, but then I stayed up so late because I wasn't tired, I thought I'd never get to sleep.

Last night, we did two shows and they were excellent, but the house manager was flashing me the light at 15 minutes....I looked at my watch and couldn't believe it, I thought I offended somebody or something....I asked them why they were flashing me so soon, on stage, in the middle of my show, and then explained to the crowd what "the light" meant, and that they time the shows to make sure everything runs smoothly.  It didn't affect my overall performance, it actually might have added to it a little bit.

In honor of the Halloween holiday this weekend, the servers are wearing cute little Halloween costumes.  They're very tasteful and non-intrusive, just things like a set of clip-on tiger ears, and a tiger tail, very minimalist.  I think that's a lot better than having servers dolled up in full costumes, plus who wants to give their cocktail order to a girl dressed up as a train-hopping hobo?  Not me, I can tell you that.

Yesterday, Chris Johnson (our good and honorable headliner) and I went to lunch and somewhere along the line, found out that we both had a penchant for garage sales.  Incredibly, in Wisconsin in 50 degree weather, we found several (and on a Friday afternoon....it was amazing).  I scored big in the used book department, picking up piles of Little Golden Books and Dr. Suess books for Harmony, and finished my score with a trip to the Menominee Falls library, where the used books go out at 6 for a buck.  I bought two dollars' worth, and got some interesting reading titles, but most of them are going to be resold on the internet.  A quick browsing of them found some of the titles to be worth five dollars or more each....I'm not getting rich, but it's a fun hobby to search out cheap used books and resell them at a profit.  Plus, it keeps me busy during the day...you can only watch so much World Series of Poker on TV before your brain starts turning to mush.

Yesterday was also a very good day for comedy business, I picked up four weeks of work from Funny Business Agency (one week of headlining work thrown in), and one of the weeks was in Battle Creek the week I'm performing at Gary Field's for a cancer benefit.  I was worried I wouldn't find any work that week, and I managed to get a week at the very club I'm performing in....that means no extra driving, and I can't tell you how happy I am about that!

I have a few hours  to prepare for my three-show evening, so I'm going to call it quits here and go pay my cell phone bill and try to rest up.  Have a happy Halloween, and don't eat too much candy!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY