Radio Song

Radio Song                       6112  (2172)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006-1:30 P.M.

O.k., so Michael Richards is apparently doing my act in Los Angeles...how exactly does a small-time nobody like me with no financial resources get him to cease and desist?

I'm home after my wonderful weekend in Belmont, North Carolina.  The Comedy Zone there in Starz Restaurant in a neat little room, 60 seats, maybe, and one of the nicest staffs you'll ever meet.  I checked in Thursday to the Holiday Inn, which is a short ten-minute drive away, closer to the heart of downtown Charlotte.

I was working with headliner Robert York of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Robert's a variety act, he juggles, balances a cowboy hat on his nose, and cracks an 11-foot bullwhip over the heads of the audience.  If that doesn't sober ya up, I don't know what will.  Robert's good people, and I've known him for several years, so we had a good time working together.  The room was rated PG-13, but I found that you can get away with a lot as long as it's funny and not disgusting.  I gots plenty of that funny stuff, and I try to walk around the sticky parts whenever possible, if you get my drift.

Friday's early show was fun, we had some latecomers arrive during my set, and I had to address them, because it's such a small room that it's perfectly obvious that four people are coming in and seating themselves near the stage.  I did a lot of impromptu stuff and was able to direct a lot of set material towards their table, and we had great fun.  It reinforced the illusion that I was making all this great comedy up as I went along, the illusion that most comedians strive for.

Unfortunately, the late show was canceled for lack of patronage.  We probably could have done the show for the five people that showed up, but the club opted out.

Saturday, Robert and I decided to take the restaurant up on their employee discount and had lunch together, and we wound up talking about art, culture, the fine art of finding treasures in thrift stores, and a few hours' worth of like-minded conversation.  It was definitely a welcome change of pace.  I caught the tail end of the Ohio State/Michigan game, and headed to the club.

Saturday's shows were excellent, well-attended and fun, but I had a dark cloud hovering over me in the form of conflicting weather reports as to what I'd be driving home in....some called for snow, some called for just rain showers, but either way, I wasn't pleased.  I had 11 hours and 45 minutes in front of me, and snow can definitely make the driving treacherous and slow.

After getting paid and settling up for my food tab for the weekend (they graciously let the hotel tab go....hooray!), I headed back to the hotel, packed up, and started my way northward.  I don't exactly know how I made it as far as I did, but somewhere around 5 o'clock in the morning, one of West Virginia's finest clocked me at 75 mph in a 55...that's gonna hurt...it's my second West Virginia speeding ticket of the year, and their modus operandi seems to be that they park themselves at the bottom of a hill (and mountainous West Virginia's got plenty of them) and as you coast downhill, you almost always wind up heading toward a town, and the speed limit comes down from 70 to a 55, and you get nabbed.  I haven't called yet, but that's probably gonna be in the $160 range.  Shit.

I stopped driving around 7 A.M. when my ability to read road signs had left me.  I saw signs but couldn't put the letters together into words, so I pulled off at an exit that didn't have anything but an RV dealership.  I pulled into their driveway, which was closed by a big swinging metal gate, and put my seat back, put my sweater hood over my eyes and began to doze.  Around 9 A.M., someone came to open the dealership, and I must have noticed that someone was in the area, because my eyes flicked open and I craned my head up to see a man walking toward the gate....I must be part whitetail deer or something.

I put my seat back up, put the car into drive and headed north again.  I wound up arriving home around 3:30 in the afternoon, prodded on the last few hours by getting to listen to my beloved Buffalo Bills beating the Houston Texans on the radio.  A little snow fell, but nothing on the level of what I was expecting.  I probably could have stayed at the hotel and slept in, and gotten home safely a few hours later and without the speeding ticket, but what's done is done and I can't change that.  I somehow think that God has been telling me the last few months that I'm just not meant to have any money.  I know I have a tendency to mismanage it, paying bills and buying food for my baby and stuff like that....I'm going to have to learn to tighten my belt.

This week is a homestand at the Comix Cafe in Rochester with my buddy Sky Sands.  I've known Sky for a long time, too, and it should be fun working with him again...we haven't really shared a stage together since a year ago this summer, and Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, is one of the busiest club nights of the year, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, watch the roads, and save me a drumstick!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY