Where Is The Love

Where Is The Love                 6021  (2081)

Tuesday, November 7, 2006-1:50 A.M.

Well, good morning.  It's election day, so don't forget to go out there and fire someone (or hire someone, for that matter).

I'm home after the two-week jaunt in Wisconsin.  I worked this week with Chicago's Kevin Naughton, a comic I have been in the trenches with before.  We had decent shows all week at the State Street Comedy Club in Madison, one of the coolest places to play.  Gus Pappas and his wife Mary are the genial proprietors, and they definitely make you feel welcome in their club.  For God's sake, they pay you in an envelope with a thank-you card....how cool is that?  Mary turned me on to Keith Olbermann, who I've been watching on YouTube.  It's not a hard sell because he's beating that left-wing drum, but I like hearing it and I can't get enough, either.  He had one commentary that lasted about ten minutes that said either President Bush was lying or too stupid to know the truth.  Well, that may be pandering to the liberal base, but I can't say I didn't enjoy listening to it.  I have to switch off from CNN now and again and catch some MSNBC, now that I know what sort of flag they're flying.

I spent the weekend in the Monona Lake Suite at the Madison Concourse Hotel.  It's a beautiful property, really, and just a short, two-block walk from the club.  I've been to this club five times, and only once was the hotel sold out, and they had to move us to another place.  I think Gus has a deal with the owner of the hotel, because we had strange accomodations this week.

Instead of a regular guest room (which I guess were all sold out), Kevin and I were put in what is called "parlor suites."  Basically, these are rooms that are set up for meetings and don't include the regular guest room amenities.  For example, my room was basically double the size of a normal room, but there was no bed, so they rolled in a rollaway bed.  I had the normal TV/entertainment center with bureau drawers, a phone, iron and ironing board, but I also had a long meeting-room table and four chairs, also a small sofa (on wheels).  There was a normal bathroom, but I also had a bar area with another sink, and a small refrigerator.

There was a lot of extra room, so I spent the first hour moving furniture, condensing all of the items into a space about a quarter of the entire room.  This made things cozy and accessible, and I made sure I was going to be comfortable for the three days so I could do my job.  I set up the ironing board out in "no-man's-land" so it wouldn't be in my way, and ironed the shirts I would need for the weekend, hanging them on the backs of three of the four aforementioned chairs.

The hotel had wireless internet, so I set up my laptop on the big meeting room table, which I placed adjacent to the TV/entertainment center.  My bed was tucked in the corner, facing the TV, and I moved an end table next to my bed for the lamp, clock/radio and still had plenty of space for my CPAP machine (a piece of equipment that humidifies and blows air through my nose while I sleep to counter my sleep apnea).  I rolled the couch up to the table and sat on that while I worked at the computer, because it was much softer than the chairs.  Also, I had room on the sofa next to me for my briefcase, so from a convenience standpoint, it was optimal.

Thursday night was open mic night, and there were three of them, plus our mc.  They were very clique-ey and unwatchable, spitting out half-baked "shock" humor and then chastising the audience for not "getting" them.  It was really an obnoxious display.  I went up with my old school "setup-punchline" jokes and slaughtered, and none of the new kids talked to me afterwards.  I guess it must hurt to be 25 and hip, and some 40-year old bastard comes out of nowhere and shows you how it's done.  I hate to pat myself on the back, but the pretentiousness of some of the youth in this business is really starting to get to me.  When I was starting out, we paid our respects to the older comics who had figured out the game, and we learned from them.  These kids seem to think they know it all, and I never thought I would be talking like this, but I guess old people prattle on for a reason....it's a never-ending cycle that keeps getting played out over and over.

Friday night's shows were soft, but Saturday was excellent.  The University of Wisconsin won their big football game against Penn State, and I literally walked against the crowd earlier in the day as they headed down State Street from the stadium towards the downtown where my hotel was, and I was walking up State Street looking for lunch.  I was the only person out therenot wearing the red 'n' white of Wisconsin, as a matter of fact, beneath my black hooded sweatshirt, I was actually wearing Tennessee orange.  It was a faux pas easily remedied by not taking the sweatshirt off.

For a little while, I thought about driving home overnight, if for no other reason to get through Chicago in the night when traffic was light.  I nixed that idea in favor of six or seven hours of sleep (closer to six, to be honest), and headed out in the morning.  Chicago wasn't bad, but Indiana was very slow going....lots of trucks blocking both lanes (get right, asshole!) and construction cutdowns to one lane changed my estimated time of arrival from 8 o'clock in the evening to my eventual return sometime after 11 P.M.  Still, it was great to get home after two weeks on the road, and today I spent practically the whole day watching Harmony while Pam went out running errands.  My little daughter gave me the biggest hug I ever got, and it hurt a little bit (o.k., a lot) to realize all at once and in a very physical, tangible way what I deny myself because of my vocation and the pursuit of it.  At one point, I took out the colored pencils and we colored together in one of her coloring books, and it didn't matter that the sky had a big orange splotch in it even though I was trying to show her how to color it blue, she just appreciated that I was there with her, spending time with her.  Children spell "love" T-I-M-E, and I musn't forget that.

Wives spell love a bunch of different ways, and when I got home, Pamela had showed off the special things she got me at Tops, namely products with the Buffalo Bills logo on it....they were simple things, chunky-style soup, cornflakes and peanuts, but she knows how much I cherish the Bills, and got them to make me happy.  I had a big bowl of the cornflakes and enjoyed the soup for lunch.  It's a little thing, but much appreciated.

And while I'm on the Buffalo Bills, on Saturday night, a comedian friend of mine named Nathan Craig (I worked with him in Cleveland back in September) stopped in.....Madison being his home town (he basically lives in Chicago now).  We did the pal-around thing, and one of our last conversations regarded his beloved Green Bay Packers and how they were going to beat Buffalo this weekend, and I told him that Brett Favre sucked so bad, his football card was worth more than he was.  I listened to as much radio as I could on the drive home Sunday, and when I couldn't get a radio station in, I called my brother Christopher in Syracuse and made him describe the play-by-play to me over the phone until it was certain that Buffalo had won.

I have to go now...I'm really tired and I have to send Nate an e-mail telling him that the Packers suck.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY