Water of Love

Water Of Love         6342  (2402)

Thursday, December 28, 2006-8:30 A.M.

Time waits for no man, especially a man waiting for a plumber.

Yes, we've got plumbing problems here at the apartment of love, nothing terrible, just a shower that won't turn completely off.  It wouldn't be so bad, but it's the hot water that's leaking, and that can be costly, not to mention causing the house to run out of hot water more quickly than usual.

So I'm up, waiting for the plumber...not a bad time to clue you in as to what's been going on the past week.

It was Christmas on Monday...hope yours was as good as mine...more about that later.

I finished up my shows in Toledo on Saturday night, working with Jon Ueberroth,  all around nice guy and Toledo native, and John Face, of Albion, Michigan.  Had a lot of nice feedback (much of it from Jon's family and friends) and sold a Christmas bonus' worth of merchandise.  Not bad for having originally been canceled and looking down the prospect of no Christmas money.

Steve Brewer, a very funny comic from Detroit, hung out and did a set Saturday late show.  He's an "edgy" comic, and a good one.  I like the edgy humor better than bland, observational stuff....not that observational humor can't be funny, but it doesn't take any risks.  Steve and Jon have known each other for a while, and they hung out after Jon and I went to lunch.  Jon took me to Tony Packo's, a hotdog place in Toledo with some modicum of celebrity after being featured in several M*A*S*H* episdodes courtesy of Jamie "Klinger" Farr, a Toledo native.  The place was quite good, with nice food and ambiance...I recommend it if you're going to be in the area.

After lunch, I found gas at a Flying J truckstop for $2.11 a gallon!  And it's nothing but death sent from Hell that I should be excited about such a bullshit fuel price.  Regardless, my Flying J bonus card got me a penny off per gallon, so I actually paid only $2.10 a gallon, and my spirits were high (at least until I returned to New York State).

The hotel I was staying at was right next to a Speedway gas station (I have their bonus card, too) and I stopped in there a few nights in a row, getting late night munchies, and struck up conversation with the night clerk, a young ladynamed Vee.  I wound up getting her and her boyfriend tickets to the show, and they actually showed up!  A lot of times, people will say they are coming just to be nice, and then blow it off because they won't ever see you again, but I was pleasantly surprised when they came out, and afterwards, said they enjoyed the show.  It's nice to spread the love whenever you can, it's good karma.

I drove home after the second show, hitting the road about 12:30 and getting home before daylight, around 6:30 in the morning.  The drive was made a little easier courtesy of some tapes I found at a thrift store, the Rolling Stones "Bridges to Babylon," Bruce Springsteen "Darkness On The Edge of Town," Lyle Lovett live, I forget which, and a few others.  Terrestrial radio along the 90 expressway can be dodgy as you make your way from Toledo to Cleveland to Erie, Pa, on up to Buffalo and into Rochester.  You'd think that towns like Sandusky, Ohio, Batavia, New York and others "in the middle" of the bigger cities would have some low-wattage rock or pop station, but they don't seem to.

I got a few hours of sleep before being pressed back into duty by my beautiful wife and Christmas angel, Pamela.  It was off to the craft store and liquor store and grocery store and at one point I was in a photomat, and they don't have those anymore.  I loaded the car with boxes, bags and many foods and beverages and made my way home.  We needed to get ready for a Christmas party we were attending later in the evening, and wound up getting there around 9 P.M.   The party was nice, and Harmony liked playing with the other children.  We got back from the party around 12:30 and went to work putting together gift baskets for some of my wife's friends and family.  They came out really nice and I was impressed with myself a little bit that I was able to put them together.  I told Pam that her homemade soaps might sell better at her craft sales if she put them together into gift baskets....I was certainly pleased with the overall presentation of them, as faggy as that sounds.

Christmas day was low-key, with a nice dinner at Pam's grandmother's house, with the bulk of her Rochester-dwelling family there.  After dinner, we drove around in the rain looking at Christmas lights and we took some pictures, ate potato chips in the car, and Harmony got a nice nap.  Of course abig meal and the excitement of opening presents will do that to a youngster...I wish I slept so soundly and so readily in a car.  Usually I have to be driving to fall asleep in a car.

Our Christmas was marred slightly by the news that my father was checked into a hospital down in Florida.  He's a cancer survivor and was complaining of back pain, and the painkillers they gave him seem to be causing a mild dementia.  My sister called this morning to tell me that Dad checked himself out of the hospital (which probably isn't good because they hadn't really finished doing all of the tests they needed to do) and that he was being mean and abusive to the nurses, my mother, and anyone else in earshot.  My mom's been staying with him and took him to the hospital, which is really nice because they're divorced and she's really not obligated.  So my sister's flying down there to settle everything down and hopefully get some sort of intervention going on Dad's behalf with his friends down there and my mom and I hope it works.  If it doesn't, I'm going to have to cancel some comedy work and head on down there myself. 

Last night, my comedy buddy Mike Dambra and I went out to visit some friends who were doing a show in town, Steve Burr and Marianne Sierk.  We were invited to perform, and because we're road dog comedy junkies, of course we said yes.  We shared the stage with Steve, Marianne, Matt Rohr and another cat, last name D'Amico, a thousand apologies that I don't remember his first name...my eyes are red and the plumber just got done working his magic on my leaky shower.  I took the bullet and went on first, and did pretty well considering there wasn't much of a warm-up.  I tried some new things and did some of my money-in-the-bank material to cushion the new stuff on both sides, and I was pleased with the set.  They offered my ten minutes but I kept it to under seven, because there were already plenty of comics on the bill and I didn't want to be greedy (my New Year's resolution, by the way....don't be greedy with stage time).   After the show, I ran into an old buddy, Alan Tanski, who is an employee of the U.S. Postal Service and a former member of my improv comedy group, the Inner Loop.  We chatted for a bit, got our groceries and parted ways.  It's funny who you run into when you stay up late.

Tonight's Syracuse with comedy buddy Ray Salah, one show tonight and one show tomorrow.  It's a new club so I don't know what to expect, but I'll go in hoping for the best and try to make the best of the situation...it's another headlining shot, so even if attendance is not up to snuff, it's still a good experience, and I'm looking forward to it.

So it's back to bed I go now, getting ready for work in a few hours and I'd like to do it well-rested for a change.  I'll check in before the New Year with my end-of-the-year recap, don't miss it because it'll be a doozy!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

No Leaf Clover

No Leaf Clover                    6309  (2369)

Thursday, December 21, 2006-5:30 P.M.

Today is the shortest day of the year...unless you're a road comic trying to kill time in his hotel room.

When I left this journal, I was recounting the Friday night that my feature act didn't show up.  Saturday, he showed up.  Jack Warren, a comic from Michigan by way of South Carolina, met up with me at the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta, Ohio.  We had a very good show Saturday night, and spent the time before the show recounting how we had originally met during a layover in Omaha, Nebraska.  Jack was touring with another comic from South Carolina and was performing the week after me, and I was staying at the condo on my day off.  Jack and I wound up going to lunch, hitting the post office and visiting a thrift store.  I didn't recognize him by his headshot when I saw it in Morgantown, because like most comics, he doesn't look like that anymore.

After the show, I drove home overnight which took around six hours.  I entertained myself by listening to Christmas music on the radio, which helped put me in the holiday spirit.  When I got home, all that spirit drained out of me as I was looking at the week before Christmas and the prospect of being unemployed.

Monday, I started working the phones and got a lead on a gig, a feature spot at Connxtions Comedy Club in Toledo, Ohio.  The booker didn't know if they were going to need me, but that I would find out about it the next day.  I found out Tuesday afternoon that the gig was on, and that I'd be leaving Wednesday morning.  My wife wasn't happy about me going away, but we both agreed that it was better that I be working than not, especially with her student loan payment being due.

Tuesday night, I went to Danny Liberto's open mic at Alfano's Italian restaurant.  To say that I was mistreated was an understatement.  They treated every comic on the bill so poorly, the only thing I can say is that the last time someone got treated that poorly at an Italian restaurant, Al Pacino had to fish a gun out from behind a toilet tank to do it.

Mike Dambra, one of my bestest friends in comedy (and otherwise) won the money, but that's because he got into a ragging match with the female bartender who wound up dumping a cup of ice water down his shirt.  The exchange got so ugly that she couldn't retort, she had to resort to a physical attack.  Well, the bar loved it and Mike won the money, which was good because he was having a bad day and needed the boost, I think.

So Wednesday, I drove to Toledo, arriving about two hours before showtime, and got to the club right on time, thirty minutes before showtime.  I knew that the headliner was Toledo native Jon Ueberroth, but I also found out that my mc for the week is none other than Michigan's John Face, organizer of the Relay For Life cancer benefit that I am lending my talents to early this coming year.  John and I met at the last Relay event that he organized this past Spring, and it was great seeing him again.  Connxtions runs an "open mic" portion of their show to start out Wednesdays, and I met some of the local guys.  My set was fun, although it started off a little unevenly as I tried to ad-lib some stuff and wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say.

After my set, Steve Brewer, a headliner from Detroit who I've worked with several times, took me aside because we apparently are doing a bit that is very similar, and he wanted to let me know as soon as possible lest there be any misconceptions from third parties that we are somehow doing the same bit and that it might be stolen.  Come to find out, we were just working from a similar premise and move to different conclusions, but it's easy for confusion to reign under those circumstances, particularly because we work a lot of the same clubs.  Well, Steve's a real professional and I admire his abilities and I really appreciated him approaching me the way he did because a lot of other comics would have been pissy about it, saying "don't do this bit," or "change your bit" or whatever to protect their own interests.  Steve is an intelligent guy, and again, we've worked together before, so there were no problems from the get-go.  I actually feel encouraged that I'm thinking in the same vein as an established headliner, it makes me feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

After the show, I did the pal-around thing with some of the guys, I shook hands and sold some CD's.  There was a Christmas party of about 13 folks, and the boss bought them all a copy of my CD....that was excellent, as the money is always helpful.  Today, I felt like a money magnet, because as I ventured out to my car to go get some lunch, there was about three dollars' worth of change all over the ground next to my car.  It looked as though someone dropped it and didn't feel it was worth picking up.  Well, fuck that, I have a wife and daughter to support, so you're damn right I'm picking it up!  It actually totaled $3.06, so if you're a gambling person, maybe you play that three digit number in tonight's lottery....it's as good as any other, as far as I'm concerned.

So I'm a lucky guy, I'd say.....finding work where there was none, finding money on the ground, and I also juggled around the week in March when I was supposed to come to Toledo and filled it with another gig, and I also secured a return date at the Rivercenter Comedy Club in San Antonio, Texas for March, which is a nice time to be in Texas.  I also found a good comic book shop today and picked up new issues of Civil War: Frontline, Justice League of America, the new Exiles annual, and a What If? featuring Wolverine.  Quite the treasure trove for one such as me, I'd say.

I will probably wind up driving home overnight on Saturday to get the most mileage out of Christmas Eve day with my wife and daughter, finish our shopping and present delivering, and then indulge in our holiday get-togethers with family and friends.  I'm sure I'll check in before the end of the week, so I'll wish you a safe and happy holiday season, and if you aren't on the Tetta family Christmas card list, it means I don't have your address.  If that's the case, please forward that to me by e-mail at Yuksonme@aol.com and we'll add you to the fold.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Sole Survivor

Sole Survivor                                          6276  (2336)

Saturday, December 16, 2006-1:10 A.M.

Comedy is about survival.  It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

The language about comedy even sounds like a fight for survival....."I killed them, I murdered them, I died, I bombed," and my favorite "I ate it."  I picture the comic as a cheetah or panther chasing down the audience antelope and either killing them or eating it.

But there's also the "making a living" survival thing to comedy....stringing along enough working days and weeks to make enough money to pay your bills, or doing comedy part-time and having a straight job to pay the bills while you pursue your dream.

I've been surviving in both senses of the word.

This week I had a three-day week scheduled courtesy of Hysterical Management, headlining the metropoli of Mansfield, Ohio, Morgantown, West Virginia, and Marietta, Ohio.  Earlier this week, I received notice that Mansfield was canceled as the room is reorganizing.  That's fine and dandy, but I don't know anyone who appreciates having a third of their paycheck disappear with such short notice.  I hold Hysterical faultless in the matter, as they are losing commission money in the deal, and the remaining work is still intact.  Still, I decided to be proactive and use the time off to my advantage.

In Rochester, NY, we're lucky to have a resource called the Comedy Company, run by comic/booker Danny Liberto.  Danny runs three open mics in Rochester on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, each carrying a $50 cash prize for the funniest comic.  I decided to throw my hat in the ring and see if any of those prizes could be harvested.  Even if I won all three of them, it wouldn't have replaced the earnings I lost due to the cancellation, but it would have been money in my pocket and an opportunity to get on stage and pal around with comics and friends from my hometown.

I showed up at Alfano's Italian Restaurant on Tuesday, and things went extremely well.  It's a small neighborhood bar, and I had an advantage over the other comics on the bill as several of the bar patrons seemed to recognize me from my time managing the Comix Cafe, Rochester's full-time comedy club.  I was a regular fixture on stage there during my tenure, and it paid off as I seemed to be the only comic who the audience deemed worthy of their attention.  Regardless, I was awarded the $50 and I was happy to have it.  It was the first week of comedy at the club, and I guess I helped kick things off with a bang, and I'm happy I was there to help.

Wednesday, I met Danny at Slammer's Pub, a sports-themed bar in Greece, NY, north of the city.  The only comics to show up were myself, Joe Cumbo (a very funny young man) and a kid from Buffalo who's name escapes me.  The poor kid went up first with a set list, and basically vapor-locked and bailed without telling even one joke....I felt sorry for him driving a whole 65 miles to stand on stage stammering and not being able to even make a sentence, and then have to drive 65 miles back home.  Joe went up and did very well, and I went up and did a melange of old and new material, working out some bits and using some tried-and-true stuff to keep the flow.  Joe and I wound up splitting the $50, which was fine with me, I'm not greedy.  I then hung out with Joe and Danny and watched them play Quick Draw, and Joe won another $50 on one game, and could have quadrupled it to $200, but he didn't play the bonus option for the extra buck....oh well, live and learn.

Thursday night, Danny asked me to host his open mike at Sneaky Pete's bar in downtown Rochester.  Sneaky Pete's is a tiny little neighborhood bar that is one flight of stairs down and a few blocks away from the Genessee River.  There wasn't much of a crowd, but Joe wound up rocking the eight or nine people there and winning himself the cash prize, and I scooped up the money for hosting.  It was combat comedy to say the least, but it was money in my pocket and I was happy to have the work.

Today I headed down to the Ramada Inn in Morgantown, West Virginia, and long story short, my opening act didn't show up.  I wound up doing the entire show myself, but for no extra funds because the checks were written ahead of time, and if there's any bonusing to be done, it'll have to be done after the fact.  I had a lot of fun with it, but now I'm pretty tired and ready to get some sleep, but have to do my regular "wind down" thing to shake off the adrenalin of the night.  Tomorrow I'll hit the bank, cash my check, take advantage of the free breakfast buffet here at the hotel (yummy bacon and pancakes!) and make my way to the historic Lafayette Hotel in Marietta, Ohio.  It's only two hours away, but then I'm looking at a six hour drive home which I'm not looking forward to, but the weather's nice, and I've certainly driven farther and in worse conditions.

Next week  I've had my entire weekend in Traverse City, Michigan canceled, so I'm back to "survival" mode, and I'll probably hit all the open mics in an effort to make the best of a bad situation.  There's still the possibility that work will arise, but if it doesn't, there's nothing I can do about it.  I'll enjoy the time home with my wife and daughter, celebrate Christmas, and then get back to work...the work of surviving.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Lay It On The Line

Lay It On The Line              6237  (2297)

Sunday, December 10, 2006-8:10 A.M.

God, I feel like a wetback!

Reporting from my cozy home in Rochester, NY after a delightful weekend at the House of Comedy in Niagara Falls, Canada.  I did two shows for our neighbors to the north, actually, if you look at the map, our neighbors to the west, but that would be nitpicking.

The highlight of the weekend was passing through Canadian immigration; I didn't want to arouse any suspicions that I might be working in Canada without proper paperwork, so I had to explain why I was coming into the country.  There is a lovely restaurant in the Americana hotel on Lundy's Lane called Jack Tanner's, and I explained that I was meeting some friends for dinner there.  I wasn't sure if that would raise any eyebrows, because the restaurant is just a notch below Applebee's, and why would I drive 90 miles from home just for some chicken fingers?  Well, it's for the company, isn't it?  I explained that I was meeting good friend Marc Sinodinos, a young man who describes his name as "so Greek my ass hurts" and his girlfriend Kendra.

Still, there's so many questions to answer...the customs guy makes the baby seat in the back of my car..."You've got a child then?"  "No, I like to sit in it and pretend I'm the world's largest infant!"  "How much money do you have on you?"  "Why, do you need a loan til' payday?"  These got good laughs on stage, also a new bit that I wrote about Sharper Image that I came up with while listening to a couple of college radio jocks talking while I drove home past Bucknell University last Monday.  It's a TV clean bit that turns out to be a funny act-out bit, therefore has no place in my dick-joke riddled corpse of an act.

Friday night there were a couple two-three Christmas parties on tap in the club, including a group from St. Kevin's, a Catholic high school.  Of course, I did the dirtiest show I've ever done, stopping only ten minutes from closing and asking if there were any nuns or priests from the school in attendance.  I asked for forgiveness about all the masturbation material (a Ralph Tetta comedy staple) and closed with some pointed political material.  I apologized for the Bush administration, mentioning that our nation's leader can't lie and chew gum at the same time, which caused the room to erupt into laughter and applause.  Saturday was much more of the same.  Also, there was a young man in the next-to-front row who had curly black hair and a bushy beard.  I was talking about the difference between men and women, what makes them sexually attracted to each other, and that women are tactile, utilizing their sense of touch, and that clean-shaven men felt good to them.  I told the kid with the bushy beard, "Not only are you not getting laid, I wouldn't let you on an airplane, either!"  His skin color wasn't that dark, but his thick black beard definitely gave the visual shorthand for Middle Eastern if not full-blown Arabic, and the crowd got a good laugh off it.  He was a good sport, and his buddies gave him the ribbing.  It was a nifty comedy moment.

Marc wound up working on both shows, featuring for me the first night and then running upstairs to work a corporate gig in the banquet hall of the Americana.  He came down sweating, mumbling about "the worst show ever," and then explained that it wasn't HIS worst show ever, it was THE worst show ever.  I've been there, friend Marc, I've certainly been there.  Try making a room full of engineers and their wives laugh...it's excruciating.  Our show was rounded out by a lad named Graham Davidson, who is relatively new in the business, and dresses like that jackass from Green Day with the black shirt and white tie, although the kid's about two inches shorter than Yao Ming.  I broke his balls about his stage attire, and at one time I even told him that he looked like he got kicked out of the Strokes.  Thank God I don't drink, imagine what an asshole I'd be with three or four bourbons in me.

Today I'm going to put our Christmas lights up, nothing ostentatious, just a few strings in the front two windows of the house, just enough to light up our otherwise bleak little ghetto street.  We have our tree set up in the hallway, and Harmony likes watching the colored lights, and Christmas means so much more to me now that Pam and I have a little baby daughter.  I'm getting excited about the season, and even though I had work fall out on the weekend before Christmas, I have a couple of leads to fill it in, make some of that Christmas money, and even if they don't come to fruition, I'll enjoy being home with my family.

This week, it's off to Ohio and West Virginia for three days working in the headlining spot (come to think of it, all the work I've got in December is headlining...I must be doing something right) and at some point, I have to get my improv group together for a run-through for our big New Year's Eve gig in Binghamton.  Busy, busy, busy....and there's still Christmas cards to write as well....oh, well, I usually don't get to those until the last minute anyway, so if you don't get a card until Tuesday the 26th, please don't be insulted, it's just the way I roll.

Have a great week, and enjoy the season!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Tired

Tired                             6211  (2271)

Wednesday, December 6, 2006-1:30 A.M.

Tired.  Home.  Finally.

North Carolina tour over.  Fun.  Tiring.  Three headliners.  Five cities.  Six days.  Nine shows.  12 hours home.  2100 miles.

Tape deck's dying, radio all the way.  Cold, but no snow.  Greensboro MC wants to buy my closing bit.  Chris Wiles.  Nice guy.  Too much liquor.  Whiskey when I shouldn't have.

Mike McCarthy, Comedy Barbarian.  Nice guy.  Good stories.  Long time, no see.  Good friend.  Dirty comic, like me.  Fun week.

Sunday, Raleigh.  My sister Nickki and her husband, little visit.  Sports bar, watched the Bills play.  Nice visit, frustrating game.  Maybe next year.

Route 15, Pennsylvania.  Long road home.  Nicely decorated, holiday season.  Made me homesick, made me drive faster.

Got home, checked e-mails.  Tons of work for 2007, pair of cancelations for 2006.  Checked books.  Bad year, 2006...down a grand from last year...too many cancelations this year.  Like Buffalo, mathematically eliminated.  Depression sets in.

Too tired to write more.  Next journal, more words.  Maybe some verbs.

Thank you.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Love That Dirty Water

Love That Dirty Water            6186  (2246)

Friday, December 1, 2006-4:00 P.M.

Most of the country is freezing and dealing with snow, and I'm in North Carolina sweating my balls off!

Greetings from the Red Carpet Inn, the preferred lodging for the comedy talent for the Greensboro, North Carolina Comedy Zone, a club I've played so many times now I've lost count.  I don't know why they call this place the Red Carpet, because they don't have red carpets, and I certainly don't feel like I won an Oscar or anything, but they have wireless internet, so they can call the place whatever they damn well please.

I'm chilling out, getting ready for my shows tonight, which I'm very much looking forward to after the "road-house"-ey last two nights in Goldsboro and Greensville respectively, where the crowds were nice if not very substantive in numbers or accuity, if you know what I mean.  I worked with alcoholic headliner Monte Allen who did an excruciating 15 shots of Tequila on Wednesday, and my liver spent the evening hiding behind my pancreas just watching him do it.  And lest you think I'm being mean or judgmental, Monte introduced himself to me as an alcoholic, so that's his language and not mine.  I enjoyed his company and we had nice conversation.

On Sunday, I'm visiting my sister Nickki and her husband Dennis who live in Garner, NC, and we're going to a sports bar that will be carrying the Buffalo Bills game.  The Bills are blacked out in Western New York for the second home game in a row, because they didn't sell out, and that's a shame because they are technically the smallest market in the NFL (actually, Green Bay is the smallest, but the team is community owned so they fill the stadium every week regardless).  Buffalo is playing the 9-2 San Diego Chargers, and if the weather is shitty, it might be the Bills' only hope.  They're not stopping the run very well, and LaDanian Tomlinson is leading the league in rushing, or at least in the top three spots, I forget which.  It could get ugly early, and I don't want my reward for being somewhere else to beat the blackout to be watching my team get thumped.

Not much to report, other than tonight and tomorrow I'll be working with Mike McCarthy, the Comedy Barbarian, who I haven't worked with in 15 years since we did a college gig in Upstate New York at Alfred State College.  Mike had a reputation at the time for being a dirty act, and I got a phone call from the college a couple of weeks before asking me about that rumor.  I had already done my homework and got the inside scoop from a Boston comedy buddy (Mike's home base at the time) who told me Mike was indeed a pretty blue act, but I wasn't gonna throw the guy under the bus, so I pled ignorance and kept my mouth shut. I was happy that I was working with him, because I figured if I screwed up and did something that was over the line, they'd never remember it after Mike did his thing.  It was like a license to kill!  Mike has since moved to Florida, and we've communicated over the internet, but it'll be nice to work with him again.

O.K., I'm gonna iron a shirt and grab a nap, y'all be cool, now, y'hear?

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY