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