All Apologies

All Apologies                            6407  (2467)

Monday, January 8, 2007-12:01 A.M.

Wow, where does the time go?

Reporting after my three-day weekend and a jaunt through eastern Ohio and eastern Pennsylvania, I am positively exhausted.

Physically, I feel fine, but mentally, I've been through so much drama I've considered renaming my balls Damon and Pythias.

I left at a decent time on Thursday to get to my gig in Tuscarawas (actually, Uhrichsville), Ohio.  It was an 8 PM gig, and I wound up getting there in time to shower, shave, and then enjoy a nice meal with headliner Carol Pennington (of Hysterical Management).  The crowd was small, and I found out that we were the last show the club was going to be presenting for a while, and I considered that unfortunate, because I'd played there twice before and the room had always been packed.  I still had a good show, but the showroom was so cold, I wore my winter coat onstage.

The next morning, gripped by a bout of insomnia, I logged onto the internet on my laptop and got an instant message from Annette Lorenzo, a comic friend and student of mine.  She was basically looking for work in February.

Well, she currently has an outstanding problem with another comic friend of mine, Mike Dambra.  I replied that I thought she should make things right before I would consider taking her on the road, and she expressed her feelings that she was guilty of no wrongdoings and didn't need to apologize, and that I should call the other comic that was on the bill the night of the alleged wrongdoings.  I said that I would, and logged off the internet and went back to sleep.

A few hours later, I'm on the road, and Mike Dambra calls me and tells me that he just got a threatening e-mail from Annette's boyfriend, saying that he was going to boycott all of Mike's shows in North America, sic lawyers on him, and other such threats.  Out of the gate, the first thing the boyfriend did was call Mike a racist (Mike is white and the boyfriend is not).

Well, I'm in the car for the next six hours, so I can't read the e-mail, which Mike wasted no time in forwarding to me, but he's reading the thing to me word-for-word, which made for an interesting day.  The next six hours became a constantupdating of this communication, and talking to my mother about my dad, who is experiencing some mild dementia, as well as the possible recurrence of lung cancer, which he was operated on for a few years ago.  I also contacted Danny Brown, the comic that Annette asked me to speak with, and he, too, backed up Mike Dambra's story.  So much for the only other material witness, Annette.

So I roll into Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania around 7:00 P.M. for a 9:00 P.M. show after getting more lost than I can ever remember being in a town I've been to so many times before.  I grabbed a hot shower, got into my show clothes and performed with mc Larry DeFelice (great impressionist and shortest guy I've ever met in my life that wasn't actually a midget) and Joe Moffa (who I'd been scheduled to work with several times in the past, but had always wound up working with someone else, instead).  Both comics were great guys and a lot of fun to hang around with.  I had been interviewed for a local alternative-type newspaper called the Electric City/Diamond City Weekly.  I got a third of a page using my photo from my MySpace account and a nice write-up that only got one thing wrong (they called me biracial instead of my wife...no big deal, as far as I'm concerned).

After the show, I used the wireless internet at the Best Western hotel adjoining the club (just perched myself in the lobby and hung out) and by this time, Mike had drafted a response to the original e-mail and posted both the original and the response on his myspace blog.  For interesting reading, check it out at blog.myspace.picklesplace and prepare to read about 60 or so responses to the blog.  I mocked Mike because he always gave me a hard time about writing a blog, because in the past I've mentioned his name, and casual readers who don't know that he's one of my best friends in comedy or otherwise take my comments to mean that I'm somehow mad at him, and now here he is, writing a blog, and he's got more comments for one entry than I get in thirty.

Saturday, I woke up early, around 5 A.M.....my room was hotter than the employee cafeteria at a crematorium, so I got up and walked across a vacant lot to a McDonald's, bought a paper and some breakfast and tried to lull myself back to sleep.  I wound up getting up around 3:30 in the afternoon, which was good, because I was going to attempt to drive the 5 hours home after the second show, so it was to my advantage to sleep in to "set my clock" forward a few hours.

I ate lunch at a pizzaria called Mimino's that I had eaten at before...it's a couple of blocks away from the club in a Main Street Square sort of area, with coffee shops, newsstands and diners.  They make a great submarine (which they call a hero), but they always get a little happy with the Italian dressing and you wind up with a paper plate full of soggy lettuce and onions that slid off your sandwich.  They don't have a website, unless you count the one the spiders built under the booth near the bathrooms.  Bada bing!

Our first show was jammed, and I utterly killed, and I'm not one to say that; I prefer others to mention it, but they were just "my type of crowd."  The show was good all the way around, and the attendance was due to the "Anniversary special" the club was running, basically half price admission.  Still, it paid off because even the second show was strong, and the crowd was a lot younger than they were used to getting, and I told them they should consider a college I.D. discount or some sort of late show special to encourage attendance.  I'm always like that, switching hats and offering clubs advice from my deep managerial experience.

I made the trip home without incident, rolling in at 6:30 in the morning, and finally wound down and hit the rack around 8.  I didn't have any plans today except for one; hit the mall and pick up a pair of those Stephon Marbury $15 sneakers I'd been reading about.  Well, long story short, I got them today, and they are definitely a value.  They are well made, look good, and they are comfortable.  Congratulations to Stephon Marbury and a big thanks to Steve and Barry's for carrying this fine product.

My only other business of the day was to send Annette Lorenzo an e-mail expressing that I'd spoken to Danny Brown and that he backed up the original telling of the story I'd heard from Mike Dambra, only for Annette to call him a liar and impeach his credibility...so much for that, I guess.  I decided to recuse myself and investigate the matter no longer, but I'm not happy that the incident is now like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.  Really, all she needs to do is apologize, but she's maintaining that there's nothing to apologize for, so it's an agreement to disagree.  What else can be done?  Nothing, I guess.

I leave with Mike Dambra Tuesday for Terre Haute, Indiana, the first date on a twelve day tour.  I promise you, my loyal readers, that I will not steal drinks, put shot glasses in my purse, tell the club owners to go fuck their mothers, or put my feet on the bars and tell the bartenders what sexy fucking feet I have.  I also promise not to get booed, go over my time, and scream at the other comics on the bill because I can't find the weed I stashed in my purse.

Have a wonderful week, I'll check in as the "Sturm Und Drang" tour with Mike Dambra rockets across the midwest, with stops in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY