Those Shoes

Those Shoes                                                  8808  (2018)

Saturday, August 25, 2007-2:10 A.M.

It feels pretty gay to tell a shoe-shopping story, but I'm gonna do it.

I'm in Ocala, Florida, home of Jokeboy's Comedy Club (www.jokeboys.com) and nestled snugly into the two bedroom comedian condo with comedy buddy Steve Burr, my partner in crime this week (www.steveburrcomedy.com).  Steve's been complaining that his MySpace page is far outgaining the hits on his regular site, so be a friend and look at his website today...it will cheer him up.

When last I wrote, I had one more show to do in Reading, PA at the Reading Comedy Outlet, and I'm happy to report that the show went fine, even though the crowd was overly happy to respond to every joke I attempted to tell with a little addition of their own.  I eagerly finished my set and turned the stage over to Auggie Cook (www.AuggieCook.com) and went back to my hotel room to pack.  I must have misjudged the time, though, because I started back to the club to try and sell some merchandise, and wound up walking through the crowd as they were leaving the club.  I still managed to move a few pieces, which was encouraging.  It's hard, I think, to enjoy a comedy show when others in the crowd are heckling and making the show a living nightmare for the comic.  It's like assholes who sit up near the projector at the movie theater and keep sticking their hand in front of the lens...you just want to slap the shit out of them.

I drove home in the evening fog, courtesy of a hot day and a cold night.  I wound up taking a strange detour to Allentown, PA, a little out of my way but a nicer, more well-lit road home.  I stopped by my brother's house and dropped off a comic book for my nephew, which he enjoys quite a bit.  It was 4:30 in the morning when I hit Syracuse, so I killed my headlights, rolled quietly up the driveway, and dumped the bag with the comic on my brother's enclosed front porch.  I called him the next day and he collected it along with themorning paper, and I was glad that it didn't just get trampled over as they left the house.

So what about the shoes?

Sunday was a sleep day and Monday was a packing and preparation day for my Tuesday morning flight to Florida.  I was rocking the new contact lenses and they were dried out as hell by the time I landed in Orlando.  I met Steve at the airport as we were lucky enough to coordinate our flights so that his plane from Los Angeles and my plane from Rochester landed within half an hour of each other.  We rented a car and started off north to Ocala.

Steve had very little sleep, having been in the air since 10 o'clock the night before, and I was pretty red-eyed with only about four hours of sleep under me, and we were heading up the 441 when Steve decided to pull a little trick on me.  We were stopped in four lanes of traffic at a light, and Steve honked the car horn and used his driver's controls to roll my window down.  Needless to say, I looked over and caught the glare of two Hispanic girls who were none too amused.  The driver, a hard-faced young lady who looked like she just got off shifts flipping mattresses at the EconoLodge, rolled her toothpick to one side of her mouth, bobbed her head and said "What do you want?"  Actually, she only said two of those words, connected by the word "chew."  Ah, you gotta love the Latinas.

I tried to scavenge as much dignity as I could in the situation, and I said "Sorry, my friend thought you were someone else" to which the girl replied "Yeah, well you look like Peter Pan" which I didn't completely understand.  Then she rolled her window up and back down and then said "You look like a big polar bear" which I guess is a crack at me being big and white, or maybe a comment on the salmon that I was eating that I had just flipped out of the river with my paw.  I sheepishly turned to Steve and said "You can roll my window up now" which made him laugh, because obviously I was too tired to realize that I could have done that anytime I wanted to.  Cute little prank, eh?

We stopped for some lunch and made the drive the rest of the way to Ocala, and stopped by the club to get some directions to the condo, and the keys.  We got the envelope with the keys and directions, but the directions might as well have been a recipe for blueberry muffins, because all they did was make us lost, sweaty and mad.  We finally figured out where we were supposed to be and got settled in, and after unpacking, showering and getting into clean clothes, we both definitely felt better.

O.K., so what about the shoes?

The next morning, we shipped out for Destin, Florida.  It was about a 5 1/2 hour trip, but we traveled up onto the panhandle of Florida, and gained an hour by virtue of passing into the Central Time Zone.  I was so happy to pick up that extra hour, though, because it meant I was able to have a nice nap.  We met early at the Sportsbook Grill and bar, right across the parking lot from the Best Western, and had a little dinner before the show.  Or, I should say, we had dinner before the little show.  The audience was cobbled together from a small amount of folks who had actually come out for the show, members of the restaurant's softball team who elected to stick around, and some folks that were in the bar that the manager decided to comp.  It wound up actually being a very good show, but it was clear that with shabby turnouts like this one, the venue isn't going to be doing comedy very long, and that's a shame, because it was a nice place with a good stage, lights and sound.

The next day, Steve and I hit the road good 'n' early, courtesy of a schedule from hell.  Steve was booked to open for Josh Blue from Last Comic Standing at the auditorium in Ocala for a 7:30 show, and we had the six hour journey, a missing hour courtesy of crossing the time zone, and the basic creature need of getting back home to shower, iron clothes and maybe eat something.  We hit the road early and drove into the sun, and before long, my left contact lens started drying out and basically did everything except shrivel up, jump out of my eye and stick to my cheek.  I drove into a hurricane-spawned severe thunderstorm with one camera on standby...you ever drive a car 80 miles per hour with one eye closed?  It's a treat, let me tell ya.

The thunderstorm was so severe, the radio station we were listening to actually cut away from the song they were playing to go to the Emergency Broadcasting System.  I'm 40 years old and I've never heard anything other than a test from them.  The sky darkened and it rained, but the worst of it was south of us, and I sped down route 10 as fast as possible, and once I hit 75 south, the skies were sunny and clear.

We got home, and everything went off without a hitch.  Our mc, Chase Holliday, opened the show and I guess he upset some of the seniors from the Villages retirement community that came out (in a big bus, no less) for the show.  He asked if they were drinking and they said yes, and he said "Go ahead, the AARP is paying for it" and even though it got him a round of boos, I didn't think it was that offensive.  But some tight-ass called in, and that's a shame, because he was definitely not deserved of such harsh criticism.

Great....how about the damn shoes, already?

Steve got back before I hit the stage, and we both turned in our sets, and did the basic after-show hand-shaking and product-hawking that has become the norm in our business.  Josh came over from the auditorium to take a look at the club, and we chatted for a few minutes.  He was nice enough, but didn't have much to say.  He was heading to Atlanta, and I'm sure after winning LCS, he's probably had his fill of fawning comics, comedy clubs and everyone else that wants to kiss his ass.

Friday was beat, except for the shoes (I'm getting to it, hold on, OK?).  Steve and I set out for radio, early, early in the morning.  We literally had to get up at 7 AM and drive to Gainesville, which is a full hour away.  We got to the Buzz 100.5 FM studios and did about 20 minutes on the Mojo and Leigh Scott morning show, and they were pleasant enough and the spot went well.  After getting back home, we unwound for a few hours (I slept, I don't know what Steve did), and then we went back out looking for lunch and to run some errands.

Well, suffice to say that we continued our lousy trend of getting lost on the winding streets of Ocala and their highways and state roads that all seem to run concurrent of each other and then split off like they were diagrammed by a dyslexic electician.  Steve wanted to get a pair of Converse sneakers, but he was looking for the old-style white ones, not the black Chuck Taylor ones that are fairly ubiquitous.  So we happened into Shoe Carnival, and while Steve was looking around, I headed back to a rack marked "Clearance" to see what they had.  I take a size 13, and they had a pair of Rockports, brown, and a nice looking pair of shoes, I might add.  They were originally $89.99, and I've never paid that much for a pair of shoes in my life, and I never will.  But they were marked down to $49.00, and that's a $40.00 savings.

Now, I'm generally a frugal man when it comes to such things.  I don't make a lot of money doing standup comedy, but I know a deal when I see one.  And I had to think hard on this purchase.  I flipped a coin, measured the weight in my mind, and finally picked them up and headed to the sales counter.  On the way, I noticed that one of the shoes was missing a lace.  A brown lace, for a brown shoe.

I met Adam, the store manager, and I said "Adam, I am interested in these shoes from your clearance rack, but I notice that one of 'em is missing a lace.  What can we do about this?"  I figured Adam would conjure up a pair of laces, hand me one, toss out the spare and chalk it up to the cost of doing business.  But I guess that must have been ruled out when the price was slashed so severely on June 1st, 2007, the date of the first clearance sticker on the box.

Adam looks at me, looks at the shoes, and with the soul of a used-car dealer says, "Listen here. I don't have any brown laces, but I will mark these down to $29.99 and you can get yourself a pair somewhere else, Wal*Mart or somewhere, deal?"  $30.89 later, your pal Ralphie is walking out of Shoe Carnival with some kickin' waterproof Rockports.  So now the fun begins.  We headed over to Wal*Mart, and no brown laces in stock.  We headed to the Paddock Mall, and hit every store that had shoes, but no brown laces.  The first shoe store actually had an "orphan" box of laces, and I asked the clerk to hold on to a pair that were flat, not round, but just a little shorter than the original laces.  After a day's walk through the mall, Steve had acquired a pair of white Converse All-Stars and I headed back to Shoe World or whatever the name of the store was to retrieve my brown laces.  The clerk, a strawberry-blonde-haired beauty, handed me the laces, and I said "What's the damage?" to which she replied "Take them.  They don't have a bar code so I wouldn't know what to charge you anyway."

I wore them on stage tonight, and they looked and felt great.  $90.00 Rockports for $30.00.  I doubt that even my lovely wife, Pammey "Discount" Davis, could have done a better job.  And she'll try running a coupon through a Coke machine if nobody's looking.  And that's the first and last shoe story that you'll ever get out of me, I promise!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

 

Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man                                                8747  (1957)

Saturday, August 18, 2007-11:15 A.M.

Boy, I will be one happy camper when summer is over.  Comedy in the summer BLOWS.

You can tell that I'm not that much into the summer as I've only been blogging once a week or so....that's a far cry from my original goal of "every day" which I quickly learned is a ridiculous goal.

So last Friday, Steve Natarelli and I ventured up into Niagara Falls, on the U.S. side, and did guest spots at Fatboy's Comedy Club, where I was actually supposed to be headlining for money all this past week.  The show drew exactly six people, and then some more folks trickled in, including a group of folks who were just going out to get a drink, not necessarily looking for comedy, but to commemorate the one year anniversary of their mother's passing.  Fun times, eh?  With six people in the audience, we decided to do some time for them anyway, because they made the trip out and nobody wanted to cancel.

"Evil Jim" from one of the Buffalo radio stations went on first after mc Bernie Rice rolled out ten minutes of the "I'm getting killed over here!" stock lines.  I don't know how much time or money he had invested in the club, but he wasn't making any of it back that night.  Jim turned in a short set, not very emotional but almost like in a "let's get this thing over with" sort of way.  I went up, same crowd, and did half an hour like I was taping a live album.  I started out doing some improv, but they really wanted to hear jokes, so I did my act, peppering it with conversation.  The thing I was sure they wouldn't buy was exactly what they wanted.  Live and learn, I guess.

Steve did his show and then closer James Middleton, who supposedly has been around forever but who I'd never heard of before, did his 20 minutes and got off, and then it was back to Rochester for Steve and myself.  It's important to get those comedy repetitions in or the muscles of the mind go soft.

Sunday I made the scene at Boulder Coffee Company and my wife got a little cranky that I was going, thinking that it should be a "family night."  Well, I've had so much time off this summer, *every* night is a family night!  I need to WORK!  I'm starting to feel like one of those humps in the movie "Cinderella Man" lined up at the docks and they only need nine guys, but there's 150 guys standing there.  Enough, already!

Anyway, the set was good enough....I found an old set list, circa 1995 or so, and I blew the dust off about half the bits and they still played.  I need to start investigating some of my old tapes and see if there are bits that I've forgotten or that have fallen into disuse and can be rejuvenated.  New material is great, but I've already done the work on a lot of stuff over the last 19 years, and I shouldn't let that work go to waste.

Tuesday, I hosted open mike at the Comix Cafe, and it was a "fuck or fight" crowd, complete with two young, drunk heckler chicks sitting in the front row, except for when they were running outside to smoke.  It was disruptive for them to keep getting up so many times during the show, but at least it was a small respite from the one girl's constant yelling out of "Hey-YO!" which the last I looked was an Ed McMahon catchprase from the old Johnny Carson show which went off the air when this bitch was six years old.  One of the open micers brought his buddies from work, and they basically talked through everyone's set and then left as soon as he was done.  There was absolutely no ettiquette to be found, and very exasperating to say the least.  The kid was all juiced that he had friends coming, but that's the worst thing you can do when you're new in the business...friends in the audience don't help, they make you nervous, and when you bomb (and all new guys bomb), you have to hear it from them at your day job/school/wherever you know these humps from.  Not a very good combination.

Wednesday, I was running errands all day and had settled down to get ready for some dinner, when the bell rang for Yours Truly as a call came in from the Comix Cafe.  Seems their regular host, WCMF's Tommy Mule was on vacation or something and couldn't make it, and how soon could I be there?  Showtime was 8:30, and it was five after eight, and I made it there with three minutes to spare.  It was nice to pick up the extra money, especially since my pay for running open mic Tuesdays had been cut.  Well, the Wednesday show was more of the same from Tuesday, almost like the Tuesday audience had trained the Wednesday people how to act, and even though we were working on the main stage, in a room with proper lighting, pre-show music and the like, they were still a little rowdy and inattentive, until I started shouting at them, which got them focused.  Matt Bergman, our feature this week, and Bob Jay, our headliner, both turned in admirable sets but the 140 folks in the room were a tough sell.

One of the funniest moments of the night was after the show, I was hanging out in the lounge with Matt as he was peddling his comedy CD to interested audience folks, and traffic at his table was so light, at one point, a guy playing billiards nearby set his beer glass down on Matt's table while he was shooting.  I guess since it looked like nobody was using the table that there was no harm done.  Matt laughed it off and I promised him that this would go in the blog, and here it is.  Ta Da!

Friday I returned to the road for my first actual sleepover gig in what seems like months (actually five weeks) and headed out to Reading, Pennsylvania, home of the Reading Comedy Outlet.  It's a five hour drive from Rochester, unless you count construction delays, and then it turns into six or more.  I ran into a hassle on the route 80 heading east and decided to four-wheel it on some back roads, and lucked myself into a route that dove-tailed right into 61 south, which heads right into Reading.  I had plenty of time to get ready for the 9 PM show, treating myself to a shave and a hot shower...my back insisted on reminding me that six hour drives are a young man's game, and I'm not in that age class anymore.  Hot water always seems to do the trick for me, though, and I'm suspicious that a lot of it might actually be in my mind.

We had a decent turnout for the show, and afterwards, headliner Auggie Cook and I compared notes; it seemed that the crowd was awfully fickle as to what they would respond to, and I noticed early that dirty material was not so much what they wanted, so I worked away from it, and actually still wound up doing some sexual material, but "walked around" the topic, which they appreciated.  I had applause breaks and silence in the same set!  It was very weird, to say the least.

One last note....gas here is $2.56!  I paid $2.69 when I got off of route 80 and thought I was the king, and then saw it at WaWa for 13 cents cheaper!  I'm tempted to go buy a very large gas can and fill'er up for the ride home back to Rochester, home of $2.94 unleaded and you have to be a wholesale club member to get THAT.

Alright.  One more show tonight and then it's back home for a couple of days before I return to Florida, and some decent-paying road work....plus, my second airline flight of the year....whoo-HOO!  Cramped seat, recycled air and luke-warm beverage service, HERE I COME!

Up The Irons!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Motorhead

Motorhead                 8663  (1863)

Friday, August 10, 2007-3:15 A.M.

"I should be tired/but all I am is wired/ haven't felt this good in an hour."

It's another week of summer under-employment as the Ralph Tetta North American comedy tour takes another brief hiatus.  I was originally supposed to perform in Niagara Falls, New York this weekend, but the club went dark for the summer due to lackluster crowds despite being the only game on the U.S. side of the border.  So I replaced it with a gig in Charleston, South Carolina, and then that gig imploded slightly, forcing me to cancel it, and now I have the weekend off.  I'm going to Niagara Falls tonight anyway, as I understand they are mounting one semi-pro show to give the open micers a place to work out, so I'm going to support, and will tread the boards if given the offer.  I'll be making the trek with Steve "The Nuclear Guy" Natarelli, who was kind enough to offer to pick me up on his way west.  It should be an interesting time as two "old guys" bust in on the young turks of Buffalo comedy looking to show them what-for.

Tuesday, I hosted the open mic at Comix Cafe in Rochester, and we had our usual selection of talent represented...I'm amazed sometimes at the 20-or-so comics who will show up every week or every other week or so, it's always a good mix.  We have ordained ministers, older folks, college kids, college-aged kids who never went, African immigrants, teachers, strippers, drug addicts and magicians who show up every week, vying for the cash prize or their part of the stage, their time to shine, to live their show-biz dreams.

And then there's Dr. Will.

Dr. Will is a guy who I'm pretty sure is not a real doctor, or if he is, there is more wrong with our health care system in the United States than the manner in which we pay for services.  He comes out most every week, signs up, and then almost always draws the last number, or near the last, and then sits on a bar stool near the door, like a bouncer ready to check I.D.'s, and once in a while, he disappears into the parking lot, possibly to get high as many a comic has joked before.

This week, we had ten comics and about the same number of patrons, and I wasn't going to green-light the festivities until I got word from the owner.  After all, he would have to supply the winner of the open mic contest a cash prize, and pay me for my services for the evening, a budget of about $75, on top of payroll for the club.  We got the O.K. to run with a truncated cash prize, $25 rather than $50, and we were off to the races.  I was happy; I had to cancel last week when we had 14 comics and six patrons, and I needed the money.  Some folks had gotten back to me that they felt I canceled because I "didn't feel" like doing a show, but there's nothing farther from the truth.  I do comedy for a living, not as a hobby, and I need the stage time as well as the income.  Believe me, summer has been shabby enough this year that I've had plenty of time to bond with my family, I need to balance it out with some work.

So we ran the open mic, and Dr. Will drew number ten out of ten....last.  While performer number nine was on stage, Will came over to me and asked to scratch his name off the list, but somewhere during number nine's set, Will decided he wanted back on.  Two weeks previous, he had scratched his name off the set list and did not perform.  I don't know his rhyme or reason, but I respect it regardless.

So Will goes up tenth, and goes over his time by almost double, but I let him go because we were on schedule, he was last, and he was doing what I thought was his closing bit.  But he was dragging it out, repeating a lot of things, and just generally trying to get milk out of a rock...it just wasn't happening.  I didn't care that he was last, Joel the bartender and I (the judges) had already determined the winner and Dr. Will was going to have to have a far superior set to win the money, and at the five-minute mark, he hadn't scored enough points to make it into the top three, if we had such a thing.

After the show was concluded, I announced the winner (not Will), and one of the comics on the show (who I had scored in the top three but not the winner), took me to the side and wanted to speak in private regarding my viewing and critiquing a tape he had made at another show.  When we returned to the lounge from the back showroom, Will had barracaded himself in the men's room (a one-seater) and was hammering on the fixtures and fighting Joel and Gary, one of the club's security guys who had stopped in because the club's softball team's game had gotten rained out.

I had to call 911, and by the time I explained the situation to the operator, Will was out of the bathroom and moving to the exit.  I called off the police, and thanked the operator for her time.  Then, someone came running in and yelled "They're fighting in the parking lot!"  Luckily, when I called the 911 center, I got the same operator I had just spoken to, and she dispatched officers to the scene.  Long story short (or is it too late for that?), four Brighton police officers responded and the cute blonde female officer went to question me while the three white male cops went to go talk to Will, the scary, bald-headed black man.  Suffice to say, another fledgling comedy career has been nipped in the bud as Will has been barred from the premises, and that's sad because just three weeks ago, Will was quizzing me as to what he had to do to get on stage in the main room on the weekend.  I'm pretty sure I told him that he had to have strong material that he did week after week, instead of going on stage and ranting, but I guess that sounded like "Lock yourself in the bathroom and bash on the fixtures, and then get in a fistfight in our parking lot."  A lot of people don't know this, but that's exactly how Brian Regan got started.  And then his brother Dennis Regan rode on his coattails, but that's another story.

Wednesday, Pammey's family had a mini-reunion, as folks from her mother's side of the family converged on Rochester, and we had a nice cookout.  It was a good day for it, clear with just a little wind, and we had a great time.  I worked the grill all day, and then had to leave around six o'clock to start heading east to Geneva, New York, for a one-night engagement at the Ramada Inn.  I brought a change of clothing, but it wasn't until I got in the car that I smelled how smokey I smelled, having stood in front of the grill all day sacrificing beef patties and white hots to the gods of lighter fluid.  I called ahead to the Ramada and asked about being able to use a shower in one of the meeting rooms (they always have the full bathroom in there), and they said they were sold out so they didn't know what they had available, but when I arrived, they let me into a guest room and I was able to shower up and dress and still had time to watch two episodes of SCRUBS (my favorite show these days).

The gig was fun, mostly older folks, about 90 of them, gathered together at the Ramada for some event called "Farm Days" (don't ask me) and they were very receptive.  The headliner, Tom Anzalone, who goes by the title "The Worst Musical Comedian Ever" had a great show, and it was good working with him again.

So now I'm basically dry-docked, except for tomorrow, until next week when it's my triumphant return to the Reading Comedy Outlet in Reading, Pennsylvania.  I haven't played there in a couple of years (and no clue why the hiatus in re-booking me) but the important thing is that I'm back and I'll enjoy the big, fluffy pillows at the Sheraton and all of the culture and nightlife that Reading offers (meaning our show, and then hang out in the lounge and watch young Hispanic people dancing to songs I've never heard of).

Peace be with you all!  Zweigle's White Hots rule!  (Google it if you don't know!)

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

More Than A Feeling

More Than A Feeling                  8602  (1802)

Monday, August 6, 2007-4:00 A.M.

I'm just getting settled down from a big comedy weekend, headlining at the House of Comedy in Niagara Falls, Canada, and then doing a low-key open mic here in Rochester that turned out to be "old home week."

I brought my old comedy buddy, Ray Salah, to the HOC as I got him the MC gig for the weekend.  I like the Canadian system of doing comedy, because they actually use a stronger comic to MC, and take the weakest guy on the bill and put him in the middle, so the show starts out strong, and then the guy in the middle can "ride the wave" and then the headliner can go knock it out of the park, rather than having a lesser experienced comic start the show.

It was a holiday weekend in Canada, something called "Civic Holiday" which I guess is sort of a summer holiday, but to be honest, it smacked of socialism.  Regardless, it made for a smaller audience on Friday, but you wouldn't know it based on the traffic at the Rainbow Bridge...the cars were lined up all the way to the casino on the American side, it was a mess.  Then at the club....40 people.  Saturday, the line at the border was nothing, and the club was packed, about 160 folks total.

We had a guest appearance by Wes Zaharuk, a Canadian comic who I toured with last year in Minnesota, and we had Graham Davidson on both shows.  I worked with Graham last time I was at the HOC, back in the old location at the AmeriCana hotel.  It was great having friendly faces on the bill and I had a couple of very good shows.  I wound up writing a new bit that I think I'm going to carry around for a while...I really like that genesis of writing...come up with a new bit on stage, then work it into the set, where it will slowly come to it's own place, and supplant some other joke which has run it's course.  It's a very subtle osmosis, too....I wish it were clearer, like if I had some O.J. or Lorena Bobbit jokes I could just throw my rope at.

Here's a tip for you, too...if you are going into Canada, don't pull into the cue directly behind the car that is being questioned by customs; wait your happy ass back behind the "stop" sign where it says.  Nothing makes you more suspicious looking than not knowing the drill.  I saw it happen Friday night, and then Saturday going into Canada, a car followed me right up to the booth and the lady working customs was hollering "Back up!  Back up!" in a voice that you could have trained a pit bull with.  And then it happened again coming back, some schmuck from New Jersey who didn't know the customs at customs rolled on up in the cue and they took his Rav4 apart in front of him. 

Another nifty benefit right now to working in Canada?  The Canadian dollar is almost at par with the U.S.  The exchange rate on Friday was .9315, and then on Saturday it slipped to .9313, so basically you're getting 93 cents on a dollar, and that ain't bad.  I didn't even change the value of my merchandise, and I sold a few pieces and that helped out with the gas.   Tony's got a good crew up there at the House of Comedy and it's a family thing; his father works in the kitchen (great Italian meatballs, pop) and his sister Layla is the bartender.  She is hotter than fish grease, if you know what I'm sayin' (and you KNOW what I'm sayin').  He stole some of the servers away from the old location at the AmeriCana Hotel, so it was nice seeing Kendra and some of the old familiar faces (plus some of the glassware was eerily familiar....hmmmm).

Sunday night, I dragged Ray out to Boulder Coffee Company for the open mic hosted by Matt Rohr.  This makes three comedy nights in a row for Ray, almost like a tour, and for a guy who doesn't really try to do much standup, keeping himself busy with acting and commercial work, it was necessary to shake the rust off.  Well, Ray got a special treat because his cousin David, who had been doing comedy longer than any of us, showed up with his 11-year-old son Jack.  Ray, Jack and David all did sets, and I think Jack did the best.  Ray worked out some new stuff, I convinced him to let himself go and just tap into the zen of comedy, speak from the heart and trust himself to be funny, rather than leaning on old material, and he did better than I did.  I did a few bits that were new and then worked out some improv stuff.  I did five bits from audience suggestions, one was great, one was so/so, and the other three I'd like to have back.  The important thing was that I stretched and tried to represent myself as a funny person rather than just trying to say some funny things.

Open mic buddy Travis Worth did a bit that genuinely made me laugh, and I was proud because traditionally, I was used to seeing him struggle.  But he's a good kid and I've always been pulling for him, and when he got the pop, I started an applause break from the back of the room and he totally deserved it.  I like the atmosphere at Boulder because it was very positive and supportive, and you don't see that much anymore at open mics anywhere.  Last week, we had to cancel the open mic at Comix Cafe because we had 13 comics and only six people to listen to them.  I don't like canceling because I need the money with all the summer fall-outs I've had to endure, but if the club isn't going to make any money, they frown on paying me AND handing out a cash prize.  I officially hate the summer.

So this week I've got a one-nighter and my weekend is open, but then it's clear sailing until Christmas.  The gig is in Geneva, New York.  Maybe I'll be lucky and there will be a convention (bada-BING!).

O.K., I'm done.  Have a nice day.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY