The Promised Land

The Promised Land                               8873  (2083)

Saturday, September 1, 2007-2:40 P.M.

Good afternoon from Newport News, Virginia, home of Cozzy's Comedy Club.  I'm seated in a cubicle at the NN Public Library, which among other things, provides us wireless interntet users a place to park our laptops.  I'm checking e-mail and droning away on MySpace, like any good road comic with fuck-all else to do on a Saturday afternoon.

I got home from Florida safely and made my way directly to bed, courtesy of the fact that I can't sleep on airplanes.  I tried, and I wore my hoodie to cover my eyes and I actually slept a little bit, but not enough to really feel refreshed.  I had a big cup of coffee with breakfast, and all that did was give me an underlying buzz, like a small snooze alarm in my head parked behind both ears.  Just enough to keep me rattling and away from blessed slumber.

I slept until my internal clock reminded me that I was hosting open mic at the Comix Cafe in less than an hour, and I jumped in the shower and got ready.  I managed to pull a groin muscle wrestling around with fellow comic Steve Burr in the Jokeboy's comedy condo, and it still hurts today, roughly a week later.  I had always heard about groin pulls in the sports world, mostly football players out on injury, but never knew they were so damaging.  I figured the injury would be proportionate to the size of your groin, but that's not the case....mine goes from just under my left nut to just below my left knee....and I guarantee you, I'm being taxed well into the next bracket on that one.

I appeared at the Comix Cafe the next night as well, as they are saving money on high-priced radio talent Tommy Mule in favor of more afordable talent such as myself.  I had a good time working with old friends Valarie Storm and Ross Bennett, who I have had the pleasure of working with before, and while Ross labored under his old stage name, Eddie Strange. 

I was supposed to work the weekend, but a headlining opportunity arose at Cozzy's Comedy Club here in Newport News.  I hadn't worked at Cozzy's in quite some time, and wanted to get back in.  Come to find out, I had been deleted from the roster due to my name appearing on the website of a competing club that was open in the area for a very short time.  Needless to say, I never worked at that club, and I was blackballed for no good reason, but I was offered as a replacement this week and accepted, so my exile must be over.  And that was funny to me, too, because the booker told me that the original headliner couldn't work the weekend because "his wife wouldn't let him."  Now, I'll be honest, my wife's gotten awfully spoiled this summer with me being home so much, but I don't know that I'd ever let her forbid me to work.  That would be cause for a guy to up and get his own place, let me tell you what.

So I rented a car, as my wife needed access to our vehicle this weekend, and I got a nice Kia Spectra to drive.  It's a peach, and good on gas, not that I need it so much this weekend.  Gas here in Virginia is running $2.44 a gallon, quite a change from the $2.89 a gallon I left in Rochester.  I drove all night Thursday to get through Washington D.C. (the worst traffic jam in America) before Friday morning, knowing full well that it's Labor Day Weekend and traffic was going to be double.  I got to Petersburg, Virginia, and parked at a rest area for a three-hour nap.  I didn't crack my windows at all for safety reasons and I didn't run the air conditioning to save on gas, and the morning sun roasted me like a rotisserie chicken.  Not fun.

I worked last night with Richmond comic Ray Bullock, a guy I'd never met before, but clicked immediately with a pre-show discussion of movies, television and literature.  He drove back home so we didn't get to pal around today, which would have been cool.  I'm out on lunch right now, checking e-mail and MySpace and if I don't go around and do some junking looking for books at thrift shops, I might just go back to the condo and rest.  But before I do, I'm gassing up and I'm planning on stopping at the comic book shop over by the club to see if they have any Teen Titans Go! back issues for my nephew William, so I'll have a nice afternoon before I have to start getting ready for two shows tonight.

Next week is a tour of North Carolina with a stop in West Virginia, and then a few weeks of gigs in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, closer to home.  It feels good to be getting back into my "road comic" routine.  Home is great, but when you work on the road, you want to be on the road.

God knows the desire of your heart, and trust in him for all things.

Peace,

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY