Jesus Was A Democrat (Everclear)

Saturday, October 25, 2008-12:30 A.M.

I'm home on a Friday night, and off, thank God. I'm worn out, under the weather, and tired.

I took off for another long road trip on Wednesday, October 15th, working a few comedy clubs and a couple of college gigs in an 8-day stretch with two days off. I took the van that is now my rolling office, loaded up with the Incredible Cash Cube, the star of the game show "Dash For Dollars," of which I am now the host.

I got the old war wagon up and running for the trip, heading to Jiffy Lube to get her an oil change (I literally had no idea when the oil had been changed last, so better safe than sorry) and then went to the gurus at Best Buy to have my satellite radio installed. My good buddy, Ricky K., managed to find a satellite radio unit, unopened, in the original bubble pack, at a thrift store down in Florida, and hooked me up like a fat rat. After the boys at Best Buy hooked that baby up, I was free to enjoy hundreds of channels while I drove, even though I only worked about four of them in regular rotation.

The trip to Blacksburg, Virginia, took a little longer than usual, what with me tooling around in a Ford E150 van and not having the same mobility as scooting around in a Toyota Camry. Still, the miles melted away as I enjoyed the news, talk and commentary on Air America, CNN, and other news outlets. I also indulged in a channel called Boneyard, which focuses on radio friendly 80's metal, which is what I grew up with.

Upon arriving in Blacksburg, I got myself washed up, shaved and ironed a shirt and made my way to Attitudes Bar, in the Holiday Inn. Outside, enjoying a smoke, was my old friend Paul Hooper, a talented comic out of Charlotte, North Carolina whom I toured with in the past. Paul had the reputation of being quite a hell raiser back in the day, but these days, he's rockin' the Red Bull but passing on the Jager, and his act hasn't suffered for it at all. He keeps the punchlines coming like a machine gun, unapologetic and non-stop, and he's a great act to watch. I also didn't suck, but Paul earned his headliner money that night.

The next day, I decided to drive right to Greensboro and check in to the hotel a day early. The hotel gave me the same rate the Comedy Zone was getting, and I set up shop, ironing shirts for the weekend, writing, and doing all of the stuff I do when I'm on the road. I tried to exercise, but the treadmill in the exercise room wasn't working, so I had to settle for walking around in the stadium neighborhood of Greensboro.

At the Comedy Zone, I shared the bill with local host and legend Chris Wiles and headliner James Sibley, both comics I had worked with before and enjoyed their company. I got booed the first show Saturday when I entreated the audience to use their democratic right to vote, and they got it mixed up and thought I was saying "vote Democratic," and they booed and hissed me. I told them to go fuck themselves; actually, I apologized like a little bitch and changed the subject. By the end of the weekend, I was saying whatever the hell I wanted to say and doing fine with it, and I don't know what it is about that room, but I like it and I keep going back.

Sunday, I checked out of the hotel late so I could watch "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO, and then headed to the laundromat up the road to wash my clothes. I enjoyed the Buffalo Bills game (vs. San Diego) on one of the Sirius stations (they merged with XM and I chose the package that would offer the NFL games) and the Bills won. It was great actually being able to catch the game even though I was miles away from any TV or radio station that would have carried that game. The soup Du jour was the Carolina Panthers, and they won, too, so "Go Cats!"

I drove to Fayetteville and literally missed the part of the game where Buffalo ran out the clock to seal the win, because I had to stop for gas. I managed to find it for $2.79, which was a lot better than in Fayetteville proper, where gas prices spiked to over three bucks. The grand champion of gas this week was in Virginia, where I saw a station offering it for $2.59 after I had just filled up at $2.69. At least the gas is going down, and I can't decide if that's because demand has gone down, or the oil companies realize that no one can afford it anymore.

Fayetteville was fun, but I miss the old mc, Steve. Steve took his own life a while ago, and I miss not only his dry wit, but the easy, mellow way that he warmed up the crowd. The new guy (I forget his name) comes right out of the box bashing Republicans, which is probably not a smart thing to do in a town populated predominately by military folk, their families, and folks who give them aid and comfort. Somehow, I did better in Fayetteville on Sunday than I did in Greensboro on Friday, which has my brain in a twist.

Monday I headed back west across North Carolina to the Charlotte suburb of Belmont, home of Belmont Abbey College and Starz Tavern, home of the late Belmont Comedy Zone. I checked in to the Hampton Inn, my new favorite hotel (they put us up at one in Fayetteville, as well), got cleaned up and made my way to the school to do the "teaser," a cafeteria event where I threw dollar bills and t-shirts into the audience and got them hyped for the evening show.

The show was great, with a full room and lots of folks who were hot to compete and win the money. After the show, I made my way back to the Hampton Inn and completely unraveled. I do a lot of what I call "running, jumping and dancing" in the show, the kind of thing I would do in the old Joey and Maria's Italian Comedy Wedding Shows I used to do, to get the crowd fired up. The downside is that the next day, my legs feel like the legs of an almost 42-year-old man who's been running around for an hour and a half.

I squeezed them for the late checkout and headed back across the state eastward to Henderson, North Carolina. It was a day off, so I dragged my feet, and somewhere between Charlotte and Greensboro, I heard a weird noise coming from the rear passenger side of the van, and started losing speed. Sure as shit, the tire was coming apart at the seams. And not just going flat, but coming apart like you see tractor trailer tires eating it as they speed down the road.

Luckily, no one was near me, so I headed off the ramp and got up onto the shoulder, and started making phone calls. Triple A was my first call, and they got someone out very quickly. Then I called the office to let them know what was going on, then checked in with my wife. I was carrying a full-sized spare, but had no jack to lift the van, and I probably wouldn't have tried it anyway, except in an emergency. The tow truck driver showed up with one of those heavy-duty floor jacks, and got the tire changed quickly and with little problem. The funny thing was that another car had experience some trouble as I was pulling off to the right, he was pulling off to the left with smoke billowing out from under his hood. The police and fire department came and got him squared away, and I didn't even see them move his car until just after my flat was changed.

The luck kept coming. The tow truck driver mentioned to me that there was a tire place right off the exit I had left the expressway on, so I motored on up and bought a new spare. I left them the rim with the shredded remains of the tire, and went to lunch and found a bank to get some cash. When I arrived back, the work was done, I settled up and headed on my way.

I got into Henderson and didn't have a specific hotel to check into, the college was supplying me with a lodging stipend. I decided to dig into my own pocket and stay somewhere nice, and there was a Hampton Inn within just a few miles of the school, Vance-Granville Community College. I got settled in, and went to Wal-Mart to get a hair cut. I had to wait about 40 minutes, but it felt good to just sit in a chair and not have to talk, drive or do anything. I had a mop of hair on my head that needed serious attention, and at Belmont Abbey, I had blow-dried it instead of my usual mousse-and-comb-back, and I felt like I looked like a game show host, but a parody of one. It was just too much hair.

The next morning, I checked out of the hotel and headed to VGCC. There was construction on the I-85, I got turned around, and wound up arriving 25 minutes late for my 10:00 A.M. check-in. The school is so new, my GPS doesn't even know it's there, and that was a problem. Plus, when I called, the person at the switchboard decided that County House Road and Community House Road sounded good enough that she could just give me either and I'd be fine. The late arrival didn't affect me as I still had 90 minutes to set up for the show. I worked quickly, setting up the props, backdrop, cash cube, and putting duct-tape lines on the floor that I would use during the games.

It was a great show with great competitors, and I had to introduce a tie-breaker game about three times during the course of the show. The winner was a young lady who managed to pull not just the $100 bill out of the cash cube, but one of the $50's. She wound up getting $179!

After the show, I was covered in sweat. The van was parked by a back loading dock so I did a quick change of clothes and used some new load tie-downs to secure the cube in the van. I hit the road around 2:30, and rolled into Rochester just before 1 A.M. I've got a few days off to get myself back together, and leave Tuesday for a swing through Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. I still have quite a few days off, so I'll probably visit my mother in Florida. I'll be home for my birthday, and then have a cluster of dates the week before Thanksgiving in Upstate New York, and then Thanksgiving week, I'll be in Toronto. It's a new ballgame now, juggling club dates with college dates and still trying to get home every once in a while. Today, Harmony had a school play and Pam and I went out and got a little digital video camera to catch the event on film. I'm glad I didn't miss it, but I was tired as hell this morning and the constant non-stop go has weakened some of my defenses to the common cold and such. I'm achy and listless, and sleeping an awful lot. I have a lot of work to do around the house, as well as still having to come up with some plan to retrieve my car from Grand Rapids, Michigan where it's languishing in a parking lot. I'd like to have it back before Thanksgiving week because there's no way I'm taking the van into Canada; it's not registered to me, there is a large piece of not-readily-identifiable hardware strapped down in the back, the whole thing just sounds like a personalized invitation to a battery of body cavity searches.

Not without dinner and a movie, you don't.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY