This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)

Not to over dramatize, but I woke up this morning feeling like a gunfighter who had to shoot 50 cowboys the night before.

I'm in Canton, NY, the home of SUNY Canton, and the first return engagement of the Dash For Dollars Comedy Game Show in my tenure as host.

When last I checked in, I was heading towards Warwick, Rhode Island and the Comedy Zone at the Showcase Cinemas. The drive from Rutland, Vermont wasn't very long, but it did take me through Boston. I think sometimes that directions provided by a GPS system or calculated by Mapquest, RandMcNally.com or some other service, are not the best directions because even though they calculate the directions as being the fastest or shortest routes, they don't take into account the rush hour traffic (or even general daytime congestion) that can occur in major metropolitan areas. As soon as I noticed that the GPS was sending me to Boston, I gritted my teeth, but kept on going because it was early afternoon and I figured I'd catch a break.

Well, as it turned out, I did catch a break and even though there was a slowdown or two, I wound up making it into Rhode Island with plenty of time to spare. I checked in to the hotel and didn't see many cars, but the hotel was full; that's because there was a college women's basketball tournament going on, and everyone had arrived on a single bus. And the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, "I'm in a hotel filled with female college basketball players, why didn't this shit ever happen when I was single?" Don't get me wrong, I love my wife, but her turnaround-jumper is for shit. Ha ha, just kidding, I love you honey, stop hitting me.

I was working at the Comedy Zone with fellow road dog Mutzie from New Orleans, Louisiana. Mutzie and I work a lot together, and I think that's part and parcel of the Comedy Zone's faith in us to deliver a great show. The room at the Showcase Cinemas was a new endeavor, and even though there had been comedy done in movie theaters before (Buffalo had the famous Como 8 comedy night, lovingly re-named the "Coma 8" by disenchanted Western New York comics for the less-than stellar turnouts and reactions from the sparse audiences), but this was a whole different animal. The Showcase Cinemas had literally turned one of their 16 screening rooms into a real comedy club, complete with tables down in the front, a great stage, beautiful sound and lighting, a full restaurant menu (not just popcorn, but they had that, too), and a liquor license! They really did the place up nice, and it was a joy to perform there. They had printed up really nice lobby cards, those big posters that you see in theaters that specialize in live theater, plays and stuff like that, and there in glorious color was my new headshot! After the weekend was over, the cards were going to be discarded in favor of the next week's performers, so Mutzie and I grabbed one each for a souvenir. It was really a great weekend, with plenty of folks coming in, many for the first time, and I think Mutzie and I made a good impression on them.

During the day on Saturday I did the road comic thing, getting up early to grab the complimentary continental breakfast and then doing laundry, and napping because I knew that Sunday morning I was going to need to beat some weather. A big snowstorm was coming, and I had one day to drive to my next game show date in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I got up early enough on Sunday to get coffee, jump in the van, and get out of town before the first snowflakes could hit the ground. I will compress the next 13 hours into as small a space as possible; I drove to Indiana, stopped for gas several times and also to use the bathroom, talked on the phone, listened to talk radio, and tried not to let the uninteresting terrain of Pennsylvania and Ohio hypnotize me into driving off of the road. When I reached the hotel in Fort Wayne, I was exhausted. Even though it's just driving in a van, it's pretty tough work, especially if you're sharing the road with truckers jacked up on coffee, energy drinks, truck stop amphetamines (caffeine pills, my ass) and deadlines with delivery incentives.

I got about 6 hours of sleep and woke up the next morning, not completely sure exactly where I was. Luckily, the Student Activities director at the college called my cell phone and I snapped back to current reality. My venue had been changed at the college, so I got up and bee-lined for the proposed area. There were some difficulties, as in, the cash booth that is the center piece of my game show didn't fit into the building I was assigned to do the show. I had been warned to expect this sort of thing and prepare in advance, so I used my vast improvisational skills to figure out how to do the show without it, and even though it was a small turnout, we had a great time, the students loved the show, and I got out of there with a feeling of job satisfaction that I had done the best job I could. In retrospect, it was good thing that I didn't have to load in the cash booth, because the standard rider on the college contract is that the school provides help to load the unit in. The single person who was assigned to me was a pregnant secretary. She was helpful, but that wasn't the "two helpers" I was expecting. Pre-natal volunteers rarely carry their own weight in such circumstances, as said weight is in the single digits.

After the show it was back east to Cleveland, Ohio, where I did a very exciting show at Cuyahoga Community College in the downtown area. The school was in the general vicinity of the Cleveland Improv comedy club, so I was somewhat familiar with the area. I caught a break in the morning as one of my pre-show duties is to visit a bank and replenish the cash that is necessary to put in the money booth, and broken into the correct increments. You can't just shove any amount of money you want in there, it has to be $500 and in the proper amount of bills. The hotel had a cash machine in their lobby, and after chatting with the folks at the desk, they told me that they were both willing and able to break the $20 bills that the ATM would provide into the bills that I would need. It saved me a trip, and I used the time savings to relax with the paper, some coffee, and a hot bowl of oatmeal (always working on my cholesterol, I am).
The real fun of the week was to happen the next day, in Middletown, Ohio, home of the Middletown campus of Miami of Ohio University. I got to the hotel just a little before 7 in the evening, in time to enjoy the manager's reception in the lobby, which garnered me free nachos. I put together a bowl with some nice hot cheese sauce (I somehow always undermine my efforts to work on my cholesterol) and retired to my room to enjoy movies on HBO and an early night's sleep. The next morning, I was up with the birds and ready to start my day.

I headed down to the breakfast area to put together a plate with some eggs, sausage, and a nice bowl of oatmeal. I grabbed some coffee and skim milk and set myself up at a table facing the wide-screen television in the breakfast room. I was enjoying my breakfast and the local newscast, when an older gentleman, probably in his 50's, sat down at the table next to me with his plate.

This gentleman had put together a huge amount of food, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and it was all chopped up together into a big mound. He was a portly type, with a clean flannel shirt, tucked into his jeans, and wearing a pair of wide suspenders. He had a bald head, but a big white beard that made me think of Santa Claus for some reason. He looked like a blue-collar type, and for some reason, I figured he was an electrician or something. The table he chose was parallel to mine, and he was facing the TV, and literally was no farther away from me than a foot. The tables in the breakfast area were quite close together.

After he put his plate down, he got up and changed the station on the TV, which immediately pissed me off. Shared television etiquette dictates that you can't just change the station without asking if anyone else was watching the program that was on (which I was), and also first-come, first-served comes into play as well. And to make matters worse? This son-of-a-bitch put on FOX NEWS. So now I am doubly pissed....he jumped the TV for his own purpose, fuck everyone else who was there first, and he's a right-wing conservative. I sat there and stewed in my own anger, because I never would have just assumed that I could switch off the local news and choose some left-leaning program that I would have liked, I would always have some sort of sense of decorum for those in the room that wouldn't enjoy such programming.

So I'm sitting there hating this contemptuous individual, and a lady in a sports jacket comes over and addresses him. "Sir, are you a hotel guest?"

And there's a pause. I know immediately that he's not a guest, and he just snuck in to cadge the free breakfast.

"I'm with (inaudible) up in room (inaudible)." He's sitting right next to me, I'm right there in the middle of this, and even though I know this guy's getting his comeuppance, I'm uncomfortable.

"Sir, the breakfast is a courtesy for our hotel guests. You can't help yourself AND YOU'VE BEEN TOLD THIS BEFORE." The son-of-a-bitch has done it before! I'm delighting in the embarrassment of the situation. I try not to smirk, finish my coffee and get the hell out of there.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and try to draw some parallel between people who watch Fox News and people who steal complimentary hotel breakfasts that they're not entitled to. But it's interesting, is it not, that this cat did what he did? He wandered in from off the street (and if he's done this before, he's a local resident), helped himself to some food he had no intention of paying for, commandeered the television set to his own liking, and sat there with no qualms.

It seems like a sense of entitlement to me. It seems like (at it's worst) THEFT. Conversion for personal gain. And this sense of entitlement, from a man who I assume because of his choice of Fox News, a conservative-leaning programmer, would rail against such things as the cost of this entitlement lays squarely on the backs of the people who PAY for lodging in the hotel. So much for individual achievement, huh? So much for the rejection of entitlements, Socialist ideas, the idea that everyone should be fed and cared for.

Coincidentally, there were some folks milling around in the breakfast area earlier, before Mr. Suspenders showed up, and they were speaking German, which I don't speak. But there is a German word, and you may have heard of it, known as Schadenfreude. Translated, this word means secretly delighting in the misfortune of others. I confess that I felt this as I made my way to the elevator, that this man who I don't like was found out to be a thief, a hypocrite, and was told off by the hotel staff. My show was fine, and there was an eight-hour drive home, and I whistled all the way.

I mentioned the story to my mother-in-law the next day, and she postulated that maybe the guy was homeless. Maybe he couldn't afford food. In truth, he was too clean and well groomed to make me think that he was indigent in any way, but that begs another question; why would a homeless guy be watching Fox News? The Right's whole shtick seems to be that if you're down on your luck, it's because you didn't work hard enough, and giving you a handout is hurting you because it will take away your impetus to work harder and do better for yourself.

It's hogwash, by the way. It assumes that everyone has equal access to the tools of success, and there's no such thing as bad luck. Tell it to someone who has a child with a catastrophic illness, a birth defect, a special need. Tell it to someone who just isn't mathematically inclined and gets enough B's on their high school transcript that they aren't eligible for an academic scholarship, but their family is also too well off to qualify for a needs-based scholarship. Tell it to someone who for a million different reasons, falls through the cracks and works as hard as they can, but still wind up with a bare-bones subsistence life.

Boy, wouldn't it be great if it were different? We could all afford our own eggs and sausage. We wouldn't worry about someone taking the toast off of our plate. "Why should I share my breakfast with that guy? I earned this breakfast. Tell him to get a job."

My breakfast was provided by the hotel, and the hotel room was paid for by the college I was performing at that day, as a part of my compensation. I worked for my breakfast. And here's the worst part of the story....if Mr. Suspenders was truly in need, truly hungry, homeless, down on his luck, his wife's in the hospital with breast cancer and her illness has drained their savings down to the last dime he had to spend on breakfast, if he had come up to me with any of those stories, I would have given him my breakfast. Regardless of his choice of television shows. I would have made up a plate for him, chopped up the sausage and eggs, put the gravy on, and sat with him outside in my van, heat blowing, while he ate his breakfast.

Because I love people. I hate to see people hurting. I hate to see them go without, to be down, to feel like no one's on their side. It's why I'm a Liberal. If I have ten dollars and you have nothing, then the truth is we both have five dollars and we're eating at Subway. And next week, maybe you'll have ten dollars and I'll be broke, but it won't matter because you'll honor our social compact and we'll be at Subway, having a sandwich and enjoying the feeling that says we're not alone today. It's why we live in cities, close to each other. It's why we have Neighborhood Watch (Socialist idea), neighborhood schools (Socialist idea), why we go to church together (Socialist, Socialist, Socialist) and donate to charities, and build playgrounds and let our children play together and why we work together. We are not alone. We don't rise and fall based on our own merits. We need each other.

Don't let anyone tell you different.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY