A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story
11/30/93, revised 12/8/10

Cold and crisp, the smell of Winter
the smell of wanting
ice crystals like
refracting diamonds

Darkened chimneys jut towards the sky
hungry fangs in the
purple twilight
thin wisps of soot rise

This is the night
cool and quiet;
most holy night

Virgin snow lay on cold, hard ground
ashes and soot serve to
spoil the down
smudge on a child's face

And then a horn,
a buses' brakes
all out of place

Walk in the snow
crunch crunch crunch
neon window
but the store's closed

We celebrate the birth of Christ
but the Prince of Peace
ain't there in no
outlet shopping mall

He is out here;
He is with us
crunch crunch crunch

Smoke rising, ham and beans cooking
no sirens tonight
Silent, holy night
crunch crunch crunch

Follow the star past the street light
walk in the desert
most holy night
a walk up a hill

Crown of thorns and an icy chill
cross on your back
and toys in the sack
crunch crunch crunch

Here, tonight, no room at the inn
navigate by stars
in a manger
on a bed of hay

My mother on a donkey's back
to Bethlehem
a miracle
that the Lord has made

Feet are weary
eyes in a glaze
and I see Him

Place a bill in a beggar's cup
and He is here
bring happiness to ever child
and He is here
tend to the weary, old and sick
and He is here
give all that you have of yourself
and He is here

Mission accomplished, I head home
soft smell of pine
no footprints but mine
my nose and cheeks glow

I walk in the snow

Crunch

crunch

crunch

It's Not Really All About Me

November 17, 2010

I'm on day 27 of a 31-day tour, and due to a cancellation, I've got the day off. I'm holed up in a hotel in Meridian, Mississippi, and just killing time.

One of the great things about the internet is that you become a time-killing machine. I looked up an old friend (who happens to be another comedian) and was looking at their website and noticed an interesting feature; they had a series of "favorites" listed, and I thought I should have that sort of list.

Now, the thing about "favorites" lists is that it's reflected glory; it's like saying "Here's the things that I think are cool," and if you agree, it will elevate my status in your eyes. However, just because the moon reflects the light of the sun and doesn't have any light of it's own, it's still pretty awesome. So for right now, just consider me your caffeine-infused moon, shining some reflected light and maybe we'll enjoy the evening.

Favorite Food: Well, let the fat jokes fly here....did I hear someone say "seconds?" In real life, I'm a meat and bread kind of guy....cold cuts are good all the time, for any meal. Capicolla, salami, turkey and roast beef are all good, depending on mood. I'm not a ham person, not for any religious reason, just not a fan. Bologna is good, but it has to be thick and fried.

Favorite Color: I like blue a lot, although black clothing works better on me. I like splashes of color, too...like a mob guy dressed in a black suit with a red carnation in the boutioneirre...perfect.

Favorite Musician: This isn't really my friend's next category, but the closest approximation. I would have to say Bruce Springsteen, and while I'm not completely in love with his 21st century output, there's still enough that I can stand behind, and his early work holds up against anything I've ever heard.

Favorite Old School Rap Video: Uhh....911 Is A Joke by Public Enemy? Can I phone a friend?

Favorite Book: I'm partial to George Pelicanos and Elmore Leonard, but none of their work stands out as a complete favorite. I'd have to say that my very favorite book is "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" as I've re-read it several times and recommend it to just about everyone.

Favorite Movie: Ghostbusters. Best movie ever made, bar none. Even better than "The Blues Brothers."

CD In The Car Right Now: I don't have a CD player in the van, but Sattelite Radio has been working out. Listening to a lot of punk rock, metal and then switching up to acoustic coffee house stuff for a change of pace.

OK, so there's a thumbnail of the stuff that I enjoy. I hope you enjoyed my list. I'm not sure who exactly would benefit from this information, but if you're a fan, I'm not going to question your motives.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY

I read the news today, oh boy

November 8, 2010

I'm in a hotel room. It's where I spend most of my time, if you were to draw up a pie chart, it would be the biggest or next biggest slice.

Hotel rooms have a variety of amenities, and some are better than others. There's always a TV, but no rhyme or reason to the number or variety of channels available from city to city. I only have a handful of channels I'll actually watch, and in the absence of those, I'll read.

I can get through an average newspaper in about 15 minutes; most of today's print journalism is "rip and read" stuff from the wire services. To beef up the content quotient, I'll grab the local independent newspaper that each big city seems to have, and is always free for the taking.

At their heart, they are all the same, although some have higher journalistic standards than others. Some are particularly targeted toward the college audience, some flesh it out to a decidedly liberal circle, and some make a nod towards the right-hand political spectrum, in an attempt to be all things to all people and sell some ads. That is, after all, the game for print journalism.

The weekly independent newspapers all seem to follow the same template and carry the same features. Again, some have higher journalistic standards. Today I was in Atlanta, and picked up the newspaper "Creative Loafing," I'm not sure, but I think this is a franchise publication that allows publishers in various cities to localize the content in order to have a decent consistency and still be relevant enough to each locale to sell those ads.

Examining this week's issue of CL starts out with a cover story on Hollywood making overtures towards Atlanta as a new mecca of film and TV production. The story itself doesn't start until page 20, but there's a photoshopped picture of the "Hollywood" sign that has been changed to read "ATL Wood," which will probably get some folks to pick the paper up out of curiosity.

Open the publication, and the first two pages are advertising; full page ads for Bud Light featuring an Atlanta Falcons logo (in the summer, it will turn back into a Braves logo), and an add pushing the Cirque Du Soleil appearance at Atlantic Station.

Turn the page and there's another full page ad for H&M (I'm guessing it's a clothing store) and then the table of contents, complete with "bullet" quotes from the articles, including one that features the word "fucking" in a large, red font.

After some more ads, there's the "Best Bets for the Week." I've never been sure if these are really the best bets for the week, or just the biggest names or the advertisers who got soaked for the most money. For instance, this week's best bets, in a big city like Atlanta, include DJ Shadow (never heard of him, and the photo that's printed is HUGE), Pinch n' Ouch theater staging "Lobby Hero" (never heard of the company or the play) and then something called Ninja Puppet Shenaniganza (never heard of it, but wish I'd thought of it). There are appearances by Mike Birbiglia and Amy Sedaris, and then there's the Decatur Wine Festival and the Chomp & Stomp Chili Cook-off. I'm willing to bet these are not really the best bets that Atlanta will have to offer this week.....it can't be.

There's a news story covering the elections, and a news compilation of blotter items featuring strange crime stories from around the ATL. There's a guy named Chuck Shepard that does a syndicated column called "News of the Weird," and I never understood how a guy could get paid for a column like that, because the stories write themselves.

As I flip the page, what is looking me right in the face? Chuck Shepard's News of the Weird column....I didn't plan that at all, but I think it illustrates my point how derivative these papers are.

There's some more news, and then an editorial by the Editor, and no shortage of block ads all over this thing. Either Atlanta is prospering or ads are dirt cheap in this magazine...regardless, there's a good balance of advertising and content...neither overwhelms the other.

There's a restaurant review. That's a racket....you go in to any restaurant you want, anonymously, and eat, and then write an article praising them or tearing them up. I've always wondered if there were reviews we never read because the food or service were great, but the place didn't buy an ad. Or better yet, the food and service were terrible, but they did buy an ad, and the review got re-written.....hmmmm.

Then there's the obligatory "Dining Guide." This is a grocery list of restaurants, grouped by specialty, and it's usually either a bonus for advertising elsewhere in the issue, or sold just as a listing as a cheaper way of getting the place's info in the magazine rather than a block ad.

There's an article about a dance troupe; it's a nice touch, but writing about dancing is like singing about painting. It does it's job, though, catering to the artsy-fartsy folk who like that sort of thing and donate money to public television so they can see it at home. The next item is a review of a Book Festival, again, published (I think) to give the publication an air of class. More on this later.

As the entertainment portion of paper begins to blossom, there is a movie review. Movie theaters are big advertisers, and this is part of the unspoken covenant; you buy ads in our mag, we will write reviews of the movies you're showing to try and get folks to come out and pay to see them. "Fair Game," the movie chronicling the Valerie Plame outing, and starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, gets three stars out of five; that's a bit of a weasel move because it's admitting that the film is mediocre, but still teeters on the favorable side of the midpoint, indicating that it's a movie worth seeing.

The heavy-duty music portion of the mag starts to kick in, with a huge feature story about a local (white) rapper named Yelawolf, and then there's some show previews for a bunch of club acts, as well as a grocery-list style ad for the local rock-metal-techno barn, featuring shows like Dimmu Borgir and Enslaved, and trumpeting upcoming shows from Marcy Playground, Atreyu and Over Kill (those guys are still touring? Of course they are....they're too far gone to stop now).

There's a page of record reviews, brought to you by some self-important weenies on the music staff, and again, in the spirit of log-rolling, each of the three reviews got a four out of five stars, and I guarantee you that any normal human would rate these albums at one star or less; music reviewers have a tendency to push an agenda (like what I like, see?).

The reviews are followed by the grocery listing of events; there's two ways to do this: either run a calendar that breaks out each day, or group events under style of music. I personally like the daily listing, but the genre grouping helps weed out the crap a little quicker. Just a note; the Atlanta listing didn't show any standup comedy venues, which has me a little worried about the genre, to be honest.

Now we're getting to the coup d' grace; the sexual advice column. I'm not sure if these columns are of any use, I've never had an STD and they always seem to deal with that. But at any rate, the column is the gatekeeper that lets you know you are about to enter the back pages of the publication, the dirty, dirty back pages known as the strip club ads, "massage" ads, and the ads for phone services where you can call escorts or just have someone talk dirty to you for 99 cents a minute. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the number of ads featuring transvestites; apparently that's big business right there.

Classified ads are always a serious money-maker for a publication, sometimes they're locally produced and sometimes they're syndicated national classified. Again, it's a cut-and-paste money-maker for the publication, so what do they care?

Last but not least, sometimes they'll have some "counter-culture" cartoon strips...the one that I see most often is "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow, but there are dozens out there. Even the ones that aren't very clever are still better than "Mallard Fillmore"...the guy that writes that is a dick, and he's probably old.

So I guess what I'm saying is that even though alternative press seems to be pretty derivative, mostly unoriginal and unnecessarily artsy to make up for the last five pages of smut that actually allow them to run a profit, they're still worth picking up and thumbing through, even if you don't have a venereal disease and think all new music sucks.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY

We Don't Talk Anymore (Cliff Richard)

Saturday, November 6, 2010

I was looking up something (namely, a blog dealing with my cat's death) and realized I haven't blogged in a long time. To be honest, twittering and updating my Facebook status have taken the place of blogging for me.

Sorry. I wish there was more.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY

Niggah, please.

For Valentine's Day, I offer you a little candy heart. A piece on language from Lenny Bruce, as portrayed by the actor Dustin Hoffman in the movie "Lenny." You can find this clip on YouTube if you are so inclined.

Are there any niggers here tonight? Can you turn on the house lights, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving for a second? And turn off the spot. Now what did he say? ''Are there any niggers here tonight?'' There's one nigger here. l see him back there working. Let's see. There's two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kike. And there's another kike.That's two kikes and three niggers. And there's a spic, right? Hm? There's another spic. Ooh, there's a wop. There's a Polack. And then, oh, a couple of greaseballs. There's three lace-curtain lrish Micks. (getting in the face of a large black man in the front row, who glares stoically) And there's one hip, thick, hunky, funky boogie. Boogie, boogie. Mm-mm. l got three kikes. Do l hear five kikes? l got five kikes. Do l hear six spics? Six spics. Do l hear seven niggers? l got seven niggers. Sold American! l'll pass with seven niggers, six spics, five Micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop. (to the black man in the front row) You almost punched me out, didn't ya? l was trying to make a point, that it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig. lf President Kennedy would just go on television and say ''l'd like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet.'' And if he'd just say ''nigger, nigger'' to every nigger he saw, ''Boogie, boogie, boogie, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger,'' till it didn't mean anything any more! Then you'd never be able to make a black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger in school.

Did Lenny get it right? In the 1950's, when segregation and Jim Crow laws were still prevalent, he probably did. However, today, we have experienced what Lenny talked about. The "N" word (so vile that we dare not speak it's name) has become workaday, commonplace, and no black kid comes home from school crying because someone called him a nigger. Because someone probably did, and it was most likely another black kid. And it doesn't mean anything in that context. Now if I, as a white man, used the word, I might get a few seconds grace as my intent was decoded, but for the most part, it is not allowed. And it shouldn't be allowed. The "N" word is a sword in the hands of a white person for which the black person has no equivalent. I'm Italian, but if a black man called me "wop," I would feel nothing.....that pejorative has it's roots in an immigrant situation of over 100 years ago. The same goes for "Dago," or any other slur. In fact, the worst thing you can call a white man of any extraction is "racist," which conjures a profile of low breeding and lack of education.

The NAACP (an anachronism in itself...blacks have rejected the label "colored" generations ago) held a funeral for the "N" word a few years ago, in an attempt to discontinue it's use by blacks. By and large, the funeral was a failure, because we continue to hear blacks desecrate the corpse in everyday conversation. Does that mean the "N" word is a ghost, risen from the dead? And if it is a ghost, is it fair to call it a spook?

Ouch.

And dropping the final "r" is no tonic, either. Proclaiming to someone "that's my niggah right there" is only a bastardized (white) attempt at using the word without saying it (or sayin' it), and it is false in it's conception and in it's usage. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, chocolate or otherwise.

One thing is for sure, the word is never going to go away. It is part and parcel of a situation that exists in American society, one that declares that what whites want from black people and what blacks want from white people are two different things; whites want blacks to assimilate (talk like us, dress like us, live like us) and blacks want whites to get out of the way (give us our own culture, our own style, our own slang, our own ways). It is uncomfortable when a white person uses black slang or adopts a black style, because it is seen as stealing (and it is). We chide these people as "wiggers" (white niggers) and their company is enjoyed by neither whites nor blacks because they are offensive on two fronts; to whites, they refuse to assimilate and to blacks they refuse to get out of the way. Eminem managed to cross the cultural barrier, (but only with Dre' holding his hand and helping him navigate the stormy waters) while Kid Rock did not, and instead became embraced by lower-class, disenfranchised white kids from the cornfields of Iowa (where such culture must be adopted because surely no reasonable substitute exists).

Richard Pryor famously visited Africa and was asked "Do you see any Niggers here?" (the unspoken answer being "no"), and the reason the answer was no was because they did not have the sense of wretchedness present in the black underclass of America (now largely joined by poor, uneducated whites in large numbers). I have no cure for this condition. Until we find a way to raise everyone up, in education, economic status, and human dignity, we will continue to hear the "N" word, and every funeral, mispronunciation, or hip, comic treatment won't do us a bit of good.