Anniversary

Anniversary                                                           982

Saturday, May 14, 2005-12:58 P.M.

Hello, from Reading, Pennsylvania.  Well, my Friday the 13th fears were for naught, except for a little heavy traffic getting out of Allentown and into Reading.  The worst, however, was finding that the Sheraton had discontinued it's exquisite buffet and turned the Market Street Cafe into an ala carte restaurant with a limited menu.  Poor me!  I skipped dinner in favor of a well needed shower, shave and manicure (did the pedicure this morning...every 11 days, whether I need it or not).  Managed to catch some chow at the local 24 hour supermarket whose name escapes me after the show.  Dinner was an Italian-style sub, which was actually good...normally, supermarkets insist on putting bologna on their Italian subs, which I don't understand...bologna is German, to my knowledge.  I also had an apple (keep the doctor away), a quart of milk, and two eclair-style snack pies (a sugary treat that I shouldn't indulge myself with, but what the Hell).  Total damage, $6.47.  Not bad for a meal on the road. 

I indulged in my late night repast while enjoying Bill Maher's show on HBO.  Al Franken was one of the guests, and he's becoming one of my favorite political commentators, even though I never cared for his comedy.  Suffice to say, he thinks the way I do and says a lot of things I agree with.  Bill Maher does that too, but I always liked his comedy.  Gore Vidal was on, as well as a young lady who was a field correspondent for ABC news whose name escapes me, and I thought that she was going to be the token conservative that the three big-league liberals would gang-rape, but that was not the case.  It was a pleasant, if one-sided, panel discussion.  I prefer fair fights, with righties given the opportunity to defend their positions.  It usually makes for good television when righties have to shake and shuffle to defend their positions, because they can't come right out and say "I want it that way because I'm greedy!"

Oh, and before I forget, the Friday the 13th curse also turned out to be a false alarm, because I received a wonderful phone call from Joe Galanis of the Laugh-Inn Comedy Club in Fort Meyers, Florida.  It seems that Spanky Brown, a very talented comic out of Memphis, Tennessee that I had the privilege of working with in Knoxville last year, tipped Joe off to an outstanding comic from Rochester, NY who ought to be working his room.  After a brief conversation, we have all but named a date for me to venture down to the southern section of Florida's Sun Coast.  A very public thank-you to Spanky Brown for going to bat for a brother.  It's that kind of generosity and good will in this business that makes me proud to be a comic, and not an actor or musician.  We have our days, some of us, but for the most part, the fraternity is strong.

Last things last...since beginning this little journal last February, I've received almost 1,000 hits.  Now, some of those are just me going on to post...the counter considers each new view as a hit, and I have no control over that.  But I'm really interested in getting that number up over 1,000 legitimate hits, so if you read this journal with any frequency and enjoy it, why not be a pal and send the link to folks in your address book who might enjoy it?  I'm trying to become an overnight success, even though I've been doing comedy for 17 years, so any help you could throw my way would be appreciated.

It actually will be 17 years sometime this month.  May, 1988 was the first time I ever went up on stage at a comedy club (the exact date escapes me, but I want to say it was the second Wednesday of the month).  I thought about that achievment this morning, and not that I was impressed by it, but I really thought about what it must be to love something that much to continue to do it for that long.  My friend, Jamie Lissow, has a quote on his website, and I believe on his bio, that says "We are what we continuously do," and I consider that to be true.

What do you continuously do?  Love?  Laugh?  Help others?  Or complain?

Think about it.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

 

I Ain't Superstitious

I Ain't Superstitious                                                                     976

Thursday, May 12, 2005-1:22 A.M. (Friday morning)

Good evening.  I write this on the eve of my trip to Reading, Pennsylvania to perform at David Stein's Comedy Outlet.  I'm excited to go, because it's one of my favorite comedy rooms to play.  The club is in a Sheraton Hotel, so the accomodations are excellent, and there's a buffet-style restaurant right in the hotel, so there's no need to go foraging into the town proper to find decent food.  Plus, I get the employee discount, and how can you beat that?

The bummer of it was that Pam and Harmony were going to come along with me on our first family comedy trip, but they're both still feeling punky due to the cold that we all caught at the same time, so I'm going it alone.  I have a rebooking already in November, so maybe that will be a better opportunity all around.

I love this room for a couple of different reasons.  First of all, they have great comedy audiences, low on the heckle factor, and smart enough to get everything you throw at them.  Second of all, the folks who run it are kind and friendly, and treat me like family when I come down.  Third, and far from last, the comics that work the room are a good compliment of New York and Philadelphia guys that I don't normally work with in the Midwest.

I got into the room, not the normal way with a videotape submission, but with a recommendation from L.A. comic Mark Eddie.  Mark is originally from Philadelphia, and I worked with him at Dr. Grins in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  I was doing Funny Business a favor and hosting the shows for the weekend in Grand Rapids (short money), but Mark, who was headlining, took a liking to me, put a word in to David Stein, and only two weeks later, I was on the phone with Kathleen at the Comedy Outlet picking up my first date.  I returned about six months later, and after connecting with her by e-mail, got not one but two weeks booked for 2005.  You can't beat that with a stick, my friend.  Most clubs rotate their features anywhere from eight months to a year...the old wisdom used to be a six-month rotation, but now that there are so many comics out on the road working at the feature level, you can't hardly squeeze them all in even with a yearly rotation.  I consider myself extremely blessed to be working as much as I do, in as many markets as I do, given the competition.

I bought a book through my favorite website, www.half.com, a subsidiary of e-bay, where you can buy books in varying conditions from previously enjoyed to brand new (without bidding!).  I collect books on the standup comic's art, and this one, The Complete Idiots's Guide To Comedy Writing by Jim Mendrinos, is a pretty good one.  It covers the gamut from line writing to scripts and screenplays for movies and TV.  I guess I was extra curious because Jim was one of the organizers of the recent standup comedian's strike in New York City.  It takes a lot of balls to stand up (no pun intended) in this business for better pay and working conditions, because again, there is so much competition that if you say "no" to a particular comedy booker or comedy club, that you won't work there for the money they pay, there are literally a hundred guys at your level waiting to fill that slot and work for that money.  Kudos, Jim, for positioning yourself as a commodity and putting club owners on notice that if they want quality, they'll have to pay for it.

There are articles archived regarding the comics' strike at www.nobodylikesme.com, a comedian's chatboard that I read and sometimes contribute to.  Check it out if you're interested.

I just realized that tomorrow is Friday the 13th.  I just got scared for no reason.  Please be careful tomorrow of black cats, ladders, mirrors, chain letters, pit bulls, cracks in the sidewalks, weapons of mass destruction, transvestites, people with open sores on their hands, people with thick glasses, the Vernal Equinox, Armenian barbers, pennies on the ground pointing "tails" up, internet spam, Xerox stock certificates (they could be copies!  THEY COULD!), roadside vegetable stands, Thesauruses with pages missing, crippled newsboys, police photographers, test pilots, anchormen, one-armed babysitters, guitar comics (except Mark Eddie...he's O.K.), bent paperclips, zoo animals, buskers (look it up), and archaeologistswho keep looking at their watch.  Be safe!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

I Want To Tell You

I Want To Tell You                                               964

Wednesday, May 11, 2005-5:22 P.M.

Well, the Spring pollen/allergy season has officially kicked my ass.  After taking cold remedy after cold remedy, the only relief has come through bedrest and liquids.  It's quite a balancing act for one such as myself, teetering on the brink of Type II diabetes, to decide whether or not the glass of orange juice is a good thing or a bad thing.  Alas, in all things, err on the side of caution, and drink plenty of good, clean water.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to receive a communication from Janet George, the GM at the Funny Bone in South Bend, Indiana.  I got a return date there after almost a two-year hiatus.  I'm happy to return, because it's an A room, and while I enjoy working the comedy rooms that I do, it's a lot of sideways work that really doesn't help me move up the ladder.

Also, the last time I was in South Bend, I inadvertently hurt the feelings of one of my good friends, and turned some of the folks in the club off by my words.  I thought I was helping, when in fact, my help wasn't solicited and I just came off as overbearing.  I have had a history of problems in this area, where I just can't leave well enough alone, and worse yet, butt in where I'm not needed or invited.  In my heart, I mean well, but also I think it's a situation where I feel like I have to "help" so people will like me.  It's a tendency that I've tried to work on, and with the help of a professional counselor, I've learned to cool my jets.

This booking, coupled with the other booking in Myrtle Beach, now leaves me with six weekends in 2005 with no work on the calendar.  Four of the weekends are holidays, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve.  I may or may not want to work those weeks, so I'm still pursuing dates, but not aggressively.  I may need the time at home to bond with my family and recharge my batteries, even at the expense of a week's pay.  Still, the old, driven way of thinking is make the money while I can, and sit back and rest when there's no other choice.  But that is the mantra of the old, bitter comics who have been in this business way longer than I have, and I think somewhere along the line, I need to break the chain.  I remember working with a comic last year who had another comic come in and fill in for him on the Friday, and I asked him why, and he said that he was going to his daughter's dance recital.  He missed too many of them while she was younger, and he regretted it.  I don't want to ever be in that situation.  It's hard enough to be away from my daughter (and wife) for four days a week, the holidays make it even more gut-wrenching.

Memorial Day is coming up, and even though it is a day set aside to remember our men and women of the armed services and the sacrifices they made, take advantage of the day off to connect with your family, the small set of people on this big planet who share your lineage, your blood, and hopefully, your heart.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Teach Your Children

Teach Your Children                                                   942

Tuesday, May 3, 2005-5:00 A.M.

Today wasn't bad in comedy terms...despite being tired and bedridden from a Summer cold/pollen-fueled allergy attack that kept me sneezing and runny-nosed all day, I got a  lot of comedy work done.

This June, as I have done for the last couple of years now, I'm routing some work down to Florida to see my parents.  They are recently divorced, but live only some 15 miles away from each other, so I'll get to see them both.  I had my core work in place, and picked up some one-night engagements on my off nights to make the trip down there really work.  Notably, the trip will also include my first dates in Alabama and Mississippi.  That leaves Louisiana as the only state in the South that I will have never performed in.  I still have a few days open, so I'm squeezing that I can pick something up...you never know.  I also picked up a week at a resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, so I can actually have a quasi-vacation at a nice hotel.  I'm pretty excited about that, because whenever I get a week-long engagement at a club, it's not anywhere near a beach and I wind up staying in my room all day.  Maybe I'll be inspired to get out and get some sun and enjoy the water, particularly if my wife and daughter can make the trip with me.

It's a badge of honor of sorts to play all across the country.  To my way of thinking, it really shows a committment to the standup comedy art; that I'm really "going for it" and putting together an act that really travels, and that my comedy transcends regional tastes and understandings.  This year, I have performed or am scheduled to perform in the following states and Canadian Provinces:

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, New York, Ontario, Canada, Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Connecticut, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, Delaware, Kentucky and West Virginia.  That's 25 states and one Canadian Province.  Not bad, huh?  Last year I worked Massachusetts, and I haven'tbeen able to get anything for them this year, which is unfortunate because it's one of my favorite states to visit.  Also, I'm blanked out on Missouri, but I'm confident that I'll fill in one of my open weeks with a date there before the year's done.

I will say this...my daughter is going to have a better grasp of geography than most children, especially if she and my wife start accompanying me on some of these road trips.  When I was young, I couldn't tell you what states were next to each other, now after almost five years of driving through them, I can tell you where they are and which routes connect them, depending on what city you're interested in visiting.

If you're interested, my road schedule is posted at Ralph Tetta up close!  (http://hometown.aol.com/yuksonme/myhomepage/profile.html) Also, there's a link at the bottom to the webpage of my good friend Steve Burr, who travels almost as much as I do.  Actually, he went to Iraq to entertain the troops for three weeks this year, so I'm one country down on him because he's done the U.S. and Canada too, so I have to scramble.  I wonder who's booking Mexico...hmmm.

The week before the big Myrtle Beach trip, Sunday, July 24th, Pam and I have decided to have another "Meet The Baby" picnic for our friends.  We did one last year when the baby was only a few months old, and we rented a lodge in Oatka Creek Park which was really nice; indoor restroom facilities, stove and refridgerator for food preparation, a nice big charcoal grill outside, and lots of picnic tables for sitting down and enjoying a beautiful day.  Not to mention the huge lawn just outside the lodge....just right for kids to run around and play.  This year, I'm hoping to organize some games and prizes, even if it's just bocce.  Due to my physical prowess (or lack of it), I probably won't schedule any contests that require running.  Perhaps horseshoes instead of softball.  We'll see.

I know it's corny to gush about your own children, but Harmony really is a bright one.  About three weeks ago, I was showing her how to press the button on my watch to activate the "Indiglo" feature.  Yesterday, she was sitting next to me, and started pressing on my watch!  She remembered!  Even I didn't remember that I showed her that, and three weeks later, she's trying to get  the watch to light up.  I was floored.  Today, Pam and her mother went to our neighborhood association meeting, and I stayed home and watched Harmony, and we sat on the floor and played with blocks and other toys in various rooms of the apartment, and as fascinated as she was with every ball, game, talking doll and construction set, I was more fascinated watching her work, experiment and chew on every one of them.  It's so great having her and Pamela in my life, because I feel like I have a reason to do the things I do, driving great distances and trying to make a name for myself.  It's not just to glorify myself, but to make a good life for my wife and child.

Just to wind things up, today is National Teacher's Day, so thank someone who works with children, because whether they are a teacher or not, children are learning from them just by watching and observing.  And watch what you do and say around children, because they pick it all up, and are more clever than you know!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

 

Mother

Mother                                                                                   932

Saturday, May 7, 2005-2:48 A.M. (Sunday Morning)

Good morning, and welcome.  I'm just back from Buffalo, New York, where I performed at the brand-spanking new Witz End Comedy Club on West Chippewa Street.  Long known for being home to the prostitution racket, Chippewa Street is now home to several "pretty people" bars and restaurants, and the only whores are the parking lot owners who charge you six bucks to let your car sit there all night.  Dammit, at least give me a carwash!

Anyhoo...Thursday's show was a damned debacle.  At one point, a staff member came up to me and Wisconsin's Kevin Bozeman, and asked us if we felt like doing the show.  It seems as though the Cinco De Mayo festivities had drawn all of Buffalo's party people downtown to every bar except ours.  We had four people, and after all of the laid-off-for-the-evening waitstaff and bartenders sat down in the showroom, we were up to 20 people.  I felt like Santa Ana himself had shot me in the chest.

Friday, the crowds were bigger...can you call them crowds?  We had 38 people for the first show, and about half that for the second show.  Shows were good, second show was great where I entirely decided to throw my act completely out of order and just do stream-of-consciousness ranting.  The group was very young, so I didn't want to bore them with my carefully crafted material about marriage, fatherhood, and the aches and pains of aging.  They seemed quite appreciative.

Tonight, the place actually looked like a comedy club, with two large groups for our two shows of the evening.  I felt like a real comic again, and not just a guy standing on an elevated surface in a bar, interrupting everyone's table conversations with my witty asides.

Friday morning, I took my car in to find out why it was vibrating so badly at speeds over 25 miles per hour.  Come to find out, my back shocks and struts were shot, and the back wheels were bouncing instead of rotating, causing an egg-like oval whobble and uneven tire wear.  My back driver's side tire was worn into a checkerboard pattern, with areas of tread next to areas with no tread, and so on and so forth.  The tire was so bad, the guys at Dunn Tire put it on display in their showroom next to the shock absorber demonstrator.  I'm going to try and get a picture of it and post it to this journal.  I am quite surprised that the tire didn't just explode on me during my trip to Ohio and Virginia, or Connecticut the week before, or on the trip to Buffalo and back on Thursday night.  I guess God must be working in my life and I just don't realize it.  Praise the Lord!

The bad news, of course, was all the work wound up running over $1000 dollars.  Thanks to an intervention from my mother-in-law, we were able to keep Team Tetta on the road and working.  Thanks, Mama Davis.  You're a lifesaver.

Tomorrow, or later today if you will, is Mother's Day, and I'm going to treat Harmony's Mom Pamela to a nice dinner out.  Won't you take today to tell your mother you love her and appreciate her?  It'll mean a lot to her.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

I Am A Child

I Am A Child                                         903

Wednesday, May 4, 2005-5:16 A.M.

Good Morning.  This past Sunday, after driving through hell, otherwise known as Washington, D.C., to get home to my family, Pamela, her mother Anne, Harmony, myself, and our friends Maria and Billy and their two kids Aiden and Sylvia went to the Strong Children's Museum to see the last day of the Clifford The Big Red Dog exhibit.  It was pretty cool, and it was nice having a day off of the road to get together and do some family stuff.  This parenting thing isn't coming off very natural for me, because I'm home so little, it's almost like a hobby....I get to it when there's time.  I almost tried to beg off and stay home and sleep, and I'm glad I didn't.

Harmony's fine, thanks for asking.  She's eating and excreting like normal again, and no involuntary protein spills (thank you, George Carlin).  It's nice to have a happy baby again.

Anyway, there was a Sesame Street exhibit at the Strong Kids Museum, and I had to pose for a picture on the steps of the main building set.  I always wondered what I would look like if I was on the show, and now I know.  And so do you.

Come and play, everything's A-OK....

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Heavy Water

Heavy Water-Jethro Tull "Rock Island" l.p.                        884  

Sunday, May 1, 2005-2:00 A.M. (Monday morning)

Good evening, and welcome.  I just finished up the week of comedy work by hosting a couple of shows at The Comix Cafe (www.comixcafe.com)  in Rochester, NY.  It's always a pleasure to work in front of the home town crowds, there's always a group of regulars that I haven't seen since I ran the room full time that will come up and chat after the show, and I like that.  It's like having an extended family, and being Italian, we do that anyway.

As I last reported, I was leaving early from Tuscarawas, Ohio to make it to Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Good thing I left early, because the traffic out of Washington, D.C. was hellacious, to say the least.  It literally took two hours to go 40 miles.  They ought to build a highway going parallel to route 95, because it's always a parking lot, and not a very efficient way to travel.  Coming out of Ohio, I stumbled across the Clark Gable birthplace in Cadiz, Ohio.  For some reason, I always thought he was British....live and learn.  I also saw one of the funniest signs in my life....it was unintentional, I'm sure, but there was construction going on, and there was a Port-A-Potty on the site, and I was going slow enough to read the sign on the side of the stall.  It said "Jones Jons," which I assume is the manufacturer's name, and then it said "Flushing, Ohio."  I laughed out loud in the car.

Anyway, the gig at the Colonial Tavern was interesting, to say the least....I followed a performance of "The Vagina Monologues," and was followed by a band called the Campfire Orchestra.  I didn't see the Vagina, but I saw the orchestra, and they were excellent.  I'm going to write a man's version of the show called "The Banana Monologues."  HA!

Anyway, Julie, the woman in charge at the Colonial, was the second most beautiful woman I've ever seen, my wife being the first (kiss kiss).  If Pam ever kicked me out, Julie's phone would ring in about 10 seconds.  I don't usually go for the redheads, but hubba hubba!

I did my headlining set, which was fun because I got to do a lot of material that I normally don't have time to get to, constrained by the feature spot of only 25-35 minutes.  Also, the small audience allowed me to be more conversational and talk to the audience rather than at them, which you're forced to do with a bigger crowd.

Saturday morning, I shipped out of Fredericksburg, starting out my journey by fueling up at a Wawa gas station where unleaded was going for $1.99 a gallon....I wanted to get a big gas can at Wal-mart and buy as much as I could carry in my trunk, but I thought better of turning my vehicle into a rolling bomb without a fuse.  So I just filled the tank and made my way back to Rochester in terrible rain that lasted all the way home.  What should have been a seven hour journey took almost ten, due to some bad accidents on I-95.  A three car pile-up caused by an elderly Asian man in a giant cadillac (probably due to hydroplaning and cruise control....when you have cruise control on and you hit water, the wheels slip and the cruise control jacks up your speed to compensate, and you go airborne) slowed things down to a standstill, and then less than ten miles after that, a dumptruck caught his wheel on a concrete construction divider, went into the air, and came down on the divider.  The wrecker that was called in to lift the dumptruck off the divider took up two lanes, so there's another delay, plus everyone had to crane their neck in to see what happened.

Saturday and Sunday, I hosted at the Cafe with Artie Fletcher (www.nycbadboy.com)  and Ward Anderson (www.wardanderson.net) and we had a great time.  Again, it's great being home.  This weekend, it's off to Buffalo, just down the New York State Thruway and before the 25% toll increase that's coming down, to play the new Wit's End Comedy Club in Buffalo.  But before all that, I have an appointment tomorrow to check out my hearing....I used to do security at heavy metal shows at a small rock club called the Penny Arcade, and my ears have been blown out since the 80's.  It's only been recently that it's been a problem, because I've started hearing people call my name that aren't calling it, and when I talk too fast, I mush-mouth and sound like Lou Ferrigno.  I don't know if my hearing is bad enough to require hearing aids, but if it is, I want to get that taken care of.  I've blown the speakers to my car stereo because I crank the music too loud, and that's not healthy.

Before I forget, I also saw a sign in Ohio for "Dr. Boom's Lightning Rods."  Now, I have never been in the market for a lightning rod, but I gotta figure if I was, Dr. Boom would be my guy.  He sounds like a real party animal, to say the least.  I picture a guy with acid and oil on his face, and frizzy hair like a Warner Bros. cartoon character after the powder went off in his hand.

O.K., off to bed now.  I treated myself to watching a tape of the new episode of "Family Guy" (back from the dead!  And it was awesome!) and the terrible "American Dad" (from the same creators...I don't get it) and now it's late and I have a lot of things to do tomorrow, so I'm off.  Guys, don't forget that next Sunday is Mother's Day, so start preparing now.

This week, address a health issue in your life that you've been putting off.  You'll feel better, especially if it's been nagging you in the back of your head.  And remember, if you don't care about yourself, who else will?

Your mother will.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY