Stranglehold

Stranglehold                                      2009

Sunday, October 15, 2005-11:36 A.M.

Good morning.  Damn, I hate time off.  I don't mind a few days between gigs, but having a whole week off is making me feel like crap.

I've been sleeping more than usual, and despite a mad rush of housecleaning that Pamela and I got done yesterday, I'm hard pressed to list any achievments this week.

I had a plan to send out a bunch of DVD's to various booking agencies, and follow up on the ones I have out there already, but that idea went to hell.  It's cold and I'm depressed and all I want to do is sleep.  I even nixed the idea of heading out to the club this weekend to see D.C. Malone and Dave Ing...Annette Lorenzo is hosting and she's one of my students, so I wanted to throw her the support, but I just couldn't get out of the house.

I have a sleep apnea study that I have to do on Tuesday...that should be fun.  They're going to hook me up to sensors and see if I stop breathing when I sleep...I already know I do, because I fell asleep in a chair a few months ago, and woke myself up when I stopped getting air.  Sleep apnea is common, what happens is the soft tissue at the back of the throat collapses during sleep and cuts off the windpipe...the sleeper stops breathing until the body goes into suffocation mode and wakes the sleeper up, usually not enough to be fully awake, but enough to roll over or change positions, then back to sleep, and the cycle starts again.  The result is you sleep all night, but wake up groggy, and that's definitely what I've been doing.

I've been up for the last couple of hours, just listlessly trolling the internet, so I'm going back to sleep until the Bills kick off at 4:00.   They're playing the Jets, so maybe they'll win one today and I'll get out of my depression for a little while.  I sure hope so.

Blessings and tidings,

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Great White North

Great White North                                                2001

Saturday, October 15, 2005-1:19 A.M.

Good evening from the relatively warm but still furnace-less sanctuary of Pamela, Harmony and Ralph Tetta...God, I haven't had a Friday off in so long, I literally didn't know what to do, so I slept.  I woke up in time to watch "I, Robot" on HBO, and while it wasn't the greatest film I ever saw, it was pretty good.  When you pay for cable television, it's a good feeling watching a movie or two and figuring in the theater ticket or at least the Blockbuster rental fee on every movie you see, and hoping that it laps the monthly Time-Warner bill.

We had a few different heating & cooling places over today and got some estimates, and our landlord (my wife's aunt) is going to make a decision on who to go with, and we'll have heat before the snow starts flying.  I'm not so much concerned about Pam or myself, we can cope, but it's little Harmony that worries me.  She's a sturdy little girl, but she also has the bad habit of pulling her socks off and kicking off her covers (just like Papa), and I don't want her getting sick from being cold all night.  I could just be overly concerned, but when it's your only child, I don't think you can be too concerned.

Pamela the coupon queen set me up the other day for a trip to the grocery store, where I purchased 13 boxes of "Hot Pockets" brand sandwiches.  Now, the other night, I went on a rant because I hate all of the food she brings into the house when she shops....Pam's a vegetarian (who still eats fish and seafood), and she's raising Harmony to do the same.  I am allowed to eat whatever I want, but the compromise was always that I just respected her feelings and didn't bring meat into the house.  Fair is fair, and I lived with those rules for 11 years.  The other night, though, I snapped and bitched and just generally made a fuss, so Pam sent me off with coupons and I picked up the aforementioned Hot Pockets, in all their meaty glory.  I have to say that I've been quite content, food wise, these past few days, and what with being unemployed, I've needed all the contentment I could get.  I know on it's face it sounds quite pathetic, but I've gotten to the point where beef jerky and a can of Pringles is like a steak and baked potato to me.  I will definitely recommend the meatball and mozzarella pockets as being my favorite kind so far.

So, with Hot Pockets in hand, I did what every out-of-work comedian does...I trolled the internet for seven hours.  And I came across a forum that is interesting reading, to say the least.

The site is www.torontocomedy.com, and it is a discussion formum of all things comedy, originating out of Toronto, Canada.  There is a good amount of infighting, disagreement, toxic alienation, in-jokes, and some good advice, but for the most part, it bleeds with the bile that is the current state of Canadian comedy.

I started out doing comedy at Yuk Yuk's in Rochester, NY, which was the end of the Canadian tour.  Comics would work their way through Toronto, into Niagara Falls, down to Buffalo and then on to Rochester.  Buffalo's Yuk Yuk's became the Comedy Trap, and Rochester Yuk Yuk's merged with the Funny Bone to become Hiccup's, and all of those clubs are closed now.  Yuk Yuk's is the major comedy club chain in Canada, and has been for the last 25 years or so, I have to guess, and probably more.  Comedians like Jim Carrey and Howie Mandel are the bigger names that you would recognize who got their start with Yuk Yuk's.

Yuk Yuk's, to hear the comics who work with them, is run like a machine.  They are the champs at making money, providing entertainment for corporate events, running highly successful clubs, and working in other endeavors in the comedy and entertainment field, including retail, that make them hard to beat in Canada.

However, lately there has been unrest among the men and women who perform for Yuk Yuk's.  In an attempt to starve out other competing clubs who open in markets against Yuk Yuk's, they've forced their comics to sign non-compete contracts and roster agreements that offer no real work or protection, but prevent the acts from working other rooms.

Now, I'm no mathematician, but if a club or management company asked me to sign such an agreement and didn't offer at least 45 weeks of work a year, I'd be hard-pressed to go along with it.  How could you?  You'd work for only one employer, and for the number of weeks they decided they could use you, or face getting blackballed from the major employer in your whole country.  That's Country, with a capital "C."  That's a far cry from not working a particular region in the States because you don't get along with a particular booking agent....I'm a pretty good talent with NO name recognition or TV credits, and the only week I've had off this year is THIS one, and that's because I chose to take it off (financial reasons included). 

I feel terrible for my Canadian brothers and sisters who are laboring under such horrible conditions...the handful that can actually make a living are still in an unenviable situation as they can be cut off or cut loose at any moment with no recourse.  Loyalty that only goes one way isn't loyalty....it's fear.

When I started out in comedy, I was enthralled by the quality of the comedians that Yuk Yuk's sent through Rochester...my favorites being Wayne Flemming, Norm MacDonald, Kenny Robinson, Ron Vaudry, Ronnie Edwards, Wayne Turmel, Gary David, Glenn Foster, Jeremy Hotz, Lawrence Morgenstern, and the list goes on.  The rap on Yuk's at the time was that it was a mecca of comedy creativity with a no-holds-barred, anything goes mentality, and it showed in the performance of these Canadian comics who entertained here week after week.  If the situation has truly turned sour, that Yuk Yuk's is truly treating it's comics as an expendable commodity, then that is a sickening loss in the field I have chosen.

Maybe I'm too liberal, too union, or too Christian to see people being mistreated, cheated out of making a living, having their freedom of speech stifled and being bullied into signing agreements against their best interests, but that's just the way I see it.

Not to be trite or cliched, but it's certainly no laughing matter.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Southern Man

Southern Man                                                  1975

Thursday, October 14, 2005-3:36 A.M.

It's cold and flu season, ain't it.....

Today, Pamela and I slept in like we had a gas leak in the house, which is funny, because our furnace is busted, and there's no gas comin' in.  We got that intestinal flu bug that's going around, and I shook it off pretty quick, but Pamela went into a coma.  Harmony's doing well, despite constant contact with two carriers.

I decided today was the day to cement shut the holes in our attic that the squirrels chewed open.  I had purchased the supplies the other day and hiked them up to the attic, and today I went into action.  I mixed the mortar, put the screen in place and started plastering away.

Except the hole was down in the eaves of the attic, and even laying on the floor on my stomach, I really couldn't reach the hole, so I had to make do with a long plank, lowering gobs of mortar down toward the hole.

I patched the first hole, and realized I didn't have enough mix to go after the second, so I had to make my way back to Chase Pitkin's for another bag.  I picked up a nice lantern as well, the better to see the work I was doing.

When I got home, I saw a little red-haired bastard squirrel, poking around the hole I covered, trying to get out.  He had another hole to choose from, about four feet to the right, but it was obvious to me he had no idea it was there, and he was scared as hell.

Squirrels can carry rabies, and I've always been very careful around them; when I was a kid, my brother and I had attic bedrooms, and we had a squirrel invasion that kept us banned from our rooms for a good couple of weeks.  We had to call an exterminator, who caught the little guys and carried them out in big cages while they ran back and forth.

I called an exterminator and explained my plight, and he informed me that there's a good chance I'm harboring 6 to 8 red squirrels, their average family unit.  I needed to unplug the hole I patched, concentrate on getting them back into their regular routine, catching them and releasing them, and THEN plugging the hole.  How fun!  In the meantime, they run back and forth, and I hear them above my head, taunting me.  I can only hold fast to the negro slave's hope that suffering in this world provides reward in the afterlife.

On other topics, I forgot a note from the road....Last week's gig paid me by check, and the next morning, a rainy Friday, I hit a bank in Virginia and cashed the check.  The teller, a nice lady named Debbie, asked me if I had an account, which I did not, as the bank did not have a branch in Upstate New York.  She asked for my I.D., and because I was from out of town, she cheerfully asked me what brought me to Fishersville, Virginia.  I told her I was one of the comedians that played at the Comedy Zone at Mossy Creek Cafe, and she went on and on about how her 15-year-old son loved standup comedy, and wanted to do comedy himself, so I went out and grabbed one of my CD's for him.

Now, before I handed it over, I asked her if it would be o.k. if he heard some mild swearing and possible sexual descriptions, and she said that would be fine, that he liked watching "that colored fellow" on Comedy Central.  Now, she was talking about Dave Chappelle, but I was frozen just a bit hearing someone say "colored fellow" in 2005.  I took it with no umbrage, but it really allowed me a look at a culture clash between the "north" and the "south," even though we were only talking about a distance of 500 miles or so from Rochester, NY.  Later, on the I-81 expressway, I saw a sign for a section of a river called "Blacks Run," and I thought that there must certainly be a double meaning there; I know if I was black, I'd be running. 

I'm turning into Lenny Bruce on stage...I'm a smart ass, know-it-all, who does a modicum of reading and then starts spouting off.  I'm not saying I'm as talented as Lenny, I just mean I'm copping his style in a very unashamed way.  And the more I pay attention to politics in America, the more I feel drawn to commenting on them, which is a very dangerous consideration for a standup comic.  No matter what side you take in political humor, you're gonna piss off half the room, and no comic is good enough to bat .500 and still keep working.  Still, Bush is an idiot, a liar, an egomaniac and a fake Christian, Cheney is a diabolical vampire who is sucking the blood (and money) out of the United States for his Haliburton and oil cronies, Tom "The Hammer" DeLay is a corrupt, human slimeball who ought to be given the Dan Rostenkowski suite in Leavenworth, Bill Frist is a criminal who needs to have an ankle bracelent to keep him from leaving his own house, and the list goes on.  I know as a good Christian I should forgive, but I can only turn the other cheek so many times....I've run out of cheeks.

For now, all I can say to my red-state voter friends, YOU are what is wrong with America.  You're being soaked by the government you helped elect, they are killing you and you helped it happen, you ignorant, cracker dumbasses.  And you can take that to the bank, cash it, and buy yourself a colored butler to slap the shit out of you, you stupid bastards.

I just realized, squirrels have bushy tails, and anything bush or bushy needs to be destroyed. 

O.K., I'm going to sleep now.  Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow morning and not be so cranky, but I don't think so.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Welcome To The Machine

Welcome To The Machine                                 1943

Monday, October 10, 2005-4:30 A.M.

It's the one-year anniversary of my near career-ending injury, which I didn't realize until I looked at the calendar just now.  It's fitting that I'm taking this week off, because I've reached a sort of burnout point for the year.  I'm not happy not to be working this week, but I am happy that I don't have to drive all over the midwest and come home with less money than I left home with.

I drove home overnight from Harrisburg, PA and the Comedy Zone at Doc Holliday's steakhouse.  It's one of my favorite clubs to play, because it has a nice stage, good sound and lights, good attendance, and the folks are smart and playful; they don't groan or stare if they don't like or get a joke.  Saturday night, we had a bachelor party the first show, and a bachelorette party the second show.  The bachelorettes were well-behaved, respectful, and unencumbered by the usual penis-straws, dildoes and other junk...it was a perfect evening.  Merchandise sales were very good, and I was second-guessing driving home overnight, but the rain had broken, and I decided to get it over with.  I rolled into Rochester around 7:00 A.M., was in bed by 8:00 A.M., and still woke up in time to watch the Bills beat the Dolphins (barely).  Congratulations Kelly Holcomb...you're not gonna make us forget that other Kelly we used to have, but a win is a win, and we thank you.

Our furnace shat the proverbial bed today as we made the decision to fire the old girl up, and like so many women before in my life, she let me down.  Our repairman paid us a visit today and pronounced her dead on arrival, and told us that he would be willing to cart away 2,500 of our dollars if we would take a new one off his hands.  That's a small price to pay not to freeze in the night in a Rochester winter.

If we're unable to get things rolling with the new furnace, I am going to seriously consider taking Pam and Harmony on the road with me, just to ensure that they have someplace warm to stay, although long roadtrips to Greensboro, North Carolina and South Bend, Indiana beckon, interspersed with short rides to Erie and Reading, Pennsylvania.  Also, I'm in a condo situation in South Bend, and it's considered bad manners to bring along the wife or girlfriend, because you're sharing quarters with one or two other comics.  But that's three weeks away, and hopefully, we'll have our situation rectified by then.

I'll leave you with a joke I heard this weekend.  It's actually a joke that has to be heard rather than read, so you'll have to do a little work on your end to really get the joke.  Here goes:

One of President Bush's advisors is giving him a briefing on the Iraq war, and he tells him, "Mr. President, this weekend, three Brazilian soldiers were killed."  And the President responds, "Oh no, not three Brazilian soldiers!"  And the aid said, "Mr. President, I understand your concern, but it was only three Brazilian soldiers."  And the President says "Wait a minute....how many is a Brazilian?"

I laughed my ass off, and of course, "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep."  -Lord Byron

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Aqualung

Aqualung                                                   1926

Saturday, October 8, 2005-10:50 A.M.

What a difference a week makes.  As many of you know, I was in North Dakota last week, and this week, they were hit with a horrific blizzard that left many motorists stranded and turned the Dickinson State College Student Union into a refugee camp.  I was there a week ago, eating Knoephla and watching movies!  Walking around without a coat!  Who knew I ws missing killer weather by only five or six days!  The same thing happened to me this past summer, although it was a little less dire; I was in Biloxi, Mississippi playing at the Casino Magic hotel in June, and in August, a giant hurricane wiped it off the face of the earth.  I seem to be the herald for disaster, so woe betide if I come to your town.  I'm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania right now, and they're already stocking up on bottled water.

Thursday night in Fishersville, Virginia was a fun time.  I checked into the Microtel, and as most hotels feature free newspapers for their guests, I picked up a copy of the local paper, and they had a big feature story on the comedy club, Comedy Zone at the Mossy Creek Cafe.  They mentioned me in big type, with a nice paragraph lifted from my official bio...oh, what a star I felt like!

I was reunited with my good friend, Al Katz, and the show was great...the room was almost completely full, and this was despite the fact that the Rolling Stones were performing down the road at an open-air venue in Charlottesville, Virginia.  I'm familiar with that venue, because I was there as part of the George Carlin tour back in 1996.

Last night, it was off to Harrisburg, PA and performances with headliner Mark Klein (www.corpjester.com) and Buffalo's own Matt Wayne.  The first show was o.k. as far as attendance, and I told Mark and Matt that I didn't think I was going to work up much of a sweat on stage.  When I got off, I was drenched...they were one of the best audiences I've performed for in a long time.

The second show was a different story; there were a bunch of prison guards sitting up front, many of whom had never attended a live comedy show and didn't "get" how they were supposed to act; it turned into a running dialogue that had me fighting for my life.  They loved me, and came up to me after the show and told me so, but it was still way too much like work.

After the show, I met up with a young man who had contacted me by e-mail and was interested in talking with me about standup comedy.  We sat down after the late show and jawed for about an hour and fifteen minutes...ask me to talk about comedy, and I'm a kid in a candy store.  He has a wife, two kids, and one more on the way, so of course, I tried to talk him out of the business...comedy is no place for a family man, as I discover every day of my life.

It's piss raining in Pennsylvania today, so I may just stay in the hotel room and catch up on my reading, writing and relaxing.  There's a nice steakhouse connected to the hotel and club called Doc Hollidays, and the food is exceptional, so I may just eat here rather than venturing out and finding something more interesting or economical.  I'll be driving home to Rochester after the second show tonight, and it's about a five hour drive, so a good afternoon nap will also be in order.

Next week is a week off for me, so there may not be anything interesting to report, but I never stop working, so you never know.  I nailed down a return trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, at the Comedy Zone in April of 2006.  Knoxville is one of my favorite places to play, and even though it's under new management, it's still a Comedy Zone, so I'm sure I'll have a good time.

Also, while I'm thinking of it, Campbell's Soups is doing their annual "Click For Cans" promotion, and you can win Super Bowl tickets, Madden 2006 video games and other cool stuff, and you get to vote every day for your favorite football team.  Right now, the Buffalo Bills are trailing badly, so if you want to do your buddy Ralph a solid (which I will appreciate), how about going on there and clicking for Buffalo a couple of times?  You can vote once a day for as many days as you want, and it costs nothing.  Let's go, Buffalo!  Campbell's Chunky - What's Happening  Campbell's will make a donation to the team with the most clicks and donate soup to a hunger relief charity in that community.

Actually, now that I think of it...vote for New Orleans...click for the Saints Monday through Friday, and give Buffalo Saturday and Sunday.

And have some soup...it's good to support companies that do nice things for the less fortunate.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Hole In The Sky

Hole In The Sky                                               1907

Wednesday, October 5, 2005-7:54 P.M.

Good Evening from the North Coast of America.  I did something today that I thought I'd never do...I cancelled a week of comedy work.

The week was the "Indiana Tour" for the Funny Business Agency...it consists of a Wednesday night in Decatur, Illinois, Thursday night in Terre Haute, Indiana, Friday off, and Saturday in Bloomington, Illinois.  With the gas running near three dollars a gallon and having a night off to dip into my pocket for a hotel room, I was looking at a red-ink weekend, and politely asked the booking agency to be replaced.  I'm not going to try to rebook the week, and instead, will catch up on some home improvements before the snow starts flying.  We have a couple of makeshift squirrel ingresses in our attic that we don't want anymore, because the squirrels have a tendency to chew on things made of paper in our attic that we want to keep.  I need to pour some cement in those areas so the squirrels can't chew through them again, plus, when I see the squirrels in the yard with chipped teeth, I'll know which ones to shoot.

Yesterday, I shot my third ever commercial spot.  It was for Novus Auto Glass, and represented my second ever glass company spot.  The gag was this; the spot starts out with me waxing a red 2004 Mustang convertible.  I would never own such a vehicle; I don't like the wind mussing up my hair...most Italians don't.  So I'm waxing the car, and the director's eight-month old son John, who is playing my son, gets attracted by the sun gleaming off the antennae of the car, and he pulls a small trampoline over, jumps up and grabs the antennae.  I see him hanging from the antennae, rush over and grab him, and wrestle the antennae out of his hands, which causes it to whip down into the windshield, cracking it.  At that point, Alison Roberts, another Rochester actor, who is playing my wife, comes out and says "Don't worry, I've called Novus Auto Glass."  We shot two spots, a 10-second ad and a 30-second ad.  It was good money, too.

When I got home, I realized that every muscle south of my belly button hurt to high heaven.  There was a lot of standing, running, pivoting and jumping to be done, on a hard concrete driveway all day long, with no place to really sit down between takes.  Even today, a day later, I'm still feeling a little sore.

Tomorrow it's the big drive to Fishersville, VA and the Comedy Zone's new room in that town.  I then make a turn northward and play the Zone's room in Harrisburg, PA, one of my favorite rooms to play.  For tonight, it's a little rest and relaxation with my wife and daughter.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Selling The Drama

Selling The Drama                               1891

Monday, October 3, 2005-10:55 P.M.

Ouch.  It always takes me a day of rest to recuperate from a long-ass drive across America.  Today was veggie day, which meant I vegetated.  Actually, I did go to the Post Office and conducted some business, because I am driven and obsessive, but believe me, I didn't do much more than that.  I did treat Pam and Harmony to a little home-made stir fry, one of my specialties, with broccoli, mushroom, onion, tofu and Chinese vegetables.  It's surprising that I'm not healthier, I eat like a Buddhist monk when I'm home....too bad I'm not home more often.

I almost got the hall pass for a week in December...the Comedy Zone in Norfolk, VA went belly-up, leaving me dry for a week.  Now the big decision...stay home a couple weeks before Christmas, or try to refill the date and make the money?  Survey says....make the money!  A quick e-mail to my boy Tony Gigliotti in Niagara Falls, and the date was replaced as quick as you can say "Holiday Headliner."  The money's not as good as what I lost, but I'm employed and basically home two weeks before Christmas.  It's like a bonus to be able to work, and still have time for the wife and child!  For a day when I really needed the rest, it was still business as usual.

The drive home from St. Cloud, Minnesota, was fraught with traffic jams, bad weather, and just an overwhelming distance.  In Chicago, the rain came down like it was Noah's Ark, and the cars were sliding into the guard rails two by two.  Luckily, I keep five to ten delineations between me and the cars behind me, so I'm usually safe.  The weather was nice for a cross-country drive, but I didn't bring enough music with me, so I had to listen to the 1992 Bob Dylan tribute album twice...it's a great collection, with artists like Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Winter, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tracy Chapman, Richie Havens, Lou Reed, Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam, Roger McGuinn from the Byrds, and Neil Young, all paying tribute to Bob Dylan through his own songs.  It's a nice album, lots of different musical styles, and recorded live so there's no breaks between songs, and it makes for a good continuous listening experience when you want to just go on autopilot and drive straight ahead without fixating on the fact that you're still 800 miles from home.  For the record, the total mileage of the drive home was 1,114. 

The shows in St. Cloud, which I realize I failed to report on, were good.  Friday's show was a little better attended than Saturday's show, but I liked Saturday's show better.  The weird thing was that the Saturday crowd was almost completely made up of women.  There was a bachelorette party of about 25 women on one side of the room, and a large group of young ladies on the other side of the room who didn't seem to realize that there was a comedy show going on until I took the stool on stage, dragged it all the way over towards their table, sat down, and started addressing my entire act directly at them until they realized that they were not anonymous and couldn't talk to each other at their table without fear of repercussion.  It was a softer, nicer way of saying "shut the hell up" than I usually use, and it worked well.  I know the rest of the audience appreciated it.

Tomorrow I'm shooting a commercial for an auto glass company...this will be the second auto glass commercial on my TV resume, and the third commercial overall.  I think I'm getting typecast, but that's o.k., because typecast actors get all the work when their type is being cast.  It's an 8:00 A.M. call, which I'm not excited about, but the money's good so I'm not bitching.  I'll check in tomorrow with all the neato details.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY