Tuesday, November 11, 2008-10:45 P.M.
Good evening from Raleigh, North Carolina.
I must be in a blue state, because I'm freezing my ass off.
That's not exactly true, but after spending two weeks in Florida and Alabama, the 15 degree drop in temperature is feeling absolutely chilly.
I have one more show tomorrow and then I'll start heading north to home, where I haven't been since before Halloween. I'll be hosting "Dash For Dollars," my college comedy game show, and even though I've only been on the job about six weeks, I'm starting to have the same withdrawal feelings I have when I don't get to do my own standup act for a long time.
The stage time has been really sparse this trip out. I did a show in Savannah, Georgia at Savannah State University, and then went to my mother's house in Florida to hang out for five days. I got sick somewhere along the way, and I've been sucking down the water and taking Mucinex to stop coughing and to try to bring up some of the congestion, and even though I have the symptoms under control, I need to get home and see a doctor for some antibiotics.
To top it off, I started having leg problems that I was able to diagnose as due to fallen arches, because I've had them before. I went out and got some inserts for my shoes to give some support, but the muscles still take time to relax back to normal. There are exercises you can do to relieve the tension, but with a great deal of driving, there's a greater than normal stress on the muscles of the foot and leg. I've been lucky that I've had stretches of time off to let myself just collapse and lay in bed in a hotel room rather than having to get up and go out and produce.
I worked at the Stardome Comedy Club in Birmingham, Alabama on Election Day, the following day, and the following Sunday, or what they call in the comedy business a "wrap-around;" they got a special headliner act (in this case, James Gregory, the "Funniest Man In America") and needed to fill the "off" nights that the big name guy didn't want to do. Cue your man Ralph. I'd been wanting to get into the Stardome for a long time, having heard great things about the club, and it definitely lives up to the hype. The place is huge, the seats were full every night I was there, and the crowds were appreciative. I sold out of my comedy CD's while I was there and was invited back. Nice day at the office, eh? I worked with Will Marfori on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Drew Thomas on Sunday. They're both really good comics and nice fellows that I'd met and worked with before, and that's always a bonus.
I had Thursday and Friday off to relax, and then Saturday I went and entertained a small group in Atlanta for a gentleman's 50th birthday party. I did a mild "roast" of the guy, who was a family man, Sunday School teacher, and just an overall good guy. His kids were there, as well as people from his church, so the humor had to be squeaky clean, and it was a challenge to write a roast that was totally clean for a guy I never met before. They were a nice group, though, and I did balloon animals for the kids. I'm serious, I had the balloons with me, so I did some for the kids. It was 190 miles one way to get to the gig from Birmingham, but after finding ridiculously cheap gasoline ($1.90!!! Thank you, Flying J loyalty card!) I still made money on the trip.
So I had too many days off, and one of my college shows got canceled this week, but I got to spend time with my mother, break in a new club, made an anniversary celebration special for someone, and got to watch the election returns come in thanks to lodging that didn't require me to be up and out at any certain time. Which reminds me....God bless Holiday Inn Express and the Holiday Inn Priority Club and their late check-out. There's nothing like lounging around in a room until 2:00 in the afternoon and not getting bitched at. Other hotels could learn from these people.....I'm talking to YOU, Days Inn.
So the only other thing to report is that I'm in love with Rachel Maddow. I'm not sure when it happened, but I've become quite taken with her. I know that some folks will say that she's not on our team, but that doesn't matter.....I'm married, it's not like I'm trying to recruit her. And when I tried to put my finger on exactly what it is about Rachel that I find attractive, I keep coming back to her intelligence. She's smart! She's REALLY smart! She's smart in a way that when she's speaking or interviewing a guest, I feel like I'm really following the conversation, even though I'm a guy who took four years at a community college to get a two-year degree.
But most importantly, other people seem taken with Rachel Maddow besides me. She seems to be the new "hot" commentator on TV, and I think it's because America is starting to value intelligence again. "Smart" is the new "cool."
President-Elect Obama is the gold standard for cool, and he really isn't. He's smart. I caught him answering some questions and he did an impression of Redd Foxx having a heart attack. In case you're very young or not familiar with the program through re-runs, Redd Foxx has a show called "Sanford and Son," and one of the running gags was that he would always pretend he was having a heart attack, and he would call up to the heavens, "Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you, honey!" Elizabeth was his predeceased wife. Well, when Obama did the impression, he said "Weezy, I'm coming!" Weezy was the wife from Sherman Helmseley's TV sitcom, "The Jeffersons," which came out about seven or eight years after "Sanford and Son." Only a guy who spent as much time as he did, studying and keeping his nose lodged in a book, would make that obvious pop culture error. On the David Letterman show, they had him deliver the line "Can you smell what Barack is cooking?" which was a satirical slant at the Rock's wrestling catch-phrase. But Obama doesn't know that either, because he doesn't watch wrestling. He pores over the minutiae of his work, takes time to work out at the gym, and strives, strives, strives. Sometimes I feel guilty that I never had the discipline to dig into the books that way, who knows what I'd be doing today. But there's one thing for sure, and that is that America is finally coming back around and saying "education is good." "Book smarts have value." I'm very happy about that. I'm tired of living in a dumbed-down country. Maybe we can finally ship Will Ferrell off to Alaska and get some decent character-driven film comedies made before I qualify for the freakin' senior citizen's discount.
Before I sign off, I'd like to acknowledge my good and trusted friend Steve Burr, the host of "3 Things You Never Talk About" (google it if you don't know) who challenged me to write something positive about someone I disagreed with from a policy standpoint. That may not be the exact challenge, but it was words to that effect, and it was several months ago and I'd been dwelling upon it, and somehow could not do it. Today, I'd like to change that.
In the transition period between President George W. Bush and President-Elect Barack Obama, I think President Bush has been phenomenal in expediting a swift and seamless transfer of power. I think that the comments he made about seeing Obama and his family on the stage and saying what a wonderful thing this was for America was gracious, patriotic, loving, and a showing of a side of Bush that we haven't seen enough of.
In truth, President Bush has to be looked upon as an individual who has offered incredible opportunities to people of color. The appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice to the office of Secretary of State were groundbreaking, and his trusting of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General must be recognized. After all this consideration, I frame the President as a man who really thought he was doing the best he could for America, and made hard decisions, no matter how unpopular they were. Now, I can't speak for Dick Cheney, who I'm sure a lot of people suspect was the real evil behind the Bush administration, but I won't question Bush anymore as regards to the flippant statements made by Kanye West after Hurricane Katrina that "President Bush hates black people." I believe, no, he doesn't, and as a matter of fact, he's probably their greatest cheerleader. Now, whether or not he surrounded himself with cronies as a way to insulate himself from dissent, I would have to take exception with, but I believe that actions speak louder than words, and his actions in this transition have shown that he is the warm human being that I never would have given him the credit for being.
I guess we all have our good and bad points, you just have to take the time to inventory them.
Tomorrow, it's off to St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and then Thursday, the trail of tears back to snowy Upstate New York. I can't wait!
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Changes (David Bowie)
"It's no sin to make a mistake. The sin is when you don't go back and clean it up."
I spoke those words to my brother 23 years ago. He was about to fail his senior year in high school because of a missing phys-ed credit. Long story short, he would oversleep because of his job and then wouldn't go to school because of a mandatory detention policy for late arrivals, which would interfere with his after-school job, so some days he just didn't go. Consequently, he wasn't present enough days to get the gym credit, and was looking at the prospect of being held back a year.
I told him to take summer school. They don't offer summer school for phys-ed.
But I told him the line above, about cleaning up our mistakes, and he went back to school and worked out a plan with them. The school let him put time in at the YMCA, and after enough hours to satisfy them, they would award him his diploma, which he did over the summer.
He made the mistake, and then cleaned it up.
Tuesday night, America cleaned up it's mistakes.
In electing Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States, America said "we are ready to fix things."
We are ready to fully anoint African-Americans, not just with cheap, smiling words, but with a real vote of confidence.
We are ready to turn the wheels of government over to individuals who are knowledgeable, who have studied law, who bring real credentials to the table and are ready to govern.
We are ready to offer the rest of the world the assurance that the country which they all look up to and aspire to be, is ready to stop being a bully and ready to start being a trusted ally again.
As much as I support Barack Obama, it is with much shame that I confess that I found many more reasons to vote against his opponent than I found reasons to support him.
From the beginning, the McCain campaign seemed to be waged for all the wrong reasons.
First of all, why was a wealthy, 72-year-old man with 13 cars and eight houses working so hard to apply for a job? Shouldn't he have been contemplating retirement? I'll tell you why he did it; he got boned by Karl Rove and George W. Bush in South Carolina in 2000, and he's been lying in stealth for eight years waiting for his turn, the turn he felt he was cheated out of. I'm sure the eight years weren't easy, but he spent five years in a P.O.W. camp, so I have no doubts about his tenacity.
But that's the wrong reason to want to be President. Bob Dole ran on that bullshit back in 1996, and Bill Clinton slapped him around.
The Sarah Palin pick as VP? I never saw a campaign shoot itself in the foot more deftly since Al Gore thought it would be a good idea to run a Jewish veep (Joe Lieberman) past the deeply Christian voters of the South (and elsewhere....the 13 states of the Confederacy don't have any monopoly on anti-Semitism). The race for the presidency isn't "Take Your Daughter To Work Day." It would be hard to argue that even a featherweight like J. Danforth Quayle wasn't less qualified than the Governor of Alaska. Could the McCain campaign have been saved by a more savvy pick? Absolutely. He could have chosen one of a plethora of rising young stars on the right, or even an old saw like Elizabeth Dole who was a skillful politician until the voters of North Carolina started to wake up and smell the bullshit. Bobby Jindall could have brought some youth and excitement, Mitt Romney would have brought all of his economically conservative supporters, but McCain had to find someone who would whet the Evangelical's whistle after he basically told them to lick his asshole back in 2000. And snake-charming, speaking in tongues Sarah was that gal. It's too bad that the hypocrisy started piling up faster than the lines on her resume; from Troopergate, to the grandchild being born out of wedlock, to the high-end shopping spree, Caribou Barbie went to just plain old "boo" Barbie.
Finally, the campaign of smear and mud that never seemed to end, was just a bad choice. McCain flung the kitchen sink at Obama, but Barack never responded. It is virtually impossible to win a fight with an enemy that will not engage you. McCain would go into a red-faced rant about Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Socialism, spread the wealth, Joe the Plumber, and so on, and Barack would just smile and shake his head. Like all he had to say was "During the Charles Keating affair, you were the only one with money on the table" and the game is over. But he didn't go there. Obama told the truth, about McCain's lock-step with George W. Bush and the smoldering ruin that he's leaving America. And the American people responded with a hearty "fuck THAT plan."
Well, the smart parts of America did. A glance at the electoral map shows that there are still pockets of resistance to liberals, black people, educated people, or whatever part of voting for Obama you want to isolate. Maybe some folks liked McCain simply based on his military record. If that's the case, John Kerry with his superior military record should have handed W. his National-Guard-but-never-showed-up ass. Maybe some folks voted for McCain simply based on the conservative position on abortion. Fair, but here's a position on abortion I think a lot of people haven't considered, and it happens to be MY position......if two water-heads couldn't figure out a condom in the back seat of Dad's car on prom night, I DON'T WANT THEM RAISING CHILDREN!
Whatever malady is affecting the folks in the South and that strip of states from Texas to North Dakota (fuck you, I've driven through all of them, so I'll name 'em.....Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota....and I did that WITHOUT a map in front of me), whatever the malady is, the good news is that the smart people of America are going to put people and programs in position to help EVERYONE out of the mess that this country has become. EVERYONE. Everyone is going to be a beneficiary of good, smart government that won't allow the economy to tank, won't allow us to squander money we don't have and young people's lives we'd rather keep in futile wars abroad, won't allow an American city to eat Hurricane Dick and wait around four days to do something about it. And I'm talking to you, Louisiana. How much self-loathing do you have to ever vote Republican again? After George Bush left you swimming in your own shit without lifting a finger? If I lived in New Orleans, I'd rather have a finger cut off than vote Republican.
A criticism of the Democratic party by some commentator on the right was that "They always run a lawyer for President. It's never a common person."
Here's a thought. If I'm going to send someone to Washington, the home of national law and government in this country, maybe I'd like to send someone who has STUDIED LAW AND GOVERNMENT. If I want surgery done, I don't bring in a guy who lays carpet, I call a surgeon. If I want my clogged toilet fixed, I don't bring in a guy who grooms poodles, I call a plumber. And If I want economic advice, I call an economist NOT A FUCKING PLUMBER.
This is how frustrated I've become. My candidate won, and I'm still pissed. Still pissed that the election wasn't a clear-cut landslide, like Reagan-Mondale back in 1984, because there are still pockets of folks in our country who still don't get it. But it's O.K. Because folks like me stepped up and did the right thing, folks like them will get universal health care, decent wages for jobs, a country that is released from the grip of foreign oil, better social standing in the world, and the residual positivity of some racial healing.
And by the way, the flip-side of that racial healing thing is that the bar has been WAY lifted for black folk in America. The old arguments about inequalities and access to opportunity just won't hold anymore. Obama grew up without his father, worked his ass off, and became President of the Harvard Law Review (no small achievement), United States Senator, and now President of the United States. I want to hear "Yes We Can" echoing through the black community for the rest of my life. There's really no reason that I shouldn't hear it, anyway. We've come too far to turn back now.
So I applaud a post-racial America, an America that no longer considers intellectualism to be a bad thing, an America that's ready to build on that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton built and George W. Bush burned. I'm girding myself for the hounding attacks that will surely come from the Right, now that they have a villain to coalesce around. Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest have four years of material ready to go, and if they try to tear down Obama like they did Bill Clinton, it won't surprise me at all. The only exception being that if they try that shit with Obama, his wife Michelle will be WAY more likely than Hillary to kick off her heels, take her jewelry off, and start kicking a little ass.
In real life, and to be serious to close this up, I have a bi-racial family. My wife is of mixed heritage, and based on our backgrounds, my daughter is Italian, African-American, Isle of St. Croix, and German. She goes to a school that is mostly minority (oxymoron?) and even though she is aware of the difference in races, she perceives no difference in the races, other than the color of their skin. And she's four. And none of her classmates think anything of it, either. Can it be that children are smarter than the voters of Alabama? And white Americans over the age of 65? I'm in Birmingham, Alabama right now, and I know damn well, somewhere in the city today, some cracker asshole made a joke about the huge Obama headline in the paper this morning and everyone getting excited because a black man got a job. And it still galls the piss out of me.
Those racial wounds are old and deep. But they're scabbing up. And one day, they'll dry up and fall off.
God Bless America.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
did anyone catch why I used a David Bowie song?
I spoke those words to my brother 23 years ago. He was about to fail his senior year in high school because of a missing phys-ed credit. Long story short, he would oversleep because of his job and then wouldn't go to school because of a mandatory detention policy for late arrivals, which would interfere with his after-school job, so some days he just didn't go. Consequently, he wasn't present enough days to get the gym credit, and was looking at the prospect of being held back a year.
I told him to take summer school. They don't offer summer school for phys-ed.
But I told him the line above, about cleaning up our mistakes, and he went back to school and worked out a plan with them. The school let him put time in at the YMCA, and after enough hours to satisfy them, they would award him his diploma, which he did over the summer.
He made the mistake, and then cleaned it up.
Tuesday night, America cleaned up it's mistakes.
In electing Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States, America said "we are ready to fix things."
We are ready to fully anoint African-Americans, not just with cheap, smiling words, but with a real vote of confidence.
We are ready to turn the wheels of government over to individuals who are knowledgeable, who have studied law, who bring real credentials to the table and are ready to govern.
We are ready to offer the rest of the world the assurance that the country which they all look up to and aspire to be, is ready to stop being a bully and ready to start being a trusted ally again.
As much as I support Barack Obama, it is with much shame that I confess that I found many more reasons to vote against his opponent than I found reasons to support him.
From the beginning, the McCain campaign seemed to be waged for all the wrong reasons.
First of all, why was a wealthy, 72-year-old man with 13 cars and eight houses working so hard to apply for a job? Shouldn't he have been contemplating retirement? I'll tell you why he did it; he got boned by Karl Rove and George W. Bush in South Carolina in 2000, and he's been lying in stealth for eight years waiting for his turn, the turn he felt he was cheated out of. I'm sure the eight years weren't easy, but he spent five years in a P.O.W. camp, so I have no doubts about his tenacity.
But that's the wrong reason to want to be President. Bob Dole ran on that bullshit back in 1996, and Bill Clinton slapped him around.
The Sarah Palin pick as VP? I never saw a campaign shoot itself in the foot more deftly since Al Gore thought it would be a good idea to run a Jewish veep (Joe Lieberman) past the deeply Christian voters of the South (and elsewhere....the 13 states of the Confederacy don't have any monopoly on anti-Semitism). The race for the presidency isn't "Take Your Daughter To Work Day." It would be hard to argue that even a featherweight like J. Danforth Quayle wasn't less qualified than the Governor of Alaska. Could the McCain campaign have been saved by a more savvy pick? Absolutely. He could have chosen one of a plethora of rising young stars on the right, or even an old saw like Elizabeth Dole who was a skillful politician until the voters of North Carolina started to wake up and smell the bullshit. Bobby Jindall could have brought some youth and excitement, Mitt Romney would have brought all of his economically conservative supporters, but McCain had to find someone who would whet the Evangelical's whistle after he basically told them to lick his asshole back in 2000. And snake-charming, speaking in tongues Sarah was that gal. It's too bad that the hypocrisy started piling up faster than the lines on her resume; from Troopergate, to the grandchild being born out of wedlock, to the high-end shopping spree, Caribou Barbie went to just plain old "boo" Barbie.
Finally, the campaign of smear and mud that never seemed to end, was just a bad choice. McCain flung the kitchen sink at Obama, but Barack never responded. It is virtually impossible to win a fight with an enemy that will not engage you. McCain would go into a red-faced rant about Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Socialism, spread the wealth, Joe the Plumber, and so on, and Barack would just smile and shake his head. Like all he had to say was "During the Charles Keating affair, you were the only one with money on the table" and the game is over. But he didn't go there. Obama told the truth, about McCain's lock-step with George W. Bush and the smoldering ruin that he's leaving America. And the American people responded with a hearty "fuck THAT plan."
Well, the smart parts of America did. A glance at the electoral map shows that there are still pockets of resistance to liberals, black people, educated people, or whatever part of voting for Obama you want to isolate. Maybe some folks liked McCain simply based on his military record. If that's the case, John Kerry with his superior military record should have handed W. his National-Guard-but-never-showed-up ass. Maybe some folks voted for McCain simply based on the conservative position on abortion. Fair, but here's a position on abortion I think a lot of people haven't considered, and it happens to be MY position......if two water-heads couldn't figure out a condom in the back seat of Dad's car on prom night, I DON'T WANT THEM RAISING CHILDREN!
Whatever malady is affecting the folks in the South and that strip of states from Texas to North Dakota (fuck you, I've driven through all of them, so I'll name 'em.....Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota....and I did that WITHOUT a map in front of me), whatever the malady is, the good news is that the smart people of America are going to put people and programs in position to help EVERYONE out of the mess that this country has become. EVERYONE. Everyone is going to be a beneficiary of good, smart government that won't allow the economy to tank, won't allow us to squander money we don't have and young people's lives we'd rather keep in futile wars abroad, won't allow an American city to eat Hurricane Dick and wait around four days to do something about it. And I'm talking to you, Louisiana. How much self-loathing do you have to ever vote Republican again? After George Bush left you swimming in your own shit without lifting a finger? If I lived in New Orleans, I'd rather have a finger cut off than vote Republican.
A criticism of the Democratic party by some commentator on the right was that "They always run a lawyer for President. It's never a common person."
Here's a thought. If I'm going to send someone to Washington, the home of national law and government in this country, maybe I'd like to send someone who has STUDIED LAW AND GOVERNMENT. If I want surgery done, I don't bring in a guy who lays carpet, I call a surgeon. If I want my clogged toilet fixed, I don't bring in a guy who grooms poodles, I call a plumber. And If I want economic advice, I call an economist NOT A FUCKING PLUMBER.
This is how frustrated I've become. My candidate won, and I'm still pissed. Still pissed that the election wasn't a clear-cut landslide, like Reagan-Mondale back in 1984, because there are still pockets of folks in our country who still don't get it. But it's O.K. Because folks like me stepped up and did the right thing, folks like them will get universal health care, decent wages for jobs, a country that is released from the grip of foreign oil, better social standing in the world, and the residual positivity of some racial healing.
And by the way, the flip-side of that racial healing thing is that the bar has been WAY lifted for black folk in America. The old arguments about inequalities and access to opportunity just won't hold anymore. Obama grew up without his father, worked his ass off, and became President of the Harvard Law Review (no small achievement), United States Senator, and now President of the United States. I want to hear "Yes We Can" echoing through the black community for the rest of my life. There's really no reason that I shouldn't hear it, anyway. We've come too far to turn back now.
So I applaud a post-racial America, an America that no longer considers intellectualism to be a bad thing, an America that's ready to build on that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton built and George W. Bush burned. I'm girding myself for the hounding attacks that will surely come from the Right, now that they have a villain to coalesce around. Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest have four years of material ready to go, and if they try to tear down Obama like they did Bill Clinton, it won't surprise me at all. The only exception being that if they try that shit with Obama, his wife Michelle will be WAY more likely than Hillary to kick off her heels, take her jewelry off, and start kicking a little ass.
In real life, and to be serious to close this up, I have a bi-racial family. My wife is of mixed heritage, and based on our backgrounds, my daughter is Italian, African-American, Isle of St. Croix, and German. She goes to a school that is mostly minority (oxymoron?) and even though she is aware of the difference in races, she perceives no difference in the races, other than the color of their skin. And she's four. And none of her classmates think anything of it, either. Can it be that children are smarter than the voters of Alabama? And white Americans over the age of 65? I'm in Birmingham, Alabama right now, and I know damn well, somewhere in the city today, some cracker asshole made a joke about the huge Obama headline in the paper this morning and everyone getting excited because a black man got a job. And it still galls the piss out of me.
Those racial wounds are old and deep. But they're scabbing up. And one day, they'll dry up and fall off.
God Bless America.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
did anyone catch why I used a David Bowie song?
Friday, October 24, 2008
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
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
Friday, October 10, 2008
Don't Stop Believin'
Saturday, October 11, 2008
3:45 A.M.
It's nice to be home again. I've been out in the midwest for the last ten days, training for a new job. I'm not leaving standup comedy; I'm just taking a different path.
Anyone who's talked to me know that I've been increasingly disenchanted with the standup comedy life. There's too much driving, too much time away from home, too much adversity, bad crowds, clubs dying, and not enough upside when the paycheck comes. Gas prices have been kicking the ass of traveling entertainers for years now, and wages have been stagnant.
I started doing comedy when I was in college, which was between 1987 and 1991. I was active in student activities at that time, and the two meshed together well; I was on the campus radio station (closed circuit, but an audience none the less) and hosted comedy shows on campus. I started a coffeehouse series called "Club Wednesday," and we brought big-name touring college acts on campus to do one-hour shows at noon. I remember handing thousand-dollar checks to guys like Nick DiPaolo and John Joseph, who had just won Star Search that year. And because we block-booked our talent, I knew that these guys had six or seven more shows in a ten day period, and that seemed like really good money. It was one of the reasons that I ran away from home to join the circus, thinking that fast cash and easy money were at the end of the standup comedy rainbow.
Well, long story short, standup comedy has been fun, and I'll love it until I die, but it's a lot easier to go out on the road and starve when you don't have a family waiting back home. If it were just me, I'd be sleeping on sofas, being a "road whore" and getting by on the kindness of strangers, working from check-to-check in a gypsy existence and dying on the road.
Ever since the price of gas got ridiculous, I've felt the pressure of needing to make a decision about comedy; it's not paying the bills anymore, becoming increasingly frustrating to do, and robbing me of a good portion of my time with my family. I'd even gone so far as to pick up applications for different retail stores in my area, as I worked in retail (and enjoyed it) before I made the decision many years ago to go back to college.
I hadn't gone and made any rash decisions until my wife had mentioned that she talked to our friend Stephano, a comic from Wisconsin (now living in Las Vegas). Stephano was working for a college comedy game show, and making some decent money, and he mentioned to her that the agency was looking for another guy. He passed along the number and said I should give him a call.
Now, I initially looked at this opportunity the same way that a jungle cat looks at meat in a trap. I'm hungry, but don't completely trust what I'm about to get into.
But I've got a wife and a beautiful little girl at home who are depending on me to make good decisions, so finally, after dragging my feet, I pick up the phone.
I spoke with Bill Smith from the Smith Agency in Grand Rapids, Michigan and basically submitted my resume over the phone. He must have liked what he heard, because he started pitching the show to me and let me know what it was all about. I used my improv skills to speak with Bill, letting him know that I had experience and that I was familiar with the market. He mentioned that they pitched a line of inflatables, so I mentioned that I had experience with Sumo Wrestling suits and hosting the show at various bar clients.
After a few weeks of preparation, I was scheduled to come out to Michigan to train for the show. Smith brought in Sean Carlin, one of the other comics who hosts a third game show for the Smith Agency. Sean and I hit it off well, and my training began for the game show.
Basically, it's a live show hosted on college campuses called "Dash For Dollars." We have live contestants in a game show format, and the students have to work their way through a series of challenges, and the grand champion gets to go into the cash cube, a money booth where the money flies through the air, and they can keep as much as they can grab in 30 seconds.
I trained for about three days with Sean, doing run-throughs and discussing all of the possible glitches, situations, strategies and contingencies that I could experience. After the fourth day, a collection of workers and family members from the Smith Agency gathered in their warehouse to watch me go through an actual running of "Dash For Dollars." Bill bought pizza for the crew, and we set it up like an actual show, using his sound equipment in the warehouse left over from his rock 'n' roll days. The show went well, and I was on my way.
I spent Sunday preparing mentally, going over the notes, technical documents for the cash cube, the internal paperwork for the Smith Agency, and bonding with Sean and asking him all of the questions I could possibly think of. On Monday, we loaded up a van with the cash cube and all of the props, and made our way to Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.
We had a "teaser" scheduled a few hours before showtime, where we would go through the student cafeteria and tell the students about the show happening later that night, passing out money and t-shirts and getting their excitement level up. We had a mix-up with the hotel situation, finally figuring out that we were scheduled to be at the Comfort Inn, and I got showered and dressed and prepared for my first public show.
Sean and I were accompanied by a guy named Ryan, one of the technicians at the Smith Agency. The agency does a series of other shows for colleges, including temporary tattoos, funny t-shirts, and the like, and Ryan operates some of the shows. He came along for moral support, and to be our "roadie," and he came in quite handy. We got to the college two hours before our 10:00 P.M. showtime, and the student activities folks greeted us with a nice pre-show meal (Jimmy John's submarine sandwich platters and soft drinks). I remember providing hospitality when I brought artists on campus, and the practice hasn't changed. I ate quietly while Sean chatted with the student activities people, taking notice of what he had to say and what the students were responding to.
As the time ticked down to showtime, I got on the mike and started warming up the crowd. Several agents from the Smith Agency showed up to see me work in front of an actual college crowd, and Bill even came out for a little while.
The first show went well, with only a few notes from Sean, and the students seemed to enjoy the show a lot. I tossed out money and t-shirts, and ran the students through the games, while Sean ran the musical soundtrack from the d.j. booth. It was a lot of running and shouting, but a lot of fun. The next day, I was a little sore from all the physical activity, but we got a late checkout from the hotel so I had the opportunity to sleep in a little.
The next show was at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. Sean followed me and hung out only as an observer, and I loaded in the show using student volunteers and set it up and ran it myself. It went really well and was well attended, and afterwards, the Student Activities director took us out and bought us Subway sandwiches for our post-show meal. Sean and I ate and talked and then parted company, he followed me to the expressway and then headed east towards Upstate New York, and I went back to the hotel.
I had only a short time to sleep before heading off towards South Suburban College in South Holland, Illinois, just south of Chicago. It rained heavily all the way there, but the van held steady on the road, and I didn't have much trouble negotiating it even though it was the biggest vehicle I've driven since piloting the Bronco on the George Carlin tour, and that was over a decade ago. Still, old habits die hard, and soon I was one with the vehicle, making turns and navigating around parked cars with that big boat like I'd been doing it forever.
The one thing that was troublesome was the cash cube. Imagine a plexiglass telephone booth with no telephone in it, and a window-style air conditioner anchored at the bottom. The cube has a rolling dolly welded to the back of it, and the unit slides into the back of the van on the wheels. They had sandbags to chock the wheels to keep it from sliding around, but they shift during transit and at one point, I stopped for a vehicle making a right-on-red, and the cube slammed into the back of my seat, giving me a nice little punch in the back.
I anchored the cube as best I could, using the full-sized spare tire as a buffer between my seat and the cube, laying it down so the rolling cube wouldn't hit my chair again. I drove through the rain to Chicago, and just five blocks from the school, disaster struck. I was waiting at a red light, and when the light turned green, I gave the gas pedal a little push, and as the van lurched forward, the cube rolled back, and one of the metal edges caught one of the back windows just right and shattered it into a thousand pieces. I was 45 minutes early for my check in time, and I had to move fast. I also had to find a place to change money into small bills to put into the cash cube for the show.
I stopped at a supermarket and used the bathroom. Their ATM was out of order, so I headed to a bank around the corner. I used the bank's ATM, paying the $2 fee, and took the money to a teller who happily broke the bills for me.
Next stop was Walgreen's. I purchased a small broom 'n' dustpan, parked the van in the back of the parking lot near a garbage can, and started cleaning up the mess. Once I got most of the glass taken care of, I whipped out my roll of duct tape (which I bought for just such an emergency) and butchered the cardboard from a mostly empty box of t-shirts and started closing the hole. After the hole was properly covered, I made my way to the college with 15 mintues to spare.
I chatted with the student activities director at South Suburban, getting a feel for the demographic makeup of the student body while I set up the show. The cube was too big to fit through any of the doors, but the back of the theater I was performing in had a big roll-up door, so we brought it in that way. I had the show set up quickly and had about 45 minutes to breathe and relax before showtime. The show went great, and believe me, it's hard for it not to go great when you're handing out cash and t-shirts like Santa Claus. The winning student, a big dude named Eric who I had picked on earlier in the show, only fished out $56 from the cash cube, so I looked in my pocket and saw a fifty, a five and a one. Fifty-six dollars. I doubled the prize money and looked like the biggest super hero there ever was! It was a great feeling, and all I could think of was "Wow, they're actually paying me to do this!"
After the show, it was off to the hotel where the college graciously lodged me in a king business suite, complete with fridge, microwave and comped wireless internet. I relaxed for only a few minutes before scanning the yellow pages to look for an auto glass shop that could take care of my situation. I was performing at a school on the north side of Chicago the following day, so I made an appointment for the mobile unit to meet me there. They needed a four-hour window of time to work on the glass, and between the check-in and the end of the show, I would be at Oakton Community College for four hours, so it seemed perfect.
I headed out, grabbed dinner and hit a bank to replenish my cash supply for the next show. I wanted to have all of my ducks in a row before taking off the next morning, so I used the time in the hotel room to reset all of my props and have the most time available to work with the glass technician if need be.
I took off extra early for Oakton, knowing that morning rush hour traffic in Chicago would be relentless. It was only a 45-minute drive, but I allowed double the time and still only got there 20 minutes early. I was met immediately by the glass company's mobile unit, and he repaired my windown in 20 minutes. It was literally a picture-perfect situation!
I loaded in the show to the student cafeteria, and after a few glitches with the college's sound system, started the show. The show went great, and the students really seemed to need the money because they were mobbing me as I threw singles into the crowd. The grand champion, a petit young lady named Mary Kitt, also pulled a small amount of money like the winner the day before. I reached in my pocket and added cash to her stack, and the crowd went nuts!
I actually had clipped the college's sound system with the music and lapel microphone they gave me to use, because I was trying to drive a full cafeteria with music and I'm loud to begin with. Still, I ran around, jumped up on chairs, mugged for the audience, threw money around, and before I knew it, I realized I was channeling Mike Ruiz.
Mike Ruiz is one of my good, good friends, and I met him while performing in the Joey and Maria's Italian Comedy Wedding Show years back. Mike is a good comic and actor, and a natural mc for the show. I have literally done hundreds of shows with Mike in all manner of rooms, from small banquet halls to huge convention centers, and even the big room at Turning Stone Casino in Upstate New York. Mike has a wonderful rapport with an audience, and uses his natural likeability to move them, and I obviously absorbed some of his technique, because there it was, in the Oakton Community College Student Life Center, bubbling out of me like hot marinara out of a calzone. It worked so well that I must publicly thank you Mike, for teaching me even if you didn't realize that you were teaching me.
After the show, I hit the trail of tears back home to Rochester, and after losing an hour in the time transition from Chicago back to east coast time, I rolled into Rochester around 3 A.M. I now have the Smith Agency van sitting in my driveway and my car is back in Grand Rapids sitting in the parking lot and as soon as I can figure out how to retrieve it, I'm heading back there. I slept in as long as Harmony would let me, and later in the afternoon, I got a call from Bill Smith mentioning that my report cards from the schools were good, and that I was "in the van," meaning I'm hired and installed as the newest host for "Dash For Dollars."
I still have comedy club dates on the books; I'm going to Blacksburg, Virginia, Greensboro, North Carolina and Fayetteville, North Carolina this week, and then I have a Monday night show the day after. The great thing about this game show is that they generally get booked during the week, leaving my weekends available for club work. Plus, they're all over the country, which means the routing is actually going to help me expand my territory. And the money is good enough that I'm actually going to be able to stay in the game, and I've got a company full of agents repping me, and now all I have to do is worry about getting to the dates and performing. I'm also going to try and get my improv troupe to work more frequently, but I have to tackle things a little bit at a time. I have books to write, CD's to record, and so many projects I can't count them. I've been recharged by this opportunity, and I'm excited to see where it's going to head. One of the best by-products is that I'm home for a weekend, and it doesn't mean I was unemployed this week. I feel like I should pinch myself to make sure I'm awake.
I've always said that the key to this business was tenacity. I just never thought that I would have to prove it to myself. I went from being ready to take a job stocking shelves at a supermarket to being the host of one of the longest-running college shows in the country. I feel like Kurt Warner must have after Super Bowl XXXIV.
Don't Stop Believin', indeed.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
3:45 A.M.
It's nice to be home again. I've been out in the midwest for the last ten days, training for a new job. I'm not leaving standup comedy; I'm just taking a different path.
Anyone who's talked to me know that I've been increasingly disenchanted with the standup comedy life. There's too much driving, too much time away from home, too much adversity, bad crowds, clubs dying, and not enough upside when the paycheck comes. Gas prices have been kicking the ass of traveling entertainers for years now, and wages have been stagnant.
I started doing comedy when I was in college, which was between 1987 and 1991. I was active in student activities at that time, and the two meshed together well; I was on the campus radio station (closed circuit, but an audience none the less) and hosted comedy shows on campus. I started a coffeehouse series called "Club Wednesday," and we brought big-name touring college acts on campus to do one-hour shows at noon. I remember handing thousand-dollar checks to guys like Nick DiPaolo and John Joseph, who had just won Star Search that year. And because we block-booked our talent, I knew that these guys had six or seven more shows in a ten day period, and that seemed like really good money. It was one of the reasons that I ran away from home to join the circus, thinking that fast cash and easy money were at the end of the standup comedy rainbow.
Well, long story short, standup comedy has been fun, and I'll love it until I die, but it's a lot easier to go out on the road and starve when you don't have a family waiting back home. If it were just me, I'd be sleeping on sofas, being a "road whore" and getting by on the kindness of strangers, working from check-to-check in a gypsy existence and dying on the road.
Ever since the price of gas got ridiculous, I've felt the pressure of needing to make a decision about comedy; it's not paying the bills anymore, becoming increasingly frustrating to do, and robbing me of a good portion of my time with my family. I'd even gone so far as to pick up applications for different retail stores in my area, as I worked in retail (and enjoyed it) before I made the decision many years ago to go back to college.
I hadn't gone and made any rash decisions until my wife had mentioned that she talked to our friend Stephano, a comic from Wisconsin (now living in Las Vegas). Stephano was working for a college comedy game show, and making some decent money, and he mentioned to her that the agency was looking for another guy. He passed along the number and said I should give him a call.
Now, I initially looked at this opportunity the same way that a jungle cat looks at meat in a trap. I'm hungry, but don't completely trust what I'm about to get into.
But I've got a wife and a beautiful little girl at home who are depending on me to make good decisions, so finally, after dragging my feet, I pick up the phone.
I spoke with Bill Smith from the Smith Agency in Grand Rapids, Michigan and basically submitted my resume over the phone. He must have liked what he heard, because he started pitching the show to me and let me know what it was all about. I used my improv skills to speak with Bill, letting him know that I had experience and that I was familiar with the market. He mentioned that they pitched a line of inflatables, so I mentioned that I had experience with Sumo Wrestling suits and hosting the show at various bar clients.
After a few weeks of preparation, I was scheduled to come out to Michigan to train for the show. Smith brought in Sean Carlin, one of the other comics who hosts a third game show for the Smith Agency. Sean and I hit it off well, and my training began for the game show.
Basically, it's a live show hosted on college campuses called "Dash For Dollars." We have live contestants in a game show format, and the students have to work their way through a series of challenges, and the grand champion gets to go into the cash cube, a money booth where the money flies through the air, and they can keep as much as they can grab in 30 seconds.
I trained for about three days with Sean, doing run-throughs and discussing all of the possible glitches, situations, strategies and contingencies that I could experience. After the fourth day, a collection of workers and family members from the Smith Agency gathered in their warehouse to watch me go through an actual running of "Dash For Dollars." Bill bought pizza for the crew, and we set it up like an actual show, using his sound equipment in the warehouse left over from his rock 'n' roll days. The show went well, and I was on my way.
I spent Sunday preparing mentally, going over the notes, technical documents for the cash cube, the internal paperwork for the Smith Agency, and bonding with Sean and asking him all of the questions I could possibly think of. On Monday, we loaded up a van with the cash cube and all of the props, and made our way to Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.
We had a "teaser" scheduled a few hours before showtime, where we would go through the student cafeteria and tell the students about the show happening later that night, passing out money and t-shirts and getting their excitement level up. We had a mix-up with the hotel situation, finally figuring out that we were scheduled to be at the Comfort Inn, and I got showered and dressed and prepared for my first public show.
Sean and I were accompanied by a guy named Ryan, one of the technicians at the Smith Agency. The agency does a series of other shows for colleges, including temporary tattoos, funny t-shirts, and the like, and Ryan operates some of the shows. He came along for moral support, and to be our "roadie," and he came in quite handy. We got to the college two hours before our 10:00 P.M. showtime, and the student activities folks greeted us with a nice pre-show meal (Jimmy John's submarine sandwich platters and soft drinks). I remember providing hospitality when I brought artists on campus, and the practice hasn't changed. I ate quietly while Sean chatted with the student activities people, taking notice of what he had to say and what the students were responding to.
As the time ticked down to showtime, I got on the mike and started warming up the crowd. Several agents from the Smith Agency showed up to see me work in front of an actual college crowd, and Bill even came out for a little while.
The first show went well, with only a few notes from Sean, and the students seemed to enjoy the show a lot. I tossed out money and t-shirts, and ran the students through the games, while Sean ran the musical soundtrack from the d.j. booth. It was a lot of running and shouting, but a lot of fun. The next day, I was a little sore from all the physical activity, but we got a late checkout from the hotel so I had the opportunity to sleep in a little.
The next show was at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. Sean followed me and hung out only as an observer, and I loaded in the show using student volunteers and set it up and ran it myself. It went really well and was well attended, and afterwards, the Student Activities director took us out and bought us Subway sandwiches for our post-show meal. Sean and I ate and talked and then parted company, he followed me to the expressway and then headed east towards Upstate New York, and I went back to the hotel.
I had only a short time to sleep before heading off towards South Suburban College in South Holland, Illinois, just south of Chicago. It rained heavily all the way there, but the van held steady on the road, and I didn't have much trouble negotiating it even though it was the biggest vehicle I've driven since piloting the Bronco on the George Carlin tour, and that was over a decade ago. Still, old habits die hard, and soon I was one with the vehicle, making turns and navigating around parked cars with that big boat like I'd been doing it forever.
The one thing that was troublesome was the cash cube. Imagine a plexiglass telephone booth with no telephone in it, and a window-style air conditioner anchored at the bottom. The cube has a rolling dolly welded to the back of it, and the unit slides into the back of the van on the wheels. They had sandbags to chock the wheels to keep it from sliding around, but they shift during transit and at one point, I stopped for a vehicle making a right-on-red, and the cube slammed into the back of my seat, giving me a nice little punch in the back.
I anchored the cube as best I could, using the full-sized spare tire as a buffer between my seat and the cube, laying it down so the rolling cube wouldn't hit my chair again. I drove through the rain to Chicago, and just five blocks from the school, disaster struck. I was waiting at a red light, and when the light turned green, I gave the gas pedal a little push, and as the van lurched forward, the cube rolled back, and one of the metal edges caught one of the back windows just right and shattered it into a thousand pieces. I was 45 minutes early for my check in time, and I had to move fast. I also had to find a place to change money into small bills to put into the cash cube for the show.
I stopped at a supermarket and used the bathroom. Their ATM was out of order, so I headed to a bank around the corner. I used the bank's ATM, paying the $2 fee, and took the money to a teller who happily broke the bills for me.
Next stop was Walgreen's. I purchased a small broom 'n' dustpan, parked the van in the back of the parking lot near a garbage can, and started cleaning up the mess. Once I got most of the glass taken care of, I whipped out my roll of duct tape (which I bought for just such an emergency) and butchered the cardboard from a mostly empty box of t-shirts and started closing the hole. After the hole was properly covered, I made my way to the college with 15 mintues to spare.
I chatted with the student activities director at South Suburban, getting a feel for the demographic makeup of the student body while I set up the show. The cube was too big to fit through any of the doors, but the back of the theater I was performing in had a big roll-up door, so we brought it in that way. I had the show set up quickly and had about 45 minutes to breathe and relax before showtime. The show went great, and believe me, it's hard for it not to go great when you're handing out cash and t-shirts like Santa Claus. The winning student, a big dude named Eric who I had picked on earlier in the show, only fished out $56 from the cash cube, so I looked in my pocket and saw a fifty, a five and a one. Fifty-six dollars. I doubled the prize money and looked like the biggest super hero there ever was! It was a great feeling, and all I could think of was "Wow, they're actually paying me to do this!"
After the show, it was off to the hotel where the college graciously lodged me in a king business suite, complete with fridge, microwave and comped wireless internet. I relaxed for only a few minutes before scanning the yellow pages to look for an auto glass shop that could take care of my situation. I was performing at a school on the north side of Chicago the following day, so I made an appointment for the mobile unit to meet me there. They needed a four-hour window of time to work on the glass, and between the check-in and the end of the show, I would be at Oakton Community College for four hours, so it seemed perfect.
I headed out, grabbed dinner and hit a bank to replenish my cash supply for the next show. I wanted to have all of my ducks in a row before taking off the next morning, so I used the time in the hotel room to reset all of my props and have the most time available to work with the glass technician if need be.
I took off extra early for Oakton, knowing that morning rush hour traffic in Chicago would be relentless. It was only a 45-minute drive, but I allowed double the time and still only got there 20 minutes early. I was met immediately by the glass company's mobile unit, and he repaired my windown in 20 minutes. It was literally a picture-perfect situation!
I loaded in the show to the student cafeteria, and after a few glitches with the college's sound system, started the show. The show went great, and the students really seemed to need the money because they were mobbing me as I threw singles into the crowd. The grand champion, a petit young lady named Mary Kitt, also pulled a small amount of money like the winner the day before. I reached in my pocket and added cash to her stack, and the crowd went nuts!
I actually had clipped the college's sound system with the music and lapel microphone they gave me to use, because I was trying to drive a full cafeteria with music and I'm loud to begin with. Still, I ran around, jumped up on chairs, mugged for the audience, threw money around, and before I knew it, I realized I was channeling Mike Ruiz.
Mike Ruiz is one of my good, good friends, and I met him while performing in the Joey and Maria's Italian Comedy Wedding Show years back. Mike is a good comic and actor, and a natural mc for the show. I have literally done hundreds of shows with Mike in all manner of rooms, from small banquet halls to huge convention centers, and even the big room at Turning Stone Casino in Upstate New York. Mike has a wonderful rapport with an audience, and uses his natural likeability to move them, and I obviously absorbed some of his technique, because there it was, in the Oakton Community College Student Life Center, bubbling out of me like hot marinara out of a calzone. It worked so well that I must publicly thank you Mike, for teaching me even if you didn't realize that you were teaching me.
After the show, I hit the trail of tears back home to Rochester, and after losing an hour in the time transition from Chicago back to east coast time, I rolled into Rochester around 3 A.M. I now have the Smith Agency van sitting in my driveway and my car is back in Grand Rapids sitting in the parking lot and as soon as I can figure out how to retrieve it, I'm heading back there. I slept in as long as Harmony would let me, and later in the afternoon, I got a call from Bill Smith mentioning that my report cards from the schools were good, and that I was "in the van," meaning I'm hired and installed as the newest host for "Dash For Dollars."
I still have comedy club dates on the books; I'm going to Blacksburg, Virginia, Greensboro, North Carolina and Fayetteville, North Carolina this week, and then I have a Monday night show the day after. The great thing about this game show is that they generally get booked during the week, leaving my weekends available for club work. Plus, they're all over the country, which means the routing is actually going to help me expand my territory. And the money is good enough that I'm actually going to be able to stay in the game, and I've got a company full of agents repping me, and now all I have to do is worry about getting to the dates and performing. I'm also going to try and get my improv troupe to work more frequently, but I have to tackle things a little bit at a time. I have books to write, CD's to record, and so many projects I can't count them. I've been recharged by this opportunity, and I'm excited to see where it's going to head. One of the best by-products is that I'm home for a weekend, and it doesn't mean I was unemployed this week. I feel like I should pinch myself to make sure I'm awake.
I've always said that the key to this business was tenacity. I just never thought that I would have to prove it to myself. I went from being ready to take a job stocking shelves at a supermarket to being the host of one of the longest-running college shows in the country. I feel like Kurt Warner must have after Super Bowl XXXIV.
Don't Stop Believin', indeed.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing 4963
Tuesday, September 30, 2008-1:00 A.M.
I said "Fuck The Troops" on stage Saturday night and got a round of applause.
Here's how it happened; I was performing at the Cedar House in Skaneatles, New York with fellow comics Danny "D-Low" Brown and Joe Fico. At a point in my headlining set, I begin talking about politics. I preface the political material in my show by urging everyone to vote in November, because it sickens me that voter apathy has subjected us to lousy leadership in this country for much of the last 40 years (in other words, my lifetime). I mention that American fighting men and women lost their lives defending our right to vote, and if you stayed home on Election Day, you were basically saying "Fuck The Troops." The crowd of about 120 clapped and cheered.
Now, staying home on Election Day is NOT saying "Fuck The Troops." The right to vote is also the right to abstain. But I thought it would be a fun exercise to see if I could say what is possibly the most inflammatory statement you could say to a group of strangers (in a small, and from what I could gather, conservative town) and get away with it.
Joe had done some political material earlier in the show, and it was clear from their response that I was in a very red part of New York (a very blue state). Getting them to clap for me saying "fuck the troops" was all the more sweeter, because it proved that in the right context, with the right wording and inflection, you can get social conservatives to clap for almost anything.
Now, I mention all of this not to give myself a smug pat-on-the-back, but to set up the next thing, which is a question from the mailbag. The question comes from Ricky K. of Englewood, Florida, and he's not exactly a stranger; he's been one of my best friends for almost 20 years.
Ricky writes; "I'd like to see you write in your blog about Sara Palin and how she is quickly becoming another Dan Quayle and late night fodder for Dave, Jay and Saturday Night Live. I'd like to see your take on this."
Well, Ricky, I'd be glad to oblige.
The state of politics in this country has become so fragmented and divided that we'll likely never come together as a nation again. The infighting based on whether or not an individual is a Democrat or a Republican has gotten so ugly, it's made many of us feel like foreigners in our own country. The current state of the economy (disastrous) is a perfect microcosm of what we've become....a bunch of sorry finger-pointers who would rather assign blame (and therefore, shame) than roll up our sleeves and work together in a bucket brigade to put the fire out. This fragmentation was designed by Republicans, to pit us against each other and seize the power that by rights, should be held by Democrats as champions of the middle class, the largest class in this country (and by that I mean outnumbering both the "rich" and the "poor").
Now, as a Liberal, I must defend the Democrats as being more correct-not "totally" correct, but more correct, than Republicans in any given circumstance. Republicans are given to hyperbole, such as tearing down actors who give their political opinions as "Hollywood elitists," even though you never hear that tag given to Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger, ie: Hollywood elitists that they agree with. They are masters of double-speak, and will sell you as much bullshit as you are willing to buy.
And even the base of the Republican party is suspect; Republicans were always the party of the monied few, while the Democrats favored the working class; hence, the union support of Democratic candidates. The simple truth is that as more and more wealth is hoarded by the top one percent in this country, the Republican party needed to shore up their numbers (there are certainly not enough wealthy people left to win an election for a Republican candidate), and they did it by reaching out to evangelical Christians; ie: "Social Conservatives." The plot here seems to be that if you are an economic Conservative, you justtake a stance that abortions are wrong, flag burning is wrong, and gay marriage is an abomination, and you count those votes right into office. Politicians will say anything to get elected, sure, but this one is so easy an idiot could do it.
Calm down, I'm not up to Governor Palin yet.
You never hear anyone talk about "economic Liberals," do you? It's usually just social Liberals, because Liberals don't follow the money like Conservatives do. The general stance is that Republicans care about money, and Democrats care about people. Liberals are forced to deal with money in the form of taxation because they need that money to implement social programs which are designed (wait for it) to take care of people. Republicans want smaller government, smaller taxes, less governmental regulation and intrusion in business, and basically allow each individual's chips to fall where they may, which is a very cavalier attitude to take when you've already got plenty of money. Universal health care isn't very important to you if you're healthy and wealthy. Which begs the question, why isn't there universal health care in this country? Because we've only had two terms of Democratic leadership in the White House in the last 28 years, and that particular president (Clinton) had to deal with a Republican Congress that basically told him to shove universal health care up his blow hole (talking about health care and President Clinton actually makes the song "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye come to mind, and I'm sure there's a good joke in there somewhere, but I got the punchline and can't figure out the setup). Another reason that Republicans shoot down universal health care is that dead people can't collect Social Security. If health care was available and people lived long, healthy lives, they'd be collecting Social Security up the wazoo, and George W. Bush and his cronies have already raided that fund and spent the money. Finally, universal health care would destroy a whole industry, the health insurance industry, and the pharmaceutical lobby won't sit back and watch their product get "price fixed" by a bunch of anti-profit Socialists. It's all in the money, baby. If the uninsured (yes, I'm one of them, thank you) could get some Political Action Committee money together to lobby Congress, we would. But if we had that money, we wouldn't need to lobby Congress, we could just go buy our own damn medication.
I had a very interesting conversation with a guy after a show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania last month about universal health care. This individual was ex-Army, and worked for the government in a civilian capacity. His argument against universal health care (after damning the newly minted Democratic VP choice of Joe Biden as a "Socialist" [the new bad word for "Liberal"]) was that the same long lines and poor service that we recieve at the Department of Motor Vehicles would be the same that we would receive under socialized medicine. Although at first blush, I would say as an unisured person that if I could vault over high medical bills by standing in line, I would find the time to do that, but I reject this logic because people at the Department of Motor Vehicles are bureaucrats who are issuing licenses, collecting money and handing out plates. Folks who work in medicine do so because they are healers, wishing to help people and take oaths to do so. I'm not saying that the billing and records aspect of hospitals and clinics would be less rigmarole than they are now, but actually, yes they would, because there wouldn't have to be any billing to speak of, it would just be maintenance of health records. So yes, I disagree in that respect.
So we've got a hornswoggled populace who are getting shoved around, manipulated by Republicans who beat the socially conservative drum, lining up all the simps who care way too much about the abortion issue, gay marriage and gun rights (and the sad truth is that overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't abolish abortion, it would just revert the ruling on the issue back to the states, so you'd have really, really, really conservative states like South Dakota and Alabama saying "no" to abortion, then Becky Sue would have to take a long bus ride to the next abortion-allowing state to get her procedure done, or Billy Ray would have to do a back alley coat hanger job on her or face raising a little bastard for 18 years) and marching Conservative politicians into office to the detriment of their fiscal health and welfare. For the most part, social conservatives are not of monetary substance to afford the fiscal policies of the Conservative Right. It would be much more to their advantage to vote with the Left, but the thought of allowing gays to marry and live together (even though this would fall under the allowance of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...remember that from History class?) makes most social conservatives (the real ones, not the ones pretending they are to curry favor and get votes) vomit. And I mean, those that weren't in the airport bathroom already, playing footsy under the bathroom stall with another guy.
But neither do Liberals vote their wallets....Sean Penn and Barbara Streisand have plenty of money, and vote with a party that would most likely tax them handily, but they do so because they understand that to whom much is given, much is expected (that's from the Bible, in case you don't recognize it). And while the teachings of Jesus Christ almost always smack of Socialism, only a few people (and it's usually artists, people who spend time examining the human condition) that understand the natural beauty in helping one another. And they do it because it's the right way to act.
So that, in an overly-simplified explanation, is why I am a Liberal. Now on to Governor Palin.
By now, I'm sure you've heard a lot about the good Governor and her fine work up there in Alaska, and had quite a few opportunities to size her up for yourself and decide if she is indeed a good choice for Senator McCain as a running mate.
From the beginning, when Senator McCain emerged victorious over a weak Republican field to garner the nomination of the party, most Conservatives were beside themselves. I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh and hearing how much of a disaster this was for the party (he's seemed to have come around as of late) and all I could think of was that the George W. Bush campaign painted McCain as the worst possible choice in the world back in 2000, and now he's the next coming of Ronald Reagan. Remember when Karl Rove got a bunch of volunteers on the phone in South Carolina back in 2000 and asked people "Would it make you want to vote for Senator McCain less if you found out that he fathered a black child out of wedlock?" And the truth was that he handn't, the truth was that he and his wife, Cindy, had adopted a black child and McCain had to hide the child lest people think the rumor was true, and many folks in South Carolina didn't vote for him over George W. Bush based on that lie alone. When McCain was named the eventual Republican nominee this year, many folks on the right were very disappointed, hoping for a Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney (Giuliani never had a chance) and in the absence of those candidates, McCain was like a bitter medicine and the choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was quite the thumb in the eye to Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, or any of the other rich, white men who were supposed to be in line for that job.
The initial response was that Palin was an answer to disenfranchised Hillary Clinton supporters who were upset that Barack Obama didn't choose her as his running mate and the Republicans decided to give them a female that they could vote for and make the medicine go down easier. But Hillary Clinton's supporters weren't supporting her because she was a female, they were supporting her because she stood for the things they wanted their elected officials to stand for; health care, help for working families, relief from the high cost of living, a woman's right to choose, equality in the workplace for women and other Liberal ideas. Palin is a pro-life (unless you're a moose, I guess), pro-gun Conservative who shares few if any of Clinton's views, other than that a woman can and should compete for one of the two highest offices in the land.
It is to Governor Palin's eternal misfortune that she has a talented Doppelganger in the form of Tina Fey, formerly of Saturday Night Live and now of 30 Rock on NBC. Fey has lampooned the Governor twice in the last two weeks on SNL, and this last go-around, she didn't even have to memorize funny written dialogue. In a sketch featuring Amy Pohler as Katie Couric and spoofing a recent interview Governor Palin did with her, Fey merely delivered the lines Governor Palin did when questioned on her foreign party credentials. The disjointed response generated gales of laughter without much comic exaggeration, and THAT, my friends, is quite unfortunate indeed. It is far unfortunate for us as a nation that this situation has been allowed to happen, that a woman who appears to be, while strong, STUNNINGLY unqualified for the position of Vice President, has, in fact, been offered by one of the two major political parties as fit for that office.
Dan Quayle, for those of you that remember him, was chosen by the elder President Bush to show some balance on the ticket by featuring one of the young rising stars of the Republican party. Quayle was a senator from Indiana, and was famously skewered for his correction of a student who spelled "potato" correctly, insisting that the word actually featured an "e" at the end. Quayle had several other gaffes as well, but none more memorable than that one.
Sarah Palin hasn't even ascended to office yet, and she's already barfed up quite a few doozies for the late night comedians to work with. There's a photo making the rounds on the internet of her in an American flag bikini, holding an automatic rifle, but it's actually Palin's head photoshopped on to another woman in that pose (please don't believe stuff you read on the internet.....there's also no money waiting for you in Nigeria from your dead uncle you didn't know you had).
The choice of Palin is bad, and probably not McCain's, although he definitely has a history of reckless behavior. McCain has a damaged reputation among evangelicals (leftover from his 2000 presidential bid in which he basically told the religious right to go fuck themselves) and the Palin pick seems like an attempt to assuage them. Whether or not there are women dumb enough to follow the logic that if they can't vote for Hillary Clinton, they can vote for McCain and get Palin into the White House as the first female to hold the veep job, remains to be seen. I can't imagine that Clinton supporters are that obtuse, although she has strong support in the Appalachian states, and those folks aren't exactly world-famous for their "book lurnin'."
Any politician that McCain chose as his running mate was sure to be eviscerated by the late night comics, Letterman, Leno, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and others. The sad truth is that Palin is such a bad choice, her jokes write themselves, and now even Republicans are dog-piling on and calling for her removal from the ticket. And this is two months away from the election!
But let's face it, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln could descend from heaven and he'd lose the presidential election in a landslide. The blue states wouldn't vote for him because he's a Republican. The South wouldn't vote for him because he's from Illinois. And the evangelicals wouldn't vote for him because they'd see his beard and think he was Amish.
Our only hope as a nation is to happen along a charismatic leader who can unite us, make us all proud to be one country again, like Reagan did after the financial crisis of the recession during Jimmy Carter's presidency. We were on the ropes as a nation back in 1979, with hostages in Iran, gas shortages that only allowed you to buy fuel on odd or even days depending on your license plate, and a withering sense of national pride. Reagan, although flawed, was able to bring us all together for a time. Who will do that for us now? We can pin our hopes on an egotistical bastard who's running for President to correct the screwing he got from Bush eight years ago, and tolerate his angry, caustic style and hope that he unites our country and improves the value of a dollar to most of what it used to be, or we can try the other guy, who seems popular and magnetic, speaks softly, and doesn't care to approve "attack ads" or sling the mud. I shudder to think that a group of people who can be lead by me, a standup comic doing his act in a bowling alley, to applaud the phrase "Fuck The Troops," can be lead to think that John McCain and Sarah Palin are a good choice to be Captain and First Mate on this Titanic that the United States of America has become.
You do what you want to, I think the choice is clear.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wherever I May Roam
Wherever I May Roam 4920
Tuesday, September 23, 2008-12:30 A.M.
After quite the layoff from strenuous road work, I returned to the long black ribbon this week with two 2-day tours of the Midwest. Wednesday and Thursday, I worked for the Kewadin Casinos of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the witty and rough-edged Bill Bushart, and Friday and Saturday, I appeared at a new club in Peoria, Illinois called Lenny's Comedy Cafe with the very funny John Bush.
I took off Wednesday morning and drove the 10 hours without a blink. The only hang-up was forgetting that the Zilwaukee bridge (yes, there is such a place) is out, prompting a detour that confounded my GPS device. Also, I hung my left arm out the car window and got a pretty pronounced sunburn. The arm actually said "Ahem. I am sun burnt." Also, on the way to the club, just after the Mackinac bridge (say "MACK-en-aw and sound like you're from there), I saw two guys in a white pickup truck lose control of their vehicle on dry pavement and go four-wheeling up an embankment. I always feel like that shit is bad luck omens, but things turned out o.k.
I met Bill Bushart for the first time after having known him for years and done every "MySpace, Facebook" buddy thing you could possibly do without ever meeting face-to-face. He had never performed at the Kewadin Casinos before, so I was his Ishmael, letting him know what to expect, what he could get away with on stage, etc. He barely needed my counsel as he had a great show both nights, in St. Ignace and again in Sault Ste. Marie. Bill works "rough," which is how I describe my own comedy, so it was a good "themed" show instead of just "here's a comic" and then "here's another."
After various engagements at the Kewadin casinos, I've found them to be gracious hosts, picking up meal tabs for the duration of my stay. I would estimate that I gambled enough in the slot machines to pay for the food I consumed, although in my younger days, they never would have gotten the best of me. You just can't eat salad fast enough to catch up to the "Deal or No Deal" machines. Thank God the casino was buying my food, or it would have been "Meal or No Meal."
Thursday night was great in the Sault (say it "Soo" and sound like you're from there) as I expected the normal rowdy, young, hard-drinkin' folks, and was pleased to find that a large number of older folks had made the scene. I felt kinda bad because Bill and I were no Red Skelton and Shecky Greene, but Grams and Gramps hung out, I think only a few decided that it was too much and walked early.
Friday morning I had to pick 'em up early and get heading out to Peoria, Illinois, home of Lenny's Comedy Cafe and famously known (by me, anyway) as the historical hometown of Richard Pryor, probably one of the five funniest standup comedians ever. It was a 700 mile trip, crossing Michigan in it's entirety, a small chunk of Indiana, Chicago in the afternoon, and a good chunk of Illinois farmland. Even though I gained an hour by crossing into the Central Time Zone, I busted my ass to get there, checked in to the hotel and only had enough time to get a one-hour nap, just enough to freshen up. Needless to say, when you put all that effort into getting to a gig, expect the worst. Well, the beautiful weather translated into a Summertime attitude by the denizens of Peoria, and they all decided to go frolicking outdoors rather than come inside and play with us. The show canceled, and I went back to the hotel to sleep a sleep that you only get inside a silk-lined casket. Of course, the day was doomed from the start; a cop pulled me over less than a minute after leaving the casino's parking lot...I guess I was testing that "25 MPH" speed limit they use around there. He was good enough to let me go with a warning as I pointed out to him that I had JUST left the casino andwas heading to the expressway, and that my car was covered with early morning condensation to prove that I hadn't been at the wheel long. Actually, I was as polite and respectful as I've ever been to a law enforcement agent; when he asked me "Do you have any idea why I pulled you over?" I restrained the urge to say, "Yeah, you saw the New York plates and the Obama '08 sticker on my car and decided to be an asshole?"
Saturday was better, although premium weather still deflated our cause. We had two shows with audiences that made up for in quality what they lacked in quantity. Tammy and Roger were great hosts, and Butch made delicious home recipe, Southern-style barbecue sandwiches for us. John was not familiar with the southern version of barbecue sauce, which uses a vinegar rather than a tomato base, and it was absolutely top notch. We turned in our sets and then returned to the hotel where I immediately started packing and split to make it back to Rochester. There's a new comedy club in Rochester called.....wait for it.....The Comedy Club (say it CALM-uh-dee club and sound like you're from there), (www.thecomedyclub.us) and I was invited to perform on their "soft opening" show. For the uninformed, that's an invitation-only, family-and-friends show that you put on to see if your wait staff is properly trained and can function at the level that you need to do business. I was booked and shared the stage with Matt Grippo, Joe Bruno, Jamie Lissow and Joel Lindley, as well as Rochester's own Brother Wease, who did some introductions up front and is involved with the running of the club. The show was hosted by Michael Gately, the morning show host on Rochester's 100.5 The Drive, and a fellow I'd had the pleasure of sharing the stage with in the past. I hadn't seen Wease in a while, and I went to shake his hand and knocked his cell phone out of his hand and on to the floor.
So I left Peoria around 1 A.M., which was really 2 A.M., because I was heading back east. I drove until 6 A.M., which got me into Indiana and past Chicago, and I got a two-hour nap at a rest stop somewhere between South Bend and the Ohio border. At 8 A.M., I loaded up on Red Bull and hit the road again. I got into radio range of Buffalo to hear a good part of the Buffalo Bills' game against the Oakland Raiders, and just as Rian Lindell was kicking the game-winning field goal, I was pulling into my driveway. I loaded out my luggage, got about an hour of sleep, and headed to the club (notice a pattern here at all?).
Well, I was happy with my set, which was a prairie fire with no rhyme or reason, just stringing together ten minute's worth of some of my best loved material, but the folks ate it up, so I was happy. And I'm sure a lot of folks will be interested to hear my review of the new club that Rochester will be frequenting for their ha-ha's.
Basically, I think the place is great. From a decorative standpoint, the club is very nice, and even though it's in a country bar (called Daisy Dukes) it doesn't look red-necky at all. If anything, there's enough woodwork to make the place look really upscale. Also, the club features the return of the famous brick wall for a stage, which hearkens back to the days when standup was performed in coffee houses and rathskellers, which almost always had brick walls (hence the tradition). Betcha didn't know that, huh?
There's an actual green room, which is small but functional, with access to the back service bar. There's only room for about four people to hang out, and two would have to stand, but the whole purpose of the green room is to have some privacy and get away from the crowd, so I would have to give it an "A" in that regard.
The sound system needed a little fine-tuning, as opener Matt Grippo played an electric ukelele (no shit) and at times, was a little difficult to hear. The lighting and stage were good, and the seating, while sterile and "prison mess-hall" style, was uncrowded and comfortable. And I guess the folks seated in the outside rows are just going to have to turn their seats and deal with the fact that the place to rest their drink is behind them.
One extremely classy touch that I thought was nice was the specialty drink menu which paid homage to comedians who had passed on and listed their birth-to-death dates under their names. John Belushi, George Carlin, Gilda Radner, Rodney Dangerfield, Sam Kinison and others were represented with signature cocktails, and to honor them that way shows a real deference to the art of comedy, and as a comedian, I was impressed. A lot of clubs have menus with cute comedy names for their food and beverage, but this was the first time I saw a list of exclusively departed talents and their date of passage included. Bravo, I say.
The club has enlisted quite a few veterans of the old club to come in and turn the wheels, and I think that's a good thing. The problems at the old club seemed to all be a product of the organization and cash-flow issues, and that doesn't seem to be a problem at this new venue. I performed for a nominal amount, and was presented with standard independent contractor paperwork, which is correct and how it should be....by the book. This will be no "fast and loose with the cash" enterprise, because the principals know that those are the holes that sunk the last boat. Some of the new faces (read; attractive wait staff) seemed a little vacuous; pretty, but in for a rude awakening the first time the place is sold out and the vikings want their mead. Whether you have serving experience or not, the comedy club is a totally different animal; there's no time to be standing around waiting to be told what to do, you have to bang those heels out to the showroom floor and rescue your customers from suckin' ice. A show only lasts 90 minutes, sell those drinks!
The club isn't overly large, seating at around 200, which will prevent that "empty room" look when holidays and warm weather keep the folks away. It's outside of the city, in the town of Webster, but it's on the main drag and shouldn't have any problems being found by even the most far-flung westsiders who can easily jump on 490 and make the show if they give themselves half an hour (at the most).
So best of luck to Mark Ippolito and Joe Tantillo and their staff, I know they'll do a great job of representing comedy in Rochester, and a hearty thank you from me for including me in the opening day festivities. I feel like the President being asked to throw out the first pitch on opening day, except instead of one-hopping it to the plate, I felt like I got to strike out the first three batters. Even draggin' ass from no sleep and a cross-country death drive, there's nothing like taking the stage in front of a hot audience.
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
An American Prayer
An American Prayer 4776
Tuesday, September 2, 2008-3:26 A.M.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. That was a famous line from the movie "Network" which dealt with the power of the TV news, and this was back in the days before cable and sattelite television and the internet, when there were only a few voices being broadcast across the nation.
Now it's 2008, and with a Presidential election breathing down our collective neck, and the neck of the rest of the world, for that matter, the angry voices are echoing all across the cableverse, the internet, the opinion pages of newspapers and across the dinner tables and bars everywhere I go.
I want to raise my voice up to the heavens and cry "Shut up! For God's sake, shut up! You're tearing our country apart!" But I don't scream, because I could never be heard over the constant static. Trying to stop our fellow countrymen from continuing the divisive and angry speech is as fruitless as screaming at a crying child, hoping to compete for volume and stun it into silence. It just doesn't work that way.
We're one Democratic National Convention down and one Republican National Convention to go, and the players are in place. The unorthodox choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has caused a swell of enthusiasim in the discussion of politics, either to praise her selection or as red meat for the naysayers. Sadly, there's enough gasoline to go around to keep both fires burning.
And isn't that the problem? The lack of civil discourse in politcs is cut almost entirely whole cloth from the dilemma that we all, as Americans, want what's best for America, but disagree on how to best get that done.
We begin to discuss the issues, with the intended spirit of debate, rooted in Parliamentary procedure for such discussions. And we try to win the other side over with facts and figures, supposition and commentary, hypothesis and examination, until our point is made.
Except for the fact that both sides have valid arguments.
Well, then, the next step is to start shouting, and then the name-calling comes in. It's called an ad-hominem argument, from the Latin, literally, "to the man,"and basically consists of attacking the debater; you're an asshole, so your argument is false.
Do we deserve that in a Democratic society? Where every man's vote counts, every man has the right to form an opinion, educated or not, and vote accordingly?
For an example of the fiery rhetoric that has replaced civil discourse in this country, take a gander at what the comedians are squawking about over at www.roadcomics.com and choose a thread with more than ten replies. Those are the threads that are political in nature, and the fur is flying.
Now, you'd think that comedians are all in the same boat, but that's not the case. We have a tendency to skew liberal, but there are a good many Red-Staters in the business (take a look at the Blue Collar Comedians as exhibits A, B, C, and Git 'Er D.
I've always been pretty dour and humorless off stage, because comedy is comedy and business is business. I enjoy a laugh or two when I'm in my civilian clothing, but mostly, I'm engulfed in the increasingly difficult business of keeping my engagement calendar full and operating at a profit (high gas prices make travel by air and auto prohibitive, and buses and trains are just damn inconvenient). Also, for medical reasons, I don't drink anymore. Consequently, it's been difficult to loosen up.
But this political climate is working my last nerve, and I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't express my political views very often, and try to do so in a spirit of discussion and with openness to the contrary viewpoint. I believe in that whole "more flies with honey" approach, and there's bags of wisdom in that.
I've been consuming political books lately like I'm cramming for a civics exam. I'm combing the internet, reading blogs, going through newspaper like a china shop moving across country. And all because I'm looking for answers. I did the same thing the evening of September 11th, watching TV cable news, on the internet, bleary-eyed at 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for answers. And I don't consider what's going on in this country any less of a disaster.
Every issue has two sides, or it wouldn't be an issue. And every issue can be debated with civility and respect, but apparently a lot of us don't have time for that anymore.
Guns, abortion, gay marriage, flag burning. Wedge issues. Issues designed to tear us into groups, to position political candidates. Immigration, free trade. The war in Iraq, Afghanistan. What to do about Iran, North Korea? The high price of gasoline? Flag pins? How many houses do you own? Is your teenage daughter pregnant, did you cheat on your wife, who gave you money? Did you flip flop?
How about, enough? Enough.
I could sit here and give you my opinion about all of this stuff, and I'd be awake for 36 hours. But I only want to discuss one thing, one thing we can all agree on.
And that thing is What It Means To Be American.
I was a Cub Scout, and I got a little training in this area. I'm no expert, but being American doesn't require you to be an expert.
Here's what I think it means to be an American.
Being an American means enjoying the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But also understanding that this freedom comes with the duty to respect the freedoms of others.
Being an American means welcoming people from all across the world, regardless of their faith, national origin, color or creed, as our own group was welcomed. Black folks, your boat ride was different, and I apologize, but my family didn't come to this country until about 50 years after slavery was abolished, so please keep my words in perspective.
Being an American means constantly striving towards innovation, in the fields of education, technology, economics, manufacturing, diplomacy, art, music, literature, and everything that is good about civilized society.
Being an American means protecting our shores, and being a leader around the world, defending opressed peoples and using our might to make the world a better place.
Being an American means sharing the fruits of our labors, giving back to the community which enriched us in the first place (use Bill Gates as a perfect example here), looking out for the general welfare, and reaching out to the poorest among us.
Being an American means having the opportunity to participate in a great Democratic experiment, pulled together by some of the finest thinkers ever assembled, and respecting the shoulders of the giants that we stand on today, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, James Monroe, John Adams.
Being an American means participating in a great Capitalist system as well, where everyone can have the opportunity to succeed, try the waters of the free market, and work their way into being a great success story.
There's more, but I think anyone with any training should understand what it means to be American. And shouting amongst ourselves, contributing to the smoke and mirrors that have replaced honest discourse, in my opinon only weaken our country.
So here's what I propose;
The next time someone starts blustering away with their political opinion, put your index finger to your lips, whether you agree with them or not, and go "SSSSHHHHHHHHHH."
And let's try to get our collective silence back. Because silence breeds thought. And silence breeds calm. And maybe if we all calm down,
and start thinking again.....
....we can remember why it's so great to be American. And we can think about how to get things done, the work that we wish done to preserve our great nation and our great system.
Are you ready, America?
Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY
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