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

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

All Fired Up

All Fired Up                                   4742

Sunday, August 24th, 2008-3:30 A.M.

I'm exhausted.  The last 48 hours have whupped my ass, and I'm still awake. 

I'm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the Comedy Zone (Hi Heff!  Hi Joel!), and just rattling down from the adrenaline and caffeine from two great shows tonight with my friend, Matt Davis.

The last time I checked in, I was in San Antonio, Texas.  Can I book a tour, or what?  San Antonio in August.  It was 102 degrees when I left that town.  In Upstate New York, 102 degrees is a cooking temperature.

I stayed in my air-conditioned convenience apartment the whole week in Texas, not wanting to brave the daunting heat or sweat through my week's allotment of clothing.  It was bad enough that I packed sparsely and still got whacked $50 for "overweight luggage."  I had to shift my stuff to a carry-on bag, which allowed me to make the weight limit.  My question is, though, the airplane was still carrying the same amount of shit....how come I had to pay on the way down but not on the way back?  It's a scam, and the airlines will bilk you for every dollar they can.

After my uneventful trip home, my back started giving out.  I was schedule to play Rob's Comedy Playhouse in Buffalo, NY, and by that Saturday, I was a cripple hobbling around on a cane.  I had a great time at the show, and even did improv with the other two acts, Danny Pordum and Mark Colona, but it was all word game stuff, because I wasn't up to doing anything physical.  I drove to Buffalo up and back, with my pretty wife in tow in case I was unable to make the whole distance, but I was only having trouble standing, not sitting.  Actually, sitting felt pretty comfortable.

By Monday, though, I was in great pain and Pamela begged me to call a chiropractor.  I did, and I swear to God that as soon as I made the appointment, my back started getting better.  By the time the appointment actually rolled around on Wednesday, I was fully upright and working around the house.  I had even found time to work with my new software program that allows me to convert cassette tapes to CD.  My first project was a live Bruce Springsteen concert that aradio station friend of mine bootlegged for me.  The tape was almost 13 years old, and I'd been freaking out about getting it transferred over because I know that tape is brittle and I didn't want to lose this concert, it was from the "Ghost of Tom Joad" tour and featured Bruce alone with his guitar in Philadelphia....a great show.

So here's where the torture comes in.

On Friday morning, I was scheduled to appear on The Break Room, which is the morning show on 96.5 FM, WCMF in Rochester.  They had started doing a radio feature called "Lemons to Lemonade" which was basically bringing comedians on to their morning show to do their standup sets after commercial breaks, with the idea being that our local comedy club had recently closed, and this would be a nice outlet for the local comics.

I was scheduled to be in Harrisburg that night, but figured I would do the radio, make the five hour drive, do the shows, and then catch up on my sleep.

Here's the wrinkle; because I had been laid up in bed the whole week, my sleep pattern was all screwed up.  I was sleeping in the day and prowling the house at night.  So the night before radio/drive/shows, I was awake until 4:00 A.M.

When my alarm went off at 5:30, I knew I was boned.

I made the show and sucked down a big cup of coffee, and it went well.  The whole time I sat in on the show, I was fixated on the fact that I was the only person in the room who was approaching 6:00 A.M. from the other side, the end of a long day with only a small nap to tide me over.

The show went great, they had done a "man-on-the-street" interview with some people, dropping my name in and seeing if they could get any sort of recognition reaction.  One bit, they told a woman that John McCain was going to select me as his Vice-President, and the woman said she was going to vote for him no matter what.  But no real recognition of my name or who I was, and this is in my home town where I've been begging for attention for the last 20 years.  Another woman they interviews and they told her that Buffalo Bills quarterback Trent Edwards had been hurt, and that I would have to start in his place, and she only replied that her son was a big fan, and that he knew about the injury.  I took it in stride, but they did these bits with other comics as well, and I understand that some of them didn't appreciate it.  Shit, it's morning radio....they don't make or break your career on morning radio.

So the show went well, and I realized that I wasn't going to get any sleep, so I packed up my luggage and headed off to Harrisburg.  When I arrived, I found out they were on summer schedule, so we didn't have to do a late show, and I squeezed a one-hour nap for myself and then did a prairie fire of a set (blazing hot, and all over the place) that the people really seemed to like.  After the show, I thought I would catch up on my sleep, but I get back to the room and CNN is on (it's always on in my hotel room) and the big news was announced that Joe Biden was Obama's veep pick.

Well, political junkie that I am, I stayed awake until I couldn't stand it anymore, right around 4 A.M.  I would up sleeping almost twelve hours before I actually got up.  I didn't even leave the Doc Holliday's/Conference Center.  I ate in the restaurant, enjoying a nice salad and their signature Steak-Stuffed Poblanos (Yum!).

So tonight, we had two really good shows, and I'm going to sleep in instead of trying to drive home overnight...my family has seen plenty of me and I'm going to be home all this week, so the pressure's off.  I'm glad to be home, too, because I have a lot of catching up to do.

Before I go, my take on Biden is that it's a good pick.  Hillary was obviously an automatic "no," and that's a shame, because they would have had an avalanche of votes.  Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius would have been two "who?" candidates, and Evan Bayh was "iffy."  Bill Richardson had a whole lot of foreign policy experience, which would have been great, but I guess the powers-that-be decided that you couldn't have two minorities on the same ticket.  That left Biden as a counter-punch to claims that Obama didn't have enough experience.  My only gripe was that it makes up a ticket of two Northerners, so unless hordes of southern blacks come streaming into the voting booths in November, the Southeast United States is going to look pretty red on the map.  But that's not exactly big news, Democrats don't do well in the South anyway, and I think it's a shame that Southerners piss away their economic self-interests on horseshit issues like gun ownership and abortion.  I guess you get the government you deserve.  I just hope all those displaced Hurricane Katrina victims re-registered to vote wherever they're living now.  That oughta shake some things up.

O.K., I'm going to bed.  Please love each other and stop being stupid.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Gangland

Gangland                                      4635

Thursday, August 7, 2008-2:00 P.M. CDT

Reporting live from San Antonio, Texas, in the efficiency apartment reserved for the talent performing at the Rivercenter Comedy Club, it's your old buddy Ralph chiming in from the road.

It's been a solid three weeks since I last blogged, and I have to admit that my attention has turned elsewhere as of late.  When I'm online, I'm consumed by the comedian chatboard at www.roadcomics.com, the online home of the touring comic community.  I've also had a good chunk of my time taken up by the MySpace game "Mobsters," which is fun and quite addicting.  The game is played by completing missions such as carjackings, muggings, and beating up other gangsters and taking their money.  It's a perfect way for me to vent my less-than-social tendencies.

The fact of the matter is, anything is better than facing real life right now.  The economy is really taking a toll on me and my family.  We bring home less money because I spend more on fuel to get to work, and little things have contributed to the erosion as well.  For example, my merchandise sales are off this year by 18%.  That only equates to a few hundred dollars, but the whole concept of merchandise sales are to help offset the fuel cost of getting to work.  If the trend continues, I may find myself priced out of the game.  I'm sure the merchandise situation is directly due to folks feeling that they don't have the disposable income to waste on such purchases, and I guess in a lot of cases, I'm lucky that folks are even showing up to the clubs at all.  So I literally have to change course in this business, which is what I'm in the process of doing, but it's like turning a battleship in midstream....because most work is booked six months to a year out, it's a big waiting game before any economic effects will be felt.

I did a tour of Michigan a couple of weeks ago that was both fun and profitable, because Funny Business Agency was able to string together a series of one-nighters within a tight geographical area.  Consequently, travel expenses were lower, and the opportunity to work (and make money) increased.  The cost, of course, was being away from home longer, but the name of the game in comedy has always been routing, and going home just eats into the profit margin.

Last week, I headlined a club called Wiseacres (Wiseacres Comedy Club, Best Western Tysons Westpark Hotel, McLean, Virginia) and we made a nice little family vacation out of it; Pam and Harmony made the 7-hour trip to Washington D.C. and we went to the National Zoo, did some shopping, and shook off the heat in the hotel pool.  It was a great weekend, and even though the shows were "summer crowds," (read: not all that numerous) they were great fun and it was fun having the family along.....it certainly made the drive easier with someone in the car to talk to, although in order to keep Harmony happy, we had to listen to her Wiggles, Blues Clues and DoodleBops CD's the whole way down and back.

After only a few days home, it was onto a plane to head down to Texas.  The flight was booked through Expedia, so in order to get the best price possible and still arrive early enough to make my Wednesday show, I had to leave Rochester at 6 in the morning.  That basically meant getting to the airport at 4 A.M., and when you arrive somewhere at that time of night/morning, it's always a crapshoot to figure out who actually got up that early, and who is just staying up late....there's really no comfortable time to approach 4 A.M.....you're either at the end of a ridiculously long day, or the beginning of a terribly uncomfortable one.

I made my connection in Newark, N.J., and during the direct flight to San Antonio, I fell asleep.  I have sleep apnea, so I'm sure I snore pretty loudly, and the flight wasn't full, so there were several seats open.  I sat in an aisle seat, with an empty seat between me and the business traveler in the window seat, and he dealt with me o.k. because we were in the emergency exit aisle, and he didn't have to wake me to get past me to use the bathroom.  My snoring must have been a problem, though, because there was a guy seated directly in front of me, and when I woke up after a couple of hours, he had disappeared.

So I'm here in lovely San Antonio, and I usually try to work here in the Winter, but I'm here in August which is no time for a fat man from the Northeast with a pasty white complection to be here.  I usually like to stride along the Riverwalk which is goodexcercise, but the current outdoor temperature is one that I usually reserve for cooking food.  I'm working with "Uncle" Larry Reeb from Chicago, a great comic that I've had the pleasure of working with before and a nice guy to boot, an excellent combination in this business.  I'll probably try to get some writing done, if the pure distraction of "Mobsters" doesn't heist my free time.  Also, the comedy club is located in the Rivercenter Mall, and they have a movie theatre there and the comics get to see movies for free, so I might wind up seeing "Hancock" or even "The Dark Knight" again (it was that good, my friends).

I hope your summer is going well.  To my comedy buddies, please hang in there, everything is a cycle.  The business goes up and down, you just have to be patient and do what you can to ride it out.  And to my civilian friends, support your local comedy club, go see a show, and if you can afford it, buy a CD.  It's only a few bucks out of your pocket, but it makes a huge difference to the comics.

NEWSFLASH!  I just got word from the new comedy club in Rochester that their website is up and running.  I haven't had a chance to see it yet, but the address is www.thecomedyclub.us so go check it out!

That's enough for me.  Go get your summer!

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Dark Knight

Dark Knight                                                4491

Friday, July 18th, 2008-3:15 A.M.

Just got back to the hotel after catching a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight" (don't worry, no spoilers here).  I'm in Newport, Tennessee on a night off, and staying at my favorite low-budget hotel, the Motel 6.  There just happened to have been a movie theater across the street offering the movie of the summer, so I decided to plunk down the money and check it out.

I won't get into the particulars of the film, but it was phenomenal.  I was sitting amongst a group of young people (bad) at midnight (worse) in a small, rural town in Tennesee (oh Jesus, kill me now).  And yet, as ill-behaved and chatty as they were during the previews, once the movie got started, they were quiet and focused on the spectacle up on the big screen.

The Batman franchise has been invigorated by the two newest films, washing the bad taste of the campy Joel Schumacher films out of our collective craw.  Christopher Nolan is a wonderful visual story-teller (rent "Memento" if you haven't seen it yet....an amazing film) and he really does the Bat-franchise justice.

It's gotten to the point where super-hero films are becoming pretty evergreen, suitable for any season and drawing big box-office.  As a long-time comic book collector, I take umbrage with some of the liberties that directors and screenwriters take with the source material sometimes, but even in the comic book industry itself, characters have been relaunched, killed, brought back from the dead, and given the old "parallel universe" treatment so many times that films jerking around with origin stories have almost become forgiveable.

I would like to think that society as a whole has caught up with what I and several million hard-core fans have known for years; that the super-hero genre is exciting, inspirational and fun.  A lot of it also may be that the film-making technology has caught up with the genre and allowed filmmakers to proceed withough making movies that look "clunky."

But closer to the truth is that I think we need heroes today, and pretty badly.

When Batman was first conceived, back in 1940 by creator Bob Kane, the country was fresh out of the Great Depression and the pot was being stirred for America to enter the second World War.  Superman came first, Batman second, and then a whole pantheon of characters came around, heroes like Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow and the like, who can be seen on lunchboxes, bookbags, and a whole department store full of paraphenalia to this day.  The current crop of super-hero movies (and their embrace by the general public) may be a reflection that the cycle of war and economic depression has come around again.

The Spider-Man films have done great box office, as have the X-Men and Fantastic Four, as well as the minor characters like Ghost Rider, Daredevil and the Punisher.  Marvel has been very aggressive in getting their characters to the marketplace, and they've got Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk into the theaters this year, with an Avengers movie being set up in the final frames of the aforementioned Hulk film.

But Batman is the character that has seemed to resonate with film viewers, and doubtlessly, this new film will give Spider-Man a run for his money as the big box-office champ.  A lot of that will be the curiosity factor surrounding the departed Heath Ledger and his dark reading of the Joker in the film (and damn, was it a great job).  But the character also taps into a need that I think we all have.

Superman and Batman are the big two, the characters that started it all.  They are instantly recognizable all over the world, having been around for almost 70 years.  And many people can recite the origins of the two characters, or at least give a pretty decent synopsis.  Superman was the last son of the planet Krypton, rocketed to Earth by his father, Jor-El (Superman's Kryptonian name was Kal-El, El being the family name) and his mother, Lara.  Kal-El's tiny rocket landed in a Kansas cornfield, and the baby was found by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who adopted him as their own and named him Clark.  Batman was the son of Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne, and he watched them get gunned down in an alley after attending a movie (it was "Zorro," Trivial Pursuit fans) by a stick-up man named Joe Chill.

It may have been a sign of the times that both characters suffered the loss of their birth parents, although Clark was provided with surrogate parents in the Kents and Bruce was taken care of by Alfred Pennyworth, the family butler.  Still, the motivation behind the two characters were shaped by these losses and circumstances.

Clark was found to have super powers, a symptom of Earth's lighter gravity and yellow sun.  When the Kents found out about these powers, they basically told their son that they didn't know why he could do the things that he could do, but that he ought to use those abilities to protect the weak, to defend people who couldn't fight for themselves.  Clark Kent set a course from Smallville to Metropolis, to be closer to a large group of people who would benefit from his protection.  The positioning of himself as a reporter at a newspaper was designed to put him in a place where incoming information would alert him to potential tragedies and disasters that he could intervene in and prevent.  Bruce decided, after studying law in an effort to become either a policeman or a lawyer, that the law was sometimes too narrow to mete out true justice, and that guilty persons oftentimes walked away unpunished.  His decision to deck himself out in the scary bat-garb was a response to his realization that criminals were a "superstitious, cowardly lot" and that he would scare them, giving himself the upper hand.

So we have Superman, the other-worldly boy scout, putting himself in a position to protect the weak, but it is Batman, the self-trained vigilante who positions himself to punish the guilty.  This difference resonates with us today, in our uncertain world, where we need the reassurance that the bad people are brought to justice, punished for their misdeeds, rather than concerning ourselves with those who bring hope and shelter to the weak.  Our entertainment gives us away.  We have several crime shows, the newest offering being the CSI series that show through intense investigative lab work, the crime scene investigators will always get down to the truth of the matter and catch the murderers, rapists and other malcontents.  There is no movement to portray the "supermen" who protect the weak.  There are few documentaries of the people who are out there doing good, because that is boring to us.  We crave retribution.

The whole idea of the death penalty is based on this idea.  We cling to the Judeo-Christian notion that if we execute murderers, we somehow balance the scales and justice is done.  But really, all that has happened is the application of the "two wrongs make aright" rule which has been disproven over and over again.  And yet we want it, and we want it badly.  I'm so anti-death penalty, it isn't funny, but when the inevitable question comes up "What if someone raped and murdered your sister?  Your wife?  Your daughter?"  Then I turn to my basest instincts and the next thing you know, I'm installing step-up transformers on the chair and oiling those leather straps.

We need heroes, but we also need to look inside ourselves and find the part that is better than that spirit of retribution; we need to encourage ourselves to concentrate on protecting the weak, rather than exacting vengeance.  It is no coincidence that Superman derives his powers from the light of the Sun, while Batman hides in the shadows.  They are the Yin and the Yang, two sides of the same coin.

Years ago, I allowed a young lady to enter my life, and she was a drug addict.  I invited her to live with me, and while I was away, playing at a comedy club in St. Louis, she stole almost all of my possessions and pawned them for drugs.  When I returned home to see what she had done, sold my things and disappeared, did I become Superman or Batman?  I'll give you a hint; I was on a nightly patrol, driving up and down the streets of my neighborhood, looking for a sight of her or anyone I knew from her group of drug friends.  The sad punchline to the story is that I never caught her or even caught up with her, and I eventually gave up the patrol.  What would I have done if I found her?  At the time, I probably couldn't have answered that question.  If I were to tell you that I would probably try to get her into a rehab program, or try to help her in some way, I would have been lying to you.  She needed to be punished for betraying my trust the way she did, as though living the life of a drug addict wasn't bad enough.

So what am I trying to say here?  I guess the moral of the story is try to use your strengths to protect the weak, because in the long run, it's more noble than trying to punish evil.  You should never stop trying to fight evil, but you should also pick your fights accordingly.

I am inspired to write more, but I am also tired as it is ten after four in the morning and I really should get to bed.  I thank you for reading, and hope you get to see "The Dark Knight."  It is a strong movie with great performances, some niftyplot twists, characters introduced that you probably wouldn't have expected, and all in all presents a fine morality tale for the ages.  In the meantime, fight evil and protect the weak.  We can be heroes, every day.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

You're A Better Man Than I

You're A Better Man Than I                              4338

Tuesday, July 1, 2008-10:30 A.M.

Good morning from sunny Florida, where I am in the third week of my three-week summer tour.  I am performing tomorrow night in Cordele, Georgia, for the Comedy Zone and then travel south to Fort Myers, Florida for my yearly engagement at the Laugh Inn Comedy Café.

I’ve been coming down to Florida for about five or six years now, starting when my late father begun experiencing  health complications due to cancer (he passed away last year).  I had planned a small Florida tour every year to visit Dad and stayed with him on the off-nights.  It was a great way to both fill my summer tour schedule (Florida clubs don’t suffer the way clubs in other parts of the country do because of the hot weather; it’s hot all year so it’s not noticeable) and get a chance to keep in touch with my parents, make sure they were o.k.

My mom is still here in Florida, so I stay with her on my off-nights while I’m on tour.  She doesn’t so much need my attention as her health is still pretty good, but I know she enjoys the visits and the company.  Last night, she took me out to dinner with her buddies, the Karaoke Mafia (my nickname for her roving band of singers who hop bar-to-bar and sing, and there’s a different bar each night that hosts karaoke), and we sat on the lakeside deck of a seafood restaurant called Tailchaser’s and took turns warbling classic country and soft rock hits beneath a hazy setting sun as the ‘gators peered from the lake with their beady, red eyes.

This morning, I woke early to join my mother’s singing buddy, Rick, at the gated community’s clubhouse for coffee and chatter.  Joining us were Rick’s mother and a friend of theirs, an older man who I will call “Howard.”  We got to chit-chatting, and somewhere along the line, Howard mentioned that he felt there were “too many blacks on TV.”  It was the sort of thing that startled me, but I recovered because once I thought about it, the bigotry didn’t surprise me…I’m speaking with a man who grew up with institutional racism, and the sad truth is that by the time most folks are in their late 20’s, their attitudes are already in place for the rest of their lives.

So I didn’t make mention of my offense, because I didn’t see the point in confronting it; this man wasn’t going to change and there was no reason for me to try, or even to show my distaste.  The bottom line was that this clubhouse was part of his home, and I was a visitor, and it was in better taste to hold my tongue.  But I’m also not the type to let a lesson go unlearned.

Howard continued by mentioning that someone forwarded him a funny cartoon in his morning e-mail, and the cartoon featured Barack Obama, with blacks running away from him in every direction.  The caption read “Why Blacks won’t vote for Obama” and the word balloon coming out of Obama’s mouth said “If I am elected President, every American who can work will have a job.”

Now, I’m a comedian and I enjoy a good joke.  Hell, I even enjoy a bad one from time to time.  But today, I just wasn’t willing to absorb this talk, so I responded with humor.  And I peppered the conversation with every “old fart” joke I could remember.  I did it with a smile on my face, like there was nothing wrong, and I was just being part of the party.  I didn’t bother to mention that my wife is of African American descent; it justdidn’t seem necessary.  And so the coffee klatch broke up, uncomfortably, and I’m guessing it was probably because Howard had to pee.

The reason I even bring this up is that my mother made a statement a few weeks ago, (in front of people!) that America still isn’t ready for a black President.  When she said it, in front of my wife, my sister-in-law and her parents, and me, I thought it just to be a very narrow-minded, tasteless thing to say.  Either she didn’t remember my wife’s ethnic heritage or chose to ignore it, either way I shriveled inside, that embarrassed, pain-in-the-balls feeling that you get when you bring someone to the party and they piss in the punch bowl.

At the time, I dismissed my mother’s statement as pithy; she’s not exactly a political genius.  I once made reference to the “thousand points of light” comment from Bush 41’s inaugural address (and this was while he was still in office!) and she had no idea what I was talking about.  But after hearing Howard make his comments this morning, about “too many blacks on TV” and the Obama cartoon, I had to deal with the sobering fact that this man’s generation, folks in the United States entering retirement age, now represent a huge chunk of the voting public.  And their attitudes were put in place in the 50’s and early 60’s, that magical time when blacks weren’t welcome at certain lunch counters, were set upon with dogs and fire hoses, and still got the stink eye if they mingled with whites.

Some of my mom’s karaoke buddies were a little younger than the rest of the group, and living in redneck Florida (Fishin’ Boat Florida, I calls it), I was holding out hope that they weren’t just towing the party line.  Luckily, they were not; they were Obama Democrats, and we spoke joyfully about donating money to the cause (the wife, Barbara, a little more joyous than Denton, the husband) and volunteering to register the thousands of unregistered black voters to help turn the tide.

Everything happens for a reason, and my coffee invitation this morning opened up my eyes.  There’s still a lot of work to be done in this country.  And I know that Howard isn’t reading this blog today, but if he did, the thing I would say to him this morning is that there are two men running for President this year, one of them young and black, and one of them old and white.  And if the black one wins, old people will be treated with kindness, fairness, equality and love.  Their opinions will be considered and they will have a place at the table.  Their medical needs will be attended to, and their dignity will be protected.

If the reverse happens, could Howard say the same?  What will America look like then?

I don’t like to think about it.  And the more I hear, the more I feel that we need just one more black on television.  Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court with his hand on a bible.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Talk Dirty

Talk Dirty                        4212

Monday, June 23, 2008-1:50 A.M.

The news has just been released that George Carlin passed away in Los Angeles from heart failure at the age of 71.  I am hurt and confused, and feeling an enormous sense of loss.  George Carlin was a hero of mine, a living legend whom I had the privilege to work for and with for a short period of time.

I discovered George Carlin the way many people did; through listening to his comedy albums growing up.  I still have a copy of "Toledo Window Box" that is well-worn, but never fails to please.  As a young comic, I remember watching one of his HBO specials with my comedy buddy, Ricky Kingston, and after the show was over, we both made the statement that we should just quit comedy, because there was no way that we would ever write anything as amazing as what we just saw and heard.  The HBO special was released as the CD "Jammin' In New York," and it is one of the most singularly perfect standup specials I have ever seen, and I've seen 'em all.

I entered into the Carlin organization's employ back in 1995.  I was recently laid off from my position at WCMF in the research department, and looking for another gig.  I used to do a radio show at WITR, the FM station operated by the students of the Rochester Institute of Technology, and as a community volunteer, I warmed the airwaves every Monday night with a heavy metal and hard rock show called "Sudden Death Overtime."  One evening, on a bathroom break, I walked down the hallway in the Student Center at R.I.T., and noticed they had a "job board."  There was an index card tacked up that said, in part, "assistant road manager" and "George Carlin."

Well, I almost pissed myself right there.  I thought it must be a hoax, or who knows what, but come to find out, it was legitimate.  George Carlin's manager, Jerry Hamza, was originally from Rochester, and part of the booking office's infrastructure was located in Rochester, even though Jerry was living and working primarily in California.  I met with Jerry, Jr., who served as the Road Manager for Carlin, and interviewed with him and got the job as his assistant.

For a period of about 16 months, I drove around with Jerry, Jr. in a Ford Bronco, all around the United States, supporting George's never-ending comedy tour.  Most people don't ever get a chance to see their heroes, or even meet them, much less see them work every night and even get a chance to share a few words with them.  I got to do all that, and more.  George was a real family man, of Irish-Catholic descent, and had a strong sense of family loyalty.  He never treated me like a hireling, always treated me with respect, and he laughed and joked with us as equals.  Too many times in life, you place your faith or worship in a celebrity and you find out that behind closed doors, they were a bastard, or at the very least, less than you had imagined.  George Carlin was as far from bastard as you could possibly be.

I admired George's work ethic.  On a few occassions, I found myself seated in a limo or on a plane with George, and was able to watch him work.  He carried a briefcase, and in the briefcase were several yellow legal pads, magazines, notebooks.  He would take them out, write, replace them, take out another pad, write some more, working on bits, ideas for TV specials, constantly working and producing.  He would leaf through magazines, tear out articles to be consumed at a later time, and the remainder of the magazine would be discarded.  He was always on the move, working, working, working.

One story that I enjoy repeating concerns George and the way he interacted with the public.  For a star of George's stature, he seemed a bit guarded, and with good reason; there are a lot of flakes out there.  You can't just sit in the middle of the street and let just anyone sidle on up to you when you're a household name.  But George was not the type to just offer the stiff-arm to folks that would recognize him.  On the morning of a concert appearance in Houston, Texas, the crew of the show were staying in the Ritz-Carlton, and George and I were staying on the same floor.  We waited for the elevator together, and this was around 1 o'clock in the morning.  A married couple in their 50's were returning from whatever nighttime activity they were engaged in, and came to wait for the elevator alongside George and myself.  George was wearing his usual ballcap and sunglasses, enough of a disguise to give folks pause and back them off from recognizing him immediately, but we were talking when the couple came up behind us and George's voice was always very distinct.  The couple got on the elevator with us, and the gentleman told George that he recognized him, and George was very flattered.  They wound up talking, and before the elevator ride was over, George had removed a copy of his then-brand new book "Brain Droppings" from his bag, and had autographed it and given it to this couple.  It was a very classy and sincere gesture, and showed how appreciative George was of his public.

George's achievements are amazing; his career has spanned generations, and he's become accessible to millions of people who recognize him from his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live (in which he was the first guest-host EVER), film roles in "Dogma," "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," as well as a season and half of his own sitcom "The George Carlin Show," and he was even the conductor on the children's show "Shining Time Station."  He has written and filmed a new HBO special every two years since 1980, and is one of the most prolific and copied (we could fairly also say "stolen from") standup comic in history.

George's standup routines are stuff of legend; there are thousands of people out there who can practically recite the classics word-for-word; "Cars and Driving," "Football and Baseball," and of course, "The Seven Words You Can't Say On Television."  It is the only standup comedy routine ever to be quoted in a Supreme Court decision, and the precedent remains in place today.  It is this single achievment that I feel describes the higher calling of the standup comic.  As a comedian, I can make an audience laugh by speaking on a number of subjects, but when I can also delight the part of their brain that dictates logical thought, when I can make them think and absorb an absurdity of every day life, then I have really tapped into something powerful.

For me, George Carlin was the blueprint by which perfect comedy is designed.  You can still hear the echos of his topical voice in the works of Chris Rock, Lewis Black and Bill Maher.  You can hear the descendant observations of his work in the musings of Jerry Seinfeld, his absurdity in the ramblings of Emo Phillips, Bobcat Goldthwait and Steven Wright, his wordplay in the work of Gary Shandling and Albert Brooks. 

When I first started to decide to do standup comedy, the comics I looked up to were Eddie Murphy (hottest thing around at the time), Richard Pryor and George Carlin.  I never saw Pryor live, but I cherish the chance I had to meet George and watch him work, night after night, unflinching, offering up "goofy shit" or political observations or dirty jokes, or ruminations on the little things that bind us all together.  I cherish watching him control an auditorium full of people, night after night, young and old, black and white, male and female, wealthy and working-class.  And I cherish watching him, night after night, slaughter sacred cows with a twinkle in his eye.

We are lucky, that we have hours of film footage of George in his element, prowling on a standup comedy stage, hours of recorded concerts filled with wonderful, scathing routines, books filled with observations that could only come from George.  I'm luckier still that I have the wonderful memories of my time with George, and that I can pick up the torch and carry it forward.

George, I miss you buddy.  Rest in peace.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

Talk Dirty-John Entwistle

You talk about the weather
Sun's out - it's gonna rain
It's gonna pour down.
Take a drive - no car
Take a walk - let's stay home
And fool around.

You talk about religion
Moses - Jezebel
Go to church - go to bed
Godspell - go to Hell
Why can't you talk dirty?
I like it, when you talk dirty

You talk about politics
White House - whore house
Revolution - prostitution
President - Mickey Mouse.

You talk about music
Chopin - too square
Heavy metal - too loud
Top twenty - who cares?
Why can't you talk dirty?
I like it, when you talk dirty.

Playboy, Mayfair, Penthouse - White House
Filthy naked poses - Moses
Masochism, sadism, lesbianism - communism
Suntan, striptease, can-can - Chopin.

You talk about painting
Van Gough - kiss my, ear
Gaugin - go where?
Van Dyke - she's queer.

You talk about Shakespeare
Romeo - or Juliet
Dickens - good idea
Oliver Twist - not quite yet
Why can't you talk dirty?
I like it, when you talk dirty.

Playboy, Mayfair, Penthouse - White House
Filthy naked poses - Moses
Masochism, sadism, lesbianism - communism
Suntan, striptease, can-can - Chopin
Talk dirty, talk dirty
Talk dirty, talk dirty
Talk dirty, talk dirty