Modified On September 6, 2006
Here’s an email that’s going around. It’s from J.J. Parrone, the owner of Comix Cafe in Rochester, and it’s signed by “Comedy Coordinator” Ralph Tetta. It is in reference to a one-nighter in Rochester, the Comedy Block Party, a Thursday night at a place called Milestones, that’s booked by a couple of Rochester comics.
Dear friends,
I have been asked by JJ Parrone from the Comix Cafe in Rochester to contact you regarding the Comedy Block Party at Milestones. Currently, your name and/or biographical information (and possibly your photo) is included in the CBP website.
JJ’s stance on this that he is not interested in building CBP’s business by promoting you to larger crowds at the Cafe, allowing those folks to follow you to Milestone’s.
If you have work on the books with Comix Cafe, or intend to in the future, JJ asks that you contact Comedy Block Party and have your information removed from the website. Failure to do so will jeopardize your future business with Comix Cafe.
If you have any questions regarding this policy, you may contact JJ at jjp@comixcafe.com and he will provide clarification.
Ralph Tetta
Comedy Coordinator
We met one of the comics who runs the Block Party, and we thought that the energy and enthusiasm that he devoted to the Block Party gig was admirable. And necessary– His comedy universe consists of Rochester, Buffalo (74 miles west) and maybe a few towns scattered around upstate New York. That admiration influenced our decision to accept a booking at the CBP later this fall, on the night before our upcoming Buffalo Comix Cafe engagement, November 2 through 4. (So, our info is up there on the website. So far, we haven’t received any thuggish emails. And, if we did, we wouldn’t dream of taking it down.)
Letters like the one above– letters that threaten comics (“Failure to do so will jeopardize your future business with Comix Cafe.”) are out of line. Not to mention shortsighted. We’re the last ones to tell a club owner how to conduct his business, but a weekend club that tries to hamstring a one-nighter is creating tension where none should exist.
We all had the Block Party venue equivalent in our formative years– the gig where you could do as much time as you wanted, the one where there was a nurturing atmosphere, where you closed the show for the first time. But we all knew– the public knew, the comics, the other weekend headliner rooms– that there was a vast difference between that room and the bigger rooms. And the bigger rooms usually knew all that, too.
And where do you suppose the big rooms got their experienced emcees and feature acts? From the well-run one-nighters, of course. And, if the market conducted itself in a sensible manner (like in Boston and in Seattle and San Francisco and elsewhere), the big rooms knew it was in their best interests to allow the small rooms to promote themselves as they saw fit.
Not so in Rochester.