By CHRIS TEICHEIRA

Manteca columnist

Just a reminder, this column is intended to be some lighthearted fun not to be taken seriously. But of course, some will allow their sensibilities to be wrecked, and feel the need to reach out to me. Just a simple reminder. Nobody cares . . . and this is the core to owning a comedy club.

Let us ease back into this column with lowered expectations.

You are no longer the reader you were in 2021 and I am no longer the writer I was. So if we can all adopt the mantra “nobody cares”, this second go around will be satisfying for most.

Many of you may know that I was part of a group that opened a comedy club in Manteca. The first of its kind in the 209.

A comedy club itself is such a specific entity. One without any “How to do” or “Comedy Club for Dummies” handbook to bone up on. Nothing but 16 years of skin in the game, and a network of friends and contemporaries within the business…

Still none of this was sure fire, as we are a completely different animal than your bigger clubs in SF or Sac. I’ve bent the ear of owners/managers from the major clubs in these cities for advice, and all came back too often with the same thing.

“Manteca and the 209 are just so different in every way, you’re gonna have to learn as you go.”

A bit daunting, but luckily for me, I found out in short notice that apparently everyone I come into contact with is a fountain of comedy club knowledge.

People that can barely manage their own lives, love to open conversations with “You know what you should do?” or “Have you thought about doing this?”

Let’s be clear before I scattershot this column: Yes. I have thought of that. I have thought of everything you are about to advise.

I have spent near 35 years sitting alone in a tractor thinking about opening a comedy club.

The last 16 performing and producing shows.

The last 5 searching for backing and a place to do it.

The last 2 building it from scratch.

The last 6 months watching it take its first steps.

So believe me, whatever suggestion or grand idea you are about to propose, I have worked over in my mind to the umpteenth degree.

Yet I digress…

Here is a Top 3 List of Nonsensical advice and questions that l field more than once a week.

*1. Do you think I’ll like the comics? Will they be funny?”

This question is immediately followed by a ringing in my ears, and a thousand yard blank stare much like Pvt. Ryan had at the beginning of the movie. Is this an actual question or a cry for attention?

I have no clue what you like. I have no clue what you find funny. Clearly if you are leading with these questions when inquiring about buying tickets, my guess is NO.

It’d be easier were they to ask what they really want “Is the comic dirty?” or “Will the humor affect my sensibilities and make me feel awkward to laugh at in public?”

Pearl clutchers and prudes beware, comics can often be crass and vulgar.

They can often be insightful and thought provoking. They can often just be a person with 10 minutes of well-crafted humor.

Whether you will or won’t like it isn’t something I can decide. I take pride in booking only talented comics that I wouldn’t be embarrassed for my mother to listen to…and her pearls are June Cleaver quality.

*2. “Have you considered adding ‘Insert very specific and unusual’ menu item?

Ohhhh really. You had deep fried porcupine nuggets at a Kennedy Meadows Clamper event over the weekend, and think they’d be a hit.

 Let me call up my Porcupine Guy and add another freezer, for this delicacy that you’ll be stopping by once a month to eat — should I add endangered mushroom dipping sauce. We’re a hash house bar and grill that houses a comedy club. We ain’t reinventing the cheese wheel here.

PS: Yes. Vegans we hear you. We’ll get right on that. Nothing says healthy eats like Comedy Club/Bar n Grill in downtown Manteca.

*3. Why am I being asked to leave? Aren’t we supposed to yell stuff at the comic and make the night fun for everybody?”

I may have taken liberties with how this question is formed, as it’s usually uttered with boozy breath and cocked eyes.

Every night we have to beg people to sit in front of the stage. There is this prevailing thought that the comedy club is some 70’s or 80’s lampoon, in which the comics spend their night bellowing insults at the front row.

This just isn’t the truth. Ninety percent of the comics have a well-crafted act, and don’t want interactions or intrusions from people that need to loudly repeat punchlines at their table.

“My wife does that too man!” or “I’ve been to Bakersfield, he ain’t lying!”

Actual things yelled 30 seconds apart by the same rummy this weekend. We get it Jeff, you understood the joke. Now shush.

Assuring them that the comic will say nothing to them ultimately gives license to hecklers. Who in turn become upset when handled by a deft mic from the stage.

Watching the air be taken out of a heckler, then in turn seeing him sulk at the table is the ultimate tit for tat. They have that ‘woe is me’ posture for about 6 minutes, then manage to break back into character…

After all, these hecklers just want a lil attention.

Which is why we have an Open Mic on Wednesday nights. Alas, I never see these people willing to take the stage. It’s always easier to piggyback actual talent, and shout one liners into a dark room that someone else has already cracked.

It’s like watching a bench player run onto the field to spike the football after a touchdown. Nobody cares.

Why the column again . . .

One  would think that opening a comedy club would give me ample opportunity to take the stage. Nope.

Let’s put it this way. If I was starting my own slow pitch softball team, then stuck myself at lead-off and played shortstop, I know that behind my back the eye rolls of contention would be plenty.

I’ve only gone up twice since April. Learning to manage the club, produce shows, arrange lineups, and babysit a group of talented human beings has brought me to one conclusion…

Comics are the worst. The ego. The snark. The sarcasm. The flights of fancy from someone completely introverted until they take the stage.

Ooof. I was certainly one of those, and sitting on the other side of the desk has made me reel with shame.

So I’m using the column as my quasi-open mic.

No doubt this return to the Bulletin will end up a hodge-podge of nothing.

When I committed to returning to this weekly introspective diatribe, I was hot on the heels of a work issue so upsetting, that I knew putting pen to paper was the only satisfactory recourse.

But like most short lived inspiration for the middle aged, the flame and fervor of what is now a meaningless encounter soon faded…

No sense in firing my .22 into a pasture three days after the coyotes have already killed the calf.. Ammo and angst are a commodity I hold dear, not to be scattershot into the void.

Target practice of the pen should be reserved for places on social media. That  bottomless pit of worthless thought.

There was a time when the newspaper op-ed was held to the light. Something tasted and scrutinized like a champagne or fine Pilsner. Enjoyed first thing in the morning, and savored on the tongue throughout the day.

The advent of social media has reduced this column space to a warm Olympia beer. Still enjoyed by those old enough to remember the heyday, but now more a dinosaur shopping for C batteries at Radio Shack.

Friend and former Bulletin columnist Dennis Fleming once told me he’d been guided by the great Pat O’Leary when he started. Pat after all is the reason I do the column. He got away with murder as a columnist for this paper in the 70’s and 80’s.

His columns careened from the sincere to the absurd. Always with a coy acerbic tone that popped off the page.

Bottom Line: He went to all the coolest parties, bars, and events over a weekend, then reported back to the entire town the happenings, complete with pictures on a Tuesday morning. Just enough time to recover then start again.

He was Facebook, Instagram, and whatever platform you use currently to feel involved.

Pat shared some advice to Dennis Fleming, that he then passed on to me.

“A real columnist should only write about ‘writing the column’ once a year”.

I really stuck to this mantra my first go around. Recognizing that it is a bit of cheating, by filling time and space with how I’m gonna write the column, then forcing you to read it…

Like I’ve been doing here.

At the end of the day, I write the column because it’s fun. Sure the bluster and fanfare doesn’t pay the rent, something the State of California  and a bevy of utilities and distributors remind me of weekly. But the opportunity to receive a free subscription and a pat on the head from Mary Gomes Del Pino makes it worth the effort.

What about the deaf pup Banshee…

As many of you know I lost my dog Banshee just before the club opened. Making this adventure more than bittersweet, and to be honest very overwhelming the first month.

The greetings, salutations, and good intentioned tidings were so often accompanied with a hug or hearty handshake mentioning Banshee.

Something that felt both wonderful, healing, and horrendous all at the same time.

She clearly had an effect on the people she was around, and the readers of this column as I’ve been told…

A real column about her is coming. That’s why I started us out with this fluffed up much ado about nothing piece.

 “I lost my dog and have been a wreck about it” is no way to dive back into this weekly mess. Second column at best. Or third. Or fourth.

We used to read these columns together upon completion, but only once. It takes me 20 minutes to type these out. No need to mull over the presentation, this is a meat and potatoes kinda column.

Meaning I would march around the yard reading it aloud, as she would stare at me thinking “Man this dude’s mouth sure moves a lot for not having any food to chew in it”

I just read this one aloud. She would approve.

PS: For those of you that love to comb through a column, nitpicking the punctuation, grammar, and prose.  If that’s what your hear for, stop wasting your time.

In the words of the great Pat O’Leary, “The column is just a rambling interpretation of a conversation held at a bar, not to be bound by formality or English standards. So save the critiques Sally, I’m out here on the frontlines”

It’s not Where ya do, It’s What ya do.