A Real Stand-Up Guy : Once, he was a truck driver. Now Rocky LaPorte spends a lot of time on the road as a comic. At first it was fun, but neither he nor his family in Fullerton sees it as a laughing matter anymore. Some tough decisions lie ahead.

Stand-up comic Rocky LaPorte pulled his gray Grand Prix up to the curb in front of John Wayne Airport, hopped out and began unloading his luggage. He had to catch an early morning flight to Cleveland.

After wrapping his arms around his wife, Sheila, who looked as though she might cry, LaPorte embraced their daughters, 9-year-old Toni and 7-year-old Racheal, their faces pressed against his belly.

“I’ll call you guys tonight, OK? . . . I’ll bring you something special, OK?” LaPorte said softly before the girls trooped back to the car, where 3-year-old Little Rocky was asleep on the back seat.

With a final kiss and hug, the LaPortes went their separate ways: Rocky headed into the terminal to catch his flight; Sheila headed back to Fullerton to get the girls to school.

As a stand-up comic, the Brooklyn-born, former Chicago truck driver earns his living making strangers laugh in places like Akron, Orlando, San Antonio and Seattle. But when LaPorte leaves his family to go on the road, he never leaves them laughing.

“They’re pretty good until the night before; then the tears start coming,” LaPorte said as he waited in line to check his luggage.

For a family man like LaPorte, saying goodby is the downside to the seemingly upbeat world of stand-up comedy.

A blue-collar comic who delivers his self-deprecating comedy in a dese, dem and dose Brooklyn accent that’s as thick as mozzarella, LaPorte is on the road up to 40 weeks a year. He’s away from home so much that Sheila never hangs his clothes in the closet. She just washes them and puts them back in the suitcase.

He’s been going on the road for six years, since he was 29 and gave up his day job driving a truck in Chicago’s inner-city, a non-union gig that paid little and required long hours on the road. He was lucky to have survived: While driving through the city’s notorious South Side, he was stabbed once and shot twice.

LaPorte says leaving home never gets any easier. In fact, the roadwork has begun to take a heavy toll on the LaPortes, who moved to Fullerton 16 months ago so Rocky, 35, could be closer to Hollywood, where he’s trying to catch the eye of TV and movie casting directors.

LaPorte, who beat out more than 1,600 contestants when he won the 1990 Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search with his likable palooka-next-door persona, has seen Brett Butler, Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Allen and a handful of other comics he’s shared comedy-club bills with achieve sitcom success. He’s hoping for similar lightning to strike.

But more than stardom, landing a starring or even supporting role in a TV series would allow him to finally get off the road and spend more time with his family.

The LaPortes have paid a price for their move West, however, leaving a support network of family and friends behind in Chicago, where their rent and car insurance were a third of what they’re paying here.

Indeed, the comedy-club headliner finds himself in a Catch-22: To pay his bills, he needs to be on the road, but if he’s not available to go on auditions, he’s not going to land any parts.

LaPorte is experiencing an internal tug of war: his family on one side, his career on the other. And as the new year gets underway, he and his wife find themselves at a crossroads, wondering whether they should remain in Fullerton in hopes of striking Hollywood gold or move back to Chicago, where they would at least have lower living costs and the comfort and security of having their families near.

Still, both Rocky and Sheila LaPorte, who have been married almost 10 years, concede that stand-up comedy beats driving a truck for a living.

Yeah, deadpans Rocky, “you don’t bleed as much.”

At home with the LaPortes:

They live in a small, two-story home in a gated community in north Fullerton. Rocky LaPorte is not a household name, but in a middle-class enclave where most of the residents are aerospace workers, lawyers and other professionals, someone who has appeared on “An Evening at the Improv” and “Caroline’s Comedy Hour” is a bona-fide celebrity.

“Half the block came out to see my show when I was over at the Brea Improv,” said Rocky, seated with Sheila at their dining room table one afternoon while their daughters were in school.

It was the week after Thanksgiving and two days before his flight to Cleveland, where he would perform a week, followed by a week in Akron and another week in San Carlos, Calif.

The comedian would be home the entire week before Christmas, but he would go back on the road and be in Pittsburgh on New Year’s Eve, Sheila’s 30th birthday. He hasn’t been home for her birthday in six years.

With comedy-club headliners making about $1,200 a week, Rocky has come a long way from those truck-driving days when he was working 60-hour weeks and bringing home $300 a week. Times were tough.

How tough?

“We were renting a dumpy apartment for $360 a month, and we had a hard time paying the rent,” Sheila said.

“They were shutting off our phone and our lights,” Rocky added. “My mother-in-law would help us out with diapers and stuff.”

Rocky was working so hard, Sheila said, “he would come home and just fall into bed at night.”

It’s no wonder he views stand-up comedy as a godsend.

Becoming a comedian was not part of any game plan.

Growing up in Brooklyn and Chicago, where his family moved when he was 10, Rocky always enjoyed watching comedians on television. Even at age 7, he was the only kid on the block staying up to watch the comics on “The Tonight Show.”

“I’d say, ‘Did you see George Carlin last night?’ My friends had no idea what I was talking about,” recalled Rocky.

Dropping out of high school in his sophomore year, Rocky lied about his age and joined the Army at 16. When his real age was discovered 10 months later, he was honorably discharged and got a job on the loading docks before becoming a driver. He also had a brief fling as a light heavyweight boxer in the early ‘80s, before a bullet in his leg destroyed his career in the ring.

After he was shot the last time, he was put on a safer route, delivering to shopping malls. He said he always made the manager of one store laugh, and one day she suggested, “Why don’t you try comedy?”

He put together five minutes of material, including a routine in which he recalls how he used to stuff his buddies in the trunk of his car so they wouldn’t have to pay to get into drive-in movies.

Stepping on stage for the first time, in February, 1988, he shocked himself by how well it went.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” he said. “People were going, ‘You got perfect timing.’ Some guy goes, ‘How long you been doing comedy?’ I go, ‘About five minutes now.’ ”

Over the next six months, he worked two or three nights a week at clubs in the Chicago area, doing his act and serving as emcee, the lowest rung on the comedy-club ladder.

“He’d come home at 7 o’clock, jump in the shower and just leave,” recalled Sheila, “and he was exhausted from driving all day.”

“I told my wife if I can make $300 a week doing comedy, I’ll quit my day job, because I was busting my ass. Basically for 10 years doing that, and Chicago winters are brutal, man,” Rocky said.

By his eighth month, Rocky quit his job and began going on the road almost exclusively.

From the start, Sheila said, “it was really hard. I thought by now it would be easy because it’s been so long, and it’s not. It’s harder on the kids the older they get because they’ll just say, ‘Well, why can’t Dad be here?’ for a function at school.”

Sheila said that when 9-year-old Toni was younger, “she would ask when her daddy was coming to visit. She didn’t understand that he lived with us. I’d tell her, ‘No, daddy lives here.’ She’d be like, ‘No, he doesn’t.’ ”

On the road with Rocky:

It was a gray, rainy day in Redwood City, near San Carlos, where Rocky was headlining at Giggles Comedy Club.

Up at 10, he had breakfast at the International House of Pancakes next door to his motel. Then the club owner drove him to the gym. But after his workout, he didn’t have a ride back, so he hoofed the mile back to the motel in the rain.

“I think you burn more calories when you’re shivering,” the soaked comic joked upon returning to the motel.

Over lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant, Rocky talked about moving his family back to Chicago.

“My wife told me last night they were all talking about me, and they were all crying,” he said. “They were saying if we move back to Chicago, then Daddy can be home more, and I can spend more time with them. Right now I don’t know if it’s a good or bad decision to make. But they’re real important to me, and I want them to come first.”

Rocky’s mood brightened.

“All you need is one break in this business, you know what I mean?” he said. “One good ‘Tonight Show’ or one good movie or one good anything, and it can make a whole difference in your career.”

That evening at the comedy club, his mood remained upbeat.

Dressed for the stage--blue jeans and a blue denim work shirt opened to reveal a white T-shirt--he was in his element.

“After six years, it kind of becomes ingrained in you,” he said, seated at a back table. “It really would be great to have a couple of weeks off, but after that, you get kind of antsy. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I had to stop.”

He sipped his 7UP. “I mean, I bitch about the traveling, but basically I really love the job.”

Rocky ate dinner at a table in a darkened, unopened section of the club while the emcee, then the middle act went through its paces. Then it was his turn.

Introduced as “the kind of guy who just finished his GED,” the former Chicago truck driver stepped on stage and surveyed his audience.

“Howya doing?” he said, his deep voice taking on even more of a Brooklynese flavor in the spotlight. “You havin’ a good time? Good. I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I come from a big Italian neighborhood. Yeah, I grew up in . . Rome. (Laughter.) And then I lived in Brooklyn.”

At that, someone in the audience applauded.

“You from New York?” LaPorte asked. “Where ya from? Really? . . . You know Tony? “

The road was fun in the beginning, Rocky conceded during that afternoon chat at his home in Fullerton, and it still has its high points. He’s seen parts of the country he never dreamed of visiting, and he knows people in almost every major city. And, he said, there’s nothing like the satisfaction of lifting people’s spirits by making them laugh.

But the road gets old. Except for Fridays and Saturdays, when he does two shows a night, he’s only on stage about an hour a day. That leaves 23 hours a day to kill.

He usually sleeps until 10, having gone to bed at 2 or 3. He has breakfast, reads the newspaper and works on new material for his act.

Then he’s on his own. To kill time, he’ll go sightseeing--if the weather is good--or work out in a gym. And he goes to a lot of movies.

“If you’re stuck in a little town with like a Taco Bell and nothing else--no mall, no movie theater--you’re in trouble,” he said.

He also spends a lot of time on the phone; the last phone bill was nearly $500.

After all, Sheila said, “90% of our relationship is over the phone. He finds out everything about the kids over the phone. You can tell when he’s somewhere and there’s nothing to do. It’s, like, every hour, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

Sheila said life on the road sounds like fun. But she has gone with Rocky and has seen what it’s like. The condo that a San Diego comedy club puts its comics up in was so bad, she said, that she took the kids and left. “I said, ‘We will come back Sunday and get you.’ It was so gross, and this is one of the better condos.”

Rocky has contended with worse.

He’s slept in the smelly back room of a club in Akron that he dubbed the Bat Cave because it had no windows. He’s also slept in the Newark Airport and in his car in the mountains in Pennsylvania because the comedy club didn’t pay him.

“I remember I pulled out my car seats to look for change just to get gas to keep my heater on that night so I didn’t freeze my ass off,” he said.

“Oh, there’s a ton of horror stories out there,” he said, grinning. “I mean, it’s a very rich, full life I lead. I don’t know if I’d trade it for anything.”

Sheila said she’s OK on her own the first two weeks Rocky is on the road. “Then, after that, it just gets too hard.”

The frequent separations take a toll on their marriage. When Rocky’s away, he’s got his routine; Sheila’s got hers. And when he’s home, the routines tend to clash.

“He’s used to being up ‘til 3 in the morning,” says Sheila says. “I go to bed at 10 because I have to get up with the kids at 7, and then he’s sleeping all day.”

Forget about going out to a movie. She’ll suggest a title, and he’s already seen it. Restaurants? He eats out all the time and would rather have a home-cooked meal.

Said Rocky: “Everybody’s telling me, ‘Oh, you’re going to make it. It’s just a matter of time.’ But I don’t know if I want to ‘make it’ anymore. I just want to be with my family right now. I feel beat up from being on the road for six years.”

He said his manager “thinks I’ve got holes in my head. He thinks I’m going to make it and (that) I should stay out here. Part of me wants to do that, but another part says I can’t go chase fame and fortune and give up my family.”

The LaPortes are pinning their hopes on the upcoming TV pilot season, the time from late January to April, when pilot episodes of proposed new shows are cast.

Rocky’s Brooklyn accent and likable, blue-collar stage persona seem a natural for sitcoms and movies.

The comic, whose only acting credit so far has been a bit part as a construction worker in an episode of “Cheers,” came close in 1990, when TV writer Jeremy Stevens wrote a pilot script for him.

The script, about a blue-collar guy whose white-collar brother-in-law moves in with him during a recession, went unproduced. But Stevens, now a supervising producer on “Coach,” remains a “big fan.”

“He’s very endearing with the way he connects with an audience,” Stevens said. “I just think he’s talented, and (he’s) got a very lovable character. He’s got a huge heart, and it’s written all over him.”

Rocky’s manager, Duncan Strauss, who manages four other comics, is well aware of the drawbacks of life on the road, especially for a family man like Rocky. But he said he wouldn’t like to see Rocky move back to Chicago, “just because I think it makes the whole process (of auditioning) more difficult. . . . I don’t know how much they’re solving at the expense of how much they’d be giving up.”

Strauss said most stand-up comics who have landed TV shows have paid their dues on the road for a decade or more.

“It may take longer for Rocky,” he said, “but I do feel whatever ‘it’ is, he has it. If he can just hang in there, I know his number will come up.”

Rocky LaPorte

Age: 35

Background: Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., moved to Chicago at 10; lives in Fullerton.

Family: Married to Sheila; one son, Little Rocky, 3; three daughters, Toni, 9; Racheal, 7, and Jeanette, his 14-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, who lives in Chicago.

Passions: Movies, reading show-biz biographies, playing softball and touch football and panning for gold in the mountains with his kids.

On his friend’s suggestion that he try stand-up comedy in 1988: “It was just something that clicked in my head, you know? It was weird, when I was driving my truck, I would pull this big semi over on the side of the road and write. This was even before I knew I was going to do comedy. Funny ideas would come to me, and I’d write them down. I don’t know; maybe it was something in my subconscious.”

On how he makes up for lost time with his children when he’s home from the road: “A couple of weeks ago I took them out of school, and we have, like, Daddy Day. We went roller-skating, and I took them to an arcade. The little time I have with them, I’m trying to make it good.”

On his self-deprecating style of comedy: “I wrote this joke about when I was in grammar school. I said I didn’t do real good in school. One time I brought my report card home and I go, ‘Hey, Pop, I got a B in reading!’ He says, ‘That’s a D, you idiot.’ ”