Changing Directions

Monday November 19th, 2007 - Chicago, IL

Just another manic Monday. 99.999% of other comedians have Mondays off but not me. I have had the Monday market cornered for a while now and it’s getting even more hectic. Doing the radio show on WLS adds to the mix and today was our second installment. We are still very much a work in progress but at least it’s air time on a major radio station. It’s a hassle getting into the city but in the long run this could really work out well for us all.

After the show Jerry Agar took us out for breakfast and we talked about what we could do to make our segment better. Nobody is really doing a comedy round table like this so if we can nail it and make it work it will hopefully get some attention. Other comedians have already started to approach Jerry about getting on so that’s a good sign. This could work.

It will take time to develop a chemistry and we know that. Jerry and I have been in radio before but Ken Sevara and Tim Slagle haven’t. They need some time in the chair to get the rhythm down and they will. We had a couple of nice riffs today and that will continue with practice and get even better. Hopefully we can lead up to doing some live shows with this.

I have lost my desire to keep banging it out on the road like I have been for so long. I’ve got two weeks of road work coming up and it’s making the Uranus project look better all the time. That’s a challenge. Road work is not. At one time it was THE challenge but now after years of chasing that dream I finally caught it. It was all about touring the country for years and developing an act and I did both of those very successfully. Now I want to get a business going and get some money socked away so I don’t need to drive to Oklahoma or Arkansas or Wyoming which are all places I‘ll be working in the next two weeks. Enough.

I’m also starting to get tired of teaching classes too. I never thought I’d say that but I’m really feeling burnout with it. I had a class tonight and a few of students didn’t attend for a number of reasons and it makes it a lot more difficult when that happens. They fall behind and then want me to get them caught up but that’s not my job. I am getting tired of it all.

I am growing all the time and trying new things and dealing with beginners is just boring quite frankly. It’s not the students’ fault they’re beginners but they need to learn the basics before they can get to the really creative fun stuff and sometimes I lose my patience having to go over the same fundamentals over and over again. The challenge is definitely fading. I have done it so many times it feels like I’m climbing the same mountain over and over.

My whole life is changing and I can feel it. I am doing different things and that’s the way to get different results. I didn’t like a lot of the results I was getting so this is a good thing. I had a blast on the road all those years and I loved teaching classes too. Now I am not the same person and I have different needs and dreams. Been there. Done that. I need change.

It’s really difficult for me to say all this because it’s been the focus of my whole life for a lot of years. Performing and teaching are what I lived for. Now I feel like I’ve had enough and want to try other challenges. The chance of being ‘The King Of Uranus’ intrigues me.