Rodney Time

Monday August 25th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

Something’s wrong. I feel it. My head’s in a bad space and I need to change direction in a hurry. I’ve been here before and I don’t like it one bit. Hopefully like a cold I can get rid of it in the shortest time possible. I need orange juice and hot chicken soup for my brain.

I’m trying to figure out what put me here so I can stay away from it next time. It’s been a while since I have slid into ‘the heaviness’ as Rodney Dangerfield used to call it but it’s back like herpes and I’m not thrilled about it. These are the times when life isn’t any fun.

Today was a rough Monday and I usually love Mondays. I do Jerry’s Kidders on WLS with a fun group and then I usually do Zanies at night. Today I was late for the radio show because I had a friend in town I hadn’t seen in years. Brian Diamond is a comic I’ve been friends with for many years and he was passing through Chicago on his way back home.

He’s around my age and has been working the road forever but he really wants to be an actor. He doesn’t hide it and that’s fine but we differ on that goal. I want to be a COMIC. Period. I love doing standup comedy for audiences who enjoy it and that’s my life’s goal.

Brian has a nice girlfriend who he brought on this trip and we met in a Denny’s to catch up on the last few years. I really like Brian and in all the years we’ve known each other he has never heard my entire bank robbery story. It really is a fascinating story but I am very sick of telling it after all these years. It really pains me to go back to that mental place.

I was sold down the river by my lifelong best friend and the only choice I had was to be the one who testified against him and sent him to prison. That’s a hell of a choice and it’s bad enough I had to actually do it but to relive it again all these years later isn’t fun at all.

Brian asked me nicely to tell it and I obliged but it didn’t feel good at all. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m in a mental funk right now. I picked a few old scabs inside and it’s bleeding everywhere. It was great to see Brian but then I had to get to the radio station in time for the Kidder’s show at 10:30. I fought hellish traffic and made it barely on time.

I was stressed out and sweating like a pig because it was hot and muggy and I didn’t get to look at the stories at all. I was busy yesterday working on the Mothership Connection’s guest content and I figured I’d do the WLS prep this morning. I took longer than I thought with Brian and that put me behind schedule. That’s just how it worked out but it hurt me.

Well, it hurt my ability to prepare for the radio show. Usually I like to ad lib a lot but to know the stories allows for the ability to ad lib better. Today I was flat out unprepared for my part of the show and even though I let loose with a few good lines I was disappointed.

This isn’t how I want to represent myself or Jerry either. Winging it half ass is not what I want to be known for. I want to be better than that but today I didn’t think I was. Maybe that’s also a part of why I’m dragging my tail behind me. I felt like I didn‘t give my best.

Tonight at Zanies wasn’t much better. They’re having their 30th anniversary and part of it includes a contest each month to find the funniest lawyer or doctor or teacher etc. and I was the one to close out the show with a forty minute set. I got some nice laughs in a tiny audience but it didn’t seem fulfilling at all. Usually I love to work but tonight it was flat.

I guess I just felt bored with it all. I’m bored with the Jerry’ Kidders bit on WLS and if you’d have bet me a year ago I’d never say that I’d have taken that bet. I love Zanies and I am very thankful they asked me to close the show tonight but that bored me just the same.

Those things are fun enough but I’ve done them both many times and I just feel that I’m spinning my wheels at this point. I’m not getting paid for the WLS gig and it’s a hassle to take the train into town every Monday even though it is fun to hang out with the group.

I don’t want to complain and I know that I could be replaced in a blink in either of these two deals and if it happened today I really couldn’t care less. That’s not how it should be. I should be excited to be in both places. I think. Maybe this is the universe talking to me.

I have always read where the most creative people have no idea how much impact they truly make on those around them and I guess I am in that place right now. There are many people who tell me I’m very funny and talented and how much they admire my work and I really do appreciate it when they say that but I just don’t feel it myself. I feel like a bum.

It’s hard not to look at all that went wrong in my life combined with the stupid mistakes I made to go with it and I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover. Sometimes I feel like I’m totally bulletproof and I’ll overcome anything. Today I feel like I can get beaten up by a fruit fly.

When I get this low there’s only one cure for my ills - The King. In my world only one guy cheers me up when I’m in a mud rut like this and that’s Rodney Dangerfield. He’s my favorite comedian just like George Clinton is my favorite music. No substitutes will do.

I put in the DVD of Rodney’s movie ‘Easy Money’ which always makes me laugh out loud. Everything about Rodney is funny to me and like a virtuoso he plays his comic gifts like a violin and it soothes my inner pain every time. Thanks Rodney. I needed you today.

I’ve got a 3 DVD box set of his specials on HBO and some of the Tonight Shows he did over the years. To watch his timing and rhythm and study his greatness really puts me in a good mood or at least helps me forget about the bad one for a while. He is truly a classic.

It would be a thrill if I could be that kind of influence on some other people too. Rodney is still making me laugh even after he passed and there’s no greater comic gift than that. If I can have one wish it would be to make future generations laugh even after I pass away.

Laurel and Hardy did it too. The Three Stooges. Buster Keaton. Chaplin. Even a few of the newer guys like Belushi and Kinison and Bill Hicks and Mitch Hedberg. They’re dead in body but alive in making people laugh who need it. Today I’m one. Thanks Rodney!