Falling Into Place

Monday September 7th, 2009 - Bristol, WI

Goodbye summer, we hardly knew ye. I don’t have any pairs of white pants to put away but if I did they’d be gone as of today. Hello fall and all that goes with it: football, falling leaves and back to school. The days are getting shorter and it’s time to get down to work.

I didn’t accomplish nearly what I intended to this summer and that frustrates me greatly. I thought I’d be going into the fall with some momentum behind me but all I have to look at are the various unfinished projects I wasn’t able to get to. I was too busy working on all my other projects and instead of feeling that momentum at my back all I feel is worn out.

Today was a perfect example of how it’s been going. The Mothership Connection radio crew all wanted to go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire as today was the last day of the run for this year. I really like the crew and I really like the Renaissance Faire but today wasn’t the day I felt like going out there. I have a pile of things to do and I wanted to work on it.

I didn’t want to be rude so rather than not show up at all I showed up late and hung out for a few hours and watched the freak show unfold before my eyes. It was hot and sweaty at first but it cooled off nicely and it wasn’t a horrible experience at all but now I’m even farther behind than I was when the day started. It’s been like this for months and months.

When I go do one thing three other things get left undone and it’s to the point I feel like I’ll never catch up. I’ve got piles of tax receipts laying around and unread articles and big piles of mail I need to sort out and answer and of course my emails are piling up again as well. I had those under control for a while but now they’re piled even higher than ever.

I don’t see this not being a problem for the foreseeable future so I’m going to have to be very calculated as to what I need to do to manage this problem. I’ve had some suggestions from several people like Tony Talley who told me to read Stephen Covey’s books on how to manage time. Personally I find Covey flamingly dull, but maybe I need to try it again.

Bill Mihalic told me to type out my goals in my blog so people can call me on it when I veer off course as I’m known to do rather frequently. That could work I suppose but first I think I need to work on making it interesting. The main reason I do this is to keep track of my life but right next to that is I want to be an example to younger comics on the way up.

Hopefully they can learn by both what I do correctly and what I completely mangle. I’ve managed to do each and I’m still striving to weed out the manglings. Those don’t help me very much anymore. At one time I could learn from mistakes. Now they just annoy me. In a perfect world I’d be on my way now after all I’ve been through but that isn’t happening.

Struggle is still a major part of my life and I really thought I’d be past that by now. I’ve managed to make it this far doing things my way for the most part but now that I’ve made it here the rules seem to be changing completely. Life isn’t what it was when I started and now I feel like I’m farther off course than ever. What happened? I thought I was doing ok.

Part of it is just way too many things on my plate that I’m trying to run myself. I haven’t got the time or energy to pull everything off that I thought I could and I need to both scale back and delegate tasks to others if I’m going to have any of these things actually come to be as I’d envisioned them. ONE product well done is better than a dozen done half assed.

I have huge aspirations and then when I try to accomplish them unexpected things get in the way as they always do and I get distracted. Before long dust gathers and all the energy I had in the beginning is channeled elsewhere and nothing gets done. It’s SO frustrating.

I suppose I could blame some or even most of it on the fact that I’m left handed and all that goes with that but that’s a cop out. Lots of lefties are scattered like me and think right brained and abstract like I do but it’s no excuse. If I’m to succeed I need to conquer this.

Call it A.D.D. or hyperactivity or manic depression or whatever else comes to mind but I’m not going to let it defeat me. If I continue to let myself drift I’ll crash on the rocks and that will be it. I have to regroup and reorganize and plan my time out and then not wander from that plan hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year.

Sometimes I get on a good roll and then it comes crashing down like a house of cards. It isn’t easy to be a self starter but that’s the only way to really win. What I need the biggest boost with is delegating tasks to others. I have trust issues and I’m the first to admit that.

This is all part of being a dented can and it’s why I’m writing everything out in a diary. I hope I can make a blueprint for someone in the future who looks at what I’ve done with what I’ve been given and does even more with his or her gifts. I want to be an inspiration.

If I was rich and handsome and in my 20s and well connected and in exactly in the right place at the right time I’m sure this daily diary would be a lot more exciting to a lot more people but I’ve got what I’ve got and that’s what I’m working with. I’m struggling to pay rent in my 40s as I watch businesses I’ve dedicated my life to crumble before my eyes.

That’s just how it is but I’m not the only one dealing with it. Lots of my friends are too, both in comedy and in radio. Times are tough all over and looking back on it my biggest mistake was not picking either radio or comedy and going after ONE of them rather than trying to do both. I achieved minor success in both but I think I should have chosen one.

Now I’m thinking I may have to make that choice after all but it’s twenty years too late. Comedy is dead, at least on the club level and radio isn’t far behind. Do I go full bore and try to be a road dog for as long as I can handle it or do I quit that and focus on things like Jerry’s Kidders on WGN or The Mothership Connection on WLIP? I have no solid clues.

Or, do I chuck all of it and get a job for a while and develop my mail order business that I’ve let sit idle way longer than I wanted? Uranus Factory Outlet is still a great idea in my opinion but I’m not making any progress on it two years later. And what about my classes at Zanies? I’ve got those going too. Something has to give and soon. I can’t do all of this.