An Energy Enema

Monday October 12th, 2009 - Chicago, IL

Nothing’s going to change for the better unless I do so today it was back to work with a major vengeance. Part of me loves ultimate challenges because if I win that’s the ultimate victory. Too bad that’s not always the outcome. Ultimate challenges wouldn’t be ultimate if they were easy to achieve. I’m in a pickle right now and have to think and act carefully.

This is the best time of my life right now in many ways so if I let these distractions take me out of the race the results would be disastrous. I can’t let a few bugs on my windshield prevent me from winning it all but right now they’re placed in the worst possible position that blocks a lot of my view of the track ahead of me. I need to squeegee this mess away.

I have made up my mind to not let small minded idiots keep me from doing what I need to be doing, and that’s be involved in the entertainment business. I’ve gotten fired in radio and had clashes with club owners and bookers in comedy but that’s only because they had no clue how to deal with anybody who had one. Entertainment is filled with these people.

Life is too, but entertainment attracts a higher amount of lowlifes and bloodsuckers who want to exploit the gifts and abilities of those who are the real deal. I’m not the first act to have a check bounce in show business history and I know I won’t be the last. It’s part of a long history of ugliness which goes back to the dawn of humanity. Some of us are rotten.

Many more are sweet and giving and friendly and those are the ones I’m going to focus my energy toward from now on. Giggles can kiss my pasty white aspirations. I won’t take their unprofessional treatment and when I get my money I’ll move on and focus on bigger achievements and worthwhile goals, not just paying my rent from working their hell hole.

This whole mess brought out an ugly side I really don’t like. It’s draining and not where winners dwell, and I want to be a winner when it’s all over. Nobody will remember any of this after I’m dead so the sooner I can move past it and on to meaningful things the better.

That was my goal today as I packed in a full work day of positive contacts. I had a lunch with Marc Schultz and that’s always positive. He’s a good friend and is pleased I’m going in this direction. He always thought I was wasting time in comedy clubs because that isn’t where the real money is. The real money comes from the corporate market that he books.

That market is down like most other things in these times but I’d be coming into it on a lower pay scale so that could get me booked at higher pay than I get at most clubs. That’s fine with me and today Marc said he’s booked me for two dates next May for solid money and has two or three people interested in Christmas parties for December. It’s trickling in.

After lunch with Marc I went to meet with Graham Putnam of Fun Inc. I was introduced to him by my friend Chuck Field, who also hooked me up with Marc Schultz. Chuck is an amazing networker and we met when he took my comedy class years ago. That’s why I’m so gung ho on the classes, it attracts fantastic people into my life like Marc and Graham.
This kind of connecting and reconnecting and networking can’t quit. Those people have positive energy and are in my corner and want to see me succeed, and I want the same for them too. Marc Schultz has booked me several times over the years I’ve known him and I never had a single problem with getting paid. That’s the kind of guy I’d rather work for.

Graham Putnam was very generous to put some time aside for me. His business is joke items of all kinds and his specialty is fake vomit. I guess someone has to specialize in that and he’s the guy. The company has been around since 1937 and moved to Chicago in ‘41.

Graham and his wife Kathryn bought it and turned it into THE largest magic factory in America. That’s pretty impressive and no small feat in itself. I explained to Graham what I’m trying to accomplish with Uranus Factory Outlet and he said he’d put together a few samples of ideas of things I’d be able to sell both at shows, online or even at flea markets.

I’m not above setting up at flea markets if that’s what it takes to work for myself. I’d be a lot less stressed having multiple streams of income flowing in and that’s smart business no matter who it is. Depending on one source of income these days is asking for trouble.

Guys like Graham and Marc have been around the block and they know the ins and outs of their business just as I know the secrets of the comedy business. I’m running out of gas and time and can’t afford to make beginner mistakes anymore. I have to get help from the people who traveled the road before me. My period of reckless wandering is now history.

I have a completely different view of life and the world now than when I started and my needs and wants are completely different also. I used to think I wanted what most people think success in show business is - fame and money and not much else. Most that imagine what success is picture the bling without the string. There’s always a string. ALWAYS.

Fame requires being able to handle the intense demands on one’s time and the invasion of personal space. Paparazzi rhymes with Nazi and there seems to be a valid reason for it. I don’t need some leech with a zoom lens taking pictures of me taking a dump at Spago.

I would like the money part though. That’s something I am preparing myself to handle. It’s fun to think about Ferraris and yachts but that wouldn’t be what I’d spend it on. I’m a man of simple needs and I’d get a bigger kick out of helping people that really did need it. Buying someone a new wheelchair or getting a kid’s cleft palate fixed is a true dividend.

In order to do that I have to put myself in a better financial position. Focusing on my lack of money will only bring more of the same. As difficult as it is I need to think of having it rather than needing it. Any number of sources from the Bible on down teach this principle including The Secret, Think And Grow Rich, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins and a lot more.

They teach it because it’s true. Today I started slowly, but I started. I met with Marc and Graham and then went to host a great show at Zanies in Chicago. Both the comedians and audience were totally on and it made the evening a total blast. This was an excellent start.