Double Duty Radio

Wednesday March 24th, 2010 - Milwaukee, WI/Kenosha, WI

Up to Milwaukee today to be on The D-List on ESPN 540 with Drew and Dan. I hadn’t been on in a while and it’s always nice to hang out on the air. I never get sick of it. I guess I’m a radio whore, but is that a bad thing? If I can make people laugh, it’s what I live for.

I still think deep down there’s room for a comedy show about sports and I’d love to get a chance to pull it off. I think it should be both a live standup show and on the air like the Jerry’s Kidders segment. There are plenty of sports stories every week that could be made fun of, and people who are sports fans are passionate about it. We follow it all our lives.

I’ve got other projects in font of that one so even if it is a killer idea, it’ll probably have to be done by someone else because I have my hands full doing what I’m already doing. If I go off in yet another direction, I doubt if I’ll get anything done. Ever. First things first.

I stopped on the way down from Milwaukee and visited the WLIP studios to talk about the Mothership Connection show with John Perry. He’s the operations manager and also the one who asked me to do the show. By all accounts it’s going very well, and I asked to have a fourth hour added as soon as possible. We’re starting to feel cramped with three.

What a splendid problem to have, not enough air time to squeeze everything in! Growth brings more responsibility with it, but I think we’ll be fine. We were nervous about going to three hours, and that was no big deal after one week. Four hours is a lot different. It’s a jump the size of going from feature to headliner in comedy. Now we’re with the big boys.

Joey O’Shey knows some people who have syndication connections and Kipper McGee has been working with FM talk stations so that’s the next step. I need to get my chops for a four hour show rather than three, and then start sending out recordings of it to get hired.

WLIP is fun, but we could use a bigger studio for all the guests and drop bys we have in on a regular basis. I’d also like a chance to be on the AM station in Waukegan, IL at some point, WKRS. It’s the same company but I’m not sure what’s going on over there now.

Right now, I’m delighted we got bumped up to four hours starting this week. That’s the first step, and all I had to do was ask for it. Next comes the website reboot and start to put podcasts up on it and develop fans. We’ve got a few scattered all over North America but I want to really make it grow exponentially. Part of it is marketing, but only about 98%.

I sent out emails to the other people who’ve ever been on the show and told them what I wanted to do and that they were all invited on the trip. This is one thing I don’t feel badly about at all. Who consciously wants to be The King of Uranus? Nobody. This gig is mine.

ESPN 540 was fun, and I’ll go as long as they’ll have me. WLIP was business. If I don’t keep the show progressing, there’s no reason to keep doing it. I think with just a few solid ideas we can really take the show to a higher level. I want money coming out of Uranus.
It’s also my brother Larry’s 49th birthday. He hasn’t talked to me in years, but not nearly as long as my sister Tammy. That icy wall is celebrating 17 years pretty soon and has not shown any signs of crumbling. I’ll give her credit, she sure knows how to hold a grudge.

I think all of this is stupid, but I have to look inward to find out why it’s happening. I’ve got two full siblings and a half brother, and none of them will talk to me. Silence. They’re obviously angry about something, even though I’ve tried patching things up for as long as I can remember. I’ve also reached out to my nieces and nephews. They blow me off too.

In no way do I think I’m perfect or better than any of them, and in fact that’s why I want to make peace. We all came up in an insane environment that no human child should ever have to endure, and as adults we should have the opportunity to heal. I was very angry for a lot of years, and it bled over into all facets of my life including comedy. It was a mess.

It really bothered me and I never thought I was ready to raise my own family because of all the issues I had with the one I was born into. I’m sure many people do exactly that and start the horrific cycle all over again. That was the last thing I wanted to do, and I worked a lot of things out over the years on my own, and with the help of others. Life is difficult.

Now is the best time of my life by far. I’m able to enjoy things as they come and I’m in a very laid back easygoing mindset. I still flare up once in a while, but not even close to a level I used to live with daily before. Maybe part of that comes from aging, and if it does, great! I’m glad to get older. Maybe I can finish my life strong rather than burn out early.

I know there are other siblings who haven’t spoken in years, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. My wacky Aunt Charlene died a few years ago, and she hadn’t spoken to her sister in about 25 years. My cousin Brett hadn’t talked to his mother in a few years either and when she died he called his aunt to tell her that her sister died. They had a nice talk.

Charlene’s nickname was ‘Mack’. I never did find out why everyone called her that, but everyone did. Me too. ‘Auntie Mack’ was what I remember calling her as a kid, and I saw then she was off her rocker. She clashed with everyone in the family and when she finally did die, nobody missed her. Like my father, there weren’t enough people for a funeral.

Maybe I’m the Auntie Mack of my siblings. They all think I’m the one off my rocker so they just ignore me and think I’ll go away. We’ll all go away at some point, but I wish we could at least see each other one more time and look each other in the eye and let it all go.

I’ve never denied I’m crazy, but crazy doesn’t mean insane and it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings either. I’m unorthodox in many ways to say the least, but I’ve never tried to hurt anyone. I said some very stupid things I’m very sorry I said, but that was years ago.

This really is the best time in my life. I’m doing radio shows and comedy and planning all kinds of fun stuff like comedy classes and Uranus Factory Outlet and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people enjoy my work. I wish the family situation would heal.