Detail Disoriented

Wednesday May 5th, 2010 - Milwaukee, WI

Up to Milwaukee today to keep pecking at that egg shell. I have a big job ahead with all that needs to be done to get this one man show up and running from just an idea. I have a lot of details to look after, and that’s my weakest trait. If nothing else, I’ll learn something and improve along the way. Good thing I’ve given myself a few months to do all of this.

Today’s adventure started out with a big mistake. I was supposed to have lunch with my friend Tom Skibosh, former P.R. director of the Milwaukee Brewers. I wanted to go over several aspects of all this with him, and he graciously agreed to meet up to hash it all out.

For whatever reason, we got our times mixed up and I was late and missed him entirely. I don’t remember the last time that’s happened with anyone and I felt like a total stooge’s weenie. I didn’t have a cell number for him and I didn’t confirm the day before like usual.

I just assumed we’d be ok and everything would work out. Wrong. I blew a few details right there, and I’m already learning I need to improve. It’s no big deal, and Sky is a great guy and wasn’t upset at all. We’ll reschedule, and next time I’ll take care of business a lot better. I sat and ate my Chinese buffet alone and planned the rest of my day’s direction.

I had two scheduled appointments to see potential venues to perform the show. I’m not used to making appointments to do shows, so the whole process seems odd. I looked over the venues and both are small theatres that should work very well…IF people show up.

That’s one gigantic enormous humongous ‘if‘. I’ll need to put up posters, take out ads and work my list. Oops. Correction. First I’ll need to CREATE a poster, get them printed, then WRITE an ad, and BUILD a ‘list’. Then, I can think about getting the show running.

I had no delusions about any of this when I had the idea. I know it will be a ton of work, but I’m up for the challenge. Sponsorship would be great, as would publicity, but that’s a building process just like the rest of it. I have some past experience from my time spent as a pro wrestling promoter, even though that was many years ago. The process is the same.

I took that business and was able to pop it up a notch from where it always was. I put all my energy into getting publicity and creating an image for the brand and it totally worked. Again, the hard part was the details like getting the actual ring set up and then taken down after the shows. Comedy sure has a lot of advantages. All I really need is a microphone.

Who knows if these venues are right for what I’m doing, but I now have the connection with both owners and will see how it pans out. Obviously, they’d get business too so they want this to work so we can all make a buck. It’s a different dynamic than comedy clubs.

I had dinner with another friend Art Hinty. He’s promoted a few of his own shows and I know he knows the local scene these days a lot better than I do. By the time I got home it was 10pm and I’d put in a solid twelve hour day. Whoever said show business was easy?