Saturday November 6th, 2010 - Freeport, Bahamas Why it’s taken this long for me to even start doing smart things is beyond me. But I am. Has it been a case of outright flaming stupidity? Overt laziness? Preoccupation with many trivial distractions? Maybe it’s a combination of all that, but I’m finally getting it in gear. Today was extremely productive. I went through my entire compilation of notes for new material ideas and extracted the ideas I like best and divided them into three potential five minute sets for future television appearances. As I did it, I knew it had been long overdue. Some of the ideas are self contained jokes ready to start polishing, and others are topics I want to delve into further and shape into jokes. I hand picked the ingredients I wanted to use, and it’s up to me to flesh it all out into three workable sets. I know I can achieve that. It becomes a matter of memorization and having the confidence to trot it out on stage on a nightly basis. In a perfect world, I’d open with one of the sets every show to establish an identity of being Mr. Lucky, which I really don’t do as well as I could. I should be able to pull off a whole headline set from start to finish and leave zero doubt as to my identity. In the old days, comedians would start from scratch and develop a forty-five minute set of material until they thought it was finished, then they’d record it. The recording was the finished product, then they’d retire that material and start all over from zilch. It’s kind of similar to what I’m doing, but on a much smaller scale. I‘m not going to totally start over. Maybe I’ll do that eventually, but for now I’ll do it one step at a time. If I can have three five minute chunks of television ready material available in the next six months to a year, I’ll be ahead of almost everyone else working. Most people aren’t working on one set for television. I’ll have three. I have to switch material anyway, so why not have a purpose? The other comedian I’m working with is a lady who bills herself as ‘Just June’. What an amazing lady she is. I’d heard her name forever, and like me she’s been on the road since the mid ’80s boom years. She’s got a unique style and audiences absolutely LOVE her. She’s barely five feet tall and maybe 100 lbs, but she casts a huge shadow on that stage. I haven’t seen a charismatic performer like that in a long time. She’s new to the ships as a performer, but she said she was a cruiser for years and has found her home. Good for her. We hit it off immediately, probably because both of us don‘t tolerate B.S. at all. I could feel it when I met her and she told me she liked me right away too. Some comedians have apparently spoken ill of June’s style, because it’s not traditional. It isn’t, but her ability to get an audience to fall in love with her is what makes her great. She’s earned her stripes. We hung out for a late breakfast and ended up talking comedy for about four hours until it was time for lunch. We’re about as polar opposite as two people can get, but we’re both lifer comedians so that’s what brought us together. I bet we‘ll be friends for a long time.
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