Saturday December 17th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI Who knew the road to being in movies came through Kenosha, WI? That’s where it did for me, and I’ll take it how I can get it. I appeared in a film a while back called ‘Dead Air’ that was directed by Mark Gumbinger, and starred my WLIP radio cohort Louis Rugani. It was a lot of fun, and Mark and I have become good friends. I’m in his inner circle and we have frequent lunches most Mondays along with Lou at a Chinese buffet in town, and we also get together to watch movies and Packer games at his house. It might not be L.A., but it’s a bunch of creative people getting together minus the plastic B.S. of Hollywood. Fun is fun, and I’d rather hang with good people in Kenosha than blood suckers in Lost Angeles. Not to say there aren’t good people in L.A., there are plenty. But that scene is so crazy and competitive, they often don’t get to shine and live up to their potential. It’s sad. I guess I’m settling, but I’ll take being a big fish in a small pond - at least when it comes to a movie career. I never wanted to be a movie star anyway. I’m a comedian, and staying the course with that keeps me plenty busy. If I can appear in Mark’s movies, it’s a bonus. Mark likes to use the same people in his projects, much like Charlie Chaplin used to do and Martin Scorcese does today. We always joke that Lou Rugani is Robert DeNiro and I am rapidly becoming his Joe Pesci. I’m not an actor and never was, but it’s fun to be part of the group. Mark and Lou and everyone who hangs out with us I now consider friends. I love hanging out with other comedians, but in this group I’m the odd man out because I’m the only one. Actually, I’m the odd man in because they’ve all seen me and now bring people with them and help spread the word. They’re fans, and it’s nice to be appreciated. I’m fans of theirs too. I know nothing about directing or acting, and don’t claim to. The creative process may be similar, but they’re completely different crafts. Mark knows what he’s doing, and we clicked on the set of Dead Air. I took his direction well, and could see he knew exactly where he wanted to go with it. That makes it easy, and we didn‘t clash. Mark has been slugging it out with his films as long as I’ve been at comedy. He’s done all kinds of interesting projects from horror films to documentaries, his most recent a very well done and informative one chronicling the 100th anniversary of The Titanic disaster. I trust Mark’s creative vision, and he has approached me about teaming up on a comedy project. He wants to film my act in a controlled studio type location, and make it a quality production on HD with several cameras rather than a one camera shot in bad lighting like most comics end up having. I’m thrilled he wants to do it, and I know he’ll do it up right. With his technical experience and my comedy experience, I know we can at least have a demo to use for other projects. He wants to do it in January, but I’m ready to go whenever he is. I know we can pull this off, and this is exactly what I need to start off the new year.
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