Saturday, February 18, 2012

Twenty Years Too Late

Friday February 17th, 2012 - Kenosha, WI

    Oh, how I wish I could live my life over again and make smarter decisions. I wish there would be some kind of a loud warning alarm that goes off right before a person was about to make an epic blunder that would take years to live down. But there isn’t. And it stinks.

   It sure would save a lot of wasted time and energy, not to mention deep dark depression mixed with sorrow and sadness that causes more questionable decisions to be made. It’s a vicious cycle, and I do mean vicious. Effort spent cleaning up mistakes takes a huge toll.

   Everyone makes mistakes, but some of us take it to great heights. It eventually becomes habit, and bad choices are a given rather than the exception. I don’t think I’m on that path, but it sure has been difficult to undo some of the boo boos I made early on. I have regrets.

   A gigantic part of it is a lack of guidance from a parental figure. I needed a coach, and it wasn’t there. We all need role models and examples, and those who don’t get them can be in for a long ugly ride in life. I’ll still hopefully be able to salvage a little success, but I am never going to fulfill my true potential because I’ve had to struggle so hard to stay afloat.

   Productive energy that could have been much better spent being creative had to be used to find ways to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach and a car running. That ate up a lot of my youth, and now I’m feeling the stress of having to beat the clock to old age.

   I can piss, moan, bitch, snivel, whine, fret, bellyache, complain or any said combination thereof about any of it, but that’s all wasted energy too. I am where I am in life because of what I did, how I did it and what happened as a result. Yes, there were some bad breaks in there too, but everyone has those. All added up, it has put me in a very difficult situation.

   That being said, a major tool I’ve needed for years and never had was a quality video of my comedy act. There are legitimate reasons why I never had one done, but none of them are a legitimate excuse. It should have been a priority, and it should have been done years ago. Decades actually. It has held me back from moving up the ladder, and a huge error.

   If someone wanted to hire a plumber, wouldn’t it be assumed that plumber would have a full set of tools? And if the plumber showed up without any, would it not be a red flag? I feel exactly that way, and have for more than twenty years. It’s been a source of pain.

   Well, as of today I have FINALLY managed to get a quality video together that I will be able to use to both send out all over the place for future work and sell after shows. It took way too long to get it done, but it finally is. Mark Gumbinger called to tell me he finished editing the project we recorded at the WLIP/WIIL studios in Kenosha on January 11th.

   It’s shot in HD, and total running time is one hour and six minutes. He said it looks and sounds professional, and I kept it squeaky clean for corporate purposes. I should have had a quality video twenty years ago, but I didn’t. Now I do. Is it too late to matter? We’ll see.

Posted via email from Dobie Maxwell's "Dented Can" Diary

1 comment:

Ruthie Ruhnke said...

i have a phobea of video's ... this makes me think i need to take my phobea and flush it down the toilet.