Still Not There Yet

Sunday October 30th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI

   I’m having all kinds of mixed emotions. One part of me is still riding a major high from a spectacular weekend filled with fun and adventure. Another is in severe panic mode due to my embarrassing lack of direction and support from anyone who can move me forward in my career. I feel like I’m storming the beach at Normandy in an old ratty canoe. Alone.

   I’ve been on a roll lately, by far the best one I’ve ever been on for an extended length of time. People I’ve known for years are noticing it, and liking it. I feel their positive energy, and that makes me want to keep improving. It’s a cycle, but it isn‘t vicious. It‘s vivacious.

   Improving my physical health has also improved my mental outlook, and I’m surfing on top of a major wave of productivity. I’m really enjoying everything I’m doing, and there’s a lot of fun stuff going on almost every day. I’m enjoying my life like I never have before.

   That being said, I also know I’m nowhere near where I feel I could and should be. I’m a lone wolf, drifting through life trying to survive from hand to mouth. I feel like I’m a total non factor, having spun my wheels for too many years with nothing solid to show for it.

   As much fun as I had doing that show in Munster, IN on Friday, I’d bet my pancreas not more than maybe 1% could recall my name right now. I could be in a police lineup, naked except for a beekeeper’s hat and clown shoes and nobody would know or care who I was.

   Personally, that doesn’t bother me. I’ve been rejected by people way more crucial to my self esteem than comedy club patrons. If my own mother walks out of my life before I can remember meeting her and my siblings stop talking to me for reasons I still am not able to understand, nobody else can hurt me. When it comes to public rejection, I’m bulletproof.

   Professionally is where I’m feeling the panic. I know I have some talent, but getting that elusive core following is harder than I ever imagined. I don’t need everyone to like what I do, just enough who know who I am and come see me when I come to their town. Why is that so difficult? I don’t know, but it is. I need a major career break to upgrade my status.

   Comics who are doing what I’d like to be doing and I totally think I can are people like Brian Regan or Kathleen Madigan or Lewis Black. There are others on that list, like Lisa Lampanelli or even Frank Caliendo. They’ve established followings, and they serve them.

   They work quality venues for solid money, and have bodies of  respectable work people have heard of. They have cable specials and DVDs and have a career. I’m still working in towns nobody’s heard of for low money trying to hawk my CD like Amway soap. It’s not the same game, and it wouldn’t take any extra effort to play the better gigs for better cash.

   I’m putting out a plea to the universe: I NEED A BREAK! Can anyone hear me? I don’t feel like anyone has yet, and I’m the worse off for it. Dented cans find it difficult to trust and let go, and I admit that I do too. I’ve come so far, but I need to go a little bit farther.

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

Old Dogs Barking

Friday October 28th, 2011 - Munster, IN

   Ah, what sheer delight it is when everything about a comedy show goes exactly the way it’s supposed to - on stage and off. That’s exactly what happened this evening as I worked in Munster, Indiana of all places for my friend Nick Gaza. He lives there and is starting to book shows at an outstanding venue called The Center For Visual And Performing Arts.

   Everything was right about this whole event, and I wish comedy could be like this every night. It was a dinner show, and the joint was packed with polite friendly people who paid a significant cover charge and wanted to see comedy. They were a scorching hot audience and stayed that way from the introduction right through to the last joke. It was a pleasure.

   It was a two headliner show, and I went on first in front of John Knight from Pittsburgh. I’ve known John for probably twenty-five years, and he and Nick have been friends since they lived close to each other in Los Angeles years ago. Nick knew John and asked him to be on the show. I hadn‘t seen either one of them in way too long, so I took the other slot.

   Nick, John and I are road warriors from the old days, and know what we’re doing as far as putting on a show goes. Nick didn’t perform, but he made the opening announcements and made sure everything ran smoothly. He also made sure the room was set up correctly.

   We started exactly on time at 8:15, and I did 40 minutes to open the show. It took about ten seconds to realize it was going to be a hot crowd, but I had a strong hunch it would be because of the buzz before the show. Everyone looked happy as they were eating dinner.

   This is one we should have recorded. John’s style is very different than mine, and that’s a good thing. The audience loved us both, but if someone didn’t happen to like one of us there was a good chance they’d like the other. Afterward, there was a line to shake hands and take pictures and tell us how much fun they had. THIS is how comedy should be.

   We got a chance to hang out after the show too. That’s another highlight of comedy that seems to be a thing of the past. Most comedy clubs in the ‘80s had a ‘scene’, where every night a group of the local comics would hang out and bust balls. It was a sacred fraternity.

   John, Nick and I all have a lifetime of stories, and Nick brought two of his buddies from childhood along who are really good guys. One of them played minor league baseball and between the five of us we kept each other entertained and laughing hard until almost 3am.

   What a fun night all around. Great dinner, great show, great hanging out afterward. This was a treat for all of us, and we knew it. It just isn’t like this every night, especially on all levels. Even the hotel was wonderful. They put us in the Fairfield Inn not far from the gig.

   Comedy is a lifelong passion, even in those who drop out of doing it. Between the three of us, we must have come up with more than 100 names of comics we’ve known over the years who aren’t doing it anymore. It’s not easy, but nights like this help keep us going.

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

Cards And Cardinals

Thursday October 27th, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL

   Another productive day. I can see tangible progress from all my hard work, and it’s very encouraging. I’m doing a lot of tedious tasks that aren’t pleasant now, but I know if I keep doing them it will help ensure a positive future. I’m looking to develop productive habits.

   Little by little, I’m throwing out the things I don’t need in my life and organizing what I do. For example, I’ve been sifting through boxes and finally putting my scattered array of business cards I’ve collected for years into a single box and sorting them into categories.

   Why I didn’t do this years ago is beyond me, but I didn’t. I have cards from contacts all over the country from the many places I’ve lived and visited, but I’ve never actually made one organized master file I can use as a reliable go to source whenever I need to have one.

   A lot of the cards are from people I’ll never need to see again, like a home repair guy in Salt Lake City who cleaned out my basement when I had some nasty sewer problems or a transmission shop in Colorado that kicked me in the ball joints when my car broke down on a hellish western run. Those are getting thrown out, but they’ve served their purpose.

   Some of them are from people that passed away. I remember meeting Mitch Hedberg at a showcase show in Minneapolis at the comedy club in the Mall of America. I was on my way somewhere and passing through town, and he was living there. I thought he was very funny, and he was very complimentary of my set too. We hung out for a while afterward.

   He didn’t have a business card, so he tore off the flap of an envelope and then tore it in half again and wrote his name and phone number on it. I never called him, but it brought back a pleasant memory of a guy who left the planet way too early in my opinion. What a nice guy he was, and very funny too. I totally forgot I even had this until I found it again.

   This is the reason I need to dig through all the boxes I’ve moved so many times, but I’m hoping to never have to do it again. I’m paring down to the bare minimum, and that’s fine with me. The next time I move won’t be nearly the hectic hassle it’s been the last dozen.

    I was flipping through the TV channels as I was sorting through boxes and happened to catch the last few innings of the World Series game. I wasn’t intending to watch even one pitch of it because my heart still ached from my Brewers getting humiliated, but it looked like the Cardinals were going to lose and I wanted to watch the pain on their fans’ faces.

   I know, that’s probably not good karma, but that’s why I left it on. Well, I didn’t get my wish but what a game. From an objective baseball standpoint, that was probably one of if not THE most exciting games I’ve ever seen. I have to admit, the Cardinals hung in there.

   OK, my Brewers lost and it still hurts. The Rangers have to be hurting more. They were one strike away from winning it all - TWICE - and still lost. I can’t see them coming back from this one. It was a deflating loss, and a big lesson was in it for us all. Never give up.
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Ancient Aliens Affinity

Wednesday October 26th, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL

   I have a new favorite television show of all time. It‘s “Ancient Aliens” on The History Channel. I watched a couple of episodes tonight, and was glued to my TV. I had it on as I was folding a load of laundry, but after a while I put the laundry down and just watched.

   That show really hits home with me. They have fascinating guests dissecting topics I’m interested in, and I never walk away without learning something new or having fodder to ponder on my exercise walks. The more I watch, the less significant I feel in the universe.

   Still, I find all of it so fascinating. For example, tonight they were talking about how the pyramids in Egypt are set up in direct accordance with the solar system. The big one is the sun, and the others perfectly represent the planets. Wow! That blows my miniature mind.

     Not only that, apparently Stonehenge in England is set up the same way. Amazing! I am constantly finding out new tidbits that make a lot more sense to me than religion ever did. Could what we refer to as ‘God’ be some sort of space being or race? I say absolutely yes, and it’s a lot more digestible to me than the bunko burger most of us are fed as children.

   Something somewhere is bigger than us. That might not be easy to accept with our egos on this planet, but it sure seems to be true. The more we find out, the less we know, but it makes me want to keep digging. This is way deeper than our pea brains are used to going.

   The sheer vastness of the universe alone can keep me mesmerized for hours, like a baby looking at a penny. I’ve spent my life traveling in one country on one continent on a small planet that isn’t even a tiny speck in the big picture of our galaxy, much less the universe.

   I remember driving through the most barren highways of Wyoming, Montana, Utah and especially Nevada where US Highway 50 is known as ‘The Loneliest Road In America’. I thought that was what enormous was, but in the bigger scheme of everything it’s all a big zilch. Our whole planet is a pathetic pebble, and I’ve only seen a minimal amount of that.

   All the people I’ve ever met personally don’t add up to even 1/100th of 1% of everyone who exists, and I’ll be long dead before I get the chance to put even a small a dent in that sorry statistic. I could go on like this all day, but after a while it makes my brain bubble.

   Human life is no more than a cramped collection of six billion rats in a cosmic cage. No matter how beautiful some parts of this planet may be, we’re stuck here with no way out - at least for now. Were we put here for a reason? If so, who put us here? Are we visiting or were we made here to stay here? I don’t have any solid answers, but I sure like exploring.

   This is why I love being part of “The Mothership Connection” radio show on AM 1050 WLIP in Kenosha, WI. I know I’m not the only one who likes to talk about these kinds of topics, and the popularity of Coast To Coast AM proves that. I’m open to a lot of schools of thought, but the key word is THOUGHT - and that’s what ‘Ancient Aliens’ provokes.    

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

The Stephen King System

Tuesday October 25th, 2011 - Mequon, WI

   Today I tried to rattle as many cages as I could, and that’s a good thing. Way too often, I only manage to work on one or maybe two of my projects, and everything else sits around gathering dust. Then I’ll work on some of those, and whatever I just did loses momentum.

   I know I should drop something and focus more, but I happen to really enjoy everything I’m doing and I’m a stubborn bastard so I’m going to keep trying to squeeze everything in until there’s absolute proof I can’t do it all. So far, it’s just been a matter of organization.

   My management of time is getting more efficient, even though I still have a long way to go until I would call it mastered. I’m learning how to pack more things into each day, and also plan my days better. Things still get off track, but not nearly as badly as they used to.

   I’m finding that compartmentalizing projects into planned out time segments helps give structure to my days. If I allot myself an hour or two or even three on a given task, it helps to make it appear less overwhelming. I know I won’t finish today, but I’ll make progress.

   It also helps to get positive energy going, so I can do the same on other projects. I wish I could locate what I read about Stephen King’s work schedule. Supposedly, he would get up in the morning and start work on a particular project. Then he’d have lunch, and work on a completely different project. Then he’d have dinner, and begin work on yet a third.

   I don’t know how true that is, or how long he did it if it is, but I would bet some of it is fact as his body of work speaks for itself. He cranks out one successful book project after the next, and they’re not dime thin comic books either. If anything, they are over sized.

   That’s the system model I’m going to work on employing in my own life. One of those ‘projects’ is going to be daily exercise, but I needed to do that anyway. I haven’t a clue as to what Stephen King did or does to stay in shape, but that’s his business. He’s a success.

   I think I have the potential to be a success, but if I don’t become more efficient with my time all I’ll ever be is a dead almost was. I don’t want that, but unless I find a way to do it all that’s exactly where I’m headed. I don’t want to miss out on a payout for all my effort.

   This morning I got up and had an email conversation with the artist for Uranus Factory Outlet on t-shirt designs. She sent some updated examples, and we’re almost there. Then, I sent out some availabilities to a few booking agents and planted some seeds for comedy work. After that, I worked on the outline of my comedy class notes for a future website.

   I spent a couple of hours on each project, and felt like I at least made a dent in the huge pile of tasks I need to get to. Then I drove up to Mequon, WI to host and headline a show for a newer comedian named Dave Simon. He’s getting started and I’m trying to help him learn the ropes of comedy. I also went early to search out locations to perform my ‘Schlitz Happened!’ one man show. It was a full day of work, but everything I did had a purpose.

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

Book Smart

Monday October 24th, 2011 - Libertyville, IL

   Time to get started on 2012. It was probably time to do that a couple of months ago, but I was too busy catching up on a backload of other years that still had unfinished business. I’m still mopping some of that up, but at least I’ve made significant progress. It’s moving.

   One project that’s been festering way too long is the infamous bank robbery story. I met for lunch with my writing partner Rick Kaempfer today to talk about how we can move it forward. As painful as it was to live through, it’s a hell of a story and everyone I’ve told it to has agreed. I’m not nearly talented enough to come up with a tale like that on my own.

   It’s a true story, and the more time passes the more it feels like it was someone else who lived it - but it was me. One of the few smart things I ever did was write down everything I remembered about what happened, warts and all. I didn’t try to make it a book or movie script, I just chronicled everything I could recall as close to how it happened as I could.

   That turned out to be a great call, because Rick used it to map out a very well structured screenplay. We’ve gone back and forth on it several times now, and each time it becomes smoother and flows better. I need Rick’s input to make it a good movie, because I’m way to close to it having lived through it. He shaped it into something that can be marketed.

   Unfortunately, there’s no law that says a true story has to be documented to the letter to be made into a movie. We’ve already conceded the fact that if it ever does get made, odds are overwhelming that all kinds of creative liberties are going to be taken by the studio.

   That’s how it usually goes, and we accept it. Rick said he read my initial raw version of the story over again just recently and with a little restructuring he thinks it could easily be a book project. He’s starting up a publishing company, as he’s sick of dealing with all the foibles of the book business. He’s had several books published, and he gets things done.

   I hadn’t thought about the story in a while, but putting it into a book would finally allow me to get it out of my system once and for all. People who have heard me tell it ask me to tell it again for their friends, and I’m to the point I don’t even want to go down that road.

   The fact remains, as a story it’s a page turner. The twists and turns are dramatic, and the characters are complex and compelling. Having to testify in federal court against a person I thought was my closest friend in the world is a situation right out of the Twilight Zone.

   It wasn’t pleasant then, and it isn’t nostalgic to think about now. The difference is, now I can look at the situation a lot more objectively. It still hurts to have been put in that ugly predicament, but others will see themselves as me and that’s where the entertainment is.

   Our goal is to have the story released as a book by November 1st, 2012. Even if we can’t sell a single copy, at least I’ll never have to retell it again. I’m sorry it ever happened, but it did. All these years later, I still don’t know what lesson I was supposed to learn from it.

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

Weekly Reading

Sunday October 23rd, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL

   In addition to everything else I’ve got going, I’m also trying to find time to read books and listen to audio programs as much as one human can without throwing up or flipping out. I try to plow through at least a book or two each week, and listen to audio in the car.

   I’m starting with some smaller books first, just to get in the habit of finishing them on a weekly basis. I’ve got enough reading material for the next six lifetimes, or sixty gazillion trips to the bathroom. Now it’s a matter of choosing stuff that will do me the most good.

   This week I was able to read Harvey Mackay’s book on networking called “The Harvey Mackay Rolodex Network Builder”, which I enjoyed. It gave tips on making and keeping contacts, and how ultimately important they are for success to have and constantly update.

   It talked about how a network can make someone’s career, and it’s a lifetime project to keep building one’s list of personal contacts. I totally agree, and even though I’ve been on board with this concept for years it’s still good to bone up on ways to improve my system.

   I think I’ve been in the upper percentile as far as staying in touch with people goes, but I can still use a complete overhaul. Social networks help maintain a connection, but there is  also a point of overwhelm. Face book can get to be a little much for example. Do we need to see constant updates of what everyone in America had for lunch or 49 new cat photos?

   There’s a fine line between networking and personal privacy invasion, and there’s an art to being good at it. I tend to only keep in contact with people I like, and that’s probably a big mistake business wise. I should be getting in front of everyone who could book me.

   Unfortunately, networking correctly takes a significant amount of time and effort - two things that aren’t as plentiful for me as they once were. I’m spread pretty thin already, so finding time to stay in touch with people I’m not enamored with doesn’t sound appealing even if it might lead to future work. It’s smart business though, so I should consider it.

   My choice of audio this week was Russ Whitney, a real estate infomercial guy who has an elaborate marketing package I bought at a thrift store recently. It was interesting, but I don’t intend to get into that business any time soon. I bought it to study his packaging.

   It was divided into three sections with books, videos and audio included. I got it all for ten bucks, which I’m sure is below what it cost to manufacture all that stuff. There were two six CD programs, one two CD program, four books and two VHS tapes. That’s a lot.

   It was extremely well constructed, and pleasing to the eye and ear. It didn’t look like an amateur attempt at publishing, and Russ Whitney is a very good speaker. He talked about a lot of universal topics like goal setting and human nature, and I found it well worth both my time and the ten bucks. I’m glad I listened to it, and now I’ll give it away as a gift to a friend who has some rental properties. Now it’s a new week. Time for some new content.

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