I've Got Work To Do

Sunday August 5th, 2007 - Lake Villa, IL

Research and development day. I kept on working on my act which is getting to be like a puzzle and I’m enjoying it more and more. In all my years of being a comedian I haven’t worked as hard on my actual act structure as I have in this past year. I have examined how I present my material more than I ever have and this week I’ve taken it even higher. Today I spent about three hours paring down and rewriting my opening bits to define my persona of Mr. Lucky. I believe in that character and I need to polish it and sell it to the audience.

Doing a few random lines about having bad luck is not what will sell this. I need to make it an entire act with fleshed out bits of how and why my luck is worse than anyone else’s. I worked on developing my opening which will also be my first few national television sets.

I’ve been on TV before on many local and regional and even a couple of national shows so I know how to do a TV set but making it more consistent with my character is where it needs to evolve. Mr. Lucky is my product and I’m not only it I’m also the salesman too. I am reinventing it from the ground up and experimenting with what does and doesn’t work.

The fun part is picking and choosing what I think I can work with out of the huge file of material I have compiled. Right now I have six pages of triple spaced one line JOKES that I want to start polishing on stage. Some are ideas I’ve tried a few times but most are brand new and I’ve never even said them before. I have a polished act to fall back on but this is a whole new venture. Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Comedian’ is much the same thing but he was a name when he did it. He already made his money with his old act. I made SOME money with my old act and still hope to but this new stuff is designed to take me to where Jerry has been.

I’m not comparing myself to someone as great as Jerry Seinfeld but he did have a strong work ethic. Many casual fans of comedy don’t like him and I can see why. His observation style of comedy has been copied very poorly by so many people over the years that he gets blamed for it when in reality he was one of the greats in that style and made it look easy.

Personally I am a huge fan of Jerry Seinfeld and got to open for him one night years ago. I learned a lot by watching him work and he was very laid back and easy to talk to later on after the show. My style is never going to be like his and that’s fine but I’ve always heard stories of how hard he worked at his act and I respect that very much. I want to do it too.

I can already tell this is going to improve my act noticeably and when I go back out on a tour of my regular stops they will all notice it too. I have Salt Lake City coming up as well as Memphis and those are places I’ve been before. They know me and like me anyway so I will blow them away when I come in there firing off new lines and just being a better act.

It won’t happen overnight though. I will have to add things gradually and mix it up with my proven stuff and that’s the process I enjoy. No comedian goes up and has new material that’s polished and that’s part of the fun of comedy. It’s working without a net and getting a new bit to get laughs is a feeling of accomplishment that I’ve never gotten tired of. Ever.

For once I have a direction and why it took me this long to get it in gear I don’t know. I do know that I am seeing things in a whole new light and I can tell that this is the right and only way to get better and be the best ME up there. That’s all that matters anyway. I don’t need to compare myself to Jerry Seinfeld or anyone else because that’s incorrect. Like golf it’s the competition against one’s self that makes comedy so rewarding. That’s what I love and if I can get to the level I know I’m capable of, look out. They’ll HAVE to notice me.

This is all very exciting to me and I get lost in it. I love puzzles and challenges and this is a giant one. Many comedians get to a certain level and that’s it. They get lazy and their act stagnates and nothing good happens after that. I can see how it happens and I admit it’s an uphill climb to keep growing but it’s necessary if I am going to break out of where I am. It will keep my mind busy and focused and I can already tell it’s going to show quick results.

My friend Gary Pansch called me and asked if I wanted to see The Simpsons movie. I’m not a fanatic about that show but I can see why people are and I wanted to see how they’d present it in movie form. I drove up to have lunch with Gary and then we saw the movie in Kenosha where he lives. We both laughed out loud several times and there were some nice sight gags as well as written lines too. I didn’t think it was great but I did think it was very good and well worth the money. Those guys should be proud of that whole franchise and I would think they certainly are. They took it beyond entertainment and made it pop culture.

That’s not easy to do but when it happens it’s cemented in the public’s mind. I haven’t a clue if I can get Mr. Lucky to be like that or even if I want to. I haven’t seen Dan Whitney in a while but he was a road comic just like me. We got along fine and knew each other as peers but now he’s Larry The Cable Guy and ‘Git ‘r Done’ is a pop culture phrase. I have no idea if he’s any happier now than he was back then but I would assume he is. I hope so. He’s done all the things I think I want to do and I’d hate to do it all and still not be happy.

I doubt if that would be the case though because I’m happy playing around with my act. I have really enjoyed the last few days of doing this and don’t intend to stop any time soon if I can help it. This will be an ongoing process for the rest of my life so I will never get all the work done but that’s what keeps me going. Right now I’m in a stage of major growth.

One more thing I saw today was a CNBC special about the history of McDonald’s. Why that caught my eye I don’t know but it did and it was fascinating. Ray Kroc has also left a huge mark on the world and even after his death he’s still doing it. I was amazed at how it came together and how it works today. I learned from it and soaked in everything I could.

After that I flipped around and saw the Gene Simmons reality show on A & E. I was not a big Kiss fan growing up but like George Clinton they were master showmen. In fact both George and Kiss were the first acts signed to Casablanca Records in the '70s. Gene is very smart and a brilliant marketer and I learned about his personality style by watching him on the show. He’s very driven and knows exactly what he wants and he’s had about as much success in the entertainment business as one could have. He’s got big money and fans and a Playboy centerfold for a wife and that’s not a bad way to spend life. I’ve got work to do.