Which Way Is Up?

Sunday August 12th, 2007 - Lake Villa, IL

Not a fun day today. I am in a rut and could use a shot in the arm from somewhere. I am starting to drift through life yet again and I don’t like that feeling. I am trying to stay on an upbeat path but I’m finding it very difficult. Everything around me is in disarray and I have nothing solid to focus on in the immediate future so everything feels like it’s up in flames.

My cousin up in Stevens Point emailed to ask me if I was coming up for Thanksgiving. I missed last year and she and my cousin Brett are about the only family I have to be with at holiday times. I like her and her husband and daughter very much but holidays are not very appealing to me. I remember all the heartaches from the past and it makes me want to curl up and die. Everyone tells me ‘Just forget about it and move on.’ I wish it were that easy.

Some years are better than others but when it’s bad it’s horrible. Her father is the uncle of mine who helped screw me out of my grandparents’ will and I’m still a little sore about it. There was no reason for it and I could have really used some of that money, especially now with all my dental work I am getting done but he did what he did and it’s over with.

He and his son Brett don’t speak at all and they all blame it on me because I didn’t speak to my father for so many years. They seem to think I have some kind of Svengali type spell on him and he listens to what I say. Not true at all. He’s 37 and can make up his own mind at this point. He feels he doesn’t need to speak to his father and that happens to be exactly how I felt for many years but each one of us made that choice. I have no control of Brett.

I can feel a little animosity there as she was trying to tell me how ‘he’s not the same guy anymore’ and all of that prattle she probably wants to believe but just isn’t true. I wish this all had never happened too but it did and I don’t want to deal with it anymore. They are all deeply into church just as my father was and that makes it even worse. I’m sick of it all for so many years and if he was that close to Jesus you’d think he’d realize he was a complete jackass and ask us for forgiveness rather than keep his attitude that he is God’s co-pilot.

It’s like gum in my hair and I just want to shave it off and get away from it but it doesn’t want to go away. I tried to be polite to her but she is wrapped up in it all and thinks he is a new man since my aunt died but in reality it’s all a codependent sea of dysfunctional goo.

These are the times when it’s difficult to stay alive much less be funny. I feel like getting a nice shiny pistol and putting a bullet in my skull and ending the torture once and for all. I have been through this time and time again and I am rubbed raw from it all. The hope I did have is waning and I feel like I missed my freeway exit and am running out of gas quickly.

Having no job, no family and no immediate future hope don’t help me feel any better. To be this far out of the game this far into it makes me lose my will to fight it anymore. I have really tried to overcome my past and there are days when I feel I am doing pretty well but this sure isn’t one of them. I feel farther away from the prize now than I ever have and am not seeing anything on the horizon that will make it any different. What do I do about it?

I really wish I knew. Hearing from the Loop would be a great shot in the arm right now. I know Max and I can do that job and it would give me something to focus on for a while. I would pour myself into it and start a show from the ground up and I know it would rock. Max is a super partner and he gets it. We’d come out of nowhere and that would be FUN.

Fun is really lacking from my life right now. I know I am able to survive like a bug but it isn’t fun anymore. I have a couple of gigs this coming week but nothing great. I have been lacking in booking fervor because I’ve been waiting for the radio job to come through. If I take bookings the radio job wouldn’t let me do them but if I don’t get the gig I’ll have big holes in my schedule like I do now. One or the other will have to break and I need it soon.

A nice girlfriend would be great right about now too but every woman I am interested in at the moment is either wacked out of her mind, going through an ugly divorce or not very interested in me back. I don’t want just anyone, I’d like to be with someone who interests me but I am not in the right vibe for that apparently. I have too many other things to focus on anyway and all of it is looking like a big mess. This isn’t how I thought life would be.

A nice string of quality comedy dates would really lift me up out of the rut too. If I can’t get the radio gig then a nice run of comedy would cheer me up immensely. Getting into all the Funny Bones or Improvs would be HUGE and I know I’d do hot shows but how can I do that? I don’t have any real ins there and don’t know what to do. Everyone and their ma wants those same gigs and I’m just another tape nobody will watch. I need a connection.

All of this piling up at once is really overwhelming and I don’t feel like doing anything at all and that makes it all even worse. It will take a big break to get me out of this rut and an outside favor is all I can see doing that. Wishing it so or trying to do it myself is not where it’s going to come from. I need someone with power to make a call and open up a door.

The Loop guy could call this week and that would be a super start. Or I could hear from some big comedy bookers. But those things could have happened last week too. I am at a point where my patience is running out and don’t think it’s ever going to happen for me. I have given it all I have and spent my entire life perfecting my craft and I feel like it’s all an elaborate waste of time at this point. That’s a cold hard fact that really slaps me in the face HARD. I’d hate to think I’ve come this far and this is how it’s going to end but it seems as if that’s the case right now. Drifting through life like this is not making me happy. I hate it.

A lot of others in comedy have gotten to this point and that’s supposedly when they had their break. I read stories about how Richard Pryor and David Letterman and Lewis Black and many others thought they were never going to make it and that’s when they hit it. I’m to that point right now and I wish I could say I have total faith but in all honesty I can’t.

In truth I am tired and hurting and lonely and just fed up with the whole thing. I just feel numb at this point and don’t think anyone cares if I live or die. I sure don’t. All I want is a chance to make people laugh and feel good about their life and that’s what I want as well. This is a very low point right now and I wish I had something in the tank to recharge me.