My Biggest Project EVER!

Monday September 3rd, 2007 - Salt Lake City, UT/Chicago, IL

Everything went smoothly this week in Salt Lake City and I will look at this week as the turning point in my entire life if the idea I had on Saturday pans out like I think it could. It came to me in the shower of all places and it hit me so hard I had to get out and towel off so I could start taking notes. I didn’t even put any clothes on. I sat naked and wrote down the details of the idea as it came to me and I knew immediately I was back in business in a good way mentally. When I get my ideas like this I’m never depressed and this is a biggie.

My life has been full of wild ideas that I actually go after and see how they can become a reality. I don’t always get what I want but usually I get something. If nothing else I get my feet wet in a new area and end up learning something. I am WAY past any point of fear of failure and I know most people never get past it. They are deathly afraid of what will come down if they fail at something they want to try and it stops them from ever giving it a shot.

I have had my world blow up in my face so many times in so many different areas that it doesn’t scare me in the least if something I try doesn’t work. I can honestly say I’m fine in my head if something I’m working on doesn’t succeed. I may not like it and it may make it unpleasant for a day or two but it doesn’t paralyze me with fear like I see in so many other people. I’m no better or worse than anyone else, it’s just that I’m willing to take a swing.

Recently in my life getting to meet George Clinton was a perfect example. I had the idea and then went after it but there was some risk involved. I decided beforehand that even if I had the worst case scenario happen and I lost everything I could still survive and it was my choice to proceed with the plan. It ended up working out differently than I imagined but it ended up being a highlight of my life to date. Would I do it again? YES!! Without a doubt.

My risk factor was something I could afford to lose. It would have been disappointing to not get the chance to meet George or if I did and he was an ass that might have been a bad thing too but he was great and we hit it off and to this day I think about it often and smile.

This particular idea I had in the shower in Utah has a similar flair but it’s totally different than meeting a celebrity. I would gladly detail it now but I want to get all the particulars in place before I say anything else about it. I need to get a lot of nuts and bolts details nailed down and it might take a few weeks or even months to do it. If I told it now someone else may run with it or do it in a way I don’t agree with and it’s my idea so I need to protect it.

I do think it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done to date. EVER. That may or may not be a good thing depending on who you talk to but I don’t even care about what anybody else is thinking. I am going to DO this whether anyone else approves of it or not. Notice I am not saying I’m going to TRY this idea. I am going to DO it. How far it goes is still a question.

The more I think about this the more I’m excited. It is the culmination of all my struggle of a lot of years and those are the ingredients which have gone into the master plan. I have a lot of work to do and when I’m ready to lay it out I’ll do so here. Stay tuned, this is hot!

But then again, so is fire. Fire can cook food and provide warmth or it can burn us to an unpleasantly painful ugly hideous disfiguring death. The words ‘burnt beyond recognition’ are never sexy to read in any context but for me ‘another white comedian’ is just as bad.

I have been privately consumed by this idea for the last couple of days but haven’t told a lot of people about it. I probably won’t until there are a few more solid details but it’s very involved and very personalized to my strengths and experience in life and I am prepared to invest lots of time and significant money but even if it totally blows up I won’t be crushed.

I may be disappointed or inconvenienced a little but I’ve been used to that my whole life. It’s not going to kill me and it’s not going to wipe me out like I thought I’d be on so many other occasions in the past. Getting fired from radio stations was never fun and I have had that ugly experience five times. Try being 1300 miles from home and getting fired from the job that’s paying for your lawyer to defend yourself on bank robbery charges even though you know you didn’t rob the bank in question. THAT is a problem. THIS is an adventure.

Being down and out and having the world ripped out from under a person is something I really think should happen to EVERYBODY. It’s happened to me a lot more times than is necessary in my opinion but there is a certain calm now that I didn’t have before and this is something I’ll take as a positive for as long as I’m able to keep waking up in the morning.

I know I’m wacked in many ways but I really feel it’s a positive wackery if that is able to make any sense. Good creative people are usually half nuts (or more) and I don’t have any qualms at all about admitting my many faults, defects and shortcomings. It adds to the mix and makes me unique and it gives me humanity and depth. I feel the same way about all of the other people I admire so much who are also a little odd. George Clinton is the ultimate example I can think of and that’s why I am such a big fan. He is in touch with his quirks or wackiness or whatever anyone wants to call it but rather than squelch it he’s embraced it.

So have a lot of other artistic people. Do you think Sean Penn would last long at a job in a paint store? How about Jack Nicholson? Oprah? Those people went off and did what the little inner voice that’s in everyone’s head told them to do and they’ve become themselves. Like it or not that’s who they are and they followed the little voice we all have in our head and that’s what I’m doing too. It wasn’t whispering at me this time though. It SHOUTED.

The plane landed in Chicago and I ran a few errands and then picked up Bill Gorgo for a Chicago Style Standups show at Zanies. I ran my idea past him and he got it right away. It started him thinking and he had a couple of good ideas immediately and I knew then this is something worth exploring. I talked to Jim McHugh on the phone and he is very analytical about things and he liked it too. I expected to hear holes shot in it by both and but it didn’t happen. They liked it and both of them started adding their own ideas which I appreciated.

There wasn’t a large audience at Zanies and they weren’t particularly vocal but we had a blast on stage anyway riffing ideas and ad libbing and just hanging out and enjoying it all. I was still on a high from Utah and felt very loose on stage. I can feel this is going to work.