Chicago Style See Ya

Saturday November 10th, 2007 - Northwood, IA

Still on a high from the show last night in Fort Dodge. It was in a hall called ‘The Opera House’ but the only fat ladies that I saw weren’t on stage singing. Wisconsin may have the plumpest people on Earth but Iowa is right up there. They get the silver medal of MOO.

Today would have been my father’s 70th birthday. How fun it would have been to be off from performing and back in Milwaukee to celebrate it with my siblings. We would have a huge family get together with all the children and grandchildren and have a fantastic meal.

There would be pictures taken and lots of nice gifts and gag gifts and all kinds of stories told about the great times we all had over the years. There would be love dripping all over the place and I wouldn’t be sitting in a hotel room in Iowa wishing it would all be real. But what am I doing instead? Sitting in a hotel room in Iowa wishing it would be real. It isn’t.

He died in February of this year but it seems like so long ago now. The raw nerves have all deadened and the pain of that whole situation doesn’t bother me like it once did. It isn’t ever going to change and that’s just how it is. But it’s not keeping me from chasing any of my dreams and in fact for many years it fueled it. Now I have grown into my own person.

I figured it out today that he was about my age now when I graduated high school. I so could have used a good father then but he was nowhere to be found. He didn’t ever try for anything and he succeeded. Now he’s dead and nobody misses him. His father died at 69 just like he did and I still miss Gramps dearly. Funny how the numbers work. I can’t plan on 69 but if I could that would mean I’ve got a quarter of a century left to do all the things neither one of them did for whatever reason. The clock is ticking and I’m going for it all.

Tonight’s show was in a casino in Northwood, IA not far from Clear Lake. The facility is very nice and the audience was too. There is a separate room for entertainment and it’s sound proof so we don’t have to perform over the noise of slot machines like many casino gigs don’t seem to grasp. The people here want entertainment and it was an easy evening except for having to deal with one of the guys going long and not knowing when to get off stage. The management asked us to do a 90 minute show and no longer. That’s not hard.

But the guy just rambled on and had no clue of when to end even though he has been in the business longer than all of us. I’m not going to mention his name because I don’t want to make it any worse than it is but he’s the one who has made this group situation a hassle. He chooses to behave unprofessionally time and time again and I’ve had enough of it now.

It’s like a woman. No matter how beautiful she might be if she’s a bitch to deal with the beauty means less and less. Sure this guy is a very talented comedian but he is such a pain to deal with off stage and it’s getting worse that I have absolutely had it as of tonight. This is supposed to be FUN and a lot of it was but dealing with his quirks is getting old fast. I’ll politely say thanks for having me but I think my time in Chicago Style Standups is over for now. No regrets. I learned a lot and had some fun but now I’ve got other stuff to develop.