400 Miles For 50 People

Thursday December 13th, 2007 - Northwood, IA

Back to work after a couple days off. I’ve been hitting it really hard lately and any time off at all seems like forever. One thing about comedy is that steady work is necessary for steady improvement. I am going to consciously take some time off next year and that’s not normal for me. I’ve always stayed working in the past even when I had all my radio jobs.

If I really want stage time I’ll be able to get it. There are enough clubs close to me that I can rotate for guest sets when I want and that’s fine with me. I just want to stay sharp and even work on polishing up some TV sets. If I can make enough money with the business it will be enough just to do guest sets at clubs. I don’t need to be driving all those road miles like I have been for a lifetime. I need to use that time to build my business in the next year.

Today was an example of those road miles of old. It was exactly 400.7 miles from home to Diamond Joe’s Casino in Northwood, IA where I did two shows tonight. Northwood is about twenty miles north of Mason City where Buddy Holly’s plane went down and I was just here with Chicago Style Standups about a month or so ago. Now I’m back by myself.

Chicago Style Standups is dead unfortunately. The group concept of comedians doesn’t work without someone being the leader. They tried working by committee and it wouldn’t get anything done. I had fun for a while but those guys aren’t going anywhere so I am not going to waste my time with that anymore. It was a learning experience but now it’s over.

Coming back here today reminded me of all that. This gig is just about over with. It will go until the end of the year and that’s it. They’re not renewing the contract. That’s fine by me. Casino gigs as a rule aren’t very good ones even though they usually pay pretty well. I had to do two shows tonight for a total of about 50 people. 40 of those were at the earlier show where I had to do 55 minutes. The late show had 10 people and I did 50 minutes.

They were actually very nice and I aired it out both shows. I gave my very best and did not whine about the small audience. The check was cut weeks ago and is probably already sitting in my mailbox as I type this. It wasn’t the audience’s fault so I gave them all I had. I did my time and they enjoyed the show. I could hear them laughing and I enjoyed it too.

The whole way up I focused on Uranus Factory Outlet and how I can make it work. I’m doing a very good job of setting time aside to focus on it and I can feel progress take place even though I haven’t sold my first item. I am going to shape this into a workable entity to turn a buck so I don’t have to take gigs in Northwood, IA anymore unless I really want to.

I brought my E. Joseph Cossman mail order tape series with me and listened to it again. I bought it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it and did it all over again today. That guy was a master marketer and made millions many times over with a wide variety of products. He’s got fantastic ideas on his tape series even though it’s a little dated. Most mail order course material was written before the internet. The ideas are good but the internet is a brand new frontier. I am excited about having a chance to be an internet mail order millionaire. Soon!