Too Much Thinking

Friday December 14th 2007 - Northwood, IA/Lake Villa, IL

Four hundred miles to Iowa yesterday meant the same four hundred back today. I got up at 5am to drive back but it was nasty cold and pitch black and I didn’t think it would make any difference if I left later so I went back to sleep. No matter what time I left I would still have the same drive ahead of me so I might as well face it rested, fed and in the sunlight.

This is the part of comedy that’s really getting old. There isn’t a whole lot of excitement between Northwood, IA and Lake Villa, IL and the highlight was stopping to take a quick run through a Goodwill in LaCrosse. I found a couple of books I didn’t need along with a cassette program by Napoleon Hill the guy who wrote ‘Think And Grow Rich’. I am a big fan of that book and respect his struggles. He came from nothing and built a life of wealth.

There were a lot of struggles in his life and I like to hear of how other people did it so it can hopefully inspire me to do the same. Sometimes I feel like I’m all alone in the world so knowing someone else had it tough is a comfort in a way. I don’t feel like the only hamster on the wheel of life running on a path to nowhere. I’d like to think there’ll be some kind of payoff at some point. It sure didn’t feel like it as I drove through Wisconsin this afternoon.

My friend Will C. is working in Milwaukee this week at Jokerz so I stopped to hang out and have lunch. We went to Jake’s Deli on 17th and North and he loved it. I always love to turn new people on to Jake’s and I’m sure my heart will lock up at some point from all the greasy corned beef I ate over the years but it sure does taste good. We had a great meal.

Will is definitely a dented can and he’s got his own demons from childhood to deal with. It’s good to know someone else is able to relate to those horrors as strange as that seems. My radio friend Max in Springfield and my cousin Brett and precious few others can grasp the feeling of what it’s like to be in that category and only we can cheer each other up at a time when it gets the darkest. If someone hasn’t experienced it they can’t be sympathetic.

I remember a woman I was really hot for many years ago said ‘You’re so BITTER when you’re off stage. I don’t want to be around you when you’re like that.’ That was very long ago but I never forgot it. I’ve gotten a lot better but that damage will always be there. As I look back on it she was a dented can also. She was absolutely gorgeous on the outside but on the inside she had all those ugly feelings too. She noticed them in me and she hated it.

That’s the Catch 22 of this whole thing. I don’t know if a ‘normal’ woman can relate to all my inner craziness not only of my insane family life but of being a creative ‘artist type’ as well. And the ones who can relate to it usually have a heaping helping of their own ugly issues to deal with and that makes it even harder. That’s why I’m still single all these years later. I never wanted to put a wife and kids through the tornado of my unstable existence.

These are the kinds of thoughts that bounce around in my skull on a long boring drive in Wisconsin with nothing else to do. The mind wanders and mine was out there today. I was way out in space and that’s not good. Uranus is as far out in space as my mind should be.

I really feel like I wasted the whole day today. It was fun to see Will and I hope I was able to cheer him up a little but I felt like I was wandering both physically and mentally. I tried to stay positive but I must admit some of the Christmas pain seeped through a little. EVERY damn commercial has Christmas music and every fast food bag has a candy cane on it and it’s just too much to take. Even if I liked Christmas I would still be sick of this.

This has never been a good time for me and even with the thought of being the King of Uranus I still found myself feeling down today. I knew I’d eventually get into another rut and I told myself I’d be strong but when it actually happens it’s not easy to stay the course and plow through it. It’s only another ten days but this is the time when I need a boost.

I got home and wrote out a big pile of Christmas cards to the people who booked me in 2007. I also sent one to my sister, brother and half brother. Before this year I didn’t have a mailing address for any of them but the lawyer sent a list out when my father died this year so now I do. I hope that we can start to finally heal now that Darth Father is finally dead.

I have no idea how any of this is going to be received. I didn’t try to be funny and I only wanted to let them know that I was thinking of them and wanted to end any lingering past feelings of anger. They may throw it away without opening it or maybe we can finally start the healing process. I was in contact with my half brother Bruce by email but for whatever reason he just stopped answering. Maybe he’s busy or sick or angry with me. I don’t have a clue but I’d sure like to be able to establish contact with all of them and make a peace.

Again, none of this has anything to do with comedy but it hovers over my head like a fog and when it gets thick I can’t see anything else. I can go up and blow a room full of people I don’t even know away with laughter but wondering if my siblings will ever talk to me for the rest of my life consumes my thoughts. Being on stage is the hard part for other people but for me that’s no big deal at all. I can do it in my sleep. Real life is what messes me up.

All I ever wanted to be was ‘normal’. What the hell IS that anyway? I never found out. I always thought it was having a mom and dad and siblings and then after graduating school I would find something to do I loved and then make my own home and have my own kids. Nothing even CLOSE to that has happened and doesn’t look like it’s about to any time in the near future. The more I wanted it the farther away it got and now it feels unattainable.

These are the times I really am having an issue with a belief in God. I used to have to go to church as a kid and I liked it but as I get older I think it’s all a big lie. It’s a hoax just as professional wrestling was a hoax. I believed that as a kid too and when I found out it was all a gimmick I liked it even more. I don’t feel the same way about the God thing. It hurts.

I feel if there is a Jesus he loves everyone but me. I remember having long talks with my grandfather as a kid defending the fact I knew there was a God. He didn’t believe in any of it and said ‘There IS no pie in the sky. This is it. Deal with it.’ I couldn’t believe he didn’t believe in God and the Bible and it disturbed me greatly. Now as I get older I feel the very same way and that disturbs me too. I need to stop making these drives. I think too much.