Friday Free Day

Friday January 25th, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

A rare Friday off and I don’t like it. I guess I am a workaholic after all. I’ve been on my game lately on stage and having a weekend night off is uncomfortable. I wish I was out in a club somewhere working on my show. I’ll be working two shows tomorrow though and am booked next weekend so this is a blip on the radar. Or is it? I’ve got to refocus myself.

I am way behind on a lot of things most notably my Uranus Factory Outlet business. It’s kind of taking shape and I’m doing a lot of things right but I don’t have that singleness of mind I think I need to really succeed. I’m not totally focused on it and I can tell I’m not at the top of my game in anything right now except comedy but that’s not what I planned on.

I had planned on taking much of this year off to work on establishing and developing an up and running real live mail order business. I can still accomplish that but not in the way I’ve been doing it so far this year. It’s still early but if I don’t switch up my plans I’ll drift off in who knows what direction and lose my momentum. I don’t want that so I am going to revamp my plan and go in the right direction. This whole year will be trial and error.

The main problem I’m having is that there are too many things to do and not enough of a set plan or time to do them all. No matter what I do something else falls behind and then I find myself frustrated and discouraged. The only way to do this correctly is to make up a plan and work that plan religiously. Drifting day to day like I have been isn’t how to do it.

I saw a very interesting quote from Vince Lombardi at the Packer Hall Of Fame just this week. It said ‘We will diligently strive for perfection knowing we won’t hit it but we will achieve excellence along the way.’ I think that’s it. I heard it and didn’t see it written but I think that’s pretty close. I get the point though. He was all about full out effort. I get that.

Too bad I haven’t been giving it. I’ve been busy and having fun and doing a lot of good things so far this year but I know I can kick it up a notch or two or six. I have a lot of nice people around me in a lot of areas and they have been very complimentary and I really do appreciate it but I know in my heart I can do WAY better. I have extremely high goals for myself and my expectations are a lot higher than anyone else’s for what I can accomplish.

My comedy act is humming along at the moment and I’ve been having strong shows but I know in my heart I can take it to a whole new level. There is a lot more inside of me and getting to it takes hard work but I love every second of it. This is my life’s love and I have always enjoyed the creative part of comedy. How can I split time with this and Uranus? It has to be done with a precise plan and it will take an extra focused effort to achieve it all.

Eventually both will come together and I will use the Uranus business to get known as a comedian. I thought I was going to use radio to do that but it never worked out that way. I think being on Jerry’s show on WLS will do more for my comedy than when I was at any of the stations where I was actually employed. This is coming at a good time and if I have a chance to stay on the air it all could work out in the end. I need to just keep showing up.

One guy who is having things work out quite well is Jerry’s son Tanner. That kid has it all and he’s only 15. He’s a good looking kid with two parents that love him and he’s got the world by the gonads and I hope he knows it. I went to watch his swim meet today and not only is he a 9th grader on the varsity team but he sang the national anthem too. Unreal.

Not only that he nailed it acapella and all the girls went nuts. His voice didn’t crack one time. He’s in honors class and the swing choir and last football season the very first time he touched the ball he ran back a punt for 73 yards. Everything the kid touches turns right to gold and I’ve never seen anything like it. The thing is he’s a great kid and isn’t cocky.

We all had dinner after his meet and I sat next to him and could see all the hot girls pass by and wink at him and smile and wave and it was like he didn’t even notice it. If I could notice it how come he couldn’t? This kid is truly Mr. Lucky and I hope he doesn’t have a problem handling it all. That’s a lot of things to put in front of a 15 year old kid’s mind.

No wonder Britney Spears is out of control and her 16 year old sister is pregnant. I see a parallel with Tanner in that they were good looking kids who had talent and abilities but a major difference is that Jerry and his wife Ann don’t let it get out of control like Britney’s parents did. They keep all their kids in line and that’s not easy to do. Tanner will be fine.

I can’t help but be a little envious though. I’m happy for Tanner now but I wish I could have had a little bit of that back in high school. He’s only a freshman now and is setting a pace to be super kid by the time he is an upper classman. Does he have to get ALL the fun and accolades? High school years can be euphoria or total hell and most of us get the hell.

Tanner has been dealt a great hand of cards in life and I don’t think he’s going to screw it up but a lot of kids do exactly that. It’s a whole lot different out in the real world and it can pop somebody’s bubble very quickly. Maybe my tough upbringing prepared me for a life on the road but now this late into the game seeing someone like Tanner and all that’s going right with him makes me feel like I got cheated. He’s getting a chance to enjoy it.

I still do enjoy comedy though. That time on stage doesn’t get old even though all of the other stuff around it totally does. Traveling isn’t the same fun adventure it once was and it is getting more difficult as I get older. Dealing with bookers and incompetent openers and drunken hecklers never was fun and my patience is getting shorter by the minute for it all.

But I can’t quit. What else can I do? Even starting my Uranus business is based in being funny and that’s what I was born to do. Tanner Agar was meant to do a lot of other things apparently and I’m thrilled for such a wonderful kid getting all the tools he’s gotten but it makes me feel like whatever kind of God is out there left a few out of my goodie bag way back when I was born and I’ve had to stumble through life with a lot less to work with.

Nobody said life was fair and that still pisses me off. Why not? Wouldn’t life be better if it was? But it isn’t and in this lifetime there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about any of it. Good for guys like Tanner. Bad for most of the rest of us. But alas, life still goes on.