A Second Opinion

Friday February 8th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

No gig tonight. I don’t like to be off on a weekend and I’m usually not. I have a show at the Racine Theatre Guild tomorrow night and that should be fun by all accounts but that’s tomorrow. Nothing tonight. That always bothers me right around show time. I feel like an orphan that missed a train and has nowhere else to go. If it’s a weekend I want to work.

I did a lot of soul searching and deep thinking today. Many comedians I know are some of the deepest thinking people around but nobody wants to hear that. They want the jokes and nothing else. Most comedians that evolve into actors want to play that serious role at some point but most times those movies bomb. Which successful comedian has done it?

Robin Williams has done a ton of movies but has any of his big hits been a serious role? Jim Carrey is another one. He’s always said he wants to do a serious role but I doubt if an audience would flock to see it. He’s established himself as a comic and that’s what he has to deliver his fans to satisfy them. Most comedians have a very serious side. I know I do.

There is a very delicate balance as to when to let the serious side out. Most people think comedians are on all the time and nothing fazes them and everything is bright and happy. Ha! That seemed odd to even type that statement but it’s absolutely true. Countless times I have met someone after a show and had them tell me ‘Wow, I sure wish had your life. It must be so carefree and fun all the time.’ I smile and nod trying not to laugh in their face.

Today I thought about my future and what I should do right now. Having the lunch with Marc Schultz yesterday got a lot of wheels turning in my head. I thought a lot about all of what he said as far as getting hired in the corporate market. I’m not sure if that’s what I’d be happiest doing even if it does pay a lot better. I asked myself what I really want to do.

I want to have FUN. I’ve always done things that have been fun to me and maybe it has cost me financially but at least I have some good stories. Is that the smartest thing to keep doing now? I really thought it over and I have to say honestly the answer is a giant YES!

I’m already living like a cockroach and I’m used to it. I could have had a nice house and a new car and a lot of the other toys of corporate American lifestyle but I chose to go into a field I love. I still may have the financial payoff at some point but if I don’t I have loved the path I’ve chosen even if there have been many bumps. I made the right choice in life.

Now I need to choose again and take the comedy business to a different angle. Should it be safe or a risk? That’s the basic choice and after a whole day of thinking hard about the situation I’m in I decided to keep taking the risks. That’s my gut feeling and I am going to follow it until I feel otherwise. So much for the corporate world, I’m headed for Uranus.

That’s the project I need to focus on. Period. I am already an established comedian and I will get work just by osmosis. People I work for know I do the job and as long as they are in business I will get calls for work. I might not get rich but I will be able to pay my bills.

What will put me over the top is making this business work. Uranus Factory Outlet will put me on the map in many ways if I can pull it off like I envision. The problem is that for my entire life NOTHING has gone like I envisioned. There’s always a glitch somewhere.

I needed to get my mail again today so I headed into Chicago to the UPS Store on North Avenue near Zanies. On the way in I got a call from Jerry Agar asking if I wanted to have dinner with him and his wife Ann. He was downtown so I swung by and picked him up at the radio station. I was in a brooding mood and he is one of the people who I can talk to.

Jerry has struggled a lot in radio to get to WLS and I’m thrilled for his success but he is not guaranteed of any job security at all. Not yet. He told me he walks around his house in the early morning when he’s getting ready for work and thinks it could all get taken away in a day if he loses his job. That’s how radio people think and I’ve been in that boat too.

We were laughing about all the times we called each other after we got fired in the past but it wouldn’t be funny if it happened now. He’s got a lot riding on this gig. His kids are all entrenched in schools now and having to move again would be torture. He’s risking all his marbles that this will be his payoff after a lifetime of risks and I hope he’s on target.

Jerry’s wife Ann has been a saint through all of this. She has not only supported Jerry’s radio habit but also was a great mother to their three kids as they criss crossed the country over the years. Before that she worked as an advertising executive in Minneapolis and did a lot of work with McDonald’s. She understands the corporate world and I need that help.

The kids were all doing school things so the three of us sat at a restaurant and had ideas about what would make Uranus Factory Outlet work. Jerry and I are more of the maverick mentality but Ann has been in the real world of big business and was very helpful. She sat with us and brainstormed from a position of what would or wouldn’t work in that world.

We were at an Italian restaurant that had the big paper square over the linen table cloth and we just wrote ideas on the paper. People around us were trying not to stare but I could see them looking at us out of the corner of their eye and wondering what we were doing. I love to have idea sessions and they were all piping in with thoughts. It was productive.

Ann is a wonderful person but her sense of humor is a lot more reserved than Jerry’s or mine. Different people have different tastes in a lot of areas and her humor is not like the majority of the people I hang around. That’s not good or bad, it just is. Most of network TV’s idea of ‘humor’ on a sitcom doesn’t make me laugh but millions of people watch it.

That’s why Ann was so important in all of this. She gets this joke. She thinks it’s funny and so does her mother who is a very straight but hip lady who lives in Minneapolis. Ann has had a lot of experience in what sells to the public and having worked for McDonald’s she can tell what will or won’t work for the masses. She thinks this is a wonderful idea to pursue and offered a lot of ideas I hadn’t thought of at all. This settled the issue once and for all. Sink or swim I will be the King of Uranus. Now I need to decide what that means.