Bloody Sunday

Sunday March 23rd, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

Easter Sunday. Bunnies hop and I did too when I stubbed the bare little pinky toe of my right foot on the corner of my bathroom door and ripped a nice chunk of meat off of it as I ran to answer my ringing phone. I didn’t think I’d hit it that hard at first but then I felt that delayed reaction pain blast shoot up my leg and I went down in agony a few seconds later.

I didn’t get to the phone call as I laid on the ground laughing at yet another klutzo move that laid me out flat on my rear. I’m no hypocrite when it comes to laughing at someone’s pain. When I fall down I laugh just as hard as I do when I see someone else do it. It’s just funny. It takes me a while to get over my own pain when I do it but I still laugh about it.

What wasn’t funny was all the blood squirting everywhere. It looked like Manson had a reunion party in my bathroom as I hopped around on my left foot looking for some towels to mop it up. I didn’t know a little toe could bleed that much and as I was wiping it up the question of what that toe is called came up. Is it the pinky like a finger? I’m still not sure.

I wrapped it up to stop the bleeding and then put a couple of extra socks on it to sop up the blood and hopefully insulate it as I walked. I was running late to meet Jerry Agar for a brunch near his house. His family is still out of town and we wanted to hang out and get a plan of action together for our live Jerry’s Kidder’s shows coming up at Zanies in June.

I was supposed to be there around 2 but I was only two minutes late so it didn’t matter. I didn’t even tell him about it because I didn’t think it was important. He’s known me for a long time and has seen plenty of my clumsiness so one more story would waste time for brunching. The joint closed at 3 and there was no time for idle chat. Time to chow down.

We had a great meal and hung out to relax a little and enjoy the day. We’ve both put in a lot of time trying to make things happen with our careers and a day like this hit the spot. The weather was perfect as we drove back to his house and started brainstorming ideas on how to create a live show that will be worth everyone’s while and create our own niche.

The main fear most people have about standup comedy shows is that they’ll be ‘dirty’. I can’t say I disagree with them. Many comics have NO clue where to stop and when it’s in poor taste the audience is lost for the rest of the show. I’ve seen it happen over and over.

The good thing we have going for us is that Jerry has been on stage before and has done standup comedy in clubs. All three of the comedians are established headliners with years of experience and we know where ‘the line’ is, especially for a person who might listen to WLS. We’ll be able to pull off fantastic live shows if we can just get people to show up.

We made a plan of how to talk to the sales staff at the station and get everyone on board so we can pull off a strong week at Zanies in June. This could really work well for us as it would start to build our own audience of people who don’t usually go to clubs. For once I can see radio helping to promote myself as a comedian and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.