No Mothership Today

Sunday March 16th, 2008 - Milwaukee, WI/Lake Villa, IL

The Mothership is grounded and I couldn’t be happier. Two reasons: one - it’s only for a week. Two - it came at the perfect time. It gave me a little time to rest and catch up with my cousin Brett. I hadn’t seen him in a while and we went for brunch at our favorite place of all time Pandl’s in Bayside, WI to celebrate our birthdays. It’s become an annual trek.

I really appreciate Brett. He’s seven years younger than me and we have a lot of similar ideas on a lot of things. Both of our fathers were brothers and both of them didn’t take the job very seriously and both Brett and I have tried to overcome it and salvage a good life. I respect his work ethic and he has dedicated his life to being a union carpenter. He loves it.

Now he’s a teacher and instructs new workers coming into the trades. Like me he loves to teach. It’s strange how similar we are. We’re both Pisces and both left handed and both a younger brother and we’ve always just really hit it off. He’s dark and very funny and we laugh uproariously about the sickest, darkest and most twisted things nobody can repeat.

It’s great to have someone like that and we both appreciate the fact that we’re about the only real family the other one has been able to maintain a positive relationship with. He’s a great guy and a gentle soul but like me he can come across a little hard edged and mean to someone who doesn’t know him. I’m that way too but I’m getting softer in my old age.

I know I need to eat better and all that ying yang that actually isn’t ying yang but we did not think about that today and enjoyed our once a year birthday meal. Pandl’s has the best brunch I’ve ever eaten and we both love it so we filled our wooden leg with everything in arm’s reach from crab legs to oysters, to lamb chops to corned beef to lox to a big omelet.

We laughed and talked and hung out and it was really relaxing. We each had the honor of making the other one laugh so hard that other people looked over to see what all of the fuss was about. It was cleansing and fun and even our waitress thought we were hilarious.

After brunch I dropped Brett off and went to the baseball card show at Gonzaga Hall on 92nd and Greenfield in West Allis. I hung out for the rest of the day with some of the guys there I’ve known for years and it was also a lot of fun. We had some laughs and I found a couple of good deals and bought a few cards at a great price I think I can move on Ebay.

Whether I do or not it was still a great day. I needed a day to recharge and this was it. It was an unexpected vacation because the Wisconsin Badger basketball game preempted us on the radio but that’s ok. The Badgers won and we’ll be back on the air again next week so nothing’s lost. We’ve got guests lined up and I can already tell we’ll be ready to go.

Tomorrow it’s back on WLS and I’ll be ready for that one too. I’ve got some work this week and next and the week after that so I’m not going to be hurting any time soon. I am still not totally set with my time management but at least I’m getting better at it. There are a lot of things going well right now. I claim those and will use them to build a good week.

Time is limited for us all and I don’t want to waste even one minute doing anything that isn’t fun or exciting or rewarding. I really do feel a new mindset coming on and I feel like I am in the stretch run of my life right now. How long that will last I don’t know but I feel strongly that if I’m going to have my life pay off I need to totally dedicate myself NOW.

I farted around for years like most people do but then it becomes too late. I fear that I’ll do that too and it chills me to the bone. To not have chased my desires is the worst thing I can imagine and I am flat out not going to let that happen. I will go down swinging and it isn’t going to be ‘someday’. TODAY is that day and I am going to make the most of it.

That thought consumed me all the way home from Milwaukee. I haven’t had the best of circumstances my whole life but there are a lot of people who had it worse in many ways. A lot of people have had it better too but they’ve never taken a swing at their big piñata. I have at least attempted to do what I love for my life’s work but I can do a whole lot more.

A good thing to report is that I haven’t had a major depression in several months. I get a few flashes once in a while but nothing even close to where I’ve been at my lowest point. I talked about that with Max this weekend and with Brett and I’m not complaining but it’s sure strange how that has come and gone in my life. I would love it to be gone for good.

That’s probably not realistic though and I know it. That’s one of the reasons I write this diary every day though is to hopefully shed some light on it for someone else who is on a journey to chase the big dream and doesn’t have the ideal conditions. I’ve already heard a whole lot of nice things from many people who follow my adventures and I appreciate it.

I write this diary mainly for me though. It’s good on so many levels. It’s a daily exercise in both discipline and writing and it keeps me with a deadline. It’s also therapeutic to just start typing and see where my thoughts go. I really do try to make it interesting for readers and I know I have quite a few from all walks of life. I won’t even try to please them all.

The main thing I want to accomplish with this is to encourage and entertain those with a dream. Hopefully young comedians will discover this not only as I write it but years from now and it will help them over their own life’s humps. I’m a kook in many ways and I am the first one to admit it but who isn’t? We all have dents in our can and we deal with it.

I feel like the old bromide I’ve heard many times: ‘The difference between involvement and commitment can be told with bacon and eggs. The chicken was involved but the pig was committed.’ I am committed to being a comedian and have dedicated my entire being and lifetime to it. I want to turn not only my own pain but that of others into laughter.

It doesn’t matter if I’m on stage performing or on the radio or on TV or on You Tube or teaching a class or whatever the case may be. I am giving my all for the rest of my life so I can be proud of something when I leave here. I already am proud of a lot of what I have done but now it’s time to turn it up even more. I still want to be the King of Uranus and it will take a lot of hard work which is great. The Mothership will fly again next Sunday.