Fire And Ice

Tuesday May 20th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

I bet I’d have made a great mobster. I’m sure I’d be long dead by now but I would have totally fit the personality type. Part of me is a total teddy bear pushover but part of me has an icy cold streak. Most people have one or the other but only a small minority have both.

I’ve always been able to be at ease with the ‘gangster types’. My father rode with some of the nastiest bikers around and even as a kid I remember not being afraid of them. I had a rapport even then. I treated them the same as anybody - with human dignity and respect.

When I started in comedy I worked a club in downtown Detroit. There was a short black guy right in the front row sitting with two big black guys and some women. The little guy started talking to me and I got right in his face and the room went silent. Then he laughed and so did everyone else. I found out later he was one of the biggest coke dealers in town.

I didn’t know that but I wasn’t afraid of him. I spoke with him as a person and he totally got it. We talked after the show and he slipped me $200 and said ‘Pretty funny for a white boy.’ He left laughing but everyone else thought he was going to pull out a gun. Not me.

Another time in Cleveland a muscular ape in an expensive suit started getting on me for being from Milwaukee. I fired off a few insults about Cleveland and again everyone had a moment of silence waiting to witness my death. The guy stood and started to wind up like he was going to punch me but then laughed and gave me a big hug. Everyone else sighed.

For some reason I’ve just always been able to mix with those guys. One time I was at a club in Florida and a bunch of mobster types were at the bar after the show and the owner brought me over to tell them some street jokes. They were trying to stump each other and he knew I know a lot of old jokes so I spent about three hours firing jokes back and forth.

After they left the owner came over and told me one of them was going to prison and he wanted to have a funny going away party. The guy gave the owner $100 on the way out to give me (well that’s what I got) and said that I made his last night of freedom a great one.

I said how nice I thought all those guys were and the owner said ‘Yeah, they’re real nice now but say one wrong word and your head would be buried in a swamp in five minutes.’ Then he explained how most mobsters have that sweet side but a cold side right next to it.

We tried to figure out what it was and I really think it’s because they’ve suffered pain in childhood just like me. The average biker or mobster or coke dealer usually doesn’t come from a golden home life and I sure didn’t either. We can bond because it’s the synergy of where we came from. We want to be nice but can turn heartless if provoked. And quick.

I guess all humans can be that way but most never have to develop the hard side. I sure am not proud of mine but I know it’s there. I wouldn’t want to own a gun because I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t use it. The older I get the less I see my patience lasting with idiots.

I’m also finding myself fitting in with the mainstream even less. I didn’t fit in as a kid and I find myself drifting even farther away now. I couldn’t care less about who’s the new finalist on American Idol but millions of cattle graze in front of their TV to find out. It’s a total waste of time in my opinion but who’s right? Millions are glued to that tripe. Why?

Britney Spears? Why is she getting air time? Rap ‘artists’? I think they’re all talentless punks who couldn’t get a job mopping a floor if it weren’t for inbred white kids who keep buying the dung they crank out. NASCAR is even worse. I hope they all kiss the wall and their fat stupid toothless fan base too. But again, millions of Americans are hooked on it.

Am I officially a curmudgeon now? I guess I am. But I don’t really care. I’m probably at my very best level of being a comedian I’ve ever been and I am still struggling to pay bills and rent. I don’t see a lot of rappers doing that because there’s a demand for the ‘product’ that dwarfs mine. They’re the Walmart and I’m the corner store that has to struggle along.

I really felt something snap in me when I heard about that class in Ann Arbor taught by the goof I helped get started. That really rubbed me raw and I went to have lunch with my friend Marc Schultz to make a battle plan. Usually we have fun but today it was business.

Marc has been booking entertainment his whole life. His dad started the business and he kept it going. I asked Marc to make a plan so we can book the Jerry’s Kidder’s shows in a venue different from comedy clubs. Maybe it’s small theatres or golf outings or company holiday parties but whatever it is I know there are people who will appreciate what we do.

They don’t have to be mobsters or bikers or coke dealers and quite frankly I hope that it isn’t those types. I’ve found that the people who appreciate my comedy the most are those who are over 30 and have had some struggles in their lives. It’s not an ethnic thing either. I’ve done great with white and black and everything in between. SMART people like me.

Unfortunately that’s the true minority in this world. There are smart, sincere, easygoing, kindhearted, gentle, funny, giving people of all colors in all corners of the earth but aren’t talked about in the media because Jamie Lynn Spears’ out of wedlock waterhead is on the front pages of every newspaper in the world. All the good people have to be sick of it too.

I do get people coming up to me after shows that say ‘You are THE funniest comic I’ve ever seen in my life. Thanks for making me laugh harder than I have in years.’ I don’t get all the people saying it but I do get at least a few almost every time. That gives me hope.

All I want to do is entertain the ones who ‘get it‘. I don’t care what color they are or if I get a network sitcom doing it. In fact I’ll probably never get a sitcom but that’s absolutely fine with me at this point. I wouldn’t be happy having to dummy it all down for the herd.

Who wants to be a cold hearted bastard? Not me. I never did but I keep getting people poking me and I can’t help it. Poke the cutest puppy enough and he’ll snap at you too. It doesn’t need to be like that. I want to surround myself with people who have kind hearts.