Fun Inc.

Wednesday May 14th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

It’s not what you know it’s who you know. Right? That’s what I’ve always heard. It’s a fact that knowing the right people in the right situation can really grease the wheel and for once I knew someone that helped me. That doesn’t happen often so I don‘t take it lightly.

Chuck Field is a ventriloquist who took my comedy class many years ago. He’s a solid person and always tries to hook people up who can help each other. He’s the one to thank for introducing me to Marc Schultz who’s not only a booker of corporate stuff but is now one of my favorite people. He’s a friend. Chuck hooked us up years ago and I’m grateful.

Besides doing ventriloquism shows Chuck and his brother have a box business that they inherited from their father. He knows all kinds of people from all walks of life and he said whenever I was ready that he’d introduce me to a guy who owns the company ‘Fun Inc.’

The name alone perked up my interest and it turns out he manufactures and distributes a line of gag items like fake vomit and whoopee cushions and magic tricks and all different kinds of stuff that I could maybe sell on the Uranus site. He’s located in Chicago and is a world wide wholesaler of stuff like that to magic shops and wherever else may sell vomit.

I hadn’t seen Chuck in a while and he’d been telling me about this guy for a while but it just didn’t seem like the right time yet. I didn’t want to waste a favor so I put it off until it seemed like the right time. That time was today and I met Graham Putnam live in person.

For a guy who sells rubber poop and itching powder he was pretty straightforward and a wee bit serious. He was very informative though and I learned a lot. I explained what I am looking to accomplish and he listened and then gave me a brief education on his business.

Just like almost every other business the gag business is changing too. There are certain things that are perpetual sellers and those are like hit records apparently. There aren’t that many but the ones that are bring in tons of cash. That’s what everyone is looking to score.

We spent about a half hour in his office and I was very respectful of his time. I was also grateful to Chuck for introducing me and he was right there the whole time too. Could the meeting have happened without Chuck? Maybe, but it’s always better to be introduced by someone who knows the person and this couldn’t have worked out better. We hit it off.

Graham gave me a catalog of a company out east who sells stuff and explained how that in the last 20 years or so the gag business has become an import business. All of it is now made overseas and shipped over here so getting a special manufactured product here isn’t going to be easy. Most of the places here buy their stuff from the same sources over there.

Taking a half hour to meet with me was very nice of Graham and I will buy from him if at all possible when I get my site up. Whoopee cushions will definitely be a constant part of the Uranus gag and I want to either sell them or use them as a giveaway with sales.

This was a very productive meeting and I’m glad I waited until now to do it. Chuck is a connection I made years ago that paid off today. He’s totally willing to help and I try to be that way too. It felt like the karma train made a stop at my station today and I needed it.

When I got home I checked my email and found a response from Jerry Agar’s friend up in Canada who is the master entrepreneur. He told me to type out my questions for him to look at and he’d get back to me. He didn’t quote me a price but I’m sure there’s a reason.

Many times people come to me for advice on starting out in comedy. I always sincerely try to help but over the years I’ve found that some people are just time wasters and I can’t afford to give of my time like that. That’s when I started charging people to weed out the kook bags. If someone is sincerely interested and I see a spark I am very lenient on price.

I have a feeling that’s how I will be treated here too. If I blow him off or ask all kinds of rambling stupid questions I’m sure he’ll charge me through the nose. If I take time to give it some thought and ask well thought out questions I bet he’ll take time and answer them.

That’s something I have to take care of in the next day or so to keep this momentum up. I’m doing things I need to do to get started and that’s what I set out to do. I also got a call from my friend Todd Kasulke up in Milwaukee saying he has a guy who wants to sell his t-shirt silk screening business he’s had for 40 years. He’s looking to retire and move on.

I may or may not want to buy the business but if I could learn how to work it I’d surely take some time off the road and do that. He apparently does little league uniforms and all kinds of stuff like that and learning that business would be a skill I can use for Uranus.

I’m planning this as my retirement income and I am really jazzed about all these things coming together at once. Just like when I had a deadline for my CD project I can feel this all starting to move forward and I can picture in my mind a successful website that has all kinds of products on it and people will love to browse to see ‘What’s new from Uranus.’

I will call the guy in Milwaukee tomorrow and try to set up a tour of the place. I need to also call my friend Shelley and get her and me on the same page with the both my website and the Uranus Factory Outlet one too. I haven’t talked to her in a while but now it’s time to reconnect and restart the fire. Getting this going could be the biggest thing I ever did.

What also felt good was that I again took a nice long walk today and exercised. I totally need to make a habit of it every day and even though it’s only two days it’s two days in a row and I need to make it three. I drank some water too so little by little I’m improving.

I also listened to a Tony Robbins tape series I bought recently. I like listening to all the positive people I can and I enjoy Tony Robbins. It’s a rhythm of speech that’s listenable and a person either has it or they don’t. I also love Wayne Dyer and Brian Tracy and Les Brown and Earl Nightingale too. I’m just going to keep packing my coconut with as much quality input as I can and I have to believe it will take root and produce quality results.