Red Flags Rising

Thursday May 8th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

I’m more than a wee bit concerned about the ripple effects of gas prices shooting past the moon and up Uranus. It’s got to trickle down at some point and I can’t see any of the trickling coming my way. If people have to choose between food or comedy I will lose.

Back last summer when they were giving gasoline away at just under $3 a gallon I read an article that said if it hit $4 that 60% of small businesses would be out of business if the price stayed that high for a year. Now it’s that high and I don’t think it’s going to go away any time soon. This whole mess is hurting everyone but comedians are hit even harder.

Other than cab drivers we probably drive more than just about anyone. I say in my show sometimes that most ’normal’ people drive about 30-45 minutes to work an 8 hour shift. I have to drive 8 hours to work a 30-45 minute shift. Either way we all still put in our time.

I am getting an alarming message from that little voice in my head to seriously think of how I can position myself to not have this be the end of my existence in the entertainment business as I know it but I don’t see any solutions in the immediate future. I’m screwed.

We all are. What can we do about it except pay their price? I won’t start rambling about my conspiracy theories on all this but with every other technology exploding in the recent past you can’t tell me they can’t run a car on pickle juice and duck poop that gets mileage beyond our wildest dreams and it would be cheap and easy. But they haven’t. And won’t.

That’s yet another reason I am so disgusted with this whole planet but nothing I can rant about in my little circle is going to have any effect on any of this whatsoever. The sad fact is we’re all going to have to make an adjustment and prices aren’t going back down. Ever.

That being said the smart ones of us will find ways to go around it and survive. The rest will be left behind and I don’t want to be in that second category. This is going to get a lot worse and lead to a lot of ugliness like thefts and bankruptcies and I don’t like the idea of any of it. I saw on the news last night how pawnshops are busier than they’ve ever been.

This is the kind of stuff my grandparents used to predict when I was a kid. They weren’t kidding but I used to laugh hysterically when they’d tell stories of how tough it was back during the depression and how the next one would be a lot worse. I’m not laughing now.

Nobody can change their life overnight and like a battleship making a u-turn it takes the gradual constant shift to be able to negotiate such a maneuver. I get the message that I am not long for the world of being a road comic and nothing else. I’ll always do as much as I can but I can’t rely on it as my number one source of income like I have all my adult life.

I got the message drilled into me even more as I had lunch with Vince Carone today. He took my class years ago and is now coming up the comedy ladder and doing great. He’s a smart and funny kid and he just had a big audition for MTV this week. I’m proud of him.

He asked me for some advice as to how he should handle himself during the interview and I gave him suggestions that he said really helped him. He wanted to thank me with a lunch and that was very classy of him to do that. He didn’t have to but I appreciated it.

When I started out I remember having lunch with my mentor C. Cardell Willis. Cardell was about my age now and I was about the age Vince is now. Cardell used to tell me how I would take comedy way farther than he ever did. And I did. I predict Vince will take it a lot farther than me. He’s placed in a prime perch to have a brilliantly successful career.

I really am proud of the way Vince is putting his career together and he’s one of my all time favorite students. He’s my comedy son just like I was Cardell’s comedy son. I asked him for advice when I needed it and he always gave it to me unvarnished and told me that it was just his opinion and that I should make up my own mind and then make a decision.

I tell Vince and all my students the same thing. Vince has been one to not only ask for a lot of advice but he’s listened to it too. He’s got a great head for not only the comedy part of the game but the business side too. He’s only 25 but he’s going to hit his pay dirt soon. I can just feel it. If it isn’t the MTV gig it will be something better. He’ll hit the big time.

We talked about how different not only comedy is but the whole world. When I was his age the big thing was the comedy club boom of the ‘80s. Cardell used to tell me if he had all those clubs he’d have had a lot better career. Now I feel that way about the internet. If I had the internet twenty years ago I could have used it to promote myself. But I didn’t.

That’s where everything is going now though. I drove past a Blockbuster today that just closed and that sent chills up my spine. Those just got hot in my lifetime but now they are starting to get phased out just like Fotomats did when I was starting out back in the ‘80s.

I had to go get my mail in the city so I called Jerry Agar to see if he wanted a ride home. The train is ok but it’s nice to have a friend to talk to so he jumped at the chance. Both of us talked about how everything is changing and radio is always at the cutting edge of that trend. Sometimes radio bosses make changes just to make them. We’ve both been there.

Jerry was telling me about a friend of his in Canada that he’s known for 30 years that is a master entrepreneur. He made $100,000 in Brandon, Manitoba in 1983. The population of Brandon is about 50,000. I live in Chicago and can barely keep myself above water.

I asked Jerry if he still talked to the guy and he said he hadn’t in a while but still had his number. I asked him to call the guy and ask if he’d be willing to let me hire him for a half hour and pick his brain about Uranus Factory Outlet. Jerry called the guy immediately.

Whatever the guy charges will be a giant bargain. Jerry said the guy knows how to be an entrepreneur and ‘sees opportunity in EVERY situation’. That statement alone sold me so I will put together a list of questions to ask him and email them to the guy and then record his answers and go to work. The red flags are up. I need to find the opportunity in all this.