Probing Uranus

Saturday June 14th, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

No gig tonight but that doesn’t mean it was a day off. I worked on getting momentum in motion as I keep trying to bring this Uranus project to life. I didn’t get to sleep until about 6am because of my long drive back from Michigan. Then I got awakened by the phone as call after call started flowing around 10 so I stayed up and started working. I don’t mind.

I sent George Noory from Coast to Coast AM an email after I got cut off yesterday with the bad cell phone connection and he wrote me back. He’ll be in town in July and I think I will have a chance to meet him then. That started my day off nicely and gave me energy.

My emails are piling up again and I need to hack away at those and I still need to do my reconnecting with a bunch of bookers I’ve let slide as well. I thought I’d be able to get the ball rolling today but it wasn’t to be. Jerry Agar called and said he was coming over to get his motorcycle worked on at a dealership which is a few blocks from me so we had lunch.

We went over next week’s agenda at Zanies and also what we need to do after the week so we can keep getting bookings. Holiday parties are coming up and we’d be perfect for a company party. The goal with this is not to keep doing clubs but to take it higher where it can actually make us some money. It’s a great show and I can totally see this in theatres.

Jerry brought his 9 year old daughter Kaelin along and after lunch they went with me to get some business cards made up for Uranus Factory Outlet. I had to choose the template for the cards and I asked Kaelin to pick the one that she thought was the best and she had an idea right away without hesitation. ‘That’s the best one.’ she said. ‘Use that.’ So I did.

Why fight it? That kid is a firecracker. I want this to attract the kid in all of us so I used her judgment without hesitation. There were two women at the Office Depot who saw the name on the card and they both giggled which started Jerry and I giggling and I knew that I have a total winner here just with the name. Now I need to pack the site with products.

The cards will look great and have a picture of a planet with a ring around it which I’m sure is probably a picture of Saturn rather than Uranus but it’s tilted at an angle to match the tilt of the ring around Uranus. Yes there’s a ring around Uranus and if that isn’t funny right there then I’m out of business before I start. This whole thing is a 9 year old’s joke.

I dropped Jerry and Kaelin off and went back and got some postcards made up as well. I need something to pass out on tables before shows and put up in grocery stores and on as many bulletin boards as I can find. I am now in business and this is my first crack at some kind of an advertising campaign. It cost me over $300 but I ordered in quantities of 2500.

You can better believe if you see me in person in the next year or so you’re going to get one if not both of them whether you want it or not. Again, I am now a MARKETER first. Anything and everything else comes second. I have learned from reading books from guys like Joe Girard how important marketing is and I’m finally starting to do some for myself.