A Year Half Over

Monday June 30th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

Happy half year. Where did the time go? The older I get the faster it moves. I have been trying to make the best use of my time but I still feel like I’ve fallen way short. Today was a great way to put a bow on this last six months and now I can move on to other projects.

Normally I take the train into Chicago on Mondays to be on WLS with Jerry’s Kidders. Today I drove in because Kipper McGee said he was taking us out for lunch as a ‘victory lap’ at Harry Caray’s restaurant to celebrate our week at Zanies. I wouldn’t miss that for a train ride and I didn’t want to have to keep looking at my watch and not enjoy the meal.

It was more than just a meal though. Yes the food was fantastic but more important than that was the symbolic meeting with some long time friends who I truly admire and respect so we could appreciate the fact that we’ve created a real product out of just a fuzzy idea.

Doing the Kidders bit every week with the guys is really fun. Kipper is totally behind us and in radio that just hasn’t happened for me before. We’ve been on over six months now and listeners are actually sending fan mail instead of those ‘You guys ALL suck’ bombs.

We all talked about how special this thing really is. It’s a rare situation in radio when all parties are on the same page and I truly think this is one of those times. Kipper is brilliant in his radio programming skills and truly has a big picture vision. Jerry is in stride and his show sounds great in my opinion. Even if we weren’t on it I’d still want him to succeed.

This was a milestone day and we all savored every bit of it. We still have building to do and we know it but making it this far was and is pretty satisfying. Today we focused on as many positive things as we could. It’s good to do that a lot more than I do and this was it.

I also met with Bill Gorgo about cranking the classes back up. Bill has been teaching at a high school level for years and is extremely good at it. He loves and knows comedy also so he is the logical choice to team up with on this. The vibe seems right so I’m doing it.

Tonight I was back at Zanies downtown hosting the show for John Fox. I’ve always had nothing but respect and admiration for John’s talent and he’s a true legend in the comedy business. He can work an audience like few others I’ve ever seen and tonight he was hot.

Nobody can get more laughs per minute in a club situation than John Fox. He’s had his battles with his demons like we all do and his are totally different from mine but we have always been friends and he was one of my very first influences. He helped show me how to get laughs and cripple an audience. When he’s on there is nobody better. NOBODY.

Tonight’s crowd was large and ready to laugh and I started the show strong and took it up from there. I gave all the comics a huge introduction and after the show John came to me and said ‘YOU are the absolute best host of a show I’ve ever seen and always were.’ Hearing that from a true pro like John Fox put the perfect cherry on a day of reflection.