Tuesday Two Step

Tuesday July 8th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

No more pussyfootin’. Check that. No more footin’. I need to clean house like when any sports team does. Some fire the coach or manager and others make a big trade or get a top draft choice to come play for them. Whatever the case it’s a matter of changing chemistry.

That’s what I need to do with my life. I need a shakeup in many ways and today I made steps in that direction. When I bought my new cell phone I signed up for a single price on unlimited calls so I got it out and started calling people that jumped out at me on my list.

I wanted to talk to the most positive people on the list and get some fresh energy going. Sitting and stewing about the comedy class situation or getting my car broken into is not a rut I need to stay in and being stuck in a basement isn’t the place to build the life I desire.

A lunch with Marc Schultz is always positive and he is a good contact on many levels. I enjoy his company as a friend because we have a lot of things to talk about that we share knowledge about but lately it’s been very professional. He is my corporate idea bouncer. I really trust his judgment and respect his lifetime of experience being around those people.

He is intrigued by all the projects I’ve got going and at some point I’d love to have him have to field calls for people looking to book me at high paying gigs. He’s already helped me present myself better in that area and today we again discussed getting the higher paid bookings and not having to drive to Duluth unless I really want to. I know I don’t want to.

I also had a meeting with Vince Carone who someone called ‘Dobie’s comedy son’. He does share my on stage high energy moving around style but that’s about it. He’s doing an outstanding job of handling himself off stage that I was never able to do. He’s nailing it.

People like Vince are why I teach comedy classes. There are people who the public has never heard of who are huge stars with me like Tony Talley and Carrie Long and Donna Lappert and Steve Purcell and Teme Ring and Mike Land and Cecilia Tolivera and Karl Newyear and Tom Clark and a whole lot of other people who have made me very proud.

I love to teach and encourage and watch people grow and live their dream of making an audience full of strangers laugh. That’s why I’m so hurt by all this backstabbing going on with my former associates. They refuse to stop thinking this is only a chance to get paid.

Money is great but the true payment is building lasting friendships with all of the super high quality people I just mentioned. They’re all great but Vince is especially sharp and if I do have to have a comedy son he’s Superbaby. He’ll be like a Ken Griffey Jr. and take it a whole lot farther than the old man did. Ken Griffey was very solid but Jr. is a superstar.

Vince has all the tools to be a big star too. He is smart and funny but most important is he understands MARKETING. We met for dinner and discussed a lot of things and came up with some ideas to help each other keep growing. I need to associate with a new crew.

My whole life I’ve always seemed to have friends that are older than me. Even as a kid I just seemed to buddy up with people a few years ahead and it’s still that way now. Maybe I skew on the older side or am an old soul and gravitate toward older people because it’s a habit. Marc Schultz is older than me by a few years as is Jerry Agar and the Kidders too.

Vince is in his mid 20s as are most of the comics who come out to Zanies for showcase nights on Mondays. People like Bryan Berrey and Jena Friedman and Jeff Hansen and all the new Chicago comedians look at me like I looked at C. Cardell Willis when I started in the 80s. Looking back on it he was a hip guy and I admired him right from the beginning.

His experience and confidence were very fun to be around and I always learned a bunch of new tricks every time I watched him work. I was the only one who would ask him for a detailed explanation and he could see from very early on that I had a spark inside to learn.

Vince Carone is exactly like that. He’ll ask me all kinds of questions and many of them are detailed but they’re always good questions and I try my very best to answer them in as no condescending a way as possible because I know like me he is only trying to get better.

Is he ever getting better. He’s putting together a strong onstage show but also making as many or more smart moves off of it. He’s on myspace and facebook and linkedin and all the other online networking sites. He has a DVD and is making another one and for many years he’s asked for my advice and not only asked, he FOLLOWED it and it worked out.

He’s my main link to the comedians his age group. I always heard Rodney Dangerfield was able to do that with the New York comics like Roseanne Barr who were in their 20s when Rodney was about my age now. They all looked up to him like their comedy leader.

I’m sure those new comics looked up to Rodney just like we in Milwaukee looked up to Cardell Willis. He taught us how to talk and conduct ourselves on stage and how to grab a mike or smash a heckler without being abrasive. He was truly our role model for comedy.

If I can be that to the Vince Carones of the comedy world I’ll be thrilled. There are a lot of up and comers now and I always try to be as nice as I can to most of them especially if I see a spark in there somewhere. Many times they’re just wasting their time with all of it.

Vince has some great web connections and we talked about a lot of things. He’s a sharp guy and I know we can help each other out very shortly. Marc is on one end of the list for getting bookings in a corporate world and Vince is my key to tapping the new generation.

Both meetings today were not only fun but very productive. I need to keep this growing.
On the way home my oil light sent the news bulletin my Toyota was out of oil. I had it sold for $800 or so I thought but now I’m not so sure. It started making bad noises about four miles from home so I parked it and walked the rest of the way. I just laughed because it didn’t seem possible that anything else could go wrong. I guess it could. I’ll just let it sit and will deal with it tomorrow. The good thing I can depend on is nobody will steal it.