Time To Make Time

Thursday September 18th, 2008 - Roscoe, IL

Time to make time to make money. I’m having all kinds of time management problems and none of them are new. I’m falling behind on the usual things like answering my email and calls and I’m also trying to squeeze in exercising and reading and that slows me down even more. I’m going to have to make some tough decisions and limit my activities soon.

One thing I have to stop doing is so many time consuming favors. Comics often ask me to ‘look over their tape’ or former students ask advice and I have always tried to help out if at all possible. I’ve given and given and given some more and now I have to stop or at least severely cut back on it. I’m just physically running out of time to get my work done.

Most people don’t abuse it but a few do and they don’t realize they are being rude. I’ve always tried to be nice but nice just doesn’t work. When I do flip out or tell someone it’s over the line then I’m the prong and word gets out that I’m blowing people off. Not true.

I’ve said it before though and it’s a fact - it doesn’t matter what’s true. It matters what is PERCEIVED to be true. All the times I try to help out don’t seem to get noticed but ONE time when I can’t or won’t and it starts the grapevine buzzing. That’s just how it works.

Gay rumors are another thing that work like that. There are some people that swear I’m gay and have spread rumors for years. That’s the perception and I can’t change it. I could have sex with Jessica Simpson on the 50 yard line during halftime of the Super Bowl and those same few would still think I’m light in the loafers. That’s what their perception is.

If I was gay I’d admit it and probably have jokes about it but I swear I’m not. I realize it appears odd to some that I’m 45 and never married but there are other reasons for that and I really don’t care what anyone else thinks. I wouldn’t mind proving it with Jessica during this year’s Super Bowl but I doubt if I’ll get my chance. She never returns my phone calls.

I would love to share a life with someone I love but right now even if I had one lined up I wouldn’t have time to spend with her anyway. It’s killing me but there’s just too much I need to catch up on before I can even think about having any long term relationships with any women. I’ll probably be too old by the time I am so I am not going to worry about it.

I need to catch up on about 500 emails, too many calls to count, income taxes, bookings for comedy gigs and one thing I’ve really been blowing off and that’s the movie script for my infamous bank robbery story that I’ve been working on for far too many years now. It should have been finished way way long ago but for many reasons it’s never gotten done.

That’s going to stop because I’m going to make it stop. I reconnected today for a lunch with Rick Kaempfer who is my writing partner on this project. Rick is absolutely the best partner I could hope for on this and he is as ready to get back to this project as am I. He’s got his own projects he’s working on in addition to having a wife and three great kids and we let this lapse. I wasn’t angry with him and thankfully he wasn’t angry with me either.

We had a nice groove going for a long time and we work very well together. He’s very German in that his work ethic is strong and prevalent and I love that. I have a little bit of the old workhorse in me too and when we did focus on this we made leaps of progress.

We’re on our fourth or fifth version of the script but each one becomes better and better and we both agreed it wasn’t the worst thing to take some time off. We’re both coming at it with fresh eyes and after re-looking at what we’ve written I agree. There are some very funny parts of this script but again that’s not important. Will it be PERCEIVED as funny?

Rick and I are totally on the same page with this and I was thrilled to hear that. He and I agree we need to come up with a treatment which describes the actual story line and all of the characters. Then while we pass that around to anyone we know we finish the script so when someone wants to see a copy we’ll have one to show them that’s completely done.

We both know that even if we sell it whoever buys it will change it significantly. We’re aware of that and at this point we want to FINISH it and offer it up for sale. Selling it is a whole new challenge but both of us have a few possible contacts to help us get started.

This was a very productive way to spend a lunch and I can feel I made the absolute right choice in picking Rick to be my partner on this. He is in a good space and I could tell he’s not going to quit until this project is finished, sold and then we’re going to write the book. First things first though. We’ll get the treatment finished and then start to shop that first.

These are the kinds of lunches and meetings I need to have more of. I felt very upbeat as I drove to Jim McHugh’s house so we could pick up Mike Preston and all drive out for an hour slot on the ‘Stone and Double T’ radio show on ‘105 The X’ in Rockford. We had a show in a small town called Roscoe, IL for a room full of local mayors of nearby towns.

Jim McHugh set it up months ago because he met one of the mayors a while back as he was opening a show for B.J. Thomas. The mayor asked if Jim would bring comedians for their meeting and Jim said yes. Supposedly this was an audition for future gigs. We‘ll see. Nobody got paid but we did get a ‘free dinner’ which wasn’t worth even half of that price.

It was low grade but none of us complained. We all smiled and ate our gruel and had to then go up in the corner of a room that wasn’t right for comedy but we still pulled off one of the best shows we’ve done in a long time. Those people absolutely LOVED the show. Mike Preston was on fire but Jim and I had strong showings also. This was a big success.

But was it? Driving to Roscoe, IL for a crappy meal hoping to get booked for a town’s local fish festival next summer was a reach. Sure, we MIGHT get someone to remember us but basically those people got a free show and there are no guarantees of even one gig.

I love Jim McHugh and it was great to hang out with he and Mike Preston but this isn’t the way to get rich and/or famous. It wasted a whole evening and after this much time in comedy I have a limited number of nights to waste. One for two on my decisions today.