Hope Sweet Hope

Friday November 21st, 2008 - Schaumburg, IL

I’m in a fantastic space in my head right now. This past week has been a nightmare and a half but I’m not going to even think about that anymore. Whatever is done is done and I can honestly say I did my best to handle things honestly and above board. I called it like I saw it and if someone doesn’t like it they can briskly lick the salty dew from my testicles.

Two things really put me in a great mood today. No, three. First, I stopped to eat at my favorite sushi restaurant at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and there was a kid at the table next to me who wouldn’t stop laughing at everything I did. This kid was a peach.

I’d say he was about four years old and every time his parents weren’t looking I would make a face or put my chopsticks in my mouth like walrus tusks and the kid would squeal with laughter. It got to the point where people were turning around to see the kid’s laugh.

What better feeling is it than to make a kid laugh? His parents eventually caught on that it was me and then the kid came over and tried to put a piece of shrimp in my soup bowl. I yanked it out of his hand and ate it all in one motion and that set him off on a laugh riot.

The only thing better than making that kid laugh is making an audience laugh and that’s the next thing that made the day so satisfying. Tonight Jim McHugh put together a benefit show for his son’s high school and there were four of us on the bill. Besides both Jim and myself we also had Mike Preston and Sonya White and everyone had a super hot show.

Jim worked his ass off on this show and many of his friends and family came out to see him so he was amped up to do a good job. The venue was the Prairie Arts Center which is a 440 seat theatre in Schaumburg, IL and the crowd was pumped and ready to see a show.

This is the kind of ‘soft seat’ theatre venue I love to work. The seats all face the stage so there are no tables or waitresses and the sound is killer so the laughter explodes when it’s a hot crowd. Tonight’s was nuclear hot. Every one of us lit into them and let it really rip.

Nothing and nobody can touch me when I’m up there during a situation like that. I’m on my game and in a zone and my thinking is razor sharp like a prowling tiger. I know what I need to do to get the laugh and working with three other veteran professionals is heaven.

This is what I want to do every night. Working gigs like these is a breeze. We only have to use a small amount of material with this format so if we came back two or three or four more times we could really mix it up and give them a unique and different show. I love to ad lib too and this was a great night to do that. It was a great audience and we all had fun.

The last and most lasting thing that put me in a heavenly mood was the long list of calls and emails I received today from many of my former and current comedy students. All of this insanity going on has really brought out the best in those who are my fans and friends and all day it was one message after the next with one being more heartfelt than the next.

THIS is why I teach comedy classes and am so viciously protective of my students. The majority of those who ever come out are never going to be full time comedians. I tell it to all my new classes and I mean it - comedy is REALLY hard and only a few can ever do it.

There are so many other things involved than just being funny and very few ever have a combination of what it takes to outlast the game and beat the odds. Every level weeds out another batch of hopefuls until it gets to the level I’m at which is ‘lifer’. I am an oddity.

Very few of my students ever make it to that level but that doesn’t mean they still aren’t glad they took the class. I have had all types of people from teachers to cops to actors and actresses to speakers to ministers to sales people to lawyers to just about any other kind of profession you can think of take the class through the years and many contacted me today.

They all saw right through the juvenile pinhead antics of Mr. Embezzler and his spoiled little rich brat act and took time to either write out long heartfelt emails of appreciation of what taking the class meant to them or they called and told me how much fun they had in class. One or two would have been great but I lost count after about thirty or forty. WOW.

Being able to touch someone on such a personal level for a lasting amount of time is my biggest thrill. I guess I didn’t really realize how many people I had affected in such a very positive way but hearing so many of them in one day let me know I did what I’d set out to do in the beginning. I wanted to encourage and uplift newbie comedians and I’ve done it.

Those people are like my own children even though some of them are older than me by several years. They’ve been friends and fans and supporters over many years and I would protect them to the death. Would you protect your children? Most good parents would. If those other scoundrel rodents try to steal from or scam my students I’ll bitch slap them.

This is very personal to me just like the experience in class is personal to the students. It becomes part of their lives like a big event. Many people have told me their comedy class graduation was as or more important than even their high school or college graduations.
Steve Stern wrote an especially moving email. He’s a high school teacher and he took a class many years ago. His wife cheated on him and it was very painful and he wrote a bit about it that got huge laughs on his graduation night. It was both therapeutic and the most fun he’d ever had. He said how the classes have made him a better teacher for years now.

Norman Lorvig is a private investigator who has taken the classes several times. He’s a true character and he wrote some jokes about the situation that I didn’t even think of and I laughed out loud. I’ve known Steve and Norm and a bunch of others for many years now.

These are the kind of people I want to share my life and time and creative energies with. They’re positive and hard working and honest and there are enough of those to work with without having to waste my time with jealous and untalented idiots who think they’re not required to pay any damn dues. We ALL have to pay dues and today mine paid me back.