The Fine Line Blurs

Friday January 9th, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

Cruddy winter weather returns as we got pelted by several inches of new snow. It could have been much worse though. This could have happened yesterday on the drive from the show in Duluth. Even though it was a long drive at least it wasn’t a sloppy snowy mess.

I looked around my office area today and I see that I am once again sliding into disarray and confusion. Things are piled up haphazardly in random stacks as I’ve had to search for something and I haven’t had time to go back and organize it like I should. I need to get to that immediately or I’ll really be in a pickle. The fine line is starting to get a little blurry.

Ambitious undertakings are one thing but idiotic overwhelm is something else entirely. I need to back up a few steps and start over so I don’t have everything I own in one huge disorganized mountain of chaos and nothing ever gets done. That’s my ultimate fear now.

I’ve managed to chip away at a few of my projects so far this year and I’ve made some decent progress too. Going on this last trip to Duluth sucked out a little of my momentum and I can feel the backlash today. I felt like I had to start all over pushing the freight train.

Emails are backing up and that’s a constant problem. I try to catch up but they come in a lot faster than I can answer them even though I have pretty decent typing skills. It’s just too much for me to handle right now so I let it pile up and try to get to all the other things.

I haven’t even started making booking inquiries for this year and that’s a borderline sin. I’ve been working on getting Uranus Factory Outlet going and all kinds of other things so bookings kind of fell through the cracks but that’s cutting off my lifeline now. Not good.

I did drive into the city to pick up my mail and on the way back I had a lunch with Marc Schultz. I told him how I really liked the baby boomer comedy show idea and he said he’s willing to offer whatever advice he could and try to make suggestions from his experience in dealing with bookers of fairs and conventions and I know he will. He will add to this.

Still, it all takes time. Marc has been putting me in as many of his sales DVDs he sends to any of his clients who might even remotely buy a comedian and I totally appreciate it. I have earned his trust onstage and off and he knows he can count on me to do a good job.

Marc is great and I appreciate that status but now I need to be on that status for a whole lot more bookers too. I’m on Marc’s radar and that’s great but now I need to spread that a lot farther and get on the good list of agents all over North America. That’s where money is a lot bigger than clubs even though gigs can be very sporadic. I’m getting better at this.

This is the part of show business that has always been the toughest for me. I really love the show but haven’t been very interested in the business. Until now. I’m not going to let myself get into a situation I’ve seen far too many other comedians allow themselves to be tricked into. Things won’t just ‘all work out’. It’s ME that has to take charge of all this.