Ready To Race

Wednesday March 18th, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

A race car driver can’t win any races if he’s his own pit crew. That’s what I feel like as I look over my options as to what I should do next in my life and career. There are way too many things I’d love to delve into but I know I have a limited amount of time and energy.

Standup comedy is what has paid my bills most of my adult life. Other than working for a few radio stations doing morning shows which was a direct result of my comedic ability I haven’t had to whore myself out to the working world. I couldn‘t have lasted doing that.

I did end up whoring myself out to the comedy world on occasion but that was a choice I made to stay alive. I had no family to go to in an emergency to bail me out of any money pickles I may have gotten myself into so I relied on comedy money to keep myself afloat.

Looking back on it I never really had a career plan because I was too busy trying to stay alive. I took most any gigs I could get and I have a legendary reputation for rotten routing that I still get teased about to this day. If it’s December in Duluth or August in Austin I’m probably the comic booked that week. And, if there’s a long drive involved I’ve made it.

All of this is part of paying dues but I took it up to the very edge. I did those gigs out of necessity and didn’t really consider what I wanted as a result other than that month’s rent or car payment for the junk heap I was driving all that way to do the gig. It was an endless cycle that did keep me from having to work a day job but also kept me from the big time.

Now I’m at a point where all this has to change. I’m not thrilled about making those big drives anymore and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Not only are they tiring but it takes up a lot of time I could be using to do something else I enjoy more. I have evolved.

Today I took time to look over all I’ve got going and decide what I think is worth doing and what is a dead end waste of time. Unfortunately I found all of it to be worth doing but also all of it a dead end waste of time. It’s not the answer I hoped for and I‘m still stuck.

I have books I want to read and books I want to write. I have classes I want to teach and a few I wouldn’t mind taking. I’d love to learn to cook or play a musical instrument or try to paint or write screenplays or anything else creative and fun. That’s what life is about.

What I really need to do is carve out a workable plan for the rest of this year and work it every single day. That will keep me more than busy enough to not have to wander but I’m a wanderer by nature. I love to explore all kinds of things and see what they’re about but I have too many unfinished projects going on to keep doing that right now. I need to focus.

I can’t continue to be my own pit crew and expect to win the race of life. I need to have a solid team of people around me that all have the same goal - to WIN. I have many of the people I need already near me but now I have to create roles for them. This is all a master plan that needs to be in place before I make my next move and today I started making it.