Surviving During Construction

Tuesday April 28th, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

Things are getting hectic. I’m taking several steps backward in many areas of my life so I’ll hopefully be able to make a giant leap forward. It’s like buying a piece of land with an old rickety house on it and plowing it over and starting from scratch. Until the new house is built there’s a lot of living out of boxes and making due and that’s never comfortable.

I haven’t done many shows in the last couple of weeks and on one hand it’s a welcomed break but on the other I’m feeling very rusty and out of my groove. Comedy is a craft that needs to be practiced regularly. Like music or dancing or acting or any other skill it’s ‘use it or lose it’. I’ve always been one to use it but this is just a time when I need to lay low.

I’ve got enough work to keep me alive but that’s not what I want. I want a CAREER for a change and not just a job. I’ve been harping on that forever now but it’s true. I have had a job for years but never a career. A career would entail customers coming out to see ME. It happens occasionally but not nearly enough to affect my pay. I want to be a major draw.

Even a mediocre draw would tide me over for a while. I want to put butts in seats and if they’re there I can more than bring the goods. Jeff Foxworthy is a perfect example of how to do it right. He’s such a smart business mind and he pulled off what I envisioned since I started. I had the chance to be part of that team at one point but I was too stupid to see it.

I wasn’t ready then. I was just starting and hadn’t paid any dues or learned my craft yet. I eventually did it the hard way and learned it well but now I’m in a situation where I’m at a crossroads in my life and what should be a career but is nothing more than still a job. In a perfect world I’d be able to hop on that train bound for the big time but it doesn’t exist.

Jeff was very nice to recommend me to his management team but I still haven’t sent the package out. I was hoping to get my Craig Ferguson DVD by now and intended to have it in a slick package and send it to them but it still hasn’t aired yet for whatever reason. Part of that reason would probably be that I’m not a big name yet and that’s the circle I’m in.

How can I get known if I can’t get on TV? I have to break through at some point but it’s not how I thought it would be. I have faith I’ll be on the Late Late Show at some point but until then I’m still just another schmuck-o on the circuit trying to avoid driving a forklift.

I live in a basement and even though it’s a very nice basement that you wouldn’t have a clue was a basement if you didn’t have to walk down the stairs it’s still not what I wanted to be doing at this time in my life. I do it voluntarily because it saves money and in many ways it’s a good situation but again in a perfect world I wouldn’t be living like an insect.

I have a chance to move in with a friend of mine who just bought a house. She received some money from her grandmother and wants a roommate she can trust and isn’t a party animal. I’ve known her fifteen years and it would be a major step up living wise but again it’s way out in the sticks even farther than where I am now. I’d be living in Hooterville.

Moving isn’t exactly what I want to be doing right now but it’s coming up on two years of living where I am. I have no problems here and everyone gets along fine mostly due to the fact we never see each other. Everyone has our own schedule and I maybe cross paths once every two or three weeks for a minute or two and that’s it. It works great that way.

Another thing I’m moving back on is my car situation. I didn’t need to buy the Camry I just bought but I thought it was an upgrade even though it’s a year older than the one I’m already driving. It looks very nice and today I had it tuned up and had the brand new tires I just bought for the other one switched over. It has new brakes and the exhaust is quiet.

The mechanic at the shop I took it to said he thought it was a beautiful car and that I got a great deal on it. Even with the $800 extra I put into it plus the cost of the new tires it’s a solid car at a fair price and if I don’t wrap it around a pole or another carload of gang rats blow a red light and t-bone me I should be able to drive this one trouble free for a while.

But I don’t want to have to worry about cars anymore. I juiced up my credit card to pay for all this but I thought it was a solid investment for my future so I did it. For now it’s an unexpected expense but in the long run it hopefully will turn out to be a big money saver.

The whole sports card situation is another thing I’m doing that’s taking a step backward right now. I have thousands of cards in all conditions and in theory I can probably make a few bucks selling them but not in their current state. I have to sort them and package them and either do card shows or find someone to help me sell them on Ebay. That takes work.

Meeting up with my friend Rich last night was a smart move. He taught me some things but I’m still going to have to find a way to actually execute what he said to do. I’m not the computer whiz he is and it will be a long slow build unless someone does it for me. I have a lot of things to keep track of and now these cards are another but I like them so I did it.

In the long run I should be ok with the cards. In the short run it took out my emergency fund and now if I bust a tooth or break a leg I’m in a bad way. That’s a risk I took and it’s too late to turn back now. In theory it all sounded great. Now I’m face to face with reality.

My taxes still aren’t finished even though I did put some work in on them and they’re in a box. They’re still scattered around and not sorted so that’s another unpleasant job I need to tackle before my accountant starts to call and bug me to get it done. I need to finish it.

Everything is up in the air and unfinished and in piles. My living space looks like Oscar Madison’s room and that needs to change NOW. I don’t know if it’s my feng or my shui but something’s out of whack and I feel like I’m living in a trailer park after a tornado.

It takes a pair of bulbous gonads to rip everything up and start over again but if I don’t I will continue to get the results I was getting and I wasn’t satisfied with that. I want to take it higher and this is what I need to do to get there. It’s the longer way there but I believe it will be worth it because I’ll have done it correctly. But for now everything’s in disarray.