Three Times A Night

Saturday February 13th, 2010 - Chicago, IL

Zanies in Chicago is one of the few comedy clubs left that do three shows on a Saturday night. I’ve talked before of how difficult that is, and it is. But I love it. It can be a grueling experience, especially as the headliner. Forty-five minutes of solid standup comedy is one of the most difficult tasks I can think of to do ONCE, much less three times in one night.

When I started, three shows on a Saturday was pretty standard. A few clubs tried it on a Friday too, and if I remember correctly even Zanies did for a while. That’s a lot of shows, but back then comedy was red hot and they could pack them in like sardines so why not?

I’ve read stories where vaudeville performers would have to do six shows a day. I don’t know if that was every day or just Saturday, but that’s still a lot of work for one day. They had a lot shorter time to do, but they still had to stay around the theatre and be ready to go on when it was their turn. Those people really worked hard. It wasn’t a glorious existence.

I’ve always been of the mentality that if I’m going to work, I want to WORK. I’d prefer that all clubs did three shows on a Saturday, and if we could fill it, let’s do Friday as well. There was a club called The Funny Firm in Chicago during the boom years and they ran a brutal schedule every week. They had two shows on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Friday and Saturday had three, and I think they also ran one on Tuesday. Monday was a new talent showcase night so I won’t count that, but all together that’s still 13 shows for a week which is unheard of today. Most people now are happy to get 13 shows in a month.

I was ready for my marathon tonight, and that’s exactly what it is. I’m very physical and jump around a lot on stage, and after forty-five minutes I’m usually soaking with sweat to show for all my effort. The lights can be very hot, but my bouncing around like a jumping bean also adds to it. I definitely work when I’m on stage and when I’m done I’m spent.

Another thing I have to be careful of is how I move my material around. It’s not hard to confuse the shows and not be sure what material I did for what audience. I happen to have a ton of material, and sometimes I’ll bring out an old bit or switch order on the fly and for three show nights that can really put me in the trick bag if I’m not paying close attention.

Tonight was a dream night for many reasons. First, all three shows were totally sold out to the last seat. It was Valentine’s Day weekend and even if it wasn’t me that drew I don’t mind at all. People were in seats, and they paid top dollar to be there. I gave them a show. It’s funny how it works, but the more people pay, the more they pay attention to the show.

The openers were great guys and easy to work with too. Pat McGann is a fresh face that has a really bright future. He’s smart and funny and knows how to network. He’s doing a lot of things right, and he did a fine job as host. Fritz was the feature and he has a style on stage that’s very laid back and low key. It’s a perfect fit for me because then I go up there and blow the dust out of the speakers. Everything fell together and it was a fantastic night.

Proper Perspective

Friday February 12th, 2010 - Elkhorn, WI/Milwaukee, WI

What a busy day, but it was all in proper perspective. Jim McHugh called me early with news that George Clinton was appearing on WGN’s morning TV news. That was kind of a surprise, as I didn’t think it would be a match. Still, I will always be a fan of George, so I tuned in to see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen George appear on a morning show before.

He’s been in the news lately for several reasons, none of them pleasant. His mother died a few months ago, and apparently he didn’t have enough money to pay for a funeral. That was a shocker when I first heard it, but it really isn’t. Show business can be brutal with all the lopsided deals people sign, hoping to get ahead. George deserves better. He‘s an icon.

Then, his oldest son passed away just recently. Apparently, he was found at home a few days after he died, and that has to be devastating to a parent. On top of that, a member of one of George’s girl groups ‘Parlet’ named Mallia Franklin passed away from a stroke.

All this has happened in the very recent past, but when George came on TV he was in a very upbeat mood and played along with the interviewer, who brought a box of props and wigs and tried to match George’s hairstyle. I can’t say I’d be as patient as George was, but he played along and made the bit work. I thought he was great and was glad he got a plug.

George and the band played at The Cubby Bear in Chicago tonight and I’d love to have been there. I’ve seen him there several times before, and he didn’t disappoint. Rarely does he, and it‘s hard to believe he‘s still out doing smaller clubs at age 68. Granted, a lot of it is because he has to earn a living, but he sure isn’t taking the easy way. He really earns it.

A casual fan watching that TV show this morning would have NO idea about all the sad events that have happened to him recently. He came out and entertained. Period. That’s a consummate pro, and I respect him even more after seeing it. I don’t know if I could hide it as well as he does. My problems seemed pretty tiny in perspective so I shut my mouth.

After seeing George I had to attend traffic court in Elkhorn, WI. The sheriff issued me a citation after my accident in December and I needed to fight it for many reasons. It would have taken four points from my driver’s license and the fine was $213. That’s too much.

I don’t know why I got a fine at all, other than they milk the hell out of everybody when they get the chance to raise revenue. They cited me with ‘too fast for conditions’, but how did they know how fast I was going? It was icy, and I had slowed WAY down. Nobody in the courtroom was at the scene except me. How could anyone prove I was going too fast?

There was a sheriff hearing people’s stories and offering deals before a trial. I told him what happened, and apparently a few other people in that accident had already been there. He knew of it, and said I wasn’t the only car in the pileup to get a ticket. Still, I think it’s a total scam and I tried to tell him that politely. He wasn’t a bad guy, and I tried to reason with him like an adult. I thought, and still do, that I shouldn’t have gotten any ticket at all.

Obviously, that wasn’t his idea of a ‘deal’, so he ended up knocking the points violation off and making it a non moving violation. He lowered the fine from $213 to $170 and I’ll have thirty days to pay it. I could see it was probably all I was going to get, so I said yes.

I suppose I could have made a scene and asked for a jury trial or called a lawyer, but the cost or aggravation of all that just isn’t worth it to me. I know the court knows that too, so they get people to pay their fine and make it go away. They had an opportunity to make a quick $170 and they took it. Too fast for conditions, my ass. They just want their money.

Again, I tried to look at it with perspective. I could have easily died in that crash, and if not I could have easily had some horrible injuries. If staying alive and being able to see or walk or anything else most people take for granted (including me) cost $170, it would be a fantastic bargain. I’m sure people in wheelchairs would gladly pay $170 to get out of it.

I wasn’t bitter as I walked to my car with no limp. I’ll pay my fine in thirty days and just move on. It could have been a LOT worse, and bitching about a fine won’t change my life for the better. I felt good about myself for thinking like this. In the past I haven’t done it.

After court I drove to Milwaukee to meet up with Ron Lee to scout out potential places to perform the one man show. Ron has been doing some leg work and we’ve been staying in contact about a lot of the things necessary to bring this project together. There are a lot of things to put in place before an actual show, but we knew it. This is all from scratch.

We looked at a few spaces, and it was a very productive process. We talked to people in charge and asked about availabilities and all kinds of stuff I really haven’t done too much in all my past experience. Most shows I’ve done are preset and all I have to do is show up and go up. This is completely different, but it’s already been a great learning experience.

We’re going to pull this off. I feel it. It’s a quality product and I’m doing things exactly how I’m supposed to be doing them. I’m not disrespecting anyone going in, and I will not look to do it in the future either. I want this to come together through hard work, planning with a dash of showmanship thrown in. No, more than a dash. I’ll need a ladle full of that.

Our last stop was at the Milwaukee Visitors Bureau. I plan on registering with them like I did with the Lake County Convention And Visitors Bureau in Illinois, but they’ll have a challenge to outwork a consummate pro like Jayne Nordstrom and all the competent staff.

This was a pretty busy work day, but I had a show at Zanies in Vernon Hills, IL tonight. There was only one because they brought in some soap opera star who drew tons of horny women who all thought he was going to sleep with them. It was funny to see them run out of the showroom hoping to bed their TV stud master, but see me waiting around instead.

I got some animated dramatic looks of severe disappointment, but I’ve gotten that quite a few times in life so I just laughed and blew kisses to all the ladies. The Zanies staff was laughing, as they saw the position I was in. It could have been worse. It’s all perspective.

Rockford Rolling

Thursday February 10th, 2010 - Rockford, IL

I might not be getting paid a dime to be on the radio these days, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. Exactly the opposite. The reason I keep showing up is because it IS fun, and that should count for something. When radio is being done correctly, there’s an electric energy that bounces off the walls of the studio. It’s different than standup, but it’s still addictive.

Today I was back on with my friends ‘Stone and Double T’ in Rockford, IL on WXRX, ‘The X’ - 104.9. I love being on with those guys, as they both understand how good radio works. They let it grow organically, and there’s never any pressure. I go in there and they let me riff, trusting that I’ll have something either funny or interesting to say. I love that.

Those guys have always treated me with respect, and I totally appreciate it. Double T’s name is Terry, and he emailed and asked if I wanted to come in and hang out on the air. I hadn’t been in for a while and it’s always flattering to be asked back. Both those guys are secure in themselves enough to let their guests have the spotlight, and that makes it easy.

The funny part is, their station is the Bob and Tom station in Rockford. Jim Stone has a relationship with most of the Bob and Tom staff, and he said he’s tried to bring my name up a few times to see why they’re so angry at me, and has been rewarded with dirty looks.

It really is almost laughable at this point. Whatever I did is apparently still an issue and I guess I’m still banned from their show. Forever. I wish I knew exactly what it is I did to make them that pissed off, so I know what to avoid. I said I was sorry then, and I meant it. I’m sorry now too, but I guess that’s not good enough. I’m on their list and I can’t get off.

If Stone and Double T were in Bob and Tom’s position, I’d be a big star in 200 markets across the country, and a millionaire. Instead, I get to go on in Rockford, any time I want. Still, I’m flattered. I’ll show up when they ask. They’re both great guys, and sincere too.

I really do feel bad about the Bob and Tom thing, but what else can I do about it? I said I was sorry, and they rejected it. That’s life. It’s like Jackie Mason’s banishment from The Ed Sullivan Show or any number of other showbiz grudges. This is how it can play out.

I will do what I can with what I have, wherever I am. Today it was Rockford, and it was totally worth the trip. I practiced promoting Uranus Factory Outlet and the guys loved the concept. They played around with it, and I got a chance to practice in a safe environment.

Jim McHugh rode out there with me, and he’s been especially helpful recently. He said he’s going to jump in my face and make me focus on this project, and he totally has. It’s a godsend, as I’m always all over the place. He’s helping me stay focused and I need that.

It’s always easier to help others. It’s helping one’s self that seems to be the hardest. Jim has been a real friend by doing this, and I absolutely see improvement by him doing it. I’ll pay him back by doing all I can to help him too. That’s what friends do. Today was good.

Radio Karma Lives!

Wednesday February 10th, 2010 - Milwaukee, WI

I’ve been involved in standup comedy, professional wrestling and radio in my lifetime, and by far it’s radio that has had the biggest number of snakes. For some reason, there are backstabbing maggots in that business who are always looking to get by at the expense of others and they don‘t care who gets burned. I’ve seen it in comedy too, but not like radio.

Life is difficult enough without having a certain few malicious bung holes adding to the degree of difficulty, but there always seem to be a few who succeed. They always seem to show up at a low point in time, and instead of trying to bring healing they bring napalm.

One name that comes immediately to mind is Eric ‘Mancow’ Muller. He’s a loudmouth on the air, but never really said anything. When Howard Stern made being a ‘shock jock’ fashionable, Mancow copied him and didn’t do a very good job, but there were slots that needed filling because radio is a business of copying success and redoing it elsewhere.

Mancow made a lot of money for many years, even though everyone I knew who was in the business couldn’t stand him on air or off. He was brash and rude and treated people as if he was better than them, and just became a total pain in the ass to deal with. But, he had those almighty ratings, and that meant he was able to keep up the illusion for a long time.

When I worked at The Loop in Chicago, the station was sold to the same company that Mancow was working for, Emmis Communications. We were forced to go to a ‘Welcome to Emmis’ party and it was a horrific experience. We all felt like step children and it what made it worse was it was on their turf. We were in their building and it was humiliating.

The new GM introduced Mancow who pompously got up and said a few words and we felt even worse when he came up to us afterward and allowed us to kiss his ring. Nobody likes to be talked down to, and that’s exactly what he did. We knew our days were few.

A few weeks later when those fine folks at Emmis blew us out the door the week before Christmas, Mancow went on the air and apparently started bashing us mercilessly with no real reason for it. We were already gone, and the threat to his little babblefest was over.

I never listened to it because I never found his verbal diarrhea worth wasting my ears on, but I heard it from a lot of people so I don’t doubt it happened. I know my partners Spike and Max didn’t appreciate it very much and there really was no reason for it except spite.

I remember mentioning it to our then ‘boss’ at Emmis, who only served as that to blow us out the door, and he just laughed and said “Hey, that’s ‘Cow.” I wanted to jump over his desk and strangle him, but I needed the severance pay. He was fooled by the illusion.

Spike and Max and I got boned, and it changed all of our lives for the worse. We’re still recovering from it several years later, but we’re all still in there slugging and living life as best we can. We all resented how Mancow’s antics went unpunished, but we moved on.

Then, conservative talk radio became the hot thing and Mancow once again lacking any vision of his own decided to copy that trend and try to ride Rush Limbaugh’s coat tails so he stumbled in that direction. He’d blown his morning show with Emmis and was trying a new direction. As fate would have it, he ended up replacing Jerry Agar’s shift on WLS.

We’d all heard some rumors about how he got that shift, but nobody would confirm any of them. What was confirmed was that Jerry was out of the dream job he’d spent years of his life working to get. He had ratings and seemed to be on his way, but he too ended up a victim of the Mancow’s mean spirit. Mancow bashed him on the air too, and it got ugly.

Jerry said he called him and they talked about it, but then Mancow denied that and said all kinds of things that apparently weren’t true. I have no reason to doubt Jerry’s word, as we’ve known each other over twenty years. The whole thing stinks, and it’s a very similar stench to the one that happened years ago at the Loop. And again, none of it was needed.

I’ve talked about my competitors in radio on the air quite a bit. It’s a strategy. It’s like a professional wrestler trying to drum up business for an upcoming match. I’ve blurted out all kinds of things over the years, but it was part of the game. I had no malice toward any of the people personally, it was an act. And, in the end, I lost. They had jobs, I got fired.

This is not the same thing. I’m not the only one who has a Mancow story and neither is Jerry. Time after time he would get a little too personal, and it was ALWAYS when there was no chance of retaliation. Jerry and I were already fired. There’s no reason to do that.

I guess I blame the stations to some extent, but as a human being there’s no reason to be that damn mean spirited, especially to those who can’t fight back. Jerry got screwed over big time, and he still hasn’t recovered from it. He’s piecing each month together and has a family and a mortgage, just like my partners Spike and Max did at the Loop. Life is hard.

All that being said, I heard the news today that Mancow was fired after his shift at WLS and I can’t say it made me sad, even a little. I know I shouldn’t rejoice in the downfall of others, but he’s a guy that’s had it coming for a long time, not only in my opinion but SO many others in radio who have had to endure his cocky prattle for so long. Karma lives!

I don’t wish the guy bad, but I absolutely DO wish him to have to feel what it’s like to have to struggle to pay the mortgage every month and have the experience the stress of a wife and kids breathing down his neck wondering when and where that next gig will be.

Mancow is a mean spirited bully, just as my father was. At one time, my old man was a big mean evil ogre that everyone was afraid of. Then, he died a shriveled up pathetic loser and there weren’t enough people who cared to have a funeral. He’s gone and isn’t missed.

I doubt if very many people are taking Mancow out for dinner tonight to lament his fate, and as for me I wouldn’t piss on his teeth if his mouth was on fire. I have enough faults of my own to work on and I’m not claiming perfection, but this news was LONG overdue.

A Snow Plowed Crowd

Tuesday February 9th, 2010 - Chicago, IL

Just about the time I think I have this whole standup comedy thing figured out, I have a night like tonight and it blows me all the way back to the starting line again and I wonder why I ever started performing in the first place. When it‘s good, it’s great. Not tonight.

I was scheduled to work the downtown Chicago location for Zanies this week but I have been moved do to other bookings. Zanies had a chance to book someone they wanted and instead of blowing me out like happened with my show last Saturday in Fond du Lac, WI, they moved me out to Vernon Hills on Thursday and Friday. That’s closer for me anyway.

The downtown location is the only one that does a Tuesday show, so I still needed to do it as part of my week. No problem, I enjoy working. I didn’t enjoy driving through a nasty snow storm to get there, but that’s part of the deal. Nobody at the club expected any kind of a crowd because of the weather, but we were all proven wrong. People kept coming in.

By the time the show started, we were all feeling pretty good. The wait staff had people to sell drinks to, and the comedians had an audience. Win/win. The only thing wrong with that is the majority of them only wanted the drinking part. The show was an afterthought.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve had to deal with such an ugly babbling mob of boozed up, rude, chatty bubbleheads like these people, and I had all I could handle to not just put the microphone down and walk out the door and get in my car and drive home. If I wasn’t at a Zanies, I would have seriously considered doing it. These people didn’t want a show.

They wanted to BE the show. There was a group of about a dozen or so flamingly white suburban types who obviously had had too much to drink. They found a need to comment on EVERY SINGLE LINE I did, and after the first six minutes I have to admit it got old.

They had started when the other acts were on stage, but the booze really kicked in when I got up there, and I had to fight with them the whole time. I’m WAY past that, but not in their minds apparently. The more I tried to ignore them, the more they tried to participate.

The rest of the crowd wasn’t that great either, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get any kind of a roll going so I did the best I could, and got off stage exactly five minutes after the manager Martin gave me my five minute light. I’d had enough of these monkeys.

As I cleaned the snow off my car afterward, I saw two of the front row boozers having a cigarette in front of the club. They didn’t know it was me right next to them and one said to the other “What an ass that last guy was. He acted like he didn’t even want us to help.”

I wanted to take my snow brush and jam it where there’s normally not that much natural snowfall, but I bit my lip and got in the car and drove away. He wasn’t worth it, and I had my fill of idiots for one night. Still, after all these years of stage time, a night like this will sneak up and rattle the cage of even the most savvy veteran. I guess this keeps us humble.

Snow Business

Monday February 8th, 2010 - Chicago, IL

There’s supposed to be a foot of snow coming in the next day or two and everyone is in the pre snow panic mode. The grocery stores are getting cleaned out of everything and it’s like the world is ending. Usually, the ones hyped the most are the biggest disappointment, and I’m hoping this one is too. Still, everyone seems to be preparing for the apocalypse.

I just want to prepare for my future and not live hand to mouth. I’m making progress on all my projects, and even though it’s not anything spectacular, it is progress and it’s a very satisfying feeling to see things move in the right direction, even if the movement is slow.

My piles around the house are shrinking and that’s been WAY overdue. I’m making the time to sift through paperwork and books and mail and tax receipts and all the things I’ve been letting get out of hand. Nobody else knows or cares how clutter can slow everything else down, but I do and I’m taking care of it. It’s going to make the rest of my life better.

I knocked down the email pile today and I got my voice mail box down from almost full to almost empty. That was a big deal also, and at least I’m connecting and reconnecting to people I need and want to who can help move what I’m doing forward. It all takes time.

I made some progress with Uranus Factory Outlet today too. My trademark lawyer sent me a form to reapply for my trademark since I haven’t been using it to sell anything. It’s a dead expense right now, but I hope to change that very soon. I am now back in the mix to have Uranus Factory Outlet trademarked when I start the website officially on March 13th.

I also ordered a batch of t-shirts from a store in Antioch I keep seeing as I drive past it on Highway 83. It’s a custom printed shirt and hat shop and I decided to stop and see if it could be somewhere I can get products. The guy running it was very nice, and I ended up ordering a batch of two dozen of my ‘T E I A M’ shirts. Those sold pretty well in the past.

For those that don’t get it, ‘T E I A M’ is a play on the no ‘I’ in team saying most of us heard at some point in our lives. It’s not necessarily a Uranus product, but I think I’ll have a good shot to sell them, and it lets me test this guy’s ability to get shirts finished quickly.

A huge part of the business will be product procurement and I need to have more than a single source for any one item I want to sell. Backing myself up is key, and this guy could be either my number one go to shirt maker, or he could be my plan ‘Z’ last resort source.

The biggest part of the mail order business is testing, testing, testing. That’s a common theme from a lot of people who’ve written about the subject, and I guess I have to follow those instructions. I may think I know better, but I don’t. Nobody does. It’s all a big test.

I’m putting in my time on the hamster wheel and knocking out a few things I’ve needed to do for a long time. It doesn’t shake the world, but it gives encouragement to mine that I have some hope to live my dreams after all. It can snow all it wants now, I’m ready for it.

Super Numbers

Sunday February 7th, 2010 - Kenosha, WI

Super Bowl Sunday. This year’s game meant nothing to me, but I still learned from it as I watched all the pomp and fluff that goes with an event that big. I think I read where over 100 million people will watch it in America and 750 million around the rest of the world.

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but say it is for argument’s sake. That’s a total number of 850 million people watching one single event. Pretty amazing, but if the world’s entire population is six billion, that’s not even 20% of the world watching. That shrinks the size of the event in my eyes, and makes me wonder what if anything would capture ALL of us.

The World Cup Soccer tournament is huge around the world, but we have barely a blip of interest here. I have to believe a good Three Stooges festival could knock it out of the ratings in most American cities, and half of them could even feature Shemp instead of an entire stacked deck of Curly. Soccer is just plain BORING to us, and it always will be.

I doubt if there were many Super Bowl parties in Cameroon or Paraguay either. I don’t think ten year old kids working in the sweat shops making Nike shoes bought squares for the big game and checked their numbers after every quarter. It’s only a major event here.

Still, the game has become what’s probably the biggest non religious holiday anywhere, and all the players on both teams today will tell their children, grandchildren and anybody within earshot who’ll listen that they played in the Super Bowl. Win or lose, that’s pretty impressive, at least around these parts. It‘s got to be good for a free beverage, doesn‘t it?

I did get to watch a little bit of the second half from the studio as we did the Mothership Connection radio show in Kenosha, WI tonight on AM 1050 WLIP. I made sure I was all full with guests so we could have a show and we absolutely did. We had a lot of calls and people didn’t even mention the game at all. Neither did we, until we said the Saints won.

The Super Bowl is an American institution and the Mothership Connection is a weekly Sunday night radio show in Kenosha, WI. Who wins? In my mind it’s me. I get to do this again next week, and most if not all of the players in this game will never get back again. Some of them got in only a play or two and nobody cared but them. But they were in it.

I kind of feel like that about getting on The Late Late Show last year. Yes, I did make it to national TV, but only for four and a half minutes at 1:30am in the summer. Did anyone see it? Sure, probably hundreds of thousands if not more. In fact, more people saw me do that four and a half minutes than had seen me during the past twenty plus years combined.

What does that do for me now? Not much, other than provide me with a memory I’ll be able to have the rest of my life. Would I like to get back there? Absolutely. But, just like a football player or any other professional athlete, there are no guarantees. A lot of it is luck of the draw, and I know how mine has been up until now. I thought of all that as I saw the players hold up the trophy and enjoy their moment. I was happy for them. They earned it.

I also thought of a few comedians from New Orleans I’ve worked with over the years and was happy for them too. Sammie Martin is a very funny guy who was the co-owner of a club I loved in Memphis called ’Comedy, TN’ with another funny guy named John Marks. Normally, comedians who book clubs aren’t strong acts. Not so with these guys.

Sammie a rabid Saints fan. When I’d work there we’d talk about the NFL and he was a walking font of knowledge about not only his team but every other one too. We’d talk for long stretches about my Packers or his Saints and there’s no deeper way for heterosexual males to bond in America than to talk about sports. Sammie and I are both NFL junkies.

Another fantastic guy I worked with from New Orleans called himself ‘The Silver Fox’. His name was John Schnauder and I’ve never met a more classy person in all my years of traveling as a comedian. This guy was laid back and fun and people loved him right away. He had a thick “N’Awlins” twang but it wasn’t forced, that was him. He had a real style.

This was at least twenty years ago, and he was in his 60s then. He raised his family and decided in his retirement he wanted to be a comedian, so he did it. He knew he had a late start, but he didn’t care. He just enjoyed making people laugh, and I had an absolute blast working in Jacksonville, FL with him and Shirley Hemphill from “What’s Happening?”

I was very green then and just starting out on the road. I was the opening act and John was the feature. I made sure I gave him a great introduction every night because I thought everyone should have one, but he really appreciated it because he said a lot of the younger comics would make fun of him because he was so much older. We got along very well.

He was very proud of his city and did material about it every night. We hung out quite a bit that week, and this was before the internet so we exchanged information and sent each other a few Christmas cards, but then we kind of fell out of touch as happens in comedy.

I sure hope he’s still alive to see his Saints win the Super Bowl. If anyone deserves that thrill it was him. What a super guy he was, and not just of comedians I’ve known, but of ANYONE I’ve known. That guy had a real charisma about him, and I hope he’s ecstatic tonight. I’m sure there are a ton of John Schnauders and Sammie Martins rejoicing now.

There were really no bad guys in this game. Who doesn’t like Peyton Manning? There’s another guy who handles himself with dignity and isn’t a maniac like so many others who play pro sports. I like the Colts’ coach Jim Caldwell too. He comes off very classy also.

They’re probably bummed out about losing now, but the memory will get sweeter as the years pass. They made it to the highest pinnacle of their profession, and even if it was for only one day, they got to put on the uniform and run on the field and say they were there.

I want to experience the highest pinnacle of life. What is that? I don’t really know. Is it fame and fortune? Probably not. I have to believe it’s having the unconditional love of as many people as can be. Who has that? Beats me. I’m still trying to figure out what love is.