Wednesday September 14th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI One of the first things I can remember doing that I enjoyed enough to want to do when I grew up was draw comic strips and cartoons. I loved it, and used to spend hours inventing my own characters and dreaming of seeing my work appear in a section of my hometown Milwaukee Journal called ’The Green Sheet’. That was where all the comic strips were. For whatever reason, they used a mint green dye to color the daily four page section and it’s one of the first things I remember reading as a kid. There were all kinds of great strips like ‘Mr. Tweedy’ by Ned Riddle, ‘Priscilla’s Pop’ by Al Vermeer and ‘Freddy’ by some guy who just called himself ‘Rupe’. I would read them and then try to draw them as well. I must have been only seven or eight when I came up with my own strip called ‘Buffalo Boris’. I thought Boris was a funny name, and he was a cowboy who lived inside the city limits. He rode his horse on the freeway to get to work every morning, and in the mind of an eight year old kid that was big time funny. I even sent it in to try and get it published. My grandpa encouraged me to send it to the Green Sheet, and I remember being thrilled to get an envelope back a few days later. I was crushed when I got rejected, but it was still a fantastic experience. I kept doing it and eventually had a booklet of cartoons with a few of my friends ’published’ by our class at school. Our teacher ran them off on the copier. She even let us charge five cents for it and I remember selling a few and splitting up the loot with the guys. My grandpa told me on his death bed how proud of me he was that I’d start all of that up on my own, and I forgot all about it until today when I attended the first Kenosha Festival of Cartooning at the Public Museum there. It brought it all back to me. My comedian friend Gary Pansch saw it advertised and asked if I wanted to join him for the presentation by Paul Gilligan who draws ‘Pooch Café‘ and John Hambrock who has a strip called ‘The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee’. They both spoke about how they began in the business and took questions at the end. It was very interesting, and I’m glad I went. Cartooning is exactly like comedy or singing or acting in that a lot of people think it’s a glamorous pursuit when in fact it’s extremely difficult and requires an abundance of extra hard work. I respect both of those guys for their work ethic, and their talent is world class. I can’t honestly say I would have had a chance to get one of my strip ideas published if I had stayed with it. It’s such a long shot, and I don’t think my drawing skills would be in a class of either one of these guys. They were both consummate pros, and I enjoyed hearing them talk about of a lot of the same difficulties I have to deal with in the comedy world. They also brought in some other artists including a guy named Tom Richmond who’s a contributor to Mad magazine. I loved Mad as a kid, and both artists tonight spoke of how much they loved it as kids as well. Tom didn’t present tonight, but will be doing it Friday at the same location. I just might have to come back and see him. This was a lot of fun.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Storage Unit Success
Tuesday September 13th, 2011 - Antioch, IL As if I needed yet another time and energy draining stress filled project with a deadline dumped in my lap, I had until this Friday at 5pm to remove my overgrown mother lode of baubles and trinkets from the storage unit I’ve rented since November of last year when I had to move on short notice. I’ve been dreading it since, but I managed to get it out early. Usually, I’ll put things like this off until the very last minute and then have to crank the entire project out in way too short of time and everything falls through the cracks. It ends up being an annoying hassle, and I vow I’ll never do it that way again. This time, I didn’t. I informed the storage place I’d be out when my month’s rent expired on Friday, and the deadline was a good incentive for me to get it done. I wanted to be out months ago, but it kept getting pushed back for all kinds of reasons - mainly my health issues. I set a goal for being out by June 1. Then July. That didn’t happen. I was thrilled to take care of it today. It sure didn’t come without a heaping helping of back breaking work though. Most of it consisted of hastily filled boxes of books and audio programs, and they weren’t any easier to move today than they were when I loaded the unit up last fall. The only thing that got a bit lighter was my wallet. I paid good money to have this stuff sit and rot for ten months. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I guess I’ll just have to chalk this whole thing off to experience and hope I never do it again. Last time it took me by surprise, but now it never has to be that way again. I need to make a priority to organize myself and throw out what I’m not using and travel light for the rest of my journey in life. Hoarding scares me. Every time I move, I’m unpleasantly reminded of my family. My grandparents and my father all left behind mammoth mountains of useless clutter that had to be sorted through by those left behind and 99.9% if it ended up in the garbage. The rest went full circle back to the Salvation Army or Goodwill from where it came, and it was all a big waste of time. Try as I might, I still haven’t totally rid myself of that genetic trait but I’m working on it as hard as I can. At least I’ve got all my worldly possessions in one place again, and most of them will hopefully be gone before the end of the year. I don’t have time to read all the books I have or listen to all the audio programs. I mean to. I want to. But I can’t get to it. My life has been going in such a positive direction lately, I don’t want this tiny glitch to take me out of my groove. I’ll sort through this stash the best I can, and relieve myself of everything but what I think is absolutely necessary. When I croak, I don’t want to put any of my friends through the misery of having to sort through an endless supply of rubbish. I actually beat the deadline by three days. That’s an eternity for me, and it felt good not to be under the gun to get it done by the end of the day. I worked steady, and it wasn’t an easy task, but I finished it and now I’m going to start unburdening myself with most of it. If anyone reading this wants any gently used books, let me know. I’ve got ‘em by the ton.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Lucky Break At Last!
Monday September 12th, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL Ok, I give up. I’m stumped like the Venus de Milo. I can’t figure life out no matter how hard I try. Just when it feels like I’m closing in on some answers, some inexplicable quirk or glitch shows up to let me know I have none. I’m a slave to circumstances, like it or not. This particular time, I think I’m going to like it. I’m scheduled to teach another session of comedy classes at Harper College in Palatine, IL starting next month, and the publicity department sent out a press release to help drum up interest. I didn’t think twice about it. I’ve found the staff at Harper to be on the ball professionally and just plain nice people to deal with. People like Scott Cashman and Stephanie Burak are my direct contacts, and they talk to me like a human first and a teacher second. I really enjoyed teaching last fall‘s class, and was flattered they asked me back to do it again this year. The vibe is positive. As it turned out, an article about the class ran in the Chicago Sun Times yesterday and it was not only seen by all kinds of people I know who contacted me to inform me they had seen it - it was also apparently forwarded to UPI and has gotten some national exposure. I heard it appeared on The Huffington Post among other places, and the word keeps on spreading. I’m getting interview requests from radio stations, and I’ve been invited to be a guest on the Fox 32 Morning News in Chicago in two weeks. I can’t believe how this has snowballed, since I’ve been trying to spread the word for classes for seventeen years now. When I first began teaching at Cardinal Stritch College in Milwaukee back in 1994, we received all kinds of media coverage. There were several print articles and news coverage on most of the local TV stations. Nobody was doing anything like it, and it got attention. Chicago has been a different story. I did manage to get coverage on the WGN TV news a few years ago, but I think that was because they knew my friend Rick Geiser who works on the radio side. He also does publicity for Zanies, and he was able to pull a few strings. This is completely different. I think for once my timing was right. There were all kinds of heavy stories about the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and they put it in the paper to ease the tension a little. People need to laugh when times get tough, and this is one of those times. Maybe it was also the fact that an actual academic institution is offering a comedy class. Zanies is a comedy club, and for whatever reason that angle hasn’t gotten me very far in a while with the Chicago media. Harper College seems to be the missing ingredient and I’m not complaining at all. I love teaching at both places, and they attract a different clientele. I would be flattered to teach at both places, but Harper won’t be for hard core comedian wannabes. It will be for regular people who want to learn ‘secrets’ of how to be funnier in every day life. There are a few secrets, but most of it is learning the fundamentals of what humor is, and going from there. After seventeen years, I’m finally an overnight success!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Heavy Mental Concert
Saturday September 10th, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL Total self improvement requires consistent maintenance and attention to several aspects of life. I don’t think it’s possible to improve upon one area and neglect everything else, at least for too long, as it creates an unhealthy imbalance. If one facet grows, the rest follow. I’ve been extremely pleased with the total turnaround of my physical health in these last couple of months, but I’ve also started growing in other ways too. I’m making a concerted conscious effort to read and listen to audio programs containing positive uplifting content at least an hour a day if not more. I’m pouring everything I can into my vacuous brainpan. I could read a book a week for the next 20 years and not put a dent in my supply. I have boxes of them still in storage, and enough at home to keep me busy until my clothes come back in style. Now it becomes a matter of choosing those that will have immediate effect. I’ve divided the piles of books I have into categories of self help, biography, health and fitness, paranormal and oddball, business and finance, sports and reference. There’s not a transvestite’s chance in a biker bar I’ll finish 10% of them, but at least I’m moving ahead. I’m making an effort to always have a book with me in case I have any down time at all, from waiting at a train crossing to being early for an appointment. Sitting around gawking at the walls drives me crazy, but if I can knock out a few pages of a book I’ll feel better. I’ve got a ridiculously large overload of audio programs too, and to make it worse most of them are cassettes. Fortunately, my car has both a CD and cassette player so that makes it easier. I’ve been force feeding those into my ear hole lately, and I’m really enjoying it. Earl Nightingale’s ‘Lead The Field’ and Brian Tracy’s ‘The Luck Factor’ started me off on a positive note in the last couple of weeks, and today I just finished Les Brown’s ‘The Power of Purpose’. I’ve heard Les Brown before, but not this particular program. None of these programs have anything we all haven’t heard before, but it’s good to hear it again. Sometimes a point hits me at a time when I really need it, and sparks thoughts that help me with whatever situation I happen to be in when I hear it. It’s health food for the mind, and a lot more beneficial than listening to bad news, boring Chicago sports talk and stale music play lists on the radio. Even if I get lost in thought, the good message is sinking in. Here again, I could drive to Panama and back ten times over and not have enough time to listen to all the audio programs I have, so I’m picking and choosing those carefully as well. I’ve had three solid programs to start off, but I’ve got a lot more I haven’t heard. All of this is taking up so much of my energy I don’t have time to worry about anyone or anything other than what concerns my immediate future. I think that’s a good thing, as will keep me out of trouble if nothing else. If I’m putting in maximum effort to take care of my own business, I won’t have time to bother anyone else. This is how life should be.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Finger Lickin' Greatness
Friday September 9th, 2011 - Chicago, IL On this date in 1890, one of my all time heroes was born - Colonel Harland Sanders. He wasn’t a colonel then, just a dented can who never gave up and eventually became one of the extremely few who can rightfully claim the title of world wide icon. He was a legend. I’ve always been a fan of his for many reasons other than chicken. I’ve made time to see several tourist sites over the years from the gas station in Corbin, KY where he first began selling his fried chicken to the KFC home office in Louisville to his first franchise in Salt Lake City, UT and learned more about him at each stop. He was a remarkable character. By no means did he have success written all over him - he wrote it himself. That’s why I admire him so much. I don’t know if I could have endured all he did, but he didn’t have to either. He chose to, and that’s why he’s still remembered over a century after his birth. Had he given up, not a single person would have blamed him. But nobody would have remembered him either. There are countless millions of losers who die in obscurity that’s made worse by the fact they never had the giblets to hang in there like the Colonel did. His father died when he was six, he dropped out of school in the seventh grade, and ran away from home because his step father beat him. That’s not the secret recipe for success, but he kept slugging until he found it. Then after he did, he was able to sell it with style. Colonel Sanders was a master showman, and I always love to study those. His look was his calculated trademark, and he never appeared in public without his white suit and black string tie for the last twenty years of his life. Can you picture The Colonel in baggy shorts and a tank top? Of course not. He knew what his image was, and he presented only that. I also admire that he did it all late in life, but still had an amazing run. He was 60 before he started dressing in the white suits, but he was able to hang on for another twenty years and establish himself as one of the most identifiable personas of the entire 20th Century. He also established himself as being interchangeable with the state of Kentucky when in fact he was born in Indiana. Most people don’t know that, and don’t care. Maybe ‘Indiana Fried Chicken’ would have been a flop, but we’ll never know. He found the right combo. A lot of people also don’t know that Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, but didn’t receive his recognition there. Illinois was his place of prominence, and it’s even touted on their license plates. He was another example of someone who persisted beyond where the ‘normal‘ people would, and ended up becoming an icon to the generations after his death. I’ve been slugging it out myself for way more years than I think anyone should have to, but I haven’t come close to going through what Colonel Sanders or Abraham Lincoln had to endure. People like them give me inspiration to keep doing what I’m doing in hopes of having it pay off at some point, hopefully while I’m still alive to be able to enjoy the ride.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Pack Cocaine
Thursday September 8th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI After seven months of sobriety, and I’m sad to report I’m back on drugs and hopelessly hooked. My pusher has thirty-two varieties, one more than Baskin-Robbins. My pusher is the National Football League, and I’m addicted to the Green Bay Packers. I can’t kick it. My addiction isn’t even the worst. At least mine paid off in February with a Super Bowl victory - the ultimate high. Addicts of the other thirty-one drugs don’t even get that. They have to quit cold turkey when one season ends, and suffer until the next season starts it up all over again. There are poor saps in towns like Cleveland and Detroit who are a mess. They keep getting slapped around like trailer park wives, and I guess I feel their pain to a certain degree, but if it ever got in the way of my own addiction any and all sympathy is out the window. This is a cruel process, but it‘s a cruel planet. I didn‘t make these rules. My drug of choice is the Packers, and I’ve been hooked going on forty years now. It’s a euphoric high when they win, and a crushing low when they don’t. I’ve tried every trick I can think of to kick the habit, but I just can’t do it. It shouldn’t be this powerful, but it is. Tonight’s game was nothing short of orgasmic. They started out great, then had a bit of trouble, then won it at the end with no time remaining. They easily could have lost it after being ahead the whole game, and that’s what makes this addiction so cruel. I had nothing to do with any of it, but I was emotionally involved the whole time and it stressed me out. I’m sure there were hundreds of thousands of New Orleans Saints addicts who felt their drug of choice was going to give them the high they craved, but it didn’t. It held all of our attention the entire evening, and I felt drained as I got in my car and drove home from my friend Mark Gumbinger’s house in Kenosha. He has a big screen TV and it’s a man cave. Mark and his brother Mike and I sat in his basement and partook of our drug together as a group. Crack house, Pack house, what’s the difference at this point? We’ve all invested our entire lives hoping our green and gold knights would slay the opposing dragons every week. This week they did, but just barely. Next week, who knows? We’re at their mercy. The NFL is a cruel master, and if I could quit I would. But I can’t. This season will be a series of ups and downs like all of them are, and I won’t be satisfied unless they return to the Super Bowl and win it again. Or will I? I loved watching them win the last one, but it doesn’t matter anymore. This is an entirely new season and we’re all addicted once again. I sure wish I sold a product as solid as the one the NFL is selling. Nobody dresses up in elaborate costumes and paints their face to come see me perform. There aren’t websites to buy and sell tickets to my shows for over face value and/or analyze my every tiny move. If Americans were as enthusiastic about America as we are about the NFL, we’d be way better off as a nation. I didn’t listen to what Mr. Obama said tonight, I was getting high.
Champ Change
Wednesday September 7th, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL
I’ve been keeping up with my diet and exercise plan, and I don’t think I could feel much better. I’ve made it a high level priority, and I’m learning to thoroughly enjoy not only the benefits, but the process as well. I thought I would loathe everything about it, but I don’t.
I find myself looking forward to my daily walks, as it gives me plenty of private time to process all kinds of ideas about a wide variety of topics without interruption. I’m learning to tune everything else out and get in a zone where I let my mind take over. I might get hit by a truck due to my lack of conscious attention, but at least I’ll go out making an effort.
There are several possible routes where I live, and I try to mix it up as much as possible to keep it interesting. I don’t necessarily measure distance, but I do try to stay out until my t-shirt is soaked with sweat, or my legs start feeling like cement pillars. Some days it feels like I could walk to Miami Beach, and others feel like I’m an old cocker who lives there.
Hearing about how good it feels to exercise and then actually feeling it are two different things entirely. I love the sensation of being exhausted, knowing I used up every single bit of spare energy I had to give. I limp through the door drenched, exhausted but satisfied.
It feels fantastic to freshen up with a fumigating shower and then throw on clean clothes and go to work on one of my projects. It took a while to develop the habit, but I’ve done it and don’t want to know what it feels like to fall out of it. In my mind, this is permanent.
Too bad reality isn’t always what’s in any of our minds. Reality is, nothing’s permanent except the fact there will be constant change. That’s it. Other than that, every day presents new circumstances for us to sort out and react to however we choose. I happen to be in an outstanding groove right now, but that doesn’t automatically mean I won’t blow it again.
I have to constantly stay on myself to not only keep this up, but keep taking it to higher levels. I’m not sure if I can do that by myself. It’s working ok now, but eventually I might have to surround myself with like minded people or a personal trainer to keep improving.
I’d also be up for some kind of healthy cooking class. I can barely operate a toaster, but I don’t need to because I’m not eating bread at all. It’s mostly vegetables and salads and a little bit of broiled fish and baked chicken. Eventually, some variety would make it easier.
It’s also going to be easier to keep this up because I feel so much better on every level. I sleep better, think clearer, and the dark ugly funk of depression hasn’t taken the wind out of my sail since I don’t know when. I truly believe it was a result of how I was eating for so long, and that alone makes the thought of eating broccoli and green beans not so bad.
I’m sorry it took so long to have this hit home, but it has. Maybe I had to hit the lowest of lows so I’d appreciate how spectacular this feels. Whatever the case, I do appreciate it and hope I inspire others to make similar changes. There’s no excuse not to live healthy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
