Monday June 16th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

Back to the full Monday schedule. I was off from Zanies last week and rather enjoyed it but today it was back to abnormally normal. I rode the train in the morning to WLS to get one more plug in for Jerry’s Kidders this week at Zanies. I won’t know if it will make any difference until we actually get there but we had a nice flow today and all of us felt good.

That doesn’t translate into selling seats though. There has to be something that causes a group of people to attend an event and I wish I knew exactly what that is. I’ve been trying to pack a room full of people to see me for as long as I’ve been a comedian and I haven’t.

I’ve had rooms full of people but they weren’t there specifically to see me. That makes a BIG difference - especially in pay. If I could fill a room of even 2-300 on a regular basis I would be making a lot more money than I am now both from the club and with my own merchandising. There are a precious few comedians that can put butts in seats these days.

Dane Cook sure mastered how to do it though. He is the best marketer I’ve seen and it’s got nothing to do with his actual act. He captured the 20 somethings market and good for him for doing it. We could all learn from how he did it and improve our income big time.

We’re doing more with this WLS week than anything I’ve ever been involved in. We’re on the station website and they’re running on air promos for us and Jerry is talking about us too. WLS has a far reaching audience but will any of them come out to actually see us?

That’s yet to be seen and it’s driving us all nuts trying to figure it out. We know we will give anyone who comes out a great show and we want it to be a big event but there’s just no way to predict it right now. Plus this is the start of the summer season and that’s not an easy time to draw people to see comedy. All we can do is show up this week and find out.

I fell asleep on the train coming home and missed my stop. It sure is a panic to wake up and not recognize the scenery and realize what happened but I’m only one stop away from the end of the line so it wasn’t a catastrophe. It did make my long day even longer though and I didn’t get a nap in before having to get in my car and drive to Chicago to do Zanies.

There was a small crowd tonight but a super solid group of comedians. These shows are unpredictable in that way. Sometimes the audience is hot and the comic lineup is weak or just the opposite. Sometimes everyone just plain sucks. Not tonight. The lineup included people like Bryan Berrey, Hannibal Burress, Kevin Williams and quite a few others too.

Those may not be household names yet but they’re all talented comedians. Well, they’re POTENTIALLY talented comedians. It’s a long ride and turning potential into a product takes years to do. Then after it’s a product the marketing process takes over and that’s the point most people lose it. It’s usually one or the other. The people who get the marketing part stop working on their act and the people with good acts usually don’t market. I know I fell into the category of poorly marketing myself and now I’m trying to turn that around.