Tuesday June 30th, 2009 - Milwaukee, WI

   Should have bought a lottery ticket today. I felt a good vibe all day and everything I did fell into place. It started with getting up early and finally starting to sort out the collection of sports cards I bought several months ago. It had been sitting there just bothering me.

   It’s still bothering me because I could have used the money I spent on them right about now but at the time it was an investment and that’s the choice I made. I didn’t expect it to turn out how it did and I’ll think twice in the future about it but for now this is how it is.

   I’ll make my money back eventually and maybe even a profit but it won’t come in a big chunk like I had to shell out to buy it. I’ll learn a valuable lesson one way or another as it will either teach me to be a marketer and innovate ways to sell them or it will destroy me.

   I’ve been wiped out before so that doesn’t worry me. I’ll learn from it and move on as I always do. What cheered me up today was not only putting a dent in organizing the cards but finding a box with a copy of comedy notes I’d been compiling for years. I’d put them away and forgotten about them completely. Finding them was like finding a lost treasure.

   I’ve lost all kinds of notes over the years and had my computer stolen with everything I have on it and I thought I had lost these forever. Once in a while I do actually make smart decisions like make copies of things but those get lost too. I finally got to catch a break.

   There are all kinds of interesting ideas in this group of notes I’d totally forgotten about. I found a copy of the bank robbery story I thought was gone and also a list of other movie script ideas I had over the years. I also found some notes I made on comedy classes which can be used to improve the coming sessions. It was very exciting to dig through that box.

   Another pleasant surprise I didn’t expect was a call from Larry Reeb asking me if I’d go to Summerfest in Milwaukee with him to see Buddy Guy. I love Larry. He’s been a friend for over 20 years and one of my favorite people. Every time we hang out it’s always fun.

   Larry is also known as ‘Uncle Lar’ and is probably Chicago’s best known comedian. He is originally from Dwight, IL but Zanies has used him forever. I met him in Milwaukee as I was coming up the ranks at the Funny Bone which is now Shank Hall. We hit it off then and are still friends now and the best thing about it is we hardly ever talk about comedy.

   We’re both fans of comedy and we might talk about some old school guys but as far as bitching about how hard it’s getting we totally stay away from that. And we NEVER ‘try out bits’ on each other. I really can’t stand that and neither can Larry. We’re just friends.

   Friends are just themselves and Larry is a great one. He’s a very smart guy and knows a lot about a lot of subjects. We both love sports and talk a lot about that but other stuff too. Larry loves blues music and so do I so we both enjoyed Buddy Guy. We also got to catch a few songs from Willy Porter at another stage and he was great too. What a pleasant day.