Time Bomb Wisdom

Wednesday November 24th, 2010 – Roatan, Honduras

Another day off, and with nothing to do and no place to be it’s way too easy to drift into no man’s land. These are the idle days that can lead to big trouble. I’m glad I don’t have a glaring vice, as today would have been the perfect day to lose myself in it. Instead, I chose to lose myself in dreams and preparation of projects I really want to go after hard in 2011.

It’s very difficult to have discipline on days like today. The other comedian Happy Cole is gone, so that takes away the main person to hang with. I don’t really know anyone else on the staff well enough to call and ask to hang out and the crew bar and mess area are all filled with people who don’t even speak English. It really can get lonely out here quickly.

Today’s port was Roatan, Honduras. I’ve flown out of here before and it’s not the best for walking around and exploring like I would in say Cozumel, Mexico. There are a few trinket shops to scour, but I’ve got all the trinkets, baubles and clutter I need in storage at home that I haven’t even sorted through. The thought of buying any more of that is crazy.

Maybe I should have gotten off the ship and walked around a little, but I didn’t. I did go to the observation deck on the ship but that got uncomfortable when too many passengers started to recognize me. I don’t mind if they come up after the show, but on my own time I just wanted to hang out and get some work done. I wasn’t rude, but I didn’t stay long.

I didn’t feel like doing much of anything at all, but I knew that wasn’t the right answer. Having absolutely nothing to do sounds great in theory, but it’s pure danger. I still recall telling my grandpa I had nothing to do one day when I was about 8 years old. He loaded me up with all kinds of unpleasant chores for the entire day, and I never did that again.

It wasn’t funny back then, but I laughed about it today. Gramps really had a wonderful way of imparting timed release doses of wisdom, and his time bombs have helped me get through some dark ugly days. They still do, and I need to write out in book form his many lessons that continue to keep me in line even today. Gramps was my greatest gift ever.

He had plenty of his own human faults, and I don’t think he was happy for the majority of his life – but he sure pulled out the stops when it came to me. He didn’t pull punches or sugarcoat anything, he told it like it was. He pushed me to be the best I could be, and had no sympathy for laziness or lack of effort. If it wasn’t for Gramps, I’d really be lost at sea.

That’s all I thought about today as I went over my pages of notes, ideas and projects I’m working on for 2011. It’s been a couple of weeks since I really delved into this stuff, but I made major progress last time and I was impressed with the amount of groundwork I laid.

I did several hours more today. I took each project I want to develop and listed all of the steps in the order I think I need to do them to make them grow. I worked on comedy notes and career ideas, and also a book of what I learned from Gramps. It should be very easy to put on paper – he wrote it very clearly on my heart and soul, all throughout my childhood.