Life Begins Today

Friday December 27th, 2013 – Flagstaff, AZ/Tucson, AZ

Today was flat out the absolute single happiest day of my entire life to date. How often can one honestly say that? But it was. Knowing that there is a super strong possibility of me meeting with my three siblings after decades of separation and extreme hurt feelings has made me feel like I’m finally alive and on the same playing field as everyone else. It took forever to happen, but it has.

All day today my brother Bruce and I exchanged emails, and every one was more encouraging than the last. We’ve opened up the deep river of communication that has never been there in our adult lives, and I can feel the healing vibes already flow. This is EXACTLY what I’ve hoped for since I was a kid, and it’s a feeling of sweetness I’ve never felt before. This is my biggest dream.

It feels like I personally won the Super Bowl, the lottery and got a key to the Playboy Mansion all in the same day. I feel bullet proof emotionally for the first time ever, and I know I will never have suicidal thoughts like I have in the past. THIS is what was hurting, and I found the source.

The feeling of giddiness that’s racing through me now is pure ecstasy. I seriously doubt a heroin high would be able to make me feel as good as this. It’s like the biggest boil in history has been lanced, and all the pus is draining away forever. For the first time in my life I feel I have hope.

I honestly never expected this to happen, at least not how it has. It seemed to be the impossible dream, even though it’s what I wanted more than anything in the world. This means more to me than getting on The Tonight Show, my own sitcom or a ten picture movie deal. If I had to choose between the Packers winning every game they play from now on or this, I’d take this in a second.

This is where the pain in my life that has hurt so badly for so long has originated. I knew it as a kid, and it has bothered me since then. We’ve never been able to sit down and talk about it in any way, and there have been festering emotions rotting away for eons. I’m sure my siblings feel it as well. For whatever reason, this particular time is turning out to be right for us all. We are in sync.

It hasn’t happened yet obviously, but I’m supremely confident it absolutely will – much sooner than later. Bruce and I are to the point of narrowing down a date in February or March where the four of us can meet for a meal at a restaurant to start the healing wheels in motion. I am ecstatic.

Bruce gets more and more excited with each email, and says Tammy and Larry are up for it as well. We all need this, and it will be a wonderful experience to come together as a – dare I say it – family for the first time. We’ve never ever had that relationship, so this is new ground for us.

I was on an emotional rocket ship as I made the gorgeous drive from the Motel 6 in Flagstaff, AZ to Phoenix to have lunch with my old friend Pete Christensen. Pete is a really good soul and knows me about as well as anyone. He’s had radio and TV shows forever and is also a comedian. He knows my family situation, and could see how excited I was that this is all finally happening.

I got back in the car after lunch and drove the rest of the way to Tucson with the window down and my spirits up. It seemed like every song that came on the radio had personal meaning just for me, and it was uncanny after a while. The first I noticed was ‘Ooh Child’ by The Five Stairsteps.

The lyrics “things are going to get easier” resonated deep into my soul. After that Sister Sledge ‘We Are Family’ came on. I turned the radio up as loud as it would go, and just let the vibes flow through to my innermost core. I wanted to let all that pus from the past drain out, and it totally is.

This doesn’t guarantee everything in life is going to be “Hershey bars and Archie comics” like Gramps used to say, but it puts me on an even playing field for the first time and lets me become as close to a whole person as I’m ever going to become. This was the first step that needed to be taken decades ago, but never happened for whatever reason. Now it is, and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s going to open up so many positive doors. I predict that if I’m allowed to live and continue the life path I’m on I’ll be married or at least have a solid relationship within two years. THIS is what has held me back, because I was in so much pain I was never able to commit emotionally.

I also predict I’ll have a major career breakthrough in a short time – mainly because I’ve given up caring. My whole mindset has changed, and it’s no longer about ‘proving myself’ or ‘showing someone’. A big reason of why I got into comedy was for approval, but this is the approval I was really after. Why should I care what a room full of drunks in Duluth thought? That was all I had.

Now I have the golden opportunity to build a meaningful relationship with the only three other people on the planet that can truly relate to the source of my pain. It’s the source of theirs as well so this will be a win/win/win/win. I’m as excited as I’ve ever been, but also completely realistic.

We’re all still four broken and hurting people, and that won’t ever change. There will be scars, and deep ones at that. We’re all very different, and we’ve got to get to know each other as adults all over again. We’ll have quirks and soft spots, and we’ll all have to navigate around all of that.

I’m not saying we won’t have disagreements, but what we will have is a chance to heal. That’s the reason I’m feeling so exhilarated, and I know it will be a major turning point in my life. I had a similar experience with my grandmother before her brain was stolen by Alzheimer’s disease.

As warm and uplifting as Gramps was, Grandma was an ice queen. She was German and angry at life in general. She’s the source of a lot of pain and dysfunction too, and at one point we didn’t speak for about ten years. We got back in contact when she was in her mid 80s, and we forged an absolutely amazing relationship that lasted a couple of years – and that’s how I’ll remember her.

I would drive up to Milwaukee from Chicago about once a week and bring her a hamburger or Chinese takeout and she’d act like it was filet mignon. She never drove a car, and to her it was as big a deal as it got. She’d tell me stories of her and Gramps’ early life, and it was our best times.

We’d had years of anguish and sadness, but we ended up on a super high note that stays in my memory even now. I can absolutely see the same happening with Tammy, Larry and Bruce. We are all ready for this, and all on the same page as far as letting the past die and moving forward.

I had two absolutely MONSTER shows at Laffs in Tucson tonight. This will provide me with a secret weapon for the rest of my life. The approval I was seeking for so long I’ve now got, so the laughs I get on stage are pure. My life is about to explode, but finally in a good way. Stay tuned!

It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders. I can’t put into words how wonderful it feels.

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Catching Happiness

Monday April 8^th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL

   I had a stunning revelation today. It was another busy day of running around all over the place, but right in the middle of it all it hit me that I have achieved and attained the Holy Grail that very few ever come close to – happiness. I have life, liberty and happiness. It’s no longer the pursuit.

   Sure, there are still plenty of things I’d like to have and achieve before it’s all over, but for the most part I am doing exactly what I want to with my life and I’m loving it. How many of us ever even come close to that at any point in our lives? Not many that I’ve found, but I do think I have.

   In some ways I’m afraid to even think about it, as it’s so delicate a condition. It seems like it’s ingrained in our DNA hard drives to always want more, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s incentive to keep going and improving, and that’s what life is about right? But I’m content in my journey.

   Just because I’m here now doesn’t mean it’s permanent, or does it? I was looking back through the chapters of my life trying to decipher if and when I’ve ever been at this point before. I’ve had some fun stretches mixed in with a lot of torture and insanity, but I never appreciated them fully.

   One was in my early twenties as I was starting out in comedy in Milwaukee. I also had a job at a department store called ‘Boston Store’, which I always thought was a goofy name. Was there a ‘Milwaukee Store’ in Boston? I never checked, but my guess is no. I worked there during the day and at the comedy clubs at night. Between the two I had the best of everything but I didn’t see it.

   At the Boston Store I was a retail clerk called a ‘flyer’. That meant I worked every department in the store that had an opening on a particular day, and it was the only way to go. I met all kinds of red hot single women, and to this day I kick myself for not realizing the perfect pipeline I had.

   There were seven floors of hotties at the Boston Store, and anytime I wanted to take a lunch or break, my table was full of cuties to choose from. I had a date anytime I wanted, and I did enjoy it but not as much as I should have. My mind was on comedy then, and I wouldn’t be deterred.

   But I even blew that. Those were the magnificent boom years of the ‘80s, and nobody knew it wouldn’t last forever. It was a blast to hang out with the comedians of that time, and some of the names that were coming up then included future stars like Drew Carey, Robert Schimmel and an outstanding array of others who went on to much bigger things. Those were truly golden years.

   I realize that now, but not then. How stupid I was. I was always striving to get to the next level and wasn’t taking time to enjoy where I was – which was pretty spectacular at the time. I wasn’t enjoying the fun because I was lost in my own anger about childhood issues or whatever else the psyche of an artist uses to fuel progress. I was missing out on a fun era, and it was all my fault.

   There were also a couple of fun stretches in my radio days, but they didn’t last long before my eventual firings. Still, there were times when I had radio and comedy going at once and was in a great space. I had all the money I needed at those times, and life was really fun – for a while.

   Well, it’s really fun again only this time I know it while it’s happening. I love to do the ‘Schlitz Happened!’ shows, and that project looks to be very bright. I’m also teaching classes and doing a fun radio show and am surrounded by wonderful friends all over. I love where I live, and life just fits my personality now. It may change and I may fall out of this groove, but for now I’m happy.