Just in case you’ve never read my bio, I am a stand-up comedian and have been slinging jokes for over thirty years. I have had my ups and downs, worked the road for years, gigged in dumps and Vegas palaces, done TV and had a few shots at the big time. I have hurt my career by my personal behavior and I blame no one but myself for that.
I reinvented myself as a performer almost as many time as Dylan and I’m still standing. To quote my good friend, radio host Marc Germain, “I’m better than most and not as good as some.”
During the last ten years, I have moved from the club market into mostly corporate events. I have to work the phone and the e-mail list every day. My business life is like a shark: I have to keep moving all the time and I am always looking for my next meal. I get no sick days and no paid vacations. I have to provide for my own retirement. I pay for my own healthcare and 15.4% of everything I make goes to Social Security and Medicare. I spend about 160 days a year in a strange bed, alone, and another forty or fifty driving to one-nighters within four or five hours of my home. I spend countless hours in airports. Ahhh, the glamor of show business!
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. This is the life I have chosen and long after anyone with any sense would have given up, I am still plugging away. Sometimes, right before I go on, I stop and think of the line from the movie “Patton,” “God help me. I love it so.” All I ask is that I be allowed to pursue my dream with a minimum of interference.
Recently, my job has come under attack by some high ranking Democrats. While bragging about how many jobs he was going to create and save, about how many shovels he was going to get turning, Mr. Obama has sent my industry into a tail spin. He has taken several broad swipes at corporate entertainment in the past few weeks. Because they also hate corporate fat cats, Senator John Kerry and Representative Barney Frank joined in and started slamming my little corner of show business as well. I’m sure President Obama and his droogies were just trying to embarrass these fat cats but that isn’t how it worked out.
He did the same thing with the corporate jet industry a few weeks earlier starting with the CEO’s of the auto industry.
He accomplished his mission. He embarrassed business leaders and they have been cutting back on entertaining. Unfortunately, due to the law of unintended consequences, it wasn’t the corporate fat cats that got hurt. They have mothballed their corporate jets and are suffering by flying first class to their vacation homes in the Bahamas, poor guys!
Who the president hurt were thousands of waiters, caterers, bartenders, stage hands, sound technicians, floor sweepers, decorators, jet pilots, mechanics, parts suppliers, hotel workers and even a few stand up comics who depend on those fat cats for their livelihoods.
Not all fat cats come under this Democrat microscope. This week in Miami, at the Fontainebleau Hotel, a fairly swanky joint, the AFL-CIO is hosting a little shindig. Not only are they not under fire for reckless spending while their union members are losing their jobs left and right, but a couple of high ranking Democrats including the Joe Biden will be down there cheering them on. I am guessing more than a few of them flew down to Miami on private aircraft. I wonder if they need a comic?
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