- 11:27 PM,
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008:
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- Johnson
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- Will
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- Carl
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The Random
God
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- The
Happy God
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- The
Number God
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ZAPPOW!
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RANDOM!!!
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ZAPPOW!
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ZAPPOW!
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HAPPY!!!
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ZAPPOW!
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ZAPPOW!
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NUMBER!!!
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ZAPPOW!
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- A
3
Journey God Strike!!!
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- <throws
hands up>
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- All I can say is,
if I'm in your shoes reading this? I don't believe me.
No way I wrote #799 with no prior knowledge to all
that would occur just days later - AND have what I
thought would be #800 completely vanish only to be
replaced with something better. Get this:
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- Last night the
casting director wrote to me that the manager had to
cancel. And because of vacations by him, the casting
director and me - the meeting had to be pushed to
mid-October. So clearly, #800 was ruined. Carl's magic
just wasn't happenin' this time. Nothing else really
brewin' that could be considered big. Damn. Too
bad.
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- In the span of the
day today I got a press pass to go to the last
Obama/McCain debate (an opportunity I had no idea
about just 24 hours previous), booked tickets to fly
from Chicago (where I'm already going next month) to
NY (where the debate is) then pushed it for an extra
10 days 'cause my heart told me to, told my friends at
CBS I'd be in town who then told me that details are
set for the next "Living Room Live-esque" type segment
on The Early Show and I'm going to be able to meet
with the new powers-that-be to pitch my role in
everything, in-person, before it starts, then after
work met with the casting director anyway who said as
well as helping me find a strong manager, she had a
place for me to stay in Manhattan while I'm there,
then when I finally got home I find a package on my
doorstep of a performance I did on a college tv show
which I hadn't seen in nearly 15 years and was certain
all this time that no tape existed. A whirlwind of
epic proportions that I'm barely able to write about
because my head is still spinning. Jesus Tap-Dancing
Christ did Carl deliver.
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- First of all, how
in holy-hell am I getting into the Obama/McCain
debate, and as a member of the press to boot? And when
media credentialing has been closed for over a
month?
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- It starts with a
meeting through Facebook (which is now bordering on
Journey God status) with a radio producer named
Catherine. We met for coffee and talked politics. She
was actually at Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC
which, at the time seemed unbefuckinglieveable to me,
so we had plenty to talk about. However the memory
that comes out of that meeting was when she told me
that Bobby McFerrin had died. It was a heart-stopping
moment for me. He was a huuuuuuuuuge inspiration to
me. YouTube the man, he is so much more than "Don't
Worry Be Happy" that it's almost a travesty people
only remember that.
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- For a good 20
minutes I believed this to be true and was just SICK
until we got to a computer, and she found that it was
actually an urban myth. Had she been talking to anyone
else, this would've been no big deal - but she had to
tell it to the a capella guy. The guy who listened to
his tapes ad infinitum until my mother wanted to beat
me with them. I'm pretty certain if my mother never
hears Michael Jackson, Billy Joel or Bobby McFerrin
ever again she'll have found her own personal nirvana.
Anyway, when we found out it was a myth I held my hand
to my chest and as if I had seen a ghost I muttered:
"Wow, that fucked me up. You so owe me."
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- I don't believe
she owes me a damn thing now...
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- We continue to
keep in touch and literally out of the blue, 10 days
later, she IMs me asking if I'd pay my own way to a
debate. I say "of course" and she says tells me to
gather my info for the secret service background
check. !!?!? She's actually serious about this. So I
get it all and incredibly the following morning she
gets the OK and forwards the email from the security
guy with the 3 mgaic words: "All are in." So
reminiscent of 1995 when I got my press pass to meet
Michael Jordan, and my reaction was exactly the same.
There was running, there was yelling, there was
giggling. I will be her engineer/technician as she
covers the debate - which probably means we will have
some pretty close access. Believe me, if there is any
professional possibility of a handshake, a picture...
anything - it will happen. My number one priority of
course is professionalism as my actions go under her
name... but I've been in these situations before, and
where there's a will, there's a way. I'm in the game,
I'll make the right plays when they present
themselves.
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- So of course the
next move is turning this into something bigger. It's
just Journey Law that when you feel the breeze
blowing, the last thing you do is stand there and
enjoy it. You run WITH it and start flappin' your
arms. So instead of 1 day in NY, it becomes 10 as I
shorten my Chicago trip and fly directly to NY where I
set up every meeting I can to pull off some of the '06
CBS magic. Bug 'em like I did back then, get back on
the air - and bring the Egos out of hibernation. Also
meet with Friedman and get him excited about The Egos
again - and of course, meet with Vinnie and give him
the annual punch in the arm for "Up & Adam". :)
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- Then come to find
out from Tammy at CBS that the "Family Band" segment
has finally been finalized and I will be out there
before it starts! The brainstorming begins on how to
bring everything together as fast as possible. I mean
come on, family band theme, the egos? Duh. It's one
tetris-piece away from a... well, a tetris. :)
Suddenly I, am, spinning.
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- Like literally -
the pacing starts, the brain whirrs and I can barely
focus on when to take a breath. This seriously happens
- when I concentrate too hard, I literally sometimes
forget to breathe in... and then have to take a big
gulp of air. Man, that does not sound healthy. Anyway
- it's goddamn heaven for me. It means the pieces are
in front of me, and all I need now is to line them up
the right way.
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- After calling my
father and giggling like a schoolgirl about the debate
I find 6 hours remaining at work. The Journey is
sooooooooo not 9-5. This is exactly like what happened
when I was working at the mortgage place when "Let's
Bomb Iran" and "America's Got Talent" hit. It's so
much to process that you need to get away... but I
absolutely cannot afford it since I'm now taking off
nearly 3 weeks next month for Chicago/NY. So with
every ounce of maturity I could muster I continued to
work and when 6 hit it was off to the next moment in
this magical day.
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- Although the
manager had to cancel, I still wanted to meet the
casting director and her tempting offer of "Keith
& Rachel" plus salmon sealed the deal. Heh. In the
same fashion of every conversation we've had, politics
took up a good 85% of the time. Oh and how awesome is
it the polls are finally goin' back to pre-Palin
levels as rational minds look at her a little deeper.
There were 2 weeks there where I truly believed we
were a country of zombies. It seems people are waking
up. More on that later...
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- When we did talk
about the business it was very good. It is remarkably
clear that she intends to help me UNTIL a connection
is made with a manager/agent or whatever. It's the
"taken under the wing" feeling and I think for once
the honesty of this site has really helped me. You
cannot fake sincerity. Not 8 entries a month for
nearly a decade. She's obviously read enough that you
can see she's made that decision in her mind: "We're
gonna make this happen." It's this calm, knowing head
shake and as you all know who have been following
this, I over-deliver every single time an opportunity
like this presents itself. This will be no different,
and honestly at this point? My focus is on how to help
her into the equation. There's no way her kindness can
go unrewarded. I don't know how just yet, but as I
mentioned before - the wind has changed. This hasn't
happened in quite awhile, and it's time to gather
those around you and start a-flappin'. We're all gonna
be takin' off soon.
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- ...and
then the cherry on top...
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This would
absolutely, positively have MADE my #800 by
itself. During my first year in college
('94-'95 schoolyear) I released my second
tape and performed on the college late night
show "Project Latenight". When I went back to
grab a copy of the show, no one could find
it. Kept going back and finally they just
said - it wasn't saved. So bummed, had I
remembered to get it that night (something I
now NEVER forget), I would've been fine.
Enter Facebook again, friending Natilly who
was maybe in one or two of my classes, but
more importantly was best friends with the
host. Believe it or not she had box full of
old VHS tapes of the show and she was certain
she had the one I was on.
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- She was kind
enough to go buy a VCR to find it for me and then ship
it out to provide for a moment I will never forget.
It'll get its own entry, believe me. It is about as
fascinating a piece of my history as I could've
imagined including a mid-song romantic gesture that
had me in tears on the spot. Just, wow.
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- So now I try to
sleep (which is almost impossible while my head is in
overdrive) and start bright and early with the
arm-flapping for the next couple weeks before I'm off
to Chicago. For the newcomers? This, is when, it gets
crazy.
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- :)
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- Adam
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