The Fun Dude Goes Hollywood, Act 1

Friday May 8th: Nine Days Left on Land
"To Boldly Go Where No Fun Dude Has Gone Before"
8:00 a.m.

Today's the day. I've been a standup comic for 22 years and today will be my first time in L.A. (Hey, when I chase a dream, I don't screw around!)

Enterprise Rental Car is supposed to be here in 15 minutes and I'm nowhere near ready. I've spent the last 30 minutes rolled up in a ball on the floor, waiting for my suitcase to pack itself. I was hoping to be on the road by 8:30 but I was up till four in the morning printing out Google directions to just about every major landmark and point of interest in Los Angeles. Now the only place I feel like going is back to bed.

9:30 a.m.
Pulling out of the Enterprise parking lot in a silver Pontiac G6. They gave me a great deal: Friday-Tues, full insurance coverage, unlimited mileage, $168. They even threw in a cassette player. Too bad I left my Motley Crue tapes back in the 80's. Which means I'll have to cruise the Sunset Strip listening to NPR. How “43” of me.

9:45 a.m.

"Welcome to Office Depot. How can I help you?"

"You can tell me my business cards are ready just like you promised."

"Sorry, the printer jammed before we could finish your order and we couldn't find the manual."

"Too bad you don't have one of those 'Easy' buttons."

"That's Staples."

"My point, exactly."

Perfect! I'm performing a standup set at the House of Blues tonight for a roomful of industry people and no business cards. Nothing says "Boat Act" like jotting your e-mail address down on a napkin.

10:00 a.m.
The plan was to drive around San Diego for a couple of hours before heading up to L.A., but I'm way behind schedule. So I only have time for a quick stop at La Jolla High School. Why? Because that's where Stephen Pearcy, Robin Crosby and Warren DiMartini of Ratt went. What? You didn't know that? And you call yourself a hair metal fan?

Shame! Shame! Shame!

"To the Bat Cave!"

2:00 p.m

Just when you thought I had no life--surprise! I'm a huge fan of the "Batman" show from the 60's! Ever since I was a kid I've been obsessed with the Bat Cave. And ever since I went online two years ago and discovered that the "entrance" to the Bat Cave is one of three actual caves in Hollywood's Griffith Park called "Bronson Caves," I've been obsessed with making the pilgrimage.

For last year's vacation I went to Machu Picchu in Peru. I was never so excited in my life. Until now. How pathetic is that? I stood among the ruins of one of the seven wonders of the world and here I am more excited about seeing an exterior location from a 1960's TV show. A “library shot” they filmed in just one day and then inserted into every episode.

Just like Batman had Robin, I had a sidekick today. My buddy Kirk Noland is a former standup comic and comedy club booker from Detroit who has been in Hollywood for five years and is a successful TV producer and editor.

Kirk showed me around Griffith Park, took me up to the observatory where we took pictures and had lunch, then it was off to the Bat Cave.

The Bronson Caves ( http://www.seeing-stars.com/Locations/BronsonCaves.shtml ) are not on the main reservation of Griffith Park, so we had to drive back down into Hollywood and make our way to Canyon Drive via Hollywood Boulevard. As we drove, Kirk answered my questions about life in LA and helped me draw up a battle plan for my eventually moving here and taking my comedy career to the next level.

Although I like being The Fun Dude, life on a cruise ship is brutally tough and I’m very conflicted about going back to sea on the 17th. For the first time in my life, I feel undaunted by the prospect of living in Los Angeles and feel like I actually belong here. This feeling will only get stronger as the weekend progresses.

The section of Griffith Park where we’ll find the Bat Cave is at the end of a residential area. We park the car, grab Kirk’s HD video camera (I’ll post video and stills once Kirk has the time to get them to me) and head up the trail. It takes about five minutes to get to the Cave. Kirk is taping me as I pretend to be a host for the Travel Channel doing a piece on famous movie locations for middle-aged comedians who’ll probably never grow up.

As we come around the bend on the gravel road, the area becomes very familiar to me. This whole canyon has been filmed in dozens of westerns and several Star Trek Episodes.

The Bat Cave itself is actually a tunnel that goes through to the other side of the mountain. The tunnel is barely wide enough to accommodate a Camry let alone a Batmobile. What the TV crew did back in the day was gently back the Batmobile into the tunnel, then drive it out slowly. When the editor sped up the film and added the turbo engine sound effects, it looked as if if Batman and Robin were racing out of the Bat Cave at breakneck speed. (I wish I could have used that technology on the 405!)

That’s Hollywood for you. Everything’s an illusion. Nothing is real. Which means you can make anything happen. So I wonder if my fear of not being able to make it in Los Angeles has been an illusion as well. Thanks to Kirk’s insight into how the game is played in LA, I’m started to feel I made a huge mistake by not moving here in the 90’s. You can either get lucky and hit it big, or you can go broke and move back home to Ohio and live with your parents. But you won’t know until you move here and give it a shot.

As we walk back down the trail to the Fun Dude Mobile, I start to get really excited about my comedy set at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. tonight. I start to visualize what it would be like to move here next week instead of getting on The Ship. I start to visualize all the steps I would need to follow and all the sacrifices I would have to make to get myself up here and start paying my Hollywood dues.

Yet I’m going back to sea nine days from now for six months and will be able to eat for free, save up another six grand or so and enjoy full health coverage for the duration of my contract. And since I’ve already been on hiatus in San Diego for almost four months, using my savings to cover rent and groceries, I’m not really in the financial position to make my move just yet.

Living in San Diego is incredibly expensive, but my last contract was very difficult for me due to problems with my roommate and a work schedule that double my hour, so I really needed to take care of myself for a few months.

But if I were to say goodbye to ship life, I would have to move up to LA without a job, without a car, and without as big of a nest egg as I would have had had I not just spent four months on hiatus without any money coming in.

Yet something tells me I shouldn't get back on the ship. Yet I love being the Fun Dude and people are counting on me.

Man, I've never felt so confused and conflicted in my life. (Except for this morning when the kid at Starbucks asked if I wanted whole milk or soy.)

So as Kirk and I hurry back down the trail—we need to pick his Corvette up from the service garage and then head over to the House of Blues for the http://www.thegloomers.com/ launch party at six—I think to myself, “You know, I just made my childhood dream come true by seeing the entrance to the Bat Cave. So now it’s time to make my adulthood dreams come true by moving to LA and see what opportunities I can create for myself.”

But as soon we get back down to the rental car, another voice in my head says, “Yeah, well what if moving to LA turns out to be just like the entrance to the Bat Cave and winds up leading nowhere?”

I need to shut my brain off for a few hours. This trip was supposed to be fun.

7:30 p.m.

Kirk and I cruise the Sunset Strip in his pearl white Corvette, smoking cigars and taking in the sites. We're on our way to the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. for the launch party for a humorous social networking site called http://www.thegloomers.com/ . If you'd like to check out a few of my contributions to the site, my video rants and written essays are archived at http://www.myspace.com/jeffthejokewriter.

As we make our way west on Sunset Boulevard, Kirk points out a few of the sites. We pass

the Riot House (the rock and roll hotel featured in the movie Almost Famous)...

And a few comedy clubs that have no idea I even exist...

9:00 p.m.
Not only is the Gloomers party a lot of fun, I got a chance to go "onstage" in front of a jaded Hollywood audience for the first time. I'm using quotations because I actually stood in a dark corner of the HOB's Foundation Room in front of a small JBL speaker on a stand. This is typical of the types of gigs I'll pay my dues in once I move to L.A.

Ten years ago I would have been too freaked out to perform a set under these conditions, but this time I just went up there and let it rip. I talked about my midlife crisis and life on the cruise ship as the Fun Dude and basically just kept it real. My punch lines all hit rather well, and I had a lot of people giving me kudos at the bar later on, so I was pretty happy.

In order to be successful as a comic in Los Angeles, you have to keep it real. Talk about things from your life, use a normal tone of voice and pretend like you're sitting across the table from one person, just chatting. Of course, your jokes have to be stronger than average and you have to know what you're doing.

A lot of my comedy friends are here tonight: Mike Lukas, Jeff Jena, Pete George. The more I talk to them, the more I feel like I belong in LA. Pete George's girlfriend, Debbie, is a literary agent so we spend over an hour talking about show business, screenwriting and the importance of my being in LA if I want to take my comedy or writing career to the next level.

The reason a stand-up comic can't be "discovered" on the road is, in Hollywood, agents and producers see a funny guy and think, "This guy's great, how can we make him a huge success so we can all--he and us-- get rich?" On the road, agents and producers see a funny guy and think, "This guy's great! How can we get him to work for fifty bucks less next time?"

10:00 p.m.

Kirk has blown off almost a full day of editing work to hang with me today, so he needs to get back to his computer. But first we cruise the Strip a little, then grab a bite to eat at a really cool bowling alley he used be a bouncer for. The place is called Lucky Strike and is an upscale bar and eatery with some high tech bowling lanes at one end. Neon lights, video screens, killer mucic. This is not your average bowling alley in the suburbs.

As we eat our grub, Kirk tells me about the time Tom Cruise spent three hours playing pool with strangers then picked up the entire tab for everyone in the joint.
I suggest we hurry up and leave before somebody mistakes me for Tom Cruise.

11:30 p.m.

I pick up the Fun Dude Mobile at Kirk's place in Silver Lake and drive over to my friend Stanley Ullman's apartment in Valley Village. Stanley is nice enough to let me crash at his place. Although I have a lot of sightseeing to fit in tomorrow, I stay up with Stanley for a couple of hours drinking coffee and catching up.

The more we talk, the more we both think I need to say goodbye to being the Fun Dude and move to LA.

Man, I hope I can get to sleep tonight. I have a lot of worrying to do tomorrow so I want to be well rested.