Monday March 17th, 2008 - Chicago, IL

I’ve always thought St. Patrick’s Day was a great marketing concept. It’s not really a full holiday but it’s got all the ingredients of one and more. First, it has a great location on the calendar. Everyone knows the exact date of it. There aren’t any other holidays around it to distract from the theme so it gets all the attention and it’s right near the start of spring too.

People are happy about the coming of spring a lot more than they are about winter. This is good for St. Patrick’s Day and it doesn’t hurt that there’s drinking involved. That helps make it popular with the masses whose lives seem to revolve around boozing it up. There aren’t a lot of holidays that make drinking part of the theme but St. Patrick’s day is one.

They have their own color and even people who aren’t Irish are proud to wear green and pretend they are. This is all a marketer’s dream and if I could create a ‘Uranus Day’ I’d be rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. What would my color be? What would be the thing everyone eats on that day? I thought about all this as I ate my corned beef and cabbage.

It said right on the menu that it wasn’t invented in Ireland just like fortune cookies were not invented in China. They were marketing ideas invented here. If that stuff could morph into pop culture why can’t I come up with something that will too? That got me thinking.

Marketing is EVERYTHING in show business. I guess it is in life too. I still remember a line that I read many years ago that said ‘It pays to advertise. There are 23 mountains in Colorado higher than Pike’s Peak.’ Having the ear of the masses is valuable. I have been trying to get it for years and haven’t done it yet. It’s a lot more difficult than I imagined.

Britney Spears has it. Is she the first bimbo to party hard and pop out babies and act like a complete hillbilly? No, but for whatever reason the press covers it and people eat it up. Tabloids make millions off of her every twitch. It doesn’t mean she is happy or smart or a good person, it just means that she can manipulate the media and the public on a whim.

Frank Caliendo has it too. He sure did find his niche and then some. I can’t avoid seeing his face on TV or in a newspaper ad or hearing him on the radio. He captured the eye of a person with power and now he’s everywhere. I’ve never been able to do that for whatever reason and not many people can. St. Patrick’s Day was a good lesson in marketing for me.

I didn’t expect there to be a lot of people at Zanies tonight but there was a nice crowd. It was a very good lineup of comedians and one of them was Todd Johnson who I’ve known for years. We were roommates in Utah when I had my house and he needed a place to live and he’s a great guy. He has never been to Chicago before and this was his first trip here.

I hadn’t seen him perform in a while but he blew the doors off the place. I was shocked and very happy to see that. He found his stride in the last few years and he’s a monster up there. He’s a big guy and has a rubber face and he’s learned to tap into that and it’s going to really work for him. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he gets a huge break very soon.