DAY SIXTY-TWO: Are You Wasting Your Life?

You may have heard me affectionately mention a gentleman and his wife that I met a couple of years ago. They were pedal biking through Brooks in the middle of a major Northeast expedition and gave me great inspiration to live life, not just take cues from the culture that define my purposes and influence my decisions.

In a discussion of his own life, at one point he said, “if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat”.

The Bible speaks of seed scattered across various types of soil, and portrays negatively the environment of a seed that sprouts up quickly, but the growth of which is choked out by thorns. Jesus described this person as one whose life is rendered unfruitful because of an obedience to the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of riches.

Watch this video and share what’s on your mind.

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DAY SIXTY-ONE: A List of Updates and Happenings

1. Yesterday we hosted Dan Holmstrom, a Christian man from Florida who’s in Rockport for the week for a conference. His mission before the end of the week was to shoot and edit a 3-5 minute piece on a local story. We spend about six hours doing interviews and shooting footage of assembling Funnies Extra, riding bike, etc. It was fun and I’m excited to see the finished product, which will be a great tool to grow exposure of the Spokes and Jokes Tour.

2. A quick note about the commercial video I completed this week. The music behind it was from my friend, Brian Rushing, whose home I will be biking to during the tour. He’s the man who encouraged me to put more work into growing the comedy career. I asked his wife, Chanel, to get me some of their recorded music. After listening to about 8 tracks and trying to consider which would be the best to use, I found the last one that I had somehow misplaced. It’s called Wheels and Chrome and, once I started listening to it, I was psyched. The lyrics seemed to fit almost perfectly with the theme of the trip and I love the music as a backdrop of the video. It just sounds cool, and it’s so appropriate to have Brian providing the music. I’m hoping to give his art more publicity as the public notice of this tour increases.

3. I need to figure out a way to publicize my fundraising effort nationally. I’ve got about 116 days remaining on my fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.com. The widget is on the right-hand side of my website. I’m sure it will work out, but if anyone has any suggestions on how to better publicize it, I would greatly appreciate it.

4. An old friend from my Bangor Daily News days, Deb Niles, voluntarily contacted Guideposts magazine to tell them about Spokes and Jokes Tour. Not sure if anything will come from it, but I really appreciate her willingness to help without even being asked. I know this can’t happen without God’s blessing and the assistance of many, so I’m grateful when anyone does anything to help the cause. Thank you, Deb!

DAY SIXTY: Well That Was Cool!

So, dig this. I’m already losing hours at my new part-time job. It’s all good. No hard feelings, just I really didn’t expect that.

I got a call today that I wasn’t needed Thursday and Friday this week. I’m learning to ride this roller coaster of life without acting too surprised these days. Every day has enough trouble of its own to start freaking out when things don’t go the way I wish.

Well, tonight in the middle of class at Grace, I got a call from a Christian man who works in multimedia in Florida who is in the Rockport area for a conference this week. He was looking for a local personal interest story and saw my article announcing Spokes and Jokes in a copy of Funnies Extra he picked up at a general store.

He wants to spend the day with me and the family tomorrow shooting video and doing interviews in order to assemble a 3-5 minute video that promotes the Spokes and Jokes Comedy Tour.

If I still was needed at work tomorrow, I would not be able to take advantage of this opportunity, since the gentleman only has Thursday and Friday available.

This is so cool. Like I’ve said to people who’ve asked, the greatest strength and greatest weakness of this adventure is that it’s so crazy. I think it’s crazy enough so that very few people would do it and could easily fail, but also crazy enough that it stands out and might be something that people take notice of.

This finished video will be a fantastic promotional piece that I can use to sell the story to the venues along the way in order to increase the probability of getting gigs.

I am learning to operate in faith and see what God might do to provide and, as exhausting and scary as it can be at times, moments like this make it all worthwhile.

DAY FIFTY-EIGHT: How To Get Your Name In A Parody Song

You can play a part in this adventure and obtain a variety of fun perks. The most generous donors will have their name included in a new song parody to be performed at each stop along the way!

Financially supporting this project will allow you to be a part of constructing a dream.

Chris Quimby is working very hard, long hours to prepare for this trip and you can be a valuable member of his support team with your donation.

Visit the widget on the right of this page for your opportunity to be a part of the Spokes & Jokes team!

DAY FIFTY-SEVEN: Made to Blob

I was given the opportunity to honor Dave Sheldon at his retirement party on Friday night, October 12, 2012, by sharing one of my newer song parodies, “Made to Blob”.

This, and other parodies, will be performed at my first pretour show, November 3 at 7pm at this same location, Camp Fair Haven in Brooks, Maine.

It is based on the Toby Mac Song, “Made to Love”, which can be heard here: http://grooveshark.com/s/Made+To+Love/3ognws?src=5

DAY FIFTY-FOUR: First Donor Thank You!

I have begun constructing a fund-raising campaign on indiegogo.com. I just need to create a video and then it will be live. The idea is to offer and opportunity for those that wish to to give financial support to help me realize this dream of the Spokes and Jokes Comedy Tour.

Please know that I have been up-front regarding what the money will be spent on and how much I need. We will be keeping it in a separate account and not spending it on anything other than what it is intended for.

More information on that will be available when the campaign is launched in the next week or two.

Part of the campaign, however, is offering incentives for those who give at certain levels. Anyone who gives over $50 get a personalized video thank you to be posted on my spokesandjokes.com blog.

Today, in the grocery store, a friend approached Heather and handed her five twenty dollar bills. Yes, that $100!

The embedded video is a thank you to that helpful friend.

DAY FORTY-SEVEN: One Month Until First Pretour Kickoff Performance

As of today, there is only one more month until the first Pretour Kickoff Show for Spokes and Jokes at Camp Fair Haven, 81 West Fair Haven Lane, Brooks, ME at 7:00pm.

Am I excited? Honestly, yes, but largely because I choose to be. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a part of something big, but it’s always easy to concentrate on everything that can go wrong. What if the following things happened?

1. Nobody showed up.

2. People showed up, but only laughed politely, giving me unworthy validation like Paula Abdul used to do on American Idol.

3. People didn’t laugh at all, so annoyed that they wasted 90 minutes of their life on some fool who obviously has an overinflated opinion of his own abilities.

4. My wife asked for a divorce in the middle of the show.

5. My children left me to go find a family with a father that can provide them with greater security, like Heathcliffe Huxtuble on The Cosby Show.

Some of these possibilities are more likely than others, but my intention is to run on a fuel of positivity, to hope for the best and plan for the worst. I still need to assemble my act into a format that will allow me to gather all of my old material, add a lot of new material, but also to have the whole thing flow together nicely.

The radio coverage on Monday was great, and gave me a new record for hits to my blog. I also think I gained another gig from it, but we are still in the formative stages and I will let you know more when there’s more to reveal.

Heather and I are distributing the October Issue of Funnies Extra today, which contains my article about Spokes and Jokes. In it is an appeal for more shows, so we’ll see how that works out.

Also, I’ve included this link to the the October issue of the Bangor Metro, which contains another, more humorous, look at my plans. The column is on page 80.

Thank you for reading this blog.

DAY FORTY-FIVE: Hey! I’m On The Radio!

I thought I was going to be on just WVOM 103.9FM and KISS 94.5FM this morning to promote the Spokes and Jokes Comedy Tour.

However, Mike Dow of the Mike and Mike Show was kind enough to get me on to the country station as well (97.1FM).

Additionally cool, too, since I got to promote Funnies Extra on each show. At least I think I did. I don’t remember everything I said, as it was kind of a blur.

Really comfortable there this morning. I had prayed about it quite a bit on the drive in, since I’m usually intimidated and nervous when I’m on the radio. Grateful to God that he gave me peace and that it went so well.

All shows went great. In case you missed it and are interested, you can catch my spot on the George Hale and Ric Tyler Show at the link below:

WVOM Interview: Spokes and Jokes with Chris Quimby, October 1, 2012