THE SHAME OF SHAMELESS PLUGGING

THE SHAME OF SHAMELESS PLUGGING

 

  Looks like the two-minute warning is about to sound (an American football reference for my friends outside of the US) when it comes to my non-WWE dates. I've got my last Independent wrestling show tonight (guest ref) in Nashville  (Jan 14, in case you read this after the fact),  a handful of comedy dates in the US, the WrestleReunion show at the end of January in LA, and the big UK/Ireland tour from February 22nd – March 3rd. This tour hasn't resulted in the one-day sellouts that I bragged about so often the last time around. Belfast is sold out and Birmingham and Cardiff are getting very close, but Dublin needs some help. and it looks like three shows in London may have been one more than needed. Tickets for Liverpool and Sheffield are moving well, but are still available. Information about the shows can be found in the EVENTS section of my website, which I will plug momentarily.  After which, as far as I can tell, I'm done with outside projects for a while. WWE has been incredibly understanding when it comes to allowing me to fulfill the commitments I made, and once these commitments are fulfilled, I am looking forward to getting much further involved with the company in a variety of ways.

 In the meantime, I'm going to do my very best to make sure that everything I'm involved with is as good as it can be, and I can produce as many smiles, laughs and general feelings of enjoyment as I possibly can. I hope that sometime in the future, I can perform more of a one-man show type of event - playing to my strengths as a story-teller as opposed to the stand-up comic that I've never felt comfortable trying to be. I don't think I've ever actually referred to myself as a comic, or a comedian; just as a guy who happens to tell humorous stories in stand-up venues. Hopefully, I can work on the one-man show concept with WWE's involvement, as I think adding elements of music, video,  and perhaps a special effect or two would make for a really cool evening. I'm not abandoning the stand-up idea completely, as I'm hoping to do a weekend a month, teaming with the Rev Bob Levy, and I'm going to do a little talking and see if WWE might not be able to include a Friday comedy event into the WrestleMania weekend in Miami. The Rev Bob idea is almost completely dependent on how well we draw together at our January 20-21 shows in Scotia, NY and February 3-4 shows in Swiftwater, PA.  I might as well get that plug for my website in now – for ALL upcoming events, including my only west coast comedy gig, January 26th at Slim's in San Francisco, just go to http://realmickfoley.com and click on EVENTS. Easy, right?

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH MAY SURPRISE, SHOCK, DISSAPOINT AND SADDEN SOME FANS!

This stand-up journey has been a great experience. I will always be grateful that I gave it an honest-to-goodness shot, and therefore, won't be that guy on the couch ten years from now, looking at the TV, saying "I wish I'd given that comedy thing a shot." Plus, I can do guest set every now and then, and do believe I can gear-up a few times a year for comedy fund-raisers like the one I did in December on Long Island. Some laughs, some graphs and $2,500 raised for children living in homeless shelters was a win-win for everyone involved. I think anyone who has attended these shows can see that I genuinely enjoy performing at these stand-up venues, even if stand-up is not a perfect fit for me. I think the vast majority of people who have attended have genuinely enjoyed themselves, too, and have probably walked away pleasantly surprised at how much fun they had. Therein lies part of the problem, I think; I'm still asking people to take a giant leap of faith and spend their time and hard-earned money on what is still a largely unknown entity. At least people who got to a straight-up autograph signing know what it is they're getting, and feel more comfortable dealing with a known entity – the autograph. While it's true that I've had some very good, enthusiastic crowds, I've always felt that the crowds would have been just as good if not better, had the same amount of time and energy gone into promoting autograph signings, as opposed to stand-up/story-telling/meet and greets. Maybe, if I had more energy, and truly loved all aspects of the comedy business, I could make a real go at it. But I don't love all aspects of it. In fact, there is part of it that makes me cringe – even makes me feel less of myself while I'm doing it. Here's where the surprising, shocking, disappointing, saddening aspect comes in. Ready for it? Drum roll please. Ba-rump-a-bum-bum, ba rump-a-bum-bum. I just don't like continually plugging these events. I really dislike it. I'd go so far as to say I hate it. That's right - THE KING OF THE SHAMELESS PLUGS HATES SHAMELESS PLUGS! Why? Because they cease to be shameless when they are almost always accompanied by a sense of shame. Maybe it's a fine line between letting people know about an event, and pretty much begging them to come. But somewhere along the line, especially on Twitter, I feel like I crossed that line. I'm just tired of feeling like the success or failure of an event depends solely on how many tweets I can get out about it. Sometimes, as was the case in Nashville and Birmingham, where the local media really got behind the shows, the feeling of Twitter dependence is unfounded. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes, those extra 50 people you can tweet into a comedy club can be the difference between a modest success and an emabarassing failure. Single-handedly tweeting an extra 50 fans into a WWE event just isn't that signifigant. In comedy, for all but the most established of acts, it's pretty darn important. It's taken me a while, but I've come to realize that the price I've had to pay to get those extra 50 people into the club is just not worth the shame that comes along with it. I don't look down on anyone who makes the choice to aggresively promote their projects through social media. I imagine if I was a young wrestler, or comedian in this age of Twitter and Facebook, I'd be plugging away out of neccsesity, and think no less of myself for doing it.But, I've realized that plugging away out of neccesity at my age does cause me to look down on myself. Most importantly, though, I think I've come to realize that my younger kids need their dad a little more than the world needs another comedian.

 I guess that pretty much explains my New Year's "10 Tweets a Week" rule. I really do like interacting with people on Twitter. As I've mentioned in tweets in the past, my twitter site has become almost a hate-free zone, and I'm proud of the fact that we have slowly and steadily built up a following of over 200,000 followers. I'm going to try to learn from my mistakes of the past and not use the site as an ipulsive venting system when I find myself annoyed about some minor mishap in my life. Maybe during my next televised WWE appearance, the powers that be can actually flash my address up on the screen, and we'll see even more upward movement.  I'm hoping that in the next few months, I can use twitter as a means of interacting with the WWE Universe and beyond – and just occasionally refer people to the website, http://realmickfoley.com for any and all upcoming events. I'll do my best to make the site a cool place to visit, with exclusive content, blogs, etc., as well as cool clips and stories I've seen.  I'm going to try the best I can to post articles about me in the press section, so that people who like me can find them on their own, as opposed to me using Twitter to say "look at me, look at me!" Let me take this opportunity to beat potential bloggers to the punch - I am fully aware that this blog about the shame of shameless plugging contains many a seemingly shamelss plug. Trust me, there is shame involved in each and every one of them. Such is the dillema when one makes their living participating in arts (yes, I do consider wrestling, comedy and writing to be arts) that simply can't exist without some publicity, but which lose their sense of fun and importance when the need for publicity overtakes the art.

I'm still going to be doing a RAINN campaign this year, but am exploring a cool way to make it more interactive and fun – and by brainstorming with Eve Torres, I think I can make this year's campaign more of an inclusive WWE Divas and Superstars issue as opposed to my month-long asking/pleading/begging campaign. In truth, I would do the pleading by myself if I have to. Some things are still worth pleading for – like the work that @Rainn01 does. But my days of shameless plugging for the sake of comedy are thankfully, drawing to a close.