Why Does Everyone Else Have a Netflix Special?

Jon here, on a Wednesday, wondering about a world where everyone has a Netflix Special, a residency of some kind, or they just won the Potash Prize for Poetry (which doesn’t really exist, but you get the picture).

There are First World Problems and then there are First World Writer Problems. Maybe it’s just a case of late Winter Blues, but I doubt it because I’ve already had my ten tranquil days on the beach in Florida.

Or it might be this comical trifecta of ailments (dry cough-lower back pain-knee bursitis) afflicting me.

They’re related by the way. I coughed so hard I threw out my back, and when that happened, I started walking differently to compensate, torqued my knee and that was when the shooting pain and swelling around my kneecap commenced. Now I can’t sit for long periods or drive stick. Welcome to age 60.

What would I do with a Netflix Special? Well, I’d get up on stage in black jeans, a black v-neck tee shirt, and read/riff from my most comical poems, or I’d write new material. And I do have a working list of “observational” topics by the way, starting with the perils of trying to park at the grocery store, and a new idea for airplane boarding groups.

I’ve been hanging around Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and Ray Romano for so long, I’m sure some of the schtick has glommed on to me. Whether I could deliver the material with any punch and flair is up for debate. I”m not sure how I would handle any hecklers.

Billy Joel has a concert residency at Madison Square Garden. Billy Idol has a residency at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas.

Just the word, residency, has a glorious ring to it.

I would love a residency, thank you very much, as I easily have twenty-six weeks of literary material to deliver without repeating myself. Plus, I would probably write new material to keep things fresh, or my residency guests would come visit me backstage and give me ideas, unsolicited. And with a half-year residency, I could finally buy a nice tux, rather than renting them from Men’s Wearhouse at $160 a pop (without the shoes).

And finally, to that Potash prize that keeps passing me by? I’m not sure how the Potash family made their money (check cashing stores? Automobile undercoating? Microwave popcorn?), but they have already made more than $100 with me from that $27 annual “reading fee,” and the two seconds it takes them to send me a form rejection email. I look at the list of Potash winners, and I am in a word, underimpressed. It all seems rigged, part of the military-industrial-MFA program complex that runs things in this country.

This morning I read about the blues musician Buddy Guy, who as late as 1967, was driving a tow truck in Chicago by day, and playing blues clubs by night with Howlin’ Wolf and BB King, while the Stones and Cream were making millions off pilfered Buddy Guy blues licks.

So, be patient, I tell myself.

Keep driving that tow truck, bending that E string in unusual ways; keep writing poems and funny essays. It will all come around eventually.

Or, maybe the warm weather and long days in June will make me forget all about it.

Even Buddy Guy has a residency these days, but it’s at a nightclub that he owns. I’ve never ever seen his name on the list of Potash Prize winners, or even the runner-ups. But I’m sure he dreams of it one day.