Rick Ellis Loves the Chicago Cubs!

Before Rick Ellis was a journalist, covering all things streaming at www.AllYourScreens.com, he was in the Wrigley bleachers, cheering on the Cubs during the day and doing stand-up at night. Rick took a few minutes to discuss his Wrigley memories, as well as his stand-up career. Subscribe to his Too Much TV Newsletter here.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

So when did your love affair with the Chicago Cubs begin? How has it blossomed over the years?

RICK ELLIS: 

When it comes to sports overall, I am fairly sports impaired. I am not generally a huge sports fan, although I spent my youth living in Southern Indiana, where I went to a lot of Evansville AAA games. By the way, their home field was seen in the movie "League Of Their Own," because it was one of the oldest continuously-used parks in the U.S. I started going to Cubs games not because I was a fan, but because I was in my twenties and had started doing stand-up comedy. I had my afternoons free, and I started going to Cubs games with several of my stand-up buddies. The tickets were cheap, the beer was reasonable and day drinking was seen as a positive character trait.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

What were the Wrigley bleachers like in the '80s? How rowdy was it? What was the funniest thing you ever experienced out there? Were the Bleacher Bums aware that you did stand-up comedy?

RICK ELLIS: 

It wasn't as crazy in the 1980s as it apparently had been in the later 1960s and early 1970s. As an organization, the Bleacher Bums had disbanded but most of them were still at the games, in their normal left field bleachers spot. In fact, for a lot of games, much of the crowd was in the left field bleachers. I remember games where the crowd was in the low single digits. What I remember most is the stories I would hear from the longtime fans. They would talk about how the Cubs had to install that net in front of the bleacher section because drunk fans kept falling onto the field. And apparently some of the outfielders would hoist them back into the stands so they wouldn't be fined. And until the mid-70s, there were beer vendors walking through the bleachers. Which apparently went about as well as you would expect. The funniest thing I experienced involved me doing something incredibly dumb. I had only been to a couple of games when I caught a home run. A bunch of the former Bums started yelling "throw it back!" I didn't quite understand the reference yet. So I proceeded to toss the ball over my shoulder and into the street in back of me. As to being a stand-up, a few people knew but I never liked mentioning it. Because then people would ask me to tell a joke. I do remember one drunk guy --you might be noticing a theme here - insisting I tell him a joke. He wouldn't leave me alone, so I agreed and started out with the line "So your mom and I were at a hotel...again." He then got mad, tried to take a swing at me and fell across the bleachers.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

What did a beer go for back then? Were you pre-gaming and post-gaming with the Bleacher Bums? Did you have any contact with the Bums outside the stadium?

RICK ELLIS: 

I don't recall the price of beer, other than it was really reasonable. Not much more than you would pay in a regular bar. I didn't see Bums much outside of Wrigley. I went to this bar across the corner from the stadium sometimes before the game. But honestly, I liked the idea of the game experience being a specific thing for me. As I said, I wasn't a huge sports fan back then. So getting drunk while moaning about how much the Cubs sucked really didn't appeal to me.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

You live in Minnesota now. How often do you get to see the Cubs these days?

RICK ELLIS: 

I see them every other year when they play the Twins. They played three games here this season. And my wife and I took our son to a game at Wrigley a couple of years ago for his high school graduation. My son is a huge sports fan and I paid for an MLB.TV subscription so we could watch games at home. The funny thing about that is while my wife thinks baseball is the world's most boring game, after being exposed to so many Cubs games, she has become a fan of the team.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

Back in the 80s, what was the stand-up scene like? There were many more clubs. Was there work every night of the week? 

RICK ELLIS: 

When I started doing stand-up, there were less than a dozen places in the country that were full-time comedy clubs. Within a couple of years, you could go to the smallest town and find at least one place doing a comedy night or two. You could work every night, although the money for one-nighters was fairly dismal. The first road tour I booked for myself involved driving back-and-forth across the Midwest and Rocky Mountains. I ended up doing something like 310 nights in a row and almost all of them involved doing a show, getting in my car and driving a few hundred miles to the next spot. And a lot of times, only making $50 or $100 per night. Once some of the big comedy chains opened, there was the opportunity to make real money. Headlining paid maybe $1,000 a week. Which was great money in the late 1980s.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

Back then, a stand-up's dream was to do The Tonight Show and get a sitcom. Would you agree with that statement? Were you on that path?

RICK ELLIS: 

Yeah, that was pretty much the only way to break through as a stand-up. This was before cable TV had regular stand-up specials and "The Tonight Show" was the place to be "discovered." And being on the show was the most predictable path to a sitcom. That was a tougher road for me because back then I was not the most disciplined comic in the business. If you wanted to be on TV, you needed to carefully hone a couple of tight 7-10 minute routines. Lots of comics I knew did essentially the same act night after night, carefully tweaking bits until they were perfect. I got bored easily. So by the time I was headlining, I generally had a bit I would open and close with. Something that I knew would work. And everything else was free-form, depending on the audience and my mood. I had a couple of hours of material and approached my act a bit like I was a jazz musician. I just let the moment propel me forward. The problem with that approach is that while it's fun to watch - you could watch me five nights in a row and see five different shows - it has an unacceptably high failure rate. Maybe one out of ten shows would just be a disaster. Which was difficult for some club owners to tolerate, even if the other nine shows went incredibly well. The comedy talent coordinator for "The Tonight Show" happened to see me at a show in California and told me afterwards that I was hilarious and certainly funny enough to be on the show. But he motioned at the stage and said "But you can't do that show on television." Which was a fair criticism.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

Did you discuss the Cubs and, or the Bums on stage?

RICK ELLIS: 

Not really. Back then, there were some other Chicago comics talking about that onstage, and I didn't feel as if I had the credibility to discuss it.  

STADIUM JOURNEY:

These days, you've pivoted away from stand-up to writing about all things streaming. How do you make that transition? And how do you go about getting an audience?

RICK ELLIS: 

I stopped doing stand-up in the 90s after my mom had a stroke. I left the road to take care of her, and I was away from the stage for more than two years. At that point, I just couldn't bring myself to essentially start over. And it would have been even more difficult because the comedy boom was ending and it was really competitive. I had done some radio when I was younger and was hired to do a talk show, which eventually turned into a syndicated talk show for a couple of years. I then moved to the Bay Area after I met my now-wife and did financial news. Along with being the voice of a stock-picking sock puppet, I worked for a series of fairly traditional digital news companies until I was laid off three times in two years about a decade ago. I realized that if I wanted to stay in journalism, I needed to create my own destiny. So, I did freelance work for anyone who would have me. And I resurrected a TV site I had had around since the early 2000s to see if I could make a go of it. I was able to, but it took 3-4 years to get there. As for the audience, I think it's just a matter of working away and hoping to create things people want to read and share.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

I think you've attended your fair share of press junkets where celebrities sit for hours and go through an assembly line of journalists and answer the same questions repeatedly. It seems super awkward. Did you ever have a genuine connection with one of the interviewees?

RICK ELLIS: 

Those are the worst and for the most part I have stopped doing them because I would prefer to interview a less well-known actor or writer for 20 minutes than to get 4-5 minutes with a "star." Maybe it's a reflection of my talk radio days, but I enjoy conversation and the unexpected places you can go. There are a few moments that come to mind, including a conversation with rapper Fat Joe about his autistic son. I also have a son on the spectrum. But to be honest, the unexpected connection I remember the most came when I was talking with dancer and choreographer Cris Judd, who had been married to Jennifer Lopez for two years. I interviewed him in connection with a reality TV show he was hosting and was asked ahead of time not to ask about her, which was fine with me. During the interview, he was discussing the emotional aspects of dance and I asked him if he found that dancing had personally helped through some difficult times. He really went into the process of refocusing that pain into a dance performance. And at some point, it was clear he was talking about his break-up with J-Lo, although he never mentioned her. The show publicist called me afterwards to tell me it was his favorite interview ever and he felt a real connection to me, which was gratifying.

STADIUM JOURNEY:

Would you consider a stand-up comeback, or are you completely retired?

RICK ELLIS:

I haven't been to a stand-up club since I stopped performing. I loved doing it and to be honest, I am a better writer and much more comfortable in my skin than I was back then. Funny enough, a few years ago I kicked around the idea of doing a one-camera comedy about an older guy who blows up his life when he decides to return to stand-up. I still think it's a great idea and I still write jokes in my head. I have a pretty tight 20 minutes about being older that no one will ever hear. At the end of it all, I have really fond memories of being a stand-up comedian. But doing it again would involve wrecking my personal life, which I am not willing to do.

Jon Hart is @manversusball