Rick Bauer:  

I'm retired. Yay! I'm fighting cancer. Ewww. But winning at the moment. Yay! Such is life. So what became of me? I'd say I became a wandering spirit with a wicked weakness to feed an insatiable curiosity. One that has lead me to tilt at Pandora's Box more than once. As for paying the bills, I've tried to figure out what is the most fun and do that. I spent a good bit of my life on the creative side of the advertising business, where I used my awesome super powers to force people to spend gobs of money just to make themselves feel proud of themselves. As super powers go I'd rather fly or be invisible or deflect bullets off my chest. But the money was good, food and drink even better, travel fantastic and I have no fear of kryptonite. I blame Mrs. Franks' 9th-grade English for giving me the all writing skills that have helped me pay my bills. Thank you, Mrs. Franks, wherever you are. As for running away from responsibility, I spent a year traveling on my motorcycle, taking odd jobs (fishing boats, ranching, pen riding, gold mining, partying with rock stars and, of course, writing). I called it, "Free Falling into the Awesome Face of Life." Then one day I see this fellow, you know him as Tim Allen, telling some jokes I wrote when working with him back at Western Michigan U. So I figured I could become a comic, ride my motorcycle to gigs and spend nights at this nightly party with a mike and at center stage. I did that for about five years. Stand up is fun. You get fed every night, a place to flop, free drinks and a few minutes at the end of the day where you are the center of attention. Those few minutes are a lot like being a two-year old who refuses to go to bed on time, only people laugh instead of spank you. At least most of the time they don't....Expand for more