Submitted by Ed Condran — Correspondent
The holidays have worn out Tommy Blaze.
“I have a second-grade Christmas party, a Secret Santa, a Brownies thing and a gift swap over the next two days,” Blaze says, in a call from his Clayton home. “I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to get back to Goodnight’s so I can relax.”
The energetic comic will wax about holiday stress and relationships when he performs Friday and Saturday at Goodnight’s.
“I love talking about the foibles between men and women,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re married, divorced, dating or indicted for murder. I find all of that stuff interesting and relatable.”
Blaze has pressure to succeed, since his 14-year-old daughter, Delaney, is following in her father’s footsteps. She is doing open mic nights at Goodnight’s.
“She’s even signed the Goodnight’s wall, so she feels legitimate,” he says “She’s been doing open mics there since she was 10. She was just there last week. She’s a one-liner comic, which isn’t what I do. She said, ‘I just found out that a tomato is a fruit. If that’s true, does that mean ketchup is a smoothie?’ She just got a part in this movie, ‘God’s Not Dead,’ which is a film Tim Tebow is supposed to be in. They cast her after seeing her on YouTube. She’s getting jobs and I’m not.”
But Blaze is busy. ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door,’ an online comic strip, ( KOHD.org), debuted last week. Blaze writes the strip, which features Spencer, a five-year-old who has conversations with God.
“It’s reminiscent of ‘Winnie The Pooh’ and ‘Calvin and Hobbs,” Blaze says. “A young boy has a relationship with an imaginary friend. Instead of it being with a bear or a tiger, it’s with God. This started as a blog, but my daughter said, ‘This should be a comic strip.’ I have over 200 strips in a book I’ve published. But now we have a real publisher. Things are getting interesting with it.”
Blaze is usually on the road, but he and his wife love raising their 14- and 7-year-old daughters in Clayton.
“It’s a huge upgrade over what we were used to in Central Florida,” he says. “When we moved here four years ago we found culture. It’s a hodgepodge of an existence in Florida. It’s a place where those from the Northeast go when they’re sick of the cold. But I love the school system here and that there are actual North Carolinians here. We’re talking families that have been here for generations. It’s also a short drive to Goodnight’s, which is a good thing for me.”
