He made people laugh over the holidays with his first CD, Bootsie Live and now Comedian Bootsie will get down to the serious business of promoting the CD... and his talents.

"That is the greatest task, marketing it in Bermuda," said Bermuda's top comedian who has been making Bermudians laugh at themselves for the last 14-and-a-half years by poking fun at issues that locals can identify with.

"One thing about in Bermuda, people say they are going to buy but you never know until they do," said a cautiously optimistic Bootsie who will await the response from this CD before venturing into a second one with new material.

"Then we are always last minute, especially men. We do our shopping on the 23rd and 24th of December. My challenge, in my mind, was are they going to buy?"

On the CD, the laugh-a-minute funnyman makes light of two-faced Bermudian women at weddings, being pulled over by the police, ordering Chinese food at New Queen, his advice-giving grandfather, his smart aleck sons - even himself - on his debut CD which went on sale just before Christmas.

Bootsie wrote and produced the CD which was recorded live by DJ Glenn Blakeney and manufactured and printed in New Jersey. The 21-track CD is being sold at five locations throughout the Island, the two Lindo's stores, All Talk, which is located in St. George's, 27th Century Boutique in Hamilton and Caesar's Pharmacy in Somerset.

"It is proving to be a great success," said Bootsie who flew up to the United States just before Christmas to bring back the CD himself to make certain they were available in time for Christmas.

Upon his return to Bermuda he was on the Everest DaCosta Talk Show on radio and by the time he left a couple of hours later the 50 CDs he left at Lindo's had all been sold.

"I tried something different by putting them in Lindo's Market, which has proven to be a great success," said Bootsie.

"Lindo's have been tremendously helpful and I also have them at All Talk in St. George's on the main street. Then there is Caesar's Pharmacy in Somerset, whose owner (Rotimi Martins) has been in my corner for years and years. He was actually one of my acting coaches.

"And then 27th Century Boutique have been with me right from the beginning. Whenever Bootsie has a show everybody knows the tickets are sold at 27th Century. It's only fitting that the CDs get sold at 27th Century."

Bootsie has already had reaction from the $20 price of the CD, which he insists is a good price considering the quality of the CD which is an hour long.

"Someone said to my son, `hey why is the CD so much' and my son says to me, `daddy, why would a man say that?'," Bootsie stated.

"When I go to buy a CD I pay $25 for it. People don't understand the time, money and energy that is sunk into making a CD. I'm wondering is it because I'm local and they don't think they should pay $20 for a professionally made CD'. I have had that response twice."

Getting serious, Bootsie added: "People need to appreciate local artists for who they are and what they are.

"That is so important. A lot of time, energy and late nights go into producing stuff. I see albums come out and people will go into town and buy them for $22 or $23... for one song that last like three minutes!

"Here you have a home grown artist who is clean, family oriented who is producing a CD of an hour and six minutes of good comedy and they say it's not worth it."

Bootsie insists only a few people are complaining about the price, that most are more than willing to support local talent.

"Overall the response has been amazing, especially when I look at where I started," he says.

"I didn't think it would escalate so quickly. I knew I was a little behind the eight ball, being a week away from Christmas, but the response has been unbelievable.

"The challenge was getting it here before Christmas. When we did the commercials we did not promote it as a Christmas album but a Christmas gift, so that after Christmas you can still purchase it. I have loads of new material and if they support this one there'll be another one."

The current CD was 18 months in the making, but was slowed up by the September 11 terror attacks and then the Amthrax scare in the United States last year.

"The material ranges back to the beginning when I first started so it is a collage of a lot of material over the years," he revealed.

"There were a few obstacles that came and set the CD back, so you are looking at a year-and-a-half of little things that kept coming up. There were a lot of trials and tribulations and then there were feelings of whether people were going to buy it.

"Keep in mind, the material goes back over the years so they've heard it. There's not anything completely new that I'm offering a lot of people, however there are a lot of people who have never heard me before, but there is a still a vast amount of the population who have heard me."

He added: "As I stand here today, I'm happy to say that the CD is selling well. There was only a week of pre-Christmas sales.

"The company in New Jersey wanted to ship them, but - and I'm not downing our system here in Bermuda - it's Christmas and everything gets delayed. They are doing their best at the Post Office but it could have been delayed overseas.

"When I came back I stopped to give Lindo's in Devonshire 50 CDs and then went straight to the radio station. I'm on the radio station for two hours and when I come out of the station I get a call from Lindo's telling me to bring them some more CDs!"

Bootsie's wish for the new year is more sales.

"I want to get at least three-quarters of these sold before I start my next album," he explained.

"This next one would be a studio track, but just as funny and based more upon stock jokes - Bootsie style with characters."

Bootsie would like to take his talents overseas and with last year's Christmas Pay-Per-View on CableVision and this year's CD, he has two excellent marketing tools.

"What I did was take that tape last year and send it to a company in North Carolina and these guys have a show every other year that is one of the biggest theatrical functions that you would ever see," said the comedian who appears in many local stage productions and was recently flooded with work.

"They honour 40 black celebrities every other year. I performed for those guys in 1993 and North Carolina just swallowed me up, they had me on the news, in the newspaper and on the TV and I got the opportunity to meet Sidney Poiter.

"After I sent the tape to the company the CEO called me and was so overwhelmed by the tape. Very seldom you get the CEO of a company calling you!"

Bootsie knows what he wants to do ultimately.

"I really want to get into acting as opposed to standup," he disclosed.

"My goal is in theatre and I'm using standup as a launching pad. My goal is Broadway, not necessarily a movie or film.

I love to act and be on stage. I love the live energy."