Last weekend, I was busy.Judged the comedy competition on Friday, attended an all-day teacher
conference on Saturday, met my best buddy for breakfast on Sunday, then
laundry, etc.This weekend (5/4-5/5/13) was
total freedom in terms of my time but not in terms of going anywhere since
being without enough money is a great limiting factor.However, I can be quite busy at home.
I cleaned my rotary phone which was sitting on the floor all
dusty and collecting dog and human hair.I didn’t want to leave it on the floor, so I cleaned a surface to put it on.Then I
placed a candle next to the phone.“Imagine if you continue,” I told myself.
I wrote erotica instead.
Pseudonymously, of course. I have a story that is coherent and approximately 6000 words so
far.Not sure how to end it.Then I thought that maybe it’s not at the end
yet.I need to sell a novella and collect
some royalties.I’ve sold short stories
of this nature for one-time payments.But I need to get more money.
I mentioned a host in my last blog that goes by the name of
Advocate of Wordz.He’s a poet, actor,
and comic from the Bronx… like me, only younger.He knows how to deliver a poem.This gem is called “Fuck You!”
Though simply because he has the empathy to compare the
situation to men dating a half bear half lion, I’d go out with Louie.He sounds so genuine, I feel like I know him
already.I’d encourage him to work out
at the gym.His body could be that of a
big strong man.I’d try to be
inspiring.
So this weekend, I kind of just floated from one thing to
another with the exception of the dog needing his walks and meals.It is nice to not be rushing or late to
anywhere.Luxurious to take a shower
without a time limit.
The down side of having no particular schedule or structure
for the weekend is I tend to revisit painful times.If I make some progress, gain some insight,
then it was worth it and necessary to heal.But if it is just to fuck with my own head, I can do without that
activity.
I watched “Honey” twice on television. Admired
her abs; cried and smiled during much of the movie.
As of Sunday night, the apartment is still not fit for
company.The erotica long
story/novella-in-progress still has no ending.I bought a bottle of wine.
When I first
tried to be “serious” about stand-up comedy, I took a comedy class with the
wonderfully supportive comic Tommy Koenig http://tommykoenig.ning.com/
through Caroline’s comedy club. The class had a disparate range of oddballs
that wanted to try comedy – mostly people who had regular jobs and had never
performed onstage a day in their lives.There was a Russian guy who could barely speak English enough to be understood. Several
people were extremely shy. Most could write some mildly amusing material, but
had no sense of timing, stage presence, or honesty in their bits. But I admired
the hell out of their bravery, because no matter how many times I have been onstage
in plays and musicals and public speaking events, nothing prepared me for the
overwhelming terror of holding a microphone and trying to make people laugh
for a few minutes. My stomach fills with terror-butterflies. My hand shakes
with uncontrollable spasms. My voice pitches higher. I liken it to skydiving:
standing at the edge of the open door, knowing you have to jump into thin air,
knowing your parachute may not open and you will plummet for several minutes,
knowing you will die, and there is not a thing you can do about it.
Though I had
some cockiness about my stage experience, I was scared to death to mount those
stairs to the stage and try out my material in front of this class. I had lost my mojo
during grad school, when I was stripped of all my “bad habits” and became
incredibly self-conscious and uncertain that I had any talent at all for
acting. Every posture, facial expression, extra pound, regional accent,
character choice, gesture, all of what I thought I had as an asset or skill, was
criticized and examined under an unforgiving microscope. My emotions were
psychoanalyzed, my body betrayed me daily, and I could not memorize my lines
fast enough. I was told I was undisciplined, unfocused, and fairly
uninteresting as an actor. And I was. My dreams of being on Broadway were a
joke, and I felt I was a fraud. Yet, I moved to NYC anyway, shaky and feeling
stupid, and basically apologizing during every audition I attended, as if to
say “I know I suck. Just let me get through this, and I will leave quickly and
never bother you again.” I had performed comedy exactly twice in my life before
I took the class with Tommy: each time for a nationwide comedy contest in
college, in front of a crowd of hundreds of semi-drunk students who laughed at
almost anything. I didn’t win, but loved the thrill. I guess I hoped I could
try to rebuild my damaged ego by attempting the funny.
I loved Tommy’s
encouragement and words of wisdom. He was enthusiastic and gentle and told me I
had great potential with my honest, original material and my natural ease
onstage (despite my spastic hand shaking.) I had to learn to shape my act, and
have endings to my bits, and keep practicing by going to open mics often to
hone my craft. The advice I got from my other comedy mentors,
the hilarious and incredibly supportive Jessica Kirson http://jessicakirson.com/
and wonderfully kind Gotham Comedy Club owner Chris Mazzilli http://gothamcomedyclub.com/page.cfm?id=67
was this: “You have to figure out what you want to do with your comedy. Do you want
to be a stand-up, a comedy writer, a comedic actor, or what?”
Of, course, I
didn’t fucking know what I wanted to do. I still don’t. I just want it all, I
guess.
Today I read an
email from Gotham’s Director of New Talent, Andy Engel, whom I’ve known since
he was New Talent Director at Caroline’s. He posted a link to a site with words
of wisdom/thoughts from my absolute favorite living comic, Louis CK. I fucking
love Louis, and love his show “Louie.” He writes, directs, produces, edits (or
co-edits), and stars in the brilliantly dark and funny series, and I admire him
most for his unfailing honesty and fearlessness onstage and onscreen. My
favorite comics, too many to list right now, are fearless and unapologetically
revealing. And they work (or worked) on their craft doggedly, tirelessly,
sacrificing financial security, commercial success, and a normal family life to
tell their stories. Darryl Hammond would
work six exhausting days a week on Saturday Night Live, and I’d see him
regularly on his ONE night off, Monday, at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich
Village, exercising his comedy muscles to keep himself sharp and relevant. I am
in awe of the professional working comic, because it is a fucking GRIND to keep doing it,
day after day, for shitty pay (when one is not a household “name,”) weeks or
months or years on the road, and little to show for their sweat except the occasional
Comedy Central appearance or Aruba tourism commercial.
Read what Louis
has to say, and watch the clips. Watch “Louie” on F/X or Netflix or Hulu or
wherever you can download the show. Go see him live, of course. He has done something
revolutionary lately: he has started offering tickets to his shows, or five
dollar downloads of his specials, directly through his site https://buy.louisck.net/ , rather than having
to pay Ticketmaster and have the scalpers scoop up the damn tickets and resell
them at insane prices. He writes funny emails to his fans, and he is one
hard-working honest motherfucker.
In honor of
Louis, I decided to be honest and finally (!!!) tell my guy I fucking loved
him. It made my stomach stop flipping around in barf-circles and you know what?
He said he loved me right back. Right then. It doesn’t mean the rules of our
relationship have altered or that all will be rainbows and unicorns from now
on. It means that life is fucking short; people should be told they are loved,
and screw the rules. Screw the system of withholding for the sake of preserving
some sort of pride or ego or preventing heartbreaking pain. It’s all bullshit. Just be
fucking truthful when you want to share something of yourself. It will change
your life. And it may change someone else’s perception that they are all alone
in their weird world, and that feeling of “Hey, I am completely alone and no
one gives a shit what I do or think” might just evaporate briefly and be
replaced with a feeling of “Hey, someone fucking gets me.”
And that, folks,
is why I do what I do. It is scary as hell to be vulnerable and reveal your
guts. But you get to fly out that airplane door, see the world from a wonderful
new perspective, and have the thrill of your goddamn life, parachute be damned.
And this final clip shows jumping out of that airplane door, with the parachute... well, you'll see...
