Blogging is perfect for women because we over-analyze
everything. I’m revisiting Carol Leifer’s
book. She’s had a great career in comedy.
Which brings me to standup in general, and why we do it. Recently, a friend asked me if comedy was
something that I always knew that I would do.
I directly answered “no.” I said
that I originally wanted to be a successful painter. I could always draw. I majored in studio art in college. I discovered that I was meant to paint when I
was twenty years old and I did a semester in Italy. After I graduated, I set out to try and
become an artist. I remember how
daunting it was to have a job and then paint at night and weekends. I enrolled part-time at Mass Art, because I
was so petrified of it all. Becoming an
adult and trying to make it as an artist in an economy and social atmosphere
that does not value artists was a tall order. And the contrast was evident from my visit abroad
where artists are respected and celebrated. I
burned out before I was thirty, due to the fact that I wasn’t selling a ton of
art and I didn’t have a dealer that was representing me.
I’m not entirely sure the answer I gave him is the most
accurate. I did get frustrated with art, but comedy was in my life from way
back. My father was a huge fan of
comedy. He loved Rodney Dangerfield, and
of course, Carson, and he always had a list of street jokes available that he could
share with his old buddies from Phili. I
used to listen to Spike Jones records and grew to become a huge Carlin fan, both
by way of my dad.
If I had my way, and, left to my own devices, I would be in my art studio, rigorously making paintings with the kind of ferocity that
comes from having a psychic space to create.
I loved how in the studio you make discoveries, you ruin paintings, and
then you rediscover in another painting what you didn’t resolve in the first,
and stuff like that. In this hypothetical scenario, I would have a huge studio and
no day job. I would hide away and read shit
like Susan Sontag’s Memoirs and Notebooks
and then get drunk with other artists + writers and argue about the validity of
Roy Litchenstein’s success. What’s funny
is there is not much difference with comics; just replace Litchenstein with
Larry the Cable Guy.
But comedy is like being a painter. You’re the creator. I’m not singing Sondheim. I’m the writer of the lyrics and the melody, and the performer.
I would love to write for television. That’s on my radar. More writing in general might be the key to
unlock my current state of feeling stuck.
And, my God, do I miss painting. So much ADD today. I
had like 15 windows open in my browser. I will list here all that I was trying to
accomplish:
Create listing in TimeOutNY
Log in to stupid online payroll
Write this blog
look at Why My Cat Is Sad twitter page
I think I’m too tired to list the rest.
It’s a boring list anyway. More ADD i.e. on to the next thing (or things)
such as: 1. Find Lorna Doone cookies;
and 2. Tweet about someone’s demise and cats (and Lorna Doones).
