RENO

I remember discovering the meaning of existential nihilism when I was booked to do comedy in Reno, Nevada.  I think you would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate setting for such a discovery.

So I get booked to do standup for a week at Catch A Rising Star at the Silver Legacy Casino in downtown Reno Nevada.  Considering most of the paid gigs I got booked on at the time were at indistinct wood-paneled function rooms of bygone hotels or old VFW halls in rural parts of New England from another dimension serving up buffet food and cheap wine, I welcomed the idea to get out of dodge.  Funny because Dodge City might be what you would think Reno may be like, but au contraire and even though it isn’t near Reno, it’s definitely cut from the same David Lynchian landscape.  At least, that is how it feels as a New Englander, traveling out West.

Flying to Reno is not as awesome as flying to Vegas, mainly because it’s considerably more expensive.  Also, when you get off the plane, you’re in Reno.  I’m not saying it’s not an exciting place, in fact, I relished in the retro signage and time-capsule feel of the place.  I’m not sure if it ever had a heyday, but it’s known for where people used to go to get a divorce.  Since I technically got divorced twice to the same person, Reno seemed a completely apropos place.  I was living in the moment.

I get my airfare, pack a huge suitcase and I feel like a road comic again.  Leaving Boston in December at the time was exactly what I wanted to do.  On the plane after being up in the air for some time, peering out beyond the clouds, the vegetation began to change dramatically.  By the time you’ve crossed the second time zone, the earth looks like another planet.  Everything has changed from green shrubbery and giant emerald pines to a flat desert of burnt sienna browns and beiges.  After five hours, I land at the airport and right away, it is staggering.  There’s a life sized sculpture of several bighorn sheep in a realistic wildlife setting right there on the carpet.  I’m thinking, I just want to get my bags and maybe a drink.  I wasn’t ready for fake animals.   I’m an artist.  I specifically went to school for drawing and painting, but taxidermy at the airport is more perplexing than any abstract expressionist shit I’ve ever seen.  There’s more disturbing sculptures and paintings  as I make my way down the long, narrow hallway that leads to baggage claim.  I pass a few slot machines, get my bag and then head outside.

The casino has a free shuttle.  Because of this I have gotten spoiled and have been dismayed to find out other airports don’t have free shuttles to the gig.  It’s exciting to fly to the big show though.  A lot of what I had done up until that point in standup was host and feature shows wherever I could get booked.  The most exotic places I’d worked were Vegas and Florida, so Reno follows suit, in that it’s the type of town if you’re heading there, you should pack a gun.  When you feature in a standup show, you go on after the host and before the headliner.  You perform roughly for a half hour.  There’s something about getting out of your usual digs and traveling.  I’m elated to be in the desert even with the eerie sculpture welcoming.  Plus, Catch has a legendary history including discovering and/or nurturing the careers of guys like Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld, so this adds to the elation.  After checking in, showering and spraying my hair, I head down the elevator through the lobby and down an escalator to the club.

The room is set back in the back of the casino on the ground floor of the Silver Legacy casino.   You walk through the lobby, passed all the shops and a few bars, down an escalator where you can peer at the tables and slots from a birds eye view.  Then around more slots to the entrance of the club.  You walk in to a carpeted little number with rows of chairs all facing a rather large, well-lit stage with a piano.  The emcee is Barry Gibb.  Not literally, but he could enter and possibly win a look-alike contest, if there were such a event. Although I was born in the 70’s, I never have, nor since, seen this hairstyle coupled with a beard in real life.  He ends up being the nicest guy in the world.  You couldn’t ask for a room to be warmed up any better.  He plays the piano and jokes with the audience for a good 20 minutes before bringing up the comedians.  I’m so thrilled to be performing on a real stage, with real drinks, sans wood-paneling. 

With my excitement of being in Nevada and my retro sensibilities in tow, I persuaded my friend Christian who was the manager to take me to The Sands after the show.  Its legendary title suggests Vegas swank and old school charm, as in jazz and beehives.  But the Reno version is anything but.  He reluctantly agrees.  We walk about four blocks west passed a casino and through a large parking lot through snow to get to the infamous tower.  The worn carpet of the lobby mocks us as we head toward alcohol.  The yellowing formica bar seemed to mirror the females' sour faces that glare at us like something from a Hunter S. Thompson novel.  The waitress’s gum chewing made me somewhat uneasy, but as a writer I had to confess, “This is perfect!”  Christian on the other hand, is about as excited as cat about to get a bath.  We both look at each other with wonder at the people-watching potential, but we try to play it cool even though we’re secretly fascinated, or I’m fascinated.  We ordered drinks and began to talk shop; comedy, writing, etc..  

We talked about life, wine, the Smiths and The Cosmic Trigger while the extras from My Name is Earl that peppered the bar chatted.  The brightly lit countertop of libations held the same amount of glamour as a bingo game.  There wasn’t going to be any rat pack crooning at this trailer park.  I loved talking with Christian because of his wit and intelligence.  We talked real shit.  I wish that dam gig was still around.  I talked about my family and how I’m dark.  “Dead inside?” he asked.  I laughed.  He is funny too, by the way.  I told him I felt like it’s all a big nothing.  Christian explained, "Existential Nihilism embraces cause and effect in that all feelings and bad experiences are from prior causes . . as a result, there is no free will and nature v. nurture is bullshit too, confirming the futility of it all."  

“Basically,” he went on, “the world lacks meaning or purpose.  All existence; actions, suffering, feelings are senseless.  It literally is all a big nothing.” 

“Oh my God !!!  That’s it ! ! !  That is exactly how I feel ! ! !”  I exclaimed with exasperation. I’m so excited to receive validation of what had been simmering inside of me.  The brooding, the apathy which naturally I was experiencing as a result of death, divorce and disease had a name !  This is nothing short of a revelation, I thought.  Just then, the guy next to Christian, clad in a wife beater with a drug dealer hoodie and Adidas shorts, fell completely off of his barstool.  

SHUT UP AND LOOK GOOD

I started comedy a while ago.   A long time ago.  I was married.  It was different.  I’m a comic in New York now, I’m single, and I am having a hard time.  Well, wait a day and ask me, and I will say it’s great.  A lot of my perspective hinges on where I got on last, how much money I made this month and if my new stuff worked somewhere.  But generally, and in particular, this week, things are shitty.

I’m not a new comic, but upon moving to New York I became new again in a way, having been unfamiliar with most of what goes on in the New York comedy scene.  It’s par for the course when moving to another city.

But when I ponder my situation a little deeper, what’s frustrating for me is my gender.  There comes a time when you realize, people don’t take you seriously if you are female.  People used to say “oh you do comedy that must be so hard.”  At the time I thought they were morons for saying so.  I used to think doing comedy was great.  You go to a club and work out ideas that you’ve been banging around i.e. funny thoughts, jaunts and stabs at people that irritate you.  It’s an activity that makes all the messed up stuff in your life have a shred of meaning and you make people feel better, including yourself.  It’s symbiotic and so creative.  But in time, I began to see what those annoying people meant.  Audiences are reluctant to like female comics.  And then there’s everybody else.   

When I first moved to New York a comic at Dangerfield’s said to me, “men in the Middle East have it right…women should be covered from head to toe in a berka and kept quiet.”  The same week another comedian gave me a spot at one of the clubs.  He was actually nice to me and happy to help me out, but the next night when I didn’t text him back right away, he texted, “Are you drunk or just a retard?”  Another time, in an effort to help me assimilate in New York, a friend of mine connected me with an established comic.  Long story short, the comic asked me to three-way with him and his girlfriend.

The problem starts when you actually want to make some kind of career out of it.  If you’re just doing your “sketches” at little dives here and there, it isn’t affecting anything.  You’re not challenging the status quo.  But when you have something to say, and when you want to be compensated for your work, now you are creating a wake.  In some cases, bookers don’t respect comics of the female gender, therefore, pay them less.  It is sort of known that back in the day, a now famous female comic was paid a lot less than all of the male headliners in Boston.  No wonder she left.    

In New York, it’s competitive.  Male comics will use their yang prowess to try and intimidate people they deem as inferior, I guess in an effort to stroke their own ego.  Either that or they’ll hit on you.  They’ll insult you.  At Times Square Arts Center, one of the comics said to me “I would never put two female comics on in a row…”  He really should just be embarrassed.  They also underestimate your  intelligence.  I don’t give a fuck what skinny, loser comics who are high have to say.  They are going for the easiest target which makes me question their intelligence and just screams insecurity.  They are trying to make me feel bad.  Look frightened little boy, it’s obvious you are steeped in self-hatred and exhaustion from having to suppress so many secret homosexual urges, that your shame only elicits intense insecurity, I’m here to tell ya, the rest of society takes care of my feeling bad about myself.  Women experience this constantly with sexist, objectifying images in advertising, in conversations and inappropriate glances.  Do you think your stupid comment is upsetting?  You’re just a buffoon, who’s clearly threatened by the possibility that a female comic will steal your shitty $25 dollar spot at a dump in the theatre district.  At the time, I didn’t respond.  But I probably should have at least told him to f**k off.

When frustrated with standup, I used to say “I should have been a dancer,” probably because society values women by their looks.  They really want us to just shut up and look good.  We are socialized to believe that women are second class citizens.  Female comics have to work hard despite this.[1]  Everybody acts like I’m wrong because I want to be valued for my intelligence and talent and everything but my looks.  If I felt I was good looking, I wouldn’t be doing standup in the first place and female comics who are trying to use their looks just want fame and are not into the craft and probably really want to be an actress. 

This is a bigger issue than I thought.  Because a baby comes out of our person, we are somehow deemed as less than?   When you see a guy comic two years in, who automatically receives more credibility from the audience than your 14 years, it’s disheartening to say the least.  side note: I did read Gloria Steinem books when I was seventeen, followed by Camile Paglia, among others.  But I  sort of blocked it out for a period of time. I think for a while I chose to look the other way, for fear that I would be miserable if I was always thinking about this.  However, now that I do standup, and I’m a lot older, there is absolutely no escaping the staunch reality of sexism and inequality.  It only magnifies with time.

People have gone out of their way after a show to say “we don’t usually like female comics, but we really liked you.”  A booker of a big club in Boston said to me while we were backstage about a comic who was on stage, “she’s not that funny but she’s nice to look at.”   

Another time in Boston a booker told me right to my face that “all these paid comics are hacky…”  He was only referring to some of the funniest comedians ever on the planet.  He also mentioned my then husband.  Why would you say that to someone’s wife?  Was I supposed to be impressed by a guy who never paid comics upstairs from a Chinese restaurant?  Maybe people just think that my entire gender is dumb. 

[The word cunt doesn’t offend me at all.

Most of the time when I use it, I’m referring to a man]

-Tweet from me:  @stacykendro

Often society’s message is we’re just arm candy.  How quaint.  A large part of being female (and this is deep in the psyche of most women) is the need to ingratiate yourself to people.  That’s the hard part – being so dam agreeable.  We are socialized to make others feel comfortable, which means if you are a jerk to me, I will smile.  Sometimes, that is the thing for someone with manners to do.  However, don’t mistake my politeness for passivity.  Now I’m talking about New York.  In an effort to take the high road, or to make you believe you didn’t really get to me, I might not retaliate right away.  But just know that I’m Albanian.  I will be planning your demise.  Well, at least I will go home and write about you, but take heed because if you catch me on a bad day, who knows.  Even though “vendetta” is an Italian word, just ask people in the Bronx and they’ll tell you which nationality is scarier.

---

[1] I think some women are confused about where their gender fits into performing.  They dress up too much.  They dress provocatively.  A lot of skin showing.  They look like a friggen peacock.  I like George Carlin.  He dressed in all black.  Like an artist.  If you are a singer or a stripper, then by all means, wear the dress.  I just don’t see the connection with comedy.  You see minimalist theatre and they are in all black.  They’re not stuffed in a dress, in heels with their arms showing. 

UFC v. Old Guy

Let’s talk about men.  Yes the security guy at the front desk is cute, he does some kind of mixed martial arts, but he’s young.  Gay boyfriend was puzzled about how that could be a problem.  My thinking is this:  that guy can’t take me to the Essex House where I can comfortably sink into a fancy leather seat to drink top shelf martinis while taking in the wondrous aroma of whiskey and cigar smoke and talk about the latest Paul Krugman piece and possibly about art (whereas, an older gentleman can).  He probably shaves his pubes off.  And he wrestles with other men.  Gay boyfriend was still puzzled.  So in an effort to elaborate, I will do a compare and contrast argument with older v. younger, and I will entitle the latter “UFC”.  UFC definitely doesn’t have a beach house where I could drop the day job and go write my memoirs.  Even if that translates into squandering the time drinking too much and getting nothing done, where my ultimate and inevitable return would produce little writing and one big hangover, at least the opportunity to attempt a first draft would be there.  And I’d be tan.  UFC guy wouldn’t take me to fancy places like the Hamptons or Cape May.  His regular watering hole is probably in Bayonne.  Although, he most likely wouldn’t drink in lieu of fight preparation, so I imagine spending time with him could entail moseying around Prospect Park drinking energy drinks and green tea.  Maybe he’s not from Brooklyn but it doesn’t matter.  I don’t like parks.  I like the ocean and I like men who want to go boating.  UFC guy would grow completely weary from my intellectual rantings regarding the mastery of Peter Bogdonavich and how I need to go to San Francisco to remember the artist within that I feel I somehow left there.  Even though he’s handsome, he smells like cabbage.  He’s got that trimmed beard with a crew cut thing going on that’s wicked hot, but I’m at least ten years older than he is.  If in conversation he didn’t know of Mr. Roper (or some other important cultural icon), I would be mortified.

My father was forty-two when I was born.  His heyday was the fifties.  He used to prowl the Wildwood boardwalk with his drinking buddies and go listen to jazz.  I’ve taken just about all of my musical influence from him, from Harry James to John Coltrane.  And then there’s comedy.  That generation loved Johnny Carson.  He explained to me who Jack Parr was.  Growing up he used to play old Spike Jones records for me and do imitations of Peter Lory.  UFC guy has never even seen The Pink Panther.  Maybe what I’m saying is I have retro sensibilities, but more importantly, I think I'm saying I’m an old soul.  My friends all say i look young so I should go for it, but the truth is, that is not who I am on the inside.    

An older gentlemen would have a beach house.  He would think it was cute that I like vodka for dinner and he would always be concerned that I was alright.  He would call a lot and ask where I was.  The old school man wants to keep tabs on you because that's how they roll.  "Where are you?" is a common text and they get mad when you don't respond.  

Old guy wouldn’t think anything of coming to get me, wherever I was.  In New York, you’re lucky if you get a guy to leave his borough.  Another thing, it doesn’t have to always happen, but it's nice when a man scampers ahead to get the door, which seems somehow like a lost art. 

UFC guy has had so much pussy waving around, he doesn’t understand how to make a princess feel like a queen.  Old guy does.  Old guy also gets the whole jewelry thing too.  UFC guy has tattoos which is kind of cool but the first time I caught him looking at himself in the mirror, I think it’d be over.  Also he’s had more than one threesome and I’m just too old for that shit.

And further, New York guys don’t think they need to do anything.  They take you to a wine bar once and then expect sex.  It’s absolutely unacceptable.  Old guy would go so far out of his way to please his future bride and he would have the couth and intuition to wait until the time was right.  He would buy stuff and go for long weekend trips.  UFC picks up women from bars who dress sparingly and look like they’re twelve.  An older gentleman knows how to feed the Cinderella complex.  The only complex UFC is familiar with is Napolean.  I think I’ve made my point.  It is something I had to write out, because having several cougar friends, I just wanted to get my side heard.  But cheers to both types because God knows what we would do without contrast! 

Unofficial Bridesmaid

I have a roommate who I call No Tits because she broke my balls from the jump when she first moved in (having fits over tablecloths, not having boundaries, criticizing my belongings and just generally being a rude entitled frizzy haired wench).  Surprisingly, someone moved in after her who was worse.  The new roommate who moved in, I refer to as the premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-riddled-Jihadist-Macedonian-with-borderline (Jihad for short) has become extremely difficult to live with, thus has rendered No Tits and I, buddies.  (Jihad actually replaced the former roommate who was an obsessive-compulsive-anorexic-vegan-germaphobic-violinist-singer).  At any rate, the other day, the Jihadist and I had it out.  It was a short burst of an argument that escalated very quickly, ending with me calling her a twat.  I haven’t been that proud of moment in a while.  As a result, No Tits and I have a new found almost friendship, and subsequently I was subjected to a long-winded story about the pre-matrimonial celebration of some other bird, whom I imagine is also from Queens.  (how revolting).

No Tits informed me that she would be partaking in her best friend’s wedding as an “unofficial bridesmaid.”  It is not clear why she was given the less than desirable title of an un-thing.  I suspect that the bride had too many candidates to choose from and did not want to create a hierarchy or pit members of the would-be bridal party against each other.  It’s as if she is saying, “the matching dress thing I can do without, but I still need someone to do all the pre-wedding party stuff, so we’ll have to call her something pretty close to bridesmaid.”  So, No Tits doesn’t get a real title.  She does all the work without the glory. 

Bridesmaids usually are kind of strange looking with their weird taffeta dresses and goofy up-do’s.  I often wonder what happens to them, because you know what they say; once a bridesmaid . . . . she’ll probably get an abortion and move to Reno . . .(and I imagine she goes on to live a sad, loveless life as an alcoholic residing in some small town with an old powder blue Chevy Malibu on blocks in the front yard, sad and forgotten about, like the love she'd always wished she were pretty enough to know). 

No Tits planned the engagement party, the bridal shower and the bachelorette party.  Lack of being blessed well endowed aside, she is doing a service to her friend out of love and she informed me that the other bitches are chiming in, because they don’t like her having a position of power (however unofficial it may be).  They drop comments.  They dis her planning.  They walked out of one event because it wasn’t open bar, leaving No Tits with a $300 alcohol tab, which she paid.  Proper etiquette dictates that the family of the bride should host the shower.  According to Emily Post, “it is not within the responsibilities of the bridal shower to do so, although they can if they want.”   Also, I’m pretty sure the maid of honor shouldn’t be doing all three events i.e. everything. 

Because of the mother’s absence, the other fraulines should have stepped up.  Instead they criticized the almost bridesmaid who is handling all three events.  Poor No Tits.  I can’t believe I am feeling compassion for someone who caused me much grief in the beginning of our relationship.  She is grinning and bearing it for her friend.  No Tits is a bigger person than me, because I wouldn’t have lasted through the first half of the not open bar engagement party as an unofficial bridesmaid.  I’da been all “I don’t think so sluts.”  Not because of lack of booze, but because these people have no class.     

The problem with this unofficial bridal party is that every female should be working together to pick up the slack to make the celebration happen, where the mother clearly has dropped the ball.  But instead, they are being outright rude and entitled.  Maybe they’re pissed they weren’t bridesmaids. 

I got all this information in the kitchen, which is where N.T. and I usually converse.  At the end of her story, she divulged that she will be wearing a very low cut dress for the bachelorette party, but that it didn’t matter because she has no tits.  Life does take strange twists and turns, but I honestly found my way around from really not getting along with this roommate, whom admittedly, I gave a terrible nickname, to cheering her on in her battle over the senseless gaggle of nit-picking hens.

reference:  emilypost.com/book/emily-posts-wedding-etiquette/

CRASHING: INTERVIEW WITH GENO BISCONTE

I’ve been recording a podcast with a friend of mine.  For weeks we hadn't launched it because we’re comics.  What that means is we’re not organized.  It took a while but now we have it here.  The podcast is called Comic’ly Unstable.  This week we interviewed Geno Bisconte, who is a great, funny comedian and best friend of the host, Tommy A.  Geno has his own show on the Cumia Network and you can go check it out here:  www.compoundmedia.com/show/in-hot-water/   We all go way back and the connection is comedy and Brooklyn.  Those two lived together at one point and although it was a great interview, the bromance between them was practically filling the room like a big, thick cloud.
   

Comedy careers have ups and downs and are completely unpredictable.  My experience is sometimes you’re in Vegas making serious money and sometimes you’re in rural Pennsylvania telling jokes to a drunk bridal party for $100 bucks questioning all of your life decisions up until that point.    After talking with Geno it became evident that his timeline has been no less dramatic.  Recent highlights for him are appearing in HBO’s Crashing a new sitcom starring Pete Holmes about standup comics in New York.  He was invited to roast Gary Busey at the Friar’s club which is a New York staple for show business.  It was founded by Milton Berle and the current abbot is Jerry Lewis.  All that said, the interview was more about hard times and how to endure them, and coming out the other side.

He told us at one point, he was living in his car.  The lease ended at his apartment and his then roommate was going to LA and rather than deal with getting a new apartment right away, he decided to wing it.  He slept in Jersey at his aunts at times, and much like Pete Holmes character in the aforementioned show Crashing, he slept on friends’ couches. 

What I came away with after listening to him is that it might get impossibly hard, but it will be worth it to stick it out.  New York and living for your art is pretty challenging.  Particularly, (especially) if you’ve chosen either New York or LA.  You have ups and downs and take risks that would cripple other people.  I suspect most people would never wager such a bet because it definitely blows up in your face at times.  You do shows, you get work, you get fired, you get rejected.  You do shitty gigs, and you probably develop a drinking problem, but here’s a side note, if your life is in the toilet but you are grateful for those gigs, you might be headed in the right direction.  I’d rather enjoy myself at a dump in New Jersey and have a good time than be sitting in the back of the room rolling my eyes and lamenting at how shitty it all is.  But we’ve all been on either side of that fence.

The business is tough.  You have to have conviction.  I suspect that the wake that is created by trying to be true to yourself will be made up of the good, the bad and the ugly.  <---- but how amazing is that?  You have to deal with the shit, but you ultimately will revel in the glory.  I think this is what he was getting at.

My take after doing standup 14 years, and the point of a lot of what Mr. Bisconte was getting at, is the fallout that sticking to your guns creates is, at times unbearable, albeit fucked up.  You lose relationships, apartments, jobs, cars.  There is no safety net and it’s terrifying, but you have to stick it out. <--- (this is exactly what I’m currently going through with comedy + life).  But isn’t it strange i.e. the universe’s timing of this interview and my own crisis?  <--- (maybe not.  Most comics are having crises).

If you are gifted the freedom of a catastrophe, but then get to the point where you’re not ruined by it, I bet it’s the best feeling in the world.  I’m still going through it, so I’m suffering somewhat, but Geno seemed content.  I must state this again because none of the comics I know feel this way ---> he seemed happy ! 

We’re all sort of waiting for the reward, but I’m sensing that it’s already here.  <--- the trick is to feel that way regardless of circumstances.  Artists live life on their own terms, which isn’t always great, but I think it’s the conviction of saying “I can do this” that is so empowering.  You can come out the other side and say you didn’t die.  You’re still here as Elaine Stritch epitomized.  At present, I have a part-time office job, roommates from hell & my car got totaled so I’m not 100% feeling this, I’m sort of mad at the universe, but you know who isn’t?  Geno Bisconte.  Twitter: https://twitter.com/genobisconte

GREEK FORTRESS

I have a lot going on right now.  I live with awful roommates.  I’m always trying to not be home so I don’t have to see one of the pterodactyls.  That’s what it’s come to.  I’ve assigned a nickname of an ugly prehistoric bird to the people that I share an apartment with.  I live in an abundantly-tiled Greek house that resembles a fortress that begins with a nose-bleed angled, city code-defying cement staircase that leads up to the main floor.  The first floor is half in the ground.  They call that “garden level” in New York, which was probably invented by real estate agents, because all feasible square footage is rented out in this city.  In other states, what towns call a cellar, in New York is a shitty basement apartment.  

The landlord of said dwelling lives upstairs.  He is a plump, talkative Greek man who speaks as if he has a swollen tongue that’s gotten pinned while wrestling with the rest of his mouth to spit out the English language.   After he has spoken in his long-winded, overly self-indulgent manner in extreme broken English for what seems like an eternity, I often say, “what?!” 

I cannot begin to express the violence I feel for all of these people.  Because of this, I realize I do need to work on myself some, while simultaneously feel completely validated in imagining their untimely, somewhat horrific demise.

Yesterday I heard a knock at the door roughly around 5:30PM.   I had a sneaking suspicion Aristotle Onasis was on the other side of the door waiting to proclaim his case for bothering me in grunts that resemble communication.  Avoidance doesn’t really work with this fisherman.  After several tries at knocking with no answer, he walked back down the hallway towards the foyer, opened the front door to the house – a grown man mind you – reached his arm outside and rang the buzzer to my apartment.  The shrill, earsplitting decibels of the buzzer could wake up an entire submarine regimen.  He leaned on the buzzer too, to be extra annoying.  How quaint.  I still ignore it.  After the fourth or fifth time, I begin to reach exasperation, I virulently open the door to ask him what he wants.  I yell at him stating that I’m not really dressed and what the hell is so important (clearly he doesn’t get the hint that nobody wants to talk to him).  Even his wife sleeps in Flushing.  

First he asks if we have a washing machine in the house, which is just “THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE RINGING THE DOORBELL LIKE A FUCKING PSYCHO FOR ???????  REALLY!!??!!”  First of all, the pterodactyls can’t afford soap or paper towels, so it’s funny to me that he would even think that they bought an appliance.  Then he says he’s bringing the ladder for one of the roommates (the one I choose to call the Macedonian whore – she’s in a different blog).  I proceed to just yell at him, telling him to leave it in the hallway because I’m in my pajamas and then shut the door.

Lack of understanding American social moors or boundaries might be what he hides behind as a disguise to get people to interact with him.  That aside, describing him as wildly inappropriate doesn’t seem to stress enough what he is.  He tells the neighbors I’m his girlfriend.   He makes offers of taking me to Greece.  One time he and his family had come back from a wedding (this was before his wife retired to another part of the borough).  It was late.  The weather was nice, so I was sitting outside, smoking.  Most likely he spotted me from his balcony about, then rushed downstairs to bother me.  He was in a robe and his rotund, watermelon-like stomach was sticking out.  He made small talk and then quickly proceeded to show off his construction chops by showing me pictures on his phone of the Athens condo that he built out.  I may have been indulging him because the rent was late, I can’t remember looking back.  I am a comedian after all, I can’t really just walk away when people are being ludicrous).  But also I had had some wine and it was kind of entertaining.  In hindsight, I’m questioning why I was so polite toward Baklava.  Sometimes you have to be gracious in the face of others’ rudeness.  He has invited me to go live with him in Greece on more than one occasion.  He’s so lucky I don’t have a gun.  It’s just so wrong that I can’t even make it clever. 

I did get him back though.  He asked me how old I thought he was once, and I said seventy.  It’s not clear exactly how old he is, but he’s arrogant, so in his mind he’s still in his fifties, and by his reaction it’s clear I was way off (but not by much I suspect).  A hundred bucks says he’s sixty-nine.

LETTERS TO ROOMMATES

Letter to Roommate #1

Dear Roommate #1 (aka the Jihadist): Everyone knows leaving hostile sticky notes is just bad form.  So, don’t take this the wrong way, but when you wonder why you’re floating up to heaven, the answer is that you didn’t belong on the planet.  The mere existence of your person is just completely wrecking my universe.  I’m sorry you have a lot of periods, but (a) I’m not sure why you want to share that with me and (b) there are things you can take for that (for fuck’s sake).  And why, mother of God, is every light in the fucking house on?  I swear to God if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’m going to disconnect the fucking awful florescent lights that you insist on keeping on 24/7 in the kitchen.  But let’s get on with the real issue. 

I know you’re European and everything (so you think tight jeans and boots is a great look, but I’m here to tell you, they don’t have rodeos in Queens.  Also walking around the kitchen back and forth in said thick-heeled, slut boots at 9:00 a.m. is weird and kind of rude.  You do this early in the morning on a Saturday when people are trying to sleep.  You do it in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday.  Does it make you feel thin, or more horse-like?  I just want to get a sense of why, particularly because I’m trying to get some god forsaken sleep, but I can’t, because I’m bewildered by your strange domestic patterns.  That, and what’s with you and the fucking kitchen.  Get a life.  You shouldn’t stay holed up in the house all day it’s not healthy, and your hair is greasy and there is an odor coming from your Etruscan cave of a bedroom.

You’re crashing dishes and whatever around too – my dishes, incidentally, because you don’t own anything.  You leave them in the sink until things are growing from them.  God forbid anyone make a request that the dishes be done more frequently, because then you blow up like a PMS-ridden-guerilla-psychopath.  It felt very satisfying to block you on my phone, by the way, because I refuse to read text rants, which until I saw them, I didn’t believe they existed.  Your generation doesn’t know how to do anything unless it’s on an app, so I get it, but it doesn’t make it valid.  My generation doesn’t text.  We want a face to face where I will break your nose.

I don’t even want to be writing this shit, but I am so exasperated, I’m about to buy firearms.  I suspect that is the nature of the roommate situation, but that is giving you too much credit.  To act like a cunt over a cabinet shelf and leaving bitchy notes around the apartment means you have mental issues.  I doubt you are in therapy considering you seldom buy anything that resembles a paper product, and you don’t seem to be getting any relief from that meditation class.  I’m trying to keep this light because really I’m praying that you get captured by ICE on your trip back from the motherland, because you’ve been nothing short of a tyrannical nazi whore.  PS – I don’t want any fucking Turkish coffee.  Americans don’t like that shit.  PS2 – no one will ever marry you.

* * *

Letter to Roommate #2

This is a sincere continuance of the roommate letter, but to the other, more pterodactyl-like one who has, and whom I will now refer to as, No Tits.

Dear No Tits:  I know you like to come home and talk on the phone really loud to whoever is on the other end, which, I find astounding that anyone would actually listen to you, because your voice makes me want to scratch my own eyes out.  I’ve never before felt the urge to run across a room and dive out a window than after I’ve heard a diatribe coming from your trachea.  And loud, loquacious vocalizations in the living room the way neurotic cats tend to do at 3:00 a.m. probably makes sense to your rather pigeon-like brain, I’m sure, because although you have a room you could go into to do such things, why not make sure the whole house is disturbed?  You laugh a lot, but it’s like a nervous, right before you lose touch with reality type laugh, and you have weird frizzy hair and seem somewhat dim-witted.  In my act I refer to you as Pennsylvania barnyard stupid.  But, since it creates a furrow in my being, I have stopped talking about you on stage, except to say the part where I believe you sleep upside down in your closet. 

I know this probably seems somewhat hostile, especially considering I smile and try to be pleasant, because that is, in fact, my nature.  But really it’s because I’m imagining your untimely and fairly brutal demise.  It’s the only way I can get through this phase of living in New York affordably, which clearly, I should have thought out better.  My hostility started when you began making comments about my furniture.   You wanted to organize my belongings which frankly are none of your business.  You made comments about my armoire.  The irony is that when you moved in, you didn’t own anything.  Not even a lamp.  You threw a fit because of a table cloth and then minutes later offered me some salmon.  Maybe your medication is off.  I can’t even list it all because I feel more gray hair coming in as I type.

And although I usually cringe at your stories that disclose personal information about your dumb life, when you told me that you had celiac and couldn’t shit, I nearly wept with joy.  I must admit, however fleeting, I was almost grateful for the debacle of my artist-led existence in this over-tiled Greek fortress of a house in stupid Queens.  I found myself almost faint.  Even though living with you has overshadowed other unfortunate living situations, such as the alcoholic who made puppets or the Hawaiian violinist who was in Cabaret on Broadway and referred to its star as “Al” (Alan Cumming) because they were buddies, your having an issue with your dairy air made me almost feel guilty for calling you NTBN – (which is short for No Tits Big Nose).  I would feel guilty except it’s caught on with all of my friends and it provides humor that clearly this household lacks.  And P.S. fuck you too.

PEOPLE NEED TO DIE.

a list of people and their douchebaggery

Lately I want to quit standup almost every day.  It’s not performing itself that is driving me crazy.  I think it’s New York.  I have a lot of (don’t say irons in the fire!!!) things going on.  Maybe my problems have two prongs like a kangaroo (look it up).  Prong 1: I seem to get overwhelmed with unstructured time.  Prong 2:  people are generally awful.

There are so many things that suck about New York that I won’t even mention the constant smell of urine and halal.  I moved here going on four years ago.  My first set of roommates were great. One was an editor and the other made puppets.<---- sure they drank beer and whatever but they were nice guys.  My second apartment in the beginning was awesome.  I lived with two sane women.  That was the last time I would be able to say that because after those two moved out, my living situation that followed had been comprised of reptilian dwelling PMS ridden floozies.  I was so distraught mainly because the first set were so great. That's what delineates everything else as so abhorrent.  The first two I clicked with.  I moved in and we all got along beautifully.  There were no petty quibbles or trivial objections about towels or who put what where.  I like to think that I am pretty easy going.  I never would comment about other people’s furniture particularly after having moved in last.  I would never break balls about an antique or a table.  You know who does that?  Bitches with no furniture. <----- I wrote about this particular topic having coined a new pseudonym for this specific roommate of “pterodactyl.” The two amazing roommates ? one went to Houston to get married and the other moved in with her Bulgarian boyfriend in a different part of Astoria.  Sadly, they were replaced by juvenile water dragons with perpetual PMS.  

The Eastern European wears skin tight jeans with whore boots.  There must be a rodeo in town (I don’t believe Queens, New York hosts such types of activities but I suppose one never knows).  The other one is a textbook narcissist with an enormous rear end.  I must have been like a serial killer in a past life to have been given such a treacherous plight.  You can read about them in more detail here.   

While roommate drama is threatening my very sanity, I did a show for a theatre in Massachusetts.  I don’t want to name names but I’ll say it something Center for the Arts.  It was in Natick.  After the show, the headliner and I were standing at the doorway greeting the audience as they were slowly filing out.  People commented how much they liked the show.  A friend of the headliner came over.  They greeted each other with a hug and then the friend proclaimed, “I was waiting for you to do that bit about the underwear.”  The female comedian replied “well there was enough filth that went on before me that I left it out,” implying that the other comedians, which - I was the only one standing there at the time, did too much dirty material for her to then follow with some stupid bit about underwear.  (insert gunshot noises grenades, rocket launchers & flame throwers) 

MORE LATER.  SIGNING OUT. 

-the Albanian Detractor

WE WON'T GET SWOOPED AGAIN

This is my blog.  It’s sometimes about being an artist.  A lot of times it’s about people that aggravate me.  This one is about the heart.  

Here we go--->It instantly turns you into an emotional catastrophe when you care.  When you don’t care, you have total control.  Nobody can get to you (it’s pretty awesome).  The only downfall is oddly, in time, you find yourself having a strange hankering to play lacrosse. 

The cute ones get to ya.  I hate that.  It’s not fair.  I am not self-absorbed and I am not full of myself, BUT lately a lot of persons of the male persuasion have been barking up this tree.  My gay boyfriend Eddie says “throw one of them a bone.”  None of them are even in the right galaxy.  I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but everyone is out of my league… except…  hence, where the trouble lies… the fucking good looking one.  That makes me sound superficial……… and I’m not.  I’m talking about the guy that makes you stop eating, hit the gym, shave your legs, do your toenails and do your hair.  Let me tell you something: I have not had a boyfriend in ten years.  So, if I actually shave something or get my feet done, it’s fucking real.  My writing is suddenly taking on an epic Maury Pauvich-like quality.  I’m not meaning to be dramatic  <--- RIGHT THERE !!!  I’m being dramatic !!!  OH fuck.  This is not good.  For several years, I’ve been dressing and acting like a gym teacher.  I don’t want to characterize, generalize or sound like there is anything particularly wrong with saying gym teacher instead of lesbian, but I do want to stress that morphing into a basketball coach is just a defense mechanism I use to protect myself from getting hurt.  I’m no genius, believe me, but I suspect if someone makes you stop wanting to organize an indoor gymnasium kickball game, it is serious business. 

But when you really like someone, they ruin your life.  You begin to obsess about how you will get to see them.  You scheme.  You ask your friends.  You follow his stupid Instagram.  If he doesn't like stuff on your Twitter, you’re crushed.  That’s just weird and stupid.  And, when you don’t see him it hurts.  This is love my friends.  It doesn’t strike often.  The risk is you might have a fiery romance that can potentially end abruptly, and then you are left crying on the kitchen floor.  Funny, I’m already jumping to the breakup.  Another absurd symptom that you’ve fallen hard; oscillating between bliss and plummeting into despair, and disaster-izing about a relationship that doesn’t even exist.  Holy smoking ovaries Robin, I’m bat-shit!!!!  The stupid thing is I want this.  Love swoops in.  You can’t control it, you certainly can’t change it.  You can’t do anything about it.  You’re fucked.  

What I find completely recalcitrant is the other kind of swoop.  Love is never portrayed accurately in tinsel town.  At least not now.  Why is the leading man ugly can I just put that out there?  Has anyone seen Rock Hudson?  That is a leading man.  In modern movies, when the girl character gets her heart broken, the ugly guy makes his move.  I’m sorry but, first of all, gross.  Second of all, this happens in Under The Tuscan Sun.  This got under my skin so bad that in an effort to assuage the ickiness that that particularly ridiculous Hollywood ending creates in my brain, I’ve coined the phrase the “ugly guy swoop.”  After the handsome guy doesn’t work out, she’s given up and begun decorating her Etruscan villa, the tall, goofy, big-nose, curly-haired doofus shows up and gets her when she’s vulnerable.  Um, Diane Lane is gorgeous.  She’d never fall for an ugly guy swoop, even if he is a writer.  It just wouldn’t happen.  Disbelief not suspended. 

THIS IS A TOUGH ONE

The short version=I got a divorce and I haven’t dated. 

The longer version=

My tough girl shell is thick.  Recently I heard something on the radio that was describing men as distant and unemotional.  I grew up with my dad so I have taken on many male characteristics like drinking and watching boxing, and what they mentioned.

Writing about what is happening right now is really intimidating because you gotta be honest and junk.  It’s not that I want to remain a mystery (I suspect that is exactly what I want), but I will go as far as to say that I don’t like people knowing more about me than I want them to.  This is all me just prefacing.

I haven’t even gotten to my career and my situation.  I’m still prefacing.  (Is that a verb?)  I am aware that I am guarded.  The most incredible human (this guy Michael who passed) told me so.  I don’t like anyone.  It’s kind of a problem.  So I’m writing this to figure out what is going on, so that I can get some insight and then maybe get passed it.  I have a feeling that the act of writing is going to assist me. (insert gunshot noise)

I love to go around the world with my ideas before I get into what is true, the core stuff, which is the meat of it all.  I should always be trying to go for that, because I am an artist.  Growing up with a sick mother who left, and a dad that was working and drank and then married an alcoholic monster, I learned to pretend everything is ok to such an exquisite perfection that half of the time, I don’t even know what I’m feeling.  I’m getting better at sorting it all out.  I’m figuring out that the stuff that is buried is where the gold is.    

I do stand-up comedy.  Kinda weird.  It sets me apart from the ordinary human inasmuch as I am a being, who writes and then performs what I write, and then people give me money for it.  Simply put, this is not a traditionally female thing to do (not my opinion and/or not me being sexist, it’s more of an observation of society and I’m trying to get to a hypothesis as to why I’m still single).  On stage, alone, on the proverbial soapbox, saying my plea to the masses is sort of what it is.  In old times vernacular they called it an orator.  It is not something that is yin energy.  It is yang/male energy.  Because I’ve been around comedy a while, I’m here to tell you that when a male person is doing the aforementioned type of performance, it is extremely attractive to women.  Not quite rockstar status, but in the same way.  Because, I guess, the person is taking control, they are performing, it’s creative and thus, a turn-on.  But when a woman is on stage, it does not have the same effect on men.

All of that is true, which is convenient if you are trying to sort of hide from your own sexuality.  (I wear men’s Adidas pants only, and lately I sexually identify as a janitor).  I don’t want to give my failed marriage the dignity of writing about it.  I want Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for that chapter of my life.  That was that movie where you could go to a place and they would erase all your memories from a relationship. 

It’s just that my divorce was so Shakespearean.  People used to ask me about it and I didn’t even know how to respond.  I was so traumatized by it.  If we had parted ways maybe two years sooner, it still would have sucked, but it wouldn’t have been so epically tragic.  (I kind of want to write this whole thing over again). 

Why is this so hard?  I feel like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City, except I’m having no sex and my articles aren’t published.  Although ironically, I recently met Chris Noth.  His friend was hitting on my girlfriend Laura hard at Mimi’s on Second Avenue.  At any rate, Noth is still hot, albeit gray, but he’s Greek (they’re the worst) and married.   

If you truly love someone, like for reals, with all your heart and soul, and you love spending time with them, you go before God and all, I’m here to tell you: it still might not work.  What the hell kinda fucked up shit is that?

Now the article has started.  This right here is where I’m stuck.  I never got my answer.  I decided it was God’s fault (since we got married in church in Southie, with the candles and the procession and everything).    

This is a tough one because I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to write about it.  I want to be like Woody Allen.  His screenplays are so honest and are nothing short of brilliant.  In Manhattan, Woody Allen’s character tries to run over his ex-wife’s new lesbian lover.  The ex-wife is publishing a tell-all.  He is so specific in characterizing neurosis.  Instead of furiously posting to my zero followers on blogspot, maybe I should write a play.  Or try to run someone over.

Well let’s close out this debacle of a blog so I can write a play about a vindictive Albanian princess who plots the untimely demise of people who have wronged her and Chaz Palmeinteri will play the sleazy villan.   

February Inspirational

Today was interesting.  You ever have one of those days? 

I was coming back from Boston – something us comics have to do.  Travel.  It’s cool because you make money but it gets rough.  For example, today I ate a hard boiled egg, chex mix and a donut.  I was coming back to New York to do a show with the same format as the Dating Game.  I was late so I’m booking it through the Bronx.  I get to the club and it’s just a regular show.  Shit.  I went to the wrong location.  Since I won’t make it to the Dating Game, I figured I’d hang.  I ended up chatting with a comic I knew and fairly quick into the conversation he was saying he’d reached a point where he figured out that you have to own what we do.  You have to let go of stress, in particular from a day job.  Most humans have to deal with some sort of similar job-type thing, but for us creators it is so useless and soul sucking.  It doesn’t serve us.  It was funny because we got right to it.  He said that weeks after leaving his job, he was still stressed out and holding on to the anxiety that this job produced within him. 

If you’re an artist you have to just make art.  If you’re a writer you have to just write.  May seem simple, but our brains do this thing where we second guess it all.  That was another part of the conversation too.  We can’t do our thing when we’re all frazzled.  He continued, “New York wants to kill you.”  The city will definitely take it outta ya.  It is not pleasant.  It’s noisy, you’ll be tortured by awful roommates, you’ll definitely be broke and you will experience a lot of rudeness.  All of that, along with your own self-doubt, will unite as a giant force trying to get you to question the whole thing.  This blog has been a place where I sort out all of the nonsense.  It needs to be done because these forces build momentum.  You have to talk to other artists and be like “dude, WTF.”  It helps.  It’s like being in the trenches together.  That’s how your crew is formed.  You kavetch, have coffee, hang out, drink wine. It validates why you’re doing this.  Every time I get on stage I remember, but I find myself still needing to be reminded.  That’s because everything off stage unites to offensively throw you off your game to the point where you have to have to talk to another comic, and when you do, it becomes this incredibly enlightening thing.  On the other hand, you can easily complain, but that doesn’t usually get you anywhere and becomes like all of the other forces that bring you down. 

We talked about trusting the universe that the money will come and that we are taken care of.  Deep stuff.  Lately I have had a lot of money and I can’t explain it because I don’t have two jobs any more.  Just stand-up.  I walked into the club that night, and we had that very specific conversation.  The universe cares about you.  It will provide for you but you have to believe it.  

We all could use a patron.  But when you can’t find one, you figure it out.  Do your art and remember that we all have something unique and special to share with the world, and no amount of intense urine smell or lame roommates is going to change that.  You have to believe in yourself.

DREAMS DIE (posting anyway)

I was listening to NPR where a singer was getting interviewed.  When asked where she got inspiration for her music, she said “people leave and dreams die.”

How starkly candid.  It got me thinking.  Sometimes you spend more time trying to just get on, despite it all.  It might be something to actually slow down and look at the fallout.  People sometimes, in fact, leave and not always in the most affable of ways.  Dreams die, people disappoint you.  Avoidance is my M.O.  Alternatively, to look at and try to process it, so it’s not dictating your life under the surface, might be a thing.  <----wow that was honest.  Having a failed marriage under my belt seems to haunt me.  

I’m a romantic but I hide it really well.  I’m so unnerved about exposing myself in my writing, that I'm fighting to not make this particular post anonymous.  I’ve swayed so far away from anything “romantic” at this point in my life, I sexually identify as a golfer.

I will try to illustrate this next part without gushing, because I love Marc Maron so much I might not be able to pull it off.  He was interviewing Springsteen.  What is better than an informed, intelligent performer interviewing the Boss for fucks sake?  At one point Bruce was talking about the fire we all have inside.  He said, “. . . you get the burn, you aim it towards the right thing.”

I’m actually doing this process, (maybe) but it doesn’t feel like it, because I’m not painting.  I’m furiously writing about my frustrations with writing and living and performing in New York.  I’m trying to work on myself and not kill anyone (like roommates).  I keep writing about the art thing though, which means it’s trying to get my attention.  I mean, I write, and I average about 5 shows a week.  Depending on what else is going on, sometimes it’s less.  I’m writing, I’m performing.  But I’m the most honest when I paint.  What Bruce was referring to is life.  It comes at you and you have a choice.  Sometimes you definitely get overwhelmed by the dark stuff.  He’s saying do something with it.  

Valentine's Day 2017

I am practicing extreme self care.  I went to the chiropractor which is $100 hard cash because I don’t have health insurance.  It’s like a drug deal.  I also went running and then took myself to a wine bar in Brooklyn Heights, one of my favorite neighborhoods to go write. The bar is cute.  It has a romantic setting with candles & swank (cuz valentine’s and all).  Here’s what I’m enjoying.  All of it.  Sinatra is playing.  Thank God !!!!  Lately, the hipster bars that I venture to play AWFUL neo-punk garbage.  After an hour I’m irritated.  I like jazz motherfuckers ok.  Straight on, 1950’s, big band, lush orchestrations with some horns and someone who can sing. <----(Wow that makes me sound old).  A lot of people don’t like Sinatra, but they never heard him sing It Might As Well Be Spring or The Night We Called It A Day, or any of those torch songs that he recorded with Capital.   Maybe I should stop writing.  Perhaps writing is just a series of thoughts that when put together it’s like sharing.  Ew.  Is that what writing is?  That’s what my writing is lately.  Would I rather write like Daschiell Hammett?  Yes.  But perhaps at this time, my writing is what needs to happen right now for my own personal growth.  I just cringed that I wrote that.  It’s as if I’m trying to evolve, but I’m in utter resistance to it all.  The tough guy/artist in me wants to go “fuck it man, drink some vodka and read Kerouac - don’t be so serious.”  This is true, but writing about exactly what is going on in my life, it turns out, is sort of therapeutic.  Who knew.

Personally, I think I need to read more about death.  I’m into gritty, post-war American characters that get involved with the underbelly of society and have a Smith & Wesson.   Happy Valentine’s day everyone.  

RANT TO A DEAD GUY

I don’t know why I’m feeling like this because you’re dead and you’ve been dead, but I’m still here on the planet and its sucks because something is wrong with me because I don’t want a boyfriend I question whether my sexuality is in flux and although women are far superior beings the bad news is I’m straight but I don’t like anyone even a little prob cuz everybody over forty is a catastrophe they say things like “cool beans” which was never hip and sometimes they have small beings that fell out of some other woman’s vatootle that hover around them who according to their Tinder profile are “their life” well your “life” smells like he soiled his trousers I can’t believe everything I’m writing to you so that you will read it from wherever you are (how strange) even though you were from the Bronx I’m very confident you went straight to heaven we met at Nicks in Boston my home club  I just thought you were so good on stage and you were covering for a comic who incidentally was in my wedding (WHAT) ya it’s weird and then you didn’t say you didn’t drink but after your set that’s what we all do in Boston, I did ask you if you’d go out with the gang and you said something that resembled a “naw” and your girlfriend walked up but it was really weird because we connected later anyway through Myspace (ridickballs)  Myspace? feels like centuries ago but you said hey next time you’re in New York, hit me up and I think you texted something about going to the Cellar I got really excited because my comedy career was in a holding pattern at best and New York was on my radar (to keep with the aviator themed analogy) I was just waiting to get enough money to move we hung out it was great I totes didn’t like you like you, I just thought it was cool to have a new comedy friend one time we went to the Strip.  After my divorce moving back to Boston was weird because the scene was younger douche-bro’s who started after me and not the guys that I knew from waitressing & from being around the clubs in the 90’s a New York friend was more than welcomed and I swear I didn’t like you beyond friends but you asked about my life and if I had kids and about my parents and what was I doing with comedy and then we went to get Thai food then we went to HA where we waited around forever and then I bombed in front of 4 people – I ate it so HARD we eventually went to the Cellar and I thought your shoes were weird.  I didn’t really see anybody else because you were all I could see and you had the symbols for Om Mani Padme Hum tattooed on your bicep J.C. on the your forearm and we talked about one man shows and how all comics need to explore other avenues of expression and I always thought I would write one and you did a Moth and I wanted to be with you and I couldn’t eat and I told you about my noir fascination.  You hugged Geraldo who was surprisingly humble and such a cool guy and you had to drive me back to Valley Cottage because my 82 year old aunt was worried and had made me promise I’d get back no later than midnight and although you both were puzzled at my indulging her request, the three of us went up FDR Drive and he was frantically arguing with some broad on the phone who kept hanging up on him which was making him furiously mad and we all couldn’t help but to laugh because it was crazy. Months would go by and we didn’t talk and more months and your career got big and you were travelling and I don’t recall when I took a shine to you because we lived in different states, maybe it’s cuz you were funny, then you let me crash at your place when you were away so I could look for a job and I brought your mother raw honey that I got from Amish people I’m not sure she liked it because it was the kind that’s hard in consistency because there are no chemicals so you have to put the jar in boiling water and she was nice and your dog barked a lot but then he warmed up to me and it’s weird that night you called from a tv contest show you were on and said you were losing to a dishwasher which despite it being a slam against his heritage was very funny only because you were incensed that you didn’t win.  At your bedside there was a book about Buddhism with a prologue about Asoka Maura who I had written a paper about in an ethics class in college and I knew it was a sign I asked you how you could even do a television show and you said you just have to relax more time passed and we didn’t talk and I grew bitter and eventually gave up on you. I was really hurt and disappointed because I guess its because you made my heart feel so good and I couldn’t even remember having something to look forward to you finally did call but I was away then you were going to Boston and expected me to drop everything which I did you kissed me finally after 2 years and it was amaze nostrils because it was soft and unexpected and you were a gentlemen because we held hands.  The very last text you sent me said “I can’t wait to see you.”  How cruel the world is that it took you so young.  I got that text a couple of days before you passed.  I cried for six months which I know you know because the psychic told me it’s really hard to write about you because it makes me sad I don’t cry any more but it makes all the blood go to my face and I get weird and some moisture happens around my eye area it’s like a silent intense cry, but I pretty much am dead unless I’m performing or writing I guess I could say thank you which is weird but for the writing part?  I was so mad at you for dying but it’s not like you had anything to do with leaving your body and I know you didn’t end like completely but I still have good days and some bad ones I don’t cope well with feelings any more so for now and to end this rant all I got is om mani padme hum.

MID-40s PHENOMENON

Here’s what being in denial that you are in your forties is about.  I have an extreme aversion to the opposite sex and I have two unsuccessful half careers.  (I’m being dramatic) (and then there’s office gigs - Oh, the humanity!)  All this while I’m spiraling towards a narrow margin where people feel compelled to comment about my reproductive functionality, “well, you still have time to have a baby,” which is downright impolite, never mind implausible.

What is also happening is that I’m beginning to loosen the grip some.  Who knew?  Getting older has wisdom?  No kidding.  Trying to manage a creative career can be maddening.  I also just up and moved to New York City.  I always like to make things complicated.  My life consists of doing standup gigs, often travelling for them on the weekends.  I will do some writing and go do a set somewhere a couple of nights during the week.  At times, I also work an awful full-time job, so my schedule can be grueling.  I’m also a visual artist, but lately, I almost never have time and I currently have no studio to make art (the other half career).

I said to myself “for reals I’m out” which translates roughly to “I want to quit.”  Actually, I had arrived at this conclusion as a result of wanting to rid myself of worrying about money, and to live in a nicer apartment.  So I entertained the idea of letting go.  It’s not performing that is difficult.  The “grind” is working some job that takes up all of your energy, and then writing and performing anyway.

I emotionally gave up comedy because I wanted to see what it would feel like.  I wanted to just live life for a minute and avoid furiously trying to stay relevant.  What I noticed is work floods in.  When you’re not frantic and trying so hard, it puts you in the space to step aside and allow the universe to do its thing.  This new found detachment also allowed me to be freer on stage.   

I can’t really fool myself.  I’ll never give it up.  But in my false quitting, I noticed that finding contentment with exactly where you are has a lot of power.

It’s not evident whether my uterus will be all for naught.  I can’t seem to get the online dating thing to have significance, particularly because, gross.  But, perhaps when I am in the right state of mind, I will consider a relationship.   As far as my half careers go, I don’t really have an answer.  Writing, performing and making art are really just about doing it.  Living in New York makes me scoff at such liberties because it is so expensive.  I’m telling you, I was born in the wrong era.  I would have been perfectly happy being a mafia moll with a tommy gun.