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.