Sunday, April 2, 2017

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.