WHY DO I ALWAYS WANT TO MOVE BACK TO BOSTON? Part I

I’m writing all this out because it helps me sort out the lunacy of being a creative person in New York.

I got weepy on the plane coming back from Florida which makes no sense (I don’t really do that), and it made me want to move back to Boston.  I think that coming to New York because you’re a creative person is a great, yet terrible idea.  I think I take one step forward (was just at the Friars Club), and three steps back (I drink more now than I ever did).

I still have this issue where I don’t want to emotionally commit to comedy.  It’s hard to commit to anything, emotionally.  I think it’s funny (or not) that men have a hard time committing to women.  I resist committing to my career because that’s way scarier than giving someone half the house.  It’s a huge gamble.  A lot of people are taking the plunge into performing (in New York, at any given time, there is a free comedy show, somewhere; several, even, on a single block). 

New York is a gamble (and apparently I’m Ginger from Scorcese’s Casino) cuz I’m rollin’ the dice baby.  Men don’t want to commit because it might ruin their life.  That’s the same reason I resist pushing with my career.  It’s fear.  Ah, that little bugger.  It also depends on what day you catch me on.  When I used to work Vegas twice a year, I was, in my mind, in show business (to some degree). 

Comedians are an interesting faction of show business, because we work the hardest and get the least respect.  We are like boxers.  We take all the risk.  We are the writer, producer, editor, performer, booking and marketing person.  No wonder I want to quit often.  But I’ve only felt that way since moving to New York so I blame the Yankees. 

We get the least respect because we are alone on stage so we get heckled sometimes, and the bookers are all frustrated performers with fickle personalities, who are just looking for an excuse not to book you.  I think I’m going to a Met game.

When I got booked in Vegas, I worked at the Riviera.  You got a hotel and had meals at the employee cafeteria.  Let me tell you something, two shows a night for seven days, I woulda ate Chef Boyardee.  But the reality of a day job is enough to make you want to die by some epic, old school way like consumption or sticking your head in an oven.

This double life is what is getting to me.  (and I sort of get fired a lot).  I come back to the day job after Vegas, back to the meaninglessness and futility of it all, and it’s hard to take.  No wonder I drink too much.  It’s all garbage.  That is why I cried on the plane.  First of all, I am a New Englander.  Being in the 80 degree weather of Florida in December and then parting from it is reason enough, but as I find I am scrawling this out in an airport, I’m thinking there are other reasons as well.

Everybody who does comedy SPECIFICALLY in New York City has this I suspect – even if you’re doing well (this being=crying, wanting to quit, fear of commitment).  But there is something that we're getting as a payoff.  I suspect that it is the satisfaction that we are forging our own way in a city that many don't have the balls to move to, never mind navigate the pot hole-laden thoroughfares.  New York demands the best out of an artist.  That is a good thing.  It requires an amalgam of ourselves into what we aspire to become.  Ultimately it’s what we want.  We want to be changed.  We just didn’t know it was going to be this hard.

ALL FEMALE COMEDY SHOW

ALL FEMALE COMEDY SHOW

I got booked on a standup show that had all women on the bill.  It took place in a function room within a hotel.  So we’re all back stage (which is a conference room behind the room where the show is being held) and we’re chatting.  The conference room setup to me seemed an appropriate metaphor because when women get together, we engage in real talk.  Standup is dominated by men.  People will try to argue that women in comedy have been persevering.  And when I say people I mean my 30-ish male roommate.  I’m in the business and I’ve been around.  I’m not talking about network backed comedic actors (who incidentally are managed by men).  I’m down in the trenches in comedy clubs.  I’m in the reality of where men are booked and some females get peppered in like pieces of feta in a Greek salad.  I wanted to respond to my roommate by saying “what are you kidding me?” but I left it alone.

The funny thing about men – smart men – is they want to tell you how it all is.  And, while I can remain polite if it is coming from an older man, if it is coming from a younger man, I find it utterly unbearable i.e. I want to respond "women are not persevering in comedy, dickhead."

I want to say, “um, we get our own category in standup.”  (Isn’t that cute?)  “All Female Comedy Show” is what shows are labeled as, whereas an “All Male Comedy Show” is just a show.  At a club, the flyer will have say, four acts all listed with headshots that are clearly all men but the word “men” does not need to be added in the title of the show. 

That said, it was refreshing to be in a room full of women.  We have conversations that connect one another.  Our talk is deep.  We get down to the real shit fast.  We were talking breastfeeding.  My brooding on being labeled a female comedian instead of a comic rendered me tired.  I grew bitter being pigeon-holed like my gender is some kind of “other” in standup.  I totally relished the estrogen of this particular show.  Plus I could talk about me and the other person actually listened.

We started talking dating.  I don’t date.  It’s a total issue, but who better to talk about it with?  A room full of broads.  Perfect. This particular topic I am reserving for the next blog.  On to sore nipples. 

It’s weird that tender areola banter made me feel elated.  It wasn’t the subject matter as much as the company.  Women let it all out.  Isn’t that great?  I grew up with my father.  I am very comfortable in the company of men, because I hold everything in like a man.  If it weren’t for PMS, I would never have emotions (or cry at cat commercials).  How refreshing to be with humans who don’t have walls up like me.  We weren’t talking about festivals or agents.  We were talking about how your breasts will swell to magnanimous proportion if you don’t breastfeed after you’ve given birth.  The new mother explained that if you happen to be in Sri Lanka and your pump breaks, you’re fucked.   The culture of this country frowns upon breast feeding and considers it barbaric, so there is no place to purchase one.  With a broken pump, and the baby off with her family for the afternoon, she went on to describe in detail that her breasts felt like a couple of over-stuffed air mattresses.  Who knew?

What I learned is, if I have a baby I should stay away from certain parts of India.  Oh, and I need to be around women more.  And come to think of it, maybe it’s fine that we get our own show after all.

More About Art+Comedy/ADD Rant & Lorna Doones

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).

Divorce, Rhino Bed, Pall Mall Smoking Cat

I totally wrote this blog and then went to re-open the document; I got that crazy sound effect the laptop makes when you've made a fatal error and it wouldn't open. So now I have to remember what exactly I was thinking about - or what I wrote at all. Do I start from scratch?   I guess I have to. The divorce part is easy; I got a divorce, The End. (condensed version).

The Rhino part - well, at the time, I wrote a lot of weird animal stuff. For a while it was kangaroos. They have 3 vaginas. (look it up). They can be perpetually pregnant like a Catholic. It's amazing. Then it was pterodactyls. (see tweets below)

went to the store for peacock gloves and jarred pterodactyl queefs. found neither.

going to cryogenically mutate my uterus to house a small pterodactyl that I get from 

the future or maybe I'll just go to the store.

But the rhino part of the blog/part of my life was derived out of having to sleep on an inflatable bed that was enormous and when fully inflated you could bounce a rhinoceros off of it. PAM !

Divorce/Rhino/Pall Malls Part I

You get a divorce and then you have to start over. It's cool dawg. So you figure out how to go about life sleeping alone. There's a lot more to it than that but that's the jump-off. As a comic you'd think it'd be a great source of things to write about, but really, you have all this rage.

It's funny, you'd think it would be about your struggles to cook for one, or what to do with your time since you're not nagging or cleaning up after someone. But no. It's a death. So the first thing you face is failure. Everything that was in your psyche, your way of looking at the world is done. No big, you're just devastated. And then your friends/colleagues chime in, "you'll meet someone" or "you weren't happy anyway."

You begin to write all this angry material about those people. You think to yourself "what are they talking about anyway... I'm not looking to meet someone - I hate everyone, including them. Why would I be on the market to do it all over again?"

So then you move in with gay guys that cheer you up just because of who they are. Like, when they are ironing in the kitchen in their underwear, listening to Aliyah. They understand you the way a mother would. "You're fine girl, a fresh start is what's happening and you'll come out stronger in the end." You cook together and watch American Idol and things start to smooth out a little.

So you start to write some other stuff that's less angry, more funny. I began a steady track of getting on stage a lot. I drove out to weird parts of New England to do fundraisers to very receptive audiences. My vibration started to rise some. I became the house emcee and Nick's Comedy Stop in Boston. More progress and momentum.

I worked doing odd jobs. I house painted. I took care of my friend's chain-smoking mother, helping her with housework, driving her to the doctor and to get scratch tickets.

Eventually I wanted to really buckle down and get ready to move to New York. I had no savings, so I moved into my girlfriend's house in Saugus and worked a full-time job, while working as a comic every weekend. It was me, her and the cat. The cat meowed frequently and sounded like she smoked 4 packs of Pall Malls a day. The futon in Saugus was not good, so I borrowed my friend's gigantic, inflatable bed (yep, another inflatable bed) and dreamed of rhinos bouncing off of it.  I'm always going to wonder if the original Divorce/Rhino/Pall Mall Smoking cat was funnier, but I posted this, nonetheless.

Art, Brooding and Other Abberations

So what exactly made me abandon art ? Maybe I dropped off a bit so I could just live. Being secluded in a studio every day can feel a bit reclusive over time. Whatever your art is, it kind of takes over. Television, Target, crock pot parties - whatever regular people do with their time - including going out among other humans - isn't really part of your life. You just create; and you understand, if not even consciously, that it is a process of coming at it every day - like a novelist sits at their computer or notebook every day without question. Like drinking coffee. You just do it in the morning, without contemplation or a second thought.

Painting is very much a retreat from the world. I enjoyed it immensely. Many nights I stood, deliberated, ruminated, got messy and covered with paint, had discoveries and ah-ha moments, got frustrated, got bored, got elated - but invariably, stuff happened. On one hand, there was always the impromptu studio-mate conversation that could be sought out. Hanging out in the studio is the best, even if you don't get any work done. It is part of the process: get to the studio, take out paint, goof off, take out drawings, spread everything out and think about which piece you want to work on.  On the other hand, it got lonely.  I had a studio at 11 Pearl Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts (part of the city of Boston) when I was twenty years old.  Pearl Street was an old building behind a house in the Savin Hill area that was once horse stables and later, probably a speak-easy.  It then evolved into studios, divided to house some twenty-plus artists.  You could always go downstairs, across the hallway, up another flight and find another artist milling around their studio to share a quick chat or smoke with.  It was cool.

I loved it. I loved the smell of paint, turpentine, the tools, the brushes, the drawing and problem solving. The mess you make is fantastic, and you can play jazz or have sheer quiet.  Often my paintings were, unbeknownst to me, clairvoyant.  After years passed, I would revisit a painting and realize what it meant.  I made discoveries about myself that I would not have arrived at, had I not searched.  I reveled at the ability to visually complete a thought i.e. finish a painting.  There is no satisfaction like it.

But painting is something I have since abandoned. I still work occasionally but without all of the ferocity and momentum that I used to. I think I grew frustrated because most painters do not achieve any kind of serious success until later in life, if ever. And by success, I mean at least being represented by a gallery, having some press and maybe a solo exhibition. Also, it's a lot of time alone in the studio. I think it is easy to lose perspective when your blood, sweat and tears are going into what you love to do, but no one seems to notice or care. Sometimes at openings, people talk among themselves with wine in hand and their backs to the art. It is exciting to exhibit, and sometimes I sold work and people told me they liked it, but in the end I was left disconcerted. I’ve been having trouble getting back into it. It feels like I’m waiting for inspiration. That you can’t plan. I have an internal conflict going on about it; I want to work really bad, but I just don’t start. Perhaps it’s a zen problem. I may need to just stop waiting for inspiration and just start. I know it can be true that sometimes you just do something and you don’t know why, and later on, the reason becomes apparent. Well, at least that sounds right. Maybe I’ll give that a shot and figure out the what or why, later.

[I wrote this blog a year ago and never posted it. So I'm posting it now; oh, and I got a studio. It's in Fields Corner. It's brilliant. I will write another blog about it after I've been there a few months. It's good to spend time with other artists; and it's great to be making art. !!!! ] !!! yay !!!!!!

I'm Becoming the Kind of Chic I Hate

I fear I am becoming the kind of chic I hate. We all have a bit of self hatred I suppose, but that’s not what I mean. I am referring to the kind of chic whose sheer existence revolves around a man. Or something. We picked it up from the 50s, it's not our fault. I was just married for so long that I’m lost now. It’s going on four years. No dates. *ooof* I won’t date. First of all, I haven’t met someone even remotely good looking enough to date. That makes me sound superficial, which I am not. I just don’t like anyone. The Albanian lady at the bank says, "you're too picky baby, you get married baby, then you won't be so angry baby." She’s older and married, and probably right.

On the other hand, I know girls that are not really that attractive, that have annoying personalities that seem to get guys easily.  I didn’t say they were sluts, but I was thinking it. I suppose guys pick up on my vibe that I’m difficult. Difficult translates into neurotic, demanding, creative, complicated, independent.  I’m alright as far as broads go, though. I don’t break balls with the guy I’m seeing. From what I remember. I don’t nag and I’m not clingy. I have my art; which is painting and standup..I have a lot of friends. So in the order of the universe, I should have attracted someone by now. This is pissing me off. I’m taking it personally. God is not bringing me someone and I’m fucking pissed about it. My neighbor, after 700 drinks, told me that I’m angry.

Then he told me he has a crush on me. Oh for fuck‘s sake. First, ew. Second, I’m not angry, I just express my anger freely. There’s a difference. Alright I’m lying. I’m angry, but if I had a man in my life I wouldn’t be angry. Hence the title of this blog. I’m turning into one of those women who isn’t anything until a man is in her life. Oh my GAAAhhhd. What am I going to do ? I know if I had a man, he would irritate the shit out of me unless I wait for the right one. Either way, I’ll be irritated whether I’m alone or not - that is, while I’m waiting for the dude. But see, that’s the whole Cinderella complex. I shouldn’t be waiting for anyone. I should be fulfilled and complete all on my own. I sort of am fulfilled, but I’m also sort of not. I’m both. My life is enriched by the work I do, when I get to work. But the rest of the time, kind of sucks. It’s just boring. I don’t remember being this listless ever in my life. Maybe I need to start painting again.

Acceptance is huge. If I could just accept where I’m at, and pay no mind to ugly annoying girls and what attention they are getting from guys that I wouldn’t be interested in anyway, maybe I will get back on track.

People Irritate the Shit Out Of Me

Number one: people in matching warm up suits, running.  This should be reserved for kids from Southie running numbers and Sopranos extras in New Jersey.  Not runners.  You’re an asshole.  Just put on sweats and go; nobody cares what you look like when you're NOT running.   You go to Macy’s and get jogging attire to be fashionable.  Get over yourself.  Adidas does not make you athletic.  Nobody cares that you’re trying to get in shape either - it’s only you, you narcissistic nine-to-fiver-lunch-expensing-trust-fund-wanna-be-Gap-dwelling-stock-broking-asswipe that votes Republican.  You clog up the consciousness of the planet.  Who thinks you’re more important than you ? You probably puke up your food to try and get even closer to perfection.  Driving an SUV, getting your mani + pedi and chattering about your fabulous summers down the Cape do not substantiate your existence. Or you could be righteous white-trash-Marlboro-smoking-coke-snorting-lower-back-tattoo-laden-project rat on a quest to land a guy and up your status to the haves.  Both groups go to upscale bars with olive oil and have drinks and obsess about why the guy won’t call… he won’t call you because you’re an asshole, which leads to my next one…

Chics who are ugly and think they’re hot.  You bother me.  You do get guys though, which is impressive and flabbergasting ….how ?  Your face looks like there’s a giant cork stuck in your asshole.  You get numerous beauty treatments and creams but you still look like a Boston Terrier.  You’re skinny because you pay a personal trainer, but he can’t do anything to fix the permanent facial expression of smelling shit.  Maybe you got this look by being given everything and still not being satisfied.  Or maybe your Daddy didn’t really love you.  Whatever it is, you wreak of insecurity the way you look at other chics and obsess over men.  You have all your ducks in a row; your condo in the city, your hair foiled, your ugg boots.. AND you have to match when you run.  All this plus martinis on Fridays after work and the mall on Saturday are not going to fill the void of emptiness you feel deep down at the atrocity that is your meaningless life.  A false sense of confidence ?  Is that how they have men in their life ?  I’ve heard guys say they like confidence, I guess because they think humility is weakness.  It isn’t.  These broads could use some.  It’s the alcohol.  And the fact that they will sleep with dudes easily.  I’m just pissed because I have ripped sweatpants and no boyfriend.  Even my Irish immigrant roommate gets play.  Well, now she doesn’t - she’s pregnant.  It’s not her fault, though, it is written in the Akashic records that Irish Catholics breed, but that’s another story. 

Here’s another group of brainless people that need to spontaneously combust.  (This is nothing new, but I live in Dorchester so it’s a phenomenon I have to bitch about):  If you have a ghetto blaster that is worth more than your car, you may need to familiarize yourself with Mirriam Webster and look up irony.  Yeah we get it, you like rap.  You have huge woofers in the back of your 1983 Subaru that is so low to the ground you’d mess up your struts rolling over a q-tip.  You sit out front waiting for your lady friend/hooker (I’m not being mean - there are hookers on my street) and just to you draw more attention to your ridiculousness, you turn it up.  Well you don’t have to worry, we understand your thugdom - it’s amazing.   PS:  Don’t bother with the car alarm, no one wants it.  These same people have epic arguments at 4AM out in front of their house - in my neighborhood - after going to the “club” to prove how gansta they are.  Who gives a shit.  Dummies.  I don’t want to hear your stupid drama while I’m trying to sleep.  Get a grip.  You’re a fool for spending $200 for table service and intoxicating yourself so that you wake up the entire neighborhood when you get home.  You should go on Maury Povich to get out your exhibitionist urges and then be thrown into a well. 

And, lastly, although there probably will be another list in a separate blog: Chics who don’t fuck their husbands.  What happened ?  You got the house, the cars, the wardrobe, the vacations and the 2.2 kids.  Now you don’t need him any more, you selfish twats ?  You’re too fat to fit into all those beautiful clothes he bought you so you reward him by withholding sex ?  You deluded yourself into thinking you would be fulfilled by getting a man to buy you a diamond.  You engage in a game to try and rope him in so that your feelings of inadequacy are squelched by closing the deal.  The delusion doesn’t surface until way after the honeymoon.  The game changes when he’s your husband so you emasculate him by putting on a power trip with your intimacy.  So now, you mess up the perception of the whole institution of marriage and deepen the grooves of fear of commitment for the single guys that the rest of us could have had a shot with.  Awesome.  You deserve to be shot out of a cannon towards Cuba… in your matching running suit.