It's easier to talk about today. That's one good thing about being in this racket for a long time. It all passes. But you have to take inventory of the situation before you let it go.
Sometimes I get really cocky and don't work as hard on my act before a show. And sometimes I get so stressed out by things going on at home that I can't shake it before a show. And sometimes I put a new joke up front when I haven't tested it in the middle of my act and then kick myself for doing it AGAIN. And sometimes my brain is not firing on all cylinders so that when I switch a set list around, I can't remember a fucking thing when panic sets in and I don't fight with the armor in my arsenal when the audience totally sucks. Last night, apply all of the above to my show.
Yes, there are bad audiences. The evening's audience participants last night were an 7 on a bad audience meter. 8 being heckling assholes, 9 being throwing shit, 10 being walking the room and/or a homicide. The emcee was having a rough time out of the gate. They were the type of group that needed lots of audience coddling. And for some reason, none of us went for it. I think we were afraid of them. Human beings are creepy that way. They can put a biofeedback fire wall up. This was a roomful of about 70 firewalls. Probably some annoyed non-firewalls being cock blocked too.
I had, in theory, a short amount of time to do. The reality is if I was rolling, I could have stayed up longer than the time they gave me. It is a lose set up.
There wasn't a lot of fear walking into it. Big mistake. Years of experience says confidence is necessary but healthy fear keeps you on your toes. Makes you access the war zone before going into battle. I had I feel thin today confidence even though I was wicked nauseous from marriage tension. I wanted to puke but in a natural way. This didn't help. It went from dropping the first joke...a new one laced in hostility that they didn't bite. They may have normally. I thought it was funny. But truth is, if they ain't laughing before I get onstage, let's not be the tempest in the tea kettle?
A fine comic told me a while back that if the audience sucks, keep to your set list and plow through. Another one told me to drop the fucking set list and listen to your instincts. Either one of those probably would have helped. But I just. Couldn't. Remember a fucking thing. As soon as it went off tracks. It was like I shut down completely. Gone. I got off a few laughs and then this wall came crashing down around my brain. Closest thing I've had to a simple seizure on stage since I actually had simple seizures on stage. That's my time! Let's bring back your host...
I hate that audience. Not on an individual basis. As a group for making my lazy ass work. That's the truth. Things go too well for awhile and then you quit applying the pressure to the wound that is your career. This shit is work. That audience was just a group of people wanting me to do my job. Which includes thinking for them sometimes. I failed. And then I hate myself because I know better than this. I couldn't have set this up more to fail if the situation wasn't perfect than if I sat in the audience and stared at me myself.
So today I wake up still feeling like I am going to hurl. It's a diet. Even negative things have an upside. And I look at Thursday's show. A show that will have an attentive loving audience because that is whom this producer tends to draw pretty religiously. Then line up is spectacular and I will be circled in the arms of a warmed up audience that don't need to be breast fed their humor. And I will walk in warily, not getting too comfortable. Setting myself up to conquer, not fold. To match these geniuses on the line up as much as I possibly can.
You can't take back yesterday. But you can take the lesson from yesterday with you. Fuck yourself audience. It isn't your fault, its mine. But fuck yourself just the same. I'll find a new one who thinks I am smart AND beautiful for myself.
And people wonder why comics aren't social creatures.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Grandmere Gets A Farm
I've got a bunch of really well documented dead direct relatives. Like a genetic Forest Gump. On the multiple great grandfather parade I've got William Bradford aka the Pilgrim dude: Joseph (Jose Paolo) Robles confederate reenactment doer target, Spanish stowaway and the guy they named the worst housing project in Tampa after; James Clark Curtis early Republican NY State Senate and Assemblyman man; Francis Marion Robles first hispanic lawyer and judge in Tampa, Henry Curtis one of the founding guys of Sudbury MA, Whatshisface Jewitt the guy they named Jewitt City, CT after, General Paul B Malone in charge of the US military on the Phillipine Islands and pals with Pershing; Aaron DeNio the guy who's cooking vessel is in the Deerfield MA museum because he winged it at someone, plus a bunch of other guys. "Guys" being a key word there. They turn up in books. You can research them in historical societies. The chicks until now, however, got a rawer deal. One grandmother married to a fella name Sir Richard Groutte is going down in history as Lady Questionmark. Not that they were always less deserving. They just had vaginas which interfered with documentation until recent history.
There is one though that managed to jump that gauntlet. Her name was Marguerite Gabrielle DeNoyon. She was born Abigail Stebbins. This is my version of her story. It is interpretive and may not be entirely accurate. Feel free to google her if you have questions. She was interesting enough to keep on the books for three hundred years.
Marguerite was born as Abigail in Deerfield MA in 1684 the daughter of John Stebbins. She met a coureur du bois (fur trader dealing in booze and goods) name Jacques De Noyon and they married shortly before the French Canadians with the help of members from three different tribes of Native Americans attacked Deerfield, capturing members of Abigail's family and marching them to Canada. Jacques was a natural citizen of Canada, born in Quebec and the members of Abigail's family were released. Abigail as well as a number of her siblings chose to stay in Canada. She changed her name to Marguerite.
Jacques had married Abigail under the pretense that he was from a well respected comfortable family in Quebec. The reality was that Jacques left a trail of debt throughout Canada and was content to stay in MA where his debtors could not find him. He did not expect to be dragged back as part of a raid on the Puritans. They returned and Abigail found out that Jacques was full of shit. They settled in Boucherville just north of Montreal and Jacques rejoined the military, returning to his bad money habits and going off for long periods of time leaving Marguerite with, eventually, 12 kids to support. It seems that Jacques must have had something going on for him because she continued reproducing despite his money issues. Eventually, Marguerite could not feed her children.
She did return to Deerfield once to collect a small inheritance and retrieve her son Renee. Renee had been sent to the US to visit his grandfather and when it was time to return, they could not find him. He resurfaced as Aaron DeNio (aka the cooking vessel flinger). It is not known whether his grandfather hid him or he chose to stay. Either way, Marguerite showed up to get the money and the kid and only left with the money. Which was still not enough.
This was in the early 1700's. Women were property, more or less. Anything a woman inherited within her marriage went to the husband. And anything that went to the De Noyon family Jacques spent. So Marguerite went to the governor and the governor did the unheard of. He granted Marguerite property and a loan to begin her own farm share exclusively. Apparently Jacques was such a pinhead, that he was forbidden to touch the farm and its money. Marguerite made the farm work well enough to pay the government back. And even though she was still married to Jacques it was all hers to support her family.
I love that she took care of business. She must have been a very strong woman to get people to respond to her needs against social mores. And Jacques must have been an incredible dick.
PS To give the devil his due, Grandpere Pinhead was the first known European to explore parts of Lake Superior. And he made it back. So he did have a good sense of direction. And they gave him a plaque. Grandmere just got property.
There is one though that managed to jump that gauntlet. Her name was Marguerite Gabrielle DeNoyon. She was born Abigail Stebbins. This is my version of her story. It is interpretive and may not be entirely accurate. Feel free to google her if you have questions. She was interesting enough to keep on the books for three hundred years.
Marguerite was born as Abigail in Deerfield MA in 1684 the daughter of John Stebbins. She met a coureur du bois (fur trader dealing in booze and goods) name Jacques De Noyon and they married shortly before the French Canadians with the help of members from three different tribes of Native Americans attacked Deerfield, capturing members of Abigail's family and marching them to Canada. Jacques was a natural citizen of Canada, born in Quebec and the members of Abigail's family were released. Abigail as well as a number of her siblings chose to stay in Canada. She changed her name to Marguerite.
Jacques had married Abigail under the pretense that he was from a well respected comfortable family in Quebec. The reality was that Jacques left a trail of debt throughout Canada and was content to stay in MA where his debtors could not find him. He did not expect to be dragged back as part of a raid on the Puritans. They returned and Abigail found out that Jacques was full of shit. They settled in Boucherville just north of Montreal and Jacques rejoined the military, returning to his bad money habits and going off for long periods of time leaving Marguerite with, eventually, 12 kids to support. It seems that Jacques must have had something going on for him because she continued reproducing despite his money issues. Eventually, Marguerite could not feed her children.
She did return to Deerfield once to collect a small inheritance and retrieve her son Renee. Renee had been sent to the US to visit his grandfather and when it was time to return, they could not find him. He resurfaced as Aaron DeNio (aka the cooking vessel flinger). It is not known whether his grandfather hid him or he chose to stay. Either way, Marguerite showed up to get the money and the kid and only left with the money. Which was still not enough.
This was in the early 1700's. Women were property, more or less. Anything a woman inherited within her marriage went to the husband. And anything that went to the De Noyon family Jacques spent. So Marguerite went to the governor and the governor did the unheard of. He granted Marguerite property and a loan to begin her own farm share exclusively. Apparently Jacques was such a pinhead, that he was forbidden to touch the farm and its money. Marguerite made the farm work well enough to pay the government back. And even though she was still married to Jacques it was all hers to support her family.
I love that she took care of business. She must have been a very strong woman to get people to respond to her needs against social mores. And Jacques must have been an incredible dick.
PS To give the devil his due, Grandpere Pinhead was the first known European to explore parts of Lake Superior. And he made it back. So he did have a good sense of direction. And they gave him a plaque. Grandmere just got property.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A Good Night For The Brain Curdled Muse Finder
There is a social demographic that exists on the movie set. Crew generally sticks with crew, sometimes departmental specific, sometimes cross pollinating with the regular principal cast and stand-ins. The people who come to work consistently. Background and under fives are usually sporadic, generally visitors and treated this way. But on a television series, there are core regulars who occupy the ambiance in the scenes that are repeatedly visited each episode. That wall of anonymity gets broken down slowly every time they return.
That is how I met Alex. We were brain damage buddies, both victims of brain trauma from accidents in our early twenties. And he was standing on both sides of the production fence. Working regularly with us with a sister and roommate on the production side. It was a matter of time before we had a conversation and multiple shoot days on the same set warranted it.
Last night I was initially in a really weird head space . I wanted to talk to my friend about stuff that we had started before he split for LA for good. I know he is going and I probably won't get to talk like we do again for a long time. Computers just ain't the same. Eye contact. Beats in between words. Human interaction gets a little jiggled and mashed. Not that I'm not grateful for the way technology keeps friendships in the now. Hopefully it will continue. I am a creature of my generation.
We decided that we would go into the city to hang out with the other people from the crew and a couple of cast people. I fall into a strange middle area of where do I fit in here and out of context. I work with these people and as I get to know them, I loved who they were. Howevah, crowds freaked me out a little. I like people but hate crowds. I am the reason that coffee bars were created.
And, as much as crowds freaked me out? Parking freaked me the fuck out. Post operative diagnosis from regular psychiatrist and neuropsychologist both diagnosed me with minor damage. Post traumatic stress disorder, ADD (or I guess ADHD now?) and I can't tell direction like a normal person. When I have to be somewhere, I usually mapquest it and GPS it so I have two forms of information in my head. So the combination of too much ambient noise in a crowd (I can't drink over it like the olden days) and trying to drive in downtown Providence made me nervous as a cat. I'm pretty sure we would have made it intact but there would have been tears. Alex was being a very patient human being and drove my car.
Truth is, I am not entirely sure why it was important to me to finish this interlude in our history. To conclude our previous conversations. Possibly because I tend to attach muse tags to people that I connect with and, besides being friends, I needed to take the creative energy I got from our conversations and spin it. Like now. It ain't easy living in a hyperactive creative mind. It's amazing who you'll find hanging out on a television set.
I knew if I never see him again, I'm walking away with something that I will value forever. Meeting a kindred spirit. And I need to finish delving into some writing places that, truly, he is the only person in my life who will know the difficulty of going down into the cranial abused pit. It's not like the brain damaged get a club house for weekly bicoastal meetings. Especially one who is this open with me.
We got to the big and brown wooded fancy bar. In Providence so after you got past the haute antiquity, you noticed the chalk board with the specials out in front of the space. And then you notice the demographic that was extremely mixed. Sports bar meets Fortune 500 business meeting. I doubt if the local color even noticed the television star sitting at the bar.
Nick, one of the cast leads said hi to Alex. Phil, another regular background who plays a medical examiner guy in scrubs, comes in. He has long pigtail dreadlocks and an enormous amount of infectious energy. I begin to relax.
The little dead girl from this show this afternoon comes over from the cast principal patch of the bar and Alex and I moved to a table, doing a yenta side step to let them be alone (which winds up insulting the little dead girl but oh well...it is forgotten later). Then comes Margo, Jeri's stand in. She is one of those women who is so beautiful that she can stop the movement in the room when she comes in. I had known her for a long time but, like Alex, got to know her differently on the set. Kate, the lead's stand in also arrives. She is a funny lady who also has a couple of kids and is really happy to be out. Alex's sister, a character as strong as her brother in a ridiculously pretty shell. One of the costume department guys normally quiet and isolated in his patch of wardrobe trailer. The Director's Guild's intern who is in charge of coordinating background actors. Finally Chris the 2nd 2nd assistant director and Andrew who does something I'm not quite sure of but is a nice guy. Some I see all of the time. Some I rarely get the pleasure to interact with on the set.
There are all of these people out of context from our natural environment. It could go a couple of ways. I could clam up and start falling asleep like I do a in a lot of crowds. Sort of like a narcoleptic turtle. I can't engage because I can't figure out what they are saying due to lack of focus or too many different noises. It takes too much energy to understand. Or another alternative is that I could cling on to Alex like an emotional barnacle....actually my secret fear.....being a pain in the ass self inflicted responsibility kill joy that would destroy a perfectly nice friendship with neurosis death rays. Or I can enjoy it because somewhere along the line I have become more than a body visiting a workplace.
We became people to each other. With personality traits and character dynamics. There is flirting and drinking and teasing and joking and serious moments and pictures taken and fake cigarettes dropped (don't ask) and pens used for nefarious tasks (again don't ask). And I recognize that I am a tremendously lucky person to have fallen into this world, even if it could only be for a little while. These are great people and I get to go see them on Tuesday again, spending the day creating something really cool.
Alex and his sister stand next to each other and sing together to the song playing over the loudspeaker. They look so much a like and they both exude happiness. They don't seem to give a shit what anyone else is thinking, just living in the moment. I hug him one last time. And it could really be one last time.
I've done this so many times before with old friends and mentally take note on the circumstance, appreciating it for what it is. A gift to know them all. A gift to have the friendship of this soul. Grateful that he bridged the gap for me and brokered me into this world that I was not comfortable stepping into initially for whatever reason. It may never be like that again. He won't be there to say hello to in the morning. But that's okay if he's happy moving on to the next step. It never is forever on a set. We are just lucky to get times like this.
That is how I met Alex. We were brain damage buddies, both victims of brain trauma from accidents in our early twenties. And he was standing on both sides of the production fence. Working regularly with us with a sister and roommate on the production side. It was a matter of time before we had a conversation and multiple shoot days on the same set warranted it.
Last night I was initially in a really weird head space . I wanted to talk to my friend about stuff that we had started before he split for LA for good. I know he is going and I probably won't get to talk like we do again for a long time. Computers just ain't the same. Eye contact. Beats in between words. Human interaction gets a little jiggled and mashed. Not that I'm not grateful for the way technology keeps friendships in the now. Hopefully it will continue. I am a creature of my generation.
We decided that we would go into the city to hang out with the other people from the crew and a couple of cast people. I fall into a strange middle area of where do I fit in here and out of context. I work with these people and as I get to know them, I loved who they were. Howevah, crowds freaked me out a little. I like people but hate crowds. I am the reason that coffee bars were created.
And, as much as crowds freaked me out? Parking freaked me the fuck out. Post operative diagnosis from regular psychiatrist and neuropsychologist both diagnosed me with minor damage. Post traumatic stress disorder, ADD (or I guess ADHD now?) and I can't tell direction like a normal person. When I have to be somewhere, I usually mapquest it and GPS it so I have two forms of information in my head. So the combination of too much ambient noise in a crowd (I can't drink over it like the olden days) and trying to drive in downtown Providence made me nervous as a cat. I'm pretty sure we would have made it intact but there would have been tears. Alex was being a very patient human being and drove my car.
Truth is, I am not entirely sure why it was important to me to finish this interlude in our history. To conclude our previous conversations. Possibly because I tend to attach muse tags to people that I connect with and, besides being friends, I needed to take the creative energy I got from our conversations and spin it. Like now. It ain't easy living in a hyperactive creative mind. It's amazing who you'll find hanging out on a television set.
I knew if I never see him again, I'm walking away with something that I will value forever. Meeting a kindred spirit. And I need to finish delving into some writing places that, truly, he is the only person in my life who will know the difficulty of going down into the cranial abused pit. It's not like the brain damaged get a club house for weekly bicoastal meetings. Especially one who is this open with me.
We got to the big and brown wooded fancy bar. In Providence so after you got past the haute antiquity, you noticed the chalk board with the specials out in front of the space. And then you notice the demographic that was extremely mixed. Sports bar meets Fortune 500 business meeting. I doubt if the local color even noticed the television star sitting at the bar.
Nick, one of the cast leads said hi to Alex. Phil, another regular background who plays a medical examiner guy in scrubs, comes in. He has long pigtail dreadlocks and an enormous amount of infectious energy. I begin to relax.
The little dead girl from this show this afternoon comes over from the cast principal patch of the bar and Alex and I moved to a table, doing a yenta side step to let them be alone (which winds up insulting the little dead girl but oh well...it is forgotten later). Then comes Margo, Jeri's stand in. She is one of those women who is so beautiful that she can stop the movement in the room when she comes in. I had known her for a long time but, like Alex, got to know her differently on the set. Kate, the lead's stand in also arrives. She is a funny lady who also has a couple of kids and is really happy to be out. Alex's sister, a character as strong as her brother in a ridiculously pretty shell. One of the costume department guys normally quiet and isolated in his patch of wardrobe trailer. The Director's Guild's intern who is in charge of coordinating background actors. Finally Chris the 2nd 2nd assistant director and Andrew who does something I'm not quite sure of but is a nice guy. Some I see all of the time. Some I rarely get the pleasure to interact with on the set.
There are all of these people out of context from our natural environment. It could go a couple of ways. I could clam up and start falling asleep like I do a in a lot of crowds. Sort of like a narcoleptic turtle. I can't engage because I can't figure out what they are saying due to lack of focus or too many different noises. It takes too much energy to understand. Or another alternative is that I could cling on to Alex like an emotional barnacle....actually my secret fear.....being a pain in the ass self inflicted responsibility kill joy that would destroy a perfectly nice friendship with neurosis death rays. Or I can enjoy it because somewhere along the line I have become more than a body visiting a workplace.
We became people to each other. With personality traits and character dynamics. There is flirting and drinking and teasing and joking and serious moments and pictures taken and fake cigarettes dropped (don't ask) and pens used for nefarious tasks (again don't ask). And I recognize that I am a tremendously lucky person to have fallen into this world, even if it could only be for a little while. These are great people and I get to go see them on Tuesday again, spending the day creating something really cool.
Alex and his sister stand next to each other and sing together to the song playing over the loudspeaker. They look so much a like and they both exude happiness. They don't seem to give a shit what anyone else is thinking, just living in the moment. I hug him one last time. And it could really be one last time.
I've done this so many times before with old friends and mentally take note on the circumstance, appreciating it for what it is. A gift to know them all. A gift to have the friendship of this soul. Grateful that he bridged the gap for me and brokered me into this world that I was not comfortable stepping into initially for whatever reason. It may never be like that again. He won't be there to say hello to in the morning. But that's okay if he's happy moving on to the next step. It never is forever on a set. We are just lucky to get times like this.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
My Friend H. Dan Harkins Wrote This For Me
Because of my undying love of hot sauce....
This is not real. In case you really think I have this kind of power. Really.
This is not real. In case you really think I have this kind of power. Really.
New York Actress Inherits Tabasco Corporation, Southern Economy Ruined
AVERY ISLAND, LA— Look around this tiny island rising above the Louisiana Gulf Coast and you would be surprised to learn it had once been a thriving business concern and even called “a natural paradise.” The factories are closed, the pepper fields laid waste, and the human population has dwindled to less than 50. It has been 4 months since the business community was stunned by the shocking revelation that Ward McIlhenny, principle stockholder of the Tabasco Hot Sauce fortune had bequeathed controlling interest in Tabasco, Inc. to New York City Actress/Comedienne Jessica Curtis. McIlhenny died in July at the age of 93. Soon afterward, a public statement from his attorney, Roger Whitcomb of Whitcomb, Whitcomb, and Ford, revealed that McIlhenny had no intention of leaving any of his many relatives any part of his substantial estate. Curtis and McIlhenny never met, but Whitcomb explained that McIlhenny had seen Curtis perform stand-up comedy during a brief and unpleasant business trip to New York. “Ward hated to travel, hated the company, and hated New York,” explained Whitcomb. “He said that seeing Jessica at the comedy club was the best part of an awful experience and that she was at least as qualified [to run the company] as the ‘wastrels, sycophants, and bums’ he was related to. He said something about ‘one hell of a nice rack on that girl’ as well.”
Shortly after assuming the chair of Tabasco, Inc., Curtis, 26, stunned the family with her planned renovations to the firm founded in 1868. “We don’t have time to age this stuff in white oak barrels for three years,” began Curtis. “From now on we just let it steep for a couple of weeks in plastic garbage cans. And another thing, from now on, the product will be known as Jessbasco Sauce and the extra hot version, Jessbasco Hotcha Ha Sauce.”
Schuyler McIlhenny III, nephew of Ward McIlhenny, began to protest, “Miss Curtis, Tabasco is an honored, respected name! You can’t just arbitrarily change the name like that.” He was quickly cut off by Ms. Curtis shouting back, “I have big boobs! Girls with big boobs can do whatever they want!”
Continual infighting between Curtis, who owns 51% of Tabasco, Inc., and the rest of the family led to her decision to move the hot sauce making facilities from Avery Island, Louisiana to Callicoon, New York. Since that time, the economy of the Southern United States has fallen into deep recession. An early sign of the impending crisis included William Chesterman’s complaints soon after Ms. Curtis assumed control of the company. “For more’n 75 years my family has made White Oak Barrels. That’s all we do! Ninety percent of our business has always been with the McIlhenny family. Now that damn Yankee’s puttin’ the stuff in garbage cans! God! Garbage cans! What am I supposed to do now?”
With Tabasco as the cornerstone of the state’s economy, the rest of Louisiana quickly fell into dangerous financial peril. Before long, Louisiana neighbors, Mississippi and Arkansas, both of which have economies closely tied to that of the Pelican State’s, began suffering difficulties. It is speculated that soon the entire Southern United States will experience serious depression.
“This is the worst thing to happen to the South since we lost the Civil War!” remarked Louisiana Governor Wilton Marks.
When asked to comment on the unfortunate consequences brought on by her decisions regarding Tabasco, Inc., the Actress/Comedienne/Tycoon said, “It serves them right for being from the South.”
Monday, October 4, 2010
Brain Wires
So I've been in a writing slump since I finished the book's first draft. You get addicted to the "what next" escapist aspect of writing. That's why I started poking around journals. Looking for ideas I already had. How lazy can you get, eh?
This is sort of a cool one that I found from when I was in the hospital getting a 24 hour EEG to test me for seizures after they pulled me from my medication. Three of the main triggers for a seizure are dehydration, stress and exhaustion. And since they didn't want a bitchy high strung potential epileptic wired to the wall, they went the exhaustion route. Had to feel a little bad for them because I knew I was going to be a hard one to trip up. My mind was having too good of a time describing how red was not at all the color I had been seeing before the medication (and probably the seizures) stopped. That and describing what three dimensions looked like to whoever would be tolerant it enough to listen to me (God Bless You Debbie Perlman). Also, I had years of night shoots on movie sets under my belt. 24 hours? Phupt!
My roommate was wired to the other wall. She was new to the whole epilepsy thing thanks to the gift of a high fever that fried her brain. However, she had a very similar kind. I got to see what my own seizures looked like. I'm glad that I'm not the only one on this planet who hooted. So. This is what I wrote while I was wired to the wall:
"My eyes stopped blinking for a little bit there but the nurse came in and offered me some of her peanuts. Nice lady. Some bonehead at Comedy Central turned the television to infomercial programming at 4am. Trying to kill me slowly with rowing machines, you snot rags. Cheap bastards. 3 hours till breakfast. I've been alone eating up time for 5 hours because my room mate had a seizure and got to go to sleep. I pee a lot. It keeps me getting up. My socks keep my feet from touching the floor where the portable bed's wheels have been transported through you-name-it-someone-oozed it and never cleaned. At least that was what I was told. My I.V. heplock has been getting sore to move around much. There are 24 pieces of wire attached from my head into a bundle stuffed into a pack which is, in turn, plugged into the wall. I schlepp the whole hoopla with me into the bathroom tethered on a 25 foot wire. I brush my teeth. Go to wash my face. 3 or 4 times. My head hurts. I am not allowed to sleep. They are trying to cause seizures. Fat chance. I'll take the (sore) hand." It was worth shaving my head again (actually, I miss having a shaved head....it's easier than hair). To have the wires stick without causing the extra drama of having to get glue out of my hair. It was the most pleasant hospital experience I've ever had because they would bring me drinks, let me play puzzles all night and I didn't feel sick. In fact, I felt great. It was the first time in 3 years I could see properly and didn't feel exhausted from seizures and then later, medication.
And I have never had to take antiseizure medication again from that point forward. It was my night of hazing and I made it. My reward was a healthy person's life with all the rights that came with it that I had missed so much. Most of us wind up like my room mate. I got freed.
"My eyes stopped blinking for a little bit there but the nurse came in and offered me some of her peanuts. Nice lady. Some bonehead at Comedy Central turned the television to infomercial programming at 4am. Trying to kill me slowly with rowing machines, you snot rags. Cheap bastards. 3 hours till breakfast. I've been alone eating up time for 5 hours because my room mate had a seizure and got to go to sleep. I pee a lot. It keeps me getting up. My socks keep my feet from touching the floor where the portable bed's wheels have been transported through you-name-it-someone-oozed it and never cleaned. At least that was what I was told. My I.V. heplock has been getting sore to move around much. There are 24 pieces of wire attached from my head into a bundle stuffed into a pack which is, in turn, plugged into the wall. I schlepp the whole hoopla with me into the bathroom tethered on a 25 foot wire. I brush my teeth. Go to wash my face. 3 or 4 times. My head hurts. I am not allowed to sleep. They are trying to cause seizures. Fat chance. I'll take the (sore) hand." It was worth shaving my head again (actually, I miss having a shaved head....it's easier than hair). To have the wires stick without causing the extra drama of having to get glue out of my hair. It was the most pleasant hospital experience I've ever had because they would bring me drinks, let me play puzzles all night and I didn't feel sick. In fact, I felt great. It was the first time in 3 years I could see properly and didn't feel exhausted from seizures and then later, medication.
And I have never had to take antiseizure medication again from that point forward. It was my night of hazing and I made it. My reward was a healthy person's life with all the rights that came with it that I had missed so much. Most of us wind up like my room mate. I got freed.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/hoohajess/blog?page=3#ixzz11S4PyWLk
The bitching ceases here.
That's right. The bitching ceases here. I will make a far more positive blog with attempts at depth shortly.
Someone turn off the dirge
Okay. Stick a fork in me I am done. This past week has been really disheartening and demand a reprieve. Not that the death and negative aspects of it are going to evaporate. Like things never happened. It's just that I need a day to feel sort of normal. Not that my normal is particularly normal. I need to go run around a gym and dance around the apartment to very large music and bug bookers for work and plot my take over of the world via playrighting, essays, podcasts, music and decent joke writing. And clean the bathroom. Because that will make me feel better. I would like to go see "The Social Network" but I will settle for singing at the top of my lungs bouncing off the wall in shorts and a sports bra. See. Not normal normal. But it works for me.
For a little while I was freaking about work. There is a darned good chance that the 2nd A.D. (not to be confused with 2nd 2nd A.D.....yes one was not enough) has decided to reconstruct the regular medical examiner's office background on the television show that I am a prop on sometimes. I may be quietly dropped from the favorite prop people list. No one has asked avails this week. It is all fair. That's how I got my spot to begin with. They rearranged the regulars to make it more alternative looking in the lab and I'm bleached so in I came, out someone else went. I'm prepared for it. Doesn't mean I'll never work on the show, just not as much. But if I am not put on the list in the next two weeks, I'm requesting a spot as a corpse and will probably get it since I already asked the 2nd 2nd and he said sure but I'd lose my regular place on the show. Confounding fake world, ain't it? But a decent paycheck and a nice group of people to work with for that many hours. I was getting used to it. But I will find something else. I always do. And my friend Alex is leaving the set so it'll be a little strange not to have him around anyway. He was an instant and lovely one and maybe I'll see him again some day. So whatever you got, God, have at it.
And Greg Giraldo. Oy how that man has rattled so many lives up this week. People are having the damnedest reactions to his demise. I miss him and haven't spoken to him in 7 or 8 years. Lots of us bursting into tears randomly. Shocked I guess. Saddened like hell. Something just stinks so badly about this that it seems like a lot of us are having trouble processing it. That's why I am so anxious for Nick to put up the interview that I did with him so many years ago. It's almost like someone killed the old Greg in our heads with the new Greg that grew so far away from him. It's like this nice guy we know was murdered or something. Completely foreign feeling from any form of mourning I've experienced. We need to see him again. I can do that for people with that video. We need this now. The people from our olden days.
Mostly, I need to perform. To vocalize and expand on ideas. I need to blow the energy out at people. I need to be louder than in my house. I need to be a comic around comics. Isn't it weird how our needs can be so specific. I think that is what keeps most of us in this very different rat race. Because we have to be here. We can't not. Oh, I've got things coming up. A bunch really. But now. I need comedy and music and dancing and then it will feel better again.
Goodbye my old friend. And see you later some day my new friend. www.bostoncomedy.blogspot.com
Onward and upward.
For a little while I was freaking about work. There is a darned good chance that the 2nd A.D. (not to be confused with 2nd 2nd A.D.....yes one was not enough) has decided to reconstruct the regular medical examiner's office background on the television show that I am a prop on sometimes. I may be quietly dropped from the favorite prop people list. No one has asked avails this week. It is all fair. That's how I got my spot to begin with. They rearranged the regulars to make it more alternative looking in the lab and I'm bleached so in I came, out someone else went. I'm prepared for it. Doesn't mean I'll never work on the show, just not as much. But if I am not put on the list in the next two weeks, I'm requesting a spot as a corpse and will probably get it since I already asked the 2nd 2nd and he said sure but I'd lose my regular place on the show. Confounding fake world, ain't it? But a decent paycheck and a nice group of people to work with for that many hours. I was getting used to it. But I will find something else. I always do. And my friend Alex is leaving the set so it'll be a little strange not to have him around anyway. He was an instant and lovely one and maybe I'll see him again some day. So whatever you got, God, have at it.
And Greg Giraldo. Oy how that man has rattled so many lives up this week. People are having the damnedest reactions to his demise. I miss him and haven't spoken to him in 7 or 8 years. Lots of us bursting into tears randomly. Shocked I guess. Saddened like hell. Something just stinks so badly about this that it seems like a lot of us are having trouble processing it. That's why I am so anxious for Nick to put up the interview that I did with him so many years ago. It's almost like someone killed the old Greg in our heads with the new Greg that grew so far away from him. It's like this nice guy we know was murdered or something. Completely foreign feeling from any form of mourning I've experienced. We need to see him again. I can do that for people with that video. We need this now. The people from our olden days.
Mostly, I need to perform. To vocalize and expand on ideas. I need to blow the energy out at people. I need to be louder than in my house. I need to be a comic around comics. Isn't it weird how our needs can be so specific. I think that is what keeps most of us in this very different rat race. Because we have to be here. We can't not. Oh, I've got things coming up. A bunch really. But now. I need comedy and music and dancing and then it will feel better again.
Goodbye my old friend. And see you later some day my new friend. www.bostoncomedy.blogspot.com
Onward and upward.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
I don't want to be serious.
I just don't. Comedy isn't supposed to be serious. Tonight was a fucking battlefield in comedy. I didn't suck or anything but that audience sure did everything in its collective power to strive for that. What the hell is wrong with people who go into a club....PAY to get into a club....and go in totaled. I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who used to say that there was no such thing as a bad audience. Bullshit. Not when about of third of them are missing pupils because they are tripping on something. Nothing on this planet shy of throwing a strobe into my act that can save that.
This is a club where we don't do audience work. It is frowned upon because it is a small space. Addressing the emotionally needy is a recipe for complete loss of control in a seven minute set and then spreading it into the next comics seven minute set. I have a feeling if we worked the audience, this probably would have picked up the show a little but it would contain very few jokes. Sorry folks, we get the attention this time, not you.
This line did not have one weak comic on the line up. Not ONE. And, because of that, no one completely bit the dust. We all have the skills to at least get some laughs out the rocks. But no one had the set that they could have. And so fuck you, audience. Thank you for at least laughing some times but I needed the tape. Next time at least take ectasy.
This is a club where we don't do audience work. It is frowned upon because it is a small space. Addressing the emotionally needy is a recipe for complete loss of control in a seven minute set and then spreading it into the next comics seven minute set. I have a feeling if we worked the audience, this probably would have picked up the show a little but it would contain very few jokes. Sorry folks, we get the attention this time, not you.
This line did not have one weak comic on the line up. Not ONE. And, because of that, no one completely bit the dust. We all have the skills to at least get some laughs out the rocks. But no one had the set that they could have. And so fuck you, audience. Thank you for at least laughing some times but I needed the tape. Next time at least take ectasy.
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