it's upon us. i'm now closer to old than young. it seems that most people in the entertainment industry's ages are ambiguous. you look at emma stone. you don't see a 23-year-old. you look at sarah silverman. you don't see a 41-year-old. you see zac efron. you don't see a 25-year-old. at least i don't. since wikipedia has been a thing in modern society i've been obsessed with the "years active" element. it's on the top right hand side of the page. and basically. if you're an entertainer, it marks the year to which society has legitimized your attempts at stardom. for louis ck (born 1967) it marks 1985 as his start. fresh faced, and 18 years old.
every year i get older i see that "years active" as further away than i had hoped. vanessa bayer's "years active" started in 2009, apparently. then one year after being active she was announced as the next cast member on SNL. therefore, it takes only 365 days to make it onto one of the most iconic shows of your and my life. please.
it's interesting how that works. how do you measure when someone first started getting going to where they're destined. don't all things lead to where you are now, so technically it starts at birth? or is it more specific than that? when you landed your first commercial? or industrial? get on your first Harold team? signed up for your first class? — and who decides?
i've always been on the track of being a bit smaller than everyone else — lumped in with the little kids growing up. constantly thinking i wouldn't get to ride the ride. while my attitude has always outwardly been, i can do it, i'll show you; i've lately been feeling like i haven't yet even decided to ride the ride. haven't yet become "active." i dont know if it's in comedy, or the work place, or relationships, but getting older has made me feel like i've missed the boat to so many places.
at a certain point this year the realization that we all will just keep getting older punched me. turning 26 isn't that big of a deal if you're 50 looking back, but it marks a very real moment where you feel like you should have already set up what the rest of your life will take to execute. that's not to say there isn't room for change or spontaneity, but very rare is it that you find someone who found their calling at 30, and then was able to execute it to their greatest ability.
but, isn't that just part of it, part of the journey of becoming active. i'd like mine to say this, years active: all.
might as well cheers 26, because 27's a'comin'!
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
smarmy, snarky, sarcastic
Somewhere in the middle of high school an acquaintance I'd known since the fourth grade referred to me as smarmy. He'd been thinking about it for a while, biding his time until he stuck me with a good one. And he did. I've carried it with me for nearly a decade. At the time I'm sure I took it as a compliment. It's not a compliment. Not really. Not to me now, at least. In UrbanDictionary it's described as:
After a while I decided making lots of semi-friends and keeping them around was more important than making friends that I could share in my oddly specific and funny insults with. Sometimes I wish I'd made those friends though. The ones who really got me, along with the ones I ended up with. In a lot of ways I think my comedic sensibility was stifled to avoid hurt feelings. Obviously being nice to people is a good thing. I never would describe myself as heartless. To the contrary, I never mean to hurt people, not for real. More than once I've been the butt of a merciless mouth, eliciting insults, some which I don't think healed properly. A common thought to describe Brigid Marshall as a 16-year-old was "She can dish it out, but she can't take it." Not too long ago it was said again.
Everyone has that though. Everyone has something that they're not truly over. And to that I try to tell myself, "Get over it." Eventually I will, until then I better learn to laugh at myself more. Self-deprecating humor really kills -- carrying stuff around for too long makes your arms heavy.
I took it as more or less that I was snarky, as opposed to it meaning I was insincere. The two often go hand in hand. Sarcasm, too, can often be perceived this way. It's a quality I have never grown out of, sarcasm -- despite a few years in high school where I was told by various youth leaders that my jokes and jabs, half-smiles and quick-to-the-kill-teasing hurt people's feelings. For me, I didn't really see the difference between a joke and kick to the mouth comment. If they elicited a smile, however unintended, my attitude at the time was a sort of blank stare, accompanied by a "Get over it. People are laughing." Definitely not said with a smile, instead delivered as a matter of fact, you're the one with the problem face. Most of the time, it still is.A certain attitude often accompanied by a squinty look and a superior smile that makes you instantly hate a person. Similar to snobby.
After a while I decided making lots of semi-friends and keeping them around was more important than making friends that I could share in my oddly specific and funny insults with. Sometimes I wish I'd made those friends though. The ones who really got me, along with the ones I ended up with. In a lot of ways I think my comedic sensibility was stifled to avoid hurt feelings. Obviously being nice to people is a good thing. I never would describe myself as heartless. To the contrary, I never mean to hurt people, not for real. More than once I've been the butt of a merciless mouth, eliciting insults, some which I don't think healed properly. A common thought to describe Brigid Marshall as a 16-year-old was "She can dish it out, but she can't take it." Not too long ago it was said again.
Everyone has that though. Everyone has something that they're not truly over. And to that I try to tell myself, "Get over it." Eventually I will, until then I better learn to laugh at myself more. Self-deprecating humor really kills -- carrying stuff around for too long makes your arms heavy.
5thingsilove
1. how putting my phone in a cup amplifies its sound.
2. reading
3. framed prints
4. violins and cellos
5. when you've done all you can, and it's actually enough
i really needed to make this list. and, it's been really hard today.
"technique alone is never enough. you have to have passion. technique alone is just an embroidered potholder." -raymond chandler.
2. reading
3. framed prints
4. violins and cellos
5. when you've done all you can, and it's actually enough
i really needed to make this list. and, it's been really hard today.
"technique alone is never enough. you have to have passion. technique alone is just an embroidered potholder." -raymond chandler.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
re: haystacks
 | |
| I like to think of this woman as me. |
For me, the most notable thing was this: how very many dots.
After seeing his take on Monet's "Haystacks," it really felt like he was one in a million. One in a world.
Individual. The concept of any one as being a dime-a-dozen is just so wrong. Comedians, writers, teachers, doctors, anyone. Don't call anyone ordinary. The notion that there's a mass group of people who all think, act and live the same upon further inspection just can't be. Sure, there are things that unite us, but it's the things that divide us that make us, well, "us." We're all each a needle in a haystack, or a line amidst dots. Depending on the day we might feel like hay, but we're the needle. We have to be. I know I have to be.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Hands On
We talk about the education system in the US like it's a really big problem.
We blame teachers. We blame students. We blame politicians. We blame unions. We blame parents, and brothers, and sisters, and the meltdown that's become the family structure. We blame everyone. In short, no one's hands are clean.
It is really a big problem, after all.
But what's the brass tacks issue here?
Everything. Everything is the issue. Life is a big problem that constantly looks like it needs solving, like a Picasso that some straight and narrow still life painter is trying so fucking hard to re-puzzle. To no avail. It can't be solved. It is what it is. You can't solve someone else's problem. Not really. Your mom can do that geometry problem for you, but she can't fix the greater problem that you still don't know math. It adds up, ta da.
To each his own is my thing.
I say, hands off everyone. Helping hands sometimes are the hands that aren't lent. The timeless Marshall motto, a classic: "If it's that important to you, you'll do it yourself." It's been since forever that people have just left each other alone. Maybe it's my Ayn Rand spirit that's coming back to haunt me, or maybe it's just what needs to happen. We need to take responsibility for ourselves. Each person pitching in, making their own lives better in order to better the whole. That's all I really want. All the direction I received during my early years didn't really direct me anywhere except this middle of the road, carving out nicely the crack between success and failure.
We all make choices, and need to be allowed to take responsibility for those choices.
We blame teachers. We blame students. We blame politicians. We blame unions. We blame parents, and brothers, and sisters, and the meltdown that's become the family structure. We blame everyone. In short, no one's hands are clean.
It is really a big problem, after all.
But what's the brass tacks issue here?
Everything. Everything is the issue. Life is a big problem that constantly looks like it needs solving, like a Picasso that some straight and narrow still life painter is trying so fucking hard to re-puzzle. To no avail. It can't be solved. It is what it is. You can't solve someone else's problem. Not really. Your mom can do that geometry problem for you, but she can't fix the greater problem that you still don't know math. It adds up, ta da.
To each his own is my thing.
I say, hands off everyone. Helping hands sometimes are the hands that aren't lent. The timeless Marshall motto, a classic: "If it's that important to you, you'll do it yourself." It's been since forever that people have just left each other alone. Maybe it's my Ayn Rand spirit that's coming back to haunt me, or maybe it's just what needs to happen. We need to take responsibility for ourselves. Each person pitching in, making their own lives better in order to better the whole. That's all I really want. All the direction I received during my early years didn't really direct me anywhere except this middle of the road, carving out nicely the crack between success and failure.
We all make choices, and need to be allowed to take responsibility for those choices.
Monday, June 04, 2012
Nerves
Since trying to make a life via performing my nerves have gotten the best of me one too many times. It's embarrassing and stupid. Probably one of the worst feelings ever. Not being able to sleep the night before an audition when you're so tired. Not being able to think when you're on your feet. Not being able to remember those lines you so clearly committed to memory. It's murder.
About eight weeks ago in a class I'd been taking I was told to exit the room and come back to start a mock audition, with the express intention of failing, all while accentuating any sort of personal nervous tick. The sort that takes hold of your body when your mind is racked and cannot be re-racked.
My name was called, I walked in, and I was free. Free from actual failure because you can't fake it. You can't fake failure. We know it too well. Too used to it. Right leg begins to convulse. A mind of its own. Powerless to stop what I've deemed 'the shakes,' coursing through my veins, causing my voice to rattle with the vibrato of a much older woman. Repeating my own name several times. Searching frantically for a funny little fact about myself outside of this audition, this moment, this now. It was fun to mock myself.
Freedom to fail never felt so good. Deciding that we've all lost before even beginning has literally been my own personal godsend. Life's most certainly a lot of right place, right time, right look. The notion that there are so many people going for the same thing day-in and day-out has given me the license to do whatever, be myself, be my characters, do my own thing. So many people are so completely and utterly talented. They're so talented. So effing talented. It's unbelievable. But, you see it just like I do. Day after day someone gets the role or the spot on that team or the acceptance into a special class -- and they deserve it. Maybe you get it this time, maybe you don't, but realizing that you have something going for you (and at a certain point, we all do) is key. It's not "No." It's "Not right now." Those are different things. And it'll free you.
About eight weeks ago in a class I'd been taking I was told to exit the room and come back to start a mock audition, with the express intention of failing, all while accentuating any sort of personal nervous tick. The sort that takes hold of your body when your mind is racked and cannot be re-racked.
My name was called, I walked in, and I was free. Free from actual failure because you can't fake it. You can't fake failure. We know it too well. Too used to it. Right leg begins to convulse. A mind of its own. Powerless to stop what I've deemed 'the shakes,' coursing through my veins, causing my voice to rattle with the vibrato of a much older woman. Repeating my own name several times. Searching frantically for a funny little fact about myself outside of this audition, this moment, this now. It was fun to mock myself.
Freedom to fail never felt so good. Deciding that we've all lost before even beginning has literally been my own personal godsend. Life's most certainly a lot of right place, right time, right look. The notion that there are so many people going for the same thing day-in and day-out has given me the license to do whatever, be myself, be my characters, do my own thing. So many people are so completely and utterly talented. They're so talented. So effing talented. It's unbelievable. But, you see it just like I do. Day after day someone gets the role or the spot on that team or the acceptance into a special class -- and they deserve it. Maybe you get it this time, maybe you don't, but realizing that you have something going for you (and at a certain point, we all do) is key. It's not "No." It's "Not right now." Those are different things. And it'll free you.
Sunday, June 03, 2012
In My Memory
I swear to God, I have no recollection of (most of) my life. I don't remember when things happened, if I attended some event, or what something felt like when it happened. But, the memories that I've somehow managed to collect and sort of massage into truth are all just terrible. Really terrible memories.
Top Worst Memories:
1. At 6 I was cracked in the mouth with an aluminum baseball bat. For real. My four brothers, my sister and I, along with some neighborhood roustabouts were across the street from my house. I wanted to be the catcher, but refused to wear the catcher's face mask. Even then I knew being cute didn't entail a Hannibal faceguard. And I paid the price with my freckled cheeks. I don't remember the pain. I don't remember how many teeth I lost. I just remember that it happened. And my brother Larry was the culprit.
Larry, in the Anderson's front yard, with a bat. I hope he's never forgiven himself.
2. The year was 1996. I was 10, I think, riding my bike up town to Burger King with my brother Sean, cousin Brian and perhaps a few others (can't remember, clearly). They sped ahead leaving me to clean up their dust. I had to hop off my sweet black and blue (foreshadow) Schwinn to walk it across the street. The boys were much further ahead, per usual (from what I recollect), and a gurthy woman was in the way. My precocious (shocker) self couldn't just wait for her to shuffle out of the way, so I thought to go around her by lifting my bike over the curb. Again, my face was at risk. Somehow the handle bars flew up, smacking me straight in the mouth. Blood spewing everywhere, down my face, on the lady, soaking my shirt. A reverse curb stomp brought on by stupidity, just like gang violence, yeah? My top row of teeth sliced down, and straight through. There's a scar there now, on my lip, underneath it as well.
The interesting part about this tale is how sentimentally 'small town' it all was. It occurred right in front of Northern Trust bank, on what was essentially our Main Street. Western Avenue. Mr. MacFarlan, my down the street neighbor, who's dog, Toby, I regularly walked, was about to enter the bank, upon finding me looking like I'd gotten in a bar fight with myself. He handed me a handkerchief and brought me into the bank to make his deposit (in the vault, what?), before finally taking me to Highland Park Hospital. I can only imagine the site: a pretty ratty looking tween, blood drying around her mouth, strutting into the bank, tears still free falling, with ole classy MacFarlan. I'm sure he was wearing straight leg khakis, a Polo blazer with a yellow collared shirt, and boat shoes. Quite the odd couple. I ended up getting 14 stitches that day. Holy smokes.
3. Somewhere in middle school I got a new pair of jeans. Mavi jeans. They were very cool. And, I got them myself (i.e. with my parents money, but without them monitoring my purchase) at E-Street, a store run by bitches. Not just bitches, they were the sort that reveled and embraced their hot obnoxiousness. You know the sort.
Well, I thought I was awesome for a day in these pants, but I should've known. No extremely petite girl with albino-esque skin and just a mess for hair could ever be awesome. Molly Ringwald lied to me. The scene was a typical day in the lunchroom. I was sitting with a few kids I wanted to be better friends with, I'm sure. And across the lunchroom a storm was brewing. The attack was launched by a young douche named Bryan (a different Brian from my cousin). Slathering a corndog with ketchup and mustard, and adding a douse of whatever other free condiments were available, it flew above the heads of students and teachers, only to find it's victim. Me.
It nailed me. Right on my thigh. I didn't have a lot of patience for assholes then, a quality I have been fortunate enough not to extinguish in my adult life. At the time, I was prone to not resolving problems with peers, instead investing in adult relationships where I was in fact a fucking tattle-tale. It didn't matter though. Bryan never got any sort of punishment from my (albeit terrible) records. He ended up getting a concussion at some point that same year, which I did not pray for, even if the stain in those pants never came out, and he might have deserved it. (We were all thinking it.)
These memories are all the worst. Maybe if I think hard enough I'll figure out a way to access the lovely sweet memories amidst all these misdeeds and occurrences. We'll see.
Top Worst Memories:
1. At 6 I was cracked in the mouth with an aluminum baseball bat. For real. My four brothers, my sister and I, along with some neighborhood roustabouts were across the street from my house. I wanted to be the catcher, but refused to wear the catcher's face mask. Even then I knew being cute didn't entail a Hannibal faceguard. And I paid the price with my freckled cheeks. I don't remember the pain. I don't remember how many teeth I lost. I just remember that it happened. And my brother Larry was the culprit.
Larry, in the Anderson's front yard, with a bat. I hope he's never forgiven himself.
2. The year was 1996. I was 10, I think, riding my bike up town to Burger King with my brother Sean, cousin Brian and perhaps a few others (can't remember, clearly). They sped ahead leaving me to clean up their dust. I had to hop off my sweet black and blue (foreshadow) Schwinn to walk it across the street. The boys were much further ahead, per usual (from what I recollect), and a gurthy woman was in the way. My precocious (shocker) self couldn't just wait for her to shuffle out of the way, so I thought to go around her by lifting my bike over the curb. Again, my face was at risk. Somehow the handle bars flew up, smacking me straight in the mouth. Blood spewing everywhere, down my face, on the lady, soaking my shirt. A reverse curb stomp brought on by stupidity, just like gang violence, yeah? My top row of teeth sliced down, and straight through. There's a scar there now, on my lip, underneath it as well.
The interesting part about this tale is how sentimentally 'small town' it all was. It occurred right in front of Northern Trust bank, on what was essentially our Main Street. Western Avenue. Mr. MacFarlan, my down the street neighbor, who's dog, Toby, I regularly walked, was about to enter the bank, upon finding me looking like I'd gotten in a bar fight with myself. He handed me a handkerchief and brought me into the bank to make his deposit (in the vault, what?), before finally taking me to Highland Park Hospital. I can only imagine the site: a pretty ratty looking tween, blood drying around her mouth, strutting into the bank, tears still free falling, with ole classy MacFarlan. I'm sure he was wearing straight leg khakis, a Polo blazer with a yellow collared shirt, and boat shoes. Quite the odd couple. I ended up getting 14 stitches that day. Holy smokes.
3. Somewhere in middle school I got a new pair of jeans. Mavi jeans. They were very cool. And, I got them myself (i.e. with my parents money, but without them monitoring my purchase) at E-Street, a store run by bitches. Not just bitches, they were the sort that reveled and embraced their hot obnoxiousness. You know the sort.
Well, I thought I was awesome for a day in these pants, but I should've known. No extremely petite girl with albino-esque skin and just a mess for hair could ever be awesome. Molly Ringwald lied to me. The scene was a typical day in the lunchroom. I was sitting with a few kids I wanted to be better friends with, I'm sure. And across the lunchroom a storm was brewing. The attack was launched by a young douche named Bryan (a different Brian from my cousin). Slathering a corndog with ketchup and mustard, and adding a douse of whatever other free condiments were available, it flew above the heads of students and teachers, only to find it's victim. Me.
It nailed me. Right on my thigh. I didn't have a lot of patience for assholes then, a quality I have been fortunate enough not to extinguish in my adult life. At the time, I was prone to not resolving problems with peers, instead investing in adult relationships where I was in fact a fucking tattle-tale. It didn't matter though. Bryan never got any sort of punishment from my (albeit terrible) records. He ended up getting a concussion at some point that same year, which I did not pray for, even if the stain in those pants never came out, and he might have deserved it. (We were all thinking it.)
These memories are all the worst. Maybe if I think hard enough I'll figure out a way to access the lovely sweet memories amidst all these misdeeds and occurrences. We'll see.
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