Bad Behavior

I'm sitting at my brother's house in Portland watching David Steinberg's show on Showtime called "Inside Comedy" where he interviews comedians and comedic actors. I'm obsessed with interview shows. I guess I have been since I was a kid. Even now, when I'm bored I'll watch old Letterman interviews on You Tube. I loved Tom Snyder as a kid - I loved real conversations. And when I say "as a kid", I mean as a real young kid. I was a weird kid who loved listening to conversations when my parents went over to their friends' houses. I wasn't good with other kids. I liked being around the adults. And my parents never had anyone over to our place probably because my father was a slob and my mother was too frustrated to clean up. We lived in a bit of a pig sty. It got so bad that when my father was sick we had cockroaches. I worked that into a play I wrote about his death.

Anyway, I have always loved interviews. I listen to a lot of podcasts in my car. Right now I'm loving the Alec Baldwin "Here's the Thing" podcast, Elvis Mitchell's "The Treatment", Marc Meron's "WTF" (of course) and a lot of panel discussions. I love hearing Judd Apatow talk. I've done a lot of listening to Judd Apatow talk. I actually enjoy listening to him talk about his insecurities and how bad he is at everything and how he milks his life for material. I'm pausing an interview with Louis C.K. because the interview reminded me of something someone told me about Louis C.K. And it was a pretty disgusting story about how he likes to be humiliated (or did - maybe he has grown since the story). I'm watching this interview and thinking about this information and I think, "Who cares?"He's funny as fuck. Of course he's a cracked human being. He's doing all of this to feel better about himself. That's not news. The strange behaviors of creative people--especially comics--has been well-documented. I don't remember the friend who told me the story. But I love that he's a disgusting person. I love that he loves being yelled at. I love that he also puts his quirks on display in his show and in his act. It feels like his approach to life is that we all have smells and we all take shits and we all do things in private that are gross and shouldn't be shared. So why not share them?

I share this philosophy. Humiliating things have happened to me and I use them as material. I'm a gross person sometimes. I get my hair cut and I go to the gym and I buy nice clothes and speak well to cover that up. But I'm a pretty base-level dude. Even for a gay dude, I'm not always the most polished, well-behaved person. But who I am in my life seems very achievable. I'm a pretty normal person in terms of my level of flaws. Or maybe that's deceiving myself. I might be overwhelmingly flawed as opposed to other people. Or maybe I'm overwhelmingly good at exposing those flaws and not keeping those flaws a secret.

One of my closest friends is so good at embarrassing himself. He's just so damn good at it. He is so open to letting people have an opinion of him. It's like he's living his life if it were a gang bang. He's the party bottom cum receptor of his life. He wants some of everyone in him and on him. It worries me for him. But it also makes him incredibly endearing. And he's one of the most loveliest people and it's not pathetic, actually. It's really quite remarkable. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes. But maybe that's because of how open he is. And other than myself, he the person I know in my life who also exposes himself emotionally with great enthusiasm and deliberation. He kind of thrives on it.

That's just to make the point that we all have something fucked up about us that might be embarrassing to other people, but is just the way that we function. I was talking to my brother on this trip about running into someone the other day in Portland who almost hired me. I was up for this job at the big theatre in town a year ago. I had really reached a place in my life where NOTHING was happening careerwise. I didn't know what to do. I was working on a play I loved. I had an incredible community of friends around me. But I wasn't making a living as a writer and I didn't know where those prospects were coming from. So I applied to be the literary manager at this theatre.  I got so far that they flew me out to interview. Me and one other person. I didn't get the job. And then all of this career stuff happened. Not for six months. But it happened. And then I'm walking around town with my Mom, showing her the theatre I would have worked at. At that moment, this woman comes walking down the street on her way in. It's the woman who interviewed me and would have been my boss. I said hello to her. We engaged in polite conversation. Then I said that I was showing my Mom where I would have been working had she hired me.

In the retelling of this story to my brother, he said that I sounded desperate. I told him that I opened my mouth and that's what came out. It makes a great story. I don't care that I embarrassed myself. I don't care that she ran off right after I said that because I said that because IT MAKES A GREAT STORY. That's how I know I'm a whore--like my close friend--because I'll do anything for a great story. I love an embarrassing story. And I've told a bunch of them over the years. I think that maybe I'll write a book about all of my embarrassing stories. They're great stories. Maybe I'll be able to sell a book like that when I get some notoriety and someone would pay me to write a book about the embarrassing things that have happened to me.

Maybe I'm thinking about comedians and these embarrassing stories that fuel material because I'm enjoying writing things that are straight up funny again. Kathy Griffin says that she'll do "anything for the joke." Yeah, that sounds right. I'll make myself look like an asshole for a joke. Not that it's that hard. I just have to admit stuff.

I am grateful for the things I have to admit.
I am grateful for the love I have for myself.
I am grateful that I'm not embarrassed by much.