Maybe My Happiest Post in the 2 Years of this Blog

Last night, I performed music at an open-mic.  To my knowledge, it was the first time I played an instrument in public since 5th grade.

Today, I have a 3 pm meeting at a TV network about a reality show that me and a few friends would be the leads in.  I doubt anything will come of it, but it’s good practice for if I ever have a show of my own to pitch.

Last night was also my first night back after 6 weeks off from performing stand-up.  I’ve been calling it my “off-season,” since as comics, we’re never told “you can take a break now.”  We just keep performing, every night, forever.  And I don’t think that’s healthy.  So I took a month-and-a-half off, to focus on other things (like learning to play the guitar).

This past Saturday, I had one final shoot with Mike Pullano - the director/editor of the intro and credit sequences for my special - and we wrapped up the filming of my special.  He’ll piece together what he has next week, and I should have a completed special in my hands in time for Christmas.

Tomorrow, Josh Eckert and I will meet up to look at the newest version of the website we’re working on, and decide what to change and how to move forward.  It will be a site with my special for sale, and a site that I’ll be able to sell future specials off of - or any number of other things, like independently produced books.

Sometime this week - maybe as early as today - I will sit down and get some more work done on the book that Steph Simbari and I are working on writing together.  It’s not at the top of my priority list right now, but as my special gets completed, and as my website goes live, I’ll be able to turn my focus to that project more and more.

Also, I can almost feel myself evolving as a person.  I’m letting go of layers of self-doubt, and self-resentment.  I’m letting go of years, and decades, of expectations and definitions.  Bryson is lazy.  Bryson is never going to finish things.  Bryson is not an adult.  Bryson is a man.  Bryson is straight.  Bryson hates tomatoes.  Bryson is unwilling to do something that he’s bad at.  Bryson doesn’t stick with things.  Bryson isn’t a diligent worker.  Bryson doesn’t read books.  Bryson doesn’t play musical instruments.  Bryson doesn’t write songs.  Bryson is a comic.

I’m letting go of the idea that I’ve already been defined, and that my only purpose in life is to try to color inside the lines that have already been drawn to define me.

More on that concept later, because I think I just touched on something huge huge huge huge.  But for now, this update:  I would have to say that things are going pretty well right now.

Forward.  Things are going pretty forward right now.

I’m evolving.  There is no better use of my time.

Love,

Bryson

Too Much Time on the Phone

I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone recently.  I know this isn’t what a blog post is supposed to be.  But I have a lot of other things to do this week, and I don’t want to commit to a two-hour block to really write about my experiences right now.

So I’m just going to put it on the record that I’m doing well, and that things are going right now.

I was going to write that “things are going well.”  But things have been going well in the past.  That’s not newsworthy.

Here’s what I’m going to write:

“Things are going forward right now.”

That’s new.  Things have never been going forward.  Not like this.  Not at this speed.  And not with this level of persistence.

I don’t know how to word it right, so that anyone else would understand.  But things are actually happening.  Things are getting done.  The concern over perfection is getting thrown out the window.  And we’re just getting things done.  So that they exist in the world.

Then other people can see the imperfect version I made, and they can say, “How did he screw up that last 10 percent??  90 percent of that was PERFECT!!  How did he screw up that 10 percent??”

And then they’ll make another one.  But a better one.  They’ll find out how hard it is to make something perfect (it’s impossible).  But hopefully, they’ll get 90 percent of my failures right.

Then all of a sudden, my world has a version that’s 99 percent right.  I didn’t make that version.  But who cares?  The world is better.  And I exist in the world.  So even selfishly, my world is better.  I win.

Me: not hungover.  Vijaya: very hungover.

So just to update you:  I’m trying to do some things.  I’m doing some things.  And I’m trying to make them perfect.  But they won’t be.

That’s okay.  Just look at them.  And see the flaws in what I’m doing.  And use that as a road map to be better than me.

But I’m moving forward.  I’m moving the world forward.  I’m moving comedy forward.

That’s worth celebrating.  I’m not perfect.  I’m failing.  But I’m trying.  It honestly feels just as good.  And with a lot less pressure.

This is what it failing feels like.  WHO KNEW??

Being a Good New Yorker

I could be doing more.  I could always be doing more.  All of us could.  So even though I feel like a piece of shit, I have to train myself to not feel too bad.  Because at some point, it’s not logical.  If everyone feels like shit, then there’s something wrong with how we decide whether or not to feel shitty.

It’s been a somewhat lazy two weeks.  Which sucks, because two weeks ago, I felt like I was on top of the world, and firing on all cylinders, and whatever other term means I was kicking ass.

But I didn’t blog back then.  I’m blogging right now, on a Friday, after a week where I spent more time playing apps than pretty much everything else combined.

For the sake of fairness, though, why don’t I share a story from two weeks ago, when things felt great.  I’ll tell you a story of being a good New Yorker.

________________________

The subway system in New York is pretty good, all things considered.  It’s not as clean as DC’s, but it’s open 24-7-365.  And that should count for something.

The thing that sucks is, if it’s really late at night, it’s barely open 24-7.  As in, trains are only scheduled to come once every half-hour - and that’s if they’re running on schedule.  So if you get into the subway at 2 a.m. and just miss your train, that means you’re probably going to be stuck there for another 30 minutes, waiting for the next one.  And you may still have to transfer to another train, which could mean another 30-minute wait.

Last night, my last mic ended at 2:05 in the morning.  I was at the subway station by 2:15, but I ended up waiting until 3 before my train came.  Then I waited another 20 minutes to transfer to the train that goes by my house.  And so even though my night ended at 2:05, I didn’t get back to my apartment until almost 4 in the morning.

Some nights, you luck out.  Some nights, you don’t.

That’s backstory, so that you understand.  Because I was getting home from a mic two weeks ago, late. Maybe 2 or 3 in the morning.  I forget.

And as I left the subway, I saw a lady running down the steps, trying to catch the train.  She was running, but she wasn’t going to make it, which meant another 30 minutes of waiting before she could even start heading to wherever she was going.

So instead of leaving right away, I just kind of lingered by the train.  And when the doors of the train started closing, I just stuck my arm back into the train.  And I just held it there.  And as subway doors do, they re-opened, and then tried to re-close.  And so they kind of closed on my arm again, but because they couldn’t close all the way, they opened back up and tried again.

Before the doors could try to close a third time, the woman had made it down the stairs, and she slid through the doors, and onto the train.

Then I kind of waved to the train conductor guy, as I started up the stairs.  I meant it in a “nothing personal” kind of way.  But he could have easily seen it in a “Chalk up another one for the 99 percent, asshole!” kind of way.

Then again, at 3 in the morning, it’s quite possible he didn’t give a shit either way.

But that lady definitely did.  I’ll never see her again.  But I saved her a half-hour.  If you don’t live in New York, just trust me:  in that moment, that means something.  That half-hour is the difference between a good mood and a bad mood.  Between a good night and a bad night, sometimes.

More often, it’s the difference between a good next day and a bad next day.  I’m telling you - it’s huge.

When I first moved here, I wouldn’t have done that.  I wouldn’t have known I was allowed to do that.  I would have felt like it’s not my place, or that I might get my arm chopped off.  Or one of those other hundred reasons we don’t do a cool thing, in the exact moment when we have the chance.  Because we just think about it too much.  And then we spend the next ten minutes regretting that we didn’t just do it.

I didn’t think about it.  I just stuck my arm in, took a few shots for the team, and sent that lady on her way.

That’s when you’re kicking ass at New York.  It’s just like stand-up, or improv, or anything else:  you learn the rules, so you know when to break them.  When you stop thinking so damn much, you start really kicking ass.

I’m becoming a better stand-up comic.  Which is helping make me a better New Yorker.  Which is helping make me a better person.

Forward.

It’s very hot today.

How Comics Affect Comics

It’s Friday, December 9, 2011. I haven’t had a productive day, by almost any definition. But I’m fighting.

As I’ve been wasting time, I’ve spent part of the day on youtube. And I started watching a clip or two of Louis C.K.

And I came across this clip, from a tribute to George Carlin from last year. Louis talks about what George meant to him, why he meant what he did, and how George’s passion for stand-up inspired Louis to become the comic that he is.

It reminded of the impact that Patrice O’Neal has had on what I try to do with stand-up, and why I approach it in the way that I do. And it made me think about all the interesting ways that we can impact the world, beyond how we ourselves impact the world. Ways that literally can’t occur to us.

George was doing his stand-up to do his stand-up. But him doing that - being the best comic he could be, and living the most honest life he could - affected things, and affects things, that he never directly came into contact with.

Louis never got to know Carlin, and yet still, Carlin changed his life forever. And Louis knows it.

“...anything that ever happens to me that’s good, is due to this guy."

In that way, whatever Louis C.K. does - and whoever’s thoughts or behaviors or lives are changed because of his choices in life - would never have happened without George Carlin’s stand-up. Louis had a huge head start on figuring out how to do what he does, and it’s thanks to Carlin.

“He was always the beacon for me.”

Here’s hoping Louis continues pushing forward, eventually past Carlin’s beacon and into the unknown. If he does, it won’t mean Carlin’s life and career mean less - it will validate them even more.

And hopefully we, as the next generation, use the beacons that Louis - and Patrice, and Burr, and Patton, and the rest - are hanging up for us. Because we should want to be better than them. Not just for our own sake, but so that the next generation can be even better than us.

That’s why I love comedy. That’s why I love great comics. That’s why I love passionate people. Because we look for beacons, and because we look for beacons, it occurs to us to try to hang some up, too.

Anyway...it was just a cool clip, of a speech - from the heart - from Comedy Central’s 98th-best stand-up of all-time, about their 2nd-best stand-up of all-time.

But what the fuck do they know?