Year 3, Day 2

Louis CK is my competitor.

That's the uncomfortable reality of being a stand-alone, buy-my-special-on-my-website,

stand-up comedian.
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That's me. 

I'm a professional stand-up comedian.

And so I need to find ways to add value to my website.

For a couple years, I had my first stand-up special available on this very website,
brysonturner.com

It was a great first special, and I'll always be proud of it.

I also am now ready to acknowledge the reality:  it was worth exactly $1048.

And that's pretty damn cool.

It's also not enough to pay my bills.

Which is why I need to start making money again, as a live performer.

That starts tomorrow night, at Pinboys at the Beach.

"Pinboys at the Beach" is a bowling alley, on Laskin Road, here in Virginia Beach.  They have a show there every Monday night, at 9 pm.  I'm going to try to win $25, which is awarded to the best set of the night.  The winner is decided by audience vote.

I am officially going to try to win that $25, tomorrow night.

I am going to figure out ways to make money, doing this. 
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I also fully intend to keep getting to know my amazing girlfriend, Miss Butterfly Starfish.  And I'm having a blast getting to learn from her daughter, Dragonfly Snowflake.

And I am excited to get to know Butterfly's entire family, better and better. 

(and my family too, if we would ever take the sticks out of our butts)
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The first time I became a full-time comedian, I started abandoning everyone who had helped me get to that point.

It was never anything "personal."  I still liked and loved all those people.  I just started...not paying attention to them.  I started not respecting their time.

I also got it in my head, that they were all living vicariously through me.  And that the best thing I could do for them would be to get as famous as I possibly could, so that they could all brag about it.

(I know this seems delusional and narcissistic.  It is, and I was)
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For a good half-a-decade, I put strangers above the people closest to me -- family and friends -- just because I had to "follow my dream."

What I didn't see at the time, was that having a healthy and frequent relationship with my family was a part of the "dream" I was following.  Without that, even if I "achieved fame(!!)"

I was going to achieve it, expect my dad to be more impressed, expect everyone from high school to call and personally apologize for not dating me,

and then be disappointed that "fame" felt the same on the inside as "about to be famous maybe"
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Louis CK is my competitor.  And that's a reality I have to deal with.  He has a heckuva head start.  He's already made millions.

Right now, I'm at $1048.
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But I still say to please support him.  I think he is the Tiger Woods of stand-up right now. 

Here is what he said on Conan O'Brien last week.  I admire it.

As Usual, Patrice Shows Up

NOTE:  I was journaling yesterday (which I strongly suggest to everyone), and as he often does, Patrice O'Neal came up.  As I was writing about him, I realized that the anniversary of his death was tomorrow (today, as I'm writing this note).

Through the past year, I've thought of Patrice often.  The guy tried.  That's what I miss most, I think.  He really did try.

I realized midway through my journal entry that I was going to publish it.  So that's what this is.  I hope you all have a great day.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012. 3:39 p.m.

The Alley, NYC

I'm not really in the mood to journal. But I'll try to do it for 15 minutes. What I would really like to do is...

I'm not really sure. I wanted to write that I want to work on the book idea I have with Steph Simbari. But I'm not sure I'm really that excited to do so. It's just not that big a deal.

What am I writing? I'm writing without evne thinking. And not in the cool, free-writing session kind of way. I'm just typing garbage. AT least that's what it feels like. Maybe not. Maybe everything is something. That's probably true. Why did I write that it's not that big a deal? I don't know. Myabe it was just the natural thing to write after I just wrote “I'm not sure I'm really that excited to do so.” Or maybe I actually meant it, specific to this situation.

I'm really struggling in my life right now. But not in the way that I have in the past. In the past, I just haven't done anything. Now, it's not that I'm not doing anything. It's that even when I do something, it still feels like nothing. That's the terrifying part, probably. I'm starting to really try, and really use my days to the fullest, and it still feels like nothing is changing, nothing is getting done, and nothing is progressing. Nothing is worth doing. There it is. Nothing is worth the trouble of doing it, just for the minimal results it will bring, even best-case scenario.

So that's what I have to start making peace with, or continue to make peace with. The idea that even when I'm working at peak efficiency, it's still not a sexy result. It's still not that great.

So that's the fight. That's the battle. That's what I need to continue to realize, but also to overcome.

Not overcome, maybe. I just need to make peace with it. Literally. I need to realize that it will never go away. That reality will never be “defeated,” per se'. But I can make peace with it. I can make peace with the monster. And it's a presumed monster.

It's a monster like Patrice. I've been taught to be afraid of it. But have I ever talked to it? Have I ever gotten to know it?

That's it. I need to talk to my monsters. I need to talk to my fears. I need to get to know them. I owe them that. And selfishly, I owe myself that. Some will be a dark energy, like Neil Constantine. But at least some of them will be light. Almost like air. It will be incredibly uplifting to meet them, and get to know them.

So who is this Patrice? This Patrice is the idea that even if I succeed beyond my wildest dreams, it will still feel like nothing.

Okay. Hi. It's nice to meet you. Sorry that this is awkward. Or not “sorry.” Whatever. You get it.

Haha. The first time is always awkward. It's a joke I have. Or a point, I suppose. But you gotta go through the weird first time, if you ever want to get good. Right? I say yes. It's funny. So I trust it.

Do you ever want to be funny, Deepest Fear? Are you funny sometimes? Does it bug you that everyone gets sad when they see you? A lot of people don't even talk to you.

Even the “scary” people – the ones with a “dark” energy – I bet it's worth getting to know them when they're drunk. You get to see into a soul in a way that you wouldn't see otherwise.

I've been afraid of you for a little while now. The thing was, it took me a long time to get to meet you. Because I've been meeting other fears along the way, almost like they were blocking me from you. So now that I'm finally meeting you, Fear That My Best Will Change Nothing, I have a bunch of assumptions about you. Assumptions that probably have nothing to do with you.

I thought you could kill me. I thought you were surly, and that you liked seeing people sad. I thought you went out of your way to ruin people, to ruin their days, to make them feel like nothing.

Wow. My first instinct is to apologize to you. But that's not the way I want to live my life. Even when you apologize, it's still about me largely. “I'm sorry.” It's still about me. I'm patting myself on the back for being willing to finally stop being an idiot.

Well, Deep Fear, thank you. Thank you for being so patient. Thank you for waiting, longer than you needed to, for me to figure it out.

I just took 10 minutes off from writing. Because I realized that tomorrow is the 1-year anniversary of Patrice O'Neal's death.

Was his life pointless? I think he was frustrated with how meaningless his best efforts were. But the dude was a human being. Louis C.K. Dedicated his special to him. Jim Norton dedicated his special to him. He was a tremendous influence on me, and anyone who I have any influence on, he'll be a huge influence on them. If I'm not mistaken, Stephanie Simbari was a tremendous fan. Calise Hawkins is still impacted by his words, by what he had to say, by how he tried to live his life. There were many. And the number is still climbing.

I think I may have miscast you, Fear. How frustrating it must be for you. Frustrating to want to be a positive, motivating factor for people. And then most people end up hiding from you. Most people resent you, because you represent things, because you bring things to light that perhaps people don't want to see. And so you take the brunt of the punishment. People say they hate you. People do hate you. But they shouldn't. They're just not thinking rationally.

That's what Patrice was. Patrice was fear, personified. But fear isn't a bad thing. You're not a bad thing, Fear. But I've miscast you all these years. I've thought you were there to hurt me. I thought you were the bad guy.

I think I just realized I'm going to publish this. I'll make it public. Cool.

Patrice was fear. In that way, Patrice, you're still with me. You were the energy of Fear. But Fear isn't a bad thing. Fear isn't mean. Fear is love. Fear is Love. So someone like Neil, who comes off so negative, who so embodies “fear” - yeah. That makes sense. People like that, they're like human fire alarms. Not always pleasant to be around – in fact, usually unpleasant – but they are negative out of a desire to be positive.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

People that personify “fear” - if they were in fact “evil,” or whatever word you want to use, then they wouldn't be so uncomfortable to be around. It wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't be the worst thing to do. Fear is not the bad thing – it's the friend that doesn't want to see you blindsided by the bad thing that might happen.

I have family that are proud Republicans, and I have family that are quiet Republicans. Fuck quiet Republicans. If you are what you claim you are, I can shake your hand. I don't care what you are. Be a pedophile. Just don't tell me you're not. That's what evil is. Evil is dishonesty. That's all that evil is. It's dishonesty.

Patrice was many things. But he was, above all, not dishonest. That was what his life goal evolved into – to be righteous. To not lie. Half the reason he wanted to understand himself was so that he could make sure he wasn't lying to anyone about who he was. He didn't want to hurt anyone else's pursuit of understanding.

Evil is dishonesty. Patrice was the opposite of that. Patrice was love. Patrice was Fear. But Fear is Love. Patrice is Love.

Damn I miss that dude. Like, in the human form. In one collected grouping of fat, black, dude. But he's still here, really.

But still. Fuck. It was fun to see that in human form. 

4:26 pm, Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Back when I wore collared shirts
(February 2010)

Tuesdays with Hustle

Tuesdays have become my day to hustle. I’m not sure why. I guess it just worked out that way, because there are so many mics, and some of them happen to be clustered together, both time-wise and location-in-the-city-wise. So it allows me to run around a little easier.

Last week I got six sets in. And as I was getting ready to go out a few minutes ago, I ran through the timeline for tonight. And I thought this thought:

“You know, if I play it perfectly next Tuesday, I think I might be able to get 10 sets in.”

I doubt I will - I’d be lucky to get 8 in, really. But just the fact that I could even have that thought - that’s why I moved here. I moved here because I might be able to get 10 sets in next Tuesday. That’s insane. There might be literally one city in the world where you can have that thought. 10 sets on a Tuesday.

It’s also, literally, insane - at least a little bit. I wonder how many comics alive have done 10 sets in 1 night. 100? 200? 300? 500? Maybe? I don’t know. 50? It’s doable. But how many have ever actually done it? How many bother?

That’s the thing. You can’t control what people think of you. But you can control how hard you work. I need to write more offstage. And I need to do a lot of things better, if I want to evolve and really put my stamp on comedy. But I think I can be a hard worker. I think I can do that. There’s more to it than that. But I think I can be the guy that got up 10 times on a Tuesday. Just because I could.

An Open Letter to Louis C.K.

Hi Louis,

I keep writing and re-writing this. I’d better just spit this out and move on to my next task.

Earlier today, you asked your twitter followers which non-profit organization you should donate to.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure the answer is Resolve Network.

I’m a 27 year-old who is an aspiring stand-up comedian. I’ve spent the past year in New York City after stops in Austin and D.C. (I am the DC Improv waiter from 5 years ago who ran you down in the lobby and gave you a CD of my stuff and asked for notes). I love stand-up comedy, and my gut feeling is that for me, it will be a life-long pursuit.

Despite that love for stand-up, I’ve decided to move to the Congo in 3 months. Eastern Congo, to be specific - currently one of the most dangerous and unstable places in the world.

Why? Well, here’s the short version: My ex-partner (who also founded the organization two years ago) went to the Congo this fall, and visited the women that we work with there. She interviewed them, and one of the questions she asked all of them was “what would you tell the world if you knew they were listening?”

And one of the women said this: “I have a message to the world, and the message is: We are people. And we exist. And we need peace.”

If I have a chance to do something, how could I read that and not understand? Right? How could I not decide to go there, and work with them, and learn from them, and travel to other villages and explain what we’re doing, and set up a system so that women from different villages can communicate with each other about how much to charge for their produce, or when to prepare for a militia that’s headed in their direction?

Most people can’t move to the Congo to do all that. And so they shouldn’t feel bad that they aren’t doing all that. I won’t bore you with the details, but this opportunity has shown up in my life - a life that up until now, had been an otherwise pretty normal, struggling-comedian life. Trust me when I say this, Louis: I’m a stand-up comic. I’m like you were at 27. Irresponsible. Bad with money. I waste way too many of my days. I always presumed someone moving to Africa was a hero. But I’m not a hero. I’m just a dude. I’m just some random person, who lives in a 4th-floor walk-up, and who gets depressed because I can’t even get my shit together long enough to do my laundry.

But I have this genuine chance. This genuine chance to make a difference. And damn it, I’m going to try.

But we need money. We need money to get over there, and we need money to accomplish the awesome programs we’re setting up. I’m good at a lot of things, but asking for money isn’t one of them.

(I just cut out the emotional, Chicken-Soup-for-the-Comic’s-Soul, story-telling part of this letter, because at the end of the day, an open letter isn’t just a letter - it’s also open. And I just don’t feel comfortable getting all motivational-speaker on you. So I’ll just skip to the end of my letter.)

I’m telling you, Louis, this is a good thing. In our first year, we gave out loans in 10 different villages, to about 50 women, so they could start small businesses. Not only did they turn a profit, but they used the extra money they made to give loans to other women in their communities. They did the same thing with their profits that you’re doing with yours: they turned it into energy.

Now a year later, there are over 500 people - including new women and their families - who are living lives that are better in subtle but really significant ways. And because many of their businesses impact their entire community, the successful businesses are helping entire villages. Now 15,000 people have easier access to food, and 30,000 more people have access to safe latrines and less dangerous water.

I’m telling you: Resolve has a real chance to change a lot of people’s lives, in a lot of different ways.

I want to bitch about how hard it is to ask for money, but now I understand. This is kind of what you’ve been going through the past few months.

In fact, now that I think about it...damn. I’m writing an open letter to you. You had to go on The Tonight Show and ask for people’s money. Jesus. I never even thought about that angle of your recent experiment. It must have been really hard to put yourself out there and ask people to give you money.

On the flip side, that means you know how tough this is. I’m asking for your help, Louis. I’d love a donation. But what I’d love even more is if you extend this open letter to your fans. Let them know that money can be hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. But it can also be an energy - an energy that can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together. It can fuel great comedy specials, but it can also fuel revolutions. It genuinely can.

I know that might sound like bullshit, but after the past two weeks, I feel like if anyone’s fans can truly understand that their money can do things, it’s yours.

Our organization is like you, Louis. We don’t need money so that we can have money. We need money to use it as fuel. We have a real chance to help make some incredible things happen. But we need money. We need fuel.

I hope you understand, and I hope you choose to help.

With love,

Bryson Turner

www.resolvenetwork.org/donate

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?