Small Progress is Never Bad

Things are going very well.  In life.  Stand-up is a part of that.  But things are just going really, really well right now.

This move to New York was perhaps, all things considered, the best decision I’ve made in my life.  It has led to everything.  The people I’m around are incredible.  I’m surrounded by the greatest minds and greatest bodies in the world.  Both of which are more important than I realized, before I moved here.

I love everyone.  I hope I get a chance to explain why, before I lose this collective form and become a part of everyone and everything else.

Anyway - have a good Monday.

How I Learned To Love Everyone Unconditionally

It's occurred to me that this whole "Loving Everyone Unconditionally" business is important enough to warrant a full blog about. Because people seem to have questions. Understandably. So I'll share what my journey has been thus far.

After smoking weed with Bryson back in September, a calming sense of peace and understanding washed over me. It was a spiritual awakening that changed my life. It filled me with so many thoughts and so much perspective I was overwhelmed in documenting it all.

A month later, I started introspecting about how I had acquired this new sense of peace. I realized that my sense of self worth was not driven by ego, but by an acceptance of my flaws. I saw my flaws as the thing that made my fragile existence beautiful. It's the struggle of trying to live a good life while being flawed that is true beauty. Some think the goal is to be flawless, but if one is flawless, one does not need to struggle. But the human struggle to live well with this heavy load of flaws that we have no choice but to burden...that's beautiful.

I started looking at myself objectively. "Look at me wanting to connect to people without hurting them or myself. Look at me wanting to be honest but being afraid of what people think. Look at me knowing that I have to make mistakes, painful mistakes, in order to grow. But being willing to."
"Look at me with my food addiction and my fear of women and resentment of my father...but trying to overcome. Look at me trying."

That's when I realized that I didn't love myself in spite of my flaws, I loved myself because of my flaws. And I realized that made my love for myself unconditional.

But of course, we're all flawed. So why would my unconditional love stop with one flawed being? Any being that's flawed is in the same boat I am. Why would I judge someone for having different flaws than mine? Why would I not love their flaws as my own? Since after all, we're all one.

Which, by the way, is as cliche as is necessary because people don't understand that until they're ready to. That goes for anything. Anything you don't understand, it just means you're not ready to yet. Which is fine. It's beautiful. Reading/hearing "we're all one" won't mean anything to you until it does. I heard "We're all one", a lot growing up. I understood it 5 months ago.

I'm tempted to get very metaphysical and eastern philosophical here but I won't. What I'll say is I understood that there were no "levels" of flaws. Because I didn't choose to be me. No one chose to be themselves. You don't choose your race, gender, nationality, culture, age, who your parents are or even your own genetic makeup. I realized we all live circumstantial lives. So why would I judge a person born into circumstance? My circumstances are fortunate. I could've been a pedophile, or a murderer, or an ethnic cleanser. I still could be, technically. If I just started doing those things. But my circumstances haven't led me there.

Lucky me, I've got food addiction. You won't get put in a cage for that.

So at this point the unconditional love I had for myself permeated outwards towards everyone I met. I saw their flaws as beautiful. And I loved them because of their flaws. And since I understood that we're all flawed, and we all struggle through this fragile existence that life is, I loved everyone unconditionally.

I don't take anybody's flaws personally. If you hurt me, I'll get it. It was probably unintentional. Most people don't want to hurt others. People in my life don't. If you're surrounded by people that do, you need to ask yourself why that is. Because everything in your life that shows up shows up because of the energy you put out. If you're attracting negativity that's what shows up.

But even an amazing person can lose their way and hurt intentionally. If you hurt me intentionally, I still get it. You're flawed. You're probably hurting, yourself. Or maybe I hurt you in some way. We're fragile creatures interacting, these things happen. I'll still love you. There's nothing to me that's "unforgivable."

Including myself. Whenever I overeat, I step back, forgive myself and try to stay present. That's the other thing I can't stress enough: Loving unconditionally starts with loving yourself unconditionally. It's a hard process. Start with forgiveness and acceptance of self. Treat yourself gently. The golden rule is "treat others the way you want to be treated", but a lot of people are harder on themselves than they are on others. Many people's compassion extends to others more than themselves. You wouldn't call your fiend a piece of shit for being on the internet all day instead of writing (or whatever). But you will get down on yourself, in your own head. This inward negativity permeates out eventually. So if you have to, reverse the golden rule: "Treat yourself as gently as you treat others."

So, that's basically it. I love my flaws. I love everyone's flaws. I love everyone unconditionally. 

My sister taught me this symbol. I like it a lot. Unconditionally.

Getting High For Stand Up & With A Girl

Yesterday was the first time I did a set while high. But I wasn't too high, I was on my way down. I had gotten high 5 hours earlier, then did a set and crushed, in front of 10-12 people at 2:00 am in the morning. I was dripping with raw honesty. More than usual.

So now I'm reminding myself to not try to recreate that experience. Because that's always how people get in trouble. When you're high you understand that there's no future. But when you sober up, you try to make another future where you understand there isn't one. It's going back to the same comfortable well, and that's how you get dependent. Drugs get a bad rap for that, but I do that with food and the internet CONSTANTLY.

Because food and the internet are also drugs. And so are people. Anything that can interact with the chemicals in your brain is a drug. So really all of existence is a drug. Life is a constant drug induced state. Weed just gives me different glasses to look at existence through. So far, they're my favorite glasses.

The other thing is yesterday was the first time I got high with a girl I like. And to be fair to her, I made sure I got SIGNIFICANTLY high. High enough that I couldn't believe in a future, high enough that I couldn't use language to appear to be honest but not really be. I gave myself no options, no way out of it. I was dead set on us being high together for the next few hours.

And it was a beautiful thing. We shared a beautiful night together. Nothing physical happened. But that means more to everyone reading this than it does to me. Because I'm not keeping score. I'm living my life.

The weird thing is I've only really been hanging out with women for about 7 months. And I've also only been incarnated in this form of an unconditional lover of people for about 4 months. So in many respects I'm a spiritual baby. But I also love the journey I'm on. There's no one else on the planet I'd rather be than myself. I'm in the driver's seat.

I'm happy when I'm growing, and to me growth isn't about having a desired outcome. It's about moving forward. Yesterday I put myself out there to a girl I like. And it was beautiful. Because it was growth.

I love all of you unconditionally. 

Even you, impending snowstorm

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

Relearned Lessons

This blog is allowed to be whatever I want it to be.  I need to keep remembering that.

There are no rules to this.  And really, there are no rules to anything.

Write a blog entry:  check.

Happiness

I moved to New York for a lot of different reasons. But at the end of the day, the ultimate goal was probably because I wanted to be happy. I thought that I might be able to find a version of happiness in New York City.

It took a year. But here it is.

New York broke me. No other way to put it. When I moved up here, I failed. I was terrified of finding out that I wasn’t special. And so I gave into that fear. I didn’t go out. I didn’t go to mics. I hated on everything that was up here. I hated on the other comics up here.

I wanted to transcend the fear of failure. I failed.

I’m working on a full, War-and-Peace-length review of my first year here. But here’s the short version:

Stage 1: January, 2011 - July, 2011: Lived in New York. Scared. Didn’t get out much.

Stage 2: July, 2011 - August, 2011: Home in Pittsburgh, dealing with family issues.

Stage 3: September, 2011 - October, 2011: Home in Pittsburgh, hiding from New York City, hiding from the chance that I’d go back and fail again. Dreading coming back. Terrified.

Stage 4: November, 2011: Came back. Started fighting. Struggled, but fought. Started to get out of my own way.

Stage 5: December, 2011: Got the hell out of my way. Started working my ass off. Started being the best comic I could possibly be - and stopped worrying about whether or not that would be good enough for anybody else. There were a lot of reasons for this, but a conversation with a friend was the symbolic start of this phase. As I’m looking back, that quick conversation, on the way to get a slice of $1 pizza, was a hugely significant moment in the past year of my life. And quite possibly in my next ten.

______________________________

So those were basically the 5 stages of my first year in New York. Which brings us to stage 6, I suppose: January 2012.

I went home to Pittsburgh for Christmas, and I stayed through New Years. I’ve been back in New York for about 10 days now, and it’s roughly 180 degrees different than it was when I moved up here almost exactly one year ago.

I guess the basic difference is that I’m pursuing my best self. Maybe I won’t be anything up here. Maybe I’m just some comedy-nerd that’s obsessed with the talent and heart of guys like Louis C.K. and Patrice O’Neal. Maybe I’m not destined to be mentioned in the same breath as them, and Pryor and Carlin - let alone historical minds, like Socrates or Plato.

Maybe not. But I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care if the other comics here respect what I’m doing. I don’t care if I’m considered one of the “up-and-coming guys” up here. I don’t care if there’s some “buzz” around me right now.

Here’s what I care about: Am I able to explain all the crazy things that I’m experiencing to the rest of this world?

Here’s what drinking alcohol is like: It feels like I’m pouring lots of tiny jocks into my mouth, and then they go up to my brain and beat up all the nerds that are in there.

That’s a sensation I felt this week. The sensation of being drunk. And I wanted to explain to the world what that felt like. I wanted to be able to put my experience - my existence - into words that other people understand.

I never drank in high school or college, so I’m just experiencing that sensation now. If that makes me lame, I’m fine with that.

I ended a long-term relationship a few months ago with an incredible human being. We ended it, in part, because I’d fallen out of love with her. I don’t understand why. If that makes me a terrible person, then I’m okay with that. It’s not about getting anyone to like me. I don’t need you to think I’m cool. But I want - desperately, I want - for you to understand.

That’s all I’m worried about right now. None of the bullshit. Just trying to connect. Trying to make you realize that we are, in fact, connected.

And that, for me, is happiness. Pursuing connection.

I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before. Here’s at least part of why: I don’t care about the bullshit, in New York. There’s so much more temptation here, as far as things that distract you from that ultimate goal - connecting. TV, the best clubs in the world, the feeling of being envied by everyone else who came here thinking they’d be making you jealous.

The temptations here are greater than they were when I was doing stand-up in college in Ohio, when I was coming up in DC, or when I was establishing myself in Austin. The ceiling for what could happen here is so much higher - and so to be able to look in the mirror, and know that not even the greatest temptations are distracting me from listening to myself...Jesus Christ, what a feeling. What peace I have, in this moment.

Understand: If I never get a TV credit in my life, if I never record an album I’m proud of in my life, if I never get into one New York club in the next ten years here - moving here was worth it. Because of what these past ten days have been. I am not 100 percent of what I can be. But I am 100 percent of what I am right now. I am 100 percent of myself right now.

Sorry if that doesn’t make sense to you. It makes sense to me.

I am happy. Because I am trying my best. That’s why I moved here. To find the version of myself that was trying his hardest.

For the past two weeks at least - here I am.

TEDTalks are Great, 1

That’s a picture of Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a brain scientist who had a stroke but lived to - eventually - talk about it. She gave a TEDTalk about the experience, and if you care at all about understanding the world, you shouldn’t do another thing until you watch it.

I do not use hyperbole when I say that it changed my life, and it changed how I look at the world. I watch it at least once every 6 months, and if I was more disciplined, I would watch every week. And I think I honestly mean that. If I was living my best life, I’d watch this once a week.

In fact, I’ll cut this thought short and write a full blog on it later. But for now, seriously, watch this now.

Did you just watch that? Is the world a completely different place forever now? Yeah. I know.

Anyway: When I logged onto the TEDTalk site, I was distracted by a pretty face, and - as we humans so often do - the asthetic appeal made me want to investigate.

In this case, this woman did not want to tell me about her cats, as so many bitter male comics often complain about. She talked about only getting to live one life, and how shocking a revelation that was as she slowly realized it. And how to make peace with that, and embrace the perfect imperfection of the present.

I enjoyed it. Like Patrice, she’s a kindred spirit, in the sense that she’s exploring, and reporting back what she finds. People like that make me happy. They make me feel connected, like we’re all a part of something bigger. Which WE LITERALLY ARE, as you’ll learn by watching this incredible piece of video.

Sorry, I got off track again. The woman’s name is Sarah Kay. I suggest you watch her TEDTalk.

The Beginnings of a Manifesto...

"Stand-up is 1 percent what you do onstage, 99 percent why you're doing it."

_____________________

As I've tried to evolve as a comic these past seven-plus years now, I'm always paranoid that I'm completely delusional, and that I'm not growing as a comic at all, and that I'm going to wake up in two weeks, or in three months, or in five years, and realize I'm pretty much the exact same as I was now. One of my greatest fears as a comic is becoming stagnant.

That's why it's pretty sweet when something proves I've grown a lot the past six months. That something happened tonight, as I was watching some bad comedy at an open-mic in Manhattan.

Now, let me be specific when I use the term "bad comedy." I don't mean people who are just starting doing stand-up, and so they don't know how to do it yet. I'm not talking about people a year or two in, who still don't really have their bearings onstage yet.

This was different. This wasn't people making bad attempts at doing stand-up. This was people doing stand-up comedy, but doing bad stand-up. These were comics totally comfortable onstage, who'd been doing it for years, really smooth, who were often getting great reactions from the crowd, but doing so with just terrible material.

Now, maybe you're a believer in the idea that a comic's only job is to be funny. Your job is to make the audience laugh, so shut up and do your job. The old "customer is always right" theory.

Here's a deal I'll make with anyone who believes that: Fine. You're right. Every time you get paid to do stand-up, your only job is to be funny. Cool. I'll give you that. But, if that's true, then you can never say that bullshit line that stand-up comics are different than everyone else. If you believe that first part, the second part is now completely out the window.

Why do some comics say that in the first place? Because we aren't like those suckers that have a 9-5 job, and have to answer to a boss, and who are just a part of the system. They don't think, they just do what they can to try to get that next paycheck. They're sheep, every last one of 'em. Not like us comics. We get it. We're wired different than everyone else.

If you want the "just make them laugh" argument, take it. But if that's your job, then you're no different than anyone at a desk job.

Maybe you're thinking I'm dead wrong, because you think stand-up is more fun than being an accountant. I would argue that your opinion of what's "fun" is subjective and therefore irrelevant. Either way, which job is more fun isn't the point I'm making. I'm simply pointing out that if you see stand-up as nothing more than a job to be done, and that money should be exchanged for your doing that job, and that people need a release sometimes, and they "just need to laugh," then your being a comic is simply fulfilling a role in our society, no different than an accountant doing someone's taxes, or a garbageman picking up garbage. You're no better, and no worse. Which is fine. But don't pretend we're more than what we are.

Personally though, I believe that stand-up can - and should - do more than that. And so if a comic is getting a laugh by encouraging ignorance - even if everyone in the crowd loves it - that's bad comedy. In fact, in my opinion, that is the worst comedy.

I think that's what's been so fascinating about New York. Is how many people here have it so spectacularly wrong. People have it this wrong in other spots, of course. But nowhere else do they say the wrong thing so loudly. Nowhere else are wrong comics so convinced they're right. In fact, that's the only way it could be - if they weren't so sure, they wouldn't have moved here in the first place.

It's hard to even describe. For a lot of comics here, it's as if one time they saw a great comic that had confidence, and they thought the confidence was what made them great, not the great comedy that gave that comic his or her confidence. There are an astounding amount of comics here that put that cart before the horse. To study the lack of self-awareness a lot of these comics have - the long-term delusion it takes to believe that against all odds, they've somehow been undeservedly skipped over and remain an unrecognized and under-appreciated genius - is legitimately fascinating.

Which brings us all the way back to the beginning, which is how I know that I am growing away from that, and headed in the right direction, for me, as a comic. How do I know?

Because tonight, when I saw that ignorant stand-up, it made me sad. I got really bummed out.

Which is new for me. In the past, I would have gotten angry. It would have pissed me off to see comedy done so poorly, because I'd feel like I could do better. And I'd feel like my stand-up deserved to be appreciated more than their stand-up.

I would be 100 percent sure that my stand-up was way better! But in making that claim, I didn't realize what I was admitting: that what they and I were doing was essentially the same. Maybe I thought my jokes were more clever, maybe I thought they had more substance...but my anger showed that I was competing for the same thing that those bad comics were, and I took offense that I might be screwed over if they got something and I didn't. I was, after all, an unrecognized and under-appreciated genius.

But tonight, watching the art form that I love be completely trivialized by hack bits about blacks and Indians and women being needy - all by comics utterly convinced of their own brilliance - I just got kind of bummed out. And I don't totally understand why yet. Maybe because I don't feel like my comedy is its own separate thing anymore. My stand-up is part of a collective. My comedy is a part of what makes up stand-up comedy as a whole. Which might seem like it ties me down to everyone else's work too, but also with that belief comes the realization that I don't have to beat anyone else or do something better than anyone else. The goal is not "Be what the audience wants you to be onstage." The goal is "Be what you want to be onstage." Which of course means that the only obstacle to my success is myself. There is no competition.

That. That's it. That's what made me sad. So many comics up here, so many comics I saw tonight - they all thought it was a competition. It was like they were all trying to win a trophy they've never seen but just assume exists. They think we're all fighting against each other to be the funniest, when really, the search is for each of us to find the funniest us that we can be. I think that lack of perspective is what bummed me out, and so I sat there, a little hunched over in my chair, listening to jokes I'd heard before that made points I'd heard before, watching comics not making themselves vulnerable in any way, and wondering if they'd ever have the balls to ask themselves what they actually think is funny.