Responsibility

It's 11:25 at night, and I'm at home.  In bed.

This is noteworthy, because I could be at any number of shows that is still currently going on.  I got up and did a set at Left Field, which is a bar in Manhattan.  And then I stayed to watch the rest of the mic.  When it finished, it was still only about 10:30.  Which meant that I had some options.

I could have gone to The Pit, which has an open-mic that starts at 11.  I could have gone to UCB East, which also has an 11 pm open-mic.  Or I could have gone "Penny's" open-mic, which is in the same area of town, and usually goes until 1 or 2 in the morning.  Or I could have gone to Bar 4, which is in a different part of town, but also goes til super late.

Instead, I decided to come home.  Because I have a meeting in the morning, and because I'm probably going to be out super late tomorrow night.  And because it's been a long, full day, and I'm tired.

And that's okay.  I'm allowed to be a human being.  I only did one set tonight, and I only did two sets last night.  Not a blistering pace, by any means.  But I don't need to lose my mind right away, and it doesn't make sense to get burnt out on my first night back.  I'm easing back into comedy, allowing myself to enjoy it again.  And that feels right.  So I'm going to follow that feeling.

And I'm not watching SportsCenter, or wasting time on FaceBook.  I'm writing this.  Because I want to document this experience.  I want to document this attempt to grow, and become the best comic I can be.  And the best person I can be.  Etcetera, etcetera.

11:35.  Time for bed.  Or at least time to stop writing this blog.  But maybe I'll write again tomorrow.  I'm kind of on a roll.

(Picture to be added later - I'm using my small laptop right now)

(These were taken the next day)

(I'm adding 3 because I feel like it)

Writing a Script, and Awesome People

I just spent the past two weeks in Austin, Texas, where I once called home.  It was honestly two of the better and more forward-moving weeks of my life, and I'm excited to write about the experience.

Stand-up is going wonderfully, as I continue to get better and better at exactly what I want to be doing onstage, instead of feeling like I have to handcuff myself to anything that's been done before.

I continue to find amazing, exciting, passionate people as I wind my way through life.  As far as trying to stay passionate and trying to live the best life I can, these encounters are like having someone hand you a cup of water while you're in the middle of a marathon.  A lot of times, you don't spend a lot of time with them.  But man, does that cup of water help.

And some of those people, it's a different analogy.  I can't think of it right now.  It's like another runner, I guess.  And you just happen to be running, and you both notice each other.  And you just kind of nod.  And then you start running together.  And you challenge each other, and you both start running faster.  And it's just awesome.

I've met some really fast runners.  And they make me want to run as fast as I can.  And it makes life a fucking blast.  It really does.

If you have awesome people around you, odds are good that you're life is going to be awesome. It's going to be fun, and exciting, and you won't get bored with it.  It's almost impossible.  There are just so many awesome things happening all around you.  Whether you want them to or not.

That's the key to my life, right now.  Is just having awesome people all around me.  It's making my life incredible.

One of them is my (basically) sister, Lydia.  I'll write more about her sometime.  But she's great.  She's a scriptwriter. And she came to me about two months ago, and asked if I wanted to co-write a script with her.

I said yes.  And we have been.  Which is part of the reason I haven't been blogging.  Though another part - as it always is - is just that I haven't been blogging.  If that makes sense.

I can't stay long.  I wrote this in 10 minutes.  Which is probably the best thing I could do.  Is write something so quickly that I don't have time to care about it.  Here it is.  It's done.  An update.

I'm writing a script.  And it feels fucking awesome.  Sorry for the cursing.  But you get the point.

Life is good.  My trip to Austin was inspiring, and my trip home - a 60-hour odyssey on an Amtrak train - was the best decision I've made in a while.

Now I'm back in New York City.  My home.  And today is the last day of August.  8 months down in 2012.  4 months to go.  I don't think I've ever been more excited for a 4-month stretch.  I've packed a ton of life into 8 months.  And there's little reason to think the next 4 won't be pretty awesome, too.

It's all about the people around me.  That's the whole game.  Which is why New York is such an amazing place.  You slowly find people, that inspire you, and you get over your fear that you're not worthy, and you just try to put yourself around amazing people as much as you can.

This place makes you super humble.  But I can think my life is awesome, and still be humble.

When everyone else in my life is awesome, my life is going to be awesome, even if I totally suck!

Maybe I do, maybe I don't.  But it's starting to matter to me less and less, whether I suck or not.  My life is awesome.  I feel very lucky.  But a lot of life is a coin with no heads or tails on it.  We just kind of flip it, and then decide what we see.

Life is a coin with no heads or tails.  Yes? Do you get it?

At least that's what my brain tells me.  And that's all I have to go off of.  If your brain disagrees, then more power to you.  But that's what it looks like from here.  Just so you know.

Love,
Bryson

Even when unnecessary, captions are fun

No Blog Today

I wanted to write a quick blog, to explain why there’s not going to be a blog today.

Since I started this blog over a year ago, I’ve written a lot of different stuff.  But no matter what I write, I have almost always sat down, started writing, and then finished and posted it, in that same sitting.

It’s just really hard for me to work on something, and then not get any sort of feedback on it.  It feels like a failure, even though I haven’t even let anyone judge it yet.

I think that stems from having done stand-up for 10 years now.  I was never good with long-term projects in school, or anything that required an ongoing commitment.

But when I got started with stand-up, I found an art-form that was tailor-made for me and my ADD-riddled mind.  When I did something, I got feedback RIGHT. NOW.  Immediately!  In real-time!

It was the difference between a camel and a horse.  A horse can run faster, but it needs to drink water every day.  A camel doesn’t move as fast, but it can go weeks without a drink, thanks to the water it stores in its humps (please don’t fact-check this. Just presume that what I thought in 5th grade is 100 percent accurate).

Most stand-up comics are horses.  We couldn’t work on something for weeks, without getting at least a taste of validation.  We need something, to be able to keep going.

Somehow, writers don’t.  They’re camels.  They just keep going.  They work on a script for a year, without adoring crowds; usually without even a chuckle.  They’re just able to keep going, and I’ve always been amazed by that.  Really, any art form that didn’t provide a short-term win....it just always felt crazy to me, that people could do that.

______________________________

I recorded my album this past Friday and Saturday.  But once the nights were over, and we’d gone to a bar to celebrate and hang out, and the confetti had finished falling from the rafters -- it hit me:  I hadn’t done a show this weekend.  I’ve been doing that show for the past 18 months.  I’ve been going to open-mics - sometimes 3, 4, 5 in a night - just trying to figure out who I am, and what I, Bryson Turner, would say to the world, if it was going to listen for an hour.

I had approached my album with the same strategy as the author and all the writers I so admired -- it’s just that I had done so accidentally.  I busted my ass for a year, not knowing if it was ever going to come together, or if anyone would “get it.”  But I just kept working on it, because it felt right.  Nobody complimented the album I was working on for the past 18 months - not once.  They complimented jokes, or sets I did, individually.  But I had no idea if the hour I was putting together would be any good, or if it would be cohesive at all.  I didn’t even know if I’d finish it.  In fact, I might not have, if my friend Andrew hadn’t practically yelled at me one day, telling me I was much more ready than I thought.

(He then rented out the space, hired the entire crew, invited half the crowd that came, and paid for everything out of his own pocket.  I mean what I said - it might not have happened without him)

And now, after this past weekend, everything seems a little different.  I have a perspective on my art that I’ve never had before.  I understand that just because something doesn’t get done in one sitting, that doesn’t mean I didn’t make progress.

And that’s really the goal now, for me.  Progress.  I just want to keep getting better.  I want to keep evolving, keep pushing.

I do want to stop, every once in a while, to see how far I’ve come.  That’s what this past weekend was, really - me stopping, putting a figurative tie on, and posing for a picture.  Recording my album was like picture day at school, except for my stand-up, instead of me.  My stand-up put on all the clothes that people have said “that looks great on you!” in the past year, and it posed for a picture.  So that way, in 20 years, people can say “Wow, so that’s what you looked like back then!”

______________________________

I don’t know if that makes sense.  But that’s why there’s no blog today.  Because I started writing one this morning, about what it means to be part of a comedy “scene.”  And how to define what a “scene” is in the first place.

But then I got writing.  And I kept writing.  And I had a story that related to it.  And then another one.  And then there were six things, and then eight, and they all made sense, and they all made it feel more interesting, and more fun, in my mind.

This picture is in my future blog about comedy scenes.  But why!?!  Oh, the suspense!!!

And I realized that if I wanted to put everything into the blog that I wanted, it was going to take more than one day to finish it.

And then something happened that I’m not sure had happened before:  I realized I was fine with that.

So that’s where we are now.  I worked for a couple hours on a blog, but it’s not going to get done in one day.  I’m going to work on it tomorrow, and maybe I’ll finish it then.  Or maybe I won’t.  But I’ll keep working on it.  And when it’s ready, and it feels right, then I’ll post it.

I’ve always dreamt of writing a book.  For some reason, that’s always seemed like the most amazing thing to me:  the idea of being able to call yourself an “author.”  You’re someone who added to the world’s knowledge.  How insane is that?

But I never felt like I could do it.  I remember living in Austin, and desperately wanting to write a book.  I had an idea or two, and they were solid topics.  And I could write.  But the idea of writing a book was just too daunting to me.  It seemed ridiculous.  Preposterous.  I just wasn’t able to imagine the steps that would lead from me at that time, to a time when I had written a book.  If you’d have asked me three years ago, “would you write a book if you had 500 years to do it?” I would have said no.  I didn’t see how it was possible.

I see it now.  I’ve been starting to see it for a few months now, probably.  But after this weekend’s shows, I get it.  Authors aren’t heroes, either.  They’re pieces of shit, just like you and me.  They doubt themselves, and think they’re phonies, and think they’re going to fail - publicly and miserably - every time they take a leap of faith.

But they do it.  They finish it.  They complete things.  Just because they don’t get any applause after Day 1, it doesn’t mean they should stop.  I get that now.

______________________________

I’m going to write books.  I’m a writer - I just haven’t had anything published.  Yet.

I understand that now.  Like I said:  everything is a little different, after this weekend.

______________________________

I got a phenomenal compliment from someone, about the blog that I posted yesterday, about feeling like I can die in peace now.  They said it was the type of thing they would love to be able to listen to on a record.  I think that’s the ultimate goal of how I write:  I want it to feel like I’m talking to you.  I want my writing to be almost audible.

I had a point about that, but I lost it.  But I’m leaving that compliment in.  Ha.  Even camels get to drink sometimes.

The Snooze Button

Writing a blog can be a lot like waking up. I woke up today a little after 8 am. I could have gotten up if I really wanted to, but I decided to go back to sleep. I just wasn’t 100 percent ready to get up. I woke up another 3 or 4 times in the next hour, and each time, I could have gotten up and started my day. But I either hit snooze on my phone, or I just shifted my body and put my head back down on the pillow.

That’s what blogging feels like sometimes. I have an idea, or an event, that I want to write about. But it’s just never the perfect time to write it. I could go write that blog. But let me get breakfast first. And then let me watch the highlights from yesterday’s games first. And then let me clean up my room, and listen to music first.

And then you just don’t write anything, until you’re figuratively lying in your bed, listening to the same 12-note sequence on a harp, over and over. And over. You’re not even tired anymore. Being tired is great - you have a legitimate excuse to stay in bed. But when you realize you’re not tired anymore, that’s when it occurs to you that you don’t want to get out of bed. That’s when you realize it’s fear, not exhaustion, that’s making you hit that snooze button.

Lucas and I have kept up this blog for almost a year now. It hasn’t been easy. And to be sure, there have been some days where I’ve hit the snooze button, even though I haven’t been tired.

But today, I got up about 9:15, and I’m going to try to have a productive day. And I’m going to try to have a productive blog. I hope I do a better job of keeping up this blog this next year, and of documenting my experience here in New York, no matter what happens.

Good morning.

2 Posts in 3 Weeks

We’ve kind of fallen off the wagon a little bit here at The Hajj. I’m trying to decide how I feel about that.

Apparently pretty happy, judging by the photo I just took of myself, as I write this. Let’s try to figure out why.

Most of my posts on here have been a commentary on the challenges of moving to New York, both personally and professionally, and attempting to break into the comedy scene here.

Well, the inactivity of the past few weeks is probably as good a lesson as any blog I could have posted. It’s hard to keep up with anything in life. It’s hard to not have other stuff happen that distracts you from a project, or a goal, or a career pursuit, or whatever.

For me, I spent 4 days last week back home in Pittsburgh, which was my first visit home since I moved here in January. When I got back last Tuesday, I immediately threw all my energy and focus into the fundraiser comedy show that happened this past Friday. It was a stand-up show that I put on in order to raise money for Resolve, the non-profit that my partner (romantic, not comedic - so Vijaya, not Lucas) runs here in New York, and that I am closely involved with.

That, coupled with trying to start a makeshift fantasy football blog, and getting sucked into that world, has taken up a lot of time the past few weeks. And I have no way of guaranteeing that I’ll jump back into this blog full-bore (pun intended).

I hope I get back to updating it more frequently. But life happens so damn fast. Sometimes before you even realize it, you’ve made your list of priorities in life. I’ve wanted to see my family for months. The only chance I had to squeeze it in was last week, and so I didn’t get onstage for 5 nights in a row. Then I went crazy putting together a fundraiser, and that cost me a few days of writing and a few nights of shows.

And though I haven’t made much mention of it in this blog, a huge part of the New York experience is financial. Maybe I’ll write a long, wordy blog about that someday. Just not today. But I don’t want to make it seem like that’s not something that hangs over your head constantly while you’re here. As it does everywhere else, of course. There’s no getting away from money, unless you go off the grid. And it’s tough to make a name for yourself in the comedy game when you’re living in a shack in the foothills of South Dakota.

So money is a priority, too. And for me, so is family. And so is Resolve. And so is writing out my thoughts, and trying to stay sane, and trying to make sense of life.

That’s not to say that I can’t pursue comedy just because I have other priorities on my list. They can each be my top priority, at different times and in different contexts. But they are all there. They are all things I think about, and that I am not willing to give up altogether.

Part of doing stand-up comedy is deciding how much of your life you’re going to give to it. It’s something worth thinking about, both before you make a move to New York, and once you’re up here. The answer is ever-changing. If I had to guess, I bet there will be months at a time, maybe a year or two at a time, in the future, when I fully devote myself to comedy, and I commit to making it my top priority. I’ve done so before, for 6 months to a year at a time.

But time goes by quick in life. So maybe I’m just lying to myself. Maybe the choices I’m making now are limiting the ceiling of how great a comic I can be. Or maybe being more well-rounded will make me a better artist than I could ever be if I only focus on the craft of stand-up, and not the substance of the message that it could potentially provide.

Or maybe I should just shut up and tell some dick jokes.

Hmm. Maybe. I doubt it, though. Maybe for other comics, that’s honestly what they should do. They should just be funny. And it’s not my job to judge whether or not that’s universally right. I’m not a comedy God, after all.

What I need to do is worry about what’s best for me. And for me, I think I need to keep trying to be honest with myself. And keep trying to be a well-rounded person, and to live my life as well as I can. And sometimes that will mean doing 20 sets a week. And sometimes it will mean writing 10 blogs a week.

And sometimes it will mean having to write one that tries to explain why I’ve blown this blog off for most of the past month.

That’s life, sometimes. I think I’m okay with that. Which is why I’m smiling as I write this. I’ll try to get three sets in tonight. Maybe three more tomorrow. Then Wednesday I’m on ‘Rubber Bullets’ - a great weekly show in Brooklyn, and by far the biggest show I’ve been invited on since I moved here. So I just need to keep working, and keep trying to make sense of myself.

Back to work.

My Past Week

As I write this, it’s 8:22 on a Wednesday evening. It looks like I’ll be staying in tonight, but in a different way than I probably have in the past.

I had a good first half of the week, probably inspired to hustle by having a comic friend from Austin visit, and him wanting to go out and experience the scene here (and also inspired by a good talk I had with my partner’s uncle - but that’s a different post that will come this weekend). So I got 2 sets in Monday and 3 more last night, including a booked show last night that was by far the best set I’ve had since I moved up here.

Also on Monday night, I went to the Comic Strip for the first time ever, and it was amazing how nice they were to me, just because I was a comic (and knew a couple guys that were there that night). They really seem to go out of their way to treat comics well. It made me wonder what took me so long to get up there.

Last week was an exciting week for me, because for the past month or so, I’ve been putting together an idea for a weekly show that deals with politics and the events of the week. The idea is that it will be in the same vein as The Daily Show, except weekly, I’ll write and perform it, and hopefully, as I get a feel for it, the political lean of the show will be more progressive.

When you’re up here, if you’re paying attention, then you feel pretty crappy if you’re not working on a writer’s packet, or a pilot script, or something else that kind of broadens your portfolio, as a performer.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, and it’s easy to get frustrated, because there’s really no feedback and no validation from all the writing you do. So, as I was writing more and more for different blogs of mine and trying to write more political material, I just kind of figured, “Wait...if I’m going to be writing all this crap, why not actually make it into a show?”

So that’s what I’ve started trying to do. Marshall, my buddy from college (referenced in this blog a few months ago), has been dusting off his editing and graphic-making skills, and after a dry-run script last week, we’re ready to shoot the first one tomorrow.

I have no idea what will happen, whether anyone will watch it, whether it will be any good at all, whether we’ll do one or we’ll keep doing it for years. I don’t know anything. But if we even make one - no matter how good or awful it is - I’ll be proud of it. I’ll be proud of at least making the effort to get something off the ground here.

I spent a good chunk of time last week trying to get that together. Hopefully we shoot tomorrow, and we learn from it, and we keep making them. We’ll see. But I haven’t just been sitting on my ass. And neither has Lucas. Even if the results don’t show up for us in the box scores right now, I promise you - we’re trying to figure this out. We’re trying to make sense of this.

It’s 8:41. I gotta go write a script. Lucas is performing in Philly this weekend. I’m headed home to see my family and to head to a childhood friend’s wedding. But we’ll try to keep you posted.

Lucas Has Been Busy!

Hey everybody!

Here’s some candy for all you sweet-toothed Lucas fans that have been clamoring for an update! Since passing on his FPIA crown and cape to the hilarious Andy Ritchie, Lucas has been a very busy beaver! (there’s gotta be a better term than that)

Luc returned to Brooklyn last week, and has been writing up a storm since, putting together a packet for shows up here. He’s also been sharing his thoughts on society and its ills in a really fun new blog called ‘Coping with Happiness.’

What’s that? You’re too lazy to click on that link and then scroll through his musings? You’d rather have direct links to his thoughts on McDonalds and Gunmen vs. Sword-wielding Crazies? So be it!

Stay tuned for more from the lovely and perceptive mind of Mister Molandes!