EPISODE 219: COVFEFE YUBIWAZA SOLANGE
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
I'm writing this on a plane. (No snakes.)
(So far.)
Also, I'm writing it on my iPhone. Because I am modern. (Notes has autocorrected "a plane" to "Solange." It is too modern.
Or maybe not modern enough. I'm reminded of Chris Kent's quip, I'm not going to worry about AI until my computer gets spellcheck right. He's got a point. Solange, Notes? I mean, I wish I were that with it. But um, no.
Speaking of spellcheck: Covfefe, anyone? (Wasn’t he the U.N. Secretary General?)
I'm also on a United flight. I'm sorry. I bought the ticket before people were dragged from planes and large rabbits were pretty much left for dead until they actually really were dead. As I've written here before, I grew up supporting United. I’m from Chicago; they’re the hometown business. And everybody makes mistakes. But, um, maybe not so many all at once?
For me, the company deciding that not giving the CEO who repeatedly backed what happened a huge promotion constituted "We've really learned something important here" was a big turning point. Other than to cash out reward miles, this will probably be my last flight with these guys for a while. I'm thinking Virgin. They're great overseas. Their founder wants to fly us to space.
And hey, I'm a priest, so it works as a joke, too.
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Last week I went to a stand up open mike. I didn't perform, but I have been thinking about trying to for a lot of years now, so I finally convinced myself to actually go to one and see how it felt.
I guess I expected to be blown away by the quality of the performers, and maybe also by the amount of heckling. (I have literally spent hours worrying what can I as a priest reasonably say to hecklers. I mean, that won't get me thrown out of the Church. "Hey, buddy, Jesus loves you!" with a fiercely waggled finger?
"Oh, and by the way, he wanted me to tell you, he loves your Mom too."
(See, that is what I'm talking about. And I haven't even dropped an expletive yet.)
But the audience for the open mike consisted entirely of other stand ups waiting for their three minutes. So it was a welcoming atmosphere, if nervously distracted, everyone looking at the jokes they've scribbled down, trying to remember the order and the punchlines.
Not that you’d know it from the delivery. The quality of the comedy was...not so shiny. Quite a lot of very normal-looking people getting up and then all of a sudden just kind of losing their #%**. Like in the vicinity of “Honey, nice job, we’re going back to the home now”.
So, first lesson: It’s far better to just stand up there and chat off the cuff without knowing where the funny is then to spend a week locked in your basement coming up with jokes that no one who was not with you in that sensory deprivation tank will ever be able to understand.
And so begins the education. Maybe. God, don’t pressure me.
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I feel like I've listened to a lot of Jesuits (okay, three, but they have been so pushy) scoff at presiders who tell jokes. And on one level I agree. Throw a little set up/punch line up front, you can get a laugh and feel like people love you, like you kind of just accomplished something kind of pretty special, even. Who cares if you didn’t prepare anything else? Mission accomplished!
If it's not somehow on point, a joke in a homily is just lazy. Also, 9 times out of 10 it becomes the only thing people remember. Homilies are like highways; lots of possible off ramps, and depending on the congestion, people can be pretty eager to turn off. So a preacher should choose wisely.
But—as I think I’ve written here before (Many times? So many times? Sorry! Old!)--when I watch Louis CK do a routine, even if it's just 3 minutes sitting on a couch on Conan, I usually find he's delivering messages as rich and provocative as the best stuff I’ve heard. Excuse him if he also wants people to be entertained, you uptight humourless soul death liturgists. God forbid. Go make a sandwich from the dry flaky remains of your withered human spirit.
(The older I get, the more trouble I have with sterile perfection as a model of liturgy, Bauhaus or Le Corbusier as prayer. It's called a celebration for a reason. And what good party doesn't have a certain amount of messy?)
So in recent years I've tried to play with bringing humour into my homilies, and also with maybe using stand up as a kind of non-preaching Louis C.K. preaching. The challenge I'm finding, (beyond FEAR, WHITE HOT OH GOD PARALYZING FEAR), is what exactly do I talk about. Do I show up in clerics and do a set on Jesus? “Those disciples—amirite?” Or go incognito and talk about non-church normal human stuff? “What’s the deal with drapes?”
It seems like a big part of cutting through out here is learning how to differentiate yourself. But frankly, I worry if I get on stage in a bar wearing clerics I'm in pretty quickly for some choice rage about terrible things the church has said or been involved in. And while I can't blame people for using such a served-on-a-silver- platter-opportunity to take the Church down, I did have these funny stories I wanted to introduce you to, and it's hard to peel the tar off once it gets attached to your skin.
The other thing is, "Father Tells Jokes" feels like it gets soft in the center pretty quickly if you can't get dark or edgy. That’s for ten minutes before the parish bazaar (“Oh God, he’s doing it again”), and about it.
So I don't know...I'm noodling.
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Elsewhen I'm writing. Sort of.
Freelancing. It has the word lance in it, which should make it cool but mostly reminds me of boils.
I've been doing lots of articles in the Catholic press the last six months, but not a lot of screenwriting at the quality I want. It's funny, when I taught high school one of the things I didn't expect was how being back in a school full time brought out all the unresolved stuff of my own school days. (Oh what fun those first few months are, when you’re suddenly worrying whether 15 year olds like you.)
And bizarrely, being in a writers' room appears to have done much the same. When you're working so collaboratively, sitting around a table together 8 hours a day every day of the week, any little thing from the past that might hold back your capacity to contribute stands out. (We’re like Olympic speed cyclists, even just a tiny bit of wind resistance becomes very noticeable.
That's also why I'm now taking performance enhancing drugs. Still waiting for the enhancing part, but hey whatever. I've got...time?)
Nobody's perfect. And I suspect the flaws and idiosyncracies you bring to the room are also a huge part of the assets you have to offer. But I don't know, the whole experience has kicked up a lot, and I guess I'm still working my way through it.
On the other hand, a guy in my community who kind of likes to say hard things (don't you love those people) recently said to me, "You didn't move to LA to go back to writing full time for America."
To which I replied: OOF.
Also: Go back to your nap, old man. Hope your fast-approaching death causes you no anxiety whatsoever.
(Okay that was just something I said in my head, but only barely.
I'm definitely going to get in trouble with hecklers.)
Meanwhile, people I went to school with (or worse, people who came after me) are currently staffing on LUCIFER, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, INSECURE, THE MAGICIANS, THE LEFTOVERS, JESSICA JONES, and I’M DYING UP HERE; another was the brains behind the new Zach Braff show ALEX, INC., another just sold a show to Ryan Murphy and another went out for sushi with me this week and his twelve little pieces cost $62. Which I would never pay, because poverty (also, dude, it was twelve sushi), but still. It was $62. And this was lunch.)
ALL OF YOU STOP SUCCEEDING SO PUBLICLY YOU'RE MAKING ME DOUBT MYSELF.
(Fun fact: in the industry it is customary to put the titles of works in all caps, e.g. VEEP. DOCTOR WHO. HEY LOOK HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS PART THREE HONEY WE SHRUNK OURSELVES AND THEN THE WRITERS NEVER WORKED AGAIN.
This is just how things are done. But when presented in lists at times of fragility it has the added benefit to suggest the works themselves are shouting at you with derision.)
Actually I'm happy for all the writers I know.
No, I am.
Stop it, I'm not a monster. (Yet.) UCLA writers make it impossible not to be happy for them. They are an incredibly nice bunch of people. I continue to feel so lucky I spent my first three years out here with them.
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All of this puts me mind of a favorite passage. Imagining himself standing at the entrance into Hades, Dante proposes to the poet Virgil at the start of THE DIVINE COMEDY (STOP SHOUTING, BE NICE TO ME) that he return home by the way he came.
"Oh no", Virgil responds, "I’m so sorry, there is no going back. The only way out is through."
To which I reply, once again: Oof.
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A stewardess just asked me if I wanted something to drink. NO, UNITED. KEEP YOUR WATER AND STRANGE GROSS SWEET TASTELESS WAFFLE THING BECAUSE YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY.
#TakingAStand
#TryFlyingThoseFriendlySkies
#TryingtoDistractMyself
#Blessed?
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That's about it this week. If you're looking for something else to distract yourselves (and hey, if you're not tell me your secret because it's pretty much Peak Reality out there yo), I really enjoyed the pilot to IFC's new comedy BROCKMIRE, about a baseball play by play guy who has a nervous breakdown on air. The opening scene is just exceptional writing. (Also very adult. Put the children to bed first, and maybe occasionally cover your ears.) A later scene marries baseball and the possible total emptiness of existence in glorious ways.
I also just finished SENSE8 (...sigh...) on Netflix. Man, I love what that show says about loving all the distinct and crazy little bits of yourself.
And on the new TWIN PEAKS (okay fine, I probably need a little berating) Kyle MacLachlan is just killing it playing both innocent semi-fugue state grandfather and the scariest being in human existence. The show is more like a set of art installations than a TV show, which probably sounds nightmarish, but actually if you can accept it on those terms, it's kind of wonderful.
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If you want to know when your flight is going to have turbulence, it's when I'm in the bathroom, that's when.
Life we will better on Virgin.
(Right?)
++ LINKS ++
Vanessa Bayer left Saturday Night Live this year. And she and Cecily Strong have just been so consistently amazing. Here's thirteen of her best bits. (I can't recommend the second one, "Totinos", strongly enough.)
(The third sketch, "Delta Flight" is also fitting given my context right now.)
Warren Ellis mentioned this song as something he listens to every morning. And it's kind of wonderful.
Lastly, there's a big new movie out this weekend, and everyone is super excited about it, even the critics. It is also the first female super hero movie since 1984. NOT A JOKE. (Don't even start with me about Catwoman.)
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Don’t worry about Paris. Just do what you can in your little neck of the woods. Nobody stops daisies from growing in the cracks for very long.
You belong.
