Listen to Tinkerbell - all it takes is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
That’s the entire proverb, most don’t know that. What about you, did you know that second part? If you’re a real noob, you probably didn’t know that. Get it together killer!
Why are we yelling!!
Stopppp!
Sorry, it feels like a day to take up space. Not in the Liver King type of way, more of Tinkerbell way. Let me spread my pixie dust in peace god dammit.
One of the great joys of pursuing your passions in life is that it absolutely blows at times. Like talk about “embracing the suck.” But other times it’s quite enlightening, and liberating. You think you know something, then you do it, and it’s just BLAH. Sort of like you sitting there like someone just dumped you for the first time. My favorite is friends coming to me with “airtight” business plans, that usually crumble for one reason or another, that’s if that ever make it out of the planning phase. But will get to that in a second.
Lets get back to that miserable breakup experience.
Head in hands, face down, powerless, emotional, or emotionless.
Scratching you’re head, like “WTF"!?!?!?” We’ve all been there. Thats the beauty of love. It’s irrational and if you want it to work you have to embrace it and be vulnerable enough to let it in. Which also means, it has the power to crush you. That’s what it means to love anything, and anyone.
That’s been, something of a…learning curve for me. Not love. Love is everywhere! But embracing it. And letting it in. Not entirely avoiding it and then blaming the world for my misfortune like a clown.
wink wink.
Nevertheless, shock will come over anyone that learns some piece of new information. Ew. Why am I painting with such a broad brush? I wanna get granular here, the nitty gritty. Our internal guidance system want’s to regurgitate it back into the world when we stumble upon new information or when were let down in some way. Not to be a cynic, but after 20, it’s all downhill. But theres more to this growing up stuff kid, just hang on tight. Were all kids in adult bodies at the end of the day.
Now that we call denial. I’m still a kid myself! Okay, that’s been something of a learning curve for me too… I have a hard time admitting I’m human. I feel more like a cyborg from the planet Crypton, home of the Dodgecoin. Leader Elo…
Sorry. I digress.
I never really liked certain things about myself and my inability to see clearly through my rose colored glasses my whole life has kept me from being vulnerable for so much of my life, and still haunts me daily. It’s the ego, it’s protecting itself from, what? You guessed it.
Nothing!
Like Matthew McConaughey in Wolf of Wall Street, “It’s a fugazyi, it’s fake!”
Someone spell check that for me, I’m not sure wtf I just spelled.
When I started getting on stage to perform stand up, I remember how terrified I was of people looking at me. Even wrote a bit called “Stop looking at me.” It was a real hit to the couple times I used it. The best form of comedy is joking about things that are real, that’s edgy comedy. It’s edgy because in the year 2025, real is a far cry from our roots. I was never a writer that could lean into satire, I had to write real.
Only if it was for Instagram, then anything goes.
When I got on stage at the iconic New York Comedy Club within a couple of months of getting into stand up, I was blown away. Just attending a mic with four other sloppy do gooder comedians. It’s like ecstasy. This is one of those clubs that makes you feel like you’re walking out for graduation. It’s exciting! Only difference is, no one is excited to see you. You do your five minute bit, and get your ass moving.
I had suffered from pneumonia for 2 months straight and could barley breath before getting on stage for that set. I forced myself to go despite being sick. I mumbled about ASMR for a few minutes and of course got in my head afterwards.
“What the fuck was I thinking?” “What even was that?” “Can I go back in time and just stay home?” “They must’ve thought I was retarded” “I can never go back here again in my life.” “I should just give up altogether.”
If there was a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow with a pot of gold waiting for me at this club, I wasn’t going. I was SHOOK to my core after that set. Never again would NYCC see my face!
I enjoy writing about real things and reimagining them in fictional ways. Thats a great writer! Giving your spin on the world, sometimes through vague insights or half baked observations. If you can’t tell I like to focus on the effect my real life stories have on me, so I talk about my feelings towards it. I imagine how other people will feel impacted by that and if, just if, I’m vulnerable enough, the joke will land. It sure beats taking life so damn seriously.
Know any fun suckers? Nothing worse than a fun sucker’rrr.
I don’t want to be a fun sucker’rrr. I want to be a fun have’rrr’rr.
I know none of that is grammatically correct but go ahead, give it a shot out loud. It’s your turn. Try in front of a mirror. I bet you sound pretty ridiculous right now. At least theres no one to see how crazy you look trying to pronounce a fake word. But where’s the fun in that? If we can’t share our most ridiculous moments that we hide behind close doors, how can we ever be open to the love and mystery of everyday?
For years I’ve fought hard to find the meaning in all of this, and always strive to be better. It’s not just about the process, it’s about the final product. I’m naturally an analytical person, an observer. I tend to take a passive approach to most things and let life run it’s course without my intervention. I learned it wasn’t such a bad thing from constantly doing stand up comedy and putting myself out there. Maybe life needs our intervention? It was the days of going to perform, and walking directly into that awful feeling of:
“Fuck, im gonna fucking throw up” that oddly kept me showing up to face that same grueling feeling of being seen, performing, and just sort of living my life experience.
My personal favorite is when I would perform on stages in what felt like my middle school cafeteria, oh those were the worst.
I have flashbacks of Kayla Casale gouging her nails into my arms everyday at lunch.
I would come home and say “MOM, this girl wont stop hurting me!!!”
“It’s because she likes you, Anthony”
Ever since those brutal 5th grade lunches, I just assumed woman were suppose to hurt me. That took awhile to unfuck myself out of but again, we learn.
AHA ! EUREKA! My therapist was wrong! It wasn’t my parents that screwed me up. I think my therapist has some explaining to do…..
I would get immediate performance anxiety walking into those show rooms to perform that felt like that. It was a miserable experience to be in. But it got me thinking, a lot.
I’ve had to get real OK with sucking, real OK with just putting myself out there. It’s never really gone away the general “I feel so uncomfortable” around people for any number of reasons.
I frequent the same Starbucks almost daily, sometimes twice a day, yet found it impossible to make eye contact with the people serving me.
Why?
Do they see me as stand offish? Am I to unavailable for people? Do I not care?
I’M FUCKING TERRIFIED OF YOU!! GIVE MEE MY COFFEEEE. I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I’M SPOTTED BY SOMEONE! ANYONE! ANYTHING! GAHHHHH
Most comics will take you for an ego trip, and honestly, I found it hard to be that person. It took a year of trying to fit in, and meet the people I admired so much on their level. When in reality, I’m not stand offish. Nor do I care to fit in. But those are my trials and tribulations.
I’d like to think some little part of me has learned from the miserable and traumatic experiences. I think of it as, “I wouldn’t want my best friend to miss a rare opportunity to elevate their life.” “I would’t want my sibling to miss a meeting that could change their life because there scared.” So why is it fair we hold ourselves to this grueling expectation? The feeling of anxiousness, like we can’t be still. It always gets me wondering and I hope people know that I share so much of myself because so much of the world is so phony anymore.
We are literally killing ourselves day by day. We long for a change, yet make no changes.
We yearn for belonging, yet never give ourselves a chance to be apart of anything.
We work ourselves like slaves, come home, and work even more. Were in the age of working til were dead, quite literally.
Were scared, and avoid new things, uncomfortable things. The very same things that if we think back to all of our uncomfortable experiences, was it reallllly that bad? I’ll let you determine that.
Like a foiled business plan, we put the work into the plan but miss entirely on the execution of bringing this grand plan to life. It’s riddled with reasons we can’t do it. We check with friends and family who most usually cut us at the legs faster than a stranger. We stay up late sweating the intricate details but fear putting out hand out and introducing ourselves to start the conversation. We give up when were on the brink of a breakthrough, a eureka moment.
All of the days of writing a good joke would of meant nothing if I was to scared to be on stage. It kept me uncomfortable, it kept me hungry. To show up to a place that you literally will do anything to avoid. Even after kicking the crap out of myself from being on stage at the New York Comedy Club, I worked even harder to get back on stage and fight that feeling. Eventually, that feeling, while it will always be there, it started to fade. Which lead to shows at some of the most iconic clubs in the city. So what does it all mean, really? Do the fears mean anything at all?
I’m no Peter Pan, and hardly identify as a Tinkerbell but Tink was onto something when she said “all it takes is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust.”
Better to do it sacred than not at all… 😁 keep showing up worlds waiting for you x
Keep on going on 🤗