Hello Again #3: I want to be a multihyphenate like Kermit the Frog
& a crucial reminder that my tour starts this week
Hello yet again,
I am writing to you while eating an extravagant dinner I made (steak, sweet potatoes, balsamic roasted golden beets, kale with red onions & garlic) because I did something crazy and bought a bunch of fresh produce two days before I leave for my tour.
CRUCIAL REMINDER!!!!! My tour starts THIS WEEK!!! Click thru for tickets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle (early & late)
Also check out my ep of Up Good with genius Honey Pluton
I dunno. Spring has sprung and I am in a mood. For the past couple months I’ve been wondering if something is seriously wrong with me because I haven’t been horny at all, which, for better or for worse, is highly abnormal. I thought, wow I must REALLY be depressed. I guess the horrors of the world are too much for even my strongest soldier, my libido. This was such a sad thought for me. I always imagined I would live to see the end of the world, which I always envisioned as a sort of bacchanal. What better time to express one’s pent up desires than at the end of all things, when there are no consequences? How sad to think that maybe I was wrong, and I would live out the rest of this life just processing mounting horrors in chastity.
Anyway, then the sun came out, the vibe shifted, and everyone got horny again. Turns out we are all just animals looking to lick our genitals in a pool of sunlight. The horrors persist but at least I find myself with a renewed energy to dissent, scroll the grid, and wander into a farmer’s market to impulse buy beautiful fresh produce right before leaving town.
Guys, it’s hard for me to stick to this schedule. I said last time that 3 posts would make a pattern, and I almost let myself not write this 3rd post today. I feel like my cup overfloweth with gigs, projects, tasks, meetings, friends to see, foods to eat, movies to watch, and a million accessory responsibilities to my “comedy career” like writing this damn newsletter. To have too much is a privilege but I still get stressed out.
For example, I pushed back my flight to LA this week because I got asked last minute to act in a workshop of a play in development. Again! It’s a huge blessing, especially during these times of scarcity, to be offered more ways to make money by making art. But it’s like damn, I’m developing a new play, prepping to tour a new hour of comedy, AND doing admin work, self tapes, and meetings all at the same time?? Can a bitch get a second to shower??! Or does the world want me to be a multihyphenate who stinks????
I was thinking about this last night while watching THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN (1984), in which the Muppet gang are recent college graduates who travel to New York City to sell their shmaltzy amateurish original musical on Broadway. (Sidebar: I love the idea of undergrads played by the Muppets, whose average age I consider around 45.) In the movie’s “all is lost” scene, Kermit the Frog, rejected by producers and left alone by his friends in the big city, yells from the top of the Empire State Building: “We’re gonna be on Broadway! Because I’m not giving up! I’m still here and I’m staying. You hear that, New York? I’m staying here! The frog is staying!”
It made me emotional to see Kermit, in the face of total adversity, declare that he will achieve his dream through sheer force of will. Especially these days, when it seems like if you’re trying to succeed in show business as a marginalized artist, you might as well be a frog. “The frog is staying!” I think we all have a lot to learn from that. Doesn’t it feel a lot like “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”? I think I’ll make that my mantra as I work through this play reading and (immediately after) embark on my tour, a prospect that intimidates me, with the amount of psychic and physical energy I will need to make it through.
This spring, when u feel overwhelmed or depressed, I invite you to remind yourself:
The frog is staying!
The frog is staying!
The frog is staying!