iDoNotTalk
I now have an iTalk and I'm afraid of it.
An iTalk is a little attachment you can plug into the top of your iPod that changes it into a voice recorder. It's got a mike in it and you record your brilliant thoughts as MP3's or 4's or whatever, and deal with them much like the rest of your audio collection.
I asked for one for Christmas, because I've been thinking about taking this writing workshop where you write spoken word stuff-essentially standup-and perform it in front of the workshop and get helpfully critiqued. It's a little pricey, but I audited the class once and I really liked where the instructors' heads were at, much as I did not expect to (because it's an UnCabaret thing. And Beth Lapides and her followers killed my nerve to do stand-up with a tire iron. Yet now it seems I'm finding deliverance in the ranks of the enemy-irony, or inescapable fate? I don't know. They're only dick jokes. It's a long story).
But the point of this whole thing is that I talk to myself. Constantly. Pretty much whenever I'm not engaged in conversation with an actual being-and this includes human, canine or feline-I'm conducting a fake conversation that I'd like to have with someone, or conceivably could have, but probably won't. Or I'm giving an interview no publication will ever ask for. Or else I'm simply expounding with breathtaking clarity and insight on the knotty problems of the day, throwing out gems of wisdom that simply must be recorded, because they're too precious to waste. Nobody's as great a genius as I am when I'm in the car or doing my hair. Seriously. I could record a whole album that way. Call it The Flat Iron Sessions.
But what I've been lacking is the stones to put all this stuff out in front of anybody (that and some way to format it/present that isn't as glib and surface as stand up nor as corny and little-seen as the One Person Show). I thought blogging was going to help me find myself a new way around my comic psyche, but it hasn't really gelled. For one thing, nobody claps when you're done. The voluminous, ravenous readership I hoped for so far hasn't materialized. My entries have been neither as honest, focused or well-constructed as a great blog's should be. That and my big fat cat's always in the way of the screen, trailing fur, wanting to be fed.
It pretty much boils down to: I don't just want to be heard, I also want to be seen.
Except I don't.
But I really do!
See, my will to be a stand up was killed with a tire iron. It was embarrassed out of me. I ran for the hills, thinking there was no one left to buy what I was selling, and have never gotten that mojo back again. And dammit, I've wanted it back the whole time. Back then, pursuing stand-up comedy made me feel completely, utterly on target with my life. But then, I've also learned in retrospect that I was lying to myself and the audience before I quit. I wasn't being me-I was being this lame, fearful, pre-processed and contorted, comic-ized version of me, and was way too scared to let out the real wealth of who I was. Nowadays I'm intrigued to see if I could accomplish the feat of being pure Me onstage-or at least as pure as one can get when one is speaking publicly. But to go out and act and react with the audience the same way I do with real people in real life. I keep thinking that'd be the way to Find My Special Purpose. To be loved, universally adored, celebrated, mentioned in the same breath as Carol Burnett and Madeline Kahn. You know, little things like that.
So back to iTalk. Despite almost 10 years as a comedian, several of them as a touring one, I'm absolutely terrified to take the class. But dammit, I want to break out of this mojo-less-ness. So I keep thinking about trying it, but for that I'll need material, which I'm apparently terrified to produce. I can write other stuff-scripts I'm hired for, stories featuring characters-but when it comes to stuff that's got my Personal Stamp of Me-ness on it, that little voice of "YOU SUCK ASS!" in my head is presently turned up to lethal levels. So I thought I'd use the iTalk to set up a way to record myself riffing, as unobtrusively as possible, at times when my little solo conversations started warming up to some topic.
Except the idea of turning it on is proving the quickest way to shut me up.
This isn't so surprising, really. It's an established theory/supposition thingy that the act of observation changes the thing being observed. Seriously, isn't that the reason any of us talk to ourselves, because no one is listening?
But Jesus, it took me like three weeks just to unwrap it. I've opened in Alabama, at a roadhouse club that was empty because they were giving away free Zima down the street, and I can't unwrap a fucking iTrip. Then I finally did unwrap it and I read the directions, but didn't try it out. Then I put it in my glove compartment, which puts it closer to use without actually achieving it. The damn thing still hasn't even come within a mile of touching my iPod.
Maybe I should hire someone to record me without my knowledge. Maybe I'll sign up for the class and read this. I don't know, but something's gotta give. Being without a mojo has got to go.
An iTalk is a little attachment you can plug into the top of your iPod that changes it into a voice recorder. It's got a mike in it and you record your brilliant thoughts as MP3's or 4's or whatever, and deal with them much like the rest of your audio collection.
I asked for one for Christmas, because I've been thinking about taking this writing workshop where you write spoken word stuff-essentially standup-and perform it in front of the workshop and get helpfully critiqued. It's a little pricey, but I audited the class once and I really liked where the instructors' heads were at, much as I did not expect to (because it's an UnCabaret thing. And Beth Lapides and her followers killed my nerve to do stand-up with a tire iron. Yet now it seems I'm finding deliverance in the ranks of the enemy-irony, or inescapable fate? I don't know. They're only dick jokes. It's a long story).
But the point of this whole thing is that I talk to myself. Constantly. Pretty much whenever I'm not engaged in conversation with an actual being-and this includes human, canine or feline-I'm conducting a fake conversation that I'd like to have with someone, or conceivably could have, but probably won't. Or I'm giving an interview no publication will ever ask for. Or else I'm simply expounding with breathtaking clarity and insight on the knotty problems of the day, throwing out gems of wisdom that simply must be recorded, because they're too precious to waste. Nobody's as great a genius as I am when I'm in the car or doing my hair. Seriously. I could record a whole album that way. Call it The Flat Iron Sessions.
But what I've been lacking is the stones to put all this stuff out in front of anybody (that and some way to format it/present that isn't as glib and surface as stand up nor as corny and little-seen as the One Person Show). I thought blogging was going to help me find myself a new way around my comic psyche, but it hasn't really gelled. For one thing, nobody claps when you're done. The voluminous, ravenous readership I hoped for so far hasn't materialized. My entries have been neither as honest, focused or well-constructed as a great blog's should be. That and my big fat cat's always in the way of the screen, trailing fur, wanting to be fed.
It pretty much boils down to: I don't just want to be heard, I also want to be seen.
Except I don't.
But I really do!
See, my will to be a stand up was killed with a tire iron. It was embarrassed out of me. I ran for the hills, thinking there was no one left to buy what I was selling, and have never gotten that mojo back again. And dammit, I've wanted it back the whole time. Back then, pursuing stand-up comedy made me feel completely, utterly on target with my life. But then, I've also learned in retrospect that I was lying to myself and the audience before I quit. I wasn't being me-I was being this lame, fearful, pre-processed and contorted, comic-ized version of me, and was way too scared to let out the real wealth of who I was. Nowadays I'm intrigued to see if I could accomplish the feat of being pure Me onstage-or at least as pure as one can get when one is speaking publicly. But to go out and act and react with the audience the same way I do with real people in real life. I keep thinking that'd be the way to Find My Special Purpose. To be loved, universally adored, celebrated, mentioned in the same breath as Carol Burnett and Madeline Kahn. You know, little things like that.
So back to iTalk. Despite almost 10 years as a comedian, several of them as a touring one, I'm absolutely terrified to take the class. But dammit, I want to break out of this mojo-less-ness. So I keep thinking about trying it, but for that I'll need material, which I'm apparently terrified to produce. I can write other stuff-scripts I'm hired for, stories featuring characters-but when it comes to stuff that's got my Personal Stamp of Me-ness on it, that little voice of "YOU SUCK ASS!" in my head is presently turned up to lethal levels. So I thought I'd use the iTalk to set up a way to record myself riffing, as unobtrusively as possible, at times when my little solo conversations started warming up to some topic.
Except the idea of turning it on is proving the quickest way to shut me up.
This isn't so surprising, really. It's an established theory/supposition thingy that the act of observation changes the thing being observed. Seriously, isn't that the reason any of us talk to ourselves, because no one is listening?
But Jesus, it took me like three weeks just to unwrap it. I've opened in Alabama, at a roadhouse club that was empty because they were giving away free Zima down the street, and I can't unwrap a fucking iTrip. Then I finally did unwrap it and I read the directions, but didn't try it out. Then I put it in my glove compartment, which puts it closer to use without actually achieving it. The damn thing still hasn't even come within a mile of touching my iPod.
Maybe I should hire someone to record me without my knowledge. Maybe I'll sign up for the class and read this. I don't know, but something's gotta give. Being without a mojo has got to go.