Sad Song Saturday: Leonard Cohen - So Long, Marianne (download) (submitted by Victoria J.)
Send your sad song suggestions to Raizin(at)gmail(dot)com.
Victoria says: So Long, Marianne is a sad song. Apparently it is about Marianne Jensen, who was married to Scandinavian novelist Axel Jensen and bore his son, Axel Jensen. After Marianne and Axel (dad) broke up, Leonard lived with Marianne and Axel (son) for a while. But then, one must assume from the song, they broke up. And wouldn’t you know it, she wrote a book about it.
I say: Wednesday night was the performance of my students’ final plays — they were so wonderful and clever and beautiful and I was so proud of them. Part of me wished I could hold on to the moment forever, but as it turns out, time moves forward. Everything ends.
These last few months have been incredibly rewarding and challenging and exhausting and fun, but we humans have to keep moving forward or we’ll die (or maybe that’s sharks; no, I’m pretty sure it’s humans). One of my students asked me where I was going next and I said I would hold up my umbrella and let the wind take me to the next children who needed me. It was both funny and sad — “kind of like real life,” as my own high school drama teacher used to say about things that were both funny and sad.
It was either William Faulkner or the band Semisonic that said “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” and I now stand on the precipice of the next great adventure, whatever that may be. And yes, it’s scary when warm things end, when you outgrow a boyfriend, when old friendships sour, when you get too big for your shell and are forced to wander naked across the ocean floor in search of a soda can (okay, that may be hermit crabs). It’s scary and bittersweet and sometimes pretty gross. But it’s also a little bit thrilling.
I like this interview with artist Lisa Hanawalt because she briefly mentions me in it. If I were asked to explain why print journalism is dying, it would be because more articles aren’t about me.
Sad Song Saturday: Ben Harper - Another Lonely Day (download) (submitted by Nathan)
Send your sad song suggestions to Raizin(at)gmail(dot)com.
Do you think most of our days are lonely ones?
Sure, when you look back at your life, the highlights will stand out— those days when you felt loved and content and full. Those are the days you live for, those are the days that get you through the other days.
But those other days; how many of those between-great days are just okay, and how many are less than okay, lacking, empty? How many are Lonely Days?
There are many kinds of Lonely Days.
There are Waiting Days— these are probably the most common. The sad fact is that when all is said and done, the majority of our lives are spent killing time. Everybody’s waiting for something. You pick up your phone, Did I miss a call? You refresh your email, turn on the TV. You sit in a cafe and stare at the wall, headphones in your ears, listening to the same song over and over. Nothing important or interesting will happen today. Today is just another thing to get through before you can get to tomorrow. Today will be forgotten.
There are Desperate Days— days where you say, Today is not going to be Another Lonely Day. I am going to go out and paint some towns. You call up your friends, you make plans. And after all the parties, the dancing, the forced smiles, the handshakes and hugs, after all the work, you go home and you lie in bed alone and you think about how your failure was doubly embarrassing, because this time you really tried.
There are Fuck The World Days. You jump out of bed and you say, fuck it, I don’t give a fuck, I’m going hiking. He was fiercely independent, you imagine they’ll say about you, as you swat at branches and skid down a leafy hill. He built up a wall and didn’t let anybody in. You’ll be taught in schools, they’ll build a statue in your honor. He was the best, the plaque will say, at being lonely.
There are Days When Suddenly It All Makes Sense. One morning, you’ll wake up and look straight up at the ceiling and you’ll think, Wow. There’s no such thing as fate and there’s no such thing as God and love is an illusion and the Beatles beat their wives.
But there’s good news too. You’ll see that life is full of regret, and sorrow, and disappointment, and Lonely Days, but we suffer through it all and it makes us stronger. You can’t tell the future and you don’t have all the answers. All you can do is try your best to be happy right now. After all, what’s it all for if not so we can enjoy some little bit of happiness when we find it?
And suddenly it will all make sense. And you’ll think, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had someone to share this with?
It’s TMOPMO Tuesday! (Click on image to read full size)
“The Seven Minute Rule” is far and away the most popular TMOPMO we ever made, by far, by far. Who knew people would respond to something universal more than they did to me complaining about how I feel fat. What I like about this comic is it changed my perspective on rejection. I used to feel bad when cute girls told me they had boyfriends. Now I smile and think, “Seven Minute Rule, nice.”
P.S. If I could have written one more panel, it would be about how this rule works both ways, GENTLEMEN.
Travel and Leisure Magazine put out their rankings of “American’s Favorite Cities” today, and, of course, included Washington, DC. Based on DC’s ranking (out of 30) on attractiveness (#27), Friendliness (#28), Romance (#29), and Wildness (#30), but with a cultural ranking of #1, one can only conclude that we are ugly, rude, boring, and dull…but we have siiiiiick museums!
Not sure who voted in this (Really? New Yorkers are less attractive, athletic, and intelligent than people in Kansas City? Look at the picture they chose for Kansas City! Clearly even the website is on my side here.) but there are some fun breakdowns here regardless. Hmmm, where should I move to next…?
Sad Song Saturday: Joni Mitchell - Both Sides, Now (download)
Send your sad song suggestions to Raizin(at)gmail(dot)com.
Julia told me this story one night at the Alligator Lounge:
Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell were in love and engaged to be married when she went to Paris. When she got there, she thought about all the talented women in her family that never went anywhere because they got married and settled down. So, she sent Graham Nash a break up letter, and in it she wrote: “No matter how tightly you hold on to sand, it still slips through your fingers.”
The Golden Age of Video (Ricardo Autobahn) :: we came, we saw, we kicked its ass. (via zefrank)
Lovely! To quote Bjork (as played by Winona Ryder on SNL): “Everything is music! When I go home, I throw nickels into the oven, and it’s music! Crash, boom, bang! Chickum Bah Chah!”
“WHAT?! Halloween is this weekend? I had no idea! What am I going to do? I’d better get my big stupid head out of my big stupid ass!”
Guess who that was. Give up? It was you. I know, I’m really good at impressions.
So you haven’t picked out a costume yet and you’re afraid it’s too late? Never fear! I have compiled this list of cheap and easy costume ideas for those of you who waited until the last minute. Feel free to use any of these. All I ask is that you send me a check for five dollars, or at least tell all your friends that I am handsome.
A good costume to wear in these hipster times is Ironic You. This is someone who dresses exactly like you, but does so ironically. Put on your favorite sweater and say, “Isn’t this sweater lame? It’s so bad it’s great.” Talk about movies you like. “The Royal Tenenbaums? That’s the worst. That makes it the best!”
Another great costume is Person Who Ignores Everyone Because She’s Listening To Her IPod. Wear headphones that lead into your pocket. Cut in line at the keg. When someone taps you on the shoulder and tells you you’re cutting, make a gesture that says, “I can’t hear you. I’m listening to my iPod.” Smile and nod at everyone. Tell people how much you love Matt & Kim.
Everybody wants to be a sexy something for Halloween — like a sexy vampire or a sexy umpire — but you know what I think is sexy? TAKING A STAND AGAINST DOMESTIC ABUSE. So, do something with that, maybe.
Whatever you do, DON’T go as Zombie Michael Jackson, because no matter how much work you put into it, there’s going to be five guys at the party in better Zombie Michael Jackson costumes. Remember last year how every guy was the Joker and every girl was either Sarah Palin or Sexy Sarah Palin? That’s what it’s going to be like this year with Zombie Michael Jackson. It’s going to be like that scene in Being John Malkovich when Malkovich goes through the tunnel and ends up in a restaurant full of Malkoviches. It’s going to be like that with Zombie Michael Jackson. “But in the Thriller video—” Yeah, I know, I get it. Listen: do yourself a favor. Go as Zombie Bea Arthur instead.
Go as the person who’s too cool to dress up for Halloween. Make fun of other people’s costumes as viciously as possible, then say, ”I don’t really feel that way; I just have to stay in character.”
Wear all one color. Maybe red or yellow. When no one’s watching, surreptitiously sip a large glass of water, and keep the water in your mouth. Go to to a large group of people having a conversation and quietly join the circle. When the timing feels right, spit out your water on someone. Yay fire hydrant!
Or wear all brown and proclaim, “I’m a Hallo-weenie!” If people do not laugh at your joke, say it again, louder. Maybe they didn’t hear you the first time. Maybe they are deaf. Say it in sign language. If they still do not laugh, they probably just don’t get it. Man, this party’s full of losers.
Go to a Halloween party in normal clothes and say you’re a surfer dude. If someone asks why you aren’t dressed for surfing, say “Why would I go surfing in October? At night? At a halloween party?” Then say, “Idiot.”
Here’s a similar idea that really packs a wallop: go as a member of the KKK when not at a rally. Again, this requires no actual costume aside from what you’re actually wearing that day. Someone might come up to you and say, “What’s so scary about that? You look just like anybody else.” Reply: “You just answered your own question.”
Or you could be a robot from the future trying to pass as a twenty-first century human. Dress in normal clothes and talk like how a robot would think a person would talk. Or don’t! Whatever!
Here’s something: take a trip down memory lane and put on some clothes you haven’t worn for weeks. Say, ”I’m September Me. I’m just like Now Me, except I happened a month ago.” Pretend you don’t know anyone that you’ve met since September. Make lots of cultural references to September, like, “Don’t you love that Patrick Swayze’s still alive?” or “I haven’t given up on Glee yet!” or “I’mma let you finish, but September is the best month of all time! OF ALL TIME!”
Go as your roommate! This is super easy; just ask your roommate if you can borrow some clothes. Then after the party, he’ll say, “Hey, can I get my clothes back?” and you’ll say, “Yeah, I’m just going to wash them for you,” then NEVER GIVE THEM BACK! Ha ha, suck on that, roommate.
It’s TMOPMO Tuesday! (Click on image to read full size)
I wrote this comic when Olde English first got hired to make comedy videos for the now defunct Super Deluxe. (I like to think they went under solely because they gave us an obscene amount of money which we didn’t deserve, which put them at a deficit no amount of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky ads could ameliorate. (Double parentheses: Similarly, the year we went to Aspen for the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival was the last of the festival’s existence, and it’s fun to think we killed that too. (Last parentheses, I swear: When we got hired by ChangeToWin to make three Anti-McCain videos — only one of which they ended up using — we told them proudly, “We want to do for John McCain what we did for Super Deluxe and the Aspen Comedy Festival!”)))
This has always been one of my favorite TMOPMO strips, mostly because of Lisa’s stellar illustration/coloring (check out the lovingly detailed illustration of her future boyfriend in panel five), but also because it describes two feelings that are constants in my life, things that I am in fact feeling right now:
1) The crippling fear that Nothing Good Lasts. I’m right now working a job I love — I’m teaching Bay Area high school kids how to write plays. It’s rewarding, and enriching, and immediate — it’s certainly better than my last job which was Not Having A Job. But more than just beating the hell out of sitting at Starbucks each day, banging my head against my keyboard, trying to write things I’m not sure anybody will ever see, more than that, I actively enjoy it. It’s the first time in a long time that I would describe my happiness as more than just the absence of sadness.
And yet, these feelings of warmth make me nervous. I get self-conscious when I’m happy, like it isn’t a good look, like I’m wearing a suit a couple sizes too big. People call me on the phone and they say, how are you, and I try to play it down, not because I don’t think they’d be happy for me, but because I don’t want to look foolish when it all comes crashing down around me, which I’m so sure it will. (See above parentheticals.)
2) I ate too much candy. I don’t know why I never learn.
Sad Song Saturday: Josh Ritter - The Bad Actress (Acoustic) (download)
Send your sad song suggestions to Raizin(at)gmail(dot)com.
Sorry this song is late. I am in the midst of a VERY IMPORTANT PROJECT THAT I WILL NOT TELL YOU ABOUT BUT WILL INSTEAD SPEND SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS HINTING ABOUT VAGUELY. Enjoy.
One day you might discover that you’ve written something. And you might send it to your manager, with a note attached that says, “Hey, is this something? I don’t know; it might be nothing.”
And your manager will call you and say, “Oh yeah, this is something. But maybe it could be a little more something. This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out. What if… instead of three friends… you make them triplets?”
So, you’ll write another draft (about triplets this time), and then another one, and after more notes from your manager, and from your friends, you’ll write more drafts, and when your manager thinks it’s ready, he’ll send it to his boss, and then he’ll give you notes and you’ll make more changes.
Then maybe some studio will read the something that is now about ten times removed from the first something you wrote, and they’ll say, “Hey, we kind of like this. We might want to make this something. But we don’t know yet. What if we gave you enough money to make a short something that’s kind of like this other something so that we can get a taste for it?”
This would be very exciting. So, you get started writing a short something that’s kind of like your original longer something, but it’s difficult because by this point you’ve kind of forgotten what was funny or interesting about the something to begin with. But the studio has hired a producer and a director and they’re giving you lots of great notes and locations are being scouted and actors are being hired, so there’s no turning back now!
And you might start to think, well this is an awful lot of other people’s time and money being spent on this stupid little something that I wrote. You might wonder to yourself, is this is all a set-up? Am I the victim of an elaborate prank? Or am I the perpetrator?
Because secretly, you’re not even sure the thing you’ve written is all that good.
In a few weeks, you’re flying down to L.A., and you’re still several drafts away, and you said you’d get them new pages a few days ago, and everybody’s waiting on you, and you’re so so sure that no matter what you do now, the whole project is doomed, it’s going to be a disaster, but there’s nothing you can do now to stop this runaway train, and worst of all, this is exactly the kind of opportunity you’ve been hoping for. All this attention, and pressure, and anxiety — this debilitating terror — this is what it is. It’s not going to get any easier than this.
And you might discover that success is much more terrifying than failure, because of all the grander future failures it implies.
And if all this happens to you, and you feel lost and confused and humbled and anxious and pretty much just about worthless — well, if that happens and you need some advice, you give me a call, because maybe by that time I’ll know how the story ends.
