Feel The Burn

I talk a lot about yoga nowadays, which I still believe firmly makes me into some sort of douchebag but that said:

Often times in my life, it feels like improv, yoga, dating, living, just walking around on the street, is all just a journey towards self-acceptance and the accompanying tension and struggle of that journey.

Put in a different way, by the great improviser David Razowsky (among others), denial is the source of all suffering.

The way we want to be or imagine ourselves versus seeing clearly where we are and are surrounding, being present in the moment, is the tension of existence.

And it’s painful and difficult to notice how aware you are, how present you are, and to try to make yourself more so.

Some of us are tighter than others, I can’t even do a decent downward-facing-dog because my hamstrings are too tight or are decent chair pose, because Frank thinks I’m too weak and my teacher thinks I might have too much tension.

Or, to pull backwards, It can be difficult for me to be confident in improvised scenes because I’m often not confident in life and my choices, it can be difficult for me to “be in the moment” listening to people and absorbing what they have to say (in scenes, life, dating) because it’s not a skill I’ve always used, it’s a “tight” muscle.

All of this is fine, we all have our limitations as humans, our own stretching to do. But not being present, wanting to be somewhere else, being desperate, judging or hating ourselves, is a slippery slope to despair.

And all of this is too vague. Some examples:

This past weekend, I auditioned for Harold teams over at the UCB. Those of you who know me know it is sometimes a place of stress for me (I still get rejected for even classes there all the time, take that reality-star pseudo-fame). I had decided long ago that the Magnet was the place that I loved and getting to work with Christina Gausas in her classes and shows, learning her style. Harold teams weren’t a priority for me, heck I didn’t even like Harold Night for the most part (Neither did they apparently, since they broke up most of the teams while I was writing this). But, the thought is you’d be crazy not to audition, at least to get the experience. The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre has a lot of exposure and can be a good place to perform and there is much to be learned from any performance opportunity. I decided I would be fine with the auditions, because I didn’t want it, unlike some people in the comedy community, for whom getting on a team there is the be-all end-all next-step for them in their ascendance to greatness. I told myself I was ok.

But I wasn’t. As the audition came up, I got gradually more stressed. I wasn’t too stressed before the audition and even going in felt like I did fairly well. But after the audition as I talked to friends and they seemed overjoyed, I felt overwhelmed by failure. Even if we didn’t know who made teams, I wasn’t as good as them. Who was I here? Why did I care so much when I told myself I didn’t care, when I didn’t even love all of UCB, this stressful place for me? The truth, as my father told me over a turkey burger before the audition, was “that you do care so you should just stop lying to yourself about it”.

And what I realized, walking back down along lower 6th avenue to write this blog post, was that I did care because I wanted their approval BUT even more than that (explain the explanation!) I wanted their approval because still in me there is so much that isn’t ok with myself, so much that isn’t self-confident, that wants someone to tell him that he is great and that everything will be ok.

And what’s more than this and this is the most difficult thing to say of all:

THAT. IS. FINE.

Ultimately, do I want to be an insecure person? No! I would like to be less of one, at least. I have girls constantly telling me how much they hate “weakness” or “men with no balls”, just for instance. But we all have our own places we are tight, our own places to stretch, our own progress that can be made from where we are. If I have a core of insecurity and I know that, guess what?! It’s the fist, million-time-th-better-step to being less insecure! Just knowing where you are and then stretching from that place, trying on more confidence, little by little. Doing the work and being satisfied.

At the end of my Neil Casey Advanced Study class yesterday I had a terrible class where I couldn’t make choices, another player on stage didn’t understand my move and we sat in the shit we had collectively taken on stage and I just performed generally poorly. And yet I knew I had done the work so I tried to feel good, I knew I had identified weaknesses and stretched them.

When we are practicing yoga, or working out or running or whatever physical activity we do to strengthen our bodies, we know we do well because our bodies literally thank us through releasing endorphins telling us that we are helping them, physically MAKING us feel great! But when we work our minds, our souls, there is no accompanying flow of endorphins, no hints to make us be okay with the stretch, the tear, the weakness we have endured, so insted of thanking ourselves, I judge myself and make myself feel bad, or I can.

I walked out of a rehearsal for the show I have that I was cast in that Christina Gausas is directing that I am SO honored to be a part of, that meshes with my values and background and how I love to play and knew I was worse than the other people there, knew I had fucked up repeatedly in rehearsal, knew that only in the very last moment of rehearsal did I begin to grasp myself and my skills and have a breakthrough. I moved already from a place of weakness to a place of strength in such a small time. As my yoga teacher, Chrissy Carter says, do not think of the body you are not in right now or wish you had, thank yourself for the practice you are doing in this body at this time.

But as I walk out, I am consumed with worries. Will I not be good enough and be dismissed from the show? Am I being too weak in scenes, in that struggle to be in the present? What about my habits and quirks that I try to suppress, picking my nose, or scratching my scalp or just my insane gestures from the audience (a fun sight for those of you who know me to behold). It is a struggle to not judge one’s self for one’s mental work because WE CARE. I care! We all care about our lives and our passions and so it is difficult to see them as practice. It’s good to be emotionally invested in things, to feel things. My friend Jon Bander said last night in rehearsal that “it is so wonderful to see people feel things on stage, because frequently as stand-up or sketch comedians, we are not allowed to feel something on stage, only comment”.

But I also have to recognize that note that Ashley Ward gave me over a year ago that, “you are where you need to be”.

I didn’t get on a Harold Team at UCB. I didn’t even get a callback.

I didn’t have a good class with Neil Casey and impress him, so I could get petted and stroked and told how brilliant I am.

I wasn’t up to snuff in my rehearsal with Christina, whom I admire and adore, and it breaks my heart.

But today, I feel happy and I feel fine.

Because wherever I am in my life, I’m doing the work. As my friend Sebastian told me as we were walking down the street, quoting another great improviser and teacher of mine, Michael Delaney: “If you want to do this, see that you are working the hardest out of all of your friends.”

Because today, I look at myself, I see where I am in the present moment, I forgive myself, I love myself and know there is nowhere else that I could be.

Whatever happens, I do not control. I don’t control what others think of me, whether I am cast or not, admired or not, nothing.

Only if I am in the moment, the present and I’m okay with my own weakness.

Which I guess, you could call, a kind of strength.

Oh yoga.

What the fuck have you done to me?

***

My friend Frank, who is now the big brother/probably partial-dad (his pops is in his early 60s) of one Charles Orio, tells me I obsess too much about my weight.

This is true.

When I went into my therapist’s office, I described a night of regret where I got drunk ate two “Kooky Brownies” (Brownies that had a chocolate chip cookie top to them), bought too many drinks and let other people buy me some and woke up 3 pounds heavier.

(I also saw Kiss*Punch*Poem that night, an improv show inspired by and involving poets, which I highly recommend, as it currently is I think the only show that elevates improv to art in New York City that is running right now.)

My response, which calmed her down, was that I just ate normally that day. Had some nuts and coffee for breakfast, chicken salad for lunch, a Fu Man Chew from Better Being Underground (aka my secret sandwich shop) for dinner and this taco for a late-night snack.

My couch-crashing roommate Teddy and I were walking down Greenwich Avenue on the sort of long-stroll from the Magnet back down to Soho we occasionally get to indulge in on a nice night when we noticed a lone taqueria standing open on the late-night street.

We went in to discover it was “Taco Happy Hour” at Oaxaca as exemplified by an open tall-boy of Modelo Especial at the counter and a dude who was willing to talk about why he was not willing to join the co-op in Park Slope.

The taco itself though was fragrant and delicious, mounds of picked onions, spicy salsa verde and a light sprinkling of cotilla cheese on two light corn tortillas with some chewy, salty chicken for an umami core. At 2 bucks, it made me more okay that the taco truck wasn’t out on a weeknight over on 6th Ave.

Teddy and I headed home after he even talked about applying there for a job and our conversation was complete.

The next day I weighed less, I told my therapist.

And all was right in the world.

Until I woke up 2 pounds heavier, this morning.

***

OAXACA TAQUERIA WEST VILLAGE

Pollo Taco- $2.00 (5-7pm or after 10pm)

Greenwich Ave. bet. 6th and 7th Avenues.

123L to 14th St-7th Ave. ACEBDFM to West 4th St.

Subways and Other Ways

A strange thing happened to me between bars.

I ended up buying a beer for an NYU kid, the first time a “minor” had ever asked me to purchase liquor for them.

I had to say, I was amused.

“Is this adulthood?”, I thought “Moving from being afraid of getting ID’ed and caught to being solicited by others to buy beer at multi-ethnic groceries?”

Perhaps.

What led me there anyway was trying to maintain a solid buzz after a day of physically-easy, but soul-taxing work at the movie theater and a brief stop-over at bar to see Najia Dar and her cadre of post-test-partying aspiring doctors.

Najia, who had found new drive in the throes of med-school post-college  graduation, had been recently so busy that she couldn’t come out to see me and a fully bearded Rob Malone when we were in her neighborhood, at the Trader Joe’s downstairs.

So, when she invited me out, I came to say hi and because it was billed as some sort of recompense for her hermit-ude.

We met up, with her Texan friends already present, and everyone started dancing. 6 beers deeper than me, as I just sat at the bar, trying to figure out why the blond, British bartender had bought me a drink.

“You just smile and nod and leave a big tip.” One of Najia’s friends offered and it was a cue for a nice conversation with a member of the opposite sex, until she started to talk about her impending marriage.

I never did find out why that bartender bought me a drink, but I did leave a 10-dollar tip (“Good job,” the same friend told me.)

Soon the bar filled up with Najia’s doctor-mates, who I saw to my displeasure both were more educated and more attractive than me and wore on their faces the promise of a certainty of a profession and a life.

2 beers and a free drink in, I went walking, up past Washington Square Park and my old college, up University Place and to that old bodega.

Later that night, I would meet up with Jonny-Jon-Jon, who would later have a stranger start making out with him after he pinky-swore he was straight and then getting some late-night french-fries off the L train.

Right then, near Union Square, I was just trying to maintain my buzz, beat the day, beat my profession, beat my uncertainty about my future, just wanting to avoid the semi-hangover that comes on the subway ride to Brooklyn, between beers.

Looking through the fridge, I tried to find a tall-boy, a 24oz can, but they didn’t sell ‘em except for a can of the newly neutered Four Loko, which I had learned from malt-liquor experience, was not a good deal.

“Where are all the tall-boys?” I wondered out loud in the bodega and the tall, skinny fellow next to me echoed the same sentiment.

As I reached down for my can of Coors Light, he asked me to pick him up two Buds and I did, handing them to him.

“No, actually, I mean, I thought… I forgot my ID back home.” He stumbled.

“Oh.” I replied. “Ha.”

Then.

“Yeah, sure.”

Outside the deli, the kid gave me five bucks, when the beers cost four.

“Keep it.” He said.

I drank my sole beer on the L platform, waiting there to go out to see Jonny-Jon-Jon.

I finished it, in its brown paper bag, and tossed before I got on the train and had an extra buck to tip with when I got out to the bar in Brooklyn.

And that was who I was, right then.

***

On a packed Saturday, a crowd materialized around the Landmark Sunshine, a whole row just filled with my friends and friends of friends.

We all converged to see Jurassic Park on the big screen which, I was too embarrassed to admit, was my first time seeing it at all.

Andy and Matt Chao and I all met up before the show to hang out and find some source of food between conversations about Aubrey Plaza’s attractiveness and Matt Chao’s continuing/alternating insistences that he would either make a movie or buy a piece of property or both (“Or just get rich!”).

Rob Ma-Bro-Ne, for his part, brought a large contingent to the show including Ben Oviatt, Jason Chan and the Pennsylvania-imported Dickerson Bros, Malone’s fabled filmmaking brothers who feel like they could be Mario and Luigi in non-Halloween situations.

We all got kinda fucked-up for the occasion, as would befit a midnight screening of Jurassic Park, but Rob was in full form, yelling out not just lines from the movie at the screen, but observations including one about Laura Dern (“She’s so great! I can’t believe they ended up together.”) and conversations re: Michael Crichton vs. Stephen King (“Michael Crichton, much greater than sign Stephen King” Rob replied.)

Disaster was narrowly avoided when Rob began going off about the superiority of “The Lost World” (the book sequel, not the movie) and a good time was had by all.

I even tried to sneak in some flirting with the hippie-ish manager at the theater, who appreciated my comment at the box office that I wouldn’t call her by her name since I think it’s inappropriate when customers do that (which was actually an observation lifted from my stand-up). It got a smile, but eventually I was drawn too much into the film and the aftermath.

Matt and Andy and I all snuck sandwiches into the theater from Katz’s and rejoiced at samples and the combination of piles of meat and dinosaurs.

At one point, Rob started singing the theme song to the “Dinosaurs” TV show, in an impromptu karaoke-balladry rendition.

It got laughs from the audience and when a woman complained about the noise, she was booed into submission.

Justice, by crowd.

***

Monday was almost a disaster, for the pressure I put on it.

My life had been winding down recently, with classes ending and no auditions still and my attempts to invite a broad swath of my former associates and classmates to invigorate my writing group.

Instead, I ended up with a familiar string of text message excuses, sitting at Sophie’s alone, 12 minutes in to when everyone should have shown up.

What saved me that night, looking into my beer, were two things, well, two-two things.

The first two things being Alex Hilhorst and Keith Haskel, who had never met, showing up to the bar soon after willing to fuck around and talk and read a 1.5 page sketch-rewrite I had to show them ad they bonded slightly and we discussed The X-Files and even more of Hilhorst’s short career as Pee-Wee Herman’s assistant, as well as Keith’s MTV-Adult Swim comedy background.

The other thing that saved me were a couple of secret tacos.

I discovered the place on an artificial side street, tucked at the end of an alley, invisible to those not looking. “Oaxaca Taqueria” read a sign draped at a dead end. I walked in and was in luck.

It was Taco Happy Hour.

The tacos I got were Stewed Chicken, though there was a Mole special (which I later tried) and a Potato/Poblano enchilada I would have liked to get my hand on. The tacos were unusually large and full of unusual flavors for NYC-Mex, from the sour pickled onions to the salty salsa-verde which contrasted to the red-sauce the chicken was stewed with. For 4 bucks, they were well worth the price.

Leaving Sophie’s, I brought Alex and Keith back there for an encore and they were duely impressed.

“How did you even find this place? How would anyone?” Alex asked.

“You just go lookin.” I replied as we luxuriated in the half-lit grunge-splendor of the taco bar.

Later, I walked Keith home asking him for tips on online dating, which spilled over into the sort of ex-girlfriend-y sadness it seems like I can’t write a blog post without nowadays.

Suffice it to say, when you’re together with someone, in some way, you’re never alone.

I’m not sure when I’ll feel that again.

But I’m glad Monday, I didn’t feel that, alone with my beer.

***

OAXACA TAQUERIA

2 Stewed Chicken Tacos w/fixins- $4.00 (during Taco Happy Hour, 3-7 and 10-12)

16 Extra Place (off 1st St bet Bowery and 2nd Aves)

F to 2nd Avenue.

***

One more thing:

I’ve got a couple sketches in a sketch show over at the Magnet Theater on Monday, March 7th. Normally, I don’t invite a lot of people to these types of things, but I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made and I’ve received some really great support/feedback/laughs on these sketches. More than that, I’m working with really great performers who are super-funny and really sell the material, as well as some old friends who might make their sketch debut.

If you have some free time, it’s free, and I bet it’ll be pretty funny. I would certainly appreciate anyone who would want to come.

The link to the facebook event is here.

Love,

Nick