Swings

Reading Norm Macdonald's twitter always brings up feelings for me.
I'm still having good times in Colorado and I'll elaborate on my previous adventure's and today's relaxed book reading in the sunshine while listening to Kendrick's new album sometime soon.
Right now I'm of a mind to write about standup comedy, which I've been meaning to do or a while. It won't be the full post the subject deserves, but at least one part of it.
Standup (and comedian culture, whatever that is) has been my second passion behind music for a while now. Comedy in general, though I gravitate more towards standup driven acts.  My love for comedy productions probably started with Conan, at least how I conceive of comedy productions.  For example it really probably started with the Simpsons but I wouldn't categorize the Simpsons under "comedy" as I'm referring to it here.  The connotation makes sense in my head but would be difficult and pointless to explain, lots of arbitrary boundaries for my own checklists.
Anyways, this particular train of thought follows the tracks of a day last semester, I think in September or October. I'll google it now to get the correct date.

It was October 22nd, 2014. http://thecomicscomic.com/2014/10/27/new-yorks-comedy-community-turns-out-to-dedicate-george-carlin-way-on-west-121st-street/
Here's a review of it for objective information.  If you look directly above Carlin's daughter's hat in the opening remarks video, and between the two faces above it you'll occasionally see my pasty face pop into frame behind them.
I think I heard about the event days before on twitter, so twitter is constantly increasing it's importance to me.  I went after class, I believe Metaphysics, and walked up to 121st, hoping to catch the crowd and know where the George Carlin dedication was occurring.  As I stood next to a coffee shop that other people seemed to be standing next to, hoping I was in the right group, Colin Quinn and entourage walked out of the shop at a determined pace. This was my first time seeing Colin Quinn in person, a big moment for me because I'd been getting deep into Tough Crowd and the whole crew of Tough Crowd over the last year or so.  Butterflies started immediately, and I followed the crowd out to the site of the dedication.
Thankfully the rain had stopped and the event went off without a hitch. Everyone gave great speeches, especially Quinn likening Carlin to a priest. It was great to see everyone so passionate about Carlin and about the event.  Carlin's brother also gave a hilarious, impassioned speech, and the sign was ceremoniously unveiled to great applause.
During and after the event I noticed the celebrities and comics in attendance.  Judah Friedlander was recognizable for his look, and while he'd count as a famous celebrity sighting for me on a normal day here he was an afterthought.  Walking among the crowd were Gilbert Gottfried, Jim Norton, Dave Attell.  More too, but especially these great comedians who I'd become so enthralled with recently.  Norton I'd had the pleasure to meet when he came in for an interview at 95.7 The Game over the summer, though since I was just an intern it's not like we spent the day together. But at least we made eye contact.
Gilbert Gottfried was interesting to see because he looms so small and reserved in person despite being so gargantuan and bombastic on stage. He seemed an exquisitely kind man.  I don't think I regarded him as Iago from Aladdin, but he is Iago from Aladdin, a very formative series of movies from my youth, and it was interesting to see him in person yet not really associate him as the embodiment of the character.
Dave Attell was the second most interesting experience for me, maybe even the most, behind Colin Quinn.  I'd been watching Insomniac a lot on sleepless nights as a comfort show during the semester, burning through lots of episodes.  Dave Attell had gotten me through tough times, shown me interesting and hilarious sides of cities, and provided me with hours of unique entertainment that I cherished and hadn't found anywhere else.

Shouldn't I thank him for that? He literally walked right by me, I stood next to him at times. A few other people were coming up to him and asking for pictures and autographs, or just to say "Hey Dave", I chickened out. Or I rationalized that I didn't want to be like that, didn't want to impose on him and be just another groupie, it was his day off and he was here to celebrate a friend, not to be a celebrity and sign autographs, so why should I bother him. I'd be just another demanding fan, even worse is he'd see me as just another demanding fan.  That's not who I wanted him to see me as. I'd rather not be known by him at all than be known as another groupie.
I chickened out.  What would have been so wrong about saying "Hey Dave"? Wouldn't he probably appreciate hearing how much his show, his work had meant to me? Who cares if he gets it all the time, it would still mean a lot to him right? And it would mean a lot to me. I want this, I want to let him know what his work meant for me. I'm being selfish, I'm turning his day of celebration for a departed friend into a day about serving me, giving me this experience because it's what's most important to me today, but not what's most important today.  But is it so wrong to satisfy a few selfish desires? I'm sure he gets asked for autographs and banal photographs all the time, would he really be bothered by my compliments?
These thoughts extended to my probably stalker seeming standing near Colin Quinn without getting the nerve to go up to him and talk to him.  The real fear that was under the groupie-stigma nervousness, that I only realized while walking home later and rationalizing, was what would I say if they were nice enough to talk to me? After "hey, I really appreciate your work and it's meant a lot to me, got me through tough times etc., you're amazing and keep doing what you're doing etc.", what do I really have to say? What do I have to provide?
I've known these comedians for months and years and spent hours with them, all without ever talking to them or knowing them, seeing their faces in daylight and not on a screen for the first time.  Dave looks old, his jolly chubby Comedy Central self into a hat and cigarette sporting bearded thinner self. Colin Quinn has less hair but wiser eyes, a fire of anger simmered to a heat of contemplation. Norton is pulling a reverse Benjamin Button, looking a boy in a man's body aging into a man in a boy's body.
What can I provide? What do I want them to provide me with? If I pour my heart out, what I think is in my heart, and get a kind "thank you", "I appreciate it", is that what I wanted, would I have been satisfied?
I wanted more, to be appreciated, to be friends with them. To be a part of that inner circle, a part of the inside jokes and atmosphere that I'd only watched as a fly on the wall, removed even further because my vision had been through a computer screen.  Here were my heroes and idols, more than that my friends who I'd shared so many laughs with, laughs they'd never heard. I wanted to share that laughter with them, not even to contribute jokes or opinions or self but to just be acknowledged, to be in the audience. Coming face to face with the real thing I was reminded even more the separation and distance between my time watching their videos and the real thing of being in their circle, being a part of their club, sitting at their cool kids table.
Why should I deserve that? They'd made the shows, produced, written, starred. Worked. I'd just consumed, I had nothing to provide in the conversation if it went past "I enjoyed your work." That's all I'd done, enjoyed their work. What more did I have to offer that they should appreciate me as I revered them? Why should I deserve that love? Isn't it selfish, to want to have my cake and eat it too, take all their hard work and give nothing back but "thanks, can we take a picture so I can remember meeting you."
I probably should have said something though.
Even if I had I'd probably still agonize over it, how I should have said more or less, that I didn't say the right thing, that if I'd just done this or that right it would have gone exactly how I wanted (with how I wanted being that they come to all my family dinners, of course.)
I probably could have said something though.

This extends beyond comedy, to things like meeting Thundercat and further encounters with Colin Quinn. But this day was special in my realization (or rationalization) of this on the walk home.  To be a part of that inner circle, to warrant appreciation and respect, you have to have something worthy of it. More than just the idea that I'd spent time with them without actually being with them, without their knowledge, even if I did spend time in their presence I needed something of value to be valued for. Rather than trying to reel the fish in against their will you have to sit in a really well made boat for the fish to come hang out in, and its funner that way anyway. If you build it they will come etc. I was trying to put on a baseball game with no field, trying to join the team with no glove and bat.
Basically, I need to get on my game and work. Produce, in the true sense of the word.  The problem obviously is that by the time I have anything of worth it will be past their time. We'll never be contemporaries, by the nature of time.  But the good thing about contemporaries is they come up at the same time as you.  If I become a Colin Quinn I'll have my own Patrice O'Neal's and Norton's and Macdonald's and Attell's to work with, to create with, to produce with. And while they won't be the same as the greats I revere, I'll know them in a truer sense than the way I knew the greats through the screen. I was never going to have that friendship with Norm Macdonald, and the distanced reverence is satisfying enough for me as is, so better to build a friendship with my contemporary version of Colin Quinn, whoever that may be.  Maybe one day someone will come up to me and tell me how much my work has meant to them. I've experienced this in small doses playing music for people, DJing for people. I hope to experience this appreciation for my work as a person as well as in my job.  Hopefully I can be someone's Patrice O'Neal, their Norm Macdonald, their Thundercat. I'm not very good at public speaking (read: horrible), so comedy's probably out of the bag, but through radio or music or what have you.
If I get so lucky as to be someone's Brian O'Connell, hopefully they get up the nerve to say so, and hopefully I'm not too old and crotchety to remember that day, October 22nd, 2014, the day my heroes dedicated George Carlin Way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Ogs4ThQiY
Dave Van Ronk, Green Green Rocky Road.