"A Show I Randomly Encountered And Turned Out To Enjoy"

I had an “Alone Day” not long ago, the co-member of our household playing a professional “Away Game” in San Francisco.

Boredom sent me to the television, and unacceptable viewing options elsewhere led me to HBO.

And there, I found Crashing.

A young comedian with a devout Christian upbringing whose marriage just ended commits to a career as a standup comedian in New York.  The leading character, Pete Holmes, is played by the actual Pete Holmes, in a show created by Pete Holmes. 

So you can see it’s about him.

Judd Apatow is involved, as in “Pete Holmes took it to Judd Apatow and Judd’s (inestimable “muscle”) got the show on the air. 

Judd’s comedic stock-in-trade is “Sexual Candor Mixed With Emotional Underpinnings.”  The “Emotional Underpinnings”, he picked up from the mentoring Garry Shandling.  The “Sexual Candor”, I think, is just him.

Anyway, the show liberally displays both of those qualities.

And I like it.

Or, “I like it ‘Marking on the Curve’”, the show being the best thing I could find on TV at that moment.  It’s hard to tell about these things.  There’s a – probably sexist – country song – although how many of them aren’t? – called “All The Girls Look Beautiful at Closing Time.”  This was analogous to that.  All the shows look interesting… when you are “this close” to turning off the television and taking a nap.

Crashing, it seems to me – and who else would be more authoritative on “It seems to me” – is genuinely enjoyable, as reflected by the fact that I watched numerous episodes of it.  (Question:  Is it still “streaming” if you don’t have to use three remotes to access it?  I have never been clear about that.)

As a result of where I inadvertently dropped in on Crashing, I watched episodes from “Season Two” before I watched episodes from “Season One.”  I actually liked the “Season Two” episodes better.  Meaning I watched the show “coming into its own”…

Backwards.

I strongly identify with standup comedians.  In my youth for, as they say in baseball when referring to an eye-blinkingly brief promotion to the Major Leagues “a cup of coffee”, I tried being a standup comedian myself. 

That didn’t work out. 

Thumbnail Explanation:  I was not cut out to be a standup comedian.  I was cut out to do comedy on the Internet, where, if the audience doesn’t laugh, we are in separate places, leaving me safely insulated from devastating rejection and personal abuse.  I can imagine you like everything.  And if I’m wrong, I will, relievedly, never find out. 

To me, Crashing feels refreshingly “unwritten.”  The stories are credible, chronicling the turbulent travails of a neophyte comedian, handing out flyers on street corners where nobody takes any – well, one passerby took one but they immediately deposited their gum in it and tossed it into a trashcan.  Informing Crashing’s soul-crushing “Rites of Passage” experiences is the endearing innocence of the wannabe “Standup” protagonist. 

Pete Holmes is likably sweet.  While empathically “giving the time of day” to a young woman handing out food samples in a supermarket – a thankless undertaking if ever there was one – Pete considerately asks, “What’s your name?”  To which she ruefully replies, “That’s okay.”

Not an actual “joke”, perhaps, but I appreciated its inclusion.  (I intrinsically allot a show “points” for “Wow!  You saw that!”)

One of the reasons I liked Crashing’s “Season Two” better than “Season One” was the addition of a cast member, comedian Jamie Lee, playing “Ali Reissen” a tentative “romantic entanglement.”  Jamie’s inclusion is just what the show needed, “Ali’s” acerbic “Reality Check” balancing Pete’s “insufferable blandness.”

Adding an enhancing verisimilitude to the project, the bulk of Crashing’s characters are actual comedians playing themselves.  Their offstage “edgy banter” feels evisceratingly “true to life.”  The material they perform is actual material from their acts.

But with a sensitive distinction. 

Mentioned during one of the informative “Extras” at the end of an episode, the “Start out” comedians perform material they did earlier in their careers, and you can intuit the qualitative difference.

The “All Reissen” character opens her standup routine saying,

“My boyfriend and I took our relationship to ‘The next level.’  We broke up.”

You know how you look at pictures of yourself when you were younger and go, “Was that ME!?!”  That’s that joke, to a comedian who has maturingly “moved on.”

Y’know, I could say this about almost every post I have ever written.  “How do you evaluate ‘judgment’?”  Somebody says something you agree with – you think they’re a genius.  But are they genuinely a genius?  Or did they just say something you agree with?

It’s the same thing with comedy.

The comedy in Crashing, onstage and off, feels spontaneous, funny, intuitive and smart, the kind I imagine doing myself, if I had “toughed it out” and worked as a comedian. 

I think Crashing is good. 

Is it legitimately good?

I just shrugged.

Aside from the comedy, I can also relate to the situation.  The comedians know they’re funny.  Their palpable anxiety comes from wondering,  “Is that going to be enough?”

Put it together – the show gets to me.  And gets me inevitably pondering.  I don’t know if I could have consistently mined “truthful” material from everyday experience, like the comedians on Crashing.

I never dared taking the chance.

Uh-oh.

There was going to be a subtly effective “Narrative Turn” here.  But I waited too long.

Why don’t you come back?

And I’ll “turn” tomorrow.

"Food, Challenging Food - The Main Course (And Also Dessert)"

“What”

What you eat matters.  Especially when you’re bingeing.  Bingeing means a lot of food is going into you mouth really fast.  If you can’t stop it, you are better off bingeing on carrots than on tortilla chips. 

Besides, who finishes a bagful of carrots?

Even baby carrots.

A big bag of tortilla chips?  (Or Original Ruffles with ridges?)

“I take another handful… Two more… Three more – make it an even five… A couple more can’t hurt… One more…. Okay, two… I wonder how many will fill  up my hand?...  Two more… Okay, three, and one of them’s broken… Look at that.  Bag’s almost empty.  Might as well finish them up.”

And then your pants don’t fit.

I know I am “small potatoes” compared to people with serious eating challenges, but I have a “minor league” sense of what’s involved.  It’s a tough battle, because, unlike alcohol, you cannot go “cold turkey” on food consumption.  That’s “Ghandi Territory”, minus “I want to free India.” 

This isn’t even really about eating.  It’s about “mindful noticing”, which could apply to anything.  A cranial-sacral specialist once alerted me to the negative consequences of crossing my legs.  (I have forgotten what they are.)  I am now paying “mindful attention” to crossing my legs.  (I just uncrossed them, just now.)

It’s not easy, unlearning a lifelong habit.  There is no support group, “I’m Earl.  (“Hi, Earl.”)  I’m a chronic leg crosser.”  You have to face it alone.

It’s like a “Duh!” that what you eat matters.  But it doesn’t really seem to sink in.  People are scrupulously careful about what they feed to their goldfish.  While we’re, like, “I’ll eat anything!”  (Especially on those Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives-type shows.  Why aren’t those hosts all dead?  And why is Anthony Bourdain so skinny?)   

Healthy eating suggestions are readily available.  (Although good luck finding two nutritionists who totally agree.)  My humble advisory here is to just pay attention to what you are putting in your mouth.  If you would not feed it to your gerbil, don’t eat it.

Moving on to…

“When”

I try eating my meals at regular hours.  Sometimes, it doesn’t work out.  Friends call.

“Dinner at eight?  Sure.”

When I normally eat dinner at six. 

A “tide-me-over” snack?  Makes sense.  I’ll snack at six.

Except…

My conditioned eating apparatus thinks it’s dinner.  Why shouldn’t it? – It’s six.  The unfortunate result?   My “Snacking at six” morphs into “Dinner at Six”, and my “Dinner at Eight” becomes “I just ate two dinners!” 

I try not to snack at all.  I don’t want to start anything.  Snacking’s like you opened the door to get the paper and the dog thinks you’re taking them out. 

“I’m just getting the paper.”

“Don’t blame me.  You triggered the ‘Opened the door’ response.”

I eat three meals a day.  That’s it.  Snacks?  It’s not even a word.  Probably invented by people who sell snacks.

Proceeding to…

“How much?”

At Rancho La Puerta, they serve everything on small plates.  The salad arrives in a “finger bowl.” What they’re doing is playing a trick on the mind, regulating “portion control.”  Your plate’s amply laden – it’s enough.  (And as Mattie Ross says in True Grit: “Enough is a banquet.”)

The diametrical opposite are the servings at restaurants?  Who decided on those portions?  “What would Andre The Giant eat?”  Our childhood instruction was “Finish your food.”  You do that at restaurants, don’t be surprised if you are unable to get up.  It’s like, “If we give them more, we can charge them more.”  It’s too late to go back now.  Diners would go, “What happened?  I can see the plate.” 

And finally – and, to me, most significantly…

“Why?”

“Eating” is for a reason.  Without getting too “doctor-y” about it, it keeps you alive.  But I have noticed I eat sometimes when, if I asked myself, “Are you really hungry?”, I wouldn’t.

This is another kind of eating entirely.  If we had kept it, we would not find it included in the Official Eater’s Manual. 

It goes like this.

Somebody hurt my feelings. 

I pig out on crackers.

The game’s tensely exciting. 

I eat an entire wedge of cheese.  (Much of it sitting on crackers.)

"Double-up" on the pie, just to "get it out of the house.”

This is not eating.  It is inhalation of food.  For which there are detectable signals:

I eat one bite, while thinking about the next bite.

I eat the main course, while thinking about dessert.

I finish my meal – often in less than ten minutes – and, for the life of me, I

cannot remember what I just had.

I know it looks like eating, but I truly believe it’s something else.  The Yiddish word for this behavior is fressing.  Which kind of sounds like what it is.

(A psycho-maxim to consider in this regard:  “It’s not what you eat.  It’s what eats you.”)

Sometimes, it’s the contextual environment.

I’ve been invited to a “home-cooked” meal.  It’s not delicious, but how do I not eat it?  (And even more of it than if it was good.)

I’m at a reception, gorging on flavorless “Tortellini-on-a-Toothpick”? 

I have just had wine.  And no one’s talking to me at the reception.

I’m in a bakery buying bread, which is already “Look out.”  I spot a muesli cookie.  Which I, by the accepted standards of “Hungriness” – the preeminent one being I just ate – I do not need. 

But I have never had a muesli cookie before.  And they’ve come “straight from the oven.”  And they are by the bread and the guy’s standing there, brandishing his  “pick-up” tongs.

So I buy it.

And I consume it in twelve seconds.

I have no idea what that’s about, but my guess is it has nothing to do with a muesli cookie.

Anyway…

These are some of the things I’ve noticed, trying to get a “mindful” handle on my everyday eating.  As I said yesterday, “noticing” does not necessarily mean following up.

Still, being a natural noticer,

I just figured I’d give it a try.

"Food, Challenging Food"

It’s not vanity when you’re pants don’t fit.

“It’s cheapness.”

It’s practicality!  Geez, you make me so…

“Hungry?”

Okay, we are getting ahead of ourselves here.  Yes, when bombarded by the likes of Blue Italics Person belligerence, one may feel impelled to reach for the “Comfort Food.”  But I am “Standing Tall” this time.  And not just because I am working at a “Stand-Up” desk.  (Although that helps.)

The following is my “Fight Back!” inspirational narrative.  (Or as “inspirational” as a pessimist gets.)

About three months ago, I went to Rancho La Puerta to get myself back on dietarial track, which I successful accomplished.  How am I doing since I’ve been back?

I’d give myself a “B-.”

I continue to be able to fit in my pants.  Although, over the ensuing period, the “Margin of Error” is gradually diminishing.  As my “Margin of Belt-Level Expansion” heads in the opposite direction.  (I can sense the button waving “Goodbye” to the increasingly harder-and-harder-to-reach buttonhole.)

Part if the problem is inevitably age-related.  My “Internal Furnace” does not burn fuel as efficiently as it once did.  I’m not sure it burns anything at all.  I eat things, and my body, which once reflexively knew the next step now goes, (CLUELESSLY) “What.”  I look down, and the “Food To Be Processed” remains waiting there, like a passenger on a platform for a train they don’t run anymore. 

I can still see the outline of two-days-ago-eaten cake.

With little assistance from my seemingly AWOL “Fuel-Burning ‘Choo-Choo’”, it’s up to me – adding, for longtime fans of Carl Reiner’s Enter Laughing­ – “… to do the ‘Ha-cha-cha.’”  (Look up that reference.  It might inspire you in the future, as it has me, and still does.)

I am told by a certain psychologist of my acquaintance that the latest therapeutic  “Buzzword” these days is “Mindfulness.”

In English:  Simply “Paying Attention.”

(Note:  I know you are not used to “Self-Help” advisories emanating from this blog.  To reliably provide “Self-Help” you must be consistently able to help yourself.  I believe.  In that regard, me, giving advice about anything is like a .190 hitter offering pointers to a batting champion.  (About batting.  I would still provide tips on where to procure authentic matza brei.  But only if requested.)  Today is an outlying exception.  Tomorrow, it’s back to “trivial extranaeity” and railing against things that won’t change.)   

Over these past three months, I have been trying to maintain the lessons reinforced at Rancho La Puerta.  (“Don’t go to any of the exercise classes”, was also reinforced, not on my last visit, but on the visit before, when I went to a “Stretch” class and the leader yelled at me for stretching too slowly.) 

Once again, I am not an expert.  This is just what I’ve noticed.  (Although I am an expert at “noticing”, so you can take what I’ve noticed to the bank.)  (Not promising it won’t be counterfeit money.)

The key – look for books showcasing this word flying off the shelves at your local bookstore, if you can find a local bookstore – is indeed, I believe, the aforementioned “Mindfulness”, in this case, in the context of “You, And the Unmindful Consumption of Foodstuffs.”  (i.e., stuffing yourself with food.)

Also – and I am starting to feel like this is a preambling “Introduction”, with the actual content coming tomorrow – this is not a “Do’s” and “Don’ts” kind of arrangement.  Who am I to instruct others?  I won’t even do that about writing, which I actually know something about.

What I am offering is purely, “This is me, struggling with this.”  I am not a “Weight Loss” guru.  Although – speaking of noticing – have you noticed that all of them are rich?  Two possible explanations for that phenomenon come to mind:  One:  There are a lot of people needing their services.   And Two:  “Hey, welcome back.”

I shall leave you to decide which one it is.

Since my return from the Ranch, I have paid “mindful” attention to experiences like,

“Look at that.  I made a peanut butter sandwich snack to take to the ‘Television-Watching Room’ and I finished eating it in the hall.”

That’s worth noticing, don’t you think?

Although, if you stop at “noticing” without assiduously following up – this is me, being encouraging from a negative perspective – let me assure you of something:  I fail almost as often as I succeed.  Which is actually a step forward.  I used to fail all the time.

My authoritative “Dispatch from the Front” headline: 

It happens.

Worst case scenario?

You’re gonna need some new pants.

Best case scenario?

You won’t.

Tune in tomorrow for my, hopefully, helpful personal chronicle.

Until then – and maybe after, if this turns out to make sense to you – when you are around food,

Just “notice.”

Not as in, “Hey, I’m around food.”

But as in,

“Okay.  What now?”

"Two Generations of Wonderful"

It's my daughter's birthday today.

She is my sunshine, my only sunshine.

In all these years, we have never had one serious dispute.  Except when she said, as a teenager, "Dad, I'm funnier than you and I have been for years."  But as I said, she was a teenager.  Later on, she eventually came to her senses.

And now, she's a mother.

My daughter's a mother.

There's a "Wake-Up Call" if ever I heard one.

And you know what?

She's a wonderful mother.

Which comes as somewhat of a surprise.  At children's birthday parties, her sister Rachel was the one who wanted to hold the babies.  Anna was more interested in monitoring the presents.

I am not prone to public displays of personal affection.  People I love know I love them without me blubbering about it to strangers.

So I shall leave it at that.

And now, in honor of this birthday milestone, I offer the gift that arrived between birthdays.

Presenting, the most recent "Golda-Gram."

I hope she appreciates her mother.

Like I do.

Happy Birthday, Anna Benne.

You still make me happy when skies are grape.  (Which is how she sang it when she was little.  And she knew it was funny, judging by the telltale glint in her three-year-old eye.)

And now... for your accumulating collection:

Golda Lee Buddelmeyer.

A sparkling subsidiary to the sun.

"Comrades In 'Noticing'"

I recently mentioned that my “Go-To” perspective in writing comedy is “noticing.”  When other writers create successful “noticing” comedy, I invariably go, “Yeah!”  It’s like my team just scored a touchdown.   

Larry David is a great noticer.  Although sometimes, he notices stuff you wish he hadn’t bothered to notice.  “Is this bottled water, or ‘tap’?  It tastes kind of ‘tappy’ to me, and I actually prefer bottled.”

My reaction to that finicky perception is, “Stop it!”

On the other hand…

When Larry David strikes “Comedic Gold”-noticing, I leap from my seat and throw confetti into the air.  Or, its literal counterpart – a seated, appreciative “Nice going.”

Check out Larry David’s “Shouts and Murmurs” contribution in the March 5 issue of The New Yorker.  Actually, you don’t have to, as I will be liberally quoting from it in this blog post.  (Although the stuff I left out remains available for your perusal.  I am not one to ruin things entirely.)

What Larry David noticed was a literary cliché, which he blew up into a major commotion, to great ridiculing success.  How did he do it?  He noticed the practical consequences of that literary cliché.

A miniscule “noticing”, placed under an examining microscope – That’s my kind of comedy.

Which is pleasingly similar to his.

For whatever reason, Larry David’s imagination was captured by the romantic tableau of the “Wartime Sendoff.”

He begins with a recognizable introduction:

(And here, I quote liberally, without permission, though with genuine respect.)

“My sweetheart Alice… drove me to the station.  We were in love and the thought of being apart was overwhelming for both of us… Our hearts bursting, we gazed at each other for a few moments before she spoke.”

“Promise you’ll come back to me.”

“I promise.”

“And promise you’ll write to me.”

 “Of course I’ll write to you.”

“Every day.”

And here we go.

Imagining the practical likelihood of writing every day from a war zone.  Although obviously in love, that may still not be possible.  And if you’re honest, you mention it.

“Every day?  Hm.  Well, I’ll certainly try.  I’ll be in a war.  I’ll be fighting.  But sure, if I have time to do it, I will.”

Pressed to faithfully accommodate her unwavering demand, the reality of providing “Missives from The Front” kicks in even further.

“I don’t know where I’ll be getting all the paper from.  I can’t really walk around with a ream of paper in my knapsack.  It’s pretty heavy as it is.  I gotta carry bullets, grenades, a sleeping bag, a canteen.  I don’t know if I can load up with paper.”

Notice the specifics involving the battlefield obstacles to regular letter writing: “bullets, grenades, a sleeping bag, a canteen.”  Although not wanting to offend his beloved, the character pays sensible attention to the difficulties of hauling a ream of paper around in his knapsack.  And then, there is – practically and deliciously – the inevitable issue of the pen.

“I did {pack a pen}, but, I’m not gonna lie, it was skipping a little, so there’s a good chance it could run out in the first letter.”

At this point, his beloved is having serious doubts about his devotion, which he tries to truthfully assuage, the problem being that the “truthfully” gets him into increasingly hot water.

“Suppose I’m fighting all day, killing people, getting fired at.   Saving buddies.  Canteen low on water.  I get back to base camp, exhausted, filthy.  My first thought, if I can be perfectly honest, is going to be to sit down, relax, have some C rations… {And} after the rations, I’m going to look into a shower or something…. So after that, yes, if I have the pen and paper, I’ll try to write, although it may be dark.  I suppose I can use a flashlight, but it’ll be tough to hold the pen and the flashlight at the same time.”

Do you notice the exquisite details?  To me, this is what I aspire to.  This is me, writing at my best.  Except it’s somebody else.     

By now, all bets concerning the relationship are off.

“O.K., enough!  You know what?  I don’t even want you to write.”

And, after an ill-advised foray at “turning the tables”,

“… I mean, if anybody should be writing every day, it’s you.  You’ve got time.  And a desk.”

The romance is permanently kaput.

Notice, this is not a comedy writing, exerting his will on the situation.  Nothing is exaggerated, nothing forcefully contrived.  It’s just a nitpicky person, noticing everything but that that his “reasonable honesty” is torpedoing his relationship.

I was uncomfortable with the ending, which was a little dark for my liking.  But what can I tell you?  It was written by somebody else.

Still, it was very close to what I imagine I would have written if I had gotten that idea.  Except for the ending.  Which I would have worked on, to make cheerier. 

The thing is, this remarkable piece resonates so strongly with my preferred, natural style of writing that, although I have never had any of my submissions accepted by The New Yorker, reading Larry David’s excellent effort, I feel like I just did.

At least a little.

That’s the “down” side of noticing.

You tend to notice when you are “massaging” the truth.
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Someone's anniversary is today.  And no one is happier about it than me.  Best wishes to both of us.  We are lucky hot dogs to have found each other.  By happy accident.  And without the Internet.