When it comes to pursuing your passions in life, the stakes are always higher for women. When we have the audacity to pour ourselves wholly into a goal, it can… kinda scare people. And the more passionate you are about what you want, the louder GL will be ringing in your head, especially when you get pushback from a world that says you’re too fat, not pretty enough, too loud, overly aggressive, whatever. But as it is with so many other areas of life, Girl Logic can be both a boost and a bummer in this realm. It can lay out all the ways you can fail—fired, not enough views of your videos, producer doesn’t watch your tape—and how you might feel afterward, since failure is part of your rich history as a human who gives a damn. And it can also remind you that there is absolutely no downside to trying. So you try and fail, so what? You did your best, you still got the lessons. Plus, the more you fail, the less it hurts.
My whole life, my stepdad has described chances as “at bats”—meaning how many times you’re allowed to step up to the plate and swing, hit or miss. You get “at bats” because you’re good enough to miss and still be invited to the plate. Though I always strive to succeed (who doesn’t?), I’m allowed to fail, to have “at bats,” because I work hard to earn them. Where others give up, I press on. Where others are complacent, I push. I don’t do it for any reason other than it’s the only way I know how to be.
I believe my work ethic was passed on to me by my father. While I have the utmost respect for my mom, who was a working single mom when she raised me, I connect with my father more when it comes to professional ambition. For twenty-seven years, my father worked in men’s apparel—things like ties, suspenders, and belts. He spent twenty-seven years on the road as a sales rep, driving all over the country every week. Now, when I’m touring, I’ll get calls from my dad on a Sunday: “I figured if it’s Sunday, you’re in an airport flying home.” And we’ll talk about the city I was just in. He knows all of them, down to a detail like, “On Third and Washington, there’s a restaurant that makes a clam pizza. It sounds disgusting, but trust me, it’s unfuckingbelieveable.”
My working knowledge of most US cities consists of the immediate area around my hotel and the venue, but my father knows so many cities intimately from pushing giant rolling racks up and down streets, from store to store. After years and years of working for someone else, he started his own line of apparel; named it Novia. I would go visit him in the summers in his office/warehouse. He would let me cut swatches of silk and glue them to expensive card stock as samples for customers. I wasn’t great at it, but who is? It’s actually really hard to freehand-cut a perfect square with pinking shears!
I remember going to the factories where they would cut leather and dye alligator pelts that would be later made into belts and braces. I’d crawl past the machines and under the cutting tables to collect the leather scraps, positive I could create something special with the shreds of discarded materials. I couldn’t.
My father did everything himself, putting everything he had into that business. He ran the warehouse, designed the merchandise, boxed it up, and sold it. He would go, store to store, meeting to meeting, state to state, to sell them on the idea of carrying his line. He would fly to Lake Como, Italy, to the silk mills, to design the patterns for his ties. What a schlep. We couldn’t go to a mall without my dad stopping into a few stores just to see who carried what; he was always doing research.
To this day, my father still points at stores we drive by and declares, “I used to sell to them.”
I do the same thing when I pass a random building I once worked at in Los Angeles. I can’t help but point it out to whoever I’m with: “I did a show there once.” No one cares but me, but it’s a funny thing to measure a lifetime of accomplishment by staring at buildings you once worked in. I imagine myself, old and gray, telling my grandkids, “I once did a show for five people in the upstairs of an Acapulco Mexican restaurant! Now it’s a robot grocery store!”
I guess I never assumed the business wasn’t doing well because he was my Dad and he worked hard.
Slowly, the menswear business dried up. Sure, men still needed accessories, but the market grew smaller and more competitive. I was twenty-one and home from college, about to make my move to Los Angeles. I was in the car with my father. I thought he was just dropping me off, but he put the car in park. He looked at me and, with tears in his eyes, explained how difficult it had been for him, closing his business and having a family to support. He knew giving up wasn’t an option, and he wanted me to be proud of him. Me proud of him? The thought had never occurred to me. Parents are supposed to be proud of their kids, right? The other way around seemed, well, irrelevant; why would an adult care what a kid thought?
As an adult, I understand what losing a business must have been like for him. It’s like losing a part of your soul. It’s an entity you’ve poured your sweat and tears into; it reflects you, and when it dies, you lose something major. It’s a little like a breakup, or even a death. You wonder what more you could have done to save it, to turn things around. It’s a part of your energy and life that is gone.
I remember crying for the whole weekend when my first late-night pilot didn’t go through. I didn’t understand how something I worked so hard for, something that had so much of my heart in it, could just be casually passed on. You can’t help but wonder, “Was I not enough? Does the universe not want me to have what I want?” Or worse, “Am I as misguided as the 99 percent of delusional people out in Los Angeles—am I one of the crazies?”
No, the universe always wants you to be happy. And, in hindsight, that pilot was terrible. We’ll blame the executives on that one, though. They wanted me to say stuff like “keep it 100!” Puke.
Anyway, I don’t know if I had ever seen my dad cry, and he wasn’t like, sobbing, but his eyes got that clear color that blue eyes get when holding tension and tears back. I know this look because I have his eye color and I happen to think I look really pretty when I cry. My dad explained that he was getting into a brand-new business: financial planning. Now, if that doesn’t sound like a total Dad job, I don’t know what does! But, beyond the job, what he was telling me was that he was starting over at forty-nine. At forty-nine with two children, a wife, a dog, a house—all the typical American Dream stuff surrounded by a nightmare of a situation. Here he was, at an age many men are starting to fantasize about retiring, in the process of completing the three exams necessary to acquire a license to practice a business he had never worked a day in. I was in awe of his fortitude. I think a change like that might paralyze some people, but he moved through it, with muscle and determination. Twelve years later, my father now teaches financial planning workshops and is one of the top financial advisors in his company. On that day, in that car, sitting in the sweltering Texas heat, my dad, through his actions, made it clear to me that nothing ever needed to stop me from moving forward with passion and purpose. Giving up is just not an option.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with the sting of failure or self-doubt. Here’s an example of my GL-driven thought process on most things related to work. I get a call from my manager telling me, “The network wants to talk about your script.” Because I’ve never had a script green-lighted before, my automatic defense thinking is, “Great, they’re gonna pass on it.” Then, feeling preemptively defeated, I start reevaluating all my other projects: “That won’t go, and the other project won’t go. And if that other thing doesn’t go.… After a year and a half of writing, now I’m back to just doing stand-up? Fuck, I’m a total loser. I’m gonna be forty-three and playing a Giggle Shack in Dayton.”
Then I’ll sit with that. Maybe all day, maybe all week. In a way I guess I choose to focus on the negative versus basking in the positive; I use it as a motivation tool, but I also do it because some part of me doesn’t think anything I’ve done is actually all that great. And I hate myself for it. It’s hard wanting to move the cultural needle, be part of a bigger conversation, make an impact, but feel like I’m continually getting left out o
f bigger projects. I’ve never made a legit “top comics to watch” list. I’ve never been on any sort of tastemaker list. I don’t have a ton of social media followers compared to most celebrities. I’m not part of anyone’s passion project. I’ve never been on a hit TV show or really been in movies. Basically, for the past eight years, I’ve solely been doing stand-up, my failed pilots and auditions all relegated to my memory. And I love stand-up, so so much. But watching other people skyrocket past you—and this can obviously apply to many industries and various aspects of life—is, well, painful. This might read as sour grapes, but it isn’t. I’m just being honest. It is possible to be happy and angry and proud and unsatisfied at the same time. That’s not even Girl Logic, that’s just a human experience.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a questioner. While almost everyone else around me seemed to plod along buying into everything they were told, I was interrogating everything. “What do I really want? What’s the point of all this? Why do I have to listen to what these idiots say? Why do I have to accept this ref’s call in this game? Why do I have to say ‘yes ma’am’ to a teacher whose only intellectual saving grace is that she has an answer book?” A majority of people don’t question anything ever. People too often think the hand they’ve been dealt can’t be shuffled and redealt. There’s just no way you don’t possess the power to change your own reality. I’m not talking about in a metaphysical way; I have no idea how to explain that. I’m saying, whatever you want to do, there is no rule saying you can’t. You want to be a comedian? Go to a local bar and ask if you can start a comedy night. Practice and carve out a path, whether it’s classes, clubs, whatever. You want to be a scientist? Get up in that science! You got rejected from school? Good thing there are other schools out there. Remember, there’s no reason you have to accept defeat. Don’t believe me? Ask any immigrant living in America.
My cousin posted this meme once on Facebook: “Everyone is doing the best they can.” And I did not “like” it, because I don’t know if I truly believe that. People are doing what they can to get by, sure. But very few people are imbued with a passion, and where there is no passion, there is no concerted effort. Can you grow a passion if you don’t have an innate one? Of course. You can call 1-800-Rent-a-Passion. No, but really—you may not know you have a proclivity for something until you’re exposed to it, or thrust into it, or suddenly your life takes an unexpected turn, and that Thing is suddenly all you can focus on. Like those newspaper stories about the mom of a murder victim who becomes obsessed with getting a law degree and changing the system from the inside. She found her passion in a tragic way, but her life has meaning now.
I mean, even drug abuse gives people a passion! It’s one of the few fucked-up paths you can go down where, if you survive it, you can turn around and educate others on the perils of addiction. I’m like, let me get this straight—so I didn’t do drugs, didn’t go to jail, and didn’t accidentally kill someone with my car, but now YOU’RE the one with the twenty-four-college-a-year speaking-engagement schedule? Not fair.
Passion is doing something over and over and never growing tired of it. And no, breathing doesn’t count. Anyway, I didn’t know I would have a passion for stand-up comedy until I found myself obsessed with working at it, perfecting it. Everything from traveling constantly, to insisting on working while I’m sick, to seeing how many projects I can keep in the air at once; I have a passion for being as busy as I can be. But… only with comedy. I find a sick thrill in being overworked, in taking five meetings in a day and still having time to do three spots a night, as if someone is going to spontaneously hand me an award for Most Overextended at the End of the Year with, Like, an OK Amount of Results to Show for It. I also didn’t know I had a passion for singing five-second songs to my dog on Snapchat until I started doing it. “Small and rare, small and rare. You shake it for cash, you do it for tips. Small and rare.” is one classic. Another is “Tiniest woman in the world! Littlest doggy in the land! Tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny!” and “Ya gotta big butt and it’s not your fault, ya gotta big butt and it’s all your fault.” These are the songs, along with about fifty others, that are on a constant loop in my brain.
And I didn’t know I had such a passion for connecting with humans until my fans showed me how much my stand-up meant to them; now that connection is what drives me. Thanks guys.
What if you’re someone who doesn’t have a passion yet? I don’t think you can force it, but you can hope for it, try new things, and keep striving for one. (And in my opinion, women are more adept at this than men are. Remember that part from the beginning of the book about women accumulating more and more hobbies and interests as they age? It’s because our GL wants us to keep pushing and exploring. Our GL won’t let us rest until we’ve found our true happiness, or at least pinned down a path toward it, because, again, we were told we could have it all.) Plus, I’d like to think everyone has something they have the potential to be both great at and greatly excited about. I would like to think that it’s laziness that keeps people from being great, not ineptitude. Someone’s gotta do the grunt work.
The majority of people out there have good hearts. But so many seem to simply be doing whatever they can to get by instead of pushing themselves to find a bigger meaning, which I realize isn’t always easy, especially if you’re born into shitty circumstances. You can be born rich, and having that inherent safety net makes you feel like you never need to strive for anything so you fuck around and maybe start DJing. You can be poor, and, well, you don’t need me to explain why being poor presents major disadvantages all around. But I truly believe that caring about something (something besides, like, killing people) is the key to a fulfilled life. I’m fortunate to have found my passion from a young age. It’s never occurred to me that I shouldn’t be pursuing that, full speed ahead.
But as much as Girl Logic is trying to help us advance toward our true purpose, it can also be a burden. The fears start to swirl—go for your passion too hard and you might miss out on marriage. Travel the world and live free, well, you might miss out on a chance for a baby. Don’t travel or wander enough, and you might miss out on, um, everything else.
We still keep trying to meet everyone else’s ideals, but it’s tiring. The year I wrote this book, 2016, was the culmination of years of hard work for me. I got a script into a network that had been in the works for two years. I created Confirmed Kills as my opus. I finally got a shot at a late-night show. But learning to let go of what others think I should be doing has been a long, tough process. And, fuck no, I’m not some Zen master who has magically learned to accept everything and everyone as they are. Dear God, sometimes it’s so bad that I’ll forget why I dislike someone and just hold onto the anger. All I’m left with is a vague, shapeless feeling of dissatisfaction cloaking my brain; it’s like anger dementia. You’ll go to hug me at a party, and after I flinch you’ll secretly wonder, “What the hell did I ever do to her?” And I skulk away like, “You know what you did.” But I don’t even know!
Anyway, like I said—I realize I’m too tough sometimes.
I sat with that realization for a while after receiving one particular dressing-down. The gist of it was this: I had a show with a network, and execs pitched various ideas to me about how we might promote it. Of course, every idea was, well, epically wrong for me. They kept trying to shove me into some hypersexualized “sassy single girl” archetype, the one who constantly brags about one-night stands, the perils of dating, how hilariously pathetic my Saturday nights are, and why wine is my best friend. I’m not that girl, though. This happens a lot, of course; it’s how you end up perched on a motorcycle in a leather jacket and too much black eyeliner thinking, “I took a boxing class, but I’m not this bad-ass. This feels off brand.”
I made the mistake of expressing my displeasure. I can’t remember whether I said I was offended (God forbid a woman be upset about your ill-conceived presumptions of her sexuality) or that I straight up didn’t like their pitch. But m
onths later, after a decent season, we were told that my show wasn’t being renewed. Fine, whatever. That happens. Then it came down the pipeline that I was “difficult to work with.”
What hurt wasn’t that it got canceled, it was that one conversation, months ago, rendered me the scapegoat simply for standing up for myself. I might be particular, but I pride myself on being consistently on my game when it comes to work. I don’t fuck around, show up late, or arrive not knowing my lines; I show up, do my job well, and leave. So, after that experience, I found myself feeling angry, sure. Unheard, yes. And… exhausted. I was angry that people can create art only to have faceless egg avatars shit on them. I was angry that women can work their whole lives only to be reduced to a Reddit thread about their tits. And I was angry that some executive took umbrage with my taking umbrage, and, rather than do his job and come up with a more creative idea, he took the lazy route and blamed me.
That’s when I stopped giving a fuck about picking every battle (more on this to come shortly). I think there is a way to not care while still caring, if that makes sense. In the future I’ll be more careful about who I say what to. Your GL might tell you to stand up for yourself, but it also reminds you that if you do, you run the risk of pissing off someone weaker than you—who might also be in a greater position of power. It’s a tough call, and you can drive yourself mad weighing out all the outcomes. And, once in a while, you pick the right battle and you win.
My rule, in both work and life, is to always bet on myself—to stand up for myself to try to get a head start on all the haters. Jesus, I can’t believe I sincerely used the word “haters”—may as well write the rest of the book as a SnapChat story.
Always do things your way first. If you have an idea for a project, lay it out there. If you love someone, say it. If you want something, fucking go for it. Hey, even if you fail, you’ll know you gave it your all; it’s hard to look back with regret on anything if you tried as hard as you could. Also? If it’s your passion, you’ll never actually give up. You might get tired, but you’ll snap back.
Girl Logic Page 18