It’s 3 AM and I’m home from day 2 of the Limestone Comedy Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Earlier today, I was at St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Schererville where I was a pallbearer for my 45 year old cousin’s funeral. It was close to 3 AM that I arrived to the area driving up the night before, and after a viewing, church service, burial, and lunch, I made the drive back, finding myself exhausted and briefly/uncontrollably drifting lanes just before the Lafayette exit I was looking to pull over on to take a nap.
For what my decision to buy a VVIIPP badge for the 3-day event might’ve suggested would be a flatly “fun” weekend packed with “comedy,” my cousin’s death being the most obvious wrench in my expectations is not even what’s mostly on my mind. I learned more about him from his obituary and eulogy than I had ever heard/remembered family talking about. As a basic human, it’s sad when people die and I’m not coldly dismissive of what my aunt is going through or anyone else in my family. Especially because I’ve gotten older, I just don’t play along anymore than I have to.
I suppose, again, we arrive at the notion of “playing along.” To be sure, I will never “forgive” nor “forget” the horrible things my family have done to both my dad and step-mom, grandmother, or myself. These are thieves. These are liars. These are greedy, insecure, and angry children who, as recently testified to in my cousin’s death, are willing to let those in their orbit suffer for their lack of accountability. My dad is 1 of 4. They all got the same parents, and he managed to be the only one who didn’t find a way to mock the examples my grandparents were trying to set.
At the same time, as I can already sense this is sounding incredibly judgmental or callous, I don’t pretend that anyone is anything less than an animal first. I had this moment as they were lowering the lid to my cousin’s coffin where I just looked around the room and felt this lightness about the terrible and inhumane or exploitative shit the people in my family have done. There was a useful narrowing of focus and forced perspective as the sickly mouse-like face of my cousin descended into his coffin and I looked at the congregates hold back tears or stare just past where he laid.
There’s a certain poetry to the idea that I go straight from comedy festival to burial and then right back to festival. There’s a certain highlight that I, in spite of my best effort, would find myself flirting with death on the highway. You really do want to believe something about the bigger picture. I couldn’t escape the thought that the reason we have this whole lengthy procession is to distract us from the responsibility that is begged in thinking death is the end. What if my aunt simply failed her son? What if she’s continuing to fail her remaining one who is struggling deeply with alcoholism? Now now, fuck all that noise, we’re gonna hang out soon in heaven!
The comedy festival is feeling feeble. There’s plenty of funny people, but I’ve never felt more like an afterthought in buying the highest-tier badge for something. Maybe the System of a Down “VIP” tickets once, but this is right there for considerably less money. You don’t feel the energy. You don’t get the sense the ones who have been doing it for…12 years…have figured out the rhythm. Did you know I get reserved seats right up front for shows that haven’t sold 1/5th of the room? If 30 or 40 people got invited to it, why am I seeing the same hosts and features multiple times? It’s very first or second year energy. They told me my badge would look the "coolest." It’s the exact same badge as the VIP.
I’m exhausted by what feels like perpetual unreality. My family isn’t real. The competence and “love” of comedy by whomever organized Limestone isn’t either. It’s so many people playing along with some idea of what they think the thing “should” be. At lunch, my surviving alcoholic cousin and I get along in a weird way. His energy and my fluid acceptance of it did not match the pleasantries vibe at the table. He shakes. You thought he was going to drop each bowl of food as it was passed around. I recognized how important it was to him that he wasn’t babied as he still managed to serve himself without spilling or breaking anything. He’s dealing with real shit, including recently diagnosed cirrhosis of the liver. I gather he clocks me as someone willing to meet him where he’s at.
The comedy festival is interesting if only because it’s a majority female comics, and younger people than me. It’s like this weird little microchasm into the broader fucked up world of lonely fascist men steering us to Handmaid’s Tale-opia. Tonight was karaoke, and by 1:30AM, when the songs were done, it was 30 girls in mom jeans and 90s dad sneakers talking too-enthusiastically to each other as people like me I assume felt reasonable in not even thinking about hitting on any of them. Tomorrow, we can get brunch with the comics. From what I’ve gathered, they’re mostly comfortable talking/working within their fellow comic cohort and marketing themselves or playing friendly with the locals wasn’t quite explicated in their contracts. I don’t blame them.
When I first started writing this I felt this desire to get on the same page. I was going to just list the things I “individually” felt and thought “everyone” could kind of support or understand. Instead, I’ll take one thing, like sneezing and saying bless you, to illustrate my frustration. I think we need to be saying “bless you.” I don’t think it has anything to do with religion. I don’t think you’re remotely sane if you find it offensive. At least half the times I sneeze, I don’t get a bless you. Every time I hear a sneeze, I say bless you. We need things like that to save us from the individualized algorithms. We need social norms back. 30 funny creative women should not be meandering about a bar in a college town during a festival because they can’t trust any man because “toxic” is all they’ve known and men are no longer being properly socialized.
The ideals live and die with each of us. My grandparents set examples. They died with 3 out of 4 of their children. To me, that says you need to work 4 times as hard as you might assume initially to maintain whatever it is someone was showing you is worth maintaining. You think you worship Carlin, Pryor, Williams, and Chappelle? Create something, in 12 fucking years, someone like them would want to play at. Stop “doing comedy business” and seek and celebrate those with the message. If you want family, don’t perform and pretend like mine, hold the line of standards and respect for yourself and what you contribute to the pot of wellbeing.
I think there’s like 5 separate blogs in here, but I had to say something. I have to say something because, whether it’s 40 comedians or 3 days or acquaintances who only see each other at deaths, no one else is saying what needs to be said or what I need to hear to suggest we’ll ever find each other again.
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