It still hurts.

Remembering.

Two days ago, I received a tweet from a fan named Scott Cleere who told me that he missed me on AGT and that he could sure use a laugh on Sunday (today) because it wouldn’t be a good day for him. At the time I didn’t piece the dates together and I simply thanked him. Yesterday, he clarified his first tweet by telling me that his Dad, James, had been lost in the towers and that no remains had ever been recovered.

Until yesterday, I had only known one other person lost on that horrible day. But like all of us who remember it, all of those families and victims came out of the rubble and found an indelibly etched place in our hearts and psyche. We shared their pain and offered our prayers and love to them in the hope that somehow, however futile, we could ease their broken hearts.

I don’t know Scott, but I do. I can’t feel what he feels, but I try. After fifteen years, I still can’t watch the memorial without crying and wondering how anyone could hate that much.

Scott, I wish I could say something to make you laugh away your pain, but there is nothing in my heart today to enable me to do so. In the days which will follow, that will change of course, but for now, no, there is no laughter.

When I think back to those horrible days, the one bright spot in it all, was the sense of unity we shared. Our collective family had been attacked and for perhaps the first time since Pearl Harbor, we stood as one people, one nation-indivisible. I wish I could say that is the case today, but I can’t. But that is for another discussion on another day. For now, my heart and thoughts are with the Cleere family and all the others who lost a loved one.

The rubble is gone. The dust has settled. The memorials are built. History has been written. If we extract one thing from it all, let it be that the love and kinship we felt for one another in the aftermath prevails once again. That’s what I wish for Scott Cleere, his family, and the world.

It ain't always sunshine and bon-bons!

I’ve been very blessed in my life, with hard times and now, it seems, some very good ones as well.  But I want to share this story with you, especially those of you who want to give up your life’s dream and cave in to despair.

Around 1983, when I was a very young and new comedian, my friend (and fellow fledgling comic) Nick Carmen Cosentino were roommates. I had a small, failing, graphics business at the time and my ‘office’ was located in a converted house in northern New Jersey.  My marriage had just ended and I was sleeping in a photographic darkroom in the back while Nick spent his nights sleeping on the floor in the outer office.

During the day, we would write and try to book ourselves into some of the “Jersey’ gigs which had just begun to spring up outside of New York City.  At night, we would pile into my smoke belching, oil leaking, 15 year old Volvo and head into the city to get some stage time at the many little clubs around town. We didn’t care that we had no money (and sometimes no food). We were comics with dreams and that sustained us.

Money, as most newbie comedians know, is non-existent, so we made some sheckles here and there, Nick by traveling to NYC by bus (tools and all) doing odd jobs and me, still taking graphics art work when it was available. Any money I made went to child support and so we fell behind in the rent; WAYYYYY behind.

One night, when Nick and I had returned from the showcase clubs, we arrived home to find a big, fat, red padlock on the door with a very official eviction noticed tacked plastered on the door as well. We were officially homeless, with all of our worldly belongings locked inside.

 We knew our days of living there were over, but we went around the side of the house and snuck inside through a window which had always conveniently been left unlocked. We grabbed what we could, shoved it in the Volvo, and got the hell out of there before the police came.

Times were hard then, but we survived with the help of friends. Eventually, comedy got better for us and before long we were making a living in the business we loved. It was a boom time and life was good.

Since then, we’ve both had other hard times, but that experience in the house made both of us realize that we could survive anything; thus the blessings part. In the years to come I’ve had to go back to that memory many times in order to make me realize that I didn’t ever have to give in just because life was pushing back and pushing down.

Now, with things breaking the way they are, I am feeling blessed once again in ways I never thought possible. And so I just wanted to share some thoughts with you if you are feeling down.

 Every event, good or bad, is a story unto itself. It has a beginning, middle and end. Look at your current story. Where are you in it? You will survive no matter how bad things seem and you will be stronger for having endured it.

Listen to the still, calm voice inside you. It won’t lie to you. Believe in yourself.

Pay forward any goodness you’ve received. Help others up the ladder when you can.

Understand that life, if lived properly, is scary, dangerous and frightening, but it can also propel you to soar to the heavens if you just look it in the eye and say, “I’m getting up again and again and again until I get to where I want to be.”   

Surround yourself only with positive things and people. Walk away from those who tell you that you can’t do something.

Dream like you did as a child. Dreams don’t die, spirits do. All things are as possible today as they were when you were little.

Lose your expectations of how things should be and stay in the moment. There is no past or future, only now.

Finally, love everyone. You don’t have to be around someone you don’t like, but don’t hate. It’s toxic and it hurts your insides. Love is the only absolute thing in the universe.

I have no idea what compelled me to write this. You have no reason to read it. If it bores you, then move on. But if you are suffering or feeling down, maybe this will help ease the pain a little.  Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?  

 

 

This Little Light of Ours

What an extraordinary week for this country. Ten days ago the tragedy of Charleston once again ripped open and exposed the gaping racial wound we’ve been trying to hide for so long. And instead of dividing us, this act of terror and hate had just the opposite effect. The willingness to confront what we have attempted to avoid for so long has uncovered the heart of the real America, the real Moral Majority which is as it always has been, full of the desire to live in peace, as one people. That is not to say that there are not some who still hate. There always will be those who choose to do so. But their numbers are fading.

In my own community, the Supreme Court has changed history for us with its decision on marriage. To underestimate the depth of this moment in time would be sad, because it ranks right up there with many of the civil rights victories of the past. An entire segment of tax paying, law abiding citizens, whose only crime was to love someone, has been given the basic human right to build a family, build a life, and build a future together.

With regard to President Obama. It is said that the times will produce the leaders its people need, and I believe that this man and this nation were meant to be. I’ve seen nine Presidents come and go in my lifetime. I cannot remember when I felt more connected to one than President Obama. For all the contentiousness and flak thrown his way, he has demonstrated the meaning of grace under pressure. 

When the country was on the verge of collapse, he found a way to bring it back. And while the ACA may still be a work in progress, there is no denying that 6 million people now have health insurance who didn’t have it before. He has saved the auto industry, championed alternative energy, and fought for the LGBT community, maybe not from Day One, but not long after. And after seeing his eulogy today in Charleston, I am convinced that he will go down in history as one of the truly great Presidents.   

For the people who despise him, go right ahead. That is your right. But long after history has dismissed the politics of hate, his legacy will be felt by generations to come. He is the Franklin Roosevelt of our time.

This week has a feel about it that is very reminiscent of the social changes made in the 1960s. I told a friend that in a conversation today that I think and feel that what we have seen in this country over the past ten days marks the beginning of a post baby boomer movement. The time for my generation and the remnants of my parents’ generation is over. A new day is dawning. I wish them Godspeed.

    

Flak Slights Me - Rachel Dolezal vs. Caitlyn Jenner

Wow. The world has done gone crazy-er. Just when all the clamor, brouhaha, ruckus and to-do about Catilyn Jenner has started to die down a little bit, along comes Rachel Dolezal, the former head of the NAACP branch in Spokane, Washington, who has been recently outed as being white after she claimed that she was in fact, black.

It didn’t long for some to compare Ms. Dolezal’s lie to Caitlyn Jenner’s transition.

On the black side, accusations were made that Dolezal’s claim was one more appropriation of their culture by whites, while the feminists and Fox News derided Jenner as fraudulent for not having had a lifetime of female experiences. And though I hate to say it, there is truth in both. But the differences far outweigh the similarities.

The media has elevated people like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to celebrity Trans status. They breathe rarified air and live in the relative safety of their station. And while I applaud them for their success, they are not us, the thousands who are unknown, and who often live in stealth, fear and danger. Theirs is a different world than ours. But the one thing we share with Ms. Cox and Ms. Jenner is that our world is not as simple as checking “black” on an application as Rachel Dolezal did. Our lives are far more complicated than that and to compare the two is not only absurd, it is insulting.

I have lived and built a life as Julia now for nearly 15 years. I have a history. But my experiences are not ‘authentically’ female in the conventional sense. While it is true that I have never been pregnant or given birth, there are thousands of infertile cis-women who have lived the same way. Does that make them any less genuine a female?

What the Trans community shares with the black community is our visibility. At any stage of our transition, it is usually difficult to hide what or who we are. We become a target for every hate-monger out there. We have been killed, beaten, refused the use of bathrooms, living quarters, jobs, and churches. Until recently, we have been stereotyped in the roles we are offered. In comedy clubs we were relegated (and still are to some extent) to a particular type of venue. Even within our so-called LGBT community, we are often neglected, overlooked and viewed with some disdain.

We know what it feels like to be looked at with contempt and treated like an “other”. Our suicide attempt rate is an obscenely high 41%.  Yes, we know.

As far as appropriating ‘femaleness’, our lives are anything but a bed of roses. In addition to experiencing the day to day injustices that cis-women face, such as lower pay, violence against us, body image, etc., we have to come out to everyone in our lives (often losing those we love), undergo electrolysis, psychotherapy, get approved for hormones, get two psychologists’ approval for surgery, and somehow find enormous amounts of money to get those services performed because they aren’t covered by health insurance. On top of that we are expected to keep our jobs and our sanity while our entire world crashes down around us. Yet no one bats an eye when a cis-woman augments her breasts up or down, gets a tummy tuck, ass tuck, nose job, botox, or any one of the dozens of other surgical procedures designed to make them more beautiful and feminine. Are they less than other women for doing those things?

Feminists are correct. We don’t know their life experiences and they sure as hell don't know ours. Let them spend a week in a Trans woman’s often oversized shoes, and I seriously doubt that they will ever complain again that we are appropriating them. They couldn’t handle our life.

I will appropriate this one sentiment from them, however; this is MY body and no one is going to tell me how or what I can do with it.

And don’t even get me started on relationships!

Look, I get it. By current definition, I’m not 100% female. I never was. I never will be. But you know what? I’m damned glad I’m transgendered. It hasn’t been easy, but I and every other Trans person have a perspective on life cis-folk never will. We have been with both tribes. We have lived two lives. We are two spirits and we would be happy to share that knowledge with anyone who cares to know.   

I don’t know what Rachel Dolezal’s issues are, but I wish her luck in sorting them out. I DO know that comparing her lie to Caitlyn Jenner’s truth is a cheap, lame attempt to minimize and marginalize who and what we are as people of transgendered experience. Those with a political agenda to ply find it easy to use the Trans community as their scapegoat. Not this time though. Not ever again. More and more, science is proving what Trans folks have known forever; that ours is a medical and not a psychological issue. We’ve been around since antiquity and we will continue to be around until the end of the planet.

So, you can either deal with us or not. Just leave us out of the stupid arguments you use to justify your so-called superiority. Find another group to pick on. We’re not taking it anymore.

On Caitlyn Jenner

On Caitlyn Jenner

“Does it take bravery and courage for a person with polio to want to walk? It’s very hard to speculate on, but if I hadn’t done what I did, I may not have survived. I may not have wanted to live. Life simply wasn’t worth much. Some people may find it easy to live a lie, I can’t. And that’s what it would have been –telling the world I’m something I’m not.”

If you are one of the estimated .00003 percent of the population of Americans who is transgendered you get the above sentiment immediately. If you are not, the unveiling of Caitlyn Jenner to the world may have you scratching your head a bit and asking a lot of questions.

Over the last few months, Caitlyn’s (Do we really need to say formerly Bruce?) visage has dominated the news cycle. With the release of the Vanity Fair piece she has exploded it and sent shards of her life into every conversation worldwide. She has been praised and vilified, called courageous by many and a “science experiment” by that great American intellectual, Snoop Dogg.

There has been a brouhaha about how she is cashing in on her very public transition, about how this is just more Kardashian Krap, and how no matter what she does or how she looks, she will never ever ever ever be a woman. She’s too old, too photo shopped, too made up, too rich, to this or that or any of a hundred other things. To all of her critics, I say this; Look at her. She’s happy. Isn’t that all that matters? 

But to be honest, I think there’s something more sinister afoot here.

In 1999, when I began my coming out process, the people in my life fell into two camps. On the one hand, there were supporters, who were overwhelming female. But it was my male friends who took it the hardest and did the most bashing. And the one phrase that kept coming up in their vitriolic tirades was I feel betrayed.

Betrayed is a very strong word in my vocabulary. It means that I broke some solemn bond or shared some deep dark secret which I swore an oath to keep to myself. How, I wondered, could a chance for happiness and peace at last be construed as a betrayal to the males in my life? And it wasn’t until one of them said this to me that it hit me.

“Why would you want to become one of them (women)?

He said it in such a way as to imply that being male was tantamount to getting the winning lottery ticket in life and that claiming my womanhood would  automatically relegated me to second class citizenry. He simply couldn’t understand why I would want to give up my male privilege and in his mind, my superiority. What he and just about everyone else in the world who isn’t transgender didn’t understand was that I was never a male in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that after having lived with both tribes, I can tell you that women are considered inferior by men. I see it in politics, in show business and in places like the Middle East where women are little more than property.

And so I believe that the dirty little reason that Caitlyn is getting so much crap from idiots like Matt Walsh at The Blaze and the rest of his crew over there is that she scares them a little. After all if this can happen to an Olympian like Bruce Jenner, then all men are at risk aren’t they? Isn’t this just one more step on the road to pussifying the American male?

In a few weeks Caitlyn will be bumped down in the news cycle priority. In a few more months, she won’t be there at all. And when all the hoopla has ended, when she is out of the public eye completely, you know what she’ll be?

Happy.

Because that is the thing which drives all Trans people to make these changes. You who are blessed to feel the comfort of mind matching body can’t know what it’s like to be us. You will never know the joy of looking into the mirror for the first time and seeing the ‘you’ that was locked away inside for most of your life.

Caitlyn’s surgical changes should be no more disturbing to people like Matt Walsh, et al, than the countless people who spend billions each year to have a surgeon create their ideal bodies. Walsh claims that Jenner will never bear children, and that factor alone eliminates her from womanhood. Using that logic, cis- women who cannot get pregnant should be eliminated from the club as well.

 We’ve been around since the beginning of humankind, but we’re just getting to the point where medical technology allows us the freedom we’ve yearned for. Caitlyn is now celebrating that freedom by standing proudly and showing her ‘self’. She is happy, mentally healthy (hopefully), and beautiful. She doesn’t affect anyone’s life but her own and her children's. She isn’t hurting anyone and womanhood will be none the worse for having her in their ranks.

Maybe her very public outing will make some teenage trans kid feel a little better about his or her self. Maybe Matt Walsh can get irate about a real trans issue such as the 41% suicide attempt rate, which is the result of people like him and his ilk shunning, humiliating, shaming and bullying people like Caitlyn Jenner. Maybe he can just keep his big mouth shut.

One last thing. The quote with which I opened this essay was not from Caitlyn Jenner. It was spoken by Christine Jorgensen in 1952. She was the first trans person to undergo this kind of media hysteria, and she went on to thrive just fine. Womanhood, God, the United States, and the world survived just fine with her in it too. So, let Caitlyn be herself. If you don’t like her, ignore her. She’s happy. How many of us can say that?

It's Our Time for a change.

 

Last night I watched the HBO production of The Normal Heart. Mark Ruffalo is one helluva great actor, as is the entire cast. I well remember those early days when the fear of  AIDS ran through this country, and I couldn't help but think of the ugliness which began to surface during this year's Ebola scare.

 

As a society we give lip service to the phrase E pluribus Unum (out of many, one.), and it is easy to do so when all is well and calm and peaceful. Our 'oneness' is only challenged during times of danger. We were 'one' after 9/11, but not during the AIDS crisis or the Ebola scare. But our 'oneness' seems to be as fragile as a piece of crystal in a hurricane when the issue at hand only faces a not-so-popular portion of our society. We forget sometimes that our 'oneness' is made up of three hundred million pieces and when we abandon even one piece, the rest of us are weaker for it.

 Nearly fifteen years ago, I began this journey in the search for peace in my soul and after almost fifty years of my life had passed, I finally found it.  Back in those early days I mistakenly thought that the people in my life who had watched me self destruct over and over would be happy to know that I finally was able to achieve that thing which had eluded me for all of my life. Few did. Many walked away and excised me from their lives, chalking up my coming out announcement as yet another of my 'crazy moments', another wild orbit around the planet Sanity.

 
I knew that I wasn't crazy, perhaps for the first time in my life. To discover the cause of a lifetime of pain was an epiphany for me. From the second I was able to say out loud, "I am transgendered. I am a woman. I was born this way", my whole sense of self was changed. A light grew in my heart where only darkness had resided.  I was whole and at peace for the first time in my life. Unfortunately, most the 'pluribus' didn't understand or even care to try.

In those early years, I lived in the shadows, and always in abject fear. Every time I went into a public place, I did so with extreme caution. I made sure not to be too friendly if a man flirted with me. When I used the ladies rest room, I always waited until I was fairly certain it was empty. As a sixth grade teacher I dreaded on a daily basis that moment of being outed and the consequences of such an event. Every time I heard people laugh behind me, I just naturally assumed it was aimed at me. And from that justified paranoia, I listened carefully for the footsteps I was sure were coming up from behind to beat me and possibly kill me. Most of my friends and family left, often accompanied with verbal tirades which bordered on vicious. In the media, stereotypes abounded. We were always portrayed as promiscuous flamboyant freaks and psychopathic killers. E pluribus, none.

There was very little information back then on being transgendered. The baby Internet was still finding it's legs. The chat rooms which purported to be safe places where trans folk could commiserate and share information usually turned out to be havens for pervs and haters.

To be transgendered in America back then was a scary, lonely place. In many ways it still is .

I don't mean to equate having AIDS with being transgendered here. Being trans is not a disease. But there are similarities in the way the Pluribus view us.

A 2011 survey by The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force entitled, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey I (available at http://transequality.org/PDFs/NTDS_Report.pdf), shows an inordinately high and alarming rate of violence, job discrimination, and police harassment against trans folks. Our suicide attempt rate still hovers around the 40% mark, compared to the 1/10 of 1%  found in the rest of the population. No, being transgendered is not a disease, but it often leads to death. Consider the frightening statistics laid out by The Trans Violence Tracking Portal in its preliminary report. According to them, every 32 hours a transwoman is reported murdered.

 

http://www.transviolencetracker.org/index.php/82-blog/110-preliminary-tvtp-transgender-violence-report-for-transgender-awareness-2014 

 E Pluribus Mortem.

As a community, trans people have long been marginalized and we have been indoctrinated to believe that we are 'less than' or 'other', even by the Lesbian and Gay communities. But that is changing. More and more of us are banding together and speaking out. Heroes of our tribe such as Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and Ian Harvie, to name a few, are finding their way into the public spotlight through the performing arts. We are claiming our place in society just as the LGB community did in the 1970s. We are normal hearts, normal people with normal desires. We are Pluribus and we are growing in numbers and in strength.

The day is coming when being transgendered is as normal as being straight or gay and I hope that I live to see it. But right now we are at the "Stonewall" stage of our movement, that time when we have realized that we can't wait for society to catch up to us because too many of us are dying either by our own hand or the hands of others who hate us.  We need to push our way in and pull them out of their own safe world and into ours. Because whether the rest of the world knows it or not the trans community is already E Pluribus Unum and we're not taking it anymore.

You can always find me on www.juliascotti.com

My Top Six Predictions for 2015

 

By Madam Julia , Psychic Prognosticator

 

One of my many well-kept secrets is that I have been blessed with a third eye, which enables me to see far into the future. While it is true that I cover this eye with lots of makeup for show business purposes, it does not however, cloud the visions which come to me regularly, usually on Tuesday nights during NCIS. And that is a shame because I really love me some Mark Harmon.

 

With 2015 just around the corner (check it, it's there waiting to bash you over the head and take your purse), I am bound by my sacred oath as a certified psychic to share and warn you of what lies ahead. Here then are my predictions. Unfortunately, all of my visions have to do with New Jersey this time around but if anything else pops up I'll be sure to let you know.

 

1. Donald Trump will get out of the casino and hotel business and open a chain of frozen custard stands. "Forget Mr. Softee," will sayeth The Donald, "this summer New Jersey will be licking Mr. Donny. Instead of DQs they'll be experiencing DTs!"

 

2. A group of rogue Amish will flee Pennsylvania and establish a new colony in Camden, New Jersey.
 

3. NJ Senator Cory Booker will confront Chris Christie in a Denny's and finally force him to sit down and shut up.

 

4. A new bond rating will be created to reflect New Jersey's ailing economy. They will be rated "DOA".

 

5. A pre-Revolutionary war parchment will be discovered in a Trenton home. It will show that our state's name is not in fact, New Jersey, but New Jimmy after James, Duke of York, the brother of England's King Charles II.

 And finally...

 6. A team of right wing 'patriots' armed with chain saws will begin a covert operation to saw New Jersey from the mainland. They will then claim it as an independent island nation and rename it Cruzyland in honor of Ted Cruz. No one will notice.

 

I am available for private readings at $427 per session. Use the codeword 'chickpea' for a 3% discount.  Happy Future to you! 

 

Out of the Shadows and Making Our Own Light.

Recently, an old grammar school friend resurfaced in my life thanks to Facebook. It's been nearly fifty years since we've spoken, but the bonds of having survived Catholic grammar school, deranged Franciscan nuns and the never-ending reminders that the bloodied body which was nailed to the cross and which hung above the blackboard was there because of my miserable, sinful, ten-year-old life is the glue which allows us to reassemble our friendship in these, the beginning of our sunset years.

 Old friend Peter, with whom I graduated kindergarten; Peter, whose mother was my den mother and who taught us how to grow grass in an eggshell filled with dirt, and with whom I later served Mass dutifully as an altar boy, writes a column for a well known financial magazine. But he occasionally strays, as all Catholic boys do, from his mission to write of other things unrelated to the wonderful, wacky, world of finance.

One of his well-thought out and articulate columns had to do with the radical feminist Cathy Brennan's views on male privilege and her obvious resentment toward transgendered women moving in on what she considers her "turf".

Peter stated that our parochial school education and the behaviors of the nuns was similar to Ms. Brennan's in their resentment of male privilege. Having lived with both tribes, and having experience such privilege and then having it removed, he was interested in my perception of the whole shebang. Here is my response.

 This year marks the 12th year since my surgery and my 14th since beginning this whole process. During that time I have spent a great deal of it pondering exactly what I am.

In the early years, I made every attempt to justify myself as fully female. I guess I needed the validation from others, and so I stayed firmly entrenched on the third of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Acceptance and Love from others) for quite some time. As much as I wanted to be 'fully female' and as much as I wanted to be in a lesbian relationship, the reality and politics of the LGBT world, and particularly Lesbiana, reminded me time and time again that while I could have friends (some close, some not so much), the bulk of Lesbiana would always view me as an "other".  This attitude was never as clear to me as the year some of my friends decided to go to Michfest. I was told that it was for "womyn born womyn" and that I could not attend even if I wanted to do so.

This was about five years ago and at the time I found the statement quite hurtful. But what it drove home to me was that no matter how I viewed myself, I would never...NEVER be considered 100% female by those folks. But like anything, some good comes out of every negative and it forced me to come to grips with what and who I was.

 To them, I would always be an interloper; that no matter how much surgery I had or how much I gussied myself up, I would forever be inexorably male to them. And for years, I resented that and countered with the quip, "I got my ticket to this club the hard way and I don't intend to be stopped at the gate now."

Over time though, I began to realize that the closer I got to the gate, the less I wanted to go through it. Where I once marched in LGBT parades on Pride Day, I began to realize that the Trans community was woefully represented in them. Where I once attended lesbian groups (both social and political) regularly, I began to sense that I would never BE one of them. And so gradually, I began to pull away. I found that the political component of being a lesbian far outweighed the possibility that a woman could put aside the "trans" part of what I was and just accept who I was as a human being. I came to understand that the politics of being a lesbian was as much a part of the whole thing as being attracted to a same sex member. Through my eyes (and remember, this is just my opinion), women found themselves unable to give up that badge of honor that allows lesbians to say, we don't need men in our lives. After years of exposure to that kind of thinking, I found myself back at square one. If I was not a woman, and I certainly was not a man, then just what was I? All of my childhood training about gender was about to get thrown out the window.

As you might imagine, back when I began this process (1999-2000), there was very little information regarding how we trans folk came to be, but the prevailing theory then (as now) is that this is not a mental disorder but an organic one. Nature loves variety as we know, and the growing number of trans-identified folk coming out each year coupled with history being rife with trans types (see the trial transcript of Joan of Arc)  gave credence to the theory that trans folk did not just suddenly pop onto radar, but that we have been around since the beginning of recorded time.

 Now of course, the Internet provides us with a preponderance of information regarding trans society and has opened up so many people's eyes about what we are and where we fit in the world.  

I have learned to view gender as a continuum. To me, there is no absolute male or female. We are all somewhere on that line. And while society does tend to still classify gender as absolute, I believe that those lines are being blurred too, mostly because of the growing transgender population. When so many people are declaring themselves as "other", as they are these days, isn't the idea of a gender continuum more reasonable than absolute male or female?

Yet there is that nagging question of male privilege. Does it exist? Yes. In my field of comedy for instance, it is very pronounced. There is still a large segment of both the entertainment industry and the general public who believe that female comics are not as funny as their male counterparts. Female comedians are paid less and generally will not headline a show. Nor will you see two female comedians on the same show and when there are, club owners rarely place them back to back on the lineup. Having worked as a comedian for both tribes, I can tell you that it is markedly different for women, and not in a good way.

But back to the radical feminists. I believe (again my own personal opinion) that when movements begin, it is because of the radical factions. Their zeal, no matter how angry or discriminatory it may seem, is often the power behind the growth of a movement. Once that movement gets a foothold in the mainstream it begins to grow organically, and the very militants who sired it often are pushed back to the fringes in favor of a more centrist majority. Once dialogue ensues between the "warring" parties, assimilation begins. We've seen it in race relations in this country, with European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century and most recently, with our gay and lesbian populations. Trans people are next in line and have finally begun to unite. But it has been the young trans radicals who are at the forefront of the fight. No longer content with being shunned by genetic "cis" women as in the case of Michfest, or with being on fringes of the LGBT family, trans women and men are discovering that united, they too can have the power to change things. Right now, there is a brouhaha going on within our own community over drag queen RuPaul's use of the word 'tranny' and she-male. Many of us find those words demeaning and derogatory because in most cases, the context of the sentence is meant to do just that.

Our young people in the arts have begun to demand that movies, television and film begin to cast trans folk in their productions. Jaret Leto's portrayal of a trans woman in Dallas Buyers Club for instance, was the subject of much rancor within the trans community. Many of us felt that this could have been a breakout role for a trans actress, but none were auditioned for the part.

 And so in closing, I believe that the growing number of visible, vocal trans people are questioning and redefining gender all over the world. I believe that in the next three or four generations, acceptance of  the gender continuum will make the current absolute definition archaic. I believe that in time, trans people will have trans role models to look toward and the desire to feel or be 100% female will disappear. Finally, I believe that someday, many will look at the trans community with some degree of envy because we who were blessed with this very natural way of being have the decided advantage of seeing, feeling and actually living with the points of view of both genders. Already, scientists are pointing toward genetic and chemical causes for gender dysphoria, itself a misnomer as it implies being trans as negative. Ask any trans person how they feel after coming out and the answer is more likely to imply euphoria than dysphoria. And who needs radical feminists for validation? I am happy. That is validation enough.

Jerry Springer, I KNOW you're brighter than this.

In my world of stand-up comedy (proud member since 1980), free speech, and a person's right to it, is the bedrock of our profession. I can't tell you how many arguments I've listened to over the decades both condemning and defending a comedian's right to be "offensive" if he or she so desires. Personally, I find poorly crafted jokes far more offensive than salty language, but free speech means taking the good with the bad. If you don't like a comedian's act, don't listen...no one is forcing you. The same holds true for television shows. We should all have respect for others' opinions. They might like what they are hearing or seeing even if you or I don't.

 

And then there's Jerry Springer.

 

Sometimes, when I'm flipping through the channels and this human version of a pit bull fight lights up my screen for even a second, I get this sense of  just having been physically violated.  My first inclination is to go shower, but even a "Silkwood" decontamination shower couldn't remove whatever pernicious, infectious, brain mildew this sad excuse for a television show has implanted in my skull.

 

Personally, I was surprised to find that it  was still even being aired, but then again I have been known to get ahead of the evolutionary curve from time to time. Clearly, there are some who still find this modern day version of gladiators at the Roman Coliseum entertaining.

 

Boy howdy, Jerry Springer loves him some transsexuals though, doesn't he? Seems like he never misses an opportunity to show transgendered folk (and other minorities) in the worst possible  light. Don't believe me? Here's a partial list of some of Jerry's past 'shows' in which transgendered (supposedly) folk have appeared and which appear now on YouTube.

 

NOTE: *The exclamation points illustrate the urgency and importance of    all things transsexual in Jerry Land.

 

1. Transsexuals Fight!

2. Transsexual Takedown Part 1

3. I slept with a transsexual

4. I am pregnant by a GIANT transsexual! (Yes, the giants are the most fertile)

5. Transsexual Cravings! (Chocolate? Ice cream? Chocolate Ice Cream?)

6. Dumped for a transsexual

7. Transsexual secrets, Part 2. (Part 1 was apparently a secret too)

8. He-She confessions!

9. "Bacon", the transsexual. (This is a person's name I think. To the best of my knowledge, actual bacon is genderless.)

10. Emilio Trannies Tell All! (Don't ask me. I don't know what an Emilio Tranny is             either)

11. My Transsexual Summer  (Starring Sandra Dee and Troy Donohue?)

12. Transsexual Tell All!

13. Transsexual Secrets Explode! (Which is why you should keep them in a cool dark          place)

14. Guess what? I'm a man!

15. Honey, I'm really a guy (originally titled, Honey, I Shrunk The Dick?)

16. My boyfriend is a woman!

 

So, for nearly twenty years ole "Jer" has been convincing some pretty far out people to display their supposed private lives to a national audience. Whether they are actors or not is irrelevant. I sure don't begrudge any actor who is out there just scraping by the chance to earn some rent or chump change by being on television, even if it is at the bottom of entertainment food chain. If the guests on The Jerry Springer show are indeed genuine, and have sold their souls for a free trip to Chicago, then we, as a country, have much bigger problems with our education system than originally thought.

 

What bothers me now and what has bothered me for years about this show is Jerry's depiction of trans people as demented, home-wrecking sex maniacs who spend their entire lives in crotch high, skin tight skirts and stiletto heels. He has diminished an entire segment of the population (already laden with enough social stigma to last two lifetimes) to a stereotype which it is constantly trying to shed. It is our version of blackface, and until recently, not much was being said or done to combat it.

 

Thanks to the Internet and social media, more and more of us are moving into the mainstream public eye. As a comedian, I have to prove myself to be funny in order to work just to get a gig. Yes, I may have to push myself a little harder and be a little better than the average male comic in order to get work, but that doesn't bother me. My audiences seem to accept me as just another working class comedian. While I play gay clubs, I also play major casinos and comedy clubs around the country. I am whatever my audiences perceive me to be. If I present a positive image of a human being, then my being transgendered is irrelevant. If TGLB audiences like me because I'm 'one of their own' so be it. Just as long as I'm funny. 

 

Trans people are popping up everywhere now and in every profession. As time goes on and more of us 'come out', our normal quotient grows around the country. We don't need to be accepted by everyone, but we demand to be respected. And Jerry Springer has zero respect for trans folks; at least publicly.

 

He has come under fire recently for his repeated use of the word tranny. For many of us, that term is a pejorative, the transgendered equivalent of the word nigger. No matter the context, I can tell you that every time I hear it, I cringe. For me, it carries all the hatred and derision that so many of our trans folk have had to endure over the years. Also in the word category? He/she, It, She/male and the rest of them. Jerry Springer has used them all with great abandon until now.

 

There is a growing Transgendered movement in this country. We are joining hands and tightening up the ranks. We are standing up for ourselves, asserting our place in this society. It will not stop, that I can assure you. Our numbers grow each year and with them, our voices grow louder and stronger. Jerry Springer immediately declared that he did not know the term 'tranny' was offensive and has said that he will not use it anymore. Good for him. But I am fairly certain that his depiction of trans folks will not change until the pressure for that too comes to bear on him.

 

I am not for censorship, God knows. My job requires that I have the freedom to say what I feel to achieve my comedic goals. But I also am acutely aware that each and every time I step onto a stage, I have a responsibility to know where my personal boundaries are and if I choose to cross them. Jerry Springer has that same responsibility. In my humble opinion, he has decided that compounding his fortunes are far more important.

 

For the time being at least, there will always be a market for the stupid, insensitive, idiotic type of program that Jerry Springer does. But I can guarantee you this; there will come a day when the people who appear on that 'show' will seem to be anachronistic. They will be looked upon then the way anyone who would dare show up in black face at any event--with scorn and derision. When that day comes, Jerry Springer may do an about face mea culpa, but it will be too late. No one will be watching.

Another Visit from Swamp Thing

June 1^st marked another birthday for me. If you know me at all, you’ll also know that in general, I hate birthdays. In fact, anniversaries of any kind fill me revulsion. Just when I find myself enjoying life and not caring about this pain in my knee or that wrinkle which wasn’t there last week, there’s this murky thing which rises up from deep inside me like a hideous swamp monster about a week before the event. It begins to bitch slap me into trying to believe that my life is almost all over.

“You’d better hurry up Julia. Time is running out. You are kidding yourself; no one is going to want you at this age! Get real...get some new dreams....”

This slimy, smelly wretch with mud skin and seaweed hair takes great pleasure in reminding me that the best years of my life are behind me, that I should have done this or that, that I have made a complete wreck of my one and only chance at success on this earth. He does his demented little happy dance in my head in a circle (with me in the middle), and continues it until his miserable feet dig a trench around it. When the mood strikes him, Swamp Thing takes out his rusty sledge hammer and clunks me in the head and sings his jerky song. As if I needed a reminder of his presence

“One more gone... one more gone... one more year till another one’s gone!”

All the people around me who are my age seem to be retiring, dying, getting parts of their body replaced, moved or removed. Some were here yesterday and gone today. People half my age have children in high school. How can that be? My head is still only twenty six years old!

“You’re old, you’re old, I ain’t lyin if the truth be told!”

The whole process seems to be speeding up too; so much so, that I can’t sit for a minute and just absorb what I’m seeing. 

And so, with the passage of another year of my life, I find myself once more wrestling with the man-made concept of time and its effect on my life goals.

At the risk of being crude, the idea of a race against time just blows the big one. Still we are reminded of it constantly through the incessant brainwashing of media, who would have us believe that nothing useful has ever been accomplished by anyone with a varicose vein or gray hair.

We have learned to dispose of people long before they are ready. 

The thing of it is, we who are in this period of our lives are so easily susceptible to believing that our age of usefulness is done. Each of us has a personal Swamp Thing that visits us from time to time, who nudges us into that realm of complete and utter defeat, where sitting around and reliving our ‘glory days’ becomes our reality. The problem with such an exercise is that it only serves up Swamp Thing with a big ole’ platter of FUCK IT to feast on and we begin to accept our ‘fate’ and just give up.

 I’ll be the first to admit that I do battle with Swamp Thing each and every birthday, holiday and New Year’s Eve.  Every time the seasons change, I see him poke his head out of the muck of my mind, like some hellish groundhog to remind me that it doesn’t matter when spring arrives, because I only have a few left and what’s the point of making plans?

“Give up, give up, and drink your half empty cup! Put your ass in the rocking chair because your time is almost up!”

 I really hate this bastard. And though it takes me a week or so to shove him back down into the ooze, I always do.

And then I get mad.

I’m just about out of the funk now and I can feel the fires inside getting stoked; particularly when it comes to comedy.

My goals as a comedian now are far different than they were in 1980, when I began. Back then I was an idiot who thought the world would beat a path to my door just because I thought it should. I felt like I was different than my colleagues and that stuff should just come to me. Sure I worked hard back then, but I didn’t work smart. I just assumed that word of my genius would spread like wildfire and they would find me.

I was an asshole then, as you can see.

Thirty-three years later, I may still be an asshole, but I finally get it. There is only one path to success in show business-be funny and work at it. Have goals and work those goals to the exclusion of everything else in your life; Write, network, work. And when the Swamp Thing pops up, kick that son of a bitch right in his fang filled, filthy mouth with the steel-toed boot of resolve.

In just a year and a half back at this I have accomplished more than I did in my first twenty years because I get it now. I won’t let anyone tell me I’m too old or too odd for mass consumption. I won’t allow any thought to be squirreled away because I’m afraid of the public’s reaction if I put it on stage. Indeed, one of the great advantages of getting older is that I just don’t give a flying fig what anyone thinks of me, and that freedom is what allows me to enjoy standup a hundred times more than I did in the past.     

Swamp Thing does his dance occasionally. I fear that nothing I do will be remembered, but then I remember that isn’t the reason I became a comedian. I do it because I love it. I love it because it makes people happy. And when people around me are happy, I’m happy. That’s why any of us should do it I think.

Nothing we do is permanent, yet everything we are has permanence to it. The world will not remember how funny we were no matter how famous we become, yet our influence as people, as comedians, will ripple through the generations. Our age doesn’t define us or diminish our relevance. Those people who won’t give us the opportunity to speak? Fuck em. Do an end run around them. They are the compatriots of Swamp Thing, his legions on the outside world.

Touch people with your comedy, your heart, your love, your voice, and your time here will matter in ways you will never know. Ignore the “No s” you hear, that’s just Swamp Thing, and he can go to hell if you send him there. If you have a dream, make it real! What’s the worst that can happen; you die before it comes to fruition? Well I would much rather my last thought be that I did what I wanted than to see Swamp Thing laughing his scaly head off at my surrender to popular opinion about age.

The blessing of time is that you have a supply of new days to renew yourself. The curse is that they are limited. The gift is that you have a choice in how to spend them. 

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!

   

Satori-al Splendor

Every now and again, human beings (and for this specific essay,  comedians) are blessed with moments of  satori, which is a Japanese Buddhist term encompassing moments of  awakening, comprehension, understanding and clarity. They are usually fleeting, sometimes lasting only and minute or two but occasionally longer than that. Whatever their length, a satori experience carries a lifelong impact and an elevation in consciousness, often carrying the being experiencing it to new levels of awareness. Sometimes they are blinding, as was the case with the biblical story of Paul on the road to Damascus. I’ve always found him a fascinating character because clearly, they describe someone whose satori experience was so intense that his life was turned around because of it. 

But satori is not always so sudden. It can come over time, the result of a single experience and/or an accumulation of knowledge. It is the culmination of the magnificent human brain processing, dissecting, filtering, sorting, and realization that brings the person to that moment of clarity. Personally, I have had several of them throughout my life; the most significant, of course, was becoming aware of my gender dysphoria.

Now that you know have some background on this wonderful, glorious gift of the universe, you might be wondering, what does this have to do with standup comedy?   

In my first incarnation as a comedian (1980-2000), I can clearly remember wanting to be a writer of clever observations a la Seinfeld. My roommate at the time, Nick Cosentino, had that ability in spades, and I can recall feelings of jealousy toward him because I did not. What I had to offer on stage was more of a personal story, and I capitalized on the usual subjects, family, children spouse and sex. It was an okay act which made me a nice living for a long time, but it was not satisfying to me because even then I knew the part of me that really wanted to speak onstage was living in the shadows. Something dark was haunting me, and although I didn’t know what it was at the time, I was deathly afraid of displaying it even though my instincts screamed that I should. As a result, the potential of my act never materialized and my talent suffered.  Instead of running full speed toward my truth, I ran away and hid from it, mostly because it was too painful to face. I quit comedy because I was getting closer to my truth, not because I was tired of performing. The constant internal struggle between what I really wanted to talk about and my fear of what the public would accept was debilitating. The best thing I could do for myself at that time was to get out.

It would be eleven years before I set foot on a comedy stage again. This time, I decided, I would do it on my terms only. I made a vow that there would be no secrets anymore. All that I was as a person, all that I felt inside, would be fair game up there. I didn’t know if anyone would buy it and to be honest, I didn’t care. If I were to be driven back to anonymity, it would not be because I had feared my truth on stage, but because the public had decided that I was not their cup of tea. I would then go away quietly and permanently.

A year and a half later, I can happily tell you that it appears I took the correct path. I have gone from people telling me that they thought I had either died or went off my nut, to headlining once more. This spring will see the production of a television pilot which I co-created with the insanely talented comedian Joanne Filan. I have a manager now who believes that we are destined for great things. And my audiences have responded in ways that I never could have imagined in the past. Most of all, I’m free up there, unfettered by fear. It is a glorious time and I have never been happier. All of which leads up to this current moment of satori.  

 

In the last few months, my performance skills have improved, and thus my confidence, which is a key ingredient necessary for a comic to grow.

Because of this new-found confidence, I’ve noticed that my act has taken an interesting turn in its subject matter recently. Conscious of my personal vow, I’ve begun to dig deeper and deeper into those areas on which I had previously placed an internal censor and as a result, the responses I’ve gotten from my audiences have also grown in intensity. I did not realize how much progress I’d made until I ran into a couple in the parking lot after last night’s show.

I do a piece (a work in progress) on growing up with abusive parents, particularly my mother’s mental illness issues. It’s a somewhat dark piece and I always sense the audience’s anxiety level rise when I begin it. But here’s what the woman in the parking lot said to me about it.

“I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. I could relate to everything you were saying about your mother and father, because I had experiences that were very similar”

We spoke for about fifteen minutes. She revealed so much about her difficult childhood, and then she said something that flipped on the satori light.

“A lot of people in that room tonight felt the same way, but were afraid to ever talk or God forbid, laugh about it. Thank you for bringing it out in the open using humor.”

Comedians use common experiences to generate laughter with audiences. The people laugh because they recognize themselves in the comic’s piece. But I had never realized until that moment, that the horrors of my childhood were not mine alone. Others had experienced them with more or less severity, but the scars remained for all of us and needed to be addressed in a public forum other than a group therapy session.  What was so enlightening to me was that I was not alone and that this subject could be dealt with in a comedic manner.

Self-Analytical comedy is not everyone’s strength or forte. Observationalists will always gravitate to that form and I have great respect for it; Prop and musical acts too. But it is to the comedian that wants to know the why and how of whom they are that I urge to take the chance of self revelation up there. Step close to your personal edge. And when that fear starts to well up inside as you do so, take another step. Over time, you will see that your act will become something unlike any other comedian out there, because your story is unlike any other. As your skill grows, so will your voice. You’ll find that once you’ve taken those steps, material will gush from you as never before. It may come as a complete piece,  thought or a phrase or a subject, but it will come. Most of all, have faith in your moments of satori. That’s the universe telling you that you’re on the right track.

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat.  Abbondanza!

   

Raging Innocence

There is no better day for a sixth grader than Friday. Just after lunch, all thought of learning disappears and is replaced with the rambunctious anxiety of the weekend ahead and the adventures it held for us. In my beloved Fairview, NJ, that meant stickball, baseball card flipping, practicing with my band, The Untamed, and hanging out on the street with friends on the steps of St. John the Baptist School, which was just across Walker Street from my apartment. At eleven years old, much of the world’s ugliness has not chipped away at the soul and the universe can be measured in several square city blocks.

And so, on this particular November Friday in 1963, we expected nothing different until Sister Marie Rene paid an unusual visit to our class. She seemed in a hurry as she glided across the floor in that angelic way that only nun can. It’s as if their feet never touch the floor. They are little black and white Hovercraft who do the Lord’s work.

Sister Rene’s eyes seemed soft, weary and moist as she whispered something into the ear of our teacher, Sister Jane Aloysius. Whatever the message was, it was brief in nature for she left the classroom as suddenly as she entered. It wasn’t until Sister Jane’s countenance had changed dramatically and tears had welled up in her eyes that we knew something wasn’t right.

“Class,” she began tentatively, “I’ve just been told that President Kennedy has been shot. We don’t know how bad he is, but in a couple of minutes, the radio is going to be broadcasting over the P.A. system.”

The clock on the wall, which prior to Sister Jane’s announcement had ticked happily toward 3 pm and freedom now thudded ominously with endless space between clicks as we awaited the news. Finally the speaker next to the clock crackled to life and the voice coming from it was unmistakable even to our class who cared nothing for the news of the world. It was Walter Cronkite.

“Dallas...President Kennedy.... assassination attempt...two or three shots.... Parkland Memorial Hospital... Last Rites administered....is dead”

It was all a blur at that point, all happening so fast until shortly after 1 pm when the announcement came from Walter Cronkite via Dan Rather in Dallas that our President was dead; thus marked the end of my age of childhood innocence.

That weekend, instead of running and playing, I sat gripped in fear and sorrow over what had taken place in the country. I watched as President Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One with Lady Bird beside him and Jackie Kennedy, still in shock and still covered in her blood-stained outfit, stood by the coffin as it was unloaded from the plane. I watched in shock as Lee Harvey Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby in front of the entire country just two days later.

I wondered how it could happen here. Here I was, still feeling the effects of my parents’ divorce, feeling alone and strange, and now the roots of my country, the one place where I was supposed to be safe had been pulled out of the ground and rode in that funeral cortege to that place in Arlington, Virginia where the President was to be buried. There was Caroline and John-John saluting when just weeks earlier he had been playing under his Dad’s desk in the Oval Office and Life Magazine had shown us all how happy they were.  How could this be? What was happening to America?

In the years to come, I would be witness to so many more moments like that one, though November 22 will always stand out in my memory as if it happened yesterday. The murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy only a few years later would trigger the memory of Dallas once more. Riots and bloodshed just twenty minutes from my home in Newark, NJ, bombings of churches in which innocent little girls were killed, students shot by National Guard troops at Kent State University, riots at the Chicago Convention and in Watts, my country nearly torn apart by a war in Viet Nam,  would all follow. Columbine, 9/11, Aurora, Tucson, Newtown, and now Boston were still to come. Each time a new group of eleven year olds would hear the news maybe from a parent or teacher. And each time, a new generation would lose their insulation of innocence to wonder the same things about their country. Horrific events have sadly become a rite of passage for America’s youth it seems and a way of life for us older folk. And yet each time one occurs we ask, how could this happen in America? Things like this are supposed to happen in far away places full of strange looking and fanatical people, but not here.

The truth of the matter is that our country’s history is rife with similar tragedies of lesser and greater proportion. We’d like to believe that the seemingly recent spike in horrific events is a relatively new phenomenon, but the reality is that you would be hard pressed to find a decade where one or more of these things didn’t occur. In fact the real surprise would be if we could get through an entire decade without one.

But we are an idealistic people, a nation of eternal optimists who believe in the better nature of mankind.. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the original Transcendentalist would be proud of us I think because over and over again, in the face of profound sorrow and pain, we choose instead to imagine a reality where love abounds and triumphs over dastardly acts such as this most recent one in Boston. Instead of spiraling down into anarchy, distrust of one another and hatred for those who do us harm, we reinforce our vision of a world where peace and love abound and seem genuinely perplexed when someone perpetrates a heinous act which contradicts that vision.

This view of ourselves seems naïve and Pollyanna-like around the world perhaps, but it is our greatest treasure as Americans. We choose to believe that the founding principles of our country are genuine and that we are a collective family. And because of that belief, the vast majority of us hold fast in our commitment to make America a better place during our time here by elevating those principles.

These events will not stop in our lifetime or in the lifetimes of the many generations to come. Someone will always come along who feels disenfranchised enough, or angry enough, or will be mentally ill enough to remind us of the black thread of evil that runs throughout the land and which occasionally becomes frayed enough to rip the fabric of our souls. But age and hindsight will eventually reveal to everyone that although horror shows itself from time to time, the goodness of our people will triumph. We will see that in general, we live remarkably peacefully and that the ideal of America is in the hearts of its people and not its government. And we will pass from this planet choosing to focus on the positivity that abounds in our hearts and the collective heart of our people.

Mourn the dead and wounded once more. Hold the hand of a stranger in these times and share the love of friendship and comradeship for this moment of sorrow. But resolve to walk away from the belief that fear and despair will triumph here because it will not. Not now. Not ever.

I would like to sign off with the words of Emerson, who was a pretty insightful guy. Peace and love to you all. .    

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson             

 

 

  

Comics of a Certain Age

Sometimes the comedy business is like a great automobile assembly line. Talent moves down a conveyor belt where gigs, accolades, resume credits and accomplishments are added to the chassis of a newbie comedian. He or she slowly moves down the line for years until finally, the constructed talent is polished and takes on the patina of notoriety and/or fame. Those who reach the zenith of their careers, through talent, hard work and luck become stars, and the rest, missing one or more components, become ‘veteran’ comics eking out  a living at Uncle Hah-hah’s Comedy Emporium somewhere in America, or auditioning for whatever project comes their way. But always, there is that little glimmer of hope for them that this next ‘thing’ will finally be the ONE. Thus, I became a little optimistic when I recently received this call from an agent friend of mine.

“Yeah Julia, it’s an industry showcase. A casting agent is looking for comedians for some television project and I thought you’d be great for it. Be there Wednesday night. Show starts at nine pm and you’ll do four minutes. You in?” 

“Sure, why not.”

Little did I know that this seemingly innocuous phone call would begin one of the great karmic bitch slaps of my life.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the older we get, the greater the divide between the mind and the body when it comes to aging. While our bodies are busily withering away, our minds continue blissfully busy planning, looking to the future, developing ideas and material.....being immortal. It isn’t until the physical world meets the spiritual that we become aware of that horrible ugly thing which we refer to as reality.

This showcase was being held at one of the major clubs in NYC. I arrived early (my custom) and watched as the other auditioners began to filter in. Oh look, there’s so and so from the old days at the Improv, and wait...isn’t that...wow, she looks old! And what about....omg, what the hell happened to him?

On and on it went; Comedians who I had known in the 1980s and hadn’t seen in thirty years were showing up for this thing, which I came to find out was for, what else, older comedians.

We stood around in that room, greeting, hugging, and cracking jokes just as we did so many years ago at the Improv, Catch and the Strip. We reminisced about the horrible bookers and the hundreds of hell gigs we did on our comedic journey to fame. And as I looked around at all these people from my past, I couldn’t help wondering, what was to become of us now that we are 'past our prime'? Even though I may now need a step stool to get on the stage, why is there no place in comedy for comics of a certain age? Why are we no longer relevant just because we’ve committed the crime of aging?

Our culture is as youth oriented as ever. Young comics today look upon us as we did the Borscht Belt comedians in our day.  For them, age automatically qualifies us as outdated and schticky in our delivery and material, and in many cases they are correct. But I could point to dozens of young up-and-comers whose material is bland, derivative and soulless, and who are lauded nationally for no discernable reason other than that they are smarmy and crude. And with enough PR behind such a person, it’s rather easy to convince the public that an act like this should be elevated. And so, relevance to society has taken a turn. Whereas a comedian’s job used to be to comment on the inequities and inanities of society as Carlin, Pryor, or Tomlin did, it seems that today’s comedy is now judged by the appearance of social commentary and for TV purposes, the amount of jokes per minute. And that’s what passes as relevant.

This is not to say that there aren’t contemporary versions of the aforementioned comedic heroes. Certainly there are many there today who are carrying on the tradition and who will be role models for the generation that follows them. My question is, why does television limit the voices of the older comedian who still has something to say? Why does age automatically equate to irrelevancy? Surely an older comic with years of experience and life under his/her belt has a vast storehouse of experience from which to draw new material. Certainly, an older comic has a point of view that is still unique, don’t they? And if they are funny and original, what difference does it make how old they are?

But it does make a difference. The ‘suits’ that decide who gets on at a particular club or a particular television show have never been known to have great comic senses. It was true then, and it’s true now. In their minds young equals contemporary and hip. But this is only partly true. Content, which used to matter, is not relevant for the most part, but packaging is. And that point is, in my opinion, the reason why we see so much diluted dreck passing for comedy out there. And it is also why with each succeeding generation of comedians, our beloved craft, and our art, our voices will be chiseled and polished away to the point where all is smooth and shiny in order to succeed. What they don’t understand is that comedy was not meant to be smooth and shiny. It’s funniest when it’s jagged and a bit dangerous. People in the ‘mainstream’ media like Chelsea Handler, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson get that. Leno doesn’t, although he used to.

There are older comedians out there who you don’t know and probably will never know who are saying plenty of those things and who are still very relevant to today’s world. They deserve a chance too. I know. I stood in a room full of them last week.

We all did our sets for the casting director and the very small audience in attendance and hung out for a while afterwards to chat. I don’t know if anyone else felt it, but there was a tinge of sadness in seeing how we have all aged. That night on the drive back to Jersey, I couldn’t help but think back to the beginning of my career. How many times had I made this drive on a deserted New Jersey Turnpike? Hundreds? Each time is just like the first. I think back over the set. Could I have done better? Should I have tried a different bit instead? Will anything come out of this? Why am I still doing this at my age? What more have I got to say?

That weekend, I performed in Pennsylvania somewhere. I drove a long way through snow and ice to a gig I presumed would be hell since it was a pretty conservative group. I didn’t alter one word of my content but it still got big laughs. And all I could think of after the show was, this was so worth coming all the way up here for. I didn’t back down and I didn’t edit. I just plowed ahead and I won them over. That ability comes from experience. That sense of fearlessness comes with age. I am relevant and I have a lot left to say! All I need, all WE need is a place to say it. Wake up television!

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat. Abbondanza!