Okay, I'm back and I'm quitting



Shown here: A quitter

 As much as I didn't want to do it, I think this little break happened at as close to a perfect time as possible. To those who passed along well wishes, either through comments left here or email or phone calls, thank you very much. That was very kind of you and extremely helpful to me and I'm sincerely grateful.
I'm going to be handling some things differently in the future, none of which should affect what you see here, other than it will (should) probably be better. So if you're just here for the fart jokes, YAY! Those will resume on Wednesday. Otherwise, while life is an ongoing, never-ending project (a philosopher said that, one who owns stock in Lowe's, I think), I feel re-adjusted enough at this point to go forward. As I do so, I'd like to share with you some philosophy (from what some would probably consider a somewhat unlikely source) that I will be employing. It's a good idea if you read it so the headline above will make sense after you read it.
Enjoy!

Better Off Dead



Or Why Quitting the Movie Industry Was My Path to Salvation


By Bobcat Goldthwait


Most people think I’m dead. At first I found this insulting. I mean, I know I look like fuck pie, but I’m only in my 40s. Eventually I realized that my problem was because of two things: 1) People are confusing me with Sam Kinison (the other obese, long-haired, screaming comedian from the 80s), and 2) people assume that if I WERE still alive I would obviously be on Dancing with the Stars or I Was a Celebrity—Watch Me Eat Crocodile Balls or whatever.



I know that you’re not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but I give as much of a fuck about Sam’s friends and fans as he gave a shit about Rock Hudson’s or Liberace’s. So allow me to clear up any confusion on the first issue.


Sam died in 1992 in a car crash driving to a gig in his Trans Am. I currently drive a sweet 2009 Ford Escape. Sam was the screaming misogynist xenophobe comedian. I was the screaming pinko comedian who acted like a crazy street person. Sam liked to pick on outsiders and misfits, while I always related to them. Sam prayed to Jesus and Hollywood, and I already knew that those things are as real as that giant hand-puppet-y shark on the Jaws ride.


As far as the Dancing with the People You Kind of Remember from That Thing That Time question—I don’t have to do that. I have already sold out. As a young man, I sold out big. I was at a point at the beginning of my career that most people don’t reach until the end. I was making Police Academy 2 the same year my high school classmates were graduating from college. Youth is not necessarily an excuse for dumb career decisions, but I’m just trying to put it in some kind of perspective for you. Think about the shit decisions you made at 21. Now imagine that a giant check was involved, and think about how much worse everything would have been. Now you’re with me, Sweetchuck.


I have been a game-show host, a talking puppet, and a Happy Meal toy. My acting has been dubbed into more languages than I can name. I cashed huge studio checks and got flown around the world. And I was miserable the entire time. Seriously—being the man’s dancing monkey was fucking horrible. I’m not bitter about it now (no, really), because it’s behind me. I love my life now. But it took me almost 30 years to get here.


Most people in showbiz are either bitter that they aren’t huge stars or unhappy that they are. From the Starbucks barista to Oscar winners, almost everyone thinks that they’re getting a raw deal. Here’s my advice to them and to all of you: Quit.


Quitting is how my life changed. After years of going to auditions and pitching and writing scripts for shit commercial hits, I came to a realization. I realized that I would never watch any of the fucking things I was doing. So I quit. I always joke that I retired from acting at the same time they stopped hiring me, but it’s true. To pay the rent I relied on doing a stand-up character I no longer related to at venues in the heartland, where it’s still the 80s.


Fortunately for me (as even the heartland has had an assload of the screaming comic), I also got work from Jimmy Kimmel as a director. Jimmy believed in me when most people were using my name as a punch line. His confidence that I could direct made me realize I had other options. Maybe it was because I was finally working in an environment where people encouraged me to have fun while being creative, but I did something I hadn’t done since my teens. I wrote things simply to write.


I wrote a very noncommercial screenplay about honesty, unconditional love, and bestiality. My manager at the time read it and told me that he was not going to send it out because he was afraid of what people would think about my mental health. (I fired that asshole a week later.) I liked it. But it sat in my desk for a year until my friend Sarah read it and said, “This is good. We should make it.” And with two weeks off, 20 grand, and a crew hired from Craigslist, we did.


We did it really just for the sake of doing it. It was almost like a dare to see if we could. Then it got into Sundance. For me, that was a big deal. I’ve made two more movies since then and have written five other scripts lots of people think are crazy (but anyone on my payroll knows not to say too bluntly).


My movies are far from mainstream, and I like it that way. I have no interest in making R-rated studio comedies with the sole purpose of entertaining teenagers. I hate teenagers. I think most of them are fucking idiots. Christ, I hated teenagers when I WAS a teenager. Besides, I will be 50 this year, so how the hell would I know what teenagers like? I make movies that me and my friends like, with actors I like working with, and on shoestring budgets far outside the system. I have found producers who support me and who also are, unimaginably, not even a little bit douche-y. As for Sarah, we are now married.


My point is this—if you want to be happy in showbiz (or any creative field), listen to that voice inside you. Even if it says “Fuck it” sometimes. Work with your friends. Avoid chasing fame or money. Just do what you want to do, when and how you want to do it. And if it’s not making you happy, quit. Quit hard, and quit often. Eventually you’ll end up somewhere that you never want to leave.

This was originally posted at Vice.com. I knew more people would read it if I actually copied and pasted the whole thing here rather than throwing up a link. It's not that I wanted to rip off Vice.com; it was just important to me that  people read it. I sincerely doubt that they care but I really hope they aren't mad at me. Because by all means, Vice.com is a great web site. Seriously. Go there right now.

Hiatus extended

The following is intended to inform. It is not intended to be cryptic or to elicit concern or sympathy. All is fine, if not well.
If you take nothing else from what follows, refer back to that please.
I'm taking a little time off from this blog that you're currently reading to figure some stuff out, that's all. People who know me are liable to say, "that means he's brooding." That's fine. It's accurate enough that I don't need to argue the finer semantic details.
This little enterprise (the blog you're reading) is attached to Facebook and Twitter and some other stuff which all seems very cluttered and noisy to me right now. And tacky, too. Thanks to people's over-reliance on communicating via "funny" pictures with text, Facebook is looking kind of MySpace-y these days, and that isn't good under any circumstances. 

That whole self-contained universe is not conducive to introspection and contemplation, which is what I need right now because I have to answer some questions for myself.
Okay, I can see how that part sounds cryptic and might elicit concern or sympathy. So here's what's up with that.
Recently, a series of (relatively) small setbacks, personal, professional and semi-professional, have caused me to question, if not my self worth, at least my role (specifically whether or not I have one) in The Grand Scheme of Things (but yeah, mostly my self worth). None of these setbacks alone is that big of a deal and if I detailed them here one-by one, your justified response to each would be something like, "Seriously, you big baby? Life is difficult. Get a helmet and suck it up, buttercup." And your assessment would be correct. But taken together, all occurring in a relatively short period of time, they've kind of combined to form one potent gut shot and have taken me off my feet.
You know how we're all supposed to have a place in the world with a role to play because in some way or another, we're all valuable? Well, I'm not sure that's necessarily true. After all, there are over seven billion people on the planet (an aside: when you start typing "what is the world's population?" into the Google search box, among the auto-generated suggestions you get are "what is the world's largest spider?" and "what is the world's hottest pepper?"); doesn't it stand to reason that a few folks are just hanging around, getting in the way, eating the food and soiling the linens? Not maliciously bad, per se, but just kind of...pointless. And if that's possible, is it impossible that I'm one of them? It's like when you sit down to assemble a model airplane. You open up the box and there are several plastic racks with all the individual parts attached that are needed to complete the model you see pictured on the box. But in addition to the necessary parts, sometimes there's also a weird, misshapen glob of plastic there. Probably the result of some glitch with excess run-off melted plastic from the mold at the factory. It didn't ask to be included in the box with the legitimate model pieces, but it's there. It's part of the package, just like the wings and the wheels and the flaps and valves and all the other stuff that goes into an airplane...except it shouldn't be there. Because it's not a part. It serves no purpose. It's nothing. And it is never, ever going to be part of the airplane.
People want to believe that they matter. That's a pretty basic, primal need. Now, I've been in therapy where I've been focusing a lot of attention on irrational thinking (how to identify it and how to combat it). When a bunch of stuff happens in a relatively short period of time that suggests that maybe you don't matter all that much, you (well, I) have to question, at what point does something go from an irrational thought to a rational one? How many...or how few...individual circumstances have to occur before a series of similar-but-unrelated coincidences becomes a trend?


Exactly how many flying dogs do you need
 to see before you say "Dogs can fly"?

 That concept is something that's on my mind right now and it's making me unhappy. Among my primary reactive instincts is to be hurt and resentful toward people I encounter who have nothing to do with my problems and certainly don't deserve to be treated that way.

For example: These people? Screw them.

 That's a shitty way to be. People don't deserve to be treated that way and I don't want to live like that. That's what I want to fix.
Anyway, this is just something I need to take some time to think about quietly and without a lot of distraction...like trying to bring the LOLZ to this blog three times a week and all the raucous cacophony that tends to accompany that. I need to find a nice, shady tree and sit under it without thinking how many people I could hang from each branch. I had hoped to jump back in with some new LOLZ by Monday, July 23, but this is taking longer than I thought it would so that arbitrary, self-imposed deadline is going to pass without new content. Sorry about that. Hopefully, among the stuff I figure out (eventually) is how to come back to this with new, good stuff...or whether to take things in a different direction entirely.
Cool?
Cool.

I'm up and running again...sorta

After what seems like an eternity, I have a computer again. It's a loaner, an older model, but it gets me where I need to go (it's a lot like my car, Jeeves, in that respect). I can't get photos off my camera so I'll be stealing pictures (like the one shown here) from Google for a while. And it lacks sufficient memory to perform certain functions (I can't access Farmville, where I'm sure my farm is overgrown with dead weeds and infested with virtual weasels by now. Even if I could look, I don't think I'd want to) but on the bright side, if anybody has files on a floppy disc, being it over because it's got a drive! Take that, iPad users. I'm going to have to give it back at some point, but meanwhile, I'm very happy to be able to publish on a regular basis again.

More important (possibly), I have begun a program that could help me (maybe) with my Big D issues (hopefully). I'm not going to say what it is or how it works at this point because this is Day 1 of a 12 week program but I'm very (cautiously) optimistic. Unlike previous attempts at treatment, this one seems to speak directly to what I'm up against. If it works, I will share all the details in the hope of helping others. All I will say at this time is that it does not involve surrender of earthly possessions, a uniform, "auditing" or distributing literature.

The Big D: A good day

“Every season has its peaks and valleys. What you have to try to do is eliminate the Grand Canyon.” – Andy Van Slyke

When you suffer from depression, you appreciate any day when things happen that make you feel really good because, well, if nothing else, it’s one day where you don’t feel bad. I had one of those the other day.

I was approached by a company looking for a script for a corporate training video and so I submitted a rough draft with the hope of making a good showing and possibly getting a gig out of it. To my amazement, they loved it so much that they bought it! I was astonished. Honestly, the best I had hoped for was that they would come back and say, “Yes, very nice, you’ve got the job. Now go back and polish this up and send it in again for another review.” Never in a million, billion years did I ever expect anybody to pay me for what I considered a rough draft. Of course, I was thrilled and flattered. Funny thing though; the script was for a training video to teach employees about gender discrimination and illustrated right and wrong behavior in an office environment and featured three male characters and one female. Since it was just a rough draft, I didn’t put a lot of work into character development, including the characters names. So I named them Mac, Dennis, Charlie and Dee after the main characters on my favorite show, “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” which is all about wildly inappropriate behavior. Now I’m hoping that they shoot the script exactly as written and that at least one person sitting in a corporate training session someday recognizes the reference and has to stifle giggles.

Anyway, between that and the Rays winning (again), it was a very good day.

Blogging The Big D

This week, I was formally diagnosed as being severely clinically depressed. In case your mental health glossary is not handy, that's the especially bad kind. The Big D. The kind where, for example, a doctor may advise the patient to try to spend as little time alone as possible. That's the kind I have.
What happens is I go into these funks (that's what I call them) where I become mercilessly self-critical, focusing intently on any and all flaws and errors and talking myself into believing...not thinking, believing...that I am the most useless, unnecessary and insignificant so-called human being wandering around, wasting resources, good will and time while providing no value of any kind whatsoever to any people who actually matter. It gets to the point where I say, aloud, really horrible things about and to myself (like that last sentence, actually), tearing myself to pieces and reducing myself to a twitching bundle of raw nerves, hopeless, helpless and spending every available second lying in bed. These periods come and go without any real stimulus, at least that I can pinpoint. I'm always seconds away from it coming on or going away (as I write this, I feel like I'm on an upswing). Lately though, they come on more frequently, last longer and are more intense, which is what spurred the visit to the doctor.
The doctor recommended (along with the suggestion to hire myself a sitter) that I see a therapist. Two problems with that:

1. I don't have the kind of insurance that covers therapy and don't have a lot of scratch laying around.
2. I've tried therapy, more than once, and have never gotten good results: the first attempt ended when the therapist suggested I could get a discount in exchange for a hook-up for concert tickets. The last one ended before it started when I showed up at the office for my first appointment and found that they had moved, a fact not mentioned on their web site where I got the address (maybe I was wrong, but I took that as a bad sign). As a result of these interactions, I've come to view therapists the same way I view teachers (and some cops): It's a profession whose members enjoy a reputation greater than what's truly deserved because of the efforts of a few dedicated, concerned individuals who do amazing things on behalf of people who come to them for help while a majority of the rest of them are just coasting along in the wake. Sorry, but that's my experience.

The doctor suggested that the problem could be an internal chemical imbalance that could be corrected or at least aided with medication. I'm scared to death (ha ha!) of these new medications that seem to pass through the FDA with little more than a cursory wave of a rubber stamp as long as there is a long, horrific disclaimer about all the possible negative side effects, especially the anti-depressants that may increase thoughts of suicide (would Sears be allowed to sell a lawn mower that may very rarely cause the spontaneous growth of Poison Ivy? I doubt it). I'm not trying to make excuses for not getting treatment, merely listing my concerns and limitations.

So I agonized for a few days whether or not to write about the situation. It took a while because there are pros and cons to such an undertaking...

The Cons:

• It's pretty personal and there are all kinds of things that can go wrong with putting deeply personal information out on the internet.
• Who the **** do I think I am? Jesus, get over myself.
• It's not very funny.

The Pros:

• Maybe there's some therapeutic value in writing about it. Since I can't afford a professional to sit there and listen to me talk about myself, maybe this will suffice as a reasonable substitute.
• If I'm going to be honest as a writer, with myself and an audience, it's kind of disingenuous to not discuss a condition that is pretty significant influence on me and my opinions.
• Maybe it can help somebody else. I don't know. That would be nice though.

Anyway, I'm writing about it and I'll do it from time to time as needed/if necessary. I'm not doing it to hear "oh, poor baby" or "you're sooo brave". Fact of the matter is I'm (currently) incapable of accepting sentiment or praise like that anyway, which is a big part of the problem. I'll title and label any and all posts dealing with this topic with "The Big D", so if you want to skip over them and come back for the fart and dick jokes, you can. Go ahead. I won't mind and completely understand. Thanks.

PS: And special thanks to my pal Jane for giving me crucial, critical advice about doing this.