SHORT:
Ppl r always saying they like to “shoot the shit” but I've literally never seen a piece of poo with a bullet hole in it... seems like ppl r doin' a lot of talk not a lot of WALK if u know what i mean…
(and you do because I just explained wat i mean).
MEDIUM:
I’m trying to have fun this week. The joke above is an example of me “trying to feel a little thrill” by letting my looney tunes grotesque brain “do its thing”.
For some reason, right now, in February of 2022, every single person in my life is grinding my gears harder than a middle school girl in her first grind line. I walk out of the house with my head held high, trying 2 feel love toward everyone and have an abundance mentality, but then I am immediately smacked in the face with my own incompetence and other people’s stupidity.
On Wednesday, I got Greek food with my friends Zach and Tessa and then called Ric (my gay senior citizen pen pal) as I scurried through the soaking wet HONK-filled streets of the Lower East Side. He was like “where are you?” and I was like “hell” and he was like, “you always seem 2 b in hell” and I was like “ya”. Then he told me about some old man in his acting class who he “doesn’t care for” but then it turns out the old man is part of the Screen Actors Guild so now he's trying to seduce him so he can get free advanced screeners of movies.
He ended the phone with a self-penned quotation that I plan to get tattooed down my spine: "u never know who's gonna like ur jokes or who's gonna turn around and call u a filthy gay pig".
He is so wise.
LONG:
Does anyone know what I should bring to the big table we call this world and life? It seems like everyone has their potluck dishes ready 2 go and here I am… wandering the supermarket… I’m am currently watching a video of someone named “NBA Star Devin Booker” who is showing off his “stylish desert oasis”, and in case u didn’t hear, he’s:
“sort of all over the place with [his] wine [he] started in Napa Valley, and now kinda does whatever, he’s all about conversation, you can have some great conversations over wine.”
Imagine all of this said to the camera with zero inflection (some of us don’t have to imagine because we witnessed it on Youtube dot com).
At one point in time, I decided that I was going to “get into the WNBA”, so I followed 900 WBNA players on Instagram, and then I never “got into it”, but I also didn’t unfollow them, so now I get posts on my timeline of extremely ripped women holding signs that say things like “The Dynasty Continues!” and I have no idea what “Dynasty” they’re talking about or why or how it is “continuing” but I’m always like “Hell Yeah!”
When I’m not passively consuming basketball content, I try to read deep/good/smart articles and essays. I recently read this essay from Uma Dwivedi and really loved it. Click on that link and read it. I’m not a huge Fleabag-head, but the essay really resonated with me.
If you didn’t click on the link and read the essay, ur dead 2 me. Just kidding. But basically it talks about (in beautiful, eloquent phrasing that I will not do JUSTICE 2 HERE) how many of us (especially trans people) play the role of 1. The Jester or 2. The Priest (especially in public cisgender spaces): “Both require a collapsing of self. The Jester takes their difference and turns it into performance art. They stitch their soft insides into a costume, apologizing for the fact of their existence by entertaining others… While the Jester hides behind face paint, the Priest hides in the confessional booth… The Priest’s goal is to hide desire… They take in the stories of others without offering up any of their own” (x).
As a kid, I was a priest who desperately wanted to be a jester (maybe I still am). I’d sit quietly. Eavesdrop. Observe people. Read chapter books by my locker. Take in people’s secrets and wants and desires and rarely expel any of my own. I’d watch videos of Broadway stars and stand-up comedians and hope to god that I’d one day get up the courage to proudly walk into a room or step onstage and spew whatever energy and truth was bubbling up inside me.
Eventually, I got up the nerve to audition for school plays. I started to sing in front of people. Be a sort-of-jester-under-certain-controlled-and-sanctioned-circumstances. But offstage, without a script or rehearsal, I’d go quiet and resume my collecting.
These days, I’m pretty loud. Pretty jester-y. I shake my little ass at parties and under hot lights on dark stages. I pretend to word-vomit carefully choreographed jokes into a microphone, and pray I hear laughter (or at least clap-ter) in response. But it’s still all, for the most part, rehearsed. Which means I sat quietly and prepped (and valued the prep time much more than the performance). When I get offstage/backstage after shows, I often burrow into myself and listen to other people talk about their lives and get nervous and tell myself that literally everything I want/ am thinking isn’t worth vocalizing.
I oscillate between priesthood and jester-hood in this way; an oscillation that, I suppose, should be a bit more freeing than being stuck in one or the other, but, in actuality, feels doubly frustrating. When I’m a priest I yearn for the freedom and explosiveness of (constructed) jester-hood, and when I’m a jester, I’m exhausted, and want to be swaddled in blankets alone, taking in other people’s confessions through Twitter. I feel emotionally and spiritually constipated in public space, involuntarily holding in my desire, or over-performing it in a way that feels flat and shallow.
I feel the same way I did at age 9, when I decided to try and audition for my Jewish elementary school’s musical. It was Minnie’s Boys, the Marx Brothers Musical (because of course it was). I remember sitting on the windowsill, hands and legs shaking, as I read-through the little snippet of a song we had to sing (in front of everyone!) in order to be cast in the show:
Where was I?
When they passed out brains?
Right at the head of the line!
Where was I?
When they passed out talent?
Right up front, getting mine!
But when it came to the line where they handed out luck...
Where was your smart clever friend?
Back showing off my talent and brains...
to the bums lining up at the end!
Incredible song. Incredible lyrics. Incredible LESSON from the funny little Marx Bros. I still sing it LOUDLY in the shower today. But when it came time to sing the lyrics for the elementary school audition, I whisper-choked them out. And then went back to the window sill, absolutely pissed at myself.
I wanted to be loud. And good. And show people whatever the heck I had inside of me. But I wasn’t ready, I guess. And now I fart around loudly in front of crowds when maybe I could do with whispering a little.
I don’t really know what I’m saying. I just really liked the article. And I think my detachment from things (might be depression! but also…) might be a symptom of having to play priest or jester all the time.
Especially when I’m “being trans in front of people” or “being a person in front of people” (which, I guess includes trans-ness since that’s part of who I am as a person):
“Either case demands a kind of dehumanization. In part, for the comfort of those around us so that we do not stretch their view of the world to breaking by suggesting that we can be found among the human vulnerable and wanting. Mostly, though, it comes out of a kind of self-preservation. If we never expose our pain, who can know we are less than inhumanly indestructible? If we never confess our desire, who can know we are more than inhumanly austere?” (x)
I wish I was more aware of my multiplicity and weirdness and power as a kid (or at least wish had the words/courage to express how I was feeling).
Maybe I did have a certain awareness and then lost it somewhere along the way and now I’m trying to remember/recreate/re-discover & self-excavate without letting the grief of that loss overwhelm me.
Maybe performance and comedy is a way of avoiding that grief from crushing me completely.
Maybe I should let it crush me and maybe it’s why I want to cry all the time and maybe if I just let myself cry and mourn shit, I wouldn’t feel the need to make poop jokes at the top of my newsletter.
I’m always fighting with my human desire to “prove” things through science and biology and put things into categories that are clear-cut and narrow like jester and priest. I am stressed out by my own ambiguity and then get stressed out that I’m stressed out.
Was this fun to read!?
HAHA!
U never kno what ur gonna get with this dam thing!
AND
“YOU NEVER KNOW WHO’S GONNA LIKE UR JOKES OR WHO’S GONNA TURN AROUND AND CALL U A FILTHY GAY PIG!”
-RIC 2:16
C u next Tuesday.
Thank you for subscribing. If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not – it’s very much like when people slip on ice.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
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may we never 4get rock and the they-mitzvah
not only was this "fun to read", it was deeply inspiring and moving. your journey through priest and jester are extremely relatable and I, too, find myself struggling with my ambiguity almost daily. In fact, I had to take a break from reading this newsletter for a couple weeks because you voiced my own insecurities and fears so acutely that it was hard to take comfort in your hilarious "shorts" for fear of a medium or long that would just remind me of my own shit. but never stop doing what you do reid. i think you're so funny and creative and smart and ur literally popping off!
best, a random internet-dweller
love you I want to say 'you gorgeous gay piggy' but please substitute an animal you connect with. A cute one! that shakes its ass at parties! isn't writing the best and most specific performance of all? You are excellent at it.