My childhood friends and I would have been featured in 'The Achievers: The Story of the Big Lebowski Fans,' but I never signed the release form we received from the producers. I am both proud and ashamed of this fact.
When you're hot, you stride confidently down the street, extending your form to hail a taxi to take you from place to place. My body is designed for squeezing into packed subway cars and apologizing to those whose feet I clumsily step on.
When you're confined to a hospital bed, there aren't many appointments you can make. You await visits from friends and family members. You enjoy the coconut ice cream they smuggle in. You tolerate the erratic and invasive visits of doctors and nurses, hoping that one of them will bring you closer to going home.
I try to be kind, and I try to reflect that in my comedy, but I'm also incredibly bad at being mean. I can't pull it off effectively, so I always end up reverting back to politeness.
I always loved jokes. It's such a dumb, facile thing to say, but it's true. I remember being a kid and getting those joke books from the Scholastic Book Club and loving comedy from a very young age.
The thing they don't tell you about a Tough Mudder is that, for all the adrenaline pumping and barbed-wire-bicep-tattoo sporting, a lot of the day is fairly idyllic and contemplative. I hadn't spent so much time jogging through the woods in years - or ever.
What I try to do, what I attempt to do, is say things that I mean at least at an emotional level.
One great thing about going to a fashion event in the morning, especially in February in New York, is that the other attendees are dressed less like models themselves. A winter coat, it turns out, is a great equalizer.
'The Big Lebowski' gave me my first false sense of intellectual superiority.
A v-neck T-shirt is the manliest of all upper-body garments. The defining feature of the style is a plummeting neckline that we normally associate with women's fashion, but when worn by a guy, it basically says, 'Here is a pie slice of chest hair that forms an arrow to my gut.' The deeper the 'V,' the more masculine the shirt.
My comedy isn't clean; it's just friendly. So I get asked to do a lot of clean shows. It's like, 'Oh, I have a clean vibe, but I say gross, weird stuff.' It's just, it's very gentle the way I say it. It's not upsetting or jarring to people, because I'm not very aggressive.
Although my grandmother was a strict parent and abided my grandfather's kosher diet, as a Nana, she had grown away from religion and was almost unbelievably permissive.
Why is it okay to write a work of literary fiction where horrible, explicit things happen, where you can't write a book of humor where silly, explicit things are happening?
As a kid, I always loved Mel Brooks' stuff - 'The 2,000 Year Old Man' record was something my dad put me onto.
Along with 'Wet Hot American Summer' and 'The Room,' 'Lebowski' belongs in the canon of nouveau cult classics.
I like comedy that's very specific and isn't afraid to lose people through its specificity.
A vest is just a totem reminding you that some people dress well, and you can be one of those people.
Given that I often wear shorts with a T-shirt, baseball cap, and backpack most days, a crew-neck shirt gives me the appearance of an undercover cop on the way to a sting operation at a summer camp.
A vest, as a clothing item, always makes a statement, but depending on context, those declarations vary a great deal.
When I started out doing comedy, I was still in college and was working day jobs. I taught preschool for a few years. And then I got more into freelance writing. So stand-up has always been my primary independent creative mode of expression. I've done it my whole adult and young adult life.
