no i do not need xanax
if you tell me to get a prescription im unadding you as a subscriber. actually that might be an act of kindness. ill write a second newsletter and watch you with my laser eyes while u read it
so if you’re familiar with the fact that i’m alive, then you know a couple things about me:
i was born and thus over time have developed relationships with other humans
one of the things that happened when i was born is they made me a brain
because of having that brain, and having those relationships, i run into challenges around the holidays, like how to relax when the people i love are all watching a movie that i’ve recommended.
i consider recommending a movie to those i love to be a kind of litmus test for our relationship: i tell them something about myself with a movie i recommend, and the experience of sitting together and watching it becomes a trial to see if whatever i’m telling them is to be accepted. so the stakes are already higher than they should be, and those are the stakes every time
it’s a horrible experience, to watch a movie and feel your weird son/sibling/friend/lover staring lasers into the side of your face trying to make sure you still like him the whole time. nobody wants to watch a movie like that. you can’t really appreciate a movie that you have to enjoy, that you’re supposed to enjoy, a movie that you have to watch while you smell the skin on the side of your face burning, due to the lasers his eyes are shooting into your head, a power that he’s developed from a recessive gene that was triggered given the incredibly high stakes of the current situation. that situation being that if you don’t like the movie, he feels like a big dumb idiot.
i have to clarify that i know the people in my life couldn’t give less of a shit about whether the movies i recommend are good or not. ideally, this entire interaction, every single time, would be as simple as: hey guys, we should watch this thing, i hear that it’s good. but that is not possible. why? well unfortunately, a terrible thing happened around 24 years ago, which is that my mommy and daddy asked the baby trafficking stork to bring them one of the babies he’s in charge of for some reason, and inside the head of the baby he brought them was the brain of the person who grew up to be me. and that brain does too much sometimes
we all know that guy who recommends things that suck. he’s the reason you watched that movie that was annoying, or listened to that song that was bad, or ate that food that you didn’t know beforehand you were allergic to. we all hate that guy and he should be set on fire. the worst thing about that guy is the lack of self awareness he has, the hubris he employs regarding his creative tastes. the worst thing about that guy is how he gleefully enjoys the shitty thing you’re all watching together while you’re watching it, and you have to feign enjoyment at the shitty thing you’re intaking together. the thing he recommends is probably too predictable, or maybe too slow, or too pretentious, or maybe even offensive in a really niche yet horrifying way that he couldn’t have seen coming and would feel bad about if you told him. but the worst thing of all about this guy is that much of the time… his name is rishi mahesh and he looks exactly like i do. woah
i have an image of watching movies with a loved one and seeing the spark leave their eyes when the story didn’t go where it was supposed to. when i oversold, or underdelivered. and it’s not a conversation, or a dance, something that can be picked up, redirected, or recovered in the moment. i have no control. there’s a ticking clock on the discomfort. a progress bar on HBO MAX inching towards the right. slower than that, even. centimetering to the right.
for much of my life, i’ve tried not to recommend people movies.
keeping the stakes high is a good way to guarantee torture. thinking that an experience has to be perfect is a good way to be driven insane. i feel those kind of stakes when i perform standup comedy, or have a big audition, or write a script, or even this newsletter. the stakes are high and there’s potential for disappointment. but with all of those activities, there’s work that can be done to get reality closer to my expectations. however, when the act is more personal, more peaceful, showing someone i love something that i love, there’s a risk that can’t be mitigated. there’s no extra work to be done.
i’ve always felt i had to jump huge hurdles to be understood. i’m a little bit eccentric and spacey, I need to be given space and an open mind to explain myself when it comes to my tangents or world views or ideas about the past and the future. i think the stakes are so high when recommending something i like because the very act outsources the work of letting someone i care about know what makes me tick.
so despite my fear, i try to make playlists for my friends, recommend podcasts, and i watch the movies i like with my family when im home for the holidays. sometimes, probably most of the time, the friends never click the link and the movie is worse than i remember. nevertheless, im learning to take deeper breaths, turn off the laser eyes, and relax, knowing that in 90-150 minutes someone i love will know me a little better. and then maybe they’ll set me on fire or something, who knows, their call