A conversation I had 3 times yesterday
And every time, someone said "huh! I never thought of it like that."
Forgetting the formatting this week. See me featuring for Sam Salem at the DC Comedy Loft Sunday (Memorial Day Weekend) May 26th! Other announcements soon
Hello Sternal Journalists,
If you don’t know, I’m sort of a master of rejection. I have a concept I call the Julian Stern Failure Vortex. The idea is that I am so good at being rejected that, should a person or entity try to not reject me, the universe will bend that into a Julian rejection by somehow dooming the person giving me the break to some career or project-ending situation which makes the opportunity disappear entirely.
This is bad for the obvious reasons, but good because I think what they say about rejection building character or whatever is mostly true, and at 35, I no longer see a dusty pile of rejections so much as a Megazord of rejections! They are assembled into a giant sword-wielding robot that I pilot to slash through life’s future hurdles.
I’m telling you all this because I just so happened to have an extra-social creative day yesterday wherein I attended (don’t tell anyone) an improv class (don’t f****** tell anyone), a stand-up show, and a going away party for a stand-up I know.
At each of these events, I had a conversation with someone I know about being rejected by “powers that be.” In the different conversations, we talked about different versions of the P.T.B.: theaters, bookers, producers.
But in each conversation, we talked around some version of “I really don’t care what they think; I just care that they have opportunities I want; and I don’t even think I want the opportunities anymore; and I know it’s subjective, but I don’t really respect their subjective opinion; so I don’t want to care; but they’re the powers that be, so I would be stupid not to at least be aware of what they like.”
This is a thing I’ve felt many times and I was, just as much as the others in the conversation, doing this yammering myself. But also, in every conversation I took the time to add this little reframing that I came to a couple years ago either says, “Yes! Exactly!” or “Huh. That’s a good point. I’ve never thought of it like that.” (my takes very rarely have such a unanimous hit rate fwiw).
So anyway, here’s the little thing I tell myself:
Casting an actor or booking a comedian (or probably hiring an anyone) is much more like set decorating than it is like any other artistic endeavor. As writers or directors or artists or whatever, we’re trying to come up with our best ideas (feel free to replace “best” with “resonant” or “impactful” or “funniest” if “best” feels too generic, but I think it captures what I mean most clearly).
So when we submit to a casting call or a comedy festival or audition for a club or theater or submit to a contest or apply for any job maybe, we are in the mindset of “the best thing wins; the best thing is the most valuable; if I lose out, it’s because I’m not as ‘good.’”
But that’s really not it. And the alternative isn’t just “yeah, of course, because it’s subjective.” The alternative is: whoever the P.T.B. is in the situation is not like you. They aren’t creating in a vacuum, just trying to make the greatest output.
They’re more like a set decorator. For the uninitiated, this is the person on a movie set in charge of sourcing and/or creating the practical elements that make up a set (If I’m slightly off on that definition, I apologize, but/and I expect to be corrected by at least 5 of you).
A set decorator chooses a lamp for a scene not because it emits the most light—not because it is best at being a lamp—but because it works best in the context of everything else they’ve got goin’ on. This might mean it physically looks best in the frame or because it feels quirky in a way that fits with the character whose home it’s supposed to be, or a thousand other reasons that have nothing to do with how good the lamp is at what it does, and everything to do with a hole that the P.T.B. is trying to fill, a problem that has a specific answer which is out of all our control.
And to be clear, set decorators are great!
Look what Brigitte Broch did for Bas Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet:
Beautiful! Evocative! And I’m sure hundreds of votives and figurines and four post beds were sifted through to create this set. And the ones that got picked were not the ones that were best individually, but the ones that came together to create the best whole (very tempted to make a joke about “best whole,” but it ain’t happenin’).
So anyway, just remember that if you’re scratching your head about why your Failure Vortex is super strong right now, think of yourself as a lamp who is shining as bright as they can and know that that’s all that we can do and all that matters.
(I mean at some point, you’ll realize that to really showcase your lamp-ness, you might have to be your own set decorator and write a whole web series or start a podcast that really showcase just how great at being a lamp you are. This will be a bad instinct, but worth learning from).
Recommendations
Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Television Show. Just watched the pilot of this Amazon series from Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane (and Hiro Murai) and it’s a sleek, awkward-ish people in sexy-ish settings, very loose remake of the movie. It’s fun. In some ways, it is a scripted Love is Blind. My friend Damon said it’s the best show he’s seen in a long time.
KATE. Show. Kate Berlant is still in LA with this solo show in Pasadena. She at some point references how embarrassing it is to ask people to come to your one-woman show in Pasadena. It made me fear that if the serious artists are all doing art making fun of serious artists, will we eventually run out of serious artists to make fun of? My friend Lauren said, “I’m pretty sure artists are always going to take themselves too seriously,” and I don’t think she was giving me shit for my extremely self-serious question, but it’s possible.
He’s a Rebel. The Crystals. Rediscovered this song this week. Incredible, thumping chorus. Wild sax solo. Love it. I don’t know what any of my friends think of this song.
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend: John Mayer. Podcast Episode. I always listen to Conan, but I thought there was some fascinating perspective on self hate and rejection and general imposter complex in this interview because it came from noted hunky guy and guitar virtuoso, John Mayer.
Alright, much love!
Julian
"This is bad for the obvious reasons, but good because I think what they say about rejection building character or whatever is mostly true, and at 35, I no longer see a dusty pile of rejections so much as a Megazord of rejections! They are assembled into a giant sword-wielding robot that I pilot to slash through life’s future hurdles": so good!
All of these points and metaphors and sentences: so good!
(The first two episodes of Mr. and Mrs. Smith: not so good! (But I'm willing to let episode three convince me otherwise!))