Giving a Truth Tour

I have no idea what it really takes to be a comedian. One of my short term goals is to build up the courage to write "Comedian" on my Facebook page, a change so massive that it must be put off for as long as possible.

But I'm not even trying to tackle the logistic side of making money or getting jobs off of comedy. It would be entirely derivative of what I've heard actual comedians talk about. The only thing I have is my own experience and my recent feelings. And this blog. And a Nintendo Switch.

I'm so attracted to comedy because I love being able to live inside of truth. Not only that, but I get to to control exactly how much a person knows about me, with almost no limitations or bounds besides the prerequisite of being funny. 

I'm thinking now of a persons truth being a house. When a show is put on, the audience comes by and wants to see what's going on with the property. You get to choose how that tour is going to go. Some comedians like to bring people into their house and show them all the crazy shit going on, like a sink that's been broken since childhood or a living room they can't stop peeing in. Some comedians go the other way and just show all the cool bugs hanging on the yard. Some might even build hedges so you can't even peek through the window.

It doesn't matter what you do, you just need people to leave saying "Hey, that was a really cool house."

I don't really struggle with this concept, I'm more just at a stalemate. I have done shows where I got to speak publicly on my problems and what's hurting me, and when I got off stage I felt like I really found what I needed to do. I let strangers in through the front door and they hugged me on the way out. It really was a beautiful time, even though the act was fairly bad by most people's standards.


 There's no other way for me to pursue this than finding my truth and speaking to it as much as possible. Way easier said than done. It's also easier said than understood! What does finding your truth even mean? You can show people your home, but how solid is the bedrock? How do the pipes and outlets work? Why do you have a huge forest in your backyard, and why are you just ignoring all the coyotes? It may be fun to let people in for a tour, but when they leave you still gotta stay. Is it really that great having a funny leak in the bathroom? Or is it worth the time to fix it? Is my goal to entertain or to build myself a healthy fuckin environment? Are you still following this metaphor?


Openness is an incredibly scary thing, no doubt. But it's the biggest reason I want to be a stand-up. It's also the biggest reason I write this blog, as a way to express and connect. I'm letting people into an intimate space, rooms they can judge and decorations they can hate. But if, at the end of the truth tour, somebody is smiling? That's the whole reason I do it.

My Best Tournament Performance

I'll start off by saying I know how this comes off. Obnoxious, a little arrogant. Probably unnecessary, definitely not humble. I think I would get annoyed if I saw somebody else do exactly what I'm doing. And if you feel differently about me because I'm doing a write up after one tournament, that's totally okay.

But here's the thing, I need to write this. I'm in a very unique situation after a rare alignment of the stars, and if I wait too long I won't be able to really capture how I'm feeling. I guess the best thing I can do is not post it. But I really like when people read my shit. Whatever, enough of this intro.

Last night I had the best tournament of my life, no doubt about it. I beat three players ranked top 20 in Tristate. Three amazing players with their own story to tell and great success within the community. Three players I have incredible respect for.

Here's the thing about melee that non players probably won't understand. This is a great achievement, yes, but these guys are still better than me. If you watch my matches with Kaeon and Smuckers they miss stuff that they normally don't miss. The match against 2saint was better but even he missed like every SDI on my upairs. I'm not calling these players out by any means, ask them and they would agree they played poorly, I just need to share that I had luck on my side.

I need to give myself a little credit for sure. I had some good combos and kept composed. But yesterday was the perfect storm. I won't go into specifics, but I do know that all of those players were newcomers to that venue,among other factors, while I had been there four times prior. *  That definitely plays a factor in how comfortable you are playing the game, especially when the commentators are feet away and within earshot. It takes adaptation. Yesterday wasn't a fluke, but it was definitely lucky. Very lucky.

I wanna take a step back from explaining myself and the situation. How do I feel right now? What does that change? The most obvious is a real sense of joy, I won't deny myself that. I had to eat an entire Taco Bell box at one in the morning to bring myself down a few pegs. I screamed with nonsensical bliss on the ride home and almost broke down crying. I know melee meant a lot to me, I just didn't know that results were that important. However sad it might be, it's true.

I began thinking about the possibility of achieving top 20 in Tristate and how exciting that would be. I tickled with the idea of striving for top 100 in 2018. All of these things are possible for somebody who started the same time I did (Look at Zain!) and now I actually believe that I can do it. I don't know if I really want to go for it, though.

Before yesterday I believed that I was as good at the game as I wanted to be. I told people that, perhaps as a way to protect myself from new losses or bad tournaments. I still feel the same way, but I'll edit the sentiment. I'm going to be as good as I'm going to be, working less than I did. I just can't keep up the same grind that I have for the past few years. I want to just have fun at tournaments.

But that conflicts with the ranking idea!

Ah, shit. Contradictions!

This changes way more than I thought it did coming into this post. I need to sit on it a little bit more. A big part of me wants to brag to coworkers, family, etc. to prove that I haven't been wasting my time. I'll try to refrain. After all, writing about it is way more pretentious anyway.



**Thanks for taking the time to read this. I know there are people who like my posts, but I don't know who you are! If you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to email me @ Jessegardner7@gmail.com**




*Maybe Smuckers has been there. 

I'm 22 and I Think I Know Everything

The sad part is, I'm almost never right.

It's a baseline attitude. An instinct. I've been taught humility my whole life, but something inside me wants to burst out and tell everyone how great I am. I really do try to keep it down, bury it inside and never let that part of me see the light of day. I feel like a catholic gay man.

I think it's a reaction to my teenage years. Everything between 5th grade and college was a never ending cycle of self doubt and humiliation. Every step of the way was another adult (parent, teacher or coach, the big three) to tell me what I was really trying to say. Correction followed correction for eight years straight. 

Then suddenly BLAM: College. And BOOM: Everyone is drunk or high all the time. People liked what I had to say, some were so fucked up that they could get therapy from a toaster. Professors respected questions and gave open-ended answers. I was getting advice from older students rather than the big three. A couple years of that, then I was a senior, and people came to me for advice. For the first time ever I had some sort of authority and knowledge that could be shared, I guess. In retrospect, It's just that everyone was goosed.

So can you really blame someone my age to act high and mighty, at least for a year or two? The college senior was a revered title since I was in elementary school, it was the peak of existence, the pinnacle of truth. There was a real feeling culminating of superiority. I had glimpses of feeling like I was the best in the world. How do you let go of that right away? The gay catholic spends a summer learning love from an older Jewish boy, then returns to the lie at home. (My mom is definitely gonna bring this gay thing up tonight)

Graduation. Pooped out into the real world. Student debt doesn't kick in for six months, lets go on a road trip. Great. You're back. Get a job, dumbass. Got a job. Cool. Why don't they respect me? Don't they know who I am?

No, you shithead, nobody knows who you are. But that's not what I was before! Didn't they see my Terps hosting gig? That was pretty good! Or my plays, I had a lead role or two! Nah bro. That was like training mode. None of that stuff really counts.

None of my current work is really going to withstand the course of time. I know that. When was the last time somebody got on a talkshow and went "Yea, this movie is great, but you should really check out my earlier work. When I was 22 I really had a great thing going. Man, if only I could be that brilliant again."

So if I could give a message to my age group, just chill the fuck out. Everything in your soul wants to come out and show the world your magical light, but you aren't ready for anyone to care. Just shut up, keep your head down, and keep working.

At least that's what \I keep hearing on podcasts. I don't really know.

Ramblings of a Maniacal Millennial

It's been a while since I felt the need to share what's going on with me. Not that there isn't anything to share, every week has had at least one highlight, but it's more that I just didn't feel the urge to. I've been writing consistently in my journals, I've been going to smash tournaments, I got approved for a credit card and opened up a savings account. I've had some thoughts, I guess, but nothing worth really blogging about. I don't even know what I feel like saying now!

My classes at UCB have been going really well. It's awesome to be among people that are taking 101 with me and are also better than me at sketch or improv. I know I'm improving at both, too, as well as gaining tools I can use for blah blah blah. I sound like a fuckin' mouth piece for the most successful comedy school in NYC. They don't need the publicity. Just know it's pretty damn cool.

I've found myself going to about one melee tournament a week, and they've been fairly successful. I honestly just love it so much as a hobby, and I've spent so much time on it over the years that I think I can plateau a bit without feeling like a failure. I don't know if I lost the competitive drive, really, just that I stopped having the necessity to practice like I did in the past.  If there's a big event though, I'll try to start making moves to get in some games.

And that's really all I have to report. Work is going fine too, I guess I can slip that in there. It's interesting to think about all the things I want to say but I'll ultimately regret. Plans and aspirations and projects and the future. I want to talk about the path I'm on and place good judgement on it. But that's the future and it's impossible to predict. But everybody always talks about it as if it can be conjured into reality. I think for some people that works, like you envision what you want to become and through that positive thinking you take the right steps to achieve it. But more often than not a person will miss the mark, or change their mind on what they wanted to do from their twenties, or have opportunities that come up that change their life forever, or they have a kid. And I know I'm just a 22 year old making these broad assumptions on human behavior, but that's what I've been surrounded by since I was a kid. Things change.

So even though I might not be the best person to figure out our obsession with the future, I think people my age are the most important people to ask the question. What's the best way to envision our future? How do we maintain forward thinking while still being flexible to the ephemeral chaos of the world?

I suggest we take apart the value of "Past, present, and future" as a blueprint for decisions. We should replace the future with "Ideal." Perfection. Ultimate truth. Socrates says that the concept of truth is elusive and impossible, yet we must always move towards it. I think that is much more valuable than envisioning a specific job or house. What is the truth that you need to move towards?

It's a strange thought, and honestly I don't even know what it means. To stop looking towards the future is to forego simple things like laundry or painting your room. Our entire society's existence is contingent on the idea of preservation and self-awareness of death. I think what I'm getting at is when people have goals they often craft up a perfect version of themselves at the end of the tunnel, five or ten years down the line living in a sweet house with a fulfilled life and all that shit.

 All I'm saying is that there's no such thing as the "Perfect self." That's an oxymoron by definition, the self is implicitly imperfect. But that doesn't mean you should strive for imperfection. Just understand the ultimate goal, the surreal understanding of what you want to be. There is no such thing as a "Perfect Comedian" at all, but Socrates would say it still exists. And you know what I always say about Socrates.

That motherfucker smart as shit!