Haiku: In this autumn heat…

In this autumn heat…
Wait a second–autumn heat?
Eccentric seasons.

Show on Weds August 11th at the Comedy Store!

Wednesday, 8pm at the Comedy Store on Sunset Blvd. This is an industry showcase/charity fundraiser featuring about 20 up and comers doing comedy monologues for a panel of celebrity judges! It will be a fabulous show, so get your tickets now! And join us at the Standard for the after party, where I’m sure we will be hilarious for completely different reasons.

Pink Chat Room! Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

Cahuenga Wisdom

EFH2T: The Defensive Finger

My latest post on EFH2T, about how we can sometimes turn into angry d-bags when we know we’ve done something wrong:

Everything From Here To There » Blog Archive » The Defensive Finger.

The Defensive Finger

Ah, Los Angeles. I was driving through the residential area of West Hollywood one recent sunny day when to my dismay, a man in a blue car ran his stop sign and drove into the intersection ahead of me. Given that he had a two-way stop sign and I had right of way, I felt fairly justified in giving him a “Hey, are you crazy?!” honk of my horn. Without any hesitation, his arm sprang up and displayed his middle finger, a shining beacon of “go f!#% yourself”.

I’m so happy to be driving a car again that I can’t be bothered to get upset by the millions of people who are like this in LA (besides, the worst driver here is about average in Europe). However, this man’s instantaneous reaction to my calling out his mistake made me think about how common it is for an offender to turn into an accuser, and how we sometimes get angry in response to someone else being upset with us, even—and especially—when we know they are right.

My top two examples of this Defensive Finger behavior are, ironically, in some of the highest and lowest tiers of global society: politics, and trashy talk shows. The only real difference between the way politicians behave during debates and the way seedy dramas unfold on daytime TV is the amount of physical bitchslapping involved. But if you break down the pattern of communication, they are about equal: one side accuses the other of some wrongdoing, and in response, the accused rarely addresses the accusation, but rather immediately returns with an even more impassioned accusation towards the accuser. And always while each accusation is being made, the other party is talking with his or her body: scoffing, smiling sarcastically, shaking the head, and making hand gestures that either literally or subtly add up to “go f!#% yourself”.

On a more local level, maybe you’ve had an experience where a friend has let you down in a big way, and instead of apologizing and admitting that they hurt you, they become distant or even turn the situation around on you to make you seem like the bad guy. Maybe you have been the bad guy yourself—I know I have, and that’s kind of the sad thing about this defensive behavior. Sometimes we hurt people, behave recklessly, break promises…. That is a simple fact of life, and something we all have in common. So why, then, do we have such a hard time admitting it?

I think the times when I’ve been like this have been over mistakes that I knew could have been easily prevented, and I guess that my anger over those mistakes came from my greater perfectionist complex and this feeling of “you’re not perfect, so how dare you”. Perhaps some other reasons people give the Defensive Finger are feelings of helplessness or entitlement from being hurt or disappointed in the past, and maybe sometimes people really don’t understand or even care about the effect they have on others. I’d like to think that isn’t the case most of the time, but I wonder if I had crashed into the man who ran the stop sign, would he have apologized or started shouting at me and thrown a tantrum?

It’s hard to believe that people will respect us, let alone love us, once they know how flawed we are, but I’ve really come to admire people who can own their mistakes. It takes a lot of self-confidence to admit to each other that not only are we flawed, but we can, and do hurt people sometimes. What’s funny is that owning the mistakes we make actually empowers us in the eyes of our accusers, whereas being angry and defensive when we are most definitely in the wrong just makes us look like crazy fools, and does not save any face for our sad little egos. Worst of all, we know when we’re wrong, and we will keep knowing even if we deny it. And at the end of the day, we’re the ones who have to live with ourselves. Our flawed, stop sign running selves.

There is a lot to be said for that little courtesy wave we give each other on the road.

Month in the life

So I’ve been back in LA for about a month now, and it’s just lovely. Beautiful winter weather, shopping on Sundays, speaking English without getting dirty looks…

I bask, I wash my car, I wear flip flops and frequent Target…

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I did a lot in a month… Moved 6,000 miles, got an apartment, job and car in one week, started doing stand up and the Groundlings program and going on auditions… Got something called “Hair Bling” over which everyone I meet goes bonkers…

My brain starts feeling a wee bit scrambled, and I go silly…

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But no excuses! says my inner monologue. Despite being fatigued, the usual psychological self-torture intensifies as more and more ideas cram my petite noggin, scraping their creative-juice coated nails across my inner eyeballs…

“Write eight stories at once!” they demand. “Come up with 27 hours of new stand up material! What are you doing?! Watching figure skating??! Quit f!#$&ng around!!”

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Alas, with my noodle tangled and my noodly body weary, and at the end of the day, all I can do is smile with just a hint of crazy.

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Ve Magni Performs at The Comedy Store Saturday Night!

Saturday, February 6th 8:00pm!

Come see some of LA’s best up and coming talent perform at the world famous Comedy Store on Sunset! The show is put together by the marvelous comedienne Cathy Lewis, and features a lot of amazing female (and male, less amazingly) comedic talent!

The show is upstairs in the Belly Room–Walk to the right side of the Comedy Store patio and enter through the back.

The Comedy Store: 8433 W Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90069  -  $10 Cover  21+

The Ve on the YouTube: youtube.com/vemagni

EFH2T: Life Labyrinthitis

My latest post on Billy Corgan’s blog about holistic livin’:

Everything From Here To There » Blog Archive » Life Labyrinthitis.

Talks about the causes and effects of vertigo, of both physical and psychological origin.

(Posted a week late, but written during that badass rainstorm last week.)

Life Labyrinthitis

I just moved back to Los Angeles from Berlin a few days ago, and I’m experiencing what I call life vertigo: that swimmy, disoriented feeling we feel in response to a change of conditions like a big move, changing or losing a job, death of a loved one, divorce, or other drastic changes. Over the course of my move, my perception of time has been bizarre, I’ve acquired countless bruises from repeatedly walking into stationary objects, some simple everyday tasks are comically outsmarting me, and I can’t seem to keep more than one thought going in my head at a time. In spite of all this, I’ve managed to get a lot done in a few days, and am soldiering forth to establish my life again.

However, as I drove on the freeway today in what was probably the most incredible rainstorm I’ve ever seen in LA, I occasionally felt overwhelming pangs of panic in my chest. My heart felt like it was about to explode, and parts of my brain were screaming at each other that something horrible was happening. The rain was epic, but this feeling of panic was not precipitated (no pun intended) by any events in particular, or by a lack of bad weather driving experience, and so I felt that I was having an irrational physiological response to a sudden change of conditions, the rain and flooded streets, layered upon another rather large sudden change of conditions, moving across the world; my mental conduit for properly interpreting the changes in my environment was inflamed.

All of this got me thinking about the physiological causes of vertigo, like labyrinthitis, or inflammation of the inner ear. The name stuck out as a fantastic metaphor: we navigate through the labyrinth of life, feeling as if we know where we’re going only to find sometimes that we don’t recognize where we are and can’t see how we got there, and so we feel disoriented and panicked because we can’t tell which is the right direction. What I find really interesting about labyrinthitis is that the prolonged vertigo associated with it can directly cause anxiety, panic attacks and even depression because of the brain’s chronic misinterpretation of sensory input, i.e. perceiving physical danger where there is none.

A common treatment for labyritnthitis-related anxiety and depression is the same as clinical anxiety and depression, which is to prescribe anti-depressives. I’m not proposing this as a commentary on depression medication, but it seems a bit strange to treat depression resulting from a physiological condition the same as emotional depression, and I think that’s telling of our symptom-obsessed culture (and the industries that encourage it).

The problem with only addressing symptoms is that we sometimes don’t look deeply enough past the symptoms, whether emotional or physical, to see what is causing them in order to find a real solution, and can end up covering deep wounds with band-aids. That might mean treating the symptoms of chronic vertigo while the cause worsens, or in my case, it might mean treating the panic I felt on the freeway without addressing the deeper anxiety from moving across the world, or even more deeply, why that move provokes so much anxiety in the first place.

Generally, it’s been shown that people who feel that their condition is out of their control are less likely to improve than those who try to have some positive control, and it’s as true for life vertigo as it is for medical vertigo. A patient who doesn’t believe that they can be helped is no better off than a panicked driver who lets go of the steering wheel or a weary job hunter who doesn’t submit a resume; if we want to get through it, we have to try. For me, that meant looking past the panic, taking deep breaths and calming myself down so that I could navigate through the rain safely, keeping in mind that my body was overreacting due to deeper causes. And for all of us, it means not letting the overwhelming feelings from the changes in our lives take control of our perceptions so that we can navigate forward through the labyrinth of life, even when we’re not entirely sure which direction forward is.

Gratitude, Comedy and Rice Chex

I am so happy to be back in LA, I can hardly stand it! Though I’ve only been here one week, I barely remember trudging through the snow and ice in Berlin, desperately trying to get to the grocery store before 8:00 because it’s Saturday and if I don’t shop now, I’ll starve until Monday…

Well, today’s Sunday. It’s a gorgeous day outside, and not only do I think I’ll go to the grocery store, but I think I’ll get a steak–because amazingly enough, finding a decent steak at the store–on a Sunday–that won’t cost half the month’s rent is not difficult! In fact, most things here aren’t!

Maybe it sounds a bit pathetic, but I just want to use my energy for creating, for accomplishing and relating, and not for doing simple everyday things like feeding myself.

On that note, I bought my allergy-havin’ ass a box of Rice Chex. It was $2, and delicious. I look forward to waking up to more Rice Chex tomorrow!

Ok, I’m very happy about the food situation, but there is more. Last night I spent several hours at the Comedy Store on Sunset watching a group of really fantastic comediennes tear up the stage (ok, yeah, a few good male comics as well. They were great, actually.). There were 3 rooms booked solid with comedians all night, and though the crowds liked it, they obviously didn’t give a second thought to how lucky we are to live in a city so rich with comedic talent. Comedy is so important to me, and I think to the world, that it’s a bit hilarious that these people don’t see how lucky they are! But they showed up, which of course is the most important part.

y’know what I miss about driving?

I know I’ve been Berlin bashing lately, and I’m sure a large part of it is a subconscious attempt to distance myself emotionally from my soon to be ex-city, but living here has clarified a few questions I had about myself living in Los Angeles.

For one, am I a car person?

This is the longest I’ve gone without a car since I was 17, and after sitting in traffic and dealing with crazy ass drivers following me home to start fights, I wondered if maybe public transit would be a better solution–after all, I spent many years hoofing it around many other large cities growing up. Maybe it would be a nice change?

Well, I’ve concluded that I am, indeed, a car person. And here are a few reasons why:

First, I don’t like being in crowds. I don’t like outdoor music festivals, amusement parks–generally any place that involves a lot of shoving, standing, and smelling of other peoples’ sweat. And since Berlin’s trains and buses are packed full of smelly, no-shower-taking-because-hot-water-is-a-luxury-item Germans, I’ve had my fill for a good long time.

Second, if I’m going to get lost, I’d at least like to have the opportunity to make a U-turn and get back on course. Today I got on a bus which had a list of stops including Treptower park, but that skipped over about 5 stops, including mine, in an area I don’t know. Why? I don’t ask these questions any more. Ask any good German why anything is the way it is here and they’ll tell you to just accept it and stop asking so many questions. So I had to wander through the typical Berlin wintry mix of slush, ice, and poor traffic control to find another stop. Wah. Also, Berlin hasn’t gotten the memo that Germans are obsessively punctual–most of the time, the buses are either early or late, and sometimes don’t bother showing up at all.

Third, yes there is traffic, it takes forever, and it sucks. But having to take 3 different trains/buses to go 3km while freezing your ass off sucks worse. There are certain things you can do to kill time in a car that you can’t do in public transit, namely sing and/or practice material. Yes, you can do this in public–typically accompanied by a hat and polite request for change–but given my lack of enthusiasm for crowded trains, you can imagine my lack of enthusiasm for the people on those trains staring at me (which they do anyway–wtf are you looking at, Germans? Jesus h.). One might argue that you can read books on trains and buses, but I get dizzy and hate carrying heavy things around all day while climbing the millions of stairs between S bahn stations.

Other miscellaneous reasons I miss driving include the fact that Berlin drivers will hit pedestrians just to prove a point, keeping a barrier between myself and any crazy, vomit-filled drunk wandering around (and here people can drink everywhere! Hooray for puke on trains and buses!), having a place to take mobile naps in the middle of the day should the need arise, not having to carry a small suitcase as a purse, eeetc.

I forget what specifically provoked me to write this, except for missing the ability to sing in my car. Oh, and because I forgot to bring an extra pair of pajama bottoms from Naomi’s apartment, which is now 45 minutes away grrr.

So in summary, I look forward to sitting in traffic in the sun beneath LA’s gloriously thinned ozone layer, especially right now because it’s so unbefreakinlievably cold in here. I am sorry that cars are hurting the environment, but I need one. I promise I will not buy a Hummer, Escalade, Expedition–in fact, I would like a more Euro-style compact after seeing so many cute lil buggers driving (badly) around town.