just a lil guy in The Comedic Personal Essay Universe
holy crap i have so many notebooks ALSO pls read this excerpt from Thursday's essay
When I write in my little notebooks, I write for me. Unlike everything I post online, no one will see these. A private space to simply be. They are for me.
Well, me and, of course, the biographer who will eventually stumble upon them, these tomes of genius and heft, wisdom and humility, ancient and timeless.
One day she and a team of scholars from around the world will finally come upon The Dobrenko Papers, a treasure trove of wit, insight, and unvarnished truth the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the time of ancient Greece or Rome or whatever.
At least, that’s what happens when I’m writing in them. I’ll open a notebook, which is a bundle of papers bound together by glue or some shit, start writing, and, without fail, think to myself, “I wonder if anyone will ever come across this? What will they say about me after opening a random page from my 2011 Sketch ideas notebook and reading, ‘world where pregnancy is a flip of a coin?’”
Well, yesterday my dream became a reality. Jillian Hess is a literal scholar, an English professor at CUNY, who writes Noted, a newsletter that dives into the notes of history’s greats - Leo da Vinci, Virginia Woolf, Marylin Monroe, and, as of yesterday, yours truly.
The piece, which is about me and Michael Estrin, two sensitive trailblazers of the Comedic Personal Essay Universe, and it is very good. Jillian described the piece as, “a master-class in comedic, personal writing,” which is nuts. I’ve already reached out to those bastards at Master Class for my paycheck.
Michael writes Situation Normal, which is incredible. So much so I actually interviewed him a few months back - check that out here.
Jillian’s only request was to send a couple photos from a few notebooks. I sent 200.
Partially because I didn’t want to curate them too much, but also because I am insane. Jillian then kindly explained she couldn’t include them all because that would be stupid as hell, BUT she did kindly share a few ‘cut for time’ chunks from her piece, so I figured I’d share those with you below along with some photos and realizations I had throughout the process.
That’s all below the fold, but first, something very very special. I’ve been gearing up to start writing about some shit that’s hard for me to write about. The unknown unknowns, if you will. The first piece is going to come out on Thursday, and I wanted to share a lil snippet with y’all today.
It’s v v sensitive stuff for me, and thus will live behind the high security paywall. I hope that, if you have the means, you’ll come and check it out. And if you don’t have the means but want to see it, let me know and I will comp you (I’ve already comped many people it’s fun I enjoy doing it). Ok I’m stalling. Let’s do this.
A beautiful disaster
“you can’t get addicted to weed.” wanna bet?
I’m awake by 5:30am. No alarm clock, just me and the sun, both ready to rise.
Lots to do. Let’s go.
Groggy and confused, I’m peeing, quiet, resisting the urge to clear my phlegm as fuck throat. God, that word - phlegm. It sounds exactly like what it means. Respect. But how do you spell it? p, definitely, then what? g? pghlem? pleghm? plhgem? Phlegm is the greatest word in the english language. The 8th wonder of the world, I think to myself, making a note to write that down asap.
Now I’m grabbing some clothes - a t-shirt and shorts, who cares - I open the left side of the french doors like I’m committing an art heist. Any sound or movement will trigger the alarms. Lauren, she is the alarms, and I’m down the two steps that raise our Echo Park bedroom from the rest of the house.
Even quieter now, I close the door with the exact angle, force and lift to minimize the click of the latch. And Lauren is still asleep. Freedom.
Did I actually move through the room with the grace of a garbage truck? Probably. Was Lauren awake? Definitely. It was hard not to be.
That gnawing excitement starts to bubble in my stomach as I close the front door and, beep-beep, get in the Prius that’s parked perpendicular to our steep as shit street. Scott Ave. It isn’t as bad as Baxter, the legendary Echo Park attraction, with its 32 degree incline. When you drive up it, ascending, there’s a moment right before the top, when it feels like you’re about to drop off the edge of a cliff. They say that’s where you meet God. Right there, on Baxter.
God isn’t here though, on Scott Ave, not yet at least. Baxter is the 4th steepest street in the country, I learn on Google while driving while listening to a podcast while placing my Starbucks mobile order while driving. That’s wild. What if gravity didn’t work sometimes on Baxter? Or in general. Picky gravity, lol. Remember that and… wait, what was the other thing? PHLEM!
Selective gravity + phlegm, selective gravity + phlegm, selective gravity + phlegm, the 8th wonder of the world. Baxter could be the 8th wonder of the world too though. Ok Baxter is 9th. Remember all this, remember all this, remember.
Halfway there, I finish up my Starbucks order: a venti BIG BOY americano WITH AN EXTRA SHOT and JUST A SPLASH of soy milk, plus of course everyone’s favorite - the 230 calorie REDUCED FAT turkey-bacon egg white and cheddar sandwich. Sure, it tastes like sponge but man, at least I'm taking care of my physique.
I’m parked, the first car in the Starbucks lot. The winner. My prize awaits, here in this Starbucks Reserve, which is like Starbucks for rich people who, apparently, love long tables, single origin coffee, and giant ropes all over the walls to help them feel like they’re on a yacht.
Driving home, I am a 16 year old on his way to the mall. The possibility. The anticipation. The craving for what comes next. Anything can happen, I think as I sip that giant ass espresso and pull that cheesy steaming hot yet somehow also cold sandwich out of its paper bag home. I take a bite.
But let’s be clear, I’m not much aware of any of this. Not the hot/cold sponge sandwich or the rising anticipation in my chest or my heart rate increasing from the espresso. I’ve got a podcast on - Tim Ferriss Explains It All - and also phlegm + gravity phlegm + gravity phlegm + gravity.
I park the Prius and waltz back into the house, blaze into the office and plop myself down into the chair. Finally, it’s time.
I unscrew the dab pen and get everything ready. It’s 5:49am and I’m about to get stoned as shit.
This excerpt is from an essay getting published this Thursday i.e. in two days! It has very sensitive big vulnerable makes-me-sweat-just-thinking-about-it details in it, so I’m keeping it behind a high security paywall. To read it, please consider a paid subscription.
For real: There is a simple way over the paywall. Just ask! Anyone who wants to read this, I will comp you a paid subscription, no questions asked. Reply to this and lmk.
But wait - there’s more! Or there will be. You may have heard in the MainStream Media I’m turning the paid offering into something Real and Special, which will mean chaotic Zoom hangouts, more content, and other exciting stuff I’m gonna tell you more about next week! Stay tuned, and in the meantime I’m crying/screaming/throwing up in anticipation of you reading my new essay lol it’ll be fine right? Right??
Noted: Cut for time
Below are some snippets from Jillian that she couldn’t fit in her piece. I've interspersed some of my own thoughts throughout as well. Those are all in bold and have an orange bar, like this:
Hi its me Alex here’s some thoughts I have! Ok here’s Jillian below to kick us off.
Alex has a a lot of notebooks! He sent me this photo as he was trying to figure out which notebooks to take pictures of for me.
Alex majored in the literary arts at Brown University. During his senior year (2009), Alex tells me that he “was just writing down everything!”
To read through Alex’s notebooks is to witness a creative mind processing ideas— a lot of ideas!
My friends have a joke / theory that there are two kinds of people - order muppets and chaos muppets. One notebook people are more like order muppets.
I am a bonafide, unhinged chaos muppet. As is my handwriting, which Anne Kadet pointed out in a comment in the original piece lol.
Also the way I’ve structured this post - interspersing my thoughts between Jillian’s writings. Chaos.
When Jillian asked us for photos of our notebooks, I trudged my way into the garage in search of The Green Tub. I’d made sure to keep them all (a selfless act, for all the biographers), but I figured there’d a handful, tops. Truly, if you’d asked me before hand how many notebooks I’d written in, I’d have said 20?
Reader, there were more than 20. There were at least a100 and perhaps even 150.
I say this not to brag - most of them had three or less pages that’d been used, ya know, for actual writing - but rather to illustrate how different my belief was from reality.
In my head, I was at the very beginning of my career, like I hadn’t even started yet. Any day now, things might start, but they definitely hadn’t yet. I didn’t know what I was doing, an idiot full of nothing more than the desire to be a writer and artist but without any of the chutzpah and chard (read as hard) work to get there.
But then, whaddya know. I opened The Green Tub and my god, look at all those notebooks. There were so many. All the way from 2008 and right up until the present.
In 2018, Alex’s web series, Distance, came out. Not only does Alex star in the series, he’s credited as the writer and creator. It is based on the beginning of his relationship with Lauren (who is now his wife). And it’s SO good: hilarious, heart-warming, relatable. And you can watch it all online. Check out the trailer:
In his 2015 morning pages, Alex writes about showing Distance to Lauren and another friend. He writes:
Lauren watched it and LOVED it, which I think is partially her job as gf [girlfriend] but mainly I think she really did enjoy it. And her friend Wendy who is the first person to see this that is outside the Distance camp said she loved the idea and really, really wants to watch the show.
I of course am completely discounting or giving little weight to their …opinions. Because that’s what I do…
While editing Distance, Alex used this notebook, which includes this cute photo reel of Alex and Lauren:
I’m struck by how much hope there is in these notes. How full of ideas I was And, most importantly, that I believed in each idea enough to write it down.
It seems like an easy thing to do, but it isn’t. At least not for me. You have to believe in the idea, knowing it may be a steaming pile of shit, sure, but also knowing it might be something amazing.
I wasn’t always that way. I feel like for a large part of my early 20s, I struggled to write everything down. I would come up with something a line of dialogue or a character or a movie idea, and I’d immediately shut it down ‘ah no that’s stupid.’ and I’d keep going.
It was habit so engrained it I never even noticed it happening.
But slowly I began to train myself to write everything down, if not for any other reason than to train my brain that every idea had merit. Was worthwhile. Had value.
This was big. Not because any of the ideas changed my life, but because they taught my brain that ideas were valid and worthy of keeping track of, and from there I started writing everything down.
I mean, look at this. I was quoting Leonardo DiCaprio. WITH ZERO IRONY!! That’s fucking beautiful.
I was full of hope. And I miss it. I feel like I’ve become a jaded version of the guy I used to be. Nothing will work, this guy thinks, so why try? It’s hopeless. The industry will crush you and even if they don’t the audiences will. You suck, just give up.
I don’t like that. It’s mean and just not helpful. Maybe these notes are a path back to that guy and into the future I am meant to inhabit.
Back to the future, indeed.
💬 Wanna talk about it?
Did you read Jillian’s piece? Isn’t it dope? She’s the best.
Do you read Michael’s Situation Normal? Isn’t it dope? He’s the best.
What’s your note taking style, if any?
What’s your ‘the one that got away’ idea?
Have you become jaded as you’ve gotten older? How do we keep that from happening?
What else is happening in your life? Speak your truth, turtle.
I love my lil notebooks, my archives, my SCRIBBLES
wowowowowow so excited for Thursday!! The hype!!! The anticipation!!! the FEELINGS