Hotline Blues (Full Version)

Based on real events

Usually I look at media, culture, politics and tech. But I’ve been working on a long piece for another publication so I am publishing the full version of a story I read at the Sweetychat Reading at the Locker Room on October 30. Perhaps I’ll publish more stories here or on another newsletter. We’ll see. Thanks for your patience, thanks to Sam Venis and Alexander Sorondo for patiently editing and thanks for having me Matthew J Donovan.

I had a bad experience with a suicide hotline. This was back in my fruitless stand-up comedy days. I had just finished a city gig, and on the drive home to Riverhead in Long Island, I tried to squeeze in a gym session twenty minutes away from where I lived with my parents, at age 42.

But as I sat in my silver Ford Focus (which, years later, a charismatic Black teen in a gas station in Cypress Hills called “a teacher’s car”) in the Planet Fitness parking lot, I was gripped by despair. I didn’t know if I could go on.

I couldn’t bear the humiliation of being a stand-up failure (I realized I was one a year later and quit, although I buried that pill under the ice cream of chasing Internet video creator dreams). Yes, that sounds like a weak reason to call a suicide hotline, but I’d been getting up for 13 years with barely 5 minutes to show for it. Failing at stand-up is tough because: A. you realize you’re not funny enough; B. nothing makes you laugh because you know how jokes work, you don’t even have the benefit of saying “I’m a professional. I see the wires,” most jokes don’t work for you, but you’re not creative enough to provide better alternatives.

I called the suicide hotline, explained to them that I was a failure and I wanted to end my life. He said “Do you have a plan to do anything?” Like he was rushing me off the phone…