Why are we here?

I woke up to some really sad news today. I was on the phone with one of my friends from Boston and he was telling me that another one of our friends was in the hospital, in very bad shape. As he was talking he was going in out of denial and so was I. He was even able to articulate that he was in denial.

I am still processing the conversation. I have no idea sometimes how to have my feelings, but the one thing I do know is that I want to have them. It has been my experience that if I go into denial those feeling manifest in some other way. Denial is healthy to some extent because it protects the body from taking in too much information too quickly.

When something tragic happens, I always think, why are we here? Life can be so random and oftentimes unfair, so how the hell do we get up everyday and keep going?

And then I always find my hope. I always say to myself, because that's why we are here: to grow spiritually, to be alive.

We are completely powerless over the circumstances outside of ourselves but we do have some control over how we react to them and how we process things. I do believe we can mourn anything, but we have to mourn it. We have to go right at it, feel it and then let it go. We then and only then can find peace with such an out-of-control world.

Because I ask you this: if you consider all the bad things that have happened to you in your life, why do you still get up everyday? Why do you still look for love? Why do you still care?

Because that's why we are here: not to make sense out of it all but to combat our denial. We are only here for as long as we are. We are here to be alive, until one day we are randomly not. We keep going and continue to hope that things get better because they always do…until we are dead, and who knows if that's better or worse?

I'm a person, who happens to be a woman,who happens to do comedy, who happens to HI- larious

Okay here goes: I've been doing stand up for almost 20 years now and I've never, ever wanted to talk or write about this thing, this unspoken thing, called sexism and this code of silence that comes along with it.

But I realize now that by not saying anything I am aiding and abetting it.

Whenever someone asks me which comics I admire, it's always the black guys: Chris Rock, Richard Prior, Eddie Murphy, etc.

If I had to guess, it's because they can freely stand on stage and talk about their oppression.

If a woman does that, the whole audience, including the women, squeeze their butt cheeks together. No one really wants to hear it.

When I did Last Comic Standing they interviewed my friend’s 4-year old who called me "Costello". They asked, "Do you think Costello is funny?" She said "No." Everyone laughed, they shut off the cameras, and away they went.

A few minutes later we found that little girl crying and when her mum asked her what was wrong, she said "I said Costello was not funny because I wanted to say she was pretty, because you can't be both.”

I had a club owner in NYC say to me recently, "Sue, you kill more often than any other comic I have at the club, but I hesitate to tell you that because you will use it against me, to get more spots."

Again, I caved. But as I sit here now I think wouldn't you want me to do more spots? Isn't that the best business decision?

I have always known I was funny, not only by my own measure, but by the consistency with which I kill.

I am one of the very few female comics to have had a sitcom based on her life.

When I came home to NYC after my TV show Costello got canceled, I went to a Women in Comedy panel. I raised my hand and spoke about how I thought we needed to admit to the sexism that we faced in the business in order to figure out a healthy way to combat it. I was met with screams from all the women.

I was young and just had my ass kicked in Hollywood, so I left, but looking back, I should have stayed. I should have been someone they were listening to.

Hadn't I just come back from the front lines?

Then I think, you know why they weren't listening to me? Because I wasn't completely committed to what I was saying. The first sign of resistance, I ran.

I ran right into that unspoken dynamic where women take each other down. And I get it, women get fewer spots and if there is only one spot, it's really hard for women to help others get it.

I have never done the Montreal Comedy Festival, properly.

It's not for lack of trying. Since they wouldn't book me as a stand up on any of the main shows, I had them come see my one-woman play Minus 32 Million Words thinking maybe I could get in that way. A show BTW that Patricia Clarkson, Colin Quinn, Molly Shannon, and Kevin Nealon have all raved about.

They said they weren't interested. I even emailed the woman and said, "I hope this has nothing to do with anything I've ever done because I vaguely remember my agent telling me that they you wanted me to do Montreal when my show was in pre-production and my agent told me not to.” Again, I took responsibility. I said, “I should have made my own decisions but I wasn't paying enough attention to my career because I wasn't myself back then, because my brother was lying in a hospital in Boston paralyzed and almost dead.”

To which I got the response, "Of course there are no bad feelings and I'm sorry to hear about your brother, I had no idea."

My brother breaking his neck is a one of the biggest parts in my show and this was the person who told me they didn't like it.

Again I thought, maybe she was having a bad night. Let me email her boss and ask for them to see it again.

I invited them to see it when I performed it (to a standing ovation) the night after the Academy Awards, where the movie The Fighter that I was in had just won a bunch of Oscars.

They never showed.

I followed up again to no avail.

I have never done a Comedy Central Half Hour. I've been told they don't know what to do with my energy.

I've never done a lot of shows.

None of this is for lack of trying. I have persistently and gracefully tried.

I had a manger who wanted to work with me a few years back and called around to see what my reputation was and he said, 'You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Hollywood who doesn't like Sue Costello."

So I sit here and think "what's the problem?" I never wanted to write about being a woman, a problem due to my own sexism. It's hard to tolerate that just because I'm a woman, I don't get certain opportunities.

But I figure instead of trying to tell others to admit to it, I should take some responsibility and admit to my own sexism and how I have been feeding into this unspoken agreement.

Another thing I'm sure that can be said about me is that I'm honest and that I have integrity but I kinda have been only doing that half way. If I'm really honest, I will have the balls, if you will, to just say it.

Maybe my problem is that I've been too much of a good girl. If I'm just a girl maybe eventually they will see me, but truthfully I’ve been hiding in public, playing the victim expecting them to do it for me. Feeding into the stereotype that I've been trying to avoid of the helpless victim who is secretly jealous of the boys.

You see I have a strong resistance to the comedy business and the way they can turn women into men in order for everyone to feel comfortable. I have always wanted to maintain my femininity and sexuality, but somewhere along the way I think I've used it as an excuse to cover my own sexism. I have been an accomplice.

I could argue that women aren't as funny because they don't get as much stage time. I could argue that it's harder to be funny because when I was done with my set one night, the club owner asked me to take off my shirt and he would then give me my check. I could argue that there are both women and men in positions of power who hate women. I could argue that the audiences judge women more, but I really can't, because all of that has happened to me and I'm still HI-larious.

So my only argument is I am part in this because I think I tricked myself into thinking that I was powerful enough to go around the industry, but that's another coping mechanism. I pretend to be more powerful than I am because I’m afraid to accept the powerlessness of being a woman. I can't go around an industry I need. Well, let me re phrase that — an industry that I want, I want real bad.

It's their industry and they can still say "no" to me, it's their prerogative.

But I'm still gonna stand up and ask for it, without taking someone else down. I guess it's taken me twenty years to become the woman I want to be and twenty years for me to see that I've been afraid that if I said something, they wouldn't let me do these shows. Well, really it's been twenty years so I figure I'll take a risk and admit my desire, my desire to be seen.

I am a person, who happens to be a woman who happens to be HI-larious, who happens to want to be very successful.

I'm workin on it

Oh boy I've been writing a blog about being a woman in comedy for over a week now. I wanted to take my time because I want to make sure it says exactly what I want.

In the meantime I've been working by tooshie off. I have my book out to a few peeps. I am gearing up to do Minus 32 Million Words in Nantucket on Aug 30th. I'm headlining at Gotham Comedy Club Tomorrow night and much much more.

I was thinking this morning as I was listening to the song "Can't Get Next To You" about that line and the line "I build a castle from a single grain of sand" and how much my castle grew when I stopped trying to get so close to others.

I have no agent, no manager, no nuthin. I do all my work myself.

A few years back I decided to cut out the middle man. I was sick of wasting time trying to get someone to see my vision and do the work that I was totally capable of doing, but scared to do.

I met someone recently who worked for a BIG agency. They told me that they were totally addicted to drugs. They spent their entire day trying not get caught. I sat there and thought (a) I'm glad this person is not hurting themselves anymore and (b) I had a vision of me sitting on my couch thinking, Why haven't they called me? They hate me.

Time to put the big girl pants on.

Emapathy

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. Empathy is the key cornerstone in genuine human relationships. Empathy is conscious. It means one with empathy feels compassion, while those without do not take into account other people's emotions.

Psychopathology reveals that people with an absence of empathy can be defined as a sociopath or psychopath. A person who has empathy understands others.

Oh boy, have I got a lot to write about on this subject. First of all, I think we are in a state of emergency with the kids of today because of technology. I'm terrified that they are not able to develop empathy, because all of their exchanges are through some sort of machine and they happen really, really fast.

I hope that someone somewhere begins to realize that a person's ability to empathize is the key to happiness, and that relationships take form in the action of delayed gratification.

 Sometimes u need to be uncomfortable in order for feelings to grow. Trust is built and love needs to grow. I can pretty much state this as fact because if it wasn't the truth, selfish people would be happy.

I have been saying this since I was a kid. I consider myself a very, very lucky human being because for whatever reason, I was born with an abundance of empathy. Sometimes it's gotten me in trouble, but given the choice, I would rather be someone who has too much rather than too little.

I have oftentimes hated this aspect of myself because I didn't do anything to deserve it, so most of my life I've been ashamed of it.

There have been many situations where I would just say something empathetic and another person would take it as a personal offense. They would puff up and say, “Sue, we're not all like you!" and I would shrivel in shame.

I thought that this part of me was disgusting. I thought that there was something wrong with me, that I was too much.

Well, now I realize that I'm not too much and now that I'm an adult I have the strength to maintain my empathy even when comes to people trying to scare me out of it.

I empathize with the fact that they are in pain, because only hurt people, hurt people. In the same breath, I don't take any shit — especially shit that comes from someone's lower self.

That shit is just gonna cover the light in me to make the dark in them feel better and that's not why we are here.

We are not here to live in our own shit, isolated and alone.

If you hold your shit in too long you get cancer. Cancer spreads like wild fire.

The reason I believe that I am here on earth is to clean out my own shit, find my light and flash it on others when they try to dump theirs.

I think it's everybody's purpose in life, just like with the kids. We need to show them to delay their gratification, to be able to learn how to pacify themselves so when they are older people want to be around them. Think about it: you potty train a kid to hold it in and let it out when they reach the toilet. Delayed gratification actually turns into self-preservation which turns into people wanting to be around you. Get it?

Show me one person who is buried by their own shit that is happy. You can't. Fact.

Show me someone who is willing to dig out of their own shit to show others that it's possible.

Show me a person who, once they do it, helps others in a way that doesn't enable them, but holds them accountable to the light.

Then and only then, will you show me a happy person. Because the sum of all things is one. Intimacy into me I see :) then I can see you :)

The only cure for a broken heart is more love

I went to yoga this early morning. As I was practicing, I had a bout of sense memory. I remembered when I started practicing yoga every day. It was right after my boyfriend of 8 years moved out on me while I was away for the weekend. I didn't sleep for 5 days, but everyday I would go to yoga at 10 a.m. and move my body and cry. The teacher was really gentle and I was drawn to him. He never made a fuss, but I'm sure he saw me crying. He just let me be, except for the occasional gentle touch of his hand.

I also remember getting a massage once a week. The same thing would happen. I would lie face down on the table and cry. The woman massaging me never said a word as I came back week after week and cried until I was all cried out.

I remember thinking, She is literally pushing the pain out of my body.

This break up was so intense because it was a bigger pain than just the break up. I had made a conscious decision to change my nervous system. I decided with that one incident, that I wasn't going to let it break my heart; I was going to let it break my heart open.

I decided that I was going to have the courage to find love. I knew if I didn't, the same thing would keep happening: the drama of the break up, the pretending to be a victim instead of a volunteer.

I remember being somewhere and crying so hard that I couldn't even conceal it. The tears were gushing out of me. A stranger grabbed my hand and held it and I held hers.

I remember looking down at our hands and thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm changing, I would never have allowed this kindness in before.

As I practiced today, I thought about all the people that loved me through that pain. The people that talked on the phone with me for hours and all the rest.

I don't remember the pain of the break up, nor do I remember the pain of my rebirth. They say you can't, otherwise you would never do it again.

What I do remember is the love that I received. They say that only love is truth, and the rest is false. If you stick with finding your heart, which is the truth which is you, all the rest will slip away.

Why? Because it’s not real.

Being private in public....

I was at the beach yesterday. I walked down to the edge of the water to put my feet in and when I got there, there were two little kids gloriously playing in the water.

They were just having so much fun, pushing their faces in the waves and rolling in the sand. The little girl saw me, got up and came to me like she was going to hug me. She held my hand instead. She felt the love and appreciation coming from me.

I thought in that moment how much power that gave me over this little person. You see, she hasn't had the heartaches that comes along with being alive for a longer period of time.

She hasn't pushed that little spirit down yet. She feels it, the love, the life and she goes after it. She doesn't have much scar tissue over her heart yet. It's open, maybe too open. Maybe she just needs a little healthy skepticism, and maybe, instead of scar tissue, that's what we all need.

I thought I needed to protect myself at all costs with a rigidity that was unbearable. I was wrong. What I needed was love and communication. And most importantly , what I needed was for someone to see me.

This little girl saw me. She asked me why I was wearing a hat. She was African American and I'm a really white girl. Then, she touched my belly button piercing and told me that her aunt had the same thing.

She was figuring out how we were the same and how we were different. She was so open to the curiosity of the intimacy that comes along with seeing another person. She saw me, which, in turn, made her see herself.

After a few minutes, her Mom came to the edge of the water. I thought, Good, she cares about her little munchkin. She wanted to see who was talking to her daughter, as she should have.

But then, I realized her Mom was afraid of the water. The little girl asked me to go out a lil further with her because her Mom wouldn't. We did.

When we got out a little further she told me that she had sand in her bathing suit and kept pulling at her private parts.

I could see that she did not want to be doing it, but she didn't know what to do about the sand.
See, she had a healthy respect for her own privacy — she just didn't have a solution.

I thought, Gosh, don't tell her not to touch herself (by all means don't shame her, encourage her). Tell her to dunk under the water, pull her bathing suit to the side, let the sand out and then stand up.

She did it and her face lit up — she was free. Free with boundaries and privacy and respect.

You see kids have all that inside. They know the truth they just need a little guidance. The damage comes when the adults push their fears on the kids.

The adults have the fear because no one before them knew how to give them a healthy, free, protective choice.

I hope maybe the few minutes I spent with that little girl will help her not be afraid of the water. I hope she will know how to be private in public for the rest of her life.

Stop look and listen

I have had so many magnets and received a thousand cards that bore proclamations about living life, but I never knew how to put those words into action.

It takes so much energy to stop, to slow down, to manage the feelings that come along with blind faith.

You can't just decide to be different, you have to do something to be different.

The process is usually really uncomfortable. You have to do something that you've never done before and believe that it will be better. Usually you don't even have proof that it will be better, you just know that what you've been doing has not worked thus far.

For a long time, change happened only when the pain of not changing became greater than the pain that my fear of changing caused.

I would have to change the action and sit with the feelings that came along with the "not doing."

I once heard a girl ask, "What would I have to feel if I stopped all of this compulsive behavior?"

For me it's peace. Not at first; at first I feel the compulsions. The compulsions to fix, to run, to judge, to move but as I sit still, I change the action. When I sit still I might not be doing anything to make the situation better, but I'm definitely not making it any worse. And sometimes that's the most spiritual, humane thing to do.

The spirituality is the action and the action is the pause.