Justin Golak

The thought droppings of stand-up comedian Justin Golak that don't fit down the 140 character plumbing.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 026 - For Chuckles Sake

I called my third album “American Apathy” because I think all jokes are a form of apathy. All art, really. Me being a professional joke-teller is the most apathetic part about me. I remember once, I did a set that involved me cracking-wise on some social subjects. I was talking to a girl after the show, and at some point, I mentioned that I don’t always vote, and she was stunned. And furious. She questioned how I could talk about society and not actively and constantly participate in it. And I think that’s a major confusion a lot of people have about art and society. I MAY just happen to care about the thing I’m talking about on stage, but it’s not implicit. I’m talking about something on stage because it has comedic value. And that’s really it. I’m not trying to make a point, or change a mind, or do anything noble. I’m trying to be entertaining.

I feel like most political comedy shows on TV are just slightly funnier (and sometimes not even that) versions of Hannity or Rachel Maddow. Hannity and Maddow already present news in an entertaining way. What differentiates them from a straight up comedy show about society and politics? It used to be that the comedy show put funny above viewpoint. Hannity and Maddow are restricted to a point of view that they believe will make the country better. Comedy should just take the funniest stand. And that’s it.

People now take serious umbrage with the points of view–I’m not talking someone being offended, I’m talking people being seriously mad about only the position taken on an issue–of comedians on political comedy shows. I think those people are ridiculous. But, I do also put the blame on a lot of people in comedy who seem to take on that mantle to become slightly jokier journalists or commentators. That’s not what you are. And to take that on is equal parts insulting to the funny-makers and the news-tellers.

It’s not that I don’t care about the world around me or that I’m some sort of nihilist. But when I’m on stage, it’s about the funny. I think there’s a lot of people giving a big ol’ eye roll to the new style of social and political comedy. Just Google “clapter.”

If a comic is saying something with the express purpose to change someone’s mind to that opinion or to only gather people with those beliefs, what differentiates him from a preacher or a politician? I think the most a comedic performance can do, besides purely entertain, is to get people to think. And that is important.

When I do a bit that pokes holes in something like, let’s say, religion, I’m not trying to convince people to become atheists or to curate an audience of all non-believers. I hope you leave the show with those jokes in your mind and they actually stimulate your brain on a subject that may have laid dormant or just unknowingly unaddressed. Then that means you actually think on it. You look at my little, jokey points and address them within yourself. And I don’t really care if you say to yourself, “No, fuck that, there are things I know that will always make me believe in God,” or, “He’s right, there probably is no god,” I’m just happy that you actually have, or have reclaimed, your beliefs after firmly considering them. I think a major problem with society isn’t what people believe but that they don’t constantly question what they believe. So even if that belief doesn’t move, at least you’re pressuring it in its current position at all times.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 025 - No Pay For Play

If you've ever attended a “Raise The Minimum Wage” rally, fought for unionization, or schlepped to the student union in college for a free showing of “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price” and you don't think that the forced amateur status of student athletes is the biggest current labor crisis in America, then you have to admit you're a hypocritical nerd.

I don't see any other way around it or explanation for it.  There's no reason that the collective support of those with traditional liberal working ideals shouldn't be heaped upon the back of college athletes—except for the fact that those same liberals collectively see someone that pushed them into lockers in high school when they look at those athletes.

Not only should collective support be heaped, but their issues should be triaged.  If minimum wage raising is an issue that is now raised on federal campaign trails and covered by major media outlets, there's no reason that this issue should be regulated to couple-minute blurbs on College Gameday pre-show video packages.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 11,800 people in the US making a living as “Athletes and Sports Competitors.”  There are also 460,000 student athletes in the United States.  That means, of all current athletes, at college level or post-college professional level, 97% are unpaid.

Or should I say, make no money.

Aside from not receiving a salary, student athletes are not allowed to make money off their name or likeness or receive any sponsorship deals.  And as far a their scholarships, something many people arguing for this as a non-issue like to bring up, a 2012 study found that the average football scholarship fell $3,000 short of what a top-division player needed to pay for school annually and that around 80% of football players on full scholarship were living below the poverty line.

So, that's how they stack up in their profession.  But what about the working world as a whole?

There are 2.6 million hourly workers in the US that make equal to or less than the federal minimum wage.  If you factored in student athletes into that figure, it would mean that of the people in this country making minimum wage or less, college athletes make up 15% of those people.  In fact, student athletes would be the job category with the 3rd highest amount of workers that make at or less than minimum wage.  And again, they don't make equal to or less than minimum wage—they make nothing.

And I know what occupy the resistance people love to scream: it's the worker's wages in comparison to executive salaries that is maddening.  And I agree, those figures can be horrific.  But college coaches aren't doing community service. They are high level sport professionals.  The average college football coach makes $1.64 million a year.  The average college basketball coach, $1.4 million.  Nick Saban, the highest paid college football coach, makes $11.125 million a year—that's only about $4 million less than the President and CEO of McDonald's (And a little over $5 million more than the next highest paid McDonald's executive).  And that's a MickeyDee's executive.  I would argue that a coach is more analogous to a district manager.  And for McDonald's, that job only pays $68,000 or so a year.  So, is a McDonald's employing averaging $8.90 and hour gross when compared to the $9,247 an hour that its president is pulling down?  Yes, of course.  But they're not sharing a locker room and the employee is not making nothing.

And also, his grease burns aren't giving him the mushy mind of an 80 year old when he's in his mid-40s.

But the problem is, college athletes aren't even really the McDonald's employee.  They're the hamburger.

They're the product.  A product that sells.  The NCAA is now making $1.1 billion a year just off their March Madness TV deal.  The Big Ten, a conference that houses Northwestern, whose football players attempted to unionize in 2015, signed a $2.6 billion TV deal just to air football and basketball games from their conference alone.  And, yes, the Northwestern unionizing did fail and encountered extreme push back from athletic departments and the NCAA.

As I stated up top, this isn't just a problem that needs addressed, it needs prioritized.  This isn't a sports issue.  And I think its classification as such deems it to the back page of newspapers and the last 30 seconds of news broadcasts. This is a worker's rights issue.  This is a fairness issue.  This is a corporate greed issue as much as anything that's met with populace outrage on Wall Street.

Now imagine that I wrapped this all up with a clever, concise, and biting “personal foul” pun.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 024 - You Suck

It was the final round of a stand-up comedy competition at the Columbus Funny Bone.  I had not entered the contest; however, my friend was hosting the finals, so I decided to come out, see the show, and support.

It was a sold out show that night.  The room was packed and teeming with an eclectic mix of energy.  While it had the feverish potency of a great comedy audience, it was also filled primarily with the family and friends of competition contestants, so it also had the nervous, excited energy of a group anxious to see their loved ones perform.

The show went well.

After the comics who were competing finished their chunk of the show, it was time for the judges to meet, the scores to be tallied, and the winner to be decided.  When that time comes, it's customary for the club to bring up a final comic to close out the show.  They would do about 20 minutes of time while business is tended to (both the judging of the contest and the dropping of guest checks) and bring the show to a book-ended conclusion.

This is when things got interesting.

Now I want to start by prefacing this story the way I always do—this is a story about a situation.  It's not about an audience.  It's not about a comic.

I say that so I can set the atmosphere of the story without anyone thinking that I'm setting the intent of it.

By the end of the tournament portion of the night, the audience still had its vitality, but the eclectic energy had taken on a new mix.  The juice was still there, but with their familiars' performances finished, the crowd grew chatty.  I say they still had energy and excitement towards the show because it wasn't chattiness born of rudeness.  It was a chattiness born from relief.  The same way this audience carried the nervousness and trepidation of their soon-to-be-performing companions an hour ago, they now had the joy an elation of a job well done by those same cohorts.  But again, this isn't a story about a bad crowd.  Or even a good crowd, for that matter.  It's a story about a situation.

The comic they had chosen to close out the show was a Columbus native who had been performing comedy, both stand-up and improv, for many years.  He had been performing professionally for a solid portion of those years and enjoyed a fair amount of success.  He had a very goofy, animated style.  He began his act.  A few minutes in, the audience still rumbled faintly with chatter.  He grew more animated and goofy.  Perhaps in an attempt to engage the audience more.  Funny faces became more animated, gestures became grander, but the faint rumble failed to cease.  But again, this isn't a story about a bad comic.  Or even a good comic, for that matter.  It's a story about a situation.

Around ten minutes in to the closing comic's set, the decibel level of the ubiquitous chitchat exceeded that of the laughter.

This is when things got complex.

Around this point in the closing comic's set, a lone voice broke free from the spattered chatter and bellowed, in a low but arresting tone, “YOU SUCK!”

The crowd, once alive, albeit with a distracting indifference, fell silent.  The comic, who had been pursuing that feet for the last ten minutes, froze.  The fact that the comic's face was once bustling with contortion now only emphasized the expressionless gaze that currently sat upon it.

I was seated in the extreme back of the room.  At this moment, my physical position mirrored my mental position.  I felt like an observer.  My physical position let me survey the audience and the stage.  Since I could see the whole scene, I felt like I was almost watching it on TV.  I wasn't a member of an audience watching a comic anymore.  I was a member of an audience watching an audience.  A spectacle.

The comic stayed frozen for an hour long eight seconds.  No attempt to rebuke the comment.  No attempt to continue his act.  Just solid, penetrating awkwardness.  I felt it too.  Probably the same feeling the audience had towards their brethren not long ago but without the positive payoff.

I was dumbfounded.  I had no idea what was going to happen.  What did happen was a man, a normal looking man with a baseball cap and glasses, stood up, looked in the vague direction of the disparaging remark, and shouted, “Hey, man, you don't know how hard this is!”  Then looked back towards the stage and reassured, “You're doing fine, man.”

And, without even a beat, the crowd rips up into applause!

The chatter and the shouts of previous disruptions were dwarfed by the cheer and goodwill coming from the entire crowd in attendance.  The everyday man turned savior continues staring towards the comic and before he retakes his seat says, “Go on, man.  Do your thing.”

The comic launched back into his act more enthusiastic than ever.  The crowd responded with laughter that rivaled any guffaws uttered that night.

It was amazing.  Inspirational.  But this story isn’t about the most inspirational thing that I've ever seen.

After about two minutes of some of the most roof raising laughter I had ever witnessed, the laughter, and in some ways the energy, started to slowly but steadily dwindle.

It was a strange shift.  But a shift that I could see and feel.  It was the audience realizing that they really didn't like this guy.  Two short minutes ago, and for the ten minutes before that, they gave this guy a chance and they weren't buying in.  Sure, that guy that rudely interrupted was a dick, but this was no good either.  For the last five minutes of the comic's set, the audience let out forced, confused ha-has until the comic exited the stage.

It was confounding.  Seeing an audience sit there during the second half of the performance like an idealistic independent on election day.  Not wanting to support an abusive brute (who may have voiced a consensus opinion in an disagreeable manner), but not able to properly enjoy something after the hype had died down.  It was truly, the most interestingly complex thing that I've ever seen.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 023 - Go Tribe

I've floundered from unbridled confidence to bottomless despair. It's easy to lose hope before games like this. We've been here before. 1997. 2016. And those were just World Series games. The Indians are 3-16 in games that could have closed out a playoff round since 1999.

But instead of thinking about those 19 games—and the ones even before that—I try, today, to think about another game. In another sport. I try to think about June 19th, 2016, when the Cavs took home the NBA title—the first Cleveland championship since 1948...the year our Cleveland Indians took the MLB crown.

I remember being in a Browns Backers bar (converted into a general Cleveland Backers bar on nights like that) in Chicago watching the clock tick down in disbelief. I saw grown men cry. And I think they cried because it was about more than sports. Sports in a city like Cleveland is an identity. My dad was born in 1955. He's seen—or not seen—it all. He hardly watches games anymore because, “whenever I turn it on, they start losing.” I'm sure these grown men have dads like mine. And I'm sure those tears on that June evening were tears of relief. A whole generation of fans, all at once, feeling like they weren't a fucking jinx.

So, maybe those past deciding games were just that—the past. Cleveland sports can be a place where things work out now. I'm ready to be excited.

And I'm ready to be disappointed. But the thing is, no one knows how to deal with that better than a Cleveland fan. We all know that no matter how much it hurts that night, the next day, our friends and family will still love us, the jokes that made us laugh will still induce a chuckle, and, as Casey Coleman said, in reference to the following morning after numerous heartbreaking losses, “the sun came up the next day.”

Go Tribe.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 022 - The Fall Guy

I've never been able to get excited for fall.  Nor understood the excitement for it by others.  What a large percentage of the populace seems to see as the compelling arrival of a new, brisk season, I can only see as the slow decay and nearing end of my favorite one.  I love summer.  And seeing the days shrink and the temperatures cool always leaves me with a tremendous feeling of melancholy that doesn't seem to be matched by the overwhelming number of people I see smiling while sipping and snacking on pumpkin flavored treats.

But maybe they're not ignorant to to the things I'm so painfully aware of.  Hell, maybe they're more evolved.  Maybe they've worked through all 5 stages of grief for summer during the couple hour trek to the apple orchard while I'm stuck on step one, walking around the 60 degree streets in shorts, trying to hide a shiver.

And keep in mind, I don't hate fall.  I just love summer and don't get excited for its end—regardless of what's on the other side of it.  Fall has always felt like Sunday to me.  Spring is Friday, Summer is Saturday, and Winter is all the long, dragging shit-days in the middle.  And there's nothing wrong with Sundays.  Frankly, fall beefs up Sundays by bringing along football with it.  But the sad fact is, once your 12PM pigskin-watching beer buzz wears off, you're painfully aware that it's time to start prepping for the work week that's mere hours away. Sunday is a weekend day—but without the the fun of a late night or the safety net of next-day-sleep-in.  It's a weekend day...with caveats.

Plus, I look at what fall has to offer, its main selling points, and I can't help but think a lot of them would be better suited for summer.  Scary movies.  A fall staple. But here's the thing, so many of them take place in summer!  And thus, wouldn't viewing them in their companion season amp up the fear factor.  Imagine watching a campground slasher flick the night before you head off to the woods for your June tents-and-bonfire friend adventure.  Halloween itself would fit great into July.  How much better would slutty Halloween costumes be if every french maid you saw wasn't wearing a goose down jacket over her outfit most of the night.

Fall isn't a treat.  It's a paltry parting gift.  It's the snitch's big plate of spaghetti and meatballs that winter gives you before it puts two in the back of your head. It's the trying-to-hard stepdad that attempts to appeal to you with cider and sweaters when all you want to do is swim, and tan, and drink on patios and scream, “you're not my real season!”

But I try.  I try every year to embrace fall.  Because even a curmudgeon like me knows that fall is as inevitable as the earth's rotation, and to shake your fist at certainty isn't being grumpy, it's just being foolish.  And every year, when winter comes around (even though you fools seem to be walking around like it never will!), and I start to feel sad, I start hoping that it's not Seasonal Affective Disorder, but instead, maybe I've made it to step 4, and maybe I'll be a happy little fall fuck with the rest of you next season.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 021 - For Fun’s Sake

There has been a quote floating around the internet—which best I can Google is attributed to Will Rogers—that goes, “Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”

Regardless of the state of politics, no amount of jestering from lawmakers and legislators should ever frame the comic from being anything other than comedic.

Trevor Noah, new host of The Daily Show, recently came under fire from some for poking fun at the more violent side of ANTIFA—the loosely knit community of anti-fascists who protest, counter-protest, and, according to The Daily Show piece, shoot the shit about video games and anime.  Trevor was called an out of touch centrist, a Nazi apologist, and false equalizer by some on the left.

But, here's the thing.  He's none of those things.  He's a comic.

He doesn't have a responsibility to defend a viewpoint, fight for what's right, or even to report the news—only to satirize it.  Laughs are the only barometer a comic need read.  And I watched the piece.  It got laughs.  It satisfied its sole metric, and that really should be the end of the discussion.

I don't know when we as a society started looking to comedy—or even art in general—to cure society's ills.  It never has and it never will.

And it's funny, in this case, that the folks rallying against Mr. Noah don't realize this.  These backlashers are mad because a comedian comically slighted a group that they believe is beyond reproach. Beyond reproach because they are an essential force in the fight against fascism.  And their main tool to fight fascism is taking action, violent if necessary, directly to the streets and the people they believe are a threat.  So, ANTIFA, and those who support them, realize that change (or the defense of negative change) takes actual direct action.  They more than anyone should realize that a joke isn't going to take them down because there's clearly a realization from them that a joke—or a song, or painting, or whatever—isn't going to do their work for them.

A comic doesn't take a side or defend a position.  They find the funny. On whatever side it may lie.

I'll close with another quote.  One that should be making the rounds more than that archaic Will Rogers schlock.  It was said by Chris Rock during his Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee episode.  He said, simply, “[Comedians] are professional arguers.  Not only can we argue about anything, but we can argue either side.”

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 020 - Symbolic Gesture

Symbols possess two meanings.  The more straight forward “meaning;” as in the object which it represents. And the more emotional meaning.  As in what it means to the individual.

The United States is, not unlike most any nation throughout the course of history through today, constructed upon a collection of symbols.  A flag, a bird, even a flower—the rose if you were not aware.

What concerns me is that there seems to be a fight for ownership over these symbols.  Individuals, groups, and segments are seeking, to own things which do not belong to them. Because they do not belong to anyone.  They belong to everyone.

Too many times when I see an American Flag bumper sticker, or a Bald Eagle t-shirt, or a red, white, and blue beer coozie, I also see an attitude that isn't “I am an American,” but rather, “I am what an American is.”

And not only are US symbols meant to represent all, they are for all to do with what they please.  Wave a flag or burn it.  Not only is being a citizen of this land about accepting people of all colors and creeds, but its also about accepting all feelings towards it at the time.

Symbols are for the collective and thus also defined by it.  Citizenship is what denotes an American.  Any other litmus test is superfluous.  Seeking to bogart symbols for one's self or one's group is a fool's errand.  Because American symbolism is defined by all, to have it be the Representative for the chosen some devalues it on its face.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 019 - Hashtag Accept

With a republican loaded Congress and a Mike Pence on deck, the idea of a Trump impeachment seems futile and, ultimately, flawed.

So, he's here.  For 3 more years and some change.  If you're not keen on that, what can you do?  Resist? I guess it's a decent hashtag, but what does it mean.

I prefer to not resist, but, rather, to accept.

Is acceptance defeat?  Or is it really just an acknowledgment of the reality around you?

And, in the end, if you believe that President Donald Trump constantly spews and excretes acrid, acidic bile, why not add some water, a teaspoon of sugar, and turn that secretion into a pleasantly palatable drink rather than attempting to cease its flow?

At this point, I didn't know whether overwriting or using a phrase as common as “turn lemons into lemonade” was the more hacky, rookie writer move, so I settled on the latter.

Here are 3 things, despite having no preference for him pre-election or a support for him now, I think that the Trump presidency could do to, hmm, I don't know, Make America Better.

One.  Scrutiny on the office of President of The United States.  The fact that the president is protested seemingly daily and questioned by the media to no end makes me hopeful.  I don't even care who the president is.  Just that he (or she, told you I was progressive) is treated as such.  I wish we had investigations into the Bush administration's business dealings. Especially ones that dealt with foreign nations (cough, cough, Saudi Arabia) and corporate connections during war times (cough, cough, Halliburton).  And I wish that the Obama drone program got as much media coverage and discussion as the MOAB or growing tension with North Korea.

I hope this is more than just picking on a bully, and something more akin to a dramatic change in how we as a nation hold our leaders accountable.

Two.  Forgiveness for politically unrelated issues.  Now, I'll admit, I think Trump simply Magoo-ed into this one.  And I don't think he even did it in a positive way. I'm only saying that maybe we can glean something positive from it. Am I happy that we have a president in office who said and did a myriad of things on the campaign trail that would have been political death only one election cycle ago?  Of course not.  But I am glad that we may now have an electorate that will give a Howard Dean-type a chance when his policy ideas seem sound but the one time he made a sound seemed odd.

Third.  The wake up call to both parties.  Republicans and Democrats.  Because this year they both realized that they can't just rely on their bases without addressing their issues in a real way and not just counting on them to vote along demographic lines.  Republicans thought they could box Trump out of the nomination by appealing to the good ol' Bible Belt.  The Christian Right gladly put a check next to good ol' thrice married, “Two Corinthians” Donny.  And once the general started, Democrats figured they could count on that minority base to tip the ever diversifying scales.  But women defected in great numbers and more blacks and latinos than should have did the same (since 0 was the “should have” bar).  I feel like both sides of the political spectrum counted on their base to show up without giving them explicit reasons to do so rather than to vote out the person that wasn't them.  Just like the capitalism that keeps this whole thing-we-got-goin' moving, I think competition will only make our politicians stronger.  And before recently, I feel like they were only really competing over the 10 voters in America that didn't immovably pick their side years ago.  Now, a third party in elephant clothing has come into play.  And I hope it leads to a rapid spur of better candidates for office, like an android speeding up to meet demands and demand after an apple made a major and unprecedented market splash.

Resist?  Sure, if that's what you want to do.  It is a free country last time I checked in.  That could have changed by the time you're reading this though.  However, I prepare to accept.  That gives you a chance to plan and maneuver.

I think analyzing what happened in 2016, and the 4 years after, is a much more effective and efficient calorie burn.

And most importantly, Kanye 2020.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 018 - Reasonable Doubt

"I'm telling you, it's right in front of our faces.  They lie to us. There is no concrete information except for the information that they're giving us.  They're particularly putting you in the direction of what to believe and what not to believe.”

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving said this in defense of comments he made about his belief that the Earth is flat.  And, I gotta say, I agree.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I don't think the Earth is flat.  I don't think it's even a little flat.  And this is coming from someone that's never met a conspiracy theory that he didn't want to spend hours following down a YouTube video rabbit hole.  I've followed this one into its depths and have risen forth with the same spherical world view I went with going in.

What I agree with is the linchpin sentence in Kyrie's overarching sentiment: “They lie to us.”

Again, I agree with an emphasis on science and reason for policy decision making and social structuring.  However, I believe science would suggest a healthy skepticism of any and all findings presented, if only to bolster those finding through scrutiny, and reason, based on the history of the scientific community in the United States, would give justifiable pause for the skepticism.

For 40 years, starting in 1932, nearly 400 black men living near Tuskegee University in Alabama were given a placebo treatment by researchers, told to be an actual cure, for their syphilis, even after penicillin was shown to effectively treat the disease.  From the 1950s through the 1970s Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania was the site of experimentation on inmates that included studying the effects of chemicals on a person's skin and the effects of torture on a person's mind.  Eugenics, and the practice of forced sterilization on so-called “societal undesirables,” was a relatively common, medically accepted practice in the U.S. through the early parts of the 20th century.  The practice was really only halted in the States after a major PR snafu put the program into poor public perception.  That snafu was the Holocaust.

The point is, science, as an abstract idea and the foundation of reason, is good.  Scientists are people and, as such, flawed.  And when their flaws have a history of malice, or at least a lack of concern, with the general public, it is even more advisable that they be held to reasonable questioning.

And more importantly, Kyrie, and people like him, are not the problem. Skepticism, even when elevated to a level that may seem slightly ridiculous or excessive, isn't the main opponent to science in this country.

The billions of dollars pumped into politics to deny climate change by the energy and automobile industries is what is an affront to science.  The pharmaceutical, tobacco, and firearm industries have their cross to bare as well.  All deny science, medical consensus, or research data—or some combination of the three.

Someone like Kyrie is called a “science denier.”  I just don't see that to be the case straightaway.  A flat earther, especially one that speaks on it from the viewpoint Kyrie does, doesn't seem deserving of that label.  A young earther, someone who believes the Earth to be a few thousand years old and can't see evolution as the origin of species, does.  Because that second person believes what they believe not from skepticism but from dogma.  They are the ones in true denial.  Religious people hold onto young earth beliefs because they have a set of principles set out to them by movement leaders that must not be questioned and must be followed without objection.  And it's to their detriment.

Let's move forward as a society that uses technology to improve our planet, statistics to improve our society, and reason to improve our lifestyle and compassion.  But let's not demonize apprehension lest we fall to the same detriment of what truly is the other side.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 017 - Good For Too Long

Greatness is not achievable.

The first thing that trips people up about greatness, from the jump, is that it's a path, not a destination.  Although “achieving greatness” is a relatively common parlance, I don't think greatness can ever be achieved.  But could you actually expect anything that profound or instructional from such a pithy phrase—one that is probably touted by the same people that spout other empty platitudes, with a similarly asinine verb/noun structure, like “conquer fear?”  Greatness comes from staying on the path towards it.  You don't “achieve greatness.” If you had to coalesce it into a phrase, it'd be more accurate to say that you “persist greatness.”  Because greatness is about endurance and tenacity.  Even when the route seems bleak.  Especially when the route seems dependable.

Because that is the other part of the path towards greatness that is tricky.  People are often pulled from it not by the pressures of the passage but by the siren's song of mediocrity.  Warm, cozy, seemingly lush failures are a more common site along the path than a major blowup or fiery fall from grace.

That's because growth is a chasm.  The chasm between bad and good, for as much as those two things are brought up as a major dichotomy, is relatively small.  But there is still a gap.  And your journey from bad to good isn't a leap from summit to summit, it's a trudge through a gorge, seemingly unending and inescapable.  And once you reach the unearthing peak of goodness, the internal pressure to stop is relentless.

Foremost, while it is not greatness, goodness is still a peak.  And after an innumerable amount of time in a hole, any elevation seems like salvation.  Additionally, as discussed before, greatness does not offer a similar achievable and defined pinnacle.  You are leaving a peak for another trudge.  One that ventures steadily uphill, to be sure, but also one that has no plateau.

And that truly is the temptation of the trek and the most common sin committed by its trekkers.

If you ever feel a twinge of failure, don't ask yourself if you are becoming bad, question whether you've stayed good for too long.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 016 - Convenient Mart Chronicles

The summer between 5th and 6th grade could have been exciting for a lot of reasons. It was the transition year between elementary school and middle school.  A new building and, with the merging of all the local elementary schools, new classmates.  A metamorphosis from boy to...older boy.  However, what captured the imagination of my friends, Matt and Jason, and I as we molted during those muggy months was something completely different.  Something that took us completely by surprise.

Me, Matt, and Jason would hang out in front of the Convenient Food Mart at the corner of Park Ridge and Lorain.  It was roughly equidistant from all our houses, and close enough to them that our parents would let us wander up there unsupervised.  The Convenient didn't offer anything too exciting, but we were of that age of tethered options when you would do anything to feel like you were doing something.

We would crack jokes, attempt entry-level tricks on the bikes we'd rode to the meet-up, and take on a ne'er-do-well posture which was a fun and, we felt, evolved practice in itself.  If we could scrape together enough singles from maternal panhandling, we'd venture inside the store for a drink.

One day, early in June, when the summer was still fresh, while kicking rocks, with the front of kicking up dust, we spotted a discarded scratch-off lottery ticket.  We'd seen them before.  They were always among the strewn about litter that laid outside the corner store.  But this one was different.  This one was a winner!

A $1 winner to be clear.  But a winner just the same.

Seeing that $1 split 3 ways was too meager a gain, even for boys scraping by on slender beggings from their parents, and giving one boy full claim of the ticket seemed an impossible arbitration, we decided to do the most logical thing: cash in the ticket, buy a new scratcher with the take, and split any loot that came about.

Well, our investment netted zero.

But, we won something else.  Hope.

I discovered that summer that hope is a powerful feeling.  For a group of adolescents who thought fucking-off at a mini-mart was a full day slate, our new summer activity, scouring the streets for discarded lotto tickets and scanning them for winnings, felt like taking on a full time job.

We looked everywhere.  And the monetary return was instantly diminishing, but the return on enjoyment never faltered.  If we didn’t spend the afternoon on a hunt, we always kept an eye out for discards during our other warm-weather activities.  And as the scouring advanced, it turned into scheming. We'd go into the convenience store and ask for their trash.  We were vague with our reasoning—because we dare not let anyone else in on our plan lest they keep that potentially life changing trash for themselves.  But the vagueness drew more suspicion than was warranted and we were shouted out of the store with threats of calls to police, or worse, our parents.

As the days got shorter and the new school year drew near, we prepared to close up shop without luck finding us a second time.

It was a fun summer.  The summer of hope.  If I could be granted the chance to give it a grandiose name in hindsight.

The thing about hope is just that. It's not good.  Or bad.  It's simply powerful.  And like all things powerful, it can be both, but it must be metered.

Use it as fumes when you need a driving force and your spiritual fuel tank is spent.  But take breaks from the waves of excitement to be sure you're not chasing a dream that is already a loss on it's face.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 015 - I Fight To Win. For Me.

He turned his back to the crowd, affixed a decorative bandana across his forehead, and pushed his upper lip into the crevice of his gums, bucking out his front teeth.  The comic turned back around to face the audience once again, squinting his baby-blue eyes, and uttering, “Herro!  Rer-come to Benihana, how may I be a suh-vice.”

This didn't happen on a makeshift stage in a rundown watering hole miles off the highway in the rural part of a red state—it happened in Columbus, Ohio, the 15th largest city in the nation; a city with almost two decades of Democratic mayoral rule and one of the countries largest Pride festivals.  And it didn't happen 40 years ago, but rather 4.

And as I sat in the back of the comedy club that night, taking in that set, and waiting for my own to come up later in the evening, only one thing bothered me.  And it wasn't where I was or when I was or even what the material was—it was that it killed.

The only thing that's ever really annoyed me about comedy is the tropes.  Passed down from comics who had only stale advice to offer to comics who had even less, and printed in how-to-do-comedy books you buy when you're green enough to be willing pay to $9.95 for the possibility of an ounce of insight.  Start strong, end on a laugh, and get a laugh every 12 seconds.  Dress one level above the crowd, rule of three, call-backs, and of course, the one that was rattling through my head that night, the one that still irks me when it springs to mind even now—the audience is always right.

The thing I hate about these tropes is the legs they have, the legacy they endure, and the reverence they're given in something like comedy of all things.  An art form that was pioneered by personas like Lenny Bruce; it's just unsettling to see an abstraction created to confront the likes of government and religion taking on rules and dogma of it's own.

And like the ethos of the lay-world, the edicts in comedy are mostly filled with un-called bullshit.  The audience isn't always right.  In fact, they rarely are.  And more importantly, that pronouncement is already crippled on its stance because it assumes the role of a comedy audience is to make a judgment.  The role of an audience is to observe.  Like it. Don't like it.  As a performer, that's not really a comedic barometer for me.  It seems a logical fallacy on its face.  When they are all in the room together, why would you grant assessment of the art not to the artist but to the herd of amateurs?

That's what you're working on as a comic.  That's why you do as many sets as you can—whenever you can and wherever you can.  You want to be able to curate.  To know what's good and what's bad.  What's funny and what's not.  They say the journey of a comic is the trek of “finding your voice.” But like most comedic parables, it's also just more un-called bullshit.  You're less “finding your voice,” and more so “training your ear.”

The ability to create things measured up against your own calibrated, internal yardstick has to be the goal—because it's truly the skill.  If guffaws are the goal, then the guy from the previously mentioned story swapping his l's for r's and pantomiming spatula acrobatics is meeting the same bar as George Carlin and Richard Pryor.

I don't have contempt for the audience.  I just don't have an unabashed reverence for them. And I think following the directive that their opinion is impeccable tangents a performers journey from perfecting the internal to placating the external.

Denying that live performance, like comedy, is different than an art form like painting, which holds almost all of it's creative process in solitude, wouldn't be fair.  But it's also incorrect to act like they are gulfs apart.  What an audience sees is a fraction of the comedic creative process.  Before you reveal your conception to them, you've conceived it and refined it in isolation and played it on repeat in the theater of you own mind ad nauseam.  An inward audience of one has heard your material exponentially more times than anyone watching from the outside.  Not only is that internal spectator more refined in taste, it is also more seasoned in criticism.

It'd be hypocritical to spend a whole essay railing against tropes and end on a decree of my own, but I have to coalesce this into something succinct at the end. Let's just call it something to think about.  The audience isn't always right.  But neither is the performer.  Because correctness is not the the goal.  The performer should seek to be true, because honesty is the pinnacle of creation.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 014 - Never Forget

There's no denying that we are in a time of passionate upheaval.  It's not party-based or directional-dependent.  It just is.  You're either revolting against the current state of things or you're someone that actively worked to position us into this state—that action being your rebellion.

For those whose revolution is a push back against the currently implemented status quo, there are two warnings you should heed.  Choose your allies wisely and do not put down arms at the perceived attainment of goals—and make sure those goals are not false in nature.  Ok, so two and a half things.

Camaraderie is no longer a guarantee. It must be earned—or re-earned..  The enemy of your enemy should not slide tidily into friendship.  Our current commander may be a false prophet, but in cases of such frauds, the phoniness lies in the lack of answers not the correctness of questions.

Fake is an upgrade in adjective for the United States news media of present day.  Major networks are relieving anchors from desks for exaggerated yarns, newspapers are increasing the square inch-age up for auction to the highest PR bid, and no one has found a celebrity break-up they didn't want to push up to news that is breaking.

No politician is sitting in a seat they haven't earned without dark money and darker people.  They have to attack each other because they know deep down there's nothing inside themselves worth exalting.  Choosing the lesser of two evils time and time again has left us with a ruling class that is just that, inferior and heinous.

Noting the above has nothing to do with your party, your chosen candidate, or the phrase you embroider on your trucker hat.  Don't let these mongrels use a lowered bar of expectation as an invitation to make a lazy hop back into your lives.

And none of that is worth a damn anyways if you ever choose to stop.  Keep your eye on the prize and make sure that's an actual accolade you're reaching for.

Don't set your goals on the removal of a man from office.  The persistent passage of time will take care of that as it always has and always will.  Dream bigger.  Dream wider. And work smarter.

Remember, the phrase is “Fight The Power,” not “Fight The Republican President.”  For it's power that corrupts, not party.

And when power leaves leaders what's left isn't an empty seat but a vacuum.  It will be filled.  Don't let your vigor rest on the term of one man, one election, or one moment in time.  This shouldn't be a moment to fight; this should be a wake up call that fighting is the only way to live.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 013 - Art Is Dead (Writer’s Cut)

I hate art.  And artists.  And by that, I mean I hate those two words and not the things they represent.  I hate it because art-the-term is doing more to erode free expression than what the conceptualization of that idea can do to restore it.

Art as an idea sprouts up any time creatives are placed at odds with those who think the worst part of the First Amendment is that it doesn't have enough asterisks.  Where speech rights persist, obscenity laws often resist.  When a claim of “smut” is laid, a rebuttal of “art” is waged.  However, the prescient response is always “it doesn’t matter.”

The First Amendment is one sentence.  A concept shaved down to its core as to not leave burrows and corridors for qualitative reasoning to seep in.  While you may temporarily defend yourself with an assertion of “art” against an allegation of indecency, your personal perry leaves the ultimate ideal of free speech vulnerable.  Because now a bar has been set.  A caveat granted.  If some expression is art, then by default, some is not.  And if art is protected, that which fails to pass board may still be open to attack.

In the battle for free speech bars should not be set.  Basements should be tended.  That’s why architects refer to them as foundations.  When asked why he battled obscenity charges all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court, Larry Flynt—a purveyor of content even the most linguistically lenient would hesitate to refer to as artistic—said, "If the 1st Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you, because I'm the worst."

The ACLU has fought on behalf of the KKK on multiple occasions because to do any less would be tantamount to censorship.  Letting anyone materialize any thought that they have into expression is the cornerstone of our republic.  Speech needs to be defended absolutely and on all sides.  Because speech is democratic.  Ideas are not.

Ideas exist not in democracy, but rather in another American institution—capitalism.  An intellectual marketplace is where ideas roam once dictated.  And it's here where they need not be censored, but rather made to match wits with competing concepts.  If any utterance is truly vile, don't seek to suppress it, but create bigger, stronger, faster alternatives and send repugnant rhetoric the way of the Pinto and Clear Pepsi.

Creatives should also be wary of the term they themselves have conjured; lest it become their Frankenstein's Monster, laying waste to inspiration and imaginativeness.  While art-the-term may have its genesis in protecting the creative, time has spoiled what may have once been something fruitful into acrid vinegar.

Reserving “art” as an achievable label that something can attain creates a creative caste system.

Now, not only is certain creative content worthy of protection, it is also the only creative content worthy of consideration, exhibition, or appraisal.

And creative content can not live in a world that its very essence is set in opposition of.

Content is for everyone.  To be enjoyed, to be shared, to be learned from, both by the intaking and outputting of it.  It's complete quackery for a painting that’s meant to speak truth power to have to fight the mental bourgeoisie for acceptance into the gallery system.

It's easy for creatives to think that an expression hierarchy is meant to separate Picasso from hotel room prints and nut-shot videos from Lenny Bruce.  But too often it is used to decry hip-hop as noise and graffiti as vandalism.  And even one incident of “art” being used to define merit rather than taste is one incident enough to prove that the system is a fraud based on hypocrisy of the highest caliber.

Don't make art.  Kill it.  And use its remains to fertilize the seeds of true, unencumbered ingenuity.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 012 - Cold Steel

The blade slid into McCallister's belly sideways with ease.  Precision design—of both dagger and wielder—and homicidal passion was the callous cocktail which led way to the simplicity.  A sharp twist brought the tip of the knife northerly sending it on a trek towards McCallister's trachea.

Shane Douglas.  That was the name printed on the discharge papers.  That were inside the box.  That were on top of the knife.  That was now inside the belly of a foe.

As Shane reached into the box and waded through the dark waters of the past, his eyes caught site of the discharge papers en route to the knife.  An undertow of emotions pulled him back to the day he received them.  A bunk mate happened upon a photo of Shane and his long time lover Christopher.  The sensual, open mouth kiss on a beach in Cabo that was captured closed the loophole of explaining it away as two buddies hanging out.  Shane was discharged under the edict of the day.  Shane always had an internal, sorrowful chuckle over the whole thing.  That beautiful memory, captured in pixels, would be his downfall—while the memories, the ones that haunted his slumber like dream specters, of charred children and the mothers that lay weeping over them, were the parts of his past that gained him medals and commendations from the same conclave that was now severing ties with him.

As the knife slid upwards through McCallister's body, blood and bile swirled together like a brutal stew.

When Shane was released, he returned home to Christopher—but not much else.  He assembled a small private investigator business.  Over a year of SEAL training to track down wayward wives and scumbags husbands was like lighting a Camel Blue with a blowtorch.  But Shane liked it.  It was inclusive.  No boss.  No one to answer to.  To judge him.  To take what he had worked for.

An old armed forces buddy of Shane was slumming it in the State Police Department.  He was heading up a “Drug Crimes Task Force.”  Told Shane if he used his P.I. skills, he could slide him some extra cash.  “This guy, McCallister. Here's his file.  Follow him for a week.  Brief me after.  I'll cut you a check.  Easy money,” his buddy said.  Easy.  As if money, or anything in this life, ever was.

Two days into the week long gig, a mole inside the Task Force reported to McCallister that, “Some P.I. Shane Douglas is his name.  I don't know.  I just know he's on the payroll, but off the books, and he's tailing you.”

Four days into the week long gig, Shane returned home in the evening to find Christopher swimming in a savage pool of his own blood.  Bullet holes.  One in the head.  Two in the chest.  A message that was murderously sent was clarified in a note that lay beside the lifeless body.  “Find A New Client.”

A crimson lake was starting to form on the floor boards of McCallister's office as the blade followed further up his solarplexes.

Shane approached McCallister's estate minutes before.  One guard out front.  Shane flanked to the side, stalked the goon from behind, and attacked.  Shane's left hand over the man's mouth, Shane's right over his throat.  Shane crushed his larynx like a brittle sugar cone and let the man quickly collapse to the dirt.

M16 loaded and gripped.  Shane swiftly kicked open the front door of McCallister's mansion.  The curtain on this Theater of Cruelty had been raised.  Three guards in the foyer, at the bottom of a winding staircase, were unknowingly given roles in the production.

Bullets flew through the air in a hellish hail that would make the devil himself cringe.  Shane approached the three guards, now slathered on the ground.  Two were motionless.  One struggled to eek out a plea for mercy like a trembling, wheezing piece of Swiss cheese.  Shane placed his rifle beside the lone survivors head and poured out what was left of his clip in a vicious torrent of lead.

The heaving Jackson Pollock painting now made his way up the winding staircase to the room that set atop the steps, McCallister's office.

As Shane entered, a shocked, quivering McCallister sat behind his desk.  Instinctively, McCallister fumbled for the loaded .38 he had stashed in one of the desk drawers.  With quicker intuition, Shane dashed across the room, placed his boot on the front of the desk, and shoved it into McCallister and against the wall.  McCallister was painfully pinned between desk and drywall. Shane reached in the holster hidden behind him and drew his blade.

As life fluttered away from McCallister's body, Shane got close to McCallister's ear and quietly questioned, “How do you feel?”

Words stowed away on a shivering McCallister's final breaths, “Cold.  Inside.”

“Good.  Now we're even.”

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 011 - Shut Up And Drive

Wind in your hair.  Your favorite mix on the stereo.  The open road in front of you.  Or maybe your windows are up because it's a sub-zero winter morning in Chicago, you're listening to the big band hour because your in-dash radio only picks up AM stations now for some reason, and you haven't moved for 15 minutes because of...I don't know, an accident?  Construction?  I can't see, but it's gotta be something.  Right?  Come on, move!

Driving can really be a dualistic paradigm.  A car when you're 16 can be the ultimate symbol of sovereignty.  A deceleration of independence that would make even a fore father wince with envy.  I remember cruising the streets as a youth in a $500 Eagle Summit with a $200 Pioneer CD player installed inside.  But as the fantasy of freedom fades into the reality of license plate renewals, traffic tickets, and assumed chauffeuring, the dual nature of car ownership appears.

The automobile.  A place of solitude. But hardly ever of serenity.  While a road trip across the plains with the windows rolled down can be a breath of fresh air, both literally and figuratively, the majority slice of a driver's pie chart is filled with bumper to bumper traffic on surface streets, cut-offs and near misses, and exhaust fumes so potent, you're better off leaving the windows shut and hope your filtration system is up for a rumble.

Road rage is the reality for most drivers regardless of how timid their personality is off the boulevard.  It makes sense.  Regardless of how hard we work to push this fact to the back of our brains, the road is a place where our lives are statistically at a real and immediate risk.  Stakes are high and tension is palpable.  We're all going home, but if it's between you and me getting home, you better watch your ass.  Also, the violence doesn't seem actual.  There's so much metal encasing and separating us from the other people whizzing by, it feels like a Transformers battle more than an actual life or death situation.  And you will rule this new, metallic hell-scape!

But for all it's stress, cost, and inconvenience, riding the bus will never give you the same feel that revving an engine and rolling down the avenue does.  Wars for oil, climate collapsing pollution, and highway death tolls.  All missteps along the way, perhaps.  But, to err is human, but to drive, at least sometimes, is just too damn divine.

[justingolak]

JGSS Episode 010 - Art Is Dead

I hate art.  And artists.  And by that, I mean I hate the actual object nouns in the previous two sentences and not the things they represent.  I hate it because art the term is doing more to erode free speech than what its conceptualizing can do to restore it.

Art as an idea sprouts up any time creatives are placed at odds with those who think the worst part of the First Amendment is that it doesn't have enough asterisks.  Where speech rights persist, obscenity laws often resist.  And it was just as often the understandable, but misguided, reaction of someone being told they were making smut to rebut that they were, in fact, creating art.  But ultimately, a claim that your expression wasn't substantive should have been met with a resounding “it doesn't matter.”

The First Amendment is one—albeit one very verbose—sentence.  Shaved down to its core as to not leave burrows and corridors for qualitative reasoning to seep in.  While you may temporarily defend yourself with an assertion of art against an allegation of indecency, your personal perry leaves the ultimate ideal of free speech vulnerable.  Because now a bar has been set.  A caveat granted.  If some expression is art, then by default, some is not.  And if art is protected, that which fails to pass board may still be open to attack.

In the battle for free speech bars should not be set.  Basements should be tended.  When asked why he battled obscenity charges all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court, Larry Flynt—a purveyor of content even the most linguistically liberal would hesitate to refer to as artistic—said, "If the 1st Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you, because I'm the worst."

The ACLU has fought on behalf of the KKK on multiple occasions because to do any less would be tantamount to censorship.  Letting anyone materialize any thought that they have into expression is the cornerstone of our republic.  Speech need be defended absolutely and on all sides.  Because speech is democratic.  It's ideas that are not.

Ideas exist not in democracy, but in another American institution—capitalism.  The marketplace is where ideas roam once dictated.  And it's here where they are not censored, but rather made to match wits with competing concepts.  If any utterance is truly vile, don't seek to suppress it, but create bigger, stronger, faster alternatives and send repugnant rhetoric the way of the Pinto and Clear Pepsi.

So, don't worry about being an artist.  Being a citizen is enough.  And don't worry about making art.  Just make the world more interesting whenever you get the chance.