Some Jingle Jangle Morning (Mary Lou Lord)

The other day, I got a call from a friend I have kind of become close to in this past year. We knew of each other, but only recently started to hang out more. This past year he went through a terrible divorce with an ex wife who is a real bitch for lack of a better word. The woman fights dirtier than Mike Tyson did in the Holyfield fight. She'll go for the ear.

She did a cheap shot when it came to the house they shared. She an underhanded play when it came to getting custody of his son, lying to the court about how he had a drinking problem which he doesn't. She's an asshole who wants to win at all costs, even if it means using her kid to do so. Not to mention she intentionally quit her job so he would have to pay her alimony. YUCK!

So he was forced out of his house, and moved into an apartment. He misses seeing his little boy terribly every day. I wanted to name their divorce saga Beauty and the Bitch, because this troll has successfully poisoned all of their mutual friends against him, too. Not to mention she has done things to put his career as a musician (he plays concert piano) in crisis several times.


He called me in a daze late Saturday to talk. He was getting used to an empty apartment. He felt lonely. He felt empty. He felt weird. He felt pissed his ex wife had a new boyfriend. No, he didn't miss her. He was pissed this woman was bringing a man he never met around his kid. And his ex wife moved her new boyfriend in. This stranger had taken his place. Yet he was also glad to be rid of the troll he was married to for 15 years.

 It is the pallet of feelings that goes with change.

While my situation is different than his and I don't understand, I identify. You can read my previous blogs to know what I mean. Either way, it felt good to be a listening ear. Change is weird. Change is scary.

Change.

I think in a way that's what attracted me to my current living situation. My landlord, who is very different from my buddy, grew up in NYC when it was really NYC. His stories are colorful. He managed a strip club. As a kid, he and his friends went with the hookers in the neighborhood who would give them free rides. He also had women throwing their underwear in his car. Apparently he was a hit when he was young.

Then he met his ex wife. Yes, she pursued him. Got him gifts. When he tried to break up with her, she hung out with his mom. Then finally after 10 years, 2 kids, and a bunch of changes in her psych meds he left. Now she tries to poison his kids against him. The woman plays ugly too. He wants his teenage  kids to go to college, do something with themselves. She tries to undermines his efforts. She sucks as a human.

When I moved in, it was his family home and he was in between jobs. He was figuring out how to be a single parent to teen boys. He was leaving early to make sure they got to school each morning, because their mother could have cared less. Sure, he's obsessed with UFOs and believes the conspiracy that Michelle Obama is a man, but he's a good dude. Either way, he is looking for work now, and trying to figure out what to do.

Change.

Heck, things have changed for me. A year ago I was talking about getting married. My living situation was much different. And it also looked like I was moving to Europe because I was getting press there, and a few managers even expressed interest.

I had the whole pallet of feelings as shit hit the fan. We always do. Not only was my then boyfriend ripped away by the throws of mental illness and the consequences of the choices of someone who doesn't follow through with treatment, but my heart was ripped out of my chest. My living situation, one that I had been in happily for nearly a decade, went belly up. Thinking about the loss of my last apartment makes me angry but also makes my stomach turn. Europe also went belly up because no one could successfully get me a Visa, and if I was going I was going as a headliner.

A year later, things are very different. Some good, some bad.

My new living situation is safer and cheaper, but the 7 train is a fucktard at times.

As for my ex, I have mostly forgiven him for some of the damage he's done, but the mixed feelings are still there. I get angry, but then I have to tell myself he's sick literally one hundred times. Then I remember his kindnesses, and even his sister said despite his troubles he was the kindest person she knew. Suddenly there is a part of me that misses him, not even to have him back as a lover but just a friend. That's when I remember he can't be trusted and isn't a safe person.

I also get angry about the idiots that weighed in on my living situation and break up. They are out of my life like the human cancers they were.

Obviously I didn't go to Europe, but I am steadily becoming a regular headliner in the states. I am working with wonderful people. My career is not where I want it yet, but it is getting there. Not to mention that while my bank account might not know about how famous I am in some circles, I enjoy comedy more than I have in years. I love getting onstage again.

Sure, the cancer scare sucked but it woke me up and now I am eating better than ever.

Losing everything and applying for aid made me have those difficult money conversations, especially those about the future. Now I'm not scared and want to learn more about how to manage my money.

As I was drinking coffee in an East Village diner hearing two girls bullshit before my 7:45 AM delivery, it felt surreal because that had been my stomping ground in college. I was a Manhattite always and forever. My mom even called me Manhattan Barbie. Alas, nothing is forever.

Thank God nothing is forever. Had shit not hit the fan I wouldn't have gone to the RNC to be a part of history. I wouldn't be working with the cool people I am now. I wouldn't be having fun each time I get onstage. I talk to people about getting paid, and am not a nice girl when it comes to dough. I am more fearless about telling people to get fucked. I am vocal when I have a concern about something whether it's my manager or landlord. I don't wait until my back is against the wall when I can no longer run from the monster.

When the smoke clears, that is when you can truly appreciate the miracle.

Dear 2014

Dear 2014,

You and I had an odd relationship. Sometimes when you were good you were awesome. Then when you were terrible, you really sucked bottom worse than one of those fish who sucks bottom. Basically, you were like a bipolar person off their meds.

The winter was harsh, one of the worst I had in some time. You made me understand why Sylvia Plath took her own life. When you sent the Polar Vortex, I was going through the lowest of lows. My writing, the gift I share most with the world, was being rejected like a fat girl asking for a prom date. On top of that, I had some career drama that was never ending. Financially, I was lower than I had been in what seemed forever. I was passed over for a grant, one for a project I was passionate about. Not to mention I was given the heeve ho by a network for a project I wore a captain’s jacket on. After that, I had a falling out with a friend who was like a sister to me. I saw she was a jealous bitch who had been waiting for me to fall and scrape my elbow. Did I mention you also had someone hack my credit cards and made me broke and I was desperate to feed myself? Things got so bad, I took a promo job for a tyrant who owned a antique store that berated me because he recognized me from television, and rubbed it in that I wasn’t working. I walked away from that job, but you beat my ass so badly I am still trying to recover.

The darkness gave me strength to set boundaries and strength to fight on despite walking through hellacious uncertainty. I also got my own health insurance. In short, dark times make you an adult. It’s undeniable.

At the same time, you gave me some things I always dreamed of. I got to wear the captain’s jacket on a project. My writing got us in the door. I thought it was dead, but you surprised me by reviving it. Now I am wearing the captain’s jacket on the same project, but only with a more pimped out set of wings. I also earned my wings in other ways. I filmed a television pilot and began working with a manger. As far as my career went, I really got it together. Not to mention I filmed a television pilot and got a short film into a prestigious festival. This year I blogged for several well known sites. I became a sports reporter, a dream of mine since my teen years. Also, I recorded a comedy DVD and performed in theatres. These have been dreams of mine for years. I appeared on Wendy Williams several times as well, making me a regular on a national television show. My dream has been to be a working actor in New York. I abandoned that dream shortly after college because the standup doors were opening. However, this year I rediscovered that drive. You made up for my shiteous winter by making it rain in my slowest months. Translated, I was working at what I loved and earned my SAG/AFTRA card.

However, you also taught me that while driving the plane in my stylish captain’s jacket gives my ego a jilt, other people need to wear captain’s jackets, too. I learned this lesson after a mini-overload breakdown I had in latter summer. Yes, the one where my refrigerator broke, the top part worked, and all the food in there was making me ill. Yes, the one I had when I was working constantly, taking a graduate level class, planning a book signing, and trying to release a DVD all at once. Yes, the one where  I went crazy with the credit card buying things I forgot I had because I was so tired. Yes, the one where I screwed up my cellphone minutes. The one where I screamed at God and He/She didn’t seem to hear me. Yes, the one where I fought with a lesser celebrity sibling on twitter.

However, you also delivered the best birthday ever, where I delivered a telegram to a bunch of hormonally driven teen boys who thought I was the cat’s meow. I kissed the birthday boy who’s friends got a close up. I was afraid of that birthday, but you showed me I wasn’t just getting older but getting better as well. In that darkness when I doubted myself you delivered some wonderful fan letters. These came when I wanted to quit and move back home to the easier, softer, safer life. Then you gave me the gift of getting the video for my song “Hell No, Joe” featured on MSN.

Then I found out I was being sought out for a big writing project and selected to perform on a show where I break a world record. It seemed every time you made me eat asphalt you were preparing me for a bigger miracle.

As for the loss of that best friend, well I found I had ten other better friends in her place. I also realized that ex’s are just that, to be crossed out. Even when their girlfriends and wives go crazy, they are nothing more than memories. A lot of men are snakes, but a lot are good. I learned to stop taking scraps and don’t intend to any more.

I will ring in the New Year by having a magazine interview of mine drop, and being featured in the Guinness Book World Record Show at the Metropolitan Room. To see it come Friday January 2^nd at 11:45 pm, 34 W. 22^nd. You will not regret it.

So 2014, we had the illest relationship. While I am sad you are gone, I will not miss you. You were too damn crazy for me sometimes. I look to 2015, and hope you are awesome. I hope you don’t give me the darkness I had this past year. I also hope you are not as crazy, either.

And here we go on, ants marching to a new adventure. Let’s not get squashed. 

Getting Fired

Have you ever been fired?

It is like a bad breakup. Basically, you want out of the relationship but your partner dumps you first. You're not so much pissed that you got dumped. It's that they did it first that irks you.

I was twenty one and working at a women's clothing store in Pittsburgh. It was right after the finish of my junior year in college. Academically, I was successful. Personally, I was a mess. A drug addict roommate had stolen my ID and brought a cellphone, and I was engaged to a psychopath. I was performing ventriloquism and chasing the comedy rainbow for now, but it was more a pipe dream than a reality. I knew it was where I belonged, but the yellow brick road alluded me.

The job was torture. The only reason I looked forward to going was it was a reason to get out of my parent's house. When I would get there, I would sell to women who would buy the same size they wore in 1960. From there they would bring them home, try them on, and return to the store wanting a refund. Bitch, it was the size you wore in 1960. Multiply it by three, look at the number and cry here. Save me a headache and yourself the money. Seriously!

I remember there was one woman out for blood. Her name was Darrilynne. She had just had her husband up and disappear one day, and he had been cheating with a woman who looked like me. She always accused me of wrecking her displays. I was always getting in trouble, and the wrench didn't even work in my department. Of course she always was angry, and her hair was blood red and looked like it was cut by a weedwhacker. Probably from killing her husband and his lover. Anyway, one day she pissed me off so much I just shoved it. I think it was actually an improvement on the design. Yeah, it was mean and nasty but I was tired of being bullied. They could fire me. I was ready to quit. Hell, I didn't even care.

I still remember getting fired. They had just taken me off the schedule. This woman named Diane who probably has lung cancer by now because all I ever saw her do was smoke called me in. She sat me down and said, "It was too many things, April."

Basically, she said, "You don't get along with your coworkers." Oh, you mean my manager Dee Dee who's wardrobe looks like it hasn't seen the Civil Rights Movement? Or Margot, the fat bitch who says she hates gay people and I point out no man who works in this store is straight? Or better yet, Jenny on stock, who said she was thirty minutes late for work because she was scarfing down cookie dough after being dumped. Yeah, I laughed because I thought she was kidding. Then she started crying because she was serious. I told her how stupid she was, and how she should have just lied and said she had car trouble like everyone else does. Yeah, not liking them so much either.

Then Diane told me there was an incident where some woman claimed she spoke to me looking for a sweater at our store. We had three in our system. This woman drove three hours and was upset to find none. Diane told me I should have checked. I told Diane she should have checked her computer, it said she had three. Diane claimed the customer was upset. I told Diane that if this idiot had three hours to drive to buy a sweater she deserved to be upset.

And then she said I was suspected of messing up the display. That I did but didn't want to cop to it. So I took the blame for the sweater instead.

Diane then said I could use them as a reference, and it wouldn't go on my record. I told her it was okay. I wouldn't be telling anyone I ever worked there. I was happy to get fired, especially since doing the math I made more money on unemployment anyway. Oh, and I got another job that day where I made nearly twice as much and actually cared about what I did.

My parents were the only ones that were upset about it. They were "worried." I had been gainfully employed since age fourteen. If this was the first time I was fired, I was doing pretty good.

Two days later, I got an offer to do a feature gig in Omaha, Nebraska. My path was being shown to me. Yeah, I might have made more money had I advanced in the chain. But the thing was, this is what I was meant to be doing. The job rejected me because I didn't belong there and never would. I had gotten fired, and more than anything in the world I wasn't concerned about a backup plan. I wasn't afraid. It was do or die.

I moved to New York and after graduating became serious about comedy. I took a job delivering singing telegrams. Not only did it give me an opportunity to expand myself, but I got a boss and coworkers I respect and adore. Most importantly, hell or high water, this is where I belong. I also got out of the relationship with the psychopath who denied me of my puppet children, and began to chase those dreams.

I have appeared on national television, headlined, and just recorded a DVD. I have worked with some of my heroes, made a song that was an internet hit, write for the Huffington Post sometimes and even wrote a book.

Am I where I want to be yet? No But had things worked out at the clothing store I would have kept my job and again, become a manager. I wouldn't have any of my dreams come true, and they would just be clouds in my coffee.

So yeah, getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me. It got me to get off my ass and to go for it. Also, it got me to not be scared of what might happen next, and led to me where I always knew I belonged.

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
Pre-order my DVD Broke and Semi-Famous @
www.aprilbrucker.com

The Passing Storm

This past week has been hellacious to say the least. Between money troubles, career uncertainty, shitty people harassing me and other shit I have to deal with, it has been a struggle. I would jump out the window but I might live. I would jump in front of a train but the thing might be local. I would stick my head in an oven but my oven is electric. You get the picture. In the words of Dorothy Parker, "You might as well live."

The cherry on top of the cake was a career disappointment. I wanted and needed this opportunity very badly. Fame has not alluded me. Money however has. This would have given me both. Despite my status as a reality star, I am broke. When my show was sold, I didn't get a dime. Actually, my show was sold many times. I am grateful for the exposure, the fans, and the people I have met. I am grateful fans know me on the street. I am grateful when someone tells me how they love my puppets. 

I am hardly being greedy. Someone who bought my show owns an island, I don't own a bed and cannot afford a TV to watch myself. This opportunity would have brought me to the next level and would have given me some financial security. What infuriates me is that I came so close. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride. 

There is nothing worse than having someone tell you how funny you were on television, and then having your rent check bounce. Or reading your fan mail and then wondering how to feed yourself. Or seeing a booker or show producer who fired you because they were jealous that they were never going to get your level of exposure using your picture to promote their shit. Let's not forget it being hard to find a more lucrative day job because employers have either seen you on TV or know you are going to leave, or customers recognize you and you become a distraction. And then it's, "Sorry, you're fired."

There was no tab for broke and famous. Granted, I know the money will come. I hate to sound like Scrooge, but it really sucks when you get paid shit and the man who owns the network drives away in a Beamer. 

However, I have some other doors opening for me which are nice. A booker I work with has some children's puppet shows he wants to book me on. I want to do these, because I want to work with children. Also, I have a teaching artist job I just landed bringing puppetry to drug addicts and others in prisons and mental health facilities. Additionally, I just landed a job as a talking head on an internet sports startup. Oh, and I have a photo shoot for a Billboard. So things are starting to turn around.

Also, I have another opportunity in the works that is quite amazing with my puppets. No news there yet, but hoping to get some. So yeah, it is getting better. Just not as fast as I would like it to be. But yeah, the weather is getting warmer. Maybe my luck will continue to get brighter too. 

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
www.aprilbrucker.com


Come see me April 22nd at 7pm
Metropolitan Room
34 W, 22nd st. 

Roasting Punxsutawney Phil

I hate winter more and more every day. It is turning into a canker sore on my soul. I hate this season. January sucks, February is better because work picks up but still sucks. Either way, when I think of winter, I think of death. Sometimes it gets so depressing why not die?

There is nothing like dying in the winter. Then again, a lot of people do it so the notion is kind of hack. Of course in the winter you are more likely to be alone so death is more likely to occur. However, death never comes when you need it to or want it to. So you are suck in your bed looking like a miserable fool. Then there is the thought of killing yourself. Yes, one could use the Sylvia Plath method but they made gas ovens in those days. We have electronic now, so scrap that. As for the overdose, everyone's done that too. Jumping out the window, so tempting but useless if you have the wrong outfit. Truth is, while winter sucks you are better off living.

Still, the little fat bastard Phil has sentenced us to six more weeks. So far this winter has been very dark for me. I am sitting in a lot of career uncertainty. Basically, I don't know what's next for me. Hey, with death at least you know you're gonna die. With uncertainty it's this dark tunnel. The outcome might well be wonderful, but then it might end in a barren desert. Of course, when you try to relay this to people they try their best/worst to help.

"You had a good run April, but it's a time for spiritual growth."

"You know, you could always do my project. You've gained exposure. I mean, I can't pay you but...."

"You're young, you have time."

I wish I could point to some path that looks like there is light at the end of my tunnel it feels like I am travelling in only the darkness. The fall/winter was kind of dark. Things got busy with work and I found myself poised to save Christmas. My grandfather died, too. It seemed all I did was work my fingers to the bone. As for this winter I was hoping to get a break but no. It's the slow time of year for my job. Money is tight. It's cold. My writing has been rejected from a few places. As a smart, ambitious, capable woman I am once again kicked in the face and forced to settle for crumbs.

Then those around me cannot wait to take cheap shots at me now that my chest is open. Whether it's washed up women showing uterus pictures on facebook or men seeking to oppress me because I have opinions, I feel as if I can't win. Oh and Phillip Seymour Hoffman died. We met once when I was having a bad day, but I needed a friend and he comforted me. I didn't know it was him until he rode off on his bike. What hurts the most is that he didn't realize how wonderful he was when we had him. Oh, and the Broncos sucked. While Bruno Mars did rock out a good half time show, it is proof America celebrates men who hate women, and women in this country don't have a voice. The only good thing is Amanda Knox might be going back to jail.

The only thing I have on my side is that it has to get better because it can't get any worse. Winter sucks for everyone. I have six more weeks of this cursed shit and so does everyone. Instead of dying I think I will just find the nearest groundhog and make groundhog burgers.

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
www.aprilbrucker.com