I think moving to Portland made me gay

Happy Pride. Creme Bru-F***** here to talk about I figured out I was queer/nonbinary. I lead by talking about some shows I did this weekend followed by a rousing speech on artistic endurance. This one is pretty revealing but that's what Pride is about? Idk call the queer police on me or whatever. Please subscribe to the show and leave a comment/review if you enjoy the content. 

Transcript

Recapping a weekend of shows

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's me. It's me. That's cool. Uh-huh. Uh uh. Yeah, it's Krim, fucking black. For the best we get out just dance. For the best you did and listen.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Welcome to the Krim World Podcast. We're probably close to episode 30 now. But I'm not counting. I'm your host, Krimberlay, coming to you live Sunday night, the recesses of the night. If you listen to this on Monday, you're basically listening to it, listening to it live. We out here. I'm your host. I said crime blah already. Follow me on social at Crimberlay2D. Um follow the platform, follow the podcast on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on. Subscribe, leave a comment, leave a rating, all the good stuff. You you you know what we do here by now. You're not new to this, you're true to this. You've been a day one. I don't know if anyone's been day one. I'm happy. I don't get into the numbers like that, but I'm happy that I'm feeling it's a steady curve of growth so far. You know, this is uh a podcast. I mean, if I didn't do stand-up, this would probably be a much harder thing to to manage. Because with with stand-up, I'm used to talking to people and people being like mildly interested to not interested at all. And we'll get to that. Um, I mean, why not? Why not get to that? I I said I'm coming to you in the recess of the night. You know, as a as a live performer, especially on the local level, the dream. We all just want to be working all weekend, right? Like that's that's where you make your money, that's where the the hot ticket shows are, yada yada. That's when the people are outside. Um, so I have I I did I luckily had shows all weekend. Um this this tonight, I just did a game show called Lord Door. Shout out to hosts Riley McCart Riley Urbano uh and Spencer Earl uh hosted at Ataball, and shout out to Ryle Smith as well. Uh also helped produce that. Uh a game show where it was like the dating game, but for people who were mentally unwell almost. Like I had to they they had they told us like weird stories and we had to like guess uh in dating game fashion uh which one of the people behind the doors gave the stories. It was a little convoluted, but um it we figured it out and it was a lot of fun. Um I started I started like kind of cutely bantering with one of the contestants behind the the door because that's not what the game should was. It wasn't a dating game at all, but we just started you know yuck-yucking and so you know to play into it, I was like, you know, being an entertaining and uh playing into it a little bit, and I didn't expect much of it, but then they revealed the people, like the people, what they look like, and I was the hottest woman they could have found, and I was really I shrunk up after that. So the the second half of my performance had a lot uh less charisma. It was a weird week in a shows. Uh Saturday night I did shout out to Sammy Eden and his uh people. I can't remember uh Archer is his brother or his manager, can't remember his name off the top of my head, but earlier this week um I got hit up to open or host rather for a comic from Sacramento. Uh he's Somali uh named Sammy Eden. He was doing two shows at this matcha cafe called Mina's Matcha, uh black-owned business here in Seattle. And you know, when his uh I think when him or his manager hit me up about it, they were like, Yeah, you know, it's a Muslim audience, so they're pretty conservative. Anything about uh sex or drugs is gonna really turn them off of you. And at first I was like, that's gonna be difficult. And I told someone, uh someone else this I was that I got booked on a show like that, and they're like, What are you gonna do? And so obviously I took that as a challenge and tried to, you know, my material isn't inherently I'm not I don't really do a lot of it's very racial. That's haha, racial humor. I don't know what that laugh was. Um, but it's very racial, racially based. So I did say, can I say nigga? And he's like, oh, for sure. So I was like, if I can say nigga, we're cool. I've had the problem with me in trying to work clean, because as a comedian, especially at my level, you take any work you can get, and some people want you to do clean stuff, which is actually pretty funny just to look at what any comedian does. It's the only art I thought about this where they'll be like, Oh, I like what you did in that, but I don't want you I want you to do a different thing. Like if you like booked a musician, you wouldn't be like, hey, just only play sad. I mean, do people do that where they're like, hey, only play sad songs? Maybe there's like I don't know. I feel like but with comedians you can book on and be like, hey, only do a specific type of your art, which is um hard sometimes. So I don't usually do a lot of clean stuff because depend I mean most people when they are asking for clean, they don't want you to say nigga, which it's like, you know, it it's a word that gets censored places. Yeah, I don't know what the standard is, you know what I mean? Like, I obviously, for the sake of like my career in the abundance of like, you know, I think a lot of my jokes would do better online if I didn't say like nigga and nigger specifically. Trigger warning, uh, I'm gonna do it. I'm sorry. No, I don't wanna do it. Nigger warning, I'm sorry. Uh-huh. Is that the name of my first album? Edgy Black Comedy, nigger warning. Okay, yikes. Um, but I don't obviously don't think it should be something where that's considered like a swear word. But obviously, if you're doing like I I get why you don't want your children to hear, nigga. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I'm trying to be pro pro-black here at the same time, or it's like, ah, it y'all made the word, you know what I mean? Like, y'all started it. I'm just saying, so now that's inappropriate. Now your children can't hear that, you can't hear that in the church because whatever. So, either way, I was allowed to say nigga at uh these shows. So going into it, I was pretty nervous, uh, not only because of the you know, quote unquote conservative uh crowd element of it all, but you know, being in Seattle and starting in Portland, I don't I rarely, not never, I can count on my hands, you know, how many times in the past year uh I've done a show for a majority black audience. And you know, I was talking to uh shout out to Justine Ventura, uh the other feature who featured uh with me as well. I was telling her before the show, it's like I'll I'll bomb in front of white people every day. I do bomb in front of white people almost every day. It means nothing to me. White opinions mean nothing to me. But if black people don't like me, excuse me, spiritually, it feels like I'm doing something wrong at that point. It's real going back to the drawing board, especially like I said, because I do racial material and I'm really sensitive about trying to do trying to like play with black stereotypes, but not in a way that's degrading to black people at all. Maybe not truly degrad like I'll say something that's humorously degrading to black people. Like, I guess as far as I go with that is being like, um, you know, black people are always late, or like black people like I do a joke where, you know, one of the the the shoe bomber, the dude who did the shoe bomb, the reason we all take our uh shoes off at the airport, the guy who did that was like uh actually ha is actually was, or I guess he's still alive, is actually half black. And uh, of course, the one time niggas do some terrorism sneakers are involved. What was our first plan? A stick of dynamite and a watermelon. That's that's as degrading as I'll get. You know what I mean? Talking about typical stereotypes, but clearly not doing any like, you know, the classic example of uh uh degrading to black people joke is Chris Rock's extremely popular, but extremely polarizing. The difference between niggas and black black people and niggas, which, you know, at the time was extremely popular among some people. There were a lot of uh prominent black figures at the time who had a problem with the joke as well. Um, and if you're not familiar, the idea of the joke is pretty much it's pretty simple, straightforward, like almost you could say, like white talking, white like right-leaning talking points about black people now. Whereas like, you know, there's black people who are like, you know, black the black people with ja the Obamas, okay? You have black people, the Obamas, and then you have niggas, and you know, insert any rapper, quote unquote thug persona person here. Um, and obviously that joke is like not something that gets a lot of play anymore. It's something that's ref referenced a lot, and Chris Rock stopped performing it because he's like, uh, yeah, I think some white people were getting the wrong idea. And I was like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, so that's always in the back of my mind when I'm writing a joke. I also, you know, already feel as I I don't think I've talked, I don't know how much I've talked about in here, but I'd also do material. And it's true, I feel like relatively insecure about a black per as a black person in terms of the way other black people people perceive me. Um that's a whole different can of worms. I've talked I've surely done an episode about it. I've talked about it on the pod episode where I do jokes or break down jokes because I do the joke about how I've never been called a real nigga. Uh I guess I'll add, while we're here, I do a joke about how I've never been called a real nigga. I'll spare you the joke, but I did it like a week and a half ago, and after the set, uh, a black person came up to me and he was like, Is it true that you've never been called a real nigga? And I was like, Yeah. And he was like, That's crazy. Good luck. And he dabbed me up, and I was I I died laughing. I was like, black people are all hilarious, it's a very funny thing to do. Um, so anyway, I didn't want to bomb in front of black people, I didn't want to uh Chris Rocket in front of black people. Um, and also aside from just being black people, just so many beautiful Somali women, just so many. And the nexus of people you don't want to bomb in front of for me are black people and beautiful women. Beautiful black women, audience full of beautiful black women, terrifying. If I don't do well here, I'm going to feel bad about myself in indefinitely. Because Lord knows when the next time I'll get another crowd of beautiful black women to redeem myself in this white ass part of the country. So the first show, first show, um, it doesn't matter the time or anything. First show I'm hosting, honestly, I don't want to say couldn't have gone better, but like I felt tremendous about it. Like everything of my like 10 minutes of jokes up top, there was only one moment where I was like, oh, I feel I can feel I'm stepping in towards the line that they're they're like uncomfortable with. But besides that, they were super receptive receptive to everything. I made some jokes about Macha, which me and just in the other comic were like going back and forth. Like, do we joke about Ma? It's just because you don't want to like disparage the business at all. You know, you can I I end up making jokes about what is it what joke did I do? I say it look like Shrek P and oh yeah, it's it's crazy that they have like a new that they have uh a business around such a seemingly new product. That would be like if Willy Wonka started a Dubai chocolate factory, yuck yuck yuck. Um so but those went well. Uh I could tell the matcha employees loved hearing some matcha. The matcha hit also. If you live in Seattle, shout out uh Mina's matcha in the U district. Delicious. I got the Ube joint, delicious. Um so it goes great. Uh to give you a barometer of how great it went, like in my second, you know, I did 10 minutes and Justine did fifth 15, then it went up and did another five. My second five, I'm like, okay, they're rocking with me. I'm gonna, in front of this audience of mostly black women, I'm gonna pull out the joke about how I date white women. That's that's how good I was feeling. I was like, I think so I came up, I just came up, I'm like, I think I'm gonna lose you guys here. And they were they were fun. Um, so I you know, it's like so I I do this to the surprise of no black people, I date white women, and got the perfect reaction, which is like some people laughing at me, like clearly, like thank you for people a lot of people laugh in a way where when I say I date white women, that is uh, or I do the joke about dating white women, that is a laugh that is like finally you said it, brother. Like, yeah, you clearly. And so, and it's that you like that, and then you like just jeers. I think the best way to describe it would be jeers, which isn't like booze, but just like ah meh, you know, just like a level of like uh, you know, they could tell I was being prickly, and also like I'm not gonna say like there was like a level of disappointment. I'm not gonna be like they're all like, yeah, zooks, I thought I could have you. Like it wasn't like that, but there was like a yeah, we like almost like we were hoping you weren't gonna say this. Like half the audience, we knew you were gonna say this, other half of the audience, ah, we were hoping you didn't. Um, so that was great. But then I was like, hey, listen, you guys heard about white genocide, like I am the great replacement theory, like I'm doing it, y'all. And then they started applauding. It was great. Um, and I end that joke with just uh it's the end of that joke references a queef, um, which is you know, we got the note that if we talked about sex, they would tighten up. But again, I'm feeling great at this point. I'm like, I'm gonna end on the queef joke earlier. I'm not really vulgar, um, but I'm ending on the queee joke. It hit excellent after the show. Uh Sammy uh told me and Justine, like everyone was saying, like we all did a great job, like 10 out of 10. We felt great. Um,

Navigating Failure and Embracing Artistic Resilience in Comedy

SPEAKER_01 16:02

and then the second show came. Then the second show came. The second show came and almost instantly I could tell that they weren't rocking with me. I say that because I say that because I was they asked me like what song I wanted to go up to, and I was like, let me get no hands by Waka Flocca. And I don't know why I felt this way, but in my soul, I'm like, if these people rock with no hands by Waka Flocca, they're gonna rock with me. So I got on stage and I tried to do a little like a lot of times you come on stage and you give a little dance, especially in front of black people. Yeah, like that's that's what you want to do. I'm like, again, first showing great, we're all feeling I'm feeling loose now. I'm feeling like, oh, I get it. I can say whatever I want. They went there with the queef thing, which is like if they'll go there with like a racial queeef joke, then you know, everything else is pretty much I don't think I get more vulgar than racial queef joke. Um they'll go with me. Uh instantly, I get on stage, I started dancing. They were not when you're dancing in front of people and they're not vibing with it, that's a terrible feeling to start a live performance with. So I get on stage kind of eh sh shall shoulder shimmy, uh, to no hands. Try to, you know, were people can let's sing? No, okay, whatever. I'd start doing my stuff. It's not it's just not hitting. Uh, you know, a hard part of doing like two shows um is like we're all gonna do a lot of the same material, especially like me and Justine, uh, who are like already, already like we're we're narrowing down our material in order to be like, okay, what is explicitly gonna fit in the show and make sense and also make sense with my other jokes. Um, so uh we're already running tight, and I don't know why. Why did I start saying this? Anyways, I start getting oh yeah, so you wanna you have to we we were all especially uh even the headline, like we're all gonna do I didn't do all the same jokes, but it's like I'm still gonna do some of the same jokes. Like I'm still gonna open. I had a joke that you know, a lot of part of my comedic philosophy, and this isn't uncommon, is like you want to start your set by like hanging out a little bit. Uh that's a really casual way to put it, but like I want to start my set by acknowledging where I am, taking a temperature of the room, shouting out people, you know what I mean, just to make it feel communal, to make it so I'm not just jumping on stage and jumping into material. Um, perhaps that honestly would have worked better, second show. Um, but no, I tried to like be a host. That's I was also hosting. I was trying to be a host, get the energy of the room up, set a good expectation. Um so I obviously it was like, okay, I'm gonna run my couple little matcha jokes that worked. Yeah, not really feeling the matcha jokes. Um, I start running my classics that I started with last time. Lukewarm. I get about halfway through the set. The set's going so lukewarmly that halfway through the set, I literally I go, hey, be honest with me. Do you guys like me? And I don't know if I've ever been that insecure on stage before. Like, I think it's important, maybe not important. Um, you know, there's something to be said to just like standing in the pocket of a bomb and just slinging and just like being confident. But there's also something to say, like I said, uh, about hosting, like acknowledging what's happening. I there's like I think it's cool to acknowledge what's happening. I'm not that used to bombing, you know what I mean? Like, and when I say that, I just mean like I I feel even when my jokes don't do well, I generally feel I have like the charisma and like self-confidence that I could at least mentally uh I I think you know I saw a Tracy Morgan clip uh a couple days ago or today I saw it where he's like there's a difference between like being funny and comedy, and you know, I think I have both, you know, not to toot my own horn, but I think uh any comedian who's like if you're genuinely a funny person, even if your comedy act isn't going well, there's still pockets where you could be like, Well, I could still at least acknowledge how this isn't going well in a fun way and try to engage you more. I don't usually do all that. Uh but it was going so poorly. I was like, Do you guys like me? And they gave me like a pretty good round of applause and then just went back to not laughing at all of my jokes. So that wasn't great. Uh I was feeling indignant, I think would probably be the right word. So despite it not going great, I was like, you know what, I'm still gonna try and end on the queee joke. Just it was a bad move. It wasn't going well, they weren't rocking with the you know, this crowd definitely felt more true to the like conservative, don't touch certain topics crowd. And I clocked that, and I was still like, I'ma let, I'ma let this quef joke fly. They hated it, they hated it, and that's you know, as a host, your primary responsibility, more than anything about yourself, is to like create an environment for your headliner to come in and you know crush it instantly. Like there was like there was a dude wearing this is hosting to me. There was a dude wearing an Obama t shirt, a not black a non-black person wearing an Obama t shirt in the front row of a black show. And And I went up to the headliner before. I'm like, hey, you see the guy in the Obama shirt. Do you want me to? I can just not address that if you want. And he was like, you know, you can do it. I was like, no, honestly, I don't have to. He's like, that I'd really appreciate that. That's what hosting is being like, okay, I see I see that there's something that any good comedian could go off on for X amount of time. Just white. It wasn't a white guy. It was a uh, he said he was from Pakistan, actually. So but a Pakistani guy wearing an Obama t-shirt. That's if you can't, you know, if you can't have a little fun with that, you shouldn't be doing comedy. Um, so like that's the job of hosting is like creating an environment where like the pin you're setting up the pins that the headliner's gonna roll down. But when you end with dead silence, then have to be like, and welcome this next guy. That's that's that's low-key fucking them. Like, I feel so bad. Shout out to Sammy, who's nothing but kind, uh, and everyone is supportive. It's so funny. Uh you know, you didn't do well when people are coming up to you after you'd be like, Man, that crowd was dry, huh? And we're just like, Yeah, that's yeah. Like they were, uh, no one did as well the second time. We all talked about after how the crowd was much like noticeably drier. You know, I think a lot of the all most of the crowd was Muslim, it was at a matcha place, no one's drinking. My theory is if you're at a this was a second second show, nine, ten o'clock. If you're not drinking, then nine, ten o'clock, it's bedtime. It's it's in the house time. Um, so anyway, that was exciting. Uh fun weekend of shows. The bomb, you know, I'm gonna use the bomb as a jumping off point to be like, I I felt so uh, I I feel no pain after a bomb now, which is great. Uh I am so happy with where I am right now in terms of like my comedy and where I am as a creative person. And I say that despite just a historic for myself bomb on Saturday night, and the I spoke about being in a contest, uh Vancouver's funniest person. I was in the finals, did not place uh second comedy competition this calendar year. I have lost in a fashion I found disappointing. Uh, I just got rejected from at least my third comedy festival of the year. Um, you know, recently the the club I I uh one of the clubs I perform at was looking for basically to make a long story short, a comedian I really like and and really respect was sent my material and was like, I'm gonna pass on this person. Um and that's that's the game, baby. I if anything, I just want to say this to motivate people in any artistic pursuit or not artistic pursuit. This is like the same uh uh advice I give you in business. You gotta keep failing, bro. You gotta fail more, you gotta fail faster, you gotta fail, uh, and new arenas because all that shit is work. I, you know, it's not fun to get rejected, it's not fun for me to drive six hours round trip to lose uh in a competition, uh, and it's 18 hours total because of all the three weeks, and I'm in at least two more competitions this year. I will lose. I mean, I just I mean, not even on some negative shit. Like, if all the everything breaks right for me, I will, but that's that's that's that's the thing, is like you can't in the arts, um, and again in any pursuit in life, like focusing on the results will kill you, bro, because the results in so many ways in the world are not up to you uh in terms of when certain things happen. I think, you know, I think the results are what I'm trying to say is like whether you win or lose any given at any given opportunity, whether you find success or failure at any specific junction, whether uh you get selected for this or that at any specific junction is not up to you. There's a million billion factors for a million billion reasons. There's a million billion reasons uh X comic didn't want me. There's a to open for them. Why don't they want me? There's a million billion reasons I lost the XYZ contest, there's a million billion reasons. Uh I didn't get into any festival whatever festivals. Um and if I focused on all that and tried to like just game my life to uh or at least refocus my life to hit the specific metrics I need to get those specific things and uh hope the everything aligns perfectly, I'll go crazy. Uh during the competition, uh, I can't remember his last name. Is it Gibler? There's a super funny uh comedian named uh Liam who, you know, he was pretty distraught after his set because pretty much at like, you know, his whole set's building to like this one big punchline near the end. And at the moment before uh his punchline hit, like a child in the audience, like I don't remember what they said specifically, but said something really loud that like made everyone turn their attention and then came back, and then it just killed the timing of like something he had like a piece he had been working up to for like minutes, and you know, he was pretty distraught. And then I just had this like pretty much this talk with him afterwards, like, yeah, man, that's that's that's show business, like especially if you're in the the art specifically, like if you're in finance or something, you make money, you you win. Um, but when you're in the arts and stuff like this, contests, who gets cast for certain things, who gets picked for certain roles, it's so much more out of your control than it is in your control. Now, of course, there are a million things you can't control. I can't control how hard I work, I can't control how much I put myself out there, I can't control uh where I focus my energy. And those will ultimately get me to the end result that I want. And the end result that I want is not making it at any specific, you know, being at any specific comedy festival or opening for any specific person. It's being the best comedian I can be, the best content creator I could be, because I know that nigga is like success and whatever metric is inevitable. Uh how many freaking there's a lot of episodes of this with uh at least on YouTube where it's just like YouTube shows you how long people watch your videos sometimes, and it's you don't I don't want that information. I gotta get uh more popping on YouTube before I want to hear that information because sometimes it's like you know, a lot of you had uh a couple hundred uh views on this video, but most of them watch for like 30 seconds, which means they read your energy and they were like, nah. So I'm gonna keep failing. I encourage you to keep failing. Maybe that was just uh tooting my own horn. Is that the phrase? Yeah, tooting my own horn. But I think for me, success or like how I measure success in my life now, and of course, this is all like a hypermature version of myself, not hypermature, but like not the version of myself I've been my whole life like losing contests and you know, missing on opportunities I thought I deserved used to crush me and make me angry and make me resentful to both other people around me and to like my art at large, which is to not fully toxic, but like an unsustainable way to pursue the arts. Um I think the only metric that we should have as artists is how much do we love what we're doing. And you know, I do to you know, I like you just like you I told you, I fucking drove 18 hours this past month to lose a contest. Like I got 50 bucks. Um, but gas, I spent at least 300 in gas. Um, that's how much I love this shit. Like I would do that again. I knew going in, I was like, this is not worth it in terms of anything besides trying to get better as a comedian. So you you just gotta find what your shit is, man, and get so committed to it that the results don't matter because you are enjoying your shit.

My journey to Pansexuality

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Okay, I'm gonna drink a Red Bull, then we're gonna get into the next topic. You know, it is Pride Month, and I just want to say shout out to Dirty Angel Entertainment. Uh, I did the Northwest Black Comedy Festival down in Portland put on by Dirty Angel Entertainment back in February. I think I talked about it on here, but just one of my favorite events of the year, and something I hope to come back to every year as long as they have it and I'm alive. Um, but this year I got the opportunity to host the Black and Proud showcase, which showcased uh all a lot of the best black queer comedians from across the United States. Uh I got tapped to host that, which was an honor, and they have uploaded that entire showcase to YouTube. Um, I think you type in Dirty Angel Entertainment, Black and Proud Showcase, Northwest Black Comedy Festival, any of those things, type it in, and I'm pretty sure you'll be able to navigate yourself to the video. Excuse me. Uh they uploaded it, of course, because it is Pride Month. Right? Right, guys? Is it uh who is that? Producer? Uh I just looked at a fake producer. I'm a little test not testy. We're about to I'm about to open up to y'all. Uh so it's Pride Month. I'm a queer person. That is, you know, I think should be I don't know if I was gonna say that should be clear. Um, I think I subtly tried to make it clear by talking just now about how I was the host of a uh a showcase of some of the black best black queer comedians across the United States, of which I am all. Of the above, I don't know. Anyways, um, yeah, identify as pansexual. The I I am like, I don't know if I'm the most, because there's no way to measure this, but I'm in terms of like people who call themselves queer but say it quietly because they're insecure. I am up there. It's kind of like a uh uh a stereotypical bisexual experience, and of course I identify as pansexual. Let's break that down. What does pansexual mean? Do people know the difference between bisexual and pansexual? Um, to me, I'm gonna do a bit, so this is a bit. To me, it's simple. Bi means two things, so bisexual people want to fuck two things, men and women, whereas I just want to fuck. Ah, Gram's so funny. But I think that's a semi-uh reasonable way to way to um frame it. I have put that version of the joke online and it opened up a bunch of discourse about the true meaning of bisexuality, this or that. So I'm certainly not the authority. Um, I'm not gonna say no one is, because there are people who are certainly much more steeped in queer theory uh than I am. But but in the most simple terms, bisexual people, as I said, want to fuck two things, whereas pansexual people, and my understand from my understanding, and the reason I chose to identify this way is because you know, I'll I'll get to it when I talk about being non-binary as well. It's really hard for me to comfortably label myself anything that is definitive in almost any capacity in terms of like my sense of self. So even like, for example, like in terms of like spirituality, religion, I think like I fit into the agnostic box, which is just the uh like it could it could be anything y'all said, it could be nothing y'all said, I don't know. I I don't feel qualified to weigh in on it. Um because I feel like I've had enough experiences in my life that have changed the way I thought about myself, and they've happened consistently enough that I, you know, I don't feel confident saying I'll never feel differently about God or sexuality or whatever it may be in on this mortal plane. Um I think everything, at least for me, could I open to it changing. Um I think I grew up, and I think I grew up, I grew up straight for not the most part. I grew up sh I grew up a straggate, as uh John Marco Serezzi says, which is like, you know, we'll get into it at the end of this episode. I'm gonna talk about fun, the band fun for a little bit. But as a youth, I liked a lot of uh queer-coded things, uh, the band fun, the t television show Glee. Me and me and my best friend, um, at one point, our iPhone backgrounds were I was it mine was so there's a shot in the Lady Gaga uh and Beyonce telephone music video where Lady Gaga and Beyonce are sitting back next to each other. And me and my friend, who as far as we knew, were straight at the time, changed our backgrounds respectively to the Beyonce and he was Lady Gaga in that like we were and we put our phones together and it was that. And that's that's gay. That's that's not straight behavior, I would say. And of course, I don't want to um act like all these things make you like I'm not trying to do the typical, like, you know, theater is is definitely gay, sports is straight. Like, obviously, everything exists on a spectrum, people and every different box, like everything. But there was just a ton of looking back on it, very uh queer again, queer-coded things I did, but for the most part, uh, I never didn't. I guess also I forgot about this. One time in as I was a freshman in college, me and my roommate were hanging out with these two girls, and I earnestly think I don't remember it perfectly, over 10 years ago at this point, and this is just a story I've told myself. I think we were having like kind of like a like a flirty thing with these two girls, and at one point, I don't remember if it was me or him, but we're like to these girls, we're like, yo, we'll make out with each other if you make out with each other, which again, pretty pretty gay, if you ask me. Uh, especially because it wasn't even like make out with us, like, no, you we we got us lady. I'll take care of my boy. We just want to watch. We actually just want you to watch. Uh, so that was that was as far as that relationship ever got in terms of gay gay shit. Um, but again, I'm just telling you, like bread crumbed through my life. There was a once I got to so I don't really know what the moment that I decided that I was pansexual is. I think it was probably around the 2020s. It in 2020, 2021 is when I like started going by creme role and started being non-binary. And I think canonically, maybe like no, I think I was maybe like a year before this. When I started doing comedy, one of my first jokes was about being pansexual. So I feel like that was pretty much 2018-ish, uh, when I was 24, 23, 24, is when I kind of came to terms with it. And I think a lot of it is, you know, I think if you are a straight person in Portland, you're definitely straight. Like if you have lived in Portland, and especially if you've been young and messed around, and you think you're straight, you're straight. You're the straightest. Because for me, if Portland's a city you move to, and you're like, oh, I'm not fully, I'm definitely not fully straight. I think that's a lot of the experiences I had, uh, that's the experience I had, and a lot of people had. There's just only so many, because what throws I think what emission initially started me thinking it is like once you introduce non-binary people into the mix and trans people into the mix, and like if you truly are accepting of people's identities that that exist outside of the classic gender binary that we have as like patriarchal, whatever, whatever, um, then it starts to immediately make things murky where it's like, well, if you like a femme presenting person, but they identify as non-binary and y'all still smash, that's technically not straight sex. Listen, if you're if you're if you're not stup if you're not uh if you don't have the woke mine virus, this whole section will be illegible to you, and I get that. But if you live on the West Coast and are less than probably any age, I think all this shit's pretty canon on the West Coast, then you probably understand. So by the time I'm living in Portland and taking drugs and being out on the town, after like a year or so, I'm like, I don't whatever I'm doing isn't just straight. I'll just it's hard for me to define what it is specifically, but I'm pretty sure this isn't just classic P and V all day. Happy pride. Um so I that is uh classic P and V all day. That that sentence will haunt me um for the rest of for the rest of this episode. Um so yeah, I think you know uh this is a little a bit more of a vulgar take on it. Um no, it doesn't have to be though. It doesn't have to be. Sex work is real work, um, and porn is fine. Um but yeah, once you also, you know, start once you start clicking on the other links and the recommended links enough on on various porn websites, you get into some stuff where you're like, yeah, I don't know what this is, it's not straight. So that's how I came to like accept myself or understand myself as pansexual. I think, you know, as I said up top, I have a lot of insecurity about calling myself queer. Um, because you know, you don't I've my whole life is a struggle of not being whatever enough for whatever group uh I I am a part of, you know, if we want to talk about being black or um you know being queer, uh a lot of my a lot of my life is marred by imposter syndrome. But I definitely have it because, you know, a lot of what it looks like I do is optically very straight behavior, you know. I I've certainly done a lot of stuff that is outside of the classic P and V. I went back to it. How'd you like that? I went back to it. Um I've done a lot of stuff that was outside of the classic P and V. Why did I start this sentence? Oh, but what I I do a lot of the classic man, okay. I'm just gonna say I I like a lot of things, I've done a lot of things, I'm open to a lot of things, but 90-ish percent of what has my attention is women. So I'm with a woman, I talk, I you know, that's what I've I explained it already. It's mostly women. Um, so it doesn't really appear I don't feel you know, and and this is part of the is this patriarchy or what's the gay what's the gay version of the homophobia? But I don't know if this is homophobia. Um I don't know what this to call it, but just you know, I guess maybe it is homophobia, but just the idea that there is a certain way queer people look. And it's also like, you know, I I definitely as guy or person who had like Beyonce wallpaper at uh uh various points of my youth, I definitely got called uh uh um I definitely got called a faggot as much as one can. So it's not even like I don't it's not even like I haven't suffered feels like not the right word. But like I've I've had I don't see this is where this is where it's at. Um if insecure, queer people, I'm sure y'all are listening to this, some of you, you know what I mean. Air dat me up, but um, yeah, I I'll kiss a dude too. I've been known to kiss a dude. Alright, I think have I thoroughly explained that. Uh I don't know. Uh hit me up if you have questions. No one ever let's start a dialogue. Um, and I also I don't know, kind of want to talk about being non-binary.

Deconstructing Gender and the Nuances of They/Them Pronouns

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Hold on, let me have a little red ball. I feel like this is like also the month to talk about this as well. I'm a non-binary person. I use they them pronouns. I prefer they them pronouns. This is what m mostly we're gonna talk about. Um, when did I start to become non-binary? I think I talked about a little already. Um the pansexualness was like pre-COVID, the non-binariness was COVID made me non-binary, guys. Um but a product of that. And you know, again, I've already talked about feeling not committed to anything in my life, but you know, any uh thought system or way of understanding the world or thing of that nature, and you know, gender is a little different because with like sexuality you have to like decide for yourself, whereas gender is something that is thrust upon you from birth. I guess like sexuality you could argue is too in a lot of like in more conservative places. Um but gender is kind of something we're all assigned. I've always I've always just not understood the concept of gender, uh if that makes sense. I I could do more reading on it, and I have done definitely a decent bit already. Um But every every understanding I have every time I don't know, every way people think about gender and every way that it's been expressed and everything about like masculinity and femininity, like all the thought systems around those things, you know, a lot of the ideas and theories um resonate with me and like are even legible to me, but I also feel the inverse of everything, if that makes sense. Like, I feel like the inverse of everything you say about gender can also be true. Anything that's like men are more this way, women are more this way, naturally, men are this, women are that. Sure, and also you could find a million billion examples where it's not true. So if that's the case, uh, where there are really no setup rules, and the only thing that I guess you could say is like a defining characteristic is like the setup of the body that is like that's the only thing that's set in stone, you could say. I mean, you know, obviously people can transition, but that's the only thing that's like tangible, if that makes sense. Uh everything else in terms of the discussion of gender, I find, is very like theoretical and easily disprovable uh to me. So to that notion, I don't know. I've never felt comfortable fitting into because I've never because I don't really see the idea of masculinity and femininity as things that are like I don't even like I don't even know if they exist as concepts. You know what I mean? Like things can be more mask I think they exist in terms of like how we've created them as as labels by which we can define things from like a vibe perspective, like fighting is more masculine because men like to fight more. Sh sure, but that doesn't feel like as many men like to fight. I, you know, being assigned male at birth. The idea of fighting is terrifying to me. Uh, you know, playing sports growing up, football growing up is terrifying to me. There's plenty of women who fight and are whatever, whatever. So even the idea, you know, that's just how I break things down in my head, where it's like, is fighting more masculine, or have we just said that because that's what a lot of the motion is for? And we've like, you know, uh put all these signifiers of like high testosterone and like whatever other things we associate with masculinity, we've attached those to fighting because of the fact that more men like to do it. This is again, if you're not woke mind, and maybe if you're not high, I don't know if this is super legible. I've never talked out my theory on gender as much as I am now. All of that to say, I don't know what masculinity and femininity, I don't know if I believe in them as concepts. I kind of just think we all exist and pick from a bunch of different uh, you know, categories of stuff we like, and you know, a lot more quote unquote men uh select a lot more similar things. And is that natural or is that because of the society we've created that forces a lot of men to think they like those things or pushes a lot of men towards those things and pushes women towards different things? I hope through that I've demonstrated that to me the idea of gender is if you're taking it away from purely biological sex, I think the concept of gender is fraught. Um, and in my opinion, you know, a thing we use and is perhaps I don't know if I want to say necessary, but has been like useful as a tool up until this point for categorizing and understanding humans on an extremely base level. And I'm not really pushing for the abolishment of gender, but in my in my own self, um it I've never felt comfortable aligning myself with either. And then when I heard, you know, not only I think me becoming non-binary, also like I was just in a cohort with a lot of people, a lot of a lot of people in Portland who were in their 20s and had colored hair and did art. We were all hanging out and we're all like, are we all non-binary? And so, like, I don't I don't want to say there was a whole bunch of us, but like, you know, if if you and a lot of friends, like, that's how stuff works. One person in a friend group is like, I think it I think I'm this, and everyone's like, Yeah. And so I don't remember who was first. Um, I think I'm I don't know, like my best friend at the time was trans. Uh half of the people I hung out with were non-binary. Who knows who was the first one to be like, let's all do this, but it was a time where a bunch of us decided that's what we wanted to do. Um and I'm still pretty confident that like that's how I feel. It it definitely so in terms of like it definitely gets difficult w when it comes to parenting a three-year-old, because you know, you have to you know, they say you have to learn something before you can unlearn it. Like, I don't it's gonna be so hard. I have anxiety about trying to work non-binariness into his understanding of gender off rip, not to say that it's like the wrong choice. I just don't know how to do it, and that's something I should and can and have do more research on. Um, in terms of like the pronouns of it all, I I always have said I use they them pronouns. Maybe this is maybe this will be where I officially change it. Um here's the thing, man. I like they them pronouns because that feels if I you know if I am non-binary and I believe that to be a real thing, and I believe myself to not be a he, then that's a logical way to ask to be addressed. Um I also will admit that I like it in terms of I don't know if this is like technically uh uh ethical. I don't know, who cares? I also like it just as a way I if I get to if I introduce myself to someone and tell them, hey, I am this, I identify this way, these are my pronouns, boom. It is, and again, I don't know about the ethics of this, but it's and how I think about it though, it's a way to tell how much someone is really trying to understand me or making an effort to respect and acknowledge the things I've told them. Um, you know, there's older people in my life who mess it up all the time but correct themselves immediately all the time, and that and it means that means a lot to me because it's like you are trying to see me and understand me, and you I'm I'm sure Fluid don't understand this, but you are making an effort to see me as the person I want to be seen as, and that means a lot. It does a lot more to me, positive, like the negative. I you cannot be non-binary and be people are always like, I'll say your pronouns right, just don't get mad at me. You cannot exist as a non-binary person and get mad every time someone gets your pronouns wrong. It you there's not enough time in the day, it's not worth your energy. So that's why you know part of me wants to change mind to they he because I get heat so often and hee hee. And I I don't feel like correcting people all day, like I just deadass don't. Like I don't think I I think I'm insecure about like the fact that I don't want to correct people because I'm like, no, there's a voice in my head, and I had a friend who was a little bit more militant about their non-biners, like you have to like correct people every time, and I think I like feel insecure because like that's the rubric I'm getting myself against, and we all have our own journeys. I realize that now, but there's still a part of me that's like no, you gotta step up for yourself. But it's like the amount of time I A, there's people who they just got other shit going on, and I don't mean that in like uh whatever I got going on isn't important, but like my boss's boss at work who like I only need to have a conversation with like once a quarter, who I know manages legit like hundreds of other employees uh at like my level. I was like, I don't I don't expect you, you know what I'm like that's that's a lot to expect from you. I acknowledge that like asking someone to do that like that's I'm asking you to flip how you think about and how you approach language for 99.99% of your life. I understand that you know the 80th employee you've talked to that day probably happens to be non-binary. That's like that could flip, and obviously not every situation's that crazy, or that like in other situations, people are have much the stakes or the amount of stress or like mental load on them is much lower. I know that's kind of an extreme example, but that's what I'm trying to illustrate where there's a lot going on in the world, and to for me to expect people to again read re rejigger how they approach the human language uh for potentially one person that in their life or not even in their life that they're interacting with for like a short period of time, uh yeah, I that's I don't really I'm not pressed about it. And again, if I was gonna be pressed, I would be pressed 75 times a day. So um I think it probably is the most true to myself, true to this, not new to this, to start going with they he pronouns, and maybe I will. It just feels like taking a knee because the worry with going to they he is then everyone just like, oh, so he. You know what I mean? And it's like, no, I still like I mean, maybe that's what they he indicates, is that like I prefer this, but like I'm settling. I gotta talk to a they he. If you're a they he, get in my DMs. I'm thinking about joining the they he side. Um yeah, I'm gonna drink a Red Bull and then we're moving on to the next topic. Happy Pride Month. Did

A personal essay about "Some Nights" by Fun

SPEAKER_01 58:19

I do a good job of that? I don't know. Alright, last segment of the show. Y'all know I love music. I would borderline this could b this could be a music podcast. Not to say like I like it at in its current form that it resembles a music podcast. Maybe you've heard me talk about it before. I like comedy a lot. I love music. I got into this whole game because of music. I have this podcast equipment because I make music. Um, you hear the intro song, I make music, stream my shit. I'm a big fan of music, and I'm a big fan of the personal essay as well. I wanna maybe write like an anthology. I maybe I want to write a collection of essays one day. Uh I talked about uh Hanif Abdul Rahim, I believe that's the bro's name. Uh he did a collection of essays called I'm sorry, I can't remember it right now. Um, but shout out to him. I I just love I like the personal essay and like that kind of jam. And I'm like, you know what? What if I just did a I've been wanting to do like a song of the week kind of thing for a while. So I think this is just a segment we're gonna test drive. This is a short 500-ish word song of the week essay. I don't know what it's gonna be called yet. Uh song of the week is a little uncreative, and I also don't want to do like diary. I think someone definitely already does Diary of a song, but something along those lines. Um, our first entrant is gonna be about the the is gonna be uh an essay about the song Some Nights by the Band Fun. I'm not gonna give you any more because I won't let the essay get to talking, but um I will probably say that, yeah, let's just say this is gonna be the end of the episode. I'm not gonna provide any commentary. I I want to see how it feels ending on like a because like I wrote this, you know what I mean? I I I wrote this. So we'll see. This is the first one. You gotta get me. I haven't dusted off the writing. Uh I mean I write a lot. I'm literally a writer. Um, but I haven't written to be like earnest and like, you know, I don't respectful, mem nostalgic, whatever. So this is an essay. Uh oh, and before we do that, thank you for listening. Please subscribe on whatever platform you're on. Follow me on Instagram at criminble A2D. I really, really do appreciate you listening. Um, I hope you'll listen to this last little uh piece I write about this song. I love music, I love you. Uh yeah, and we're gonna go out on this. This is uh an essay about the song Some Nights by Fun. I was not cool in high school. Like many kids that age, I had no sense of who I was or who I'm taking it from the top. I'm gonna mess up, but I can't mess up at the top. Alright. I was not cool in high school. Like many kids that age, I had no sense of who I was or what I stood for. I'm 30 now and I mostly understand myself thanks to a life full of trying on different personas to varying levels of success. But some nights I feel as if I'm that same teenager who felt overwhelmed by the potential of life. Some nights I wonder if all the work I've put in to build the person I am today is fraught. The band Fun released the song Some Nights in June of 2012. Fun, made up of members Nate Russ, Jack Antinoff, and Andrew Dost, no longer releases music together. I'm not really sure why, but in a way I'm glad they don't. Not simply because they quit before the inevitable decline of any artist, because but because they feel meant specifically for that era that they but because they felt meant specifically for the era they operated in. Fun was how America felt after the election of Barack Obama. Fun was earnest, fun was camp, but most importantly, fun was triumphant. Some nights the title track of their sophomore album was their anthem. Obviously We Are Young is a song they're most known by, and in many ways the songs were cut from the same cloth. But some nights captured the attention of me and all the theater kids and unrealized queer kids I knew, like nothing else did in popular music, maybe Gaga. I listened to a lot of music before I got to some nights, but I had never heard anything like it before, and I've never heard anyone try to even sound like it since. To me, the only analogous band is Queen. Like Bohemian Rhapsody or We Are the Champions, some nights feels like the final number of a musical or the main character performs a song that embodies the spirit and emotional resonance of the entire narrative. The beginning of the song feels like jumping into a battle with a self. Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck. Some nights I call it a draw. Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle. Some nights I wish they just fall off. I decided to write about the song because I performed two comedy shows in one night recently, and they went as well and as poorly as two shows could go. During the first show, everything I said was hilarious and my confidence was sky high. During the second show, the audience was so cool towards me that I asked them if they even liked me. That night that night I had wished that my lips could build a castle, and in that same night I tried to rip them off. As soon as as I walked home blaring some nights, I thought of my son. The emotional peak of the song, my heart is breaking for my sister, and the comment she called love. Then I look into my nephew's eyes. Man, you wouldn't believe the most amazing things that can come from some terrible nights. There are a myriad of ways those lines could be interpreted, and I'm not religious and I'm not there are a myriad there are a myriad of ways those lines could be interpreted, and I'm not really interested in speculating about the circumstances that inspired this stanza. And without turning this into an essay about parenthood, I will simply say this. I think I'll always have moments where I question everything, because I'll never truly know what lies ahead of me. And that's really scary. But I still wake up, I still see your ghost. Oh Lord. Yes, crap, fucking relax. I want you back, I should crack. Yes, crap, fucking relax. I want your bangs, I want you white. We not the same style my life. She gave me brain, that's my grass. I don't do brakes, I don't do guts, I don't do jails, but you're fine. I fucking dance, I don't pick. And that you stay, I'm making red.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

I'm like dumb, I want to face, I want to kick, I do pick, I want to pick, I'm the bitch, I lick I switch, look at the wrist, tryna have kids, try to eat grass, she wanna pick, I'm with you bitch, she wanna kiss, and I'm gonna lie, the bitch, I'm a bitch, baby and rich, I'm gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

Yeah, it's crack and fucking black, you make a line, quick, white, yeah, it's crying, fucking relax.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

Yeah, it's crying, fuckin' black, I wish you picked, I wish you white.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

I dribbin' on the highway, roaches on the driveway, brawling like LeBron James, you niggas Kyrie, white bitches like Miley, like me, cousin wifey, white chat on a glass track, blackness of a spiky, whiskey in my chai tea, something ring on her knees, as you need to tie meat. I buy her some herb meat. Baby, it's your birthday. Won't you have some broad lack? Come and sit on my face, even if it's time. Yes, cram, fucking relax. Yay can lie or you can wait. Yes, cram, fucking relax. I want your bag, cause you look great. Yes, cram, for I can relax. And watch your backs, and watch your white. Yes, cram, fucking relax.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Cram for that. Yay, can like or you can wait. Yes, cram, foreign. I want your bag, cushion the great, yes, cram, for you. I want your bangs, and my shit wake.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

We have the com cram ruling.