What is winning, People?
By the time this is read I will know whether or not I won a Critics' Choice Award. I will have already appeared on TV in a head box event. Some of you may have watched me win or lose.
This is the day before and I am always forced to consider what awards mean to me when I am up for one or not. I know I rarely, if ever, win them. I think the last major award I won for standup comedy was second place in the WBCN Comedy Riot in 1988. It was because of that award that I began my career as a professional standup. I had been doing it a few years before that but August ’88 marks the beginning of my career as a paid comic. No more day job. So, in August of this year I will have been a professional standup for 33 years.
I have lost and not been nominated for awards all of my professional career. I know how to lose. I always get excited at the idea of winning and prepare to win in my mind but I lose and absorb it. Rationalize it. Realize it’s not important and in many cases not based on anything that has anything to do with the work, really. See, rationalization (but totally true).
Some awards I think I should have won or, at the very least, been nominated for. Some I was nominated for but knew I wasn’t the guy nor should I have been. In my entire career the only one I thought I deserved for sure was a Peabody. Who even knows what they are or what they are for? Who cares? Seriously, who cares? Fuck the Peabodys. Who the fuck are they to judge? I’m over it. Doesn’t matter. Fuck them.
All this is to say that no matter what happened yesterday, I know, in my heart, if there is any award I deserve, it’s this year’s Critics' Choice Award for Best Comedy Special of 2020. I mean, I don’t usually sing my own praises, but this is the one. I can see every minute of all 35 plus years of work in this set. I’m very proud of it and it was a collaboration with the late Lynn Shelton. I know what it is. I know it is great. I know I may not do better.
I also know that I don’t win awards.
I am grateful for my life despite all the losing and sadness. I have found my voice creatively and as a human. I have an audience. I do the work. I am paid for the work and respected for the work I do. I am okay with myself in the world (most days). That is winning.
So, no matter what happened yesterday. I’m good. I won. I earned my life.
Today I talk to Eddie Murphy. I enjoyed talking to him. He showed up for it. We had some laughs. On Thursday I talk to Hugh Grant. I enjoyed talking to him too. I didn’t think I would. I laughed a lot. He’s a dark, funny fucker. Great talks.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron