Colin, We Hardly Knew Ye

I fear stardom has claimed another victim -- Colin Farell. Did anyone see him on David Letterman last night? He was in pretty rough shape. He said he'd quit drinking, but he looked bloated and blurred, as if that last hangover hadn't really passed on. He tried to rustle up his old charm but he was stumbling over words, repeating phrases and actually sounding remarkably drunk for a sober person. I wondered if he'd just switched to pills.

It's a shame because his charm is still visible, and he seems like an honest and sincere person. David Letterman asked him point blank, "Would you say you're an alcoholic?" and Colin replied in his lovely brogue, "I wouldn't be categorizing myself that way or any way. I'm a human being with many flaws." The audience applauded. It seemed so sincere. And sad. Because he seemed ready to go back to drinking at the drop of a hat. Dave said, "Does it feel like you might return to it in, say, ten years?" and Colin agreed emphatically, later amending it to "One year, Dave, let me say one year."

I'd like to say something sentimental and offensive about the Irish and drinking, and since I'm half Irish I'd like to excuse it that way, but it seems too stupid. I'm inclined to think far too much in racial stereotypes. There was a Scotsman in my comedy writing class last night and he kept coming up with funny, smart ideas and rattling them out in his darling accent without the slightest self-consciousness. I thought, They are just genetically superior, after centuries of better education or something.

Also, watching Colin Farrell, I was drinking beer myself, thinking, At least there's drinking. It was the only thing I could think of as a way to deal with the fact that I had just discovered, during 3 excruciating hours, that I have quit my job for nothing because I am not funny. There was not one thing on earth that could have kept me from drinking after that class.

Partly the problem is that I have a terrible time talking in groups of strangers. But last night in addition to shyness I found myself mentally null. I had no ideas, over several long hours during which people were supposed to throw out ideas. And most people did. They spoke up confidently, calling out idea after idea. I pondered the sluggish blankness of my brain. Was I, actually, kind of stupid? Was it just the presence of others or am I actually not a quick thinker? Maybe I'm a just a doughty scholar after all, I thought miserably, wishing I was sitting in a literature class where nothing witty was expected of me. Or is it just having anything expected of me? I always clutch under pressure. I can play tennis perfectly well until we decide to play a real game -- at that point, I start dumping everything into the net.

I had known the class would be lively and competitive in a way I'd find hard. But I still wasn't able to sit tranquilly in the presence of so much mental liveliness and detach in a non-egoistic way. Partly because my own rash investment in this life was mocking me. It began to seem almost comical to me, except that very little felt comical to me, that I had quit my job and then discovered I can't think on my feet, can't talk when other people are around, lack a normal human compass for experience (I am constantly wondering 'What are they talking about?') and don't know what's going on in the news or politics or on TV or with Paris Hilton. Not that I want to be a wisecracking jokesmith who always has a Paris Hilton zinger on the tip of her tongue. That's what was making me wonder why I had chosen this path.

But this is just a test of all the things we battle all the time. Ego, competitiveness, self-defeatism. I have to keep going in there and feeling like a dumbass. I know I do. It'll get better and if it doesn't, the whole thing is already seeming hilarious to me in itself.