In 1997, my life was like a five-car NASCAR crash. The State -- my sketch group, family, and career for eight years -- went kaplooey. When we were on TV, the group spoke constantly about having a Rolling Stones-length run. "It's not about our own careers, but The State's," was our mantra, when it could have been "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Psychologists call that sort of shortsightedness "necessary illusion." There's also "not retarded, just slow." But I was the suckiest sucker in oh-such-sucky ways. Breaking up didn't just pull the rug out on me. It helped itself to some of the floorboards, too.
Agents, managers, producers ... we were like ships of drunkards passing on a far too foggy night. (Not sure why I made them drunk too, but it feels right.) The more I drank and the more eviction notices I earned, the more I felt a bit off my A-game. I was auditioning, pitching and appearing at the new hit comedy shows. But it just wasn't my Jazz Age, kids. I was beat.
Like ships passing in the night, sure. But SPACESHIPS?!
Lo and behold, I found the Lord! Who would have known He was a fun-loving, friendly ol' coot in a book called Conversations with God. The "co-author," Neale Donald Walsch, says that in 1992, he bottomed out. He wrote an angry letter to God demanding to know what he'd done to deserve whatever. He tells us, "Abruptly, the pen began moving on its own." Here begins the document. Walsch barbarawalters Yahweh, via Ouija pen.
It's not bad really, the book. It's just that, in it, God, who speaks in italics, seems to plagiarize everyone from Plato to Paltrow. Walsch himself was caught ripping off some PTA mom's Chicken Soup for the Soul story in a magazine essay this year. In that case, he didn't have the escape clause that comes from collaborating with the Ruler of Us All. At one point in Conversations with God, the Lord tosses out a quotable quip and Walsch responds, "I read that in A Course in Miracles." But God's a quick draw. "I put it there," he says.
The movie version starring a dude with a beard.
What I liked even more than the book was the premise. Maybe I could buy a notebook and tap into omnipotence. I was averaging fifteen hours of temping a week at $11 an hour. I wanted some magic again.
And it works! If you write an earnest question on a piece of paper and allow your hand to go on scribbling an answer, you'll get an answer. And if you want to believe that those answers are God talking through and to you, you'll be scribbling away from the best of you.
Sometimes, the God in my journal sounds like He's plagiarizing the one in Walsch's, but I guess that's monotheism for you. More often, He sounds like Shirley Temple. "I've got less than thirty dollars for this weekend," I write. God says, "Why not get happy about all the free stuff to do?" Reading the journal to the end, I see that some of my God's advice is iffy. Why did He insist I apply for a writing position at Conan a second time if, as I later found out, they'd already finished hiring?
Every now and then though, the man upstairs is alright. "Why can't you be speaking clearly to me all the time?" I ask, like Elliot distressed with E.T. "Because that would be boring," saith the Lord. This is just before He recommends I smoke a bowl and rent a movie. "Or put on some Miles." One smooth mother-Froster.
What do the voices tell you, Little one?
My sweet Lord doesn't pilfer from Schopenhauer, but he's pretty liberal with citations of Bill Murray. He's also about as gay as Rip Taylor. He calls me "Sweetie" and later, skin-crawlingly, "Little one." On one occasion when I go into Arthur Miller mode, angrily demanding, "What are you going to tell me today? That you're showing love to me most when you're Shakespeare-ing on me?" He retorts, "I don't Shakespeare on you. I'm not that kinky."
Sometimes, He walks me through upset and confusion in a very practical and positive way. The problem is that, naturally, He has His limits. By some odd coincidence, they're mine. My problem was that I wasn't making a living doing what I loved. That's why I was lost. That's why I felt a hole in my existence. And that's why, when I read my God journal now, I want to look away from the page when I see the Big Guy advising me to look for work at an entertainment lawyer's office or in film distribution. If there is a God, I suppose it's possible He can show up with only an orangutan's level of intelligence some mornings. I don't know what they have on tap up there. But out of all the non-celestial beings I knew, only I would be so confused as to think I could work in a law office. Now I say to myself, "It's okay that I did this, because it didn't turn out to be the first sign of paranoid schizophrenia, after all." It's easier to forgive me of my silliness than that of the Alpha and Omega's.
I got lost drifting away from the road less traveled by, and this time like E.T., I wanted a friend to tag along with while finding my way back. The God Journal ends after 50 or so pages. I'd simply begun to want to ask questions of myself without pretense in the paragraphs. But on the page immediately following the "conversations," I announce that I'll create my own Horoscope there. "This week," it reads, "when you wonder what the best stand to take would be, when you wonder what way of being would be best, take a moment, and then ... ask yourself!"
Do you have an "Imaginary Friends" story? Submit it as a ZUG Article and title it "Imaginary Friends: _____________." You might be invited to contribute to my upcoming podcast of dangerous stories, daringly told called RISK! For more info, visit risk-show.com. The first season of RISK! will include Marc Maron, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain, Janeane Garofalo, Keith Powell, Rachel Dratch and more. Click here to submit your story!
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