Julia Sweeney: Older & Wider

I am now on Substack. Here is my Welcome Post. Let's Call it #1

     Hello.  My name is Julia Sweeney and I’m an actor and comedian.  A comedic actor, a comedic actress to genderfy myself.  I write too, in fact, I consider myself a writer most of all, but looking back I’ve made far more money from acting than writing, so I guess I’m an actor.  Actress, I mean.

     What do I mean? 

      Are we supposed to identify as an actor, not specifying the gender?  Actress sounds finicky, privileged and probably deluded.  Actor is serious: Laurence Olivier, Jeremy Irons.  Actress is suspect.  Not going there now, so tired of both the Patriarchy and the Patriarchy-blamers.  Anyhow, what I really care about is skill, not talent.  Talent is cheap and ubiquitous, litters the sidewalks of Hollywood, everywhere you look plastic bags (ten-cents-each!) of talent blow this way and that.       

     No, forget talent, it’s skill that we aim for. 

     I aimed my talent-arrows at many targets.  The word haphazard, or herky-jerky might come to mind.  So, in my case, my skills were scattered.   One thing I knew I could do well was to tell a story on stage.  

     Again, again.   

     Hello, my name is Julia Sweeney.  You probably know me, if you know me, from my years at Saturday Night Live.  I touched the bright orb of Popular Culture with an androgynous recurring character called Pat.  Then, Icarus-like, I fell backwards out of the sky, as the non-binary world gathered its skirts and grew in influence and decided that Pat was not a good icon at all!  I was probably up to no good!   Fortunately, I was already has-beened, so only the smallest ripple, deep beneath the ocean of my world, percolated up to my awareness.  The then Jill Soloway (now Joey) declared in the New York Times and then the Chicago Tribune that Pat was an affront.  A humiliation to the non-binary. 

      The fact was that I had never thought of Pat as non-binary.  Or gay.  I thought of Pat as heterosexual, maybe even homophobic.  The joke as I conceived it was that Pat was just not clearly male or female to other people.   But to Pat, Pat was, well… whatever Pat was. 

       Soon after, SNL stripped out most of the Pat sketches from its collection on the show’s website.  The Taschen SNL book did not mention Pat.   Pat was outed in the most profound sense of that word.

     Self-censorship is a powerful force.    

     Anyway, I was on SNL, a brief four and a half years, let’s say five to round it out.  Early 90s.  A blink of an eye, yet I still occasionally dream of it, like one probably would after they’d been in a war, any war, let’s say The Great War, in the trenches.  Imagine the worst, most exhilarating, most excruciating, most indelible time.  In my dreams, a wall-mounted tinny speaker in the hallway of  Studio 8H blurts out that we’re going live in 5.  The rush of heels clacking in the hallway outside my dressing room.  Did they change the script? Are the lines on the queue cards?  Is that mustard gas I smell?   Should I write a quick note to my loved ones and pin it to the muddy, wet (you could say tear-stained if they weren’t already blood-stained) walls of the trench?

     The kind of dreams I imagine Wilfred Owen would’ve had, had he’d only lived.  Or Chris Farley.

       I will startle myself awake out of those SNL dreams.  A snort of apnea sometimes thrusts me into reality.  My husband sleeping next to me.  Here I am.  Here I am.  Here I am.  I am reminded back into the present by my thumping heart, my skin against my husband’s thigh.   

     I also still dream (a couple of times a year) of Lorne Michael’s approval, embarrassing in its mildness, in the clear implication that crumbs were all I ever expected, the dream features him… just nodding yes.  Or maybe a sly smile of approval at some bon mot I’ve tossed out at Orso, where we used to eat on Tuesday nights with the host. 

     That is just the most embarrassing aspect of my subconscious, that that man – not a terrible person by any stretch – kind in fact (still, to me, more like a cult leader than what one would hope for.  Which is what? A sage, I suppose.)  I still dream of his approval.  When I wake up, I blush. 

      O Subconscious. You and your lingering fixations!

      Again, again.

      Hello, my name is Julia Sweeney and I am starting, experimenting, with SubStack.  I’m a fan of Substack (I have eight Substack subscriptions.)    When Substack included video my interest was piqued.  I want to do it.  I really do.  But will I keep it up? Will it become a thorn in my side?  Or an inspiration?  The deadlines I need so badly?  We will see.

     Again, again.  

     Hello, my name is Julia Sweeney. I am 63 years old, I am an actress, and known for comedy.   I can feel myself wanting to retire, and when I say retire, I don’t mean I’d stop being creative.  I will always be creative in some way, with some endeavor.  When that stops, I really do hope for a quick death.  So, what I mean is, I think I can retire from The Hustle. 

      And yet. 

      I made a film of my last monologue, one-person show, stand up special (that too is complicated for me, how I describe what I do) and it (Julia Sweeney: Older & Wider) is in the midst of finding its way to being seen in the current media-landscape.  

     See me being seen.   In a scene.  

     The scene, meaning where I shot Older & Wider, is the Fox Theater in my hometown of Spokane, Washington.   When I booked The Fox (officially it is now called the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox) I didn’t think this would be my last long-form show.  It was before the pandemic.  The filming was postponed for 2 years. 

     But the pandemic revealed many things to me, none of them particularly unique.  The pandemic just hastened a stepping back that would have come anyway.  Forced to stay at home, I realized that it was the place I always secretly wanted to be.  I was a Jane Austen character, who in the end marries the one she thought she hated, but who really was the most appropriate.  Only for me, it was my house.   And, I really did want to withdraw from public life.  Public meaning, for me, I suppose, to be performing solo stage shows.   Or going anywhere after 7 p.m.

      At the same time, my mother was descending into dementia, accelerated by the pandemic.  She was stepping back herself, one step at a time, slowly but surely, into oblivion.  So, my show took on a new significance. 

      I realized how lucky it was that I planned to film my show at The Fox Theater.  The site of my first movie-in-a-theater (The Sound of Music) and of my first job (popcorn, usherette.)  If it was my last show, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

     I recently did an episode of “Not Dead Yet” – an ABC show not yet on the air (I think, I should check) and I played the person who is Not Dead Yet, and I had such a lovely hilarious time and I think I did a good job and I was in love with Hollywood and on a studio lot, shooting on a stage that had been cranking out content for a hundred years.  I was so happy to be old – yes, it’s true, I am so happy to be old, I am so happy to be out of the “game” of even trying to be sexy or young.  No more situations where all-male, young, steely-eyed, privileged studio execs huddle together on a set and then turn their gaze toward you, evaluating your fuckability.  No more watching them turn back toward each other, no more trying not to wonder what the evaluation probably was.  It’s such a profound relief to be on the other side of that divide.  I’m so glad I lived this long!

      Anyway, I was on this set on the Fox lot with a bunch of incredibly talented performers and I thought: this is truly what I’m best at.  And anyway, yes, those parts will come along from time to time. I hope for it. I’m glad for it. 

      Even though, honestly, really, I just want to be at home. 

      My across-the-street and down-a-bit neighbor, Nancy, also an actress, and near my same age, (we met in waiting rooms at auditions, we were often both called in for the same part, we have the same vibe, imagine our surprise and delight realizing that we lived practically across the street from each other) often comes over and we do Needle Arts.  (Nancy is a master.)  She told me recently that crafting is not the right word, it’s Needle Arts.   Is that because “crafting” implies the elderly, the eccentric?  And if so, is the implication that that’s a bad thing?  I strive toward being elderly and eccentric.  The dream.

      So what will I be doing on Substack?  I guess sharing my life and my interests. What are they?  Religion/atheism/needle arts/cooking/parenting/nutrition/low-carb-keto lifestyle/ literature/film/gender studies/comedy/marriage/politics and on and on.

       Dear God.  It’s clear that I am trying to be a “voice” in the media landscape.  But without specialty.  The worst!

      What am I?   Who do I think I am?   Just all around interesting?  Am I that interesting?  I think…. Kind of ?  Often, not so much.  Sometimes? 

     As I look around Substack, people have specialties.  I’m a comedian, but seem, at least to me, less and less funny each year. 

       But I digress.  I am doing Substack.  Let’s see what I do.  I have recently learned how to make videos (yes – in my own home on my own computer) and there will definitely be those.  And I will inevitably write about my newest stand-up-special, comedy show, monologue, story-telling film, whatever it is.  We will see where it goes and how it’s made available. 

     Maybe it will even be here, on Substack.