#41: Some personal questions
With Cat Cohen
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Good morning!
Today I’m kicking off a new series called 7 Personal Questions, wherein I ask six personal questions to someone I admire. JK I’m going to ask seven of course. But first, I want to share the interview Avi and I did that I referenced in my last newsletter. It’s now live here. The photos were shot by Chloe Horseman and are really fun:
Anyway your responses to my love letter last week made me cry. I really appreciate the emotional mirror it became, proving how universal a specific experience can be. Sometimes it’s more existentially affirming to feel connected than special, and I appreciated that reminder. Not to be a Facebook pitch deck.
7 Personal Questions, Issue #1, With New York Comedian Catherine Cohen
Here is a list of reasons you might know Cat: She’s the cohost of the popular podcast Seek Treatment with Pat Regan (“a podcast about boys, sex, fucking, dating, and love”); she’s the host of a weekly comedy-cabaret show at Club Cumming in the East Village (which is on semi-hiatus due to the novel coronavirus); you might have seen her on shows like Broad City, High Maintenance, Search Party, or Seth Meyers; she’s the author of a brand new book of poetry from Knopf called God I Feel Modern Tonight; she writes an advice column for W Magazine and a weekly newsletter My Sexy Little Email; and she’s the subject of an outrageous number of articles calling her a comedian to watch, which I’m sure has caused her no anxiety whatsoever.
I invited Cat onto Maybe Baby this week because I think she’s hilarious and because I just finished God I Feel Modern Tonight, which features couplets like:
I’m finding quarantine to be an amazing time
to revert to the basest, most vile
version of myself I’ve worked years
to outgrow
I’m also a semi-hanger-on of the New York comedy world, in that I know a number of comedians and probably consider them to be “friends” more than they consider me a friend. Does that make sense? Like…I am to comedy as Alec Baldwin is to music, which is to say embarrassing. Anyway, Cat is actually a friend, and she really makes me laugh, but more than that I appreciate the unconventional path she’s cut for herself in comedy, so I’ve decided to go ahead and probe her in a public sphere. (I’ll also be probing her on my podcast this week, so stick around and find out how!)
1. First and foremost, I always call you Catherine because you once said on your podcast that your real friends call you Catherine, but the truth is I love the name Cat and want to call you Cat because it’s a perfect name and also how I think of you in my head. What are your feelings on the two names and am I your real friend?
OooMG you are one of the only real ones in this town (NY + LA)! Adore you, feel connected to you, maybe like we met in a past life? I did past-life regression therapy last week and it turns out I was an ugly old woman who made bread and was beloved but couldn’t love (drumroll please) HERSELF. Anyways, I just think of myself as Catherine because that’s what I was called growing up. Sometimes I wish I thought of myself as Cat because I once had a guitar teacher tell me that “Cat Cohen” had a nice ring to it. He also said the stain on my tooth was unique and gave me starpower (miss him, wish him the best). Cat is cool, fun, funky and free, but Catherine is more…regal. And when I’m an old lady making bread in my current life, wandering the streets of the West Village in a fur coat in August, I’ll want to feel regal. Cat is modern, but Catherine is…eternal…ok I sound like a jewelry ad.
2. Instead of being someone who sits down and crafts punchlines, your gift, in my view, is your funny way of seeing the world and ability to communicate it on the fly. I’ve never met someone so genuinely quick on their feet, which I think is why your humor is so well-suited to an unscripted podcast. Were you ever self-conscious that your comedy looked different from other people’s? At what point did you decide to embrace taking your comedic perspective in less conventional directions, like with cabaret and poetry?
Ook you’re obsessed with me! I am blush blush blushing as I type. Yes, I’ve spent many sleepless nights wishing I could write a single joke that made sense or complete a late-night packet or write from ANYONE else’s perspective, but you can’t force something that isn’t flowing. When I write songs, poetry, and monologue-type things, I just feel very pure and certain. Obviously, I was suuuper self-conscious at first and even still get embarrassed when I show up to a gig with a karaoke track being like I’M gOnNA dO a FuNNY SoNG~* but when I’m onstage performing my songs or reading a poem or rambling about complete nonsense, I just feel so sure I’m in the exact right place. Magic.
When I started doing open mics around 2015, it was not cool to care or tell super personal stories or whatever, it was all like anti-humor like, look at my shoe beep beep beep I’m a character called “man who likes spaghetti” I’m going to scream into the mic for 2 full min. And I was like, ok for sure but that’s not me. I was worried people were going to think I was some annoying musical theater bitch (which I am) and some of them definitely did/still do think that, but some people really connected with the more unconventional stuff, so…I do it for them vibes…
That’s what gave me the confidence to include some more earnest poems in God I Feel Modern Tonight. I didn’t feel like I could read a poem onstage unless it ended with a big LOL, but felt like on the page I could sneak in some more vulnerable/ambiguous lines. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work on the book with my genius editor Deb Garrison at Knopf and am so proud of it! It’s the thing I’ve made that feels the most like my whole heart…if that makes any sense? Anyways, if you’re reading this, definitely Buy My Book. I’m going full bizness bitch on this Q.
3. Okay, don’t freak out but the first I ever heard of you was years ago, when two people at a party were debating whether your podcast was good. One of them was obsessed and the other said it wasn’t their style. This gossip intrigued me so much I binge-listened the next day. I obviously fell in love, but it made sense to me right away that people would either love it or hate it—it’s a very particular vibe: crass, self-deprecating, circuitous. Since you joke often about wanting to be liked, I’m curious how you feel about your comedy being an acquired or specific taste. It’s a critical trope to point out that appealing to everyone usually creates milquetoast art, but I sometimes find it hard to square my desire to be liked with my desire to make something worthwhile. Are you at peace with those sometimes being at odds?
HAHAHA obviously addicted to someone talking about me at a party!!! Feels very 90s…maybe that’s just because I haven’t been to a party in a year. Also, this question did hurt my feelings which is why I have two therapists. I’ve been working desperately on detaching from external validation…is it working? Sound off in the comments! JK. I guess the simple answer is no, I’m not at peace! I do want everyone to like my work. I know that is unrealistic and I’m working towards accepting that, which feels kind of impossible in a world that is literally obsessed with “likes” online.
When I went to Yosemite this summer, I started uncontrollably sobbing when I saw how the big rocks were (now you’ve heard everything). I couldn’t control it! I just burst into tears. I started laughing too—I was like…what is going on with me!!! I think I was releasing a lot of pent-up stress that had accumulated from years of only thinking about my work and how to get people to like my work so I could do more work. When I looked at that big rock (how poetic), I felt this intense sense of relief like the rock was saying, “You dumb bitch look outside yourself for one single second.” Obviously it didn’t last, but in that moment I was like, ok there is so much more to life than impressing a random person in Brooklyn, how could I not see that all along? Now when I feel that familiar sense of, “Oh shit who doesn’t like me or oh fuck are they mad at me?” I’m like, girl, look at the window, see that tree? It doesn’t give a shit about you. The world doesn’t give a shit about you, so you might as well enjoy being in it.
But also like…who didn’t like my podcast?
4. You have a song where you sing, “Boys never wanted to kiss me, so now I do comedy.” I know it’s a joke and I swear I get it, but can you tell me more about why and when you connected the two? Do you actually remember a moment growing up when trying to be funny became a more worthy goal in your mind than trying to fall in love?
I don’t think being funny ever felt like a more worthy goal than being lovable but it felt more accessible to me. I’ve always been boy-crazy horny, but didn’t get attention from boys at school because I was Not Cute. Did anyone else here have braces for FOUR YEARS??? Anyway, in the summers, I went to this bizarre Christian summer camp in Arkansas where there was a whole new batch of boys (Batch O’ Boys™️) and I vividly remember making the hot boys laugh one night in the mess hall. After that I think they gave me more attention than any of their crushes. I was like, ooook I have a superpower. I wanted to BOTTLE THE HIGH of making them like me. It would take me eight more years to get kissed. Coincidence? I think…so.
As I got older and finally did start getting some male attention (brag), I became obsessed with it and used that attention and sex as a massive source of validation, which was also damaging. I became obsessed with making everyone I met fall in love with me even if I wasn’t interested in them, which was definitely cool. When I finally got in my first serious relationship in NYC, I was like…omg now that I’m not sexting with DJs at 4 a.m., there is all this space in my brain to work on other things I cared about. It’s still a struggle not to constantly worry about what men think of me (what did society do to us?), but now when I’m faced with the age-old question: would you rather be hot or funny? Against all odds, I’ll pick funny every time.
5. You often make light of your darker emotional struggles, like not wanting to be alive or hating your body or general self-loathing. You approach them with a kind of bluntness that I find appealing as someone who shares in many of them. Have you ever worried that solving your problems would infringe on your comedic sensibility? For the record I don’t think it would (not that “problems” ever really go away anyway), but I’m curious how your feelings on that are evolving as you get older and, based on things you’ve told me, are becoming less interested in being messy.
Yeah I think (!) that I would rather solve my Problems© than keep making the same jokes over and over again…I trust new problems will arise. I worried in the past that if I were to fall in love or quell one of my famous addictions (booze, food, $700 boots), I wouldn’t have anything to joke about, but that’s just not how it works. Over the past few months I’ve been on a self-help journey to better myself (sad), which basically means I’ve been talking to lots of psychics on Zoom and that has given me way more inspo for material than sitting in my room journaling about what I hate about myself. There’s a lot of humor to be found in the deeply uncomfortable experience of trying to Be A Better Person and I’m grateful for that.
I think Pat Regan (my podcast co-host and favorite comedian) does a really good job of this balancing act. He’s so self-aware and in touch with how to be the best version of himself but also so fucking funny about it all. He can be so self-deprecating and then say something truly wise that will shift my whole worldview. Love that guy! I LOVE THAT GUY! Sometimes people say they liked our podcast better when we were both single and miserable and I do wish those people The Best.
6. When I first got into your comedy, something that set you apart from other up-and-coming performers in my mind was your outspoken desire to be famous. In our culture there’s a certain currency to being someone who rose to notoriety almost by accident—or doesn’t care about the perks of fame—lest you be considered “try-hard” or in it for the “wrong reasons.” To me this is as ridiculous as wanting beautiful people to not know they’re beautiful in that it’s ostensibly about humility but is completely detached from reality. Did it ever occur to you to hide your ambitions? At what point did you decide to embrace them as a kind of bit? Also: Do you still want to be famous as much as you used to?
Totally! Me wanting to be famous is a bit, but it also…isn’t. Though I wouldn’t say “famous” as much as I would say Successful (LOVE that Ariana song). I think it felt empowering to be like, YES, of course I want to be famous if that means I’m working and getting to do what I love. It would be stupid to say otherwise. I’ve always been very driven. I don’t think people are used to hearing other people say what they want so brazenly and there’s humor in that. Whenever I’m interviewed I always say, “I want to be a movie star” and they always laugh and I’m like…what’s so funny? Truth in comedy I guess!!! These days my dream is to be so famous and successful that I never have to use Twitter or Instagram again. Social media has given me so much (our friendship, for instance) but it is also life-ruining.
7. Lastly, I’ve always found it funny that, oftentimes, artists wish they excelled in a different craft: actors wish they were musicians, comedians wish they were actors, etc. (I’m laughing realizing no artists wish they were writers?) Anyway, in this vein, I’m curious: Who are you more-than-passingly jealous of that leads a completely different life than you?
I DREAM of being a gorgeous painter in a massive studio full of natural light. I’ll wear billowy linen gowns and smoke cigarettes (won’t care about ruining my voice), my hair will fall in tendrils round my face, and I’ll be less focused on taking care of myself. I’ll stay up all hours of the night searching for the perfect Muse, Color, Shape to fuel me. I’ll live upstate but of course also have a loft in Brooklyn. My lovers will stand behind me, kissing my ear as we stare into the canvas like it’s a portal to the divine. I’ll eat as much crusty bread and cheese and red wine as I want. I’ll sleep when I’m tired, not just at night. Hm I guess I do that now too but…anyways. Being a performer means being obsessed with staying in good health, not losing your voice, caring so much about what you look like. I would j’adore to leave those things behind and paint in an old barn.
Thank you Cat! (Never calling you Catherine again except when you’re in trouble.) To people who aren’t Cat: Our podcast conversation in which we deep-dive the above and more is out Tuesday 9 a.m.
1. Unbelievably, an entire season of Blown Away, a competitive glass-blowing show on Netflix. Baffled by the host’s insistence on using “creative bravery” as a judgement criteria rather than the much more popular term “ambition.” Accidentally I did love the show though...
2. “Can We Control the Voice in Our Head?” a book review by Katy Walden of Ethan Kross’s Chatter, for The New Yorker, in which she explores the difference between quieting and tending to the chatter inside our heads.
“‘We are perpetually slipping away from the present into the parallel, nonlinear world of our minds,’ [Kross] writes; our ‘default state’ is a rich zone of remembrance, musing, projection. This is a quiet rejoinder to New Age wisdom—people are simply not designed to ‘live in the moment’—and the first part of Chatter grounds its argument in research about the brain.”
3. Some Kind of Heaven, a documentary by Lance Oppenheim about The Villages, a retirement community in Florida that happens to be the biggest in America. A few different people recommended it to me personally and in hindsight I can’t decide if I’m offended by that. THIS IS A VERY DARK FILM. Would have been darker if someone like Harmony Korine made it, but it wasn’t so far off from that. I liked it a lot actually, but it did make me feel bad.
4. A set of “classy coupes” (lol) from a website called Awesome Drinks (lol) for $17. Expectations were low but they’re actually perfect?
5. “The Case for the Semicolon,” by Lauren Oyler for The New York Times. I feel similarly about the semicolon and punctuation in general; there are so many ways to structure a sentence to subtly change its meaning. It’s fun!!!
6. The entire Instagram account that is @depthsofwikipedia. Click in to see the second slide of this one to be haunted:
7. “The Many Lives of Steven Yeun,” an excellent profile by Jay Caspian Kang for The NYT Magazine that becomes its own meta-commentary on “the immigrant experience.”
“To start, there’s the whole setup behind the article you’re reading right now, which involves me, a Korean-American writer, assigned to profile a Korean-American actor with the idea that I may be able to excavate some deep, epigenetic code we share and present it to the audience of The New York Times Magazine.”
8. A colorful set of GIR silicone straws that have completely converted me away from my singular metal straw that violently clanks against my teeth. I now always keep one in my plastic quart container full of ice water that I drag everywhere around my home like an IV drip.
9. 1 Tony’s Chocolonely bar with dark chocolate, almonds, and sea salt. So good I bought two more and then ate them.
10. “Moderate Democrats’ Cruel Calculus on Who Deserves Stimulus Relief,” by Brendan O’Connor for The New Republic.
“If moderate Democrats in Congress were really worried about ‘upper-income taxpayers’... unfairly benefiting from universal social programs, they would embrace a more aggressively redistributive taxation plan. But that’s never how these things work.”
11. This inspirational supercut of a basset hound who only gets off the couch by way of sliding like a noodle.
12. “‘We’ll Never Make That Kind of Movie Again’ An oral history of The Emperor’s New Groove,” from Bilge Ebiri at Vulture, which I sincerely did not expect to be riveted by and was. Avi and I ended up rewatching it after and this movie would….NEVER fly today? The gags were very Looney Tunes-esque, which you know I love, but I am offended on behalf of all citizens of Cusco, Peru. I studied there one summer in college and didn’t see David Spade once.
13. This TikTok by @tegaalexander about corporate antagonism set to a scene in Drumline that might be the height of modern art.
14. An unsettling volume of sour cream once I discovered a little bit of onion powder, garlic powder, and salt immediately transformed it into french onion dip. Been doing a lot of sus things in the kitchen lately.
15. And finally...three Govee color-changing light bulbs, and then two more after I became obsessed with making my apartment look like a club every night. I would die for these light bulbs...I control their colors with my phone and feel so so powerful.
That’s all for today! Hope you liked 7PQ and I’ll see you next week!
Haley
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