I went to Times Square to buy a trumpet. That’s where all the music stores are. I just wanted to buy a trumpet to learn how to play trumpet. I went into Sam Ash or one of those places and there’s all these student trumpets for, like, a hundred dollars. The guy started showing me: “Here’s a nickel-plated, beautiful trumpet. It’s got a flawed bell because it was hurt, but they repaired it.” It was like fourteen hundred dollars. I didn’t have any of that kind of money, but I went to an ATM and I took out everything I had in the bank and I bought this fucking fourteen-hundred-dollar trumpet without having any ability. I’d never even blown into a trumpet before.
Then I was walking through Times Square with this fucking thing in my hands just freaking out and feeling bad and I ducked into what they used to have then, the peep shows. Next thing I know I’m in a peep show booth, those little upright coffins, looking at a chick, a tired fucking Latvian girl probably, through the window of this peep show and jacking off. It’s like a two-foot-by-two-foot room. I jerk off and I came on the trumpet case, which was standing between my legs. Once I came and I looked at this cum on the trumpet case, on this beautiful brass-buckled trumpet case, I realized if I had come to this peep show first I could have saved fourteen hundred dollars. I wouldn’t have a fucking trumpet now, which I never really learned how to play. It was an important thing for me to realize that.
I went to a therapist for a while and he started dragging me through my past. It was exhausting. I couldn’t do it. I also didn’t see an end to it. I started saying to him, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Can you just give me some advice? Can we just boil it down to how the fuck do I get out of my own way?” He told me, “All right, well, when you do things that you regret all the time, like eating bad food or jacking off in a weird, shameful situation you wish you hadn’t, sexual compulsion behavior, eating compulsions,” he said, “the issue isn’t the food or the sexual objects, it’s anxiety. You’re having anxiety and you’re doing these things to try to deal with your anxiety. Maybe if you tell yourself that in the moment it might help you.”
That was an enormous help. That’s sort of what I told myself with the trumpet, which is every time I’m starting to have a thing that I’m not in control of. Like I want to buy a motorcycle. This happened the other day. I want to buy a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle. I have no business buying a motorcycle. I pored over the Web site. I started reading reviews of Triumphs and trying to talk myself into it. It’s okay to spend eight thousand dollars on a motorcycle. I’m practiced now at stopping and going, “Why are you looking at that? It’s got nothing to do with motorcycles. You’re anxious. Something’s irritating you.” Just the act of doing that cuts you off. Calms you down.
Jacking off is a great way to get rid of anxiety. It’s not sexual, and knowing that is very helpful. There’s something going on inside of me and it doesn’t even have to be that it’s deep-seated in who I am. Fuck it. It’s just anxiety. You’re feeling bad. Take a fucking breath.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN–MUSICIAN, SONGWRITER, AUTHOR
I had a classic thing happen to me in New York City where I got caught in a classic New York City con game.
Guy came up to me on the street. Said he was from South Africa. Came into town, taxi driver picked him up, got dropped off. Lost a briefcase. It’s at Madison Square Garden. It’s filled with money. And I’m going, “Oh, how can I help you?” This leads to a variety of other circumstances where I finally end up on a street corner with a guy who says, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket.” I finally realized, “I’m caught in something here.”
I ended up walking away anyway, but I said, “Hey, why am I the guy, that out of the thousands of people on the street that day, somebody looked at me and said, ‘That’s my man!’” I said, “Okay, I’m putting something out here that’s great sometimes but not so great in everyday life.” I’m kind of stupid this way.
MARC
William Burroughs said, “You can’t beat the mark inside.”
BRUCE
No, you can’t. You can’t, and it took me a long time to realize that a part of me was that person and then to start to build the boundaries that not only were good for me but were good for the people that were around me because I wasn’t doing them any service either. That was kind of the beginning. It was an adult thing to do.
You’ve got to learn the no word.
You’ve got to learn how to say, “No, I can’t.”
For me that was really hard because I had heard “No, I can’t” so often when I was a child. I said, “I’m not going to say no to anybody. When I grow up, I’m not going there.”
JUDD APATOW
I’ve had therapists who’ve said, “Everything that happened to you happened in the first three years of your life.” It may just be the way your mom looked at you. I don’t know if that’s true.
I do know that in every situation that I walk into, it doesn’t matter whether things are going well for me in life or careerwise or not, I feel like the weirdo. I feel like the awkward guy picking up my kids from school. I feel that way on the set of my own movies. I never feel like I own the moment. I just feel like a punch could come from any direction, even if I’m everyone’s boss.
When I’m at a party or somewhere, there’s a part of me that wishes I could run out and sit in my room and watch The Merv Griffin Show alone.
Marc
Why are we so afraid of joy?
Judd
That’s the question. I’ve thought about it a lot. I think it’s because we think right behind joy is a knife that will cut our throats. If we really feel it, it’s almost like a laugh. Your chin goes up, and your throat is exposed. If I laugh too loud, someone will slit my throat. That’s the terror of joy. If I enjoy this as completely as I want to, it’s going to hurt when it goes wrong. The mistake is it hurts already. Shutting yourself down is what really hurts. It doesn’t actually make sense, and you have to think about it all the time to know that’s what’s happening. That I’m not actually enjoying this.
You’re not present because you’re waiting for a punch. That’s how I feel. I feel like I have my dukes up all day long looking for someone who’s going to punch me, and here’s the thing, no one ever punches me.
JEN KIRKMAN—COMEDIAN, WRITER
I have to go to Australia on Friday and I’m convinced I’m going to die because I get anxiety attacks on airplanes. Being there, I feel like I’m going to be like, “I’m in Australia. I can’t leave. I can’t just get on a plane.” I get agoraphobic that way. Panicked. Because I know I can’t control it and I’m not afraid like the plane’s going to crash or I’m dying or anything. I just don’t like being in situations that I don’t decide to be in. I have to go.
Marc
That’s why you don’t want to have children.
Jen
Yes. I’m working on so much shit that by the time I grow up and get my shit together I’ll be like, “Oh, I can’t wait to enjoy this adulthood a little bit.”
I feel like if I was listening to me, I’d be like, “I cannot stand this girl right now.”