Can I change?
I’ve been trapped by that question, in a loop I can’t break, most of my life.
I broke the loop once — my Senior Year of Catholic high-school, when I stood up during Mass and told a crowd of my classmates — and assorted nuns, deacon, and priest– that Jesus would want me to “Tell you all right now I’m gay.”
Read MoreHistorical data is unclear, but it appears a young Philip Markle may have told his parents they were “jerks.”
While this timeline of events can not be confirmed, archeologists have unearthed relics from his childhood bedroom carbon dated to 1998 proving at the very least, he had to apologize for something:
Read MoreI am a grown-ass adult, and I need my digital pacifier.
I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be bored. To do nothing. To stare into the void and daydream.
Instead, I reach for my pacifier. It’s always got something to distract me.
News (always outrageous, always apocalyptic).
Notifications (someone’s thinking of me, someone likes me — they really do, even after eight months of isolation).
Emails (make feel important because I get emails at all hours and check these work emails at all hours for I am an important boss who works hard - aka has no boundaries or work/life balance)
Social media (the rabbit hole of entertainment is endless, the algorithm knows me better than my off switch, I keep scrolling…and scrolling…and scrolling until my eyes see red).
Read this interview with Philip on Quiddity.com.
Today marks the 27th #SmallBizSpotlight produced in my Brooklyn apartment — not a particularly meaningful number (except, of course, in rock and roll), but it speaks to the duration of our collective isolation. I saw one of my best friends for the first time in seven (!) months last weekend, and I shed a tear on my way to meet her. We’ve lost and learned so much since March, and it’s worthwhile to take a random beat once and while to remember that fact. So, happy 27!
This week, I'm featuring Philip Markle, the founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn Comedy Collective (BCC). Launched in 2018 with the mission to pay artists equitably and amplify diverse voices, the Williamsburg-based theater and school is known for a particularly joyful take on comedy (read: no jokes at the expense of others). Since losing the physical space in April, Markle has transitioned BCC into an entirely online operation — keep reading to learn how.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you react to the shutdown in March?
The first thing we did was pivot to online classes in subjects that we felt could translate to Zoom. We started off with storytelling, stand-up, and musical comedy classes… Things that were more or less one person at a time presenting. From there, we added a class on digital comedy, specifically creating content for online satire pieces. As of this session, we brought improv back, which we piloted with a couple of workshops.
Hello family! I hope you are as well as can be right now.
I’m sending this to my family members who I’ve shared a table with at holidays, and danced to Motown music with post-dinner, and opened White Elephant Christmas gifts together, and known my entire life.
I know some of you may be planning to vote for Trump. I realize any email starting out with that sentence probably makes you not want to read the rest of what I have to say. I get it.
So, I will try to keep this email as much to the point as I can — and not about being a Republican or a Democrat.
Read MoreRead this story on Medium.com here.
The impetus to retake the most powerful hallucinogen on Earth was two of my closest friends who’d observed changes in me after my first trip. They’d independently noticed that I’d seemed less anxious — less of what they referred to as “Little Phil” (the needy child in me sulking for attention or feeling sorry for myself when life doesn’t go my way) showing up socially.
I thought — well, bottom’s up! Here we go again!
Read MoreI paid for the dream with six nightmares in a row in a haunted hotel in Reno.
Reno can be a sad place to return to after an ecstatic experience at Burning Man. The sunken faces of chain-smokers starring into the voids of glittery slot machines themed around magical animals, Ancient Gods, or just Lucky Number 7. Punctuated every now and then by a random alarm going off indicating one of the lost had scored a reprieve from the steady drip of pennies disappearing. In Vegas, I could imagine being swept up by the glitz and glamour of over-the-top heterosexual fantasy making gone bananas. The tuxedo-clad gamblers! The famous strip! The lights! The babes! Celine Dion! But Reno’s greatest attraction was the distant peaks of Tahoe, calling me away from the desert.
Read MoreCheck out this podcast I did recently with THE UNHAPPY HOUR’s Matt Bellassai, in which we dish about German sex dungeons, Burning Man, The Instagays, and above all - self-care:
Read MoreNote: This story is NOT safe for work or for those uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of male-on-male sex.
“Red blindfold or white blindfold?” asked the bouncer wearing ass-less chaps and a T-shirt with a logo of a horse’s ass above the name ‘Fickstutenmark.’ “Red means bareback is ok. White means Condom only.” This was the second thing asked of me at The Horse Fair — the kinkiest, craziest, sexiest, scariest thing I have ever done in my life. The first question the bouncer asked me was, “Have you read the FAQ?”
Read MoreThe trouble began in Bratislava.
Something in the Slovakian water? The hand-tossed salad I ate at the bus depot? Whatever the culprit, my stomach was queasy by the time my Flixbus pulled in to Prague Central Station on a Friday at 6:00 PM. I wrote it off as travel fatigue, a low-grade cold — something to push through and not slow down my itinerary. I had a whole city to see!
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