A Quote by Jonathan Santlofer
The idea of going to school to be an art critic is a very crazy idea. I educated myself in public, which is a very painful way to learn - by writing and then discovering that I don't know what the f**k I'm talking about. But you remember the lessons vividly.
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During my career as a standup and actor, I realized it was very frustrating for me to get hired because Hollywood was hiring a different kind of brother, you know, and I was doing political humor... In order for me to really have a long career, I'm going to have to learn how to write and produce for myself... I had no idea I was really going to like it and I'm very fortunate to be successful. But the idea was to always eventually create something for myself. That was the idea from the beginning when I went into writing and producing.
It's very important to learn quick lessons from your failures, very important to recognize symptoms of failure pretty early, and it is very, very important to not to be attached too much to the idea - you have to know when to give up an idea.
You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn't going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You're going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They're not going to buy it unless they know about it.
First I went to a Jewish school, when I was very little. But when I was 12, they put me in a school with a lot of traditions, and they were educated people and they were talking about Greece and the Parthenon and I don't know what. All the kids, all the girls they had already seen that and knew that from their family, and I would say, "What are you talking about, what's that?" It's not my world. My grandparents were very well-educated people, but in the Jewish tradition. They knew everything about the Bible.
I remember very vividly going to school, being very happy, and then just having guys there who were just out to make my life miserable.
The thing about angel investing, which I get into in the book a lot is, you actually don't have to understand the idea, you don't have to know if the idea is going to win, you just need to know if a founder's going to win in their life. I can just tell by looking at somebody if they'll be successful in their life. I don't even have to have a conversation. I just look at their eyes while they're talking and it becomes very clear to me.
I went to an art school and you learn very quickly there that you're only as good as your next idea, not so much what you've got going on at the moment. And so I embraced that. It sunk in at an early point.
I have this romanticized idea of dance music in the '90s because, obviously, I was way too young to be a part of it. So I have this rose-tinted idea of it. I have this idea of it being a very special time. But I still don't know that much - I can never remember any names of seminal artists.
The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.
I could draw ideas. I remember writing a paper for a seminar class. I remember writing a paper about - and this is going to sound really sort of pretentious, but that's where my mind was at the time - how acting and the performing artist can really be like a Bodhisattva, how they can communicate ultimately an idea in a way that can move and shift things. And that was wonderful. I didn't know many classes where I could try and relate the thing that I really loved and wanted to do into an intellectual idea, and that happened to be one of them.
I don't have the education of an art historian. I've certainly read about art and look at art and have educated myself to some extent. But I'm not a skilled or thorough art historian and I wouldn't call myself an art critic.
Sadness is a very interesting idea, this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness, and the idea that sadness is very loud, and happiness is quiet.
When it comes down to the song writing, I'm just very slow - very slow. Because the songs are about my life, so I'm doing emotional work on myself. As I'm writing these songs, I have to learn these lessons and dig real deep into my heart to write this stuff.
I had no idea that that was around in the family anywhere. Maybe it never was. But - so they broke the way for me, if you know what I mean. I have no idea where I got the idea from to do what I do. But I think they - Ian and Alistair, my brothers kind of opened a lot of doors for me onto the world - you know, made it seem to be a very, very interesting place.
I was pretty young. I guess I was in high school, so I was probably 13 years old. It was crazy. I remember it very vividly. I remember - it was actually kind of horrifying, because one of my friends - we smoked out of a bong, and one of my friends - this was so stupid - he didn't want to bring - it was after school on a Friday, and he didn't - we smoked weed in this park called the Ravine that was across the street from my high school.
I was always very against the idea that for comedy to be 'important' it has to be dark. It's very much a critic's way of thinking.
