Riding a Rollercoaster at 30 Rock

A highlight of last year was being asked to appear on Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC. The 8G Band, the show’s house band, is led by Fred Armisen, and due to his busy schedule, they often ask drummers to fill in for a week. To be asked is a great honor.

I’ve come to see everything that happens in my life, big and small, as opportunity to use the tools I’ve gained through years of contemplative practice to watch the rollercoaster of my interior life. This was quite a ride.

When the message came to hold the dates for my appearance, and the possibility became a reality, I noticed that what rose in me first was excitement, a buzzy feeling of having accepted a challenge.

This didn’t last long. Soon, a wave of trepidation crashed over me. As usual when I am stressed out, the focus became an attack on my appearance, and I began to worry about being seen by so many, how I looked, what I would wear.

I balanced this stress out by remembering that I was being asked to play drums. Drums are comfort and purpose. When I am behind the drums, I am more at home than anywhere else, and I kept reminding myself that drumming was what was important here. It’s what I do, and drums have never failed to meet me. Just play drums, I kept saying to myself.

A few days before I was to leave, I was given a list of possible songs to learn, including two songs we would play for the studio audience before the show. My heart sank when I heard them. The songs were fast, indie rock and punk songs that were exactly the kind of drumming that I had never concentrated on. I started out playing with singer/songwriters, then immediately went into stonerrock, AC/DC, then Bonham. Heavy, swingy tunes are my forte. I never played this kind of straight rock throughout my career.

It was funny to see myself stress out over these songs. Any other time, I wouldn’t have thought much about learning them, getting through them, but now they represented the bigger challenge of my appearance on the show, and all of my worry settled into them. I played them for hours, and my body was so tense I couldn’t get them right. All the stress of the coming experience settled right into these songs. They set my confidence off-kilter, and I was filled with dread.

I arrived to 30 Rock studios on Monday morning and met the band. Seth Jabour, Syd Butler and Eli Janney were welcoming. We were in a tiny rehearsal room, and we began preparing the pieces of music we would be playing for the commercial breaks and for the guest walk-ons.

The band’s kindness will always be a great memory for me. Something I noticed throughout the week was that at no time in that studio, when the band was discussing the upcoming guests, was there even the smallest amount of shade thrown. So often in a group of people when discussing other people, there is some denigration, or some negativity that gets tossed around. There was absolutely none. In fact, the positive attitude from every single person on the show, from the hair and makeup team, to the clothing people, to the production and stage crew, to the security guards, to the receptionist, to finally, Seth Meyers himself, was remarkable.

This reminded me of two truths. The first one is that when you are with people who are the very best at what they do, they are usually folks who see negativity as a waste of valuable time. I have seen this in some of the best musicians I’ve crossed paths with.

The second truth is that the negativity I was expecting was in the room all right, but it was all within me. Every time I flubbed a fill or played that opening song like someone who didn’t know how to play drums, the cascade of unworthiness ran more intensely.

In fact, the whole week was a lesson in managing my internal negativity. Every error I made was an opportunity for intense self-attack. The stress of the cameras, the fact that I was cueing the endings from commercial breaks, watching the fingers of the production manager count down and the intense tension that would take over my body as I came to the ending drum fill, it was indeed a challenge. I felt as though I had forgotten how to play drums.

I have spent my life trying to get out of my head when I play, and here I was required to be 100% in my head, highly alert to cues that were not musical. It was disorienting.

Each night after the show I would try to get out into the city, distract myself from the overall feeling of defeat as I replayed everything I had done wrong throughout the day. One night, I saw a Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot, and the exquisite perfection of the actors and dancers and musicians reminded me, this is New York. Top of the top. I regretted the years I had spent away, even though my life had taken me exactly to where I was meant to be. Again, a feeling of unworthiness washed up.

On Wednesday, I played terribly. I left the studio that night and started walking downtown in misery. For the first 15 blocks, I was as low as I could get. My life was a sham, I had devoted myself to an instrument that I couldn’t play and every decision to now had been wrong. I felt like my chin was scraping the sidewalk as I walked along.

For the next 10 blocks, I tried to rally. I entertained the thought that I couldn’t possibly be the very worst drummer who had done this job. Or maybe I was the worst, but maybe others had just as hard of a time. This helped my perspective a little.

On the rest of the way to the Village, I spoke to my mom. My biggest cheerleader. She echoed the idea that I couldn’t possibly be doing the worst job of anyone ever, and she helped lift my mood. “Just do better tomorrow,” she said, with that matter-of-fact clarity that dispels internal cloudiness.

I was drawn into a basement comedy club, and the dingy black space swallowed me up. This felt familiar. I thought of all of those little clubs I had spent time in when I lived in New York long ago, all of the late nights and inspiring shows and firsts in my drumming career. I let the memories wash over me. The comedians were varied and unknown, young people figuring it out. I was a rando in the small place, as everyone seemed to know each other, and the anonymity was a balm. Maybe it’s not all about me.

As I walked the 50 blocks to the hotel, I was met by all of the memories that always meet me in New York: Washington Square Park and the many moments of youthful craziness spent there, streets leading to different day jobs and practice spaces and all of the ways I was always seeking, searching for who I was. I started playing drums here, drawn almost unconsciously to a life I didn’t expect. Now, I was walking to hotel room paid for by a tv network, and tomorrow I would wake up and try again to be worthy of an opportunity that so many deserve. People believed in me.

A part of my great struggle here, I realized, was that I didn’t want to let anyone down. The 8G Band, the lovely man who hired me, my husband and family, my band and friends. This was the worry the whole time. Not the studio audience or that nebulous idea of the viewing audience. I wanted to prove to those I loved that I was worthy to be there. Darn it. I guess the search to be loved is never ending.

What if it’s not all about me? I remembered the feeling of playing with Zepparella, the freedom and joy that I aim to transmit in every beat. Where had that energy of joy gone? Somehow, I thought I had to leave it aside to step onto that elevator at 30 Rock. Somehow, I got it in my head that I had to be someone else. Somehow, I was under the impression that to be worthy of being there, I had to let go of what was intrinsic to me. I wasn’t good enough as I was to be there.

I thought, what if ultimately, it didn’t matter how people perceived me, as long as I transmitted joy? That is my job I think, in life, to find the ways I can be a light. Why should this experience rob me of that privilege?

I woke up excited, for the first time all week. Just play everything perfectly, I said to myself, but not with an energy of defeat but one of certainty. As I practiced in the morning, a lightbulb clicked on about how to approach the parts I had struggled with. I felt happy. I let go of Clem, and all her expectations and negativities, and I just played the drums.

One of the last things to happen for me was to meet Seth Meyers, and he asked how my week had gone. I told him it had been a rollercoaster of thinking I was terrible and then building myself back up. “Oh, I felt like that the first six months I was doing this,” he said. I left with that gracious reminder that our own worst enemy comes from within. And that should something like that happen again for me, I’ll remember what the whole point is.

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