But back when they really meant something – in the 90s – a 13-year-old Chris Gethard tagged along with his big brother to a punk rock concert in the basement of a church in New Jersey. It was there that young, nerdy Chris first witnessed people who took risks and pursued their passions. He couldn’t believe these young, marginally-talented bands had real, produced cassette tapes and t-shirts and just went for it.
All these years later, Chris is a great comedian and actor (he was in Don’t Think Twice, my favorite movie of 2016 ), and has written a new book that embraces failure – how it is both inevitable and vital to success. I’m halfway through and love it. An excerpt:
So many people are convinced they can’t have what they want because someone else told them no, doubted them, or got in their way. But there are others out there, the blue-collar Joes with secret art studios in their basements. Housewives who stopped housewifing and started selling their wares online. Punk kids who have the balls to shill their music before they even know how to play their instruments. They are the discontented, the beautiful, the frustrated, bored, fed-up troublemakers who say, “screw it” on behalf of all of us. They try, they fail, they try again. When someone tells them how things are, they ask, “Why?” When someone tells them something’s impossible, they say, “By whose standards?” And when someone tells them their idea isn’t worth doing they say, “Thank you for your input. Now get off the tracks because the train is coming through.”
