Yes, People!
I’m still in Bloomington, IN as I write this. I’m taking a late flight out so I can fly direct. I didn’t want to get up really early to make the drive to Indy so I just hung out. Time moves slower out here. I like it. I’m starting to realize just how much the pace of a city or any environment dictates how fast you brain spins. Time can really sludge by in some places and I welcome it. Life is short, stretch it out, slow it down.
I’ve been to this town many times. I like it here. Something about it feels odd. Like there is something teaming under the surface. I think that’s just the way the Midwest feels to me. I like the people, I like the country, I just know that there is always something lurking, something hidden, something maybe a little or a lot unsavory and perhaps evil and unsaid. Sometimes folks are just uncomfortable and awkward and I’m just reading a lot into it. If what is hidden is repressed because people are afraid of revealing something for whatever reasons, that just means they’ll be a good audience. I’ll give them the opportunity to open the valve, blow out some darkness through laughter. I love performing in Bloomington.
Relief valves. I was walking down the path that used to be a railroad track but is now a recreational walkway along side the entire town. I’ve been walking it everyday since I’ve been here and I follow it to Hopscotch Coffee. This morning I was passing by the Kroger’s supermarket and there was a woman outside screaming into her phone. She looked middle aged, a little rough, but together. She was screaming, “I don’t want any of it! I don’t want you to shoot me up with anything”! Quite a fragment. Dark stuff going on.
I went and got my coffee and I came out and I could still hear her screaming because she was walking toward the coffee shop that was on the path. I could see that she did have a phone but she wasn’t talking to anyone. It was a prop to enable her to make her mental sickness a little less obvious. She was screaming, “You can't fix what you have with medication. You need to be in prison. You shoot up people and cut their hair, dude. You pushed me out of my own house." I felt bad for her. I wanted to listen to her for hours.
The Comedy Attic is a perfect comedy club. It only seats like 160. It has a low ceiling. The audience is seated tightly and people sit with strangers at tables if there are two couples and it’s a four-top. This is a one-mind venue. There’s very little (like zero) distance between performer and audience and if you lock into a groove, it’s pure connected comedy. People drove hours to see the show because I wasn’t coming to their city any time soon, maybe. People from Cincinnati, North Dakota, Chicago, Louisville, Dayton. It’s very humbling for me to know that people make these journeys. I always get nervous about it. I hope they feel that it is worth their trip. I will say though, seeing a comic in a real club doing the job is better than any theater show you will see a comic do, for sure. Very happy that people came out. Great audiences. All five shows were sold out.
Today I talk to Roseanne Barr about comedy, mostly. I like her. She’s the real deal. On Thursday Eric Andre and I work through an old beef and get some closure and have a great talk. Smart kid.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron