100 Lions.

Holidays, Folks!

Everything slows down. The noise eases.  You can hear the birds or, if you live somewhere insane, you can hear the snow and the silence that creates. I like when no one is doing anything. I can relax. Try not to do anything. 

I’m looking forward to seeing snow on my tour. Hopefully snow within reason. Doubtful.

I’m a little traumatized in a good way. I did The Benson Interruption with Doug Benson at Dynasty Typewriter on Saturday. It’s a fun show. I haven’t done it in years. It’s a live event where a movie is screened and 3 comics and Doug sit in the front row with mics and comment during the movie. It can be pretty fun and funny. 

Doug told the audience to bring movies if they wanted to suggest them for viewing. So, we had no idea what was coming. The movie someone brought that was chosen was Roar.

I have no idea why I have never heard anything about this movie. Like, zero things. Nothing. It was by far the most insane movie I have ever seen for very specific reasons. It's a terrible movie. It’s an amazing movie. 

The director/producer, Noel Marshall, was married to Tippi Hedren. The two of them took a trip to Africa and became obsessed with animal conservation. They started buying up large cats like lions and raising them in their home. He had three kids and she had Melanie Griffith. 

Marshall became obsessed with making a movie about a researcher in Africa who was trying to save the lions, tigers, panthers, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, etc. from poachers. He was trying to show how people can live among them in peace. So, he wrote a script and built an Africa set in the desert near LA and brought in what seems like 100 huge cats and a couple of elephants. 

Marshall plays the researcher and the first part of the movie is establishing him as the alpha among dozens of REAL LIONS. It is nuts. They weren’t trained and it was complete chaos. They are all over the place. In the house. They are fighting and playing and while watching you never get the sense that there was anything safe about it because there wasn't. The family of the researcher is flown in during the movie to hang out with the cats. His real family. 

It is insane. The barely veiled panic of all his family trying to act cool around 100 lions. There is menace and cat violence. It was the mid-seventies so there were no real safety rules. Marshall and Hedren were dedicated to keeping the animals safe but almost everyone in the cast and crew got mauled or popped by lions. Eighteen-year-old Melanie got scratched in the face and needed plastic surgery. The DP got half his scalp ripped off. Marshall got dragged by a lion and mauled on the thigh and got gangrene. Tippi got thrown from an elephant and broke her ankle, bad. IT IS CRAZY because it is all in the film. 

It’s an amazing visual document of what surely seems like bipolar disorder and family abuse. 

You’ll never see anything like it. There’s a doc about the making of it on Prime. It took ten years to complete the film and it didn’t get released here until 2015. 

Tippi and Marshal got divorced and she got the cats and the property and opened a refuge outside of LA in the desert where they shot. She dedicated her life to it. 

The film had a profound impact on me. You’ll never see anything like it. I’m a cat guy, so I got it. 

Today I talk to comedian Tammy Pescatelli about doing the thing, being canceled, the road and doing the work. It’s a great comic episode. On Thursday I talk to Blitz Bazawule about making the new The Color Purple musical film and Ghana and art. Another great talk. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Where I Stand.

Hanukkah, People!

I’m lighting the candles I have. Alone. Working that muscle. 

I always do it. I light a few. I forget a few. I always have some left over. I buy a new box of Hanukkah candles every three years or so. I’m inconsistent with a yearly ritual. 

I’m not doing it because it’s important right now for me to connect with my Judaism. I’m not doing it because this is an awful time in the world in terms of rampant antisemitism becoming normalized. I’m doing it because it makes me remember where I came from as a person. 

A yearly reminder of part of who I am. No matter how much I talk about being a Jew or what is happening in the world, lighting as many of those candles I remember to light takes me back to my childhood. It wasn’t even a big deal then. I do it exactly the way I was brought up doing it, as almost an afterthought. Something we fit in at a certain time of year because we are supposed to do it. 

I am supposed to do it. I don’t go too deep with it. I don’t ever go to temple. I don’t fast on Yom Kippur. I have never felt more Jewish in my life than now, primarily because I’m scared. 

The fact that people are conflating Israel and how they feel about what is happening there, which is beyond awful and evil, with all Jews is scary and shallow. The fact that antisemitism is happening on multiple fronts at all times around the world because of this reaction is horrible and threatening. On top of a base antisemitism that is always brewing. The fact that a business in Los Angeles didn’t put a menorah decoration up in their window because of fear of vandalism and violence is terrifying. Hiding who we are out of convenience and avoiding conflict is no way to live in America or anywhere. 

It’s happening. 

I know how I feel. I know where I stand. 

I would like the killing to stop. I would like a reasonable solution to something that has gotten horrendously out of control in a part of the world that I have almost no understanding of. 

I light the candles to remind me that I am a Jew, no matter what, come what may.

Happy Hanukkah. 

Today I have a very engaged and interesting conversation with the actor Peter Sarsgaard. On Thursday I talk to Rodney Crowell about a life in country music and also catch up with John Doe about X and a movie he is in. Great talks all around. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Developing Negatives.

Satire, Folks.

It's hard to pull off when the world is a fucking farce but it does still happen sometimes. When it's good, I love it. 

I saw Dream Scenario the other night. Aside from always kind of loving Nicholas Cage I thought the script and the conceit was very tight. Very cutting. Very funny. In parts, laugh-out-loud-from-pure-discomfort funny. I’ll take it. 

The moment, or one of the many moments, we are living in culturally has to do with the viral nature of information, content, branding, sales, cancel culture, trauma, triggers, young vs old, memes, etc. Okay, I guess. Most of culture is driven by most of those. This film takes some of it on in a very precise way. I don’t want to be a spoiler but I will say, it is dark, brutal, bloody in parts, painful and brilliantly funny most of the time. Cage is amazing as is Julianne Nicholson who is always great. If you have any sort of public facing life in any way this film will disturb you. If you are just a spectator, this film may indict you. It indicts all of us. 

Along with Network, Three Kings, Tropic Thunder and Being There, this film is up there with some of the great satirical films.

Today I talk to portrait photographer Kate Simon. 

I don't know if you knew this about me but I was on the cusp of being an important photographer when I was in high school. Art photography, not journalism or portrait. Okay maybe I’m exaggerating. Photography was an important part of my younger life. I shot quite a bit in high school. I developed my own film and made my own prints. It was the late seventies and I was hanging around a lot of late seventies hipsters and art types in Albuquerque. I worked at a restaurant across the street from the university. My mother was an artist.  I was tapped in. 

I did a very important photograph my senior year. I will try to explain it to you. Our house sat on a half acre of land. It was winter. The ground had been tilled. It was a chunky, big piece of randomly shaped sod mixed with dead alfalfa blades. I set up a ladder in the middle of the field. I placed 3 or four torso mannequins in the sod. They were  arranged as background in random places moving back into the distance. I hooked a work light onto my belt that was plugged into an extension cord. I plugged a small television set into the work light. The set and the light were turned on. It was night, dark. I had my mother hold open the aperture on the camera as I moved toward the ladder with the television. I went up the ladder and placed the TV on top. I then walked around the ladder. Then she closed the aperture. 

The effect was amazing. The glowing screen and several blurred versions of me moving around the ladder in one still. I printed it up using a selenium process. 

It showed at the end of the year art show. It won first place. I won another time with a portrait I drew of John Lennon. The photo was far more interesting. So much so that it appeared in a small regional magazine called Creative Teens. It was the centerfold. I’m sure many of you may have seen it. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around processing and f-stops and the anxiety of developing negatives. So, I got out of the medium. Thankfully my one masterpiece remains. I have it up in my living room. Powerful. Under appreciated. 

I studied the history of photography in college. A year long survey course which changed the way I think about everything. 

I like talking to photographers. Kate is wild and was there for the art scene and music scene in NYC and London during the 70s and 80s and did some amazing work. Her book of photographs of the late Bob Marley is now widely available after it was done in a limited run years ago. 

On Thursday I talk to Taylor Williamson. He’s a comic I’ve seen around for years and I didn’t realize how funny and original he was. Great talks!

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Time with Family.

Out the other side, People.

The holiday was very nice. Really. I’m not sure why but it has something to do with the reality of aging and, at some point, denial becomes impossible. At least from an outside perspective. I think personal denial is different. It’s a crafty little fucker. 

Our Thanksgiving dinner was smaller this year. My aunt passed away a few months ago and we only had immediate family over. It was actually the best way to do it. It wasn’t even that sad. As far as actually connecting with each other it was the best one yet.

As many of you know, I do all the cooking. I fly in two days early and literally cook for two days. This year was a little different in that I am vegan. I have nothing against meat or meat-eaters but I did try some new things and was able to make all the sides vegan, outside of the stuffing. My cousin’s daughter is also vegan so I had an ally in eating. 

I’m realizing that no matter how cynical I am, or guarded in the form of funny, I am lucky to have my parents still alive and old because it really enables me to let the angry, needy kid in me shut up and grow. I know I’m late to the game with that and it’s been a long time coming. 

There’s a strange acceptance to it. My parents are also not that much older than me. They had me in their twenties and that age gap at 60 is much different than it was when I was in my twenties. They seem to be my contemporaries, or just slightly older. 

Also, dealing with my father regularly in his decline has forced me to have a level of acceptance that wasn’t there before. The slow death of dug-in expectations opens up an emotional connection that was never there. I wouldn’t say that I’m fully engaged. I live in a different place than both of them and I don’t see them that much. I am lucky they are both being cared for and are still (kinda) mobile but when I am around them I can see them for who they are now and deal with it. It shouldn’t be hard and it shouldn’t have been a challenge but it was. 

I am okay with it all. I know there are hard events on the horizon and I will probably remain distant around dealing with some of them but that’s how I am wired. Thanks to them.  

The point is cooking for two days and spending time with family was nice, relaxing even, and a little sad, but in an understanding way. 

Given that I am a bit emotionally incapable of being fully open around either of them I was able to sit with it and with them and enjoy their company. The emotions came out a bit when I left. 

I got to New York City on Saturday. I was laying in bed in my hotel at midnight and The Devil Wears Prada came on HBO. I watched the whole movie (again) and blubbered in my bed for two hours. I don’t know exactly what that's about with that movie but clearly the emotions had to surface. It’s a fun context for that.  I try not to question it and just let myself have the feelings. At 2 a.m. The Master came on. I watched a half hour of that and it kind of stabilized and disturbed me. Both movies are about assistants with very different job requirements. 

I started trying to get Albert Brooks on the show in 2011. It has happened. Today is the day. I will chart the history of attempts on the show. I was a little cranky about the fact that he came on in connection with the HBO doc about him, Albert Brooks: Defending My Life. I thought that the interview would be challenging in that there is now a whole documentary with him talking about his life. It turned out to be a great talk. It will work as a companion piece to the documentary. Almost totally different. Filling in some gaps. 

It was a thrill to talk to him and we did it looking out over the ocean at the beautiful Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica. He didn’t want to come to my house because he’s allergic to cats and I guess he didn’t want me in his house either. It worked out great. 

On Thursday I have a pretty thorough conversation with Jesse David Fox about the history of modern comedy and how we got here and what it means to the culture. He wrote a very thoughtful, smart book about it, Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture–and the Magic That Makes It Work. Good stuff. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

The Wolf Problem.

Exhausted, People.

Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit. Not comedy. The 4-5 show weekend. It’s fine. It’s what I’ve done all my life but I put a lot into it. There’s no autopilot function. By the end of that last show on Saturday night I’m drained. 

That mixture of being wiped out and totally adrenalized. Beneath that is the assessment of the work, the reflecting on the new bits, moments. Then eating whatever is around in the hotel room. Watching TV at one in the morning to come down. 

The life. 

I watched most of The Matrix on network TV with commercials. I’ve always thought the movie was a smart metaphor. When you watch it with commercials AND you watch the commercials it seems to take on a deeper meaning. More a truth than a metaphor. 

It’s interesting to me what rolls around in my brain. What I lock into. Portals to thought. Some recurring. When I’m on the road just walking around, thinking, writing things down, talking to strangers, going to restaurants and record stores. That seems to be the bulk of the work. And napping. 

I got hung up on a couple of quotes the last couple of days. Wilheim Reich’s “Fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples” which is just a satisfying way to look at the world without going too deep into the actual horror facing us. The other is Neiztche’s “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you.” He’s clearly talking about our phones. The elaborate hand held abyss that dictates much of our thoughts. Our manufactured reflection, based on correlated desires. The demonic algorithms that possess us and our choices. Good luck with the free-thinking. 

I do like Denver. I’ve been going there for years. It’s a true Western town. It definitely has its own vibe as an American city. I’ve been there enough to know a few places I like to go. Creme Coffee on Larimer and Wax Tracks records. Good hangs. 

Even as I get more paranoid to travel in my own country for a variety of reasons, I’m always overreacting to possibilities of fear and horrors my brain churns out, so far. Too much time locked in with the elaborate abyss. It's a big world out there. I’m not going to say that most people are innately good or decent. I would say that most are scared and sad, angry, wary of strangers. Programmed by their choices and what gazes back at them. I feel it. I think. 

There was an actual cowboy convention at my hotel. Some farm related confab. A lot of hats and boots. I grew up in the Southwest. It wasn’t odd to me but I did feel like an alien. I was in an elevator with a couple of them. They were talking about the wolf problem and whether or not a certain type of dog would help keep the wolves at bay. I don’t think it was code. I knew it was literal. It does work as a metaphor for the world somewhat, either side. 

Converging on a show after a day in the head is a jarring transition. Shifting focus. All the shows were actually very good. Sold out. Great audiences. Thanks, Denver. 

For those in the loop, Charlie seems to have made a full recovery. He’s back to his asshole kitten self. It’s a relief. 

I have to get ready for Thanksgiving. The big solo cookoff in Florida. It will be the first time I see my family since my aunt died. I’m glad I’m going but it may be heavy. The heaviness that is unavoidable. The weight of regular human life. 

Damn, this missive has been dense. What can I say? I’m flying on Southwest as I write this. It doesn’t bring up the happy stuff. 

Today I have a very exciting conversation with Taika Waititi about his movies, TV shows and life. I love his work. Gifted guy. On Thursday I have a unique chat with my optometrist, Dr. Elliott Caine, who is first and foremost a seasoned jazz trumpeter. Great talks. 

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving, if possible!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

The Global Cat Consciousness.

Home is getting heavier, People. 

I just got back from Albuquerque. As many of you know, I grew up there. 

When you’re younger and you leave home for whatever - college, to move to another city, to run away, etc - you come home it feels like a hero’s return. You come with tales from outside the zip code. Big stories of other cities and experiences that would never happen at home. Sometimes you need to dry out and/or get your head together. The return is glorious though.

Now that I’m older, going home is different. It’s heavier. You see your old friends and where they are on the spectrum of being beaten down, humbled by life and age. It’s not bad, it’s just bittersweet. 

I went home to do a show at the Kimo Theater. It was sold out. 

Two days before I left, Charlie Beans stopped eating and was lethargic. I took him to the vet the day before I left but they found nothing wrong with him. This happened before and he didn’t eat for days. It’s very stressful and scary. I love the guy. 

So, I went to Albuquerque heavy-hearted and concerned about my cat. Kit was caring for him but it’s just so sad when your animals get sick. 

I spent time with my father who is still in what seems to be the early stages of dementia. He hadn’t changed much since a couple of months ago and he was engaged and seemed pretty good considering. It’s hard though, sad. I am glad I go see him. 

I had dinner with four old friends that I have known for 40-50 years. It’s crazy. There we all were. Aging guys. Trying to remember moments from our youth. It’s amazing how many of them revolved around getting fucked up and not dying and fucking. The mind prioritizes interesting things. Not that those things aren’t important. They may be the most important. Vitality. Risk. 

The strange thing about being home is I am not really the person I was growing up. I was not that funny when I was younger. I was needy and intense and desperately trying to be liked by the people that I liked. There was nothing easy or natural or relaxed about the younger me. Maybe I’m not that different. I am funnier though. 

I was very nervous about the show. So many people from my past, people I hadn’t seen in decades, were there. My dad was there. His wife and her extended family were there. I was scared that I would regress and become that guy I was in high school. 

All through it I was worried about Charlie who still wasn’t eating. 

I did the show. It was great. I really connected with who I was and who I am now. I connected with the city I grew up in and the people that were still there. It was emotionally draining. After the show I was wiped out from the weight of the emotions. I lost touch with why I do comedy and why I do the comedy I do and why I choose to talk about what I talk about. Drained. 

I ate some cake and felt better. I was still kind of shattered. Sad about what time does to us and people in our lives. It’s natural and normal and even sweet but sobering. 

When I got back to Los Poblanos where I stay, I was a bit shattered and concerned about my cat. There’s an old cat at the place that lives on the grounds and wanders around. He’s called Mouse. I have spent time with him before. He’s a sweet old guy. When I got out of my car it was 11:30 at night and I started walking to my room. I heard Mouse meowing and I spotted him. I said hi and he followed me to my room. He came inside and he spent the night with me. I think he knew I was cat sad. So he gave me some support . While he was on my lap I tried to tap into the global cat consciousness and use him as a portal to send some healing energy to Charle. 

The next morning Kit FaceTimed with me and Charlie was starting to eat a bit. Relief. 

I stopped at a family friend’s house on my way to the airport. She’s my parents age and has experienced some sickness and loss recently. We talked about grief and had some feelings. It was great to see her but it’s all so heavy. 

Life is hard and sad after a point but that is just what it is. It’s still sweet. 

Grief for time passing and for loved one’s passing is just part of it. Acceptance. It’s okay. 

Charlie is still a bit sick but he’s bouncing back. 

Today I talk to Chef José Andrés about his global food outreach and his life. Thursday I talk to Fisher Stevens about Fisher Stevens. Great conversations. 

Enjoy! 

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

My Comedy Roots.

Back in Boston, People. 

The Fall is truly the best time to be in Boston. Flying into Logan seeing all the trees below in full red, orange and yellows was immediately disarming and meditative to me somehow. Nothing transports me to another mental/emotional zone like crisp air, clouds and the old architecture and strange spoke-like street layout of Boston. Several highways going the same direction at slightly different angles. 

Kind of like choices in life. Many of mine were dictated by that city. I learned how to think, have sex, be on my own, fall in love, write, freak out, understand art, fail, bullshit, write poetry, dress (kind of), do drugs, drink and do comedy as a job in that city. Among other things. 

It’s a defining city for me yet I rarely go back. It feels like a place of transition for me. It was. As I’ve said before, it also feels like a source of a full spectrum of early embarrassments and failures and mild to profound traumas. Why would I want to go back? 

This time was different. If you get old enough it’s just a matter of time before the memories fade or shift. If you don’t revisit them over and over again and give them life they lose their juice. I mean, I can still juice them up but it’s like seeing if an outdated piece of equipment still works when you plug it in. You’re amazed if it does but what difference does it make and it might blow up. It’s nice to have it on the shelf though. 

My old friend Jim happened to be in a nearby state so he came down to hang out with me. We spent the day walking around Boston and Cambridge talking like a couple of people that have known each other for forty years. Forty years! It was a nice reflective day but also nice to be alive and be the people we are now. 

That is usually what I do with my oldest friends when I haven’t seen them in perhaps years. Take a whole day and just walk around, eat, have coffee, sit, talk, let it unfold. It’s the best way to reground yourself in a friendship that has lasted for decades. 

The show I did was a benefit for the Cam Neely Foundation called Comics Come Home. It was a great line up and brought me right back to my comedy roots. Filthy, risky, raw Boston comedy. It’s the third or fourth one I’ve done. There have been 27. Denis Leary hosts. It was me, Burr, Robert Kelly, Tammy Pescatelli, Orlando Baxter, Alex Edelman, Rachel Feinstein, Lenny Clarke and Pete Davidson. It was at the Garden. It was packed. 

I had to follow Robert and Burr closed after me. It’s not that I am totally insecure and certainly I know I’m a pro but there are moments of a knowing panic that happen when I have to follow someone I know is going to destroy with a type of comedy I just don’t do. I mean, I was dirtier when I was younger, but now I keep it to myself a bit more. 

I love Robert. I like his comedy. But standing in the wings watching him crush with a lyrical barrage of Rabeleisian filth made me prep for tanking. Oddly, in the late eighties, I was doing one of my first ten minute guest spots at Nick’s Comedy Stop in Boston and I had to follow a younger Leary with his assault of high speed ranting. I thought I could hop on his wave. I could not. I bombed, bad. I’m sure that was what triggered the pre-Robert panic. That and years of doing comedy. It’s an old machine, though. I don’t need to plug it in to let it explode. 

I did great. Relief. Then I played with the band on the Asshole song. It was all pretty fun. 

Also, you know how I always talk about not being an arena act. It’s a good thing. I don’t really like playing arenas. 

Today I have a good conversation with John Wilson about art and his show How To with John Wilson. Thursday I talk to ambient music pioneer Laraaji about his works and Brian Eno and autoharp and spirituality and art. Good week. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Ice and Perfection.

Grief, People.

The spectrum of loss and trauma we are all on dictates almost everything that causes humanity's problems and may be the end of us all. This is not a scientific fact. It is a projection, a speculation, a desperate rationalization, a context of understanding and something I made up based on my brain’s needs and my generalized fear. 

The grief of specific loss comes and goes but usually I can manage it and not let it permeate my being. That certainly wasn’t true at the beginning. Grief gives you no choice. It will consume you. I’m not entirely sure I processed the grief of loss thoroughly. 

I am not consumed with sadness but given my lack of ability to compartmentalize, my tragically low self-esteem for a person my age and my propensity to act out or distract myself in one way or another to avoid feelings that I think will consume me, I’m not entirely sure what is going on with my emotional baseline until I lose my mind one way or the other and the fear swallows me from the inside. 

I’ve been edgy. 

I’m not sure if it's my resurfaced, deep addiction to nicotine or my age. I’m hitting a wall that I need to climb over or break down. I’ve been here before. Goddamnit. Different year, same wall. Feeling unsafe. Or the kid within, emotionally stifled at age 10, is feeling nervous and a little lost. 

All this stuff has been percolating for a few weeks. I guess there are some triggers. Last night I received an honor for being publicly sad. I was presented with the Good Grief Award by The Our House Grief Support Center which is an amazing organization that provides grief support of all kinds for families and individuals. I didn’t know about it when Lynn died. I rode it out with all of you and my peers and whoever was around. I took it to the stage and to the microphone out of desperation. It worked, I think. I know it helped other people. 

Being honored for being hilariously sad. I guess I can sort of see that as a lifetime achievement award. I think it’s probably what I’ve been doing my entire career. 

Other triggers are the Fall. It makes me sweetly melancholy. World events are a constant source of dread and anxiety. I got a new refrigerator. 

I know that last one seems like a good thing. It is but it is also the end of an obsessive quest for ice and perfection. As many of you know I have been working with Alex, the Ukrainian repair guy, for what seems like years. It was a sporadic relationship that saw the destruction and rebuilding of my freezer. There was anger and pain. Alex believed he would eventually conquer my refrigerator and fix the ice machine. It did not happen. It was hard for me to tell him it was over and I got a new refrigerator. I just texted him some pics of ice. 

The revealing thing to me about all this is that I don’t really use ice. I was obsessed with making it right. With having a purpose. With things that work. 

Now I have that but I’m nervous. I check the new ice a lot. Just to know it’s there and it keeps coming. 

I’ll be okay. At least if I hurt myself and I need an ice pack I’m ready. 

I’ve had a cold for a week. I had to take it easy. No compulsive exercise. Too much time in my head and not enough dopamine. I hate relaxing. 

Today I talk to Dan Soder. We had never really met. He’s a good guy, good comic. On Thursday I talk to the legendary Lou Adler about the music business, comedy and the 50th anniversary of The Roxy in Hollywood, which he started. Good week. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Second Shows.

Tired, People. 

I’m in Portland, Oregon and I’m waiting in the dressing room to do my last two of six shows. 

I forget how exhausting it is to do two club shows a night. I’m wasted. I still think it’s the best way to work out material but, man. It’s the real work. 

I still firmly believe that the best way to see standup is in a club. I never do the same show twice. They’re not entirely different but they vary. Primarily because second shows are alway a battle against tiring repetition. I’m not really capable of auto piloting pretty much anything. All of my work requires all of me. It’s just the way it is. If I can’t show up for it, it’s not going to go well for anyone. Because of that, I have to make the second shows interesting for me. 

I’m usually already a little loopy from the first one and very loose and generally in the zero fucks given zone. That’s where the new things happen. That’s where the stuff that only happens once happens. That’s when standup is very exciting. That’s where new bits begin to reveal themselves.

I always love coming to Portland. It’s like a hamlet of progressive politics and boundless culinary curiosity under usually gray, wet skies and it seems to be built on a geological foundation of ancient darkness that lives beneath the ground. It’s a balance. That’s my poetic interpretation of the Portland situation. 

I remember the last time I was here I was a bit concerned about the city. It felt like it was collapsing on itself. Like the darkness was swallowing it. This time has been great. 

I got out into Forest Park for the first time and it was amazing. I went twice. Hiked around. Took in the weight of the trees and air and rocks and roots. It was brisk and damp. I definitely got into some kind of high-like frequency. Cleared and filled my head simultaneously. 

The food here is alway amazing. If you are a vegan and that is your life you may want to move here. It’s like vegan Valhalla. The end of the gut healthy road. 

I didn’t get to many places but I did eat at Fermenter twice. That place is amazing. I met the chef/owner, Aaron. He gave me his cookbook. I have work to do. Obviously the name of the place explains the theme but a place like that, which is really one of a kind, requires a lot of heart and a bit of science. He makes his own krauts, tempeh, kombucha, hot sauces. It’s all amazing. 

Also, I can’t say enough about the meal I had from Mirisata. Vegan Sri Lankan food. It was like nothing I’d ever eaten before. So fucking good. 

I’ve had many legends on my show but I was honored to talk to Joan Baez. I really didn’t know much about her or her music but I dug in and had a very fun talk with her. Enjoy. On Thursday I talk to Jennette McCurdy about some very heavy family stuff that she wrote about in her amazing book, I’m Glad My Mom Died.

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Children in the Audience.

The Pacific Northwest, People!

I flew into Seattle, climbed into a rental car and drove north to Bellingham. I know I have talked about this many times before but there is some part of my soul that just lives in that part of the world. The trees, the sky, the water, the rocks, the crisp air, the expanse of islands. Love it. 

I think the region was wired into me when my family lived in Alaska for two years when I was a kid. '69 to '70. Impressionable. 

I don’t recall ever being in Bellingham. I feel like there was a one nighter gig up there that I did almost 30 years ago. 30 years! It was in a mall, I think. It certainly didn't leave me with any good memories. 

The town is beautiful. I took a drive down Chuckanut Drive. Smelled the pine and wet forest. I needed it. 

The show was at a stunning, old theatre called the Mount Baker. It was the first real theatre I’ve done the new hour at. It went well. 

I was walking to eat dinner after sound check and ran into many people heading to the show. I ran into an excited man with his wife and young sons who told me they were coming to the show. I was immediately jarred by the reality that young kids were going to be at the show. One must’ve been 12 and the other was younger. I told the guy it may be rough stuff for the kids to take in. He didn’t seem to really believe that. If you know my work I just couldn’t wrap my brain around why you would bring young kids. It’s not even that I’m ‘blue.’ I just speak honestly as a relatively screwed up adult. 

Not having children I don’t really know what it's like to be a parent. I’ve definitely developed an aggressive empathy rooted in what was dumped in my head as a kid. Some of it doesn’t go away. Not all of it is good. 

I think the idea most parents have is that the stuff that doesn’t make sense won’t really register. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that the guy wanted to share his excitement about seeing me with his family. 

I felt it necessary to open with a warning. Without pointing them out I said there were children in the audience and that I would be dealing with very adult themes and if they wanted to leave I would refund their money. It seemed right. I have no idea if they left. If they didn’t and I live long enough, I imagine a young adult person will come up to me someday and tell me they saw me when they were nine and they never quite recovered from it. I’m not saying I have a lasting impact in any general way but if I saw me when I was that age, it would’ve blown my young mind. Though, I believe, I would’ve loved it. Maybe I should stop projecting. 

I found a vegan place called The Big Beet. I’m learning that if you find a good vegan place on the road there’s no reason not to eat as many meals as possible there. Consistency. 

Today I talk to Rob Halford. He’s the lead singer of Judas Priest. A seminal Heavy Metal band. I didn’t grow up loving metal. I’ve grown to appreciate it as an adult. I don’t think it’s quite the same if it didn’t save your adolescent life from the emotions and tedium of being an adolescent (male usually). I’m suddenly feeling okay about performing for teenagers. Anyway, I spent a couple of days loading some Priest into my head just so I could be in the groove when I talk to Rob. It was a great talk. 

I look forward to immersing myself in the work of people I’m not deeply familiar with. I’m currently listening to A LOT of Joan Baez to prep for my talk with her. From Halford to Baez. This is my life. 

Thursday is a comedian double-header with Louis Katz and Doug Stanhope. Comedy for grown ups, for sure. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

The Me Grinder.

Jazz and violence, People!

It’s difficult to wrap my head around what is going on in Israel other than that I know hundreds of people are being killed. My feelings about Israel aside, I’ve reached out to people who have family there to see if they are alright. There’s nothing I want to say other than the violence of war and the death of civilians is horrendous. 

Sometimes, just living my day-to-day life in the world feels like an act of denial. Many acts. 

I don’t believe there is anything I can say or do that won’t make me the target of aggression no matter what I believe and I have lost faith that anything I do or say about almost anything will have any impact. The macro is. The micro is my life. 

It’s not defeat, it's surrender. I can only sit with it and think about what my responsibility is and to whom and what I can do. No virtue signaling. No acts of aggression. No food for trolls on either side. Fuck off. 

Hope is the public facing pitch of the denial grift. 

I want to engage in the life I have left. I want to feel like that’s okay. If I don’t, I feel like I’m avoiding something. I feel like I’m wasting time if I do anything that doesn’t have a productive outcome. That’s a framing issue. It all goes into the me grinder. 

Yesterday I worked out, then decided jazz was the day. I listened to Pharaoh, the ‘77 Luaka Bop reissue of the Pharaoh Sanders album with Harvest Time on it. I don’t really know how to contextualize jazz in my brain intellectually. I’m mostly uninformed. I do enjoy listening to it although I always feel like I’m missing the background that would make it deeper for me. Which is true. This is a very melodic Sanders album. It transported me like most jazz. My brain is good receptor for most jazz. Not fusion so much, but most of the rest. Even the noise skronk freestyle riffing. I can dig it. 

So, I listened to the full album and the bonus live recordings. Then I decided to watch the newish Wayne Shorter doc on Prime Video. I have little patience for docs that are filled with animation, re-enactments and stock footage montages but there was enough interview and information in it about his life and the history of jazz that I was able to watch two parts. I’ll watch the rest later. The story of his compositional genius, playing style, tragic life, how he directly affected and changed jazz and his Buddhism was all new to me and opened up a portal of understanding on a musical, spiritual and psychological level. Understanding genius. 

I realized sometimes genius, being on the spectrum and Buddhism can seem similar and his ultimate pursuit to find an ‘indestructible happiness’ through the faith of being entirely without fear was something I am so far away from and perhaps incapable of that it made me a bit hopeless in seeing my own art and my understanding of myself. 

It is in the music though. That is how he was working it out. So, I listened to his Speak No Evil with new ears that were conscious of the journey and informed of some intent. It took me there. It’s in the silences. Almost always. 

I have to decide what else I need to learn so I have a context for my feelings. I can choose. Yesterday I chose art. It seems manageable and possible. 

The rest seems futile. 

I don’t know how much longer I can help people feel better about anything. I do know I can keep pursuing my personal expression but it is limited to words and laughs. Music is magic. 

Today I talk to Tom Papa. He’s a nice guy and very funny. It’s a good comic talk. On Thursday I talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. Good week. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron

A Pretty Perfect Night.

It’s over, Folks!

My birthday week is officially done. I turned 60 last Wednesday. I rode it out through the weekend. It was very eventful, but now I’m just 60. It happened and here I am.

I’m generally not big on birthdays. Many of you have been with me for quite a few. Some were totally uneventful and some were tragic for different reasons. I can’t even remember the last time I had a party or was thrown a party. There have been a few dinners. I’m not here or there with the passing of birthdays.

60 seemed different. It’s a big one.

I didn’t give a shit about 30, 40 or 50. 50 should’ve been big but it was derailed by a rather dramatic break up. I spent my 50th in a hotel room in West Hollywood avoiding my house and the woman in it. I ate dinner with my friend Ryan who was the only one who reached out. It wasn’t just a different time. It felt like a different life.

This birthday I did some stuff. On the day of the 27th, Kit and I went to my favorite Indian food place for dinner. I regaled (bored) her with horror stories about my early standup days. I seem to feel like reflecting. As I said before, it wasn’t nostalgic, it was reliving trauma. There was no better time for me than now. We had a nice night.

I told her when I start repeating stories she needs to tell me and start thinking about putting me down. Not insulting me, euthanizing me.

That is something I’m noticing that is different. I am acknowledging I’ve had a life. Sadly, when I look back I don’t usually feel that I have many friends. I assume that many of the people that I respect and like don’t really know that or don't think about it too much. Of course I have a few close friends and I know where we stand but in terms of people I wish I was closer to, I don’t assume that they even think about it or would want that.

So, I decided to have a party.

It was hard to decide who to invite. What kind of party did I want to have? Did I just want to have a blow out with as many people as I could cram into my yard there. Every comic and friend and friend of friend that I could think of? That seemed like a young person's game. I didn’t really like going to those parties when I was a young person. I’m too old for a kegger and finding those red cups for weeks after.

I did have to consider whether or not I wanted to try to make it a comics party or do something more specific. And by specific I mean people that are important to me and had an impact on my life. I went with that. I made a list of people from my past, present and future. By future I mean people I have met recently and want to nurture as friends. I really don’t make enough time for that and it’s not like I don’t have the time to at least try.

So, I invited a guy I have known since second grade. I invited a guy I’ve known since he was ten. Brendan flew out. Sam Lipsyte flew out. Steve Brill, who I went to college with, came with his wife. Jerry Stahl, Bruce Wagner, James Gray, Big Mike Marcus, Michaela Watkins and Tom Scharpling all came with their partners. Dr. Steve was there. Kevin Christy was there with his gf. Fred Armisen and Ricky Lindhome came. Sterlin Harjo came. Gimme Gimme Dan was there. Jon Daniel was there with Rene who were at both of my weddings. Steve Feinartz was there, filming and eating.

Of course, Kit was there.

I know you don’t know many of these people but they represent the full spectrum of my life. Past, present and hopefully future. It was a pretty perfect night.

The basic rule I made for myself was not to invite anyone who caused me stress or anxiety. It worked!

I also realized that whatever I think other people are thinking is probably way off. I know that in theory but these people all had a great time and they are all special to me for different reasons.

It was a fine night to initiate the rest of my life.

We had the party at Buena De Planta in Silverlake and it was perfect.

Today I have a nice talk with Les Claypool and then follow it up by talking with guitarist Marc Ribot. Great musician. On Thursday me and director Larry Charles hammer it out. Good week.

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

My People.

Vegas, People!

I was at Wiseguys in the Las Vegas Arts District and it was truly great. The audiences were amazing. It’s sort of a perfect room for standup. Low ceilings, wide. The sound of the audience reaction coming back at you is perfect. It’s really the only place I play in Vegas. I’m definitely not a strip guy. I just can see myself and my type of material really being a draw for the average casino-goer. Even if they know me. I imagine if they saw a poster or ad for my show at someplace like Caesars they would say, ‘I know that guy. He’s good. I just don’t think I’m up for it. We’re having too good a time. He’s a bit heavy.’

I’m okay with it. When I do Wiseguys, it’s locals and people that travel in from other places. My people, mostly. Much better. 

My dad’s wife brought him out for the show. I think he may be a little too far gone for the big traveling, the walking. It was the first time he seemed very fragile to me. The walk across the street from their hotel almost did him in physically and mentally. He shuffles a bit. He’s paralyzed with a fear of falling down. He had a hard time during lunch with some stomach issues. I guess it was the first time I spent time with him in a few months and he seemed like he was getting worse. He seemed to be fading a bit. 

He still knows me. He knows mostly what’s happening and where he is, I think. He’s a bit confused. I know I am seeing the best he’s got. A lot of energy goes into him trying to make me believe he’s still got it together. I’m always grateful that his wife Rosie is taking care of him. It’s definitely taking a lot out of her. I know we’ll have to get some help soon. She needs a break. He was a lot to deal with before he got old. 

My mother’s sister Barbara passed away last week. I was pretty close to her all of my life. She was my cool aunt. She was a great mother, grandmother and my mom’s best friend. It’s going to be difficult for my mom. She will be missed. 

It’s amazing to me that I am dealing with this stuff for the first time and I am turning sixty this week. When your parents have you at a young age, you’re kind of old when they are getting really old. They seem less like your parents and more like people that aren’t that much older than you. 

This all seems heavy, I know. It is. My birthday this week is the first one I’ve really registered for a while and somehow it signifies change. A transition. The beginning of the home stretch. I hope. I’m not saying that to be dark or weird. It just is. I start factoring it into how I think about the future for the first time. If what I am doing requires consideration about the future in terms of it being doable I have to factor that in. Will I be here long enough to enjoy this and is it worth it? 

I mean, I don’t even know if I’m going to outlive two of my cats. 

Yom Kippur today. That may be having an effect on my brain and heart. I’m not fasting or going to temple but the weight of it is wired into me. I am reflecting on my year, my life.  I am trying to look at myself with the perspective of a guy who has been here 60 years. Where could I have been better? Who did I harm? How can I be more of service? Acknowledging loss. Getting humble. 

I hope you all are holding up. Sorry about the weight of this missive. 

On a lighter and much less thoughtful note I talk to Chevy Chase today. I treated him like a guy I loved as a kid and tried to keep him engaged and not piss him off. I think I did it. On Thursday I talk to LeVar Burton about LeVar Burton stuff. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Trade Secrets.

The Midwest, People!

Flying back from St. Louis as I write this. I did five great shows. Great crowds. Club work is the real work of standup. It’s really the best place to see a comic. I’m working the new material. Getting it tight in the late night trenches. 

I don’t know why I freak out so hard before I travel. Especially to the Midwest. It’s just weird. My anxiety levels are not getting any better pre-travel. It usually stops almost immediately once I get in the air. Not when I go to the Midwest though. 

The Midwest is different in my mind. I get paranoid. I’m starting to realize that I really have to tether my imagination to practical reality. It just goes full catastrophic micro and macro almost all the time. 

I didn’t realize until last week that I was working Rosh Hashanah weekend. So my brain creates a scenario where an antisemitic nut job comes in from the sticks of Missouri to take out a Jew while he’s on stage. Happy New Year. It’s a strange kind of inverted self-importance. Obviously, it didn’t happen. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved to see the club’s security with metal scanners at the door. I really have to reel my brain in. 

I’ve been to St. Louis before but I forget. It’s a great city. Good people. I had a good time. 

There were several vegetarian restaurants. All the ones that I ate at were great. My favorite record store is there, Euclid Records. Picked up about 30 albums. I did some live radio. I chose to do it. A morning drive-time show one day and an afternoon drive time show the next. Yes, I wanted to sell a few more tickets but I also wanted to get back into live radio head. It’s exciting. 

I know the woman who owns Clementine’s Creamery, Tamara Keefe. It is probably the best ice cream anywhere. Sometimes I miss real ice cream because vegan ice cream is really hit or miss. Something I make do with when I have the craving. Somehow Clementine’s has nailed the non-dairy ice cream. It’s all about the texture. I asked how they got that smooth, dairy-like feel and of course she said it was magic. Trade secrets. 

Tamara took me on a tour of their new manufacturing facility. It was pretty amazing. Freezers the size of my house. The high point was she had the ice cream designer let me try a bunch of their new vegan flavors. I’m not sure that’s what she’s called but you get it. I have to say, it was pretty exciting just trying a bunch of weird, good vegan ice cream. One had sweet potatoes in it. Another one was a coconut macaroon flavor. I even got to taste fresh ice cream right out of the mixing machine before its deep frozen and packed into pints and it was fucking great. I considered the whole experience a full meal. 

As I said before, comedy clubs are where the real work gets done. I do The Comedy Store all the time. I don’t do too many clubs on the road because in most of the markets,I do bigger venues. I forget that clubs are kind of rough sometimes. Some clubs go out of the way to make the comedy experience amazing but that’s rare, I think. When it comes down to it, club comedy is about selling drinks. Some club owners care about the comic's experience but historically the club owner/comic dynamic can be dicy. When you are starting out you are really at the mercy of the owner because you want to get on stage. You want work. So, you take what comes with the gig. Good or bad. Suck it up.

I had a new kind of awful onstage experience at Helium over the weekend. I really thought I had all the bad experiences that were possible at a comedy club but nope. Surprise. I imagine those of you who listen to my show may have heard comics mention the check spot or the check drop. It’s when the servers give the audience their checks to pay out. It usually happens about two thirds of the way into your set. Not a great time. The audience gets distracted with math and money but we have all learned to take the hit and lose the attention of much of the audience for a bit. It's part of the job. It’s a rare club that doesn’t have a check drop. 

Helium has taken it to a whole new level. Apparently, they have a franchise wide POS system. The card machines to take the payments are linked to a network. Fine. The problem is, each machine beeps with every transaction. That’s right, an audible check drop. Just random beeps coming from all over the audiences for 15 minutes during your set. I can’t think of a bigger indicator of giving zero fucks about actual standup than that. An ongoing distracting reminder of what you are really there to do. Sell drinks. 

Apparently it’s been going on for a couple of years at the club. I couldn’t believe it. I guess now I know there’s a new shitty on-stage experience for the list. Noted. 

Today I have a moving and funny talk with Gary Gulman about his new book and his struggle with mental health stuff. Thursday I talk to comedian Aparna Nancherla about her new book and her life in comedy. Great talks. 

Enjoy!

Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Context and Connection.

Here we go, Folks!
 
Naomi Klein is on the show today. I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to talk to her. Since way back when I had a show on Air America. She is one of the great public intellectuals and activists. She’s written several groundbreaking books like No Logo and The Shock Doctrine and now she has a new one out tomorrow, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. Amazing. 
 
I’ve always been impressed with her mind and her ability to execute big ideas through her acute, educated, progressive perception. She makes sense of the world we live in through a leftist intellectual lens. She has blown my mind with her ideas and revelations and she has done it again with this book. Which I read cover to cover and underlined, a lot. 
 
If you understand politics and how they go hand in hand with the corporate takeover of every available space including our minds and how late stage capitalism will not stop feeding itself until we and the planet are totally depleted, you will enjoy her work. 
 
I talk about a lot of the stuff that we covered but I am no intellectual. I am not a great progressive. I’m lazy and a bit selfish and a bit detached from real activism. Heading into the conversation I was struggling with my own shame and inaction. I think, sadly, this is a familiar mental space for many heavy hearted, terrified liberals. We may even like it. 
 
I think the great service a public intellectual provides is context and connection. So many of the threats that are pressing down on us may seem disparate and fragmented but what Naomi does is find the connections. Connections between capitalism and climate change and the underside of capitalism and fascism. Also how the age of the branded self fits into fascist ideas. 
 
I was excited talking to her. 
 
On a lighter note, my fridge is still broken. The guy put the door back on the freezer and the ice machine was actually working for a few days but then it stopped and started making the noise that caused me to call the repair place initially. Full circle. Did it even really happen? Three months of intense visits and texting. I imagine a new fridge is going to happen soon. 
 
See, even that little story makes me feel like a fraud. Like an ice maker is important with fascism on the horizon and the warming earth. 
 
Ice would be nice though. A nice cold drink on a hot 128-degree day is good. See, rationalization is a powerful tool that helps us get through life but also easily exploited by consumer capitalism. 
 
Ice cold drinks are pretty great though. 
 
As I said, I talk to Naomi Klein today and on Thursday I talk to Hannah Einbinder. She’s a comic and one of the stars of the show Hacks. (She’s also Laraine Newman’s daughter).
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
 
Love,
Maron

An Apron and a Knife.

Cooking, Folks!
 
I like to cook. I cook a lot. Too much, really. It calms me. It’s like meditation you can eat. 
 
I like the action of a kitchen. Any kitchen. When you have orders to get out it feels like a life or death situation. I never worked in high end places. I did short order work at a bagel joint in high school. I did deli work in one of the last Jewish delis in Boston and counter work in a groovy old hippy-owned place. I did a week of line work at a bar/restaurant called Matt Garrets in Coolidge Corner. I was not cut out for the line. I am not a real cook. I saw myself as one. All it takes is an apron and a knife. I was a disaster on the line. In embarrassing myself I did learn the need for having cooking chops and collaboration when cooking chops. 
 
When I was younger, after high school, I considered culinary school but it all looked very serious. Looking back at it now, maybe it would’ve been a good decision. I could be retiring from a hotel executive chef gig around now like my old roommate. I don’t know if I ever would’ve had the goods to stand out as a chef so I never pursued being a pro. Not unlike guitar, I like being good enough at it to enjoy it and get fun results through self-expression. Results I can hear and eat. 
 
The reason I knew it was possible to just learn to cook on your own was two sided. Some good, some not so good. I’ve told bits and pieces of the story before. Maybe even the whole story. I had a professor in college I was very taken with. He was an impressive guy. Philosophy. I looked up to him. He saw this as an opportunity to become a bit obsessed with me and a bit predatory. He saw my nebulous sense of self and identity as a way to pester me and cause me great anxiety and confusion. He desperately wanted me to be gay, at least for a little while. 
 
Despite this, I spent a lot of time with him and went to many dinner parties at his house. Sometimes with girlfriends. Human shields. Framing this as a traumatic period at this point in my life is a bit helpful but the trauma was eclipsed by this guy’s cooking. He was a self-taught gourmet chef of sorts and could cook for many people. He was great at it. I thought it was so impressive and it made me believe I could do it. He did not make me believe I was gay. You win some, you lose some. So, over the years I learned how to cook. I wouldn’t say I’m great at it but I can do it for myself and others. It’s a gift. 
 
I haven’t talked to a chef in a while. It was fun talking to Michael Symon today about his life and restaurants and food. My old friend Todd Barry is also on today’s show talking about his new YouTube special. On Thursday I talk to Bernie Taupin who wrote some of the greatest songs of all time. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
 
Love,
Maron

The Ukrainian Conflict

I’m going out there, People!
 
Dates in Los Angeles, Bellingham, WA, Vegas, St. Louis, Portland, OR and soon Denver, Albq, NM and more up at wtfpod.com/tour.
 
I think I’m looking forward to getting out there into the country and doing some long sets. Things seem simultaneously more and less menacing out in the world. I am generally pleasantly surprised when I get out there and see the people and hang out in the strange cities. We’ll see. It’s what I do. 
 
I want to thank everyone who came out to the screening of Dog Day Afternoon I hosted for American Cinematheque at the Aero theater in Santa Monica. What a great night it was. Obviously, it wasn’t about me, it was about the movie. I did feel responsible and proud for presenting it. I don’t believe I’d ever seen it on film and it was a beautiful print. I’ve watched that movie four times now in the last few months and I could watch it again tomorrow. It is of its time and also timeless. That’s what you’re looking for in art. Perpetually relevant because of its humanity. Visceral. There isn’t a false note in it. Without a doubt Pacino’s best performance. And that’s saying something. 
 
A woman who was an apprentice editor of the film had reached out to me about almost accidentally destroying the one print of it on her way to a screening for executives and Pacino. It was run over by a bus while she was hailing a cab. Great story. I had her tell it before the movie. 
 
I’d like to talk about the Ukrainian conflict. Not the one with Russia but the one that took place in my kitchen a few days ago. I don’t want to bore you with bougie luxury problems but I have been obsessed with getting the ice maker on my old refrigerator fixed. It came with the house. High end. I don’t even really need the ice maker but I get obsessed with small things being right because I have so little control over so much. It gives me focus and the hope of justice and order. 
 
It’s a long story that I tell on today’s show but it’s been going on for months. I’ve been going back and forth with a repair guy who is Ukrainian. All the repair guys for the company I use for this appliance are Ukrainian. This guy told me not to get a new fridge because they have too many computers in them. He became obsessed with fixing mine because it seemingly couldn’t be fixed. He said it was because the water pressure was too high and it kept blowing everything up. I told him I adjusted the valve. I was wrong. It wasn’t the right valve. It was all my fault. Months of us trying to get it fixed. 
 
He finally came with his son in a last-ditch effort to fix it. There was water spraying all over the place. He was yelling at his son in Ukrainian. I was uncomfortable. Then a hinge broke sending ball bearings all over the place and he was yelling at the fridge, ‘Eighteen years I’ve been fixing these. I hate this fridge. I hate it!’ 
 
His son came up to me and said, ‘It’s fucking Murphy’s Law. Always.’
 
He told me to just get a new fridge or he could order a hinge and keep trying. I didn’t want to see him defeated. I’m invested. We wait for the hinge. 
 
So, now my freezer is propped shut with one of the shelves leaned up against it on the outside on a towel. I had a plumber put a valve in the correct place. The saga continues. My fridge is his Goliath. I’m rooting for him and I feel stupid. I think that’s a common feeling for a lot of people in relation to a lot of things. I have faith. I just hope he doesn’t string it out because I’m an idiot. We’ll see. 
 
Today I talk to the amazing Maria Bamford for the sixth time on the show. Always exciting. I talk to Jeff Sharlet on Thursday about his book Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. Not uplifting but sobering. It’s good to know what’s up. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
 
Love,
Maron

The Well-Informed Clown.

Hurricane in Cali, Folks.
 
I’m not numb to the news. My brain just seems to know how to prioritize it based on the clickbait headline or the legitimate one. 
 
Reporting on extreme weather is its own genre. The buildup to what was supposed to be a major, rare tropical storm that was going to hit Southern California was pretty dramatic. I take most weather hysteria with a grain of salt. Even in these end times of apocalyptic heat and storm the old wisdom that forecasting is still speculation usually holds. Even with all the tracking technology, you never really know how it’s going to go. I thought I was far enough inland not to have to deal with the intensity of wind and rain the coast was going to get. Turns out, by the time it got to LA it had shifted its path and intensity to being just a medium barrage of rain. 
 
I kind of knew it would. 
 
I did think, as I do all the time, about the panic things? Why haven't I gotten a generator? How does a generator power a house? Why haven’t I replaced or cleaned my rain gutters? What if it blows my roof off? What if I have to tarp my roof? Is my ladder even big enough? What if I fall off the roof? What if it brings one of the old trees down on my house? What if the power goes out for days? What about food? What if society breaks down and looters run amok in the streets? What about water?
 
Well, I have water. For some reason, Liquid Death has sent me about 50 cases of water over the last half year. I think we did one ad with them. It keeps coming though. So, no matter what happens I’ll be good with water. Sparking and flat. 
 
Unless that’s what they come looking for. The hordes. 
 
The storm was fine. Easy. Manageable. The power did go out for a few hours for reasons I can’t even understand. It almost felt like so much press went into setting us up for a disaster that the power company felt like it was the least they could do to make us feel like we weren’t duped into overreacting. Like, ‘Let’s just turn it off for a bit so they won’t be numb to the reality that horrendous weather is upon us. Let’s give them a taste.’
 
I’m already a little numb. Maybe not numb, but neutered. I feel powerless over the weather, disease, coming fascism, my past, politics. I think I’m pretty well informed. I know what’s up. I can’t rationalize it anymore. I’m terrified but I can’t live in that. All I can do is entertain the reality. That’s actually what I do for a living. On the metaphorical level that’s what we do in our brains. We know the reality but we don’t really take any action because it feels futile so we entertain it as our mental disposition. 
 
One character we play for ourselves is the well-informed clown that believes we do all we can by living the life we live. The other clown is the uninformed one that does everything to ignore what is going on in the name of living the life they think they should live. Another clown is just screaming and crying and hopeless all the time. That’s usually the funniest one. There are subsets to these hellish circus people but that’s another paper, maybe a book. 
 
Anyway, keep your clown healthy and focused and maybe try a different nose occasionally. 
 
Today I talk to Amanda Seales, who I think might be my twin somehow, about her special and her new doc In Amanda we Trust and life, a lot of life. On Thursday I talk to Andrew Leland about going blind and his book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. Great talks!
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
 
Love,
Maron