Hello, People!
I know I repeat myself. I know I repeat myself. Here are some gigs coming up. Before I get into them I just want to remind people who live in the LA area that if I am around I will usually perform at The Comedy Store. I don’t put these gigs up on the site or in these updates because I book them week to week and they are only 15 minute workout sets. You should check the schedule at The Store or my Twitter feed if you want to see me there.
That said, I will be in Albuquerque on May 31st. I’m excited to perform in my home town. I think it will be a good show. There are dates coming up in Chicago, Bloomington, IN, Lawrence, KS and Charlotte, NC. Check the dates to see if you can make any of them.
Flying back from Nashville, Tennessee as I write this. I had a good time at The Wild West Comedy Festival. I interviewed Vince Vaughn for a live WTF. I’ll be putting it up next week. It’s no easy thing doing a live one-on-one. That’s why I don’t do them too often. I know you may think ‘What’s the big deal? You just sit there and talk to the guy in front of 300 or so people.’ That’s the big deal. The people. It’s tough to have an intimate talk in front of an audience. I was very nervous and anxious about the show. I didn’t know Vince at all. In my mind we are totally different types of guys. I was paranoid he would hand me my ass somehow just because he seems to have that kind of personality. I didn’t know if we could even have a connected talk in a live situation or ever. I drove myself pretty nuts moving towards the show.
I usually do live episodes of WTF with several guests and I don’t worry about going too deep. I do the group shows for entertainment and laughs. The tricky part about sitting and talking with someone else in front of an audience is you don’t want to neglect the audience. If you spend lot of time on stage there is an instinct there that kicks in. I will always be aware of the crowd probably to a fault but when I talk to someone else in front of people I just don’t know what will happen. When I interviewed Jeffrey Tambor live in Austin it was brutal for a while. I rolled with it but it was not easy for the first bit. He enjoyed making it difficult and that was what made the show entertaining. I can take a hit for the team when the team is me but it is nerve racking.
Vince was great. We are different types of guys. He did hand me my ass but it was good hearted and funny. There was a theme to the show, a through-line that revealed itself as we moved along. I realized that a good live conversation is really no different than a good improvisation. There were callbacks and his instinct for live performing is acute and spot on. It was a fun show. We talked afterward and he noticed the difference in what you can do in conversation with an audience present and that pull to not exclude them. We both thought it went well. I think you’ll like it.
For those of you keeping up with my slight obsession with David Berman of Silver Jews I met him in Nashville. He didn’t want to do an interview right now. He’s going through some stuff but we had a great conversation and maybe it will happen in the future.
I also did a studio session while I’ll was there. Yeah, I am now officially a paid musician. I ran into a guy named Jon Phillip at a restaurant. He’s a fan and also the drummer for a band called Trapper Schoepp and the Shades. He was with Tanner Schoepp, the bass player, who is also into WTF. They said they were recording down the street. I asked if they needed me to play guitar on anything and THEY LET ME! I spent the day in a recording studio cutting a track. It was amazing. I had a blast. We did it at Brendan Benson’s studio and he was producing. They threw me a little cash afterward which I thought was a nice gesture because I just wanted to play. I hope I make the cut.
Today I talk to RuPaul Charles on the show. I had no idea what it would be like to talk to him but I certainly thought I had an idea of what he would be like and I was wrong. Way wrong. What an amazing guy. We had a engaging and helpful talk. It helped me anyway. Ru has his shit together and I needed to hear some of that. On Thursday, you'll hear my conversation with Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show which hasn't even happened yet. Hope it goes well.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron
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