Yes, People-
It happened. I am no longer afraid to sing in public. Now I just have a few fears that have to be dealt with: Riding a motorcycle, skydiving and death. I can live without confronting the first two and who really has a handle on that last one.
The shows in San Francisco at Sketchfest were great. The live WTF was sold out and it was fun as hell. The standup went well as did the ‘Bring the Rock’ show which is where I watched my fear of singing and playing die thanks to Dave Alvin. The premise of BTR is a comedian tells a story and then the band plays the song either with the comic or not. This is the show I did last year and sang in public for the first time since the fear set in when I was 15.
The story is this: Years ago when I was living in Hollywood and a doorman at the Comedy Store, the Hard Rock Café opened in the Beverly Center. Me and my friend Jim were hungover and had nothing to do during the day so we decided to go in and check the place out. I was fascinated with all the rock paraphernalia. The place was pretty empty. It was a weekday. We were waiting for our food so I went into the bathroom. I approached the urinals and started to pee. I was looking at the gold records on the wall as I went and a man approached the urinal next to me. We were both just pissing looking up at the records. I looked over and realized it was Dave Alvin from the Blasters. Me being me, I needed to have some kind of earnest moment of connectivity with him so I mentally scrambled for something to say. Given the situation I didn’t want make it too weird. So this is what came out of my mouth: “How come you don’t have any gold records up here?” I really didn’t think it was a shitty question but in retrospect maybe it was. He looked at me and said, “Because I’m not a fucking whore.” After that we both just looked at the wall, did what we had to do, flushed and walked out.
I ran into Dave years later at a show and asked if he remembered it. He said he had only been in that place once and it sounded like something he would say. I guess I didn’t make that big an impression. Probably better off.
I sang ‘Help You Dream’ last night. It was great.
On the show this week I tracked down a guy I started out with who has an intense and wild story, Matt Graham. Matt went from comic to professional Scrabble Player to Poker Player to attempting to play college basketball at 40. Intense dude. Good talk. On Thursday, Bill Lawrence. He created Scrubs and Cougar Town and is also an intense guy. Another good talk.
I'm driving a U-Haul from SF to LA now. I bet you envy me.
Love,
Maron
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