Howdy, Folks!
I’m in Texas, again.
Before I talk about that I just want to thank the folks that came out to the Trepany House last Tuesday. It always pushes me to new places. I don’t expect to go there but having loyal fans is a double-edged sword. The place only seats about 140. Many of the people that came out had been to my other shows there. I asked. It was about 50/50. That means that half the room had seen some of the stuff I was working on which made me feel bad. I know the nature of the shows is to work stuff out. I try to tell myself ‘it’s a cheap ticket and they know the score’ but I still feel like I have to push myself to give the people that haven’t seen any of it and the people that have seen some of it something completely new and I do it, not for the whole show, but I get there. I talk about things I didn’t know I was going to talk about at all and that is where the new stuff comes from. The hidden well of ‘I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about that before.' So, thanks for coming out and pushing me and I hope to see some of you at the upcoming Tuesday shows.
I have to say I like Texas more and more every time I’m here. Most of my judgment of the place was based on old information. Old ‘growing up in New Mexico’ information. Old ‘being from the state next to Texas and having to deal with Texans’ information. There are many ski areas in New Mexico and Colorado. My family frequented a few of them during the winter. Taos in NM and Purgatory in Durango, CO, mostly. We liked to ski and we could do it pretty well. There are no ski areas in Texas that I know of. That apparently left them no other option but to come to our little secret ski areas and just take over sometimes. It wasn’t even that I felt that as a kid. Someone must’ve said something but generally if you saw people with all of the newest equipment and most expensive outfits with hair done looking like they were going out to dinner they were Texans. The other tell was their inability to really ski but they looked perfect if skiing were a non-motion activity. In my mind they got in the way and acted like they owned the place, any place. Texans.
I still feel that large personality of the people here, but the difference is they are here in Texas and it is large and they earned it somehow. Texas is it’s own country and the people that live here feel that. I’ve grown to appreciate it.
I rented a Mustang GT and drove from Dallas to Houston. I’m not really that guy but I can be that guy for four hours and I have to tell you it was great. Texas has some of the few stretches of flat open highway left in this world and I mean OPEN. AND a beautiful 75 mile an hour speed limit that you can push to 85. Felt good. Felt fast. Felt American.
Sunday was the last of the Oddball Festival shows for me. They’ve been great. These shows here in Texas and the two in Irvine have been the best ones for me. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m getting the hang of Stadium Comedy or maybe I just don’t give as much of a fuck at this point. Either way it’s been more fun.
Nick Frost came by the garage for Monday’s show. I love talking to people from the UK. I just know so little about growing up there and living there because I didn’t, so it was fun to talk to him. He has a great, surprising story of how he became an actor. I liked it. It was all based on friendship. On Thursday Tim and Eric talk to me and act a little less like Tim and Eric than usual. I have interviewed Tim before so this was a bit Eric centric.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron
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