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 I mean, I can still juice them up but it’s like seeing if an outdated piece of equipment still works when you plug it in.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
