Good times, People.
I’m tired. I’m so tired I’m a little cross-eyed. I got up really early to get a really small plane out of Salt Lake City. We were stuck at the gate for a bit because the pilot told us there was haze in Burbank and we might need to circle. We didn’t have enough fuel to circle so they needed to put more fuel in the plane. Then we waited longer. Then the pilot told us that the fuel trucks were out of fuel and they went to put more fuel on the trucks. Eventually the fuel trucks fueled up and fueled up the plane. I appreciated the honesty of the pilot. It was still a bit annoying.
Again, I want to say how thrilled I am that so many people have responded so positively to the last season of ‘Maron’ on IFC, specifically the finale. That was a hard episode to write and execute just like I envisioned it. I wrote it and Rob Cohen directed and I was nervous about it. I didn’t want to direct it. It takes a lot of time and replay to direct myself and we usually don’t have the time. Rob had directed plenty of episodes so I knew he could do it but I was a little obsessed, particularly with that last scene with the kid and me on the park bench. I needed that to be framed and feel a very particular way. So, I got behind the viewfinder a bit and tweaked it so it was just right. As a few people have commented and picked up on, I had the final shot of The Graduate in mind. I really needed that sense of ambiguity and closure. I feel like it worked and from all the feedback it seems like it did for viewers too.
I didn’t get any Emmy nominations for the show. I kind of knew I wouldn’t. It would’ve been nice but on another level, who gives a fuck? It’s sort of a rigged system and the network didn’t step up to pay the necessary money for promotion and do the necessary politicking for the show. Instead they did absolutely nothing. It probably wouldn’t have been nominated even if they had. So be it. The show lives. I love it. People dug it. Onward.
Got back from Salt Lake City this morning. I really like it there. It’s odd. It’s odd that I like it there and it’s an odd place. When people ask me what it’s like I realize there is really nothing to compare it to. It is its own thing. It is pleasant and weird. There is an energy there, a feeling of space and calm that is partially the desert and partially the Mormon factor. It is their town. No doubt about that. It seems now though there are more non-Mormons there and more coming. Like they’ve loosened up somehow. I don’t know that they have but maybe there’s more business in the city and enough lapsed Mormons who still live there to give it some balance and make it feel almost like a normal place. I’ve always liked it.
I’ve been there to perform like four times. The audiences are always good. I always visit Temple Square to feel the energy at the source and to visit Space Jesus. I like walking around there. The heat beats down and it all seems almost hallucinatory and there is a certain type of brainwashed person that is actually very nice.
Today I talk to the revered and amazing James L. Brooks about most of it. Like Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, The Simpsons, Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, Albert Brooks, etc. Great talk. On Thursday I talk to Chuck Klosterman about a lotof thinky things. It’s exciting.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron