Hola, Amigos!
All the new tour dates and rescheduled dates are up at wtfpod.com/tour if you are curious about upcoming shows. There are still a few tickets for Carnegie Hall in NYC on Nov. 4 and The Wilbur in Boston on September 24! If you are in the Rochester area I am doing four shows at The Comedy Club this weekend September 9 & 10 and I think there are a few tickets left for some of them. Just a heads up.
I’ve been back in my hometown of Albuquerque, NM for two days now. I did a benefit show out here and it went great. I raised some money for The Endorphin Power Company which is a facility that provides temporary housing for people who have become homeless because of drug abuse. I was happy to help out and we sold the Albuquerque Journal Theater out. It was a great show.
I like coming back more and more. Some part of me would like to live here again. I don’t know if that’s a healthy part of me or a nostalgic part of me. I mean, you can never go back home, right? Or why would you want to? It is beautiful here, but as amazing as the landscape here is, what is there for me? I guess there’s some part of me that is the same as the landscape. It exists here and doesn’t change much. It remains basically the same over the years.
I haven’t really lived here since I graduated high school. Most of my memories are from the 70s. They are pristine but hazy and poorly kept in my mind. I went to Duran’s Pharmacy for some Carne Adovada immediately upon arrival. There was a stout, middle-aged man sitting down at the other end of the counter from me, looking at me. I didn’t recognize him but I was in my hometown so he felt familiar somehow. As he was leaving he came up to me and said, "Hey, Marc. It’s me John ___." I was floored. He lived across the street from me. We weren’t really friends but back in junior high or maybe my first year of high school, back when there was really only pot and not weed, we had gotten high in his treehouse and I was so fucked up that I had to go home. My mother caught on and told me to go in my room a play guitar. "They say you play better when you’re like that," she said. My mother didn’t really have a knack for punishment.
My point is, there was no way I would have recognized him. No way. But when he started talking he had this nervous kind of stoner laugh that would happen every few words and that was the portal, which was John, which was the part that was pristine in my memory. That laugh. That and how he looked back then which I could see in my mind but it was hazy. Now, he was a different size and shape and had the gradual breaking down and shifting that time levels on us. It was good to see him for a minute.
Today on the show I talk to Joseph Arthur. He’s a musician and artist and kindred persistent spirit. I also talk to Peter Bebergal about his rock and roll book ‘Season of the Witch: How the Occult Save Rock and Roll.’ On Thursday I spend some time with Billy Crystal. He needs no explanation.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron