Hey, People!
You good? Scary here. I guess it’s kind of scary most places these days. It's fire scary here. Windy and fiery.
I drove up to San Francisco on Friday. I just felt like driving. In my mind I thought it would be meditative, helpful. I thought I would listen to some of my old sets just to make sure I was on top of what I wanted to be doing as I get ready for my special taping on Wednesday. I thought maybe I would take the coastal route, leisurely. Well, I didn’t do any of that. I drove straight up the stinky, boring 5 and listened to the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers the entire way. The meditative thing happened though, for sure. I still think it was a good idea. San Francisco is one of the great cities to drive into. Very dramatic. Bridges, water, hills, big buidlings.
It was really nice to spend a couple of days up in the Bay Area. I have a history there. Not a terrible one but not a particularly great one either. I was kind of lost up there I think. I moved out there on a desperate whim. I had hit a wall in NYC in like ’92. I was using drugs and I couldn’t really get on stage enough in the city. I decided to follow an ex-girlfriend out to SF. She didn’t know I was coming. I drove straight through from NYC to SF in 3 days. The last stretch was 22 hours straight. I showed up on her doorstep, burnt out and begged her to take me back. She eventually did and I started trying to do comedy there. I crashed with her until we got our own place in the Mission. It was a difficult time. Floundering comedy career, new city, slight drug issue. I got into the SF comedy competition in ’92 and placed like 13th. It was enough to get me working around the city.
Then I got a job in NYC hosting the last version of Short Attention Span Theater. I commuted from SF to NYC every other week because my girlfriend wasn’t ready to go back to NYC and I wasn’t really either. The following year I did the competition again and I came in second. I lost the title at the venue I played Saturday night. The Masonic. I had to set that venue straight. I did. It was a great show.
I also feel like I got level with that city. It was always a mindfuck to me. I never felt like I knew what the fuck was going on there. I was out of my mind. Trying to get sober. Drinking shit tons of coffee. Smoking packs and packs of Marlboros. Wandering around writing shit down. Trying to be in a relationship. There was just a weird, crackling energy to the place. I assumed that everyone there was exactly who they set out to be and I just didn’t have what it took to be who I was. I think I was wrong. It was a desperate place filled with broken people trying to be whole. Like me! Didn’t realize it at the time.
I spent some quality time with my buddy Jack. Drove in on Friday. Headed over to the Mission. We had dinner and did the wander and talk for a couple hours and did it again the next day for lunch. Old friend stuff. Getting up to speed. Doing what we did when were in our late twenties and early thirties. Working shit out on the move with nothing else to do.
Today on the show I talk to Edward Norton about his new movie and his life and career and whatever else was on his mind. On Thursday I talk to singer songwriter Joan Shelley and she sings. So nice. Good talks.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron