Back home, People!
Finally. I’m going to be home for a stretch. I need to regroup and get grounded. I need to work on the new place. I need to get all the dings on my leased car fixed. I need to not eat garbage. I need to reconnect with the cats. I need to buy some plants. I need to… I'm just glad to be home.
I'm getting reacquainted with my records. One snuck up on me. It has just been hanging out for years. I haven’t really paid attention to it sitting there. I haven’t really listened to it in years. I decided to download it onto my phone for my trip among dozens of others and I was listening to it on the plane and my mind just got blown. It was Dylan’s ‘Planet Waves.’ All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the stacks, it’s my favorite Dylan album and maybe one of the greatest records ever. I don’t hear anyone ever talking about it. I also didn’t realize that Dylan only did two ‘studio’ records with The Band and this was one of them. All of them are so in the pocket it’s crazy. The space between them perfectly filled by one or all of them. It’s just astounding to me. I like when this happens. Something out of the past, that I have known for years, rises up and changes my life. The songs run the range of emotions from grief to ecstasy. There was just a perfect symbiosis between the songs and the people playing them. Peak. Jesus, I’m talking about it like just came out. 1973. I’m a bit obsessed. It will pass. I bought five copies of the album just to have and give to people if needed. It’s not hard to find or that expensive and that just baffles me. It’s fucking box of jewels.
I’m back from Alabama and I guess I can now talk about what was going on down there. As I assumed many of you guessed I was working on a little movie that we shot out in like two weeks. It was conceived and written by Lynn Shelton and Mike O’Brien and Lynn directed it. The film is completely improvised and it’s a pretty crazy little movie—well at least the footage is—can’t wait to see how it all comes together. It will. Shelton is a wizard. It’s called ‘Sword of Trust’ and it features me, Michaela Watkins, Jillian Bell, Jon Bass, Toby Huss, Whit Thomas, Dan Bakkedahl and Tim Paul. It was hot as balls down there and the shooting was pretty intense at times. Emotional and hilarious and odd. Improvising an entire film is exhausting but it’s a very honest path to discovery. I think I had a good time at least half of the time. That’s pretty good. It was awesome working with everyone and the crew was great. Amazing experience. What’s it about? I’m not sure I know. I do know my character owns a pawn shop and that at some point four of us get out of a truck and interrupt someone inseminating a horse. Enough said.
Today I talk to Tom Papa. He’s a great comic and a guy I’ve known for years but didn’t really know and made assumptions about. I never had him on. We work through it. On Thursday Rachel Brosnahan and I talk about acting and her show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I like. I didn’t think I would like as a comic but I do. It does something very interesting in retrofitting a woman with a defined comedic voice doing spontaneous long form bits onstage into the '50s. Great talks!
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron