I am writing this as a 15 year old.

Holiday time!


I’m going to my mother’s today. More on that later.

First things first. I will be at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, PA on Dec. 6th through 8th. I can’t wait, actually. I need to get back in the long set groove. I need to work some shit out and I need you to witness it. It should be fun or whatever that feeling is I get when I’m not thinking.

Also, out of respect for Boomer I have created a limited run of ‘Boomer Lives’ t-shirts. This is a very WTF specific thing. So, if I see you in one I know you are a real deal WTFer. I will be sending a dollar from each sale to an animal-related charity. I haven’t figured out which one. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I miss the little ginger fucker. The deck isn’t the same without him. Just some mean looking strays hanging around now.

So, my mother’s house. Florida. Those of you who have been listening a while know I do the Thanksgiving thing every year in Hollywood, FL. I cook for 17-24 people in a kitchen that is not prepared to cook anything. It’s a ‘heat up’ kitchen not a ‘cook in’ kitchen. I love doing it. Because I am only there a few days I feel like a chef that has been flown for an event. The only difference is I don’t get flown or paid and it’s my mother’s house so I leave emotionally drained and infantilized. I have to say that knowing I am going down there always screws up the couple of weeks before I leave. I have come to believe that the emotional regression starts a week of so ahead of me leaving. I am a 49 year-old man. I am usually about 30 emotionally. So, it’s a short jump to the 10 I will be by Thursday. I am writing this as a fifteen year-old.

I do wish you all a great Thanksgiving. Eat well. Deal the best you can. If you get aggravated, remember this whole life thing is not that long so don’t waste too much energy on shit that can’t be fixed. Try to stay as close to your actual age as possible. I’m going to try to convince the pissed off kid in me to realize that whatever he is expecting just isn’t going to happen. I don’t know how he’ll take it. I’m sure he will just take it out on his mother.

Monday I talk to the very challenging and brilliant director Todd Solondz about his insistence on being dark and weird. On Thursday I talk to the highly Jewish and neurotic Ed Crasnick about what he is doing with his crazy.

Enjoy.

Boomer lives!


Love,
Maron

I wrapped!

Here we go, People-

PHILADELPHIA! I will be at Helium Comedy Club December 6-8th. Don’t wait to get the tickets. I haven’t been there in a while.

I wrapped. That’s show biz talk that I have never been able to utter because I have never been in anything to wrap really. I completed shooting 10 episodes of ‘Maron’ for IFC. I have to say that it was an amazing experience that I really had given up on ever happening for me. I had genuinely let go of the dream of doing a television show. The fact that I was able to do one with a network that afforded me the freedom to be myself is amazing. I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity. The crew was amazing and I really just felt like we were all working together to create something. I never really considered that it was all resting on my shoulders. I think if I did, I would’ve freaked out. All said, I only freaked out like two and half times and they were minor freak outs. They mostly revolved around shirts I thought were too tight. Not about that fact that we were shooting 9 to 15 pages of script a day and I was in every scene.

Now I get to see if anyone likes it. We are editing now and I am a bit surprised at how personal it all is but what else did I expect me to do. The airdate as it stands now is June 2013. I wish to hell it was sooner but that seems to be out of my control. I let you know how the edits are coming along. I couldn’t have done it without all of you.

I’m trying not to go down the audiophile rabbit hole. I bought this new equipment and now I want to buy records like they’re crack. I went to get Jessica a burrito the other day and there was a record store down the street. While I was waiting for her food I ran down there because I decided I needed to understand and wrap my brain around Captain Beefheart. So, I barged into the store and muttered “Beefheart” and grabbed a re-release of ‘Mirror Man’ on clear vinyl and an unopened ‘Trans Europe Express’ by Kraftwerk for no reason other than I never really got them. I went back to the burrito place and her food was not even ready yet. There was a heavyset bearded man behind me on line. He was a Buddha of some sort. The guy at the counter asked what records I got and I told him and the bearded Buddha asked, “You trying to catch up?” I left with the food and was actually moved by the question. Was I trying to catch up? Do we ever catch up? I guess I should have went back and asked him but maybe I had all the information I needed.

Monday I talk to professional wrestler Colt Cabana. I learn a lot about the similarities between comedy and wrestling but also about art, life, expression and being Jewish. Yeah. All that. On Thursday I talk to Keith and the Girl. They were some of the original podcasters and were a big help to me when I was starting out with the medium. They are also interesting, funny people. Dig it.

Boomer lives!


Love,
Maron

Vote.

Hey, Folks-

Hope you are all holding up! I hope all of my East Coast fans and friends are doing all right considering what that side of the country went through. I hear some of you got your power back and some of you are still a bit fucked. I’m just sending some WTF love your way.

I will be at The Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, PA December 6th through 8th. I’m looking forward to the grit and edge of Philly. Come out if you can.

On a side note, vote. Be a grown up and go do it. If you don’t like the candidates, vote on the props. Vote for stuff that will make a difference in your community and/or state. Don’t ditch the whole process. Some of it works.

This week I bring you an interview with Shelley Berman. He’s an old timer and a very important comic. His seminal work was done in the late Fifties and early Sixties. He was contemporary of Lenny Bruce and a unique voice. I went to his home to talk to him because I felt like he had gotten short shrift in the history of comedy. He was the first comic to win a Grammy for one of his three gold records and also the first comic to play Carnegie Hall. He was huge. I didn’t really even know about him until a few years ago when I bought one of his records because I had heard his name and he was sitting down on the cover. His bit ‘The Department Store’ changed the way I viewed stand up. It was so well paced and timed. It was long and beautifully constructed. I’m sure his sitting influenced my desire to sit lately.

At some point his career took a turn. I didn’t confront him with the story of him losing his temper on national television. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was trying so hard to be even tempered. He was very revealing about how he came into his act and point of view and also about the person he thinks became an obstacle to his success. It was a tough interview because it was really the first time that I felt like I was talking to someone who had profound disappointment but still persevered and did what was necessary to keep moving forward. I didn’t realize these things until the drive home from his house. Show business is brutal and so much of it hinges on the fickle turns of cultural relevance and shallow popularity. That, mixed with a volatile personality, could kill a career. When I spoke briefly to him about his tenure as a teacher at USC I didn’t realize until I left that that was what kept him alive and relevant. I’m sure it wasn’t his plan but it was where life took him. It was also interesting to hear his side of working with Larry David. I am a romantic when it comes to comedy. I never want to believe that it’s just casting.

On Thursday, the author Daniel Smith talks to me about anxiety. We are kindred spirits and his book, Monkey Mind, is a beautiful thing if you have the anxious bug and even if you don’t. He’s a funny smart dude.

Be well. Stay dry.


Love,
Maron

I guess I could use the cat box.

Here we go-

Big week. Three shows.

I really wanted to relax this weekend but my house decided to fall apart. When you have an old house the only way you really learn about what is holding it together or how to fix anything is for something to break. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t fantasize about plowing the entire house down and building some kind of kit house in its place. Does Ikea make houses? I think I could handle putting that together. I’d only need an Allen wrench and maybe a hammer and screwdriver. If they don’t they should get on it.

I was getting ready to go out on Saturday night with my friend Chris. He was coming over. I was waiting, just listening to my new tubes and vinyl. I got up to go to the bathroom and there was a puddle beneath the toilet. It wasn’t sewage so that was good but something was leaking. I wasn’t dealing with a geyser of poo or some seeping shit disaster. Anything toilet related needs immediate attention, especially if you only have one bathroom. Unless you want to be going out in the yard you have to get someone on it. You don’t want to be that guy. Pissing of the deck is one thing. Shitting in the garden is an entirely different thing. I guess I could use the cat box. Maybe then they’d know who’s in charge.

I called a plumber and apparently the fixture on top of the cast iron pipe that fixes the toilet to the pipe was nothing but rust crumbs. So, the toilet, which I always knew was wobbly was just luckily positioned over the hole most of the time and the screws that held it down we screwed into nothing. Finally what little of the seal was left disappeared and flushed water was leaking out the bottom. Cut to all day Sunday and 800 bucks later my toilet is now locked and sealed onto that pipe and look at what I learned. I knew none of what I wrote before.

The plumber also scoped my old ceramic pipes that run down to the sewer and I am happy to report there were only a few roots creeping in. It reminded me to go to the doctor. I may need to get my arteries scoped to see if there are any roots creeping in or grease build up.

This week we wave Tim Heidecker from Tim and Eric on the show Monday. On Wednesday we have a hilarious live WTF from The Trepany House featuring Dave Hill, Moby, Aries Spears, Jake Fogelnest, TJ Miller, Mike Bobbitt and Jim Earl. On Friday I talk to the man that comedy raised, Pauly Shore.

No Boomie. Boomie lives!



Love,
Maron

My Brain Shorted Out.

Yes, People!

I am here. I will be at Helium in Philadelphia on December 6-8. Looking forward to being back there. Good crowds, good food.

My life is consumed with my shooting schedule. I am not out in the world much. I don’t have a lot to report other than my brain shorted out last week for a couple of days. Apparently I had put as much in it at once as it could take and it just was full and refused to work. After I shoot all day I have to come home and cram lines into my head for the next day. Given that this show is about me and centered around me, there isn’t a scene I am not in for the most part. There isn’t a real ensemble because that isn’t in the budget. There are recurring guests but it is me-heavy. We are shooting about ten pages a day, out of order. That’s a lot of lines. I am not complaining. I seem to be rising to the occasion but my brain just wouldn’t take anymore and everything became very immediate. I got angry at my head and was a bit of a bitch in the morning but we all got through it. By ‘all’ I mean everyone on the crew. I didn’t snap or hurt anyone. That’s progress.

We’ve completed shooting five of the ten episodes. I’m sorry but I’m going to be a little cagey about what I say to you all right now. I don’t want to be a spoiler for my own show. Though I am dying to.

This week is a triple-header. On Monday, I am releasing the live show from the Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival. This was a long one. They actually shut off the electricity and air conditioner because they wanted to close the theater. On Wednesday, I talk to Jimmy Walker for a very long time. He likes to dish. There’s a lot of good comedy history with him. On Thursday, Chad Daniels from the Midwest. Great comic. Good talk. I think he surprised himself with this talk.

No Boomer. Miss him.

Love you all.
Maron

Boomer lives! I’ve decided that.

Yes, People!

Just trying to start with a positive. It’s been a bittersweet week but I think life is just like that depending on how many events you string together in your memory package.

The past week of shooting the IFC show was great. We cast Judd Hirsch as my father and working with him was a privilege. We did 3 days of work and I think if I would have done one more I would’ve been talking like an old Jewish man. That was compounded by the fact that Andy Kindler was playing my friend ‘Andy’ on the shows we were shooting. Lots of Jew power on set. I’m doing the work and it feels good. I have not looked at one scene of footage. I think I will wait on it a bit. Feels good though. Bobcat Goldthwait is directing the two we shot and it was wild to be working with him like this. I was proud of both of us.

My car battery died on Saturday. One of two of my days off was spent dealing with that. I chose not to lose my shit because I realized I was an adult and this shit happens. I don’t always make that choice. I got up and drove to this used stereo store to look for some old speakers and a receiver. I decided that I want to listen to my records and hear them like I heard them in high school -- through shitty speakers and a cheap receiver. I went outside and tried to start my car. It was dead. I was going to call AAA and I stopped myself and called my buddy Ryan Singer. He came over and jumped my old Camry with his old Camry. I didn’t know if it was the battery or the alternator but then again I don’t even really know what or where the alternator is so I was just doing some non-car-guy speculating. It was enough to make me a little worried. It’s a fucking Toyota though, nothing really breaks on a Toyota. I was nervous but not freaked out. So, we got it going and went to lunch. After lunch we went out to the car. Dead. Jumped it again. Went to Autozone. They charged the battery and we went to get coffee. Came back and they declared the battery wasted. Got a new one and went our separate ways. The point is that it was great to spend the day with Ryan. We hadn’t seen each other in a while. We got caught up, did some guy talk, doing guy shit, car-centric. We felt like men, single men with no kids with time on their hands. It was good.

After the battery situation I went to a high-end stereo store to see what I could find. There is literally one high-end stereo store in LA. I’ve been a bit obsessed with MacIntosh amps since I was at Third Man Records and saw that Jack had a wall of them. I thought I would price a system. For an amplifier and a set of speakers, midrange, about ten grand. When the fuck did that happen? I’ll wait it out.

No sign of Boomer yet but Boomer lives! I’ve decided that.

This week on Monday, the voice of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny, talks in his own voice, mostly. On Thursday, a full hour with W. Kamau Bell and we talk race, yes, race. He wanted to!

Enjoy!


Love,
Maron

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