The Casual Pal.

Happy Birthday, People...
 
...on the outside chance that someone has a birthday today. Mine was yesterday. I was born on Kol Nidre. The eve of Yom Kippur. I think that means something. God ushered me into the world personally on his way down to hang with the Jews and hear them out. Let them come clean. 
 
I was told by a very Jewy acquaintance that on this day, today, God is closer to us then he is all year. Like an eclipse. Apparently, you can talk to him casually today. I’m not sure why the change in protocol but I assume it has something to do with sharing your transgressions and shameful secrets and bad things and asking for forgiveness. This is atonement day! You dirty, self-aware apes! You know what you have done, you weeping monkey. Why should you be written into the book of life for another year? Filthy monster. Why?
 
I assume because of my personal and casual relationship with God from birth that I’m good. I don’t know, really. I am constantly struggling with myself and with my actions and thoughts, with my past and present. Today I will speak to God casually and ask him for help on behalf of all decent humans and even filthy shameless apes. Help us, pal. I’m using the casual ‘pal’ to appeal to the rules of the day but I am fucking serious. God, help us. It’s me, Marc. You brought me down here. 
 
What do you want me to do? How can I help? I’ve done all I can to warn the dummies. Are you trying to teach us something? Is it too late? God, seriously. I’m sorry on behalf of humanity. The good humans and the apathetic ones. The shamelessly evil ones you are going to have to deal with. I can't speak for them. 
 
On my birthday I drove to the beach and sat on a rock. Spoke to sky, said hi to Lynn, thought about fishing, watched families having fun, listened to the waves, wondered how dumb birds are and reflected on my life. I ate mediocre Indian food last night for the first time in months. It hasn’t changed. Texted with friends. I talked to my father. I ate cheese. I listened to Tim Maia’s ‘Nobody Can Live Forever’ on repeat for a while. 
 
I am alive. I am here. I am full of dread but hope creeps in sometimes and life in this moment is okay. Happy birthday to me. 
 
Today I talk to Cecily Strong about herself and SNL and stuff. On Thursday I talk to documentarian Barbara Kopple about her work, including a Sprint commercial she directed in Texas featuring me. Good talks!

Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

On the Horizon.

Onward, Folks.
 
Plodding on. The heaviness is real. RBG was 87 years old. She died. Dark days. 
 
It really is too much. It seems that just when you think it’s only going to get worse, it does. There seems to be no end to it. There’s no bottom in sight. Not that her death was necessarily part of it. It was, but she was old and sick and held on as long as she could. Now, there’s a frenzy of righteousness and wokeatude and a call to arms (voices and action, unlike the other side which would be actual arms) to stop the hemorrhaging of our dying democracy and get out the vote and try to get senators to do something by getting out into the streets if necessary. We’ll see. 
 
It seems like a good many people really had no idea what the last election would possibly mean in terms of the court. This passion and panic might work a bit but it’s really kind of amazing how many people didn’t (and don’t) give a shit and don’t really want to get into politics or care about civic duty. Look, I’m not perfect, but I’m pretty hip to what is happening. Now, as the vessel is breaking apart, all the bad news is just flaming shrapnel. Fascism is on the horizon and everyone knows there are no more happy endings but they’ll settle for a leveling. 
 
Make note all you fucks who thought I was overreacting. 
 
That said, I seem to be resigned to staying around both physically and geographically. Mostly out of fear and laziness in terms of trying to get it together to get out in the middle of a plague and I don’t want to be dead, yet. It might not be the time to run and where to, really. Time to fight it out with the rest of the angry, sad, desperate people. 
 
In other news, Happy New Year Jews. Hopefully 5781 will be better than 5780! Not starting off great. On Jewish New Year’s Eve, RBG dies and then there’s a fucking earthquake in LA. I mean, fuck. It’s going to make a believer out of me. In what, I don’t know. How to interpret the signs? I don’t know. My birthday falls on Kol Nidre this year. That’s fun. Right? It did when I was born too. No wonder I’m heavy hearted. Yeah, so. A bit bleak but I’ll have some cake and try to figure out what it means if anything. What am I supposed to do and if not now, when?
 
Earthquakes really shake you into the present and give you some perspective. It’s not a great view but it's immediate. 
 
Today we have a NYC doubleheader. I have a bit of a talk with Alicia Keys and then a little longer talk with John Leguizamo. They were both fun. On Thursday I talk to director Barry Levinson. That was a great talk. Really good. 

Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

It Can Always Get Worse.

Smokey, Folks.
 
It really is kind of amazing that there seems to be no end to the overwhelming, dystopian shitstorm happening. I’m wary to say it can’t get much worse because obviously it can. Much.
 
I’m just trying to deal. Trying not to let grief and sadness catalyze into real depression. It is hard. I’m up against some pretty steep obstacles in the process here. One of them became my hike. Which is a fairly steep incline and one of the few things keeping me sane.
 
The air was fairly unbreathable here in LA last week. Granted it was not as bad as some places but it was awful. It gave me a headache, sore throat, itchy eyes and achy lungs. It was real. It was scary. It was maddening that I couldn’t exercise. The one way I know to keep my sanity relatively in check was being hijacked by the apocalypse. By the time Saturday rolled around I had been sitting inside at home like a sad cat staring out the window for days at the burning orange end times sun. I felt my brain and body atrophying. I had to make a choice.
 
Is this what life is going to be now? Just a day to day struggle to adapt to environmental adversity and disease? If I am choosing to live in this reality shouldn’t I be figuring out a way to engage with that life in a way other than being a victim? Adapt. I mean, this may be what it is for the rest of my life. It may even get worse. Why wouldn’t it?
 
So, I woke up. Checked my air quality app. It was moderate. There was a window. It looked like it would last a couple of hours. So, I strapped on an N95 mask and it wasn’t for Covid, it was for air quality (and Covid). I had never climbed the entire mountain with a mask. That was my goal. I usually take it on and off depending on proximity to other people. Not this time. I was going all the way and I was going to deal with it. This was what I needed to do to live in this reality, I thought.
 
I did it. Sadly, I was proud of myself for being stupid and hiking in unbreathable garbage but rising to the situation by masking up properly for smoke. I was excited that I was beginning the adaptation process. This is the exciting life of struggling to survive, trying to enjoy the pastimes of better days.
 
Today I talk to the amazing Toni Collette about many things. Including Charlie Kaufman’s ‘I’m Thinking About Ending Things,’ which annoyed me. Not her, the movie. On Thursday I talk to the amazing character actor Wendell Pierce about his life and work. Love that guy. Great talks.

Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Heating Up.

Very hot, Friends.
 
I’m sort of waiting for the power to crap out but it hasn’t. Yet. Knock on wood. I’m trying to limit my usage. Then I think, 'Am I going to make the difference?' That’s the slippery slope. ‘I’m not really the one causing the problem.’ It’s the flip side of ‘My vote doesn’t matter.’ Both have dire consequences if everyone started to think that way. It’s an easy way to think. Selfish. Selfish seems pretty easy for most of us. 
 
So, I’m sitting here in the dark with all the blinds closed listening to an old Robyn Hitchcock record. It’s working. I’m going to run upstairs and turn off the AC. I’m not up there. See, I’m sacrificing for the good of everyone. Small sacrifice. Waaaah, I’m a little hot and uncomfortable. This shit species is hitting the cosmic fan. 
 
Just remember, people: A ‘businessman’ is the only one who can run a business into the ground. Now we’re living in it. Good job.
 
I’m trying to pull out of the invisible weight of grief to try to read, listen, watch more. Grief or no grief, sometimes I don’t understand what the point is as we hurtle toward all kinds of disasters on all levels—political, existential, spiritual, psychological, scientific, religious, economic, etc. You get it. All of it. Why should I try to plod my way through a complicated book on Rainer Werner Fassbinder that takes me a half hour to unpack a paragraph of the dense critical writing of the author? It is worth the work. I mean, I get it. What is the point of making cultural and art criticism so dense? WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KEEP ME OUT? WHY CAN'T YOU SPEAK PLAINLY? TIGHTEN IT UP! Oh, that’s my job. 
 
The point is, I’m loading up my head and heart with the good shit. The love and the art. All the Criterion Channel stuff I needed to catch up on like ‘Women Under the Influence’ for a third time. I’m reading the poems. I’m listening to Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler and Mingus and the rest. I’m taking in the paintings. I’m reading select paragraphs from dense books about politics and art and science. FOR WHAT?
 
I know! When the big frequency buckles and the cataclysmic catharsis is upon us and we all look up into the sky and then at each other as we simultaneously experience out last moments alive, because of the homework we did out of boredom, in that moment we will all understand Charlie Kaufman’s ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things.’ All those who didn’t load up will die peacefully and perhaps be saved. The rest of us go in a grand epiphany of ‘I told you so.’ 
 
Today I talk to director Arthur Jones and artist Matt Furie about their documentary ‘Feels Good Man’ which is about the evolution of the alt-right online and the appropriation of Matt’s creation, Pepe the Frog. Also on today’s show I talk to New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz about QAnon and related horrors. On Thursday I lighten things up with Martin Short. Great talks. 


Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Some New Growth.

Hola, Friends!
 
I am back from my home state of New Mexico. It felt like home which is exactly what I was looking for. It’s nice to have a place that feels like home. Just driving into the state, something shifts inside me. It’s a familiarity but it runs deep. I mean, if you think of what holds your brain it’s your head and what holds your head is the dome of the bigger environment, the big frequency.  That state held my head for a long time when there were a lot of things forming and percolating in there. It felt good to be back in the cradle for my brain. 
 
I was in Albuquerque just long enough to have a plate of huevos rancheros at Duran’s Pharmacy. Green chile, red on the side, tortillas with butter. I saw my buddy David who I have known since second grade. I saw my dad who I have known since I was born. Then I went down to Los Poblanos and stayed the night literally a block from where I grew up. Had dinner down there with David and his girlfriend, Sherilyn. I cut out the next morning for Santa Fe. Got there, grabbed two plates of chicken enchiladas with green chile at Tia Sophia’s and brought them to where my friend Devon was staying. I’ve known him since fifth grade. I cried hard in my enchiladas talking about Lynn. Devon could handle it. After lunch I headed up to Taos to the casita I booked on Airbnb. It was perfect.
 
I did big hikes every morning in Taos. I cooked food for the week and just hung out. The terrain there is truly spectacular. It was great to be there. I wouldn’t mind living there if I feel I can stay in this country.
 
I visited Dennis Hopper’s grave twice while I was in Taos. I didn’t know he was there. I’m not sure how I found out. I went online and figured out how to get to the cemetery which is a rustic, dusty old Mexican cemetery in Rancho de Taos that isn’t even connected to a church. It’s like a dirt lot with very unique, seemingly handcrafted grave sites. His was covered in offerings that Hopper pilgrims brought. The first visit I didn’t have anything. The second I brought Devon with me and some river rocks I picked up on a hike we took. I like the rough nature of his grave. Fitting. It was intimate. It felt like humans cared for it and added to it, like an evolving piece of art. I could feel his bones and appreciate his life and the energy was uplifting. I fucking love that guy. 
 
I left Taos on Friday morning. The plan was to stay in Flagstaff for the night. Split up the drive. I got to Flagstaff at 1:30 and had no idea what I would do there until morning so I just ate the two hundred dollars and kept driving. Thirteen hours straight through. It was meditative. I’ve done that drive so many times in my life and it always gets me into an altered state. I felt restored so as I drove I didn’t play music. I just let my brain burn so I could regenerate some new growth. 
 
Good trip all around. 
 
Today I talk to Chelsea Peretti. She’s been on before. It was over ten years ago and I love her and she’s smart and funny. So much has happened in ten years. It was great to talk to her. On Thursday I talk to JK Simmons about his acting. Straightforward guy. Good talks.

Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Stopping In.

I’m out, People.
 
I had to get out. I was alone and tethered to a dying cat for a long time. Now he’s gone and I’m going home. My buddy Frank will watch Buster. He’s an easy one. 
 
Home. New Mexico. I’ve heard that you can never go home. I believe you can. I believe there is some part of you that always lives where you come from. It's always home. Another life or lives. It happened there. It may still be happening there and every moment of it leads to other realities if you want to do that to your mind. 
 
I choose to just know that part of me will always live in New Mexico. 
 
That was where I did the bulk of the developing. I have not been back to New Jersey to track my very early experiences but they are there. I feel that life as well. Part of me will forever be in New Jersey. At my grandma’s. 
 
I have been in and around my house in LA for months. It’s been a very difficult time. Horrible. So, I just got an Airbnb in Northern New Mexico. I’ve never done that before. 
 
I loaded up the car with hiking shoes, a cooler, a guitar, a duffle bag of clothes, a big bag of snacks and my antiviral gear. It was amazing driving through the desert again. I love America. I even love the people. I’m having a very difficult time with the dumb ones. Okay, I don’t love them. I may hate them. 
 
I drove to Flagstaff. Stayed at a hotel which was terrifying. It’s all been terrifying being out here in the wild world with the Covid pilgrims on the highway. I can report that the mask game in AZ was top notch. I’m still tweaked though. I went and picked up Thai take out and wolfed it down in my room at the Marriot Courtyard and it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Just being out, I guess. Though it was good food. 
 
I decided to stop in and see my old dad and his wife. Wouldn’t it be ironic and awful if he gave me Covid? Jesus, the horror. I took the chance. I wanted to make sure I see him if he dies. Or, now, if I die. I really don’t care either way. I mean, I don’t want to die. I just don’t know if I would feel shitty if he died and I didn’t take the opportunity to see him. I don’t know. I don’t have to worry about that now. I saw him, he saw me, we’ll see who goes first. 
 
It’s so fucking beautiful here. The air is clouded with smoke because apparently this state is on fire as well but it’s a different state. It’s the state I love. So many memories here in the haze. 
 
Amazing talks with character actors this week. Today I really enjoyed talking to Giancarlo Esposito. Great connection AND he lives here in my hometown. If it weren’t plague times we’d be having dinner together. Swear. On Thursday I talk to Billy Crudup. He had been up all night freaking out and was caffeinated, I believe, so we got to it. Great talks! 

Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

Minute By Minute

Okay, I’m having a good few minutes, Folks.
 
So, let’s see if it lasts until the end of this email. 
 
At this moment I am watching a YouTube video of Heart performing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ at The Kennedy Center for some kind of Led Zeppelin thing and Robert Plant is crying. It's making me cry. I guess that’s where I’m at in my life. I’m crying because an entire orchestra and choir is joining in at the end of the song. The fast part. The part where we all had to stop slow dancing in a circle and start dancing regular in a darkened gym in seventh grade. 
 
Okay. Couple minutes in. Still ok. 
 
I really am on a rollercoaster every day. I assume most of us are. There are a lot of hours in the day when your options are limited and you aren’t going too many places. The days go on and on. Did they add hours to the day? Does time even matter anymore?
 
I hear a lot of concern about how this is affecting kids in terms of breaking up their education and lives. What about us middle aged folks? A kid is losing a year in the middle of whatever developmental period they are in. I get it. It’s sad. They’ll be behind in the part of life that is planned for their development. I’m just losing time. Fortunately, time is losing its importance in the micro, in the life.  
 
Seriously, though, there’s a big problem with the big picture. In the macro we are all running out of time. We are careening towards a clusterfucking shitshow of an election and an ecological, economic, cultural disaster in the middle of a fucking plague that more and more people are taking less and less seriously. Some days I want to check out. Sometimes I am able to check out. But I always end up back in the present with waffling faith that anything will be even a little ok. I want to disappear into a fantasy that my brain churns out every day. It’s just a place where things are ok. Nothing special. Just okay. Maybe even just the life we had before or some semblance of that. Maybe that with fewer people. Fewer dummies. Maybe in another country. Just. Okay. 
 
Twelve minutes in. Not great. 
 
Buster Kitten is doing pretty well. He looks for Monkey sometimes and it kills me. I’ve started to obsess about his health now. He almost died of renal failure from some plant toxin when he was younger . He seems okay. He’s getting fat and seems to wheeze a bit. I dug up a laser pointer but I don’t know if he can handle it. He’s fat and he’s too smart. He was a good memory. He’s not smart enough to know that he’s chasing a red dot but his memory is good enough for him to keep looking for it after an hour has passed since I had it on. 

 Coming to the end. Little better. 
 
I watched the Rush doc on Netflix. It made me respect them as artists but did not make me want to re-listen to any of the music, at all. I like the fellas, though. Willful, persistent nerds with a vision. Usually that only matters in science and animation. 
 
Today I talk to Kerry Washington about ‘Little Fires Everywhere,’ NYC, Lynn Shelton and other things. On Thursday you can hear me and Kieran Culkin have a loose, fun talk about all kinds of shit. Good stuff. Great talks. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!

Love,
Maron

There I Said It.

Hey, hang on, Folks. 
 
Right?
 
Jesus, some days are just too much. I’m really trying to stifle very violent future thinking and escapist fantasies but I don’t want to be one of the ones that ‘didn’t get out in time.’ Right? Am I crazy? I know, I know. There’s nowhere to run. Isn't there though? Maybe just a place to buy some time. I mean, how much time do I have left, really? Do I stand and fight whatever comes down the pike or try to split. I guess I can if the fight is within the context of social debate and American democracy, but not if it's against a rag-tag army of steroid saturated ‘freethinkers,’ meth crazy hill people or a tank or both. 
 
I don’t fucking know. My brain goes exciting places and in waking consciousness I respond to those thoughts as if they are real. An untethered, frightened imagination with nowhere to land. 
 
I made it to 21 years sober yesterday. There was no meeting to go to where I could take a cake and a hug and say a few words. I ordered my own coin online and ate some cake at home. I would like to state here that I am grateful to be sober. I am grateful that I no longer have the obsession to drink or use drugs. I am grateful for the people in my life. I am humbled by the people who like what I do and continue to love me despite me not loving me. I am happy that whatever empathy I was lacking has been restored or grown. I like my life, even in the midst of the global shitstorm and tremendous loss in my personal life. I am actually happy to be alive. There. I said it. 
 
Ok. Now I’m back. 
 
I feel Monkey’s absence in the house. I feel the loss of Lynn in a deeper, more defined way. I think that being consumed with caring for the old cat kept my heart occupied but also always aware of the end. I kept it at bay for a bit and he did too. We both knew it was time. Loss and absence is settling in. I feel Lynn’s presence in the house sometimes. I don’t know if it’s actually her or not. If it is, I wish she would engage in a more tangible non-apparition type of way. Monkey’s ghost is wandering around too but maybe they are both just me seeing them in a flash out of the corner of my eye. Images being generated by the nostalgic and happier part of my mind. Or maybe they are flashes from the other life I am living. Where we all stay the same forever. 
 
I’m ok. I’m ok. Seriously. I want to disappear. Stop. Head for the hills… of Ireland. Or maybe Taos for a few days. I know the disease is everywhere but some places are prettier than others and there are less diseased people around. 
 
Today I talk to the amazing Sarah Snook about playing Shiv Roy on ‘Succession’ and other stuff. On Thursday I have a pretty earnest, sensitive talk with Ellen Page about her journey in show business and some of the things she is working on to help change the bad things. Great talks. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer lives! Viva Monkey! Viva LaFonda! 
 
Love,
Maron

Total Dread.

Sad, bleak, lightless days, People!

Bake a cake. Make some bread. Watch a movie. Shit is not getting better anytime soon, if ever. Stay in the present. No future thinky, ease up on the past thinky. No going back. 

Okay, maybe I’m not in a great space but it feels like an honest space. 
 
I’m wiped out. I barely know what day it is anymore. I’m starting to talk to myself. I feel physically ill most of the time. I’ve been tested for Covid twice. The last time was a week ago. Negative. I’ve been feeling like shit for months. It got worse after Lynn died and I think I understand what it is now. I thought it was allergies, maybe cancer. I don’t think so. 
 
My cat, Monkey, has been sick a long time. Even when Lynn was alive I had a certain amount of anxiety about how long he would live. I would get up every morning and see if he was alive, if he was okay, if he seemed like he had some time. Now, he’s actually on his way out and I realized I’ve been getting up totally anxious and full of dread and sadness that he would be dead or really sick and I’m exhausted and physically fucked up because of it. It was compounded by the grief after Lynn passed. The constant anxiety and preemptive mourning is wearing me the fuck down. Making me ill. No matter how many people have told me to put it in perspective and just realize he’s old and it’s okay and just let him be who he is until it’s obviously time to go—I couldn’t. Total dread, all the time. I’m tired. Sad. 
 
So, I believe it is that time. I know I’ve been saying this for months probably but he does not seem like he is having fun anymore. The asthma is consuming and the kidneys are going. He’s very skinny. 
 
Jesus, it’s really a day-to-day struggle to accept reality, live in it and try to believe anything will ever be okay again in my lifetime. It probably wont, really. Actually, the odds are likely it will get much worse. 
 
I did make another olive oil cake. So what? Me and Monkey will eat what we want now. This is it. Time to enjoy what little time there is left. Fuck it. 
 
Excellent talk with rapper and actor Ice T today. I was nervous about it and it was a blast. Same with Thursday’s talk with Joe List. I wasn’t nervous about Joe but I didn’t know him at all. I watched his special and I was happy to know going in that he was the real deal. No alt-comic shit. Straight up old school training with some of the guys I started with back in Boston. Great talks. 

 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer lives!
 
Love,
Maron

A Robin.

The darkness keeps coming, People!
 
But the weather has been great where I live. It’s hard to reconcile. Encroaching societal/economic collapse, the oncoming environmental apocalypse, the plague and the beginning of fascism but, hey, is that a Robin? I think that’s a Robin. I didn’t know we had those here. 
 
Monkey is about done and it’s crushing me. Look, I know he wasn’t going live forever but you keep hoping you have one of those cats that lives abnormally long. Like 41 years. I’ve been keeping up his maintenance. I brought him to the vet the other day. I never know if it will be the last time but I am prepared for that now. 
 
I'm able to compartmentalize now. I wasn’t a couple of months ago. The idea of him dying so close to Lynn dying was too much for me to handle and I guess he knew that. I don’t know. I'm able to separate the two now. It isn’t just a fluid continuance of death and dying. It is separate. Lynn’s death was a tragedy. Monkey is an old sick cat. I love them both. Soon, both will be gone forever. Is that a Robin? I think it is. 
 
Here’s something I’ve been wrestling with that would sound like a conspiracy theory if it didn’t feel kind of possible. It begins with the question: How desperate does your neighbor, who doesn’t like the way you think, have to be to kill you because he doesn’t like the way you think, if it was his job? Not that Trump is playing three-or-five-dimensional chess but it's not a big leap to think this administration could let the economy and country collapse and close off trade with China specifically to nationalize and feed on the desperation and anger of Americans, then outfit them with uniforms and ranks and a ‘cleansing’ agenda and the ones that can’t kill can work and manage state run factories. Maybe I’m crazy but I’m ready to go. I like Robins. 

Today’s episode comes with a trigger warning. If you are an anti-Semite it will trigger you to commit violence. This talk with Seth Rogen is by far the Jewiest talk I’ve ever had with a Jew on air. On Thursday I talk to the legendary Marsha Warfield about comedy and life. Great talks. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer lives!
 
Love,
Maron

Eating My Feelings.

Too much bread and cake, People.
 
It’s got to stop. I made cornbread for no reason and ate it. Then Michaela Watkins and her husband Fred came over a day later with a shit ton of food from Bavel which they left here. Like nine kinds of Middle Eastern bread and spreads and lamb’s neck shawarma and chicken tagine. And fuck me. 
 
It doesn’t matter if I eat ALL my feelings. Seems there’s plenty oozing from the well of sadness within. Steady flow with occasional gushing. Also, I can just get fat as fuck. Who cares? We aren’t going to be shooting Glow until 2021 and there’s no standup happening. So, fuck it, right? Except for cholesterol. Fuck that too, right? Let’s live it up! It’s all ending. Probably in the back of a truck for many. Just like I give my old man Monkey nice chicken and liver that I cook for him to give him his meds. Now I’ll just give it to him because he loves it and he’s dying. We all are. Enjoy. 
 
I didn’t sign up to be the sad guy crying alone in his bed at midnight talking to his old cat who is on his last legs. The trauma and shock and emotional paralysis and PTSD from the event of Lynn’s death is now receding and a deep sense of loss is settling in. So, I cry alone sometimes with my cat. My immediate feeling is that it is pathetic and embarrassing. Then I realized… to who? Me? I guess so. What’s that about? Working on it. I am choosing to see it as tragic and human and not judge myself too harshly. Life happens to you sometimes. People are removed. Monkey knows. He was licking me and telling me he’s trying to hang on as long as possible until I get settled into the sadness and he can move on. I swear he basically said that. He’s wheezy. I told him to tell me when he’s ready to go. He has been telling me in the morning but I wait and by the afternoon he wants to stay. It’s tricky. 
 
I am trying to show my gratitude to my friends. I’m relatively polite in a brash way generally. Trying to connect the gratitude to the humility and vulnerability and express it with minimal tears. These are the times when you really find out which friends are who they say they are. 
 
Today I talk to a friend. A real friend. Tom Scharpling. He’s been on the show a couple of times and we’ve done several Marc and Tom Shows but this is just us hanging out talking about stuff back in May before the darkness came. It’s a reminder of how important it is to sit and talk with friends about nothing in particular. It’s what life is about sometimes. Though this talk seems to take some shape. 
 
On Thursday I talk to comedian Chris Fairbanks through a plexiglass partition six feet away with the windows open. Great talks. 
 
Enjoy!
 
Boomer lives!
 
Love,
Maron

It Bends You or Builds You.

Hanging in, People.
 
Someone brought me a banana bread. A big one. So, that’s happening. I froze half of it thinking that would slow me down but it’s pretty easy to just get a piece out of the freezer. I don’t know why I am writing about this. I think it’s because as I write this I’m trying to talk myself out of defrosting a piece because I’ve already had two. This is my life right now. The struggle continues. 
 
Some days, I really can’t take what is happening in the world. I know I was cynical before, angry. Occasionally, I feel defeated. Now that I see the world through the new hole in my heart it’s challenging to ground myself in any hope. Everyday feels like a week. I wake up early and I have a full week’s worth of feelings by the time I crash. 
 
Eat some banana bread. 
 
I’m half-grateful for the quarantine just because it gives me time to just feel and watch where the feelings go. Let them happen. I love my house. I have good people in my life. I am grateful to be working. I have been reading and thinking and playing guitar and cooking and exercising and talking to new people every week. I am ok. Me? Ok. World? I don’t know. 
 
I have become born again terrified of the Covid. I have taken to wearing a mask and a hat with a plastic shield. Looks a little crazy but it makes me feel better. Who knows what the fuck is up with this virus? No one is in charge and they don’t seem to really know what the fuck this bug is and what it can do. 
 
Wear your fucking mask. 
 
I still spend a lot of time wondering about my cat Monkey. He has good days and bad days. He’s been sleeping by my head at night. Which is nice. He’s become very frail and sweet. I’m glad he’s hung in this long. It really would’ve been too much for me to take if he had died. I don’t know though. How do we know what we can take? It seems that most people take what life gives them and how it bends you or builds you is how you become defined, shaped. It could always go either way. You get bigger or you get broken. Humbling either way. Humanity. Wisdom? Sadness. 
 
I’m a little less full-time sad. It’s been two months since Lynn passed. It’s heavy on my heart and there is no place to hide and not a lot of ways to dodge it. I had a dream the other night that we were kissing and I told her that I was so happy she wasn’t dead because I was tired of jerking off thinking about her. Then I woke up. It's sad, but kind of funny. What a cruel brain I have when it's left to its own devices. 
 
I talk to Colin Jost today. Good guy. Solid. Funny. Even if he is a ‘Harvard Guy.' On Thursday I talk to Jim Carrey. I think it went well. Great talks. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

Relentless.

Wow, relentless, People.
 
The full-on brain fuck of this current moment in history is fucking RELENTLESS. It’s seemingly out of our control because of the mass popularity of stupidity and believing in one or all of these: entitlement-based fairy tales, dumb dumb Christian eschatology, fascist visions of white monoculture and/or just ‘fuck it.’ I can definitely understand that last one and a little bit of the first one. 
 
My Covid test came back negative on Wednesday night. So, now, if I just don’t go anywhere or talk to anyone or rub my face on the surface of an infected person I’ll be okay for a while. 
 
It seems that a lot of people are back to the ‘hey, it’s not that bad, yeah it’ll kill some people, but probably not me’ thinking which is fucking ridiculous and leads to ‘fuck it’ behavior and blood on your hands and maskless face. 
 
There is nothing I can do but what I can do. Right now, I am sitting on my porch watching masked people amble by. It is pleasant out, but there seems to be mosquitos trying to fuck up the small amount of peace of mind I have here. RELENTLESS. 
 
The grief experience seems to be evolving. When I realized I had shifted all my fear and sadness onto my old cat Monkey and whether or not he is dying, I broke down. Came through it. Have some acceptance around that but I’m realizing that with this grief door open I’m seeing my life differently. I seem to be looking back at all the different lives I’ve lived and all of the different traumas and heartbreaks and losses that went un-grieved and this moment is lighting those up. Not in a bad way. I seem to be approaching these memories of the different versions of me with some empathy and allowing the feelings to come. Going over the sad tally, missing Lynn. 
 
Grief will definitely land you in you. 
 
The other side of those feelings is the idea of will I ever be happy or content or in love or passionate again. I don’t know. I imagine I will. With the world the way it is currently it’s hard to imagine any of us (like-minded people) feeling sustained happiness again or even just anything but fear. Was that ever possible?
 
My porch is great right now. 
 
Today on the show I talk to John Legend who is a lovely person. Surprise, in case you thought he was a dick or something. On Thursday I talk to another truly lovely person, Helen Mirren. Love her. Great talks. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

Up and Down.

On and on it goes, Folks.
 
Waves of grief. Vet visits. Covid paranoia. Home cooked bread. Up and down. 
 
It’s been so long since I’ve had any good news, really. I think I’d forgotten what it feels like. Even just a smidge of good news. Just a taste. 
 
Last week was emotional insanity for me. On Thursday I decided I was ready to take the old cat in. I had decided, given my experience with his sister, that he had begun kidney failure. He seemed distressed. I really didn’t want him to get to the point of pain and insanity that LaFonda did. I thought I would preempt that somehow. When I took LaFonda to the vet the doctor assured me that it was time. So, with that in mind I took Monkey in, knowing that I would most likely not take him home. It’s an awful surrender but necessary if you own an old cat or any pet. I was ready. I thought. 
 
I drove to Gateway here in LA on Los Feliz. I wanted to go that day because my vet, Dr. Modesto, was in and they would let me be with the cat when they put him down. You can’t go into the building now but they’ll let you do that. That’s really the only way to do it. It’s horrible but deep and correct and for whatever difference it makes, you are there with them. Something that didn’t happen with me and Lynn, sadly. 
 
Before the doctor saw him, he called me. I ended up breaking down and telling him about Lynn and just how shitty the month has been and now this with Monkey. It was probably more than he needed to hear but that’s who I am now. The guy who cries.
 
I waited in the parking lot for about a half hour. I was talking to my buddy, Sam Lipsyte. I was starting to come emotionally unhinged. I think it was all coming down on me. The entirety of my grief running through this last act with Monkey. I was bawling but ready. So I thought. 
 
When they came out to get the cat they pulled his box out of the back seat and he cried and that just leveled me. I was crying my eyes out. When they took Lynn away in the ambulance that was the last time I saw her. Everything was getting confused in the cloud of grief. Lipsyte told me Monkey was just freaked out. Which was probably true. I pulled it together and got off the phone. I waited over an hour. I wanted the doctor to give him a blood test to determine whether or not he was in kidney failure. If he wasn’t I wanted them to give him some fluids. After a very long time Modesto called me and said the tests looked okay and that he gave him fluids and I could take him home. 
 
It was good news. Granted, he’s old and sick and dying but not that day. It felt great. A reprieve from the grief. I’ll take it. I just have to fully accept that he’s old and that he’ll just be a frail, old guy until he dies naturally or I take him back in when it's really time. I’m not going to freak out constantly. About that…
 
On Friday I felt under the weather and of course decided I got Covid somewhere. I obsessed on that for a few days until I realized I really didn’t have any symptoms other than a temperature of 99. 1 and I didn’t feel right. I feel okay now but I’m getting a test tomorrow.
 
Tom Papa brought over a home cooked bread on Saturday. He’s a good baker. Like, really good. He made me a Sourdough Country Loaf. He’s got a future as a breadmaker for sure. 
 
Today I talk to Alan Zweibel. He was a writer on the first season of SNL, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, movies and books. Great guy. On Thursday I talk to comedian George Lopez about comedian stuff. Great talks!

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

The Original Crew.

I really don’t know if I can take it, folks…
 
So much loss around. Global and national on the macro and it keeps coming on the micro. 
 
I’m just trying to wrap my brain around accepting that Monkey is about done. I have had him just shy of 16 years and he’s about 16 years old. He was already feral when I trapped him and his siblings in August of 2004. They were about three months old. Ferals always stay a little skittish, twitchy, ready to split or take a shot. Monkey was always timid and nervous. His sister, LaFonda, the runt, was a fighter. 
 
It’s really hard to know when to let a cat go, take them in, ease them out. It’s hard until it isn’t. We’re about there. I think I can take it. I have been preparing. 
 
I don’t know if it’s transference or just being human. I don’t know if I’m healthy or confused. I’ve been half ready for Monkey to die for months, maybe a year. He’s been sick. I was in no way ready for Lynn to die. Why would I be? It never even crossed my mind. I’m haunted by the fact that when she was sick in my house she was dying. I was treating a fever, she was fighting for her life. I keep thinking I would have acted differently if I knew she was dying. Of course I would have but I didn’t because why would I have even thought that? The fact remains, she was. She is gone. 
 
I’ve known Monkey is sick. He’s given me over a month of what may be borrowed time or maybe he knew I needed him around. I cherished that time and stayed connected with him daily for hours. I talked to him. I told him I loved him and he’s been with me through so much. I can use him as a marker for so many of the events that have happened in my life over the last 16 years. I told him. I cried. He snuggled up and took it. 
 
I could do that with him. I didn’t with Lynn. I didn’t know she was dying. 
 
He’s in distress now. He’s not really purring or taking the love. He seems distant, out of it. He’s drinking a lot of water. He’s struggling. He’s making deep grumbling noises and whimpers. It’s time. 
 
I’ll take him today, unless I don’t because he seems chipper. 
 
I believe I’m ready. I believe he is. 
 
He was of the original crew of cats that actually defined my broadcasting voice. I found it in the stories of those cats. Monkey, LaFonda, Meanie and Hissy. The crew. Meanie split when he got the chance. Hissy was adopted by some nice lady. Monkey and LaFonda made it out west, became celebrities, notorious. Lived large, great, full lives. 
 
Today I talk to Janelle Monet. She is one of the most talented people alive. On Thursday I talk to Nora McInery about grief, which has become her calling. Great talks. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

Seeing Signs.

Ebbs and Flows, Folks.
 
I’m ok. Wait…
 
I am okay. Monkey is okay. Kind of. I took the old man into the vet thinking he was pretty much on his last legs, which he is, got him his shot of cortisone for his asthma, some pills and subcutaneous fluids and he seems okay. He’s not leaving yet. Which is good. I think it's enough time (one month) since Lynn passed that I can get back to sort of expecting Monkey to go soon, naturally. Whether or not she had anything to do with keeping him around for now I don’t know. Slipping into the mystical. Looking for connection. Seeing signs. Happens. 
 
It’s been hard looking at pics or videos of her. Just too painful. It’s not immediately painful but then a geyser of emotion comes gurgling out of my guts and heart. I watched a selfie vid of her singing along with Kool and the Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’ that she shot in my living room and I got ten seconds in and lost my shit. Still can get the song out of my head. 
 
Her friend Jim and I were finally able to bring her car back to where she leased it from. It was so sad sitting out there in front of my house. It was the last piece of practical business that needed to be done. The day before we took it down I went out to start it and it was dead.  Did she not want me to take it away? Is she worried I will forget her? Signs. 
 
Before I took Monkey in he was acting weird and sick and hanging out in the room that Lynn was dying in. He never hangs out in there. Is he dying too now or is she telling me to remember? I’m not going to forget. I will look at the pictures. I will sing the songs. I will watch the videos. I will read the writing. Eventually. I am lost in the memory of her most of the time because it’s not a memory, or memories. It's genetic now. It’s part of my blood and mind and heart and spirit. 
 
I closed the door to that room. Some of her stuff is in there. That’s where she fought the monster. I go in. I sit sometimes. 
 
I figured out how to jump a hybrid and we took the car down South to Cerritos. It didn’t die because of mystical shit. It died because it’s a hybrid and wasn’t self-charging for a month. Yeah, that’s it. 
 
We got it to the lot, dropped it off and then me and Jim masked up and he got in my car. As we set out to drive back to LA ,I rolled down the window and the speakers on the car lot were blaring ‘Get Down On It.’ Yes. It is true. 
 
I get it. I will not forget you, Lynn. Especially if you keep hanging around. 
 
Today I talk to the singular Joe Pantoliano. Joey Pants. Great actor. Great guy. Jersey. Thursday, first I talk to J-L Cauvin about his Trump impression and then to comedian Amber Preston about her comedy and life and stuff. Midwest. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

Processing.

Onward into it, People.
 
Week Four of this horrible process of grieving for me. Week Three of the protests and grieving in the streets. Year Four of the grieving for this country under this administration. Three months and counting into the pandemic. Today I have Jerry Seinfeld on the show. 
 
I think the most difficult thing about grief for me at this time is what the mind seems to focus on. I’m heading into my fourth week here. Lynn has been cremated. Most of the practical responsibilities on my end have been done. There is a death certificate I have seen with a cause of death. Undiagnosed Acute Myelogenic Leukemia. There is some closure. My brain keeps going back to that week, to that day, to the hospital when I saw her body in the ICU. Now, with a cause of death, I go back further into the last few months. Looking for clues. She had many health issues and small symptoms could easily be lumped into more chronic discomforts that didn’t seem menacing. Could it have gone another way? Was there more I could’ve done? The answer is no. It went the way it went and I did everything I could. I was there for her all the way through. We didn’t know what was happening. 
 
The brain wants to blame. In my case, my brain wants to blame me for something. Fortunately, I have done enough work on myself to understand that and sort things out. Grief is hard enough without emotional self-immolation. I have been in constant touch with a core group of friends helping me through this. I have not been talking to people who are friends but emotionally incapable of creating space for my grief. I’ll catch up with them later. 
 
I have been meeting with a therapist to specifically work through the trauma of that last week, finding her collapsed on the floor, calling the ambulance, the last day of her life and seeing her body. I’ve been really feeling the pain around those events. After doing some EMDR and moving through all of them I was able to realize that I did do all I could and Lynn was exactly where she wanted to be, with me. I was where I wanted to be, with her and able to take care of her the best I could. We had a good time together. Right up until those last few days. 
 
I’ve been able to start looking at pictures of her and us again. It’s nice. 
 
It’s day to day but I’m doing okay. 
 
In the beginning, WTF was a comedy podcast. I talked to comedians almost exclusively. Over the years it has become a large tapestry exploring the history of comedy. There are many people I would like to have on that I can’t for one reason or another. I didn’t think Jerry Seinfeld would ever come on and I was okay with that but… today I talk to Jerry Seinfeld. It is definitely a unique talk with that guy. On Thursday, if all goes as planned, I will talk to Stacey Abrams about the state of the country, the state of herself and the state of electoral politics most likely. 
 
Enjoy!

Love,

Maron

Loss.

Trying to deal, People.
 
I’m able to breathe a bit, finally. So much sadness was inside of me and not coming out it was literally hard to breathe. I’m getting some air now. I’ve been crying on and off. Seemingly out of nowhere. I’m just overwhelmed with crying. It doesn’t even seem to be connected to sadness or a thought. Maybe I’m just filled up with the sadness and eventually it just needs to be relieved. Let some tears out. Bursting at the seams with the sadness. 
 
Sometimes I am triggered to cry. Odd things. Like her pink winter gloves which were sitting on the dresser. I couldn’t give them away. She had them on our trip to Ireland a few months ago. I just looked at them and lost it. 
 
Now the world is on fire and there is knee-pressing at the back of all our necks and no one with a sense of justice and conscience can breathe. Sadly, because of my personal grief, which I am rightfully consumed with, it's hard for me to even wrap my brain around what is happening to the country, emotionally. I do know that I was and am powerless over the death of my girlfriend and that compounds the loss. I do know that we feel powerless in relation to the actions of murderous police and the encroaching possibility of fascism but I also know that what is happening is what it looks like when people take back their power or fight the good fight to try. 
 
I have to stay in the moment because given the state of the country and the state of my heart if I think about tomorrow it gets very bleak. Dealing. 
 
Three shows this week. Today I talk to Jefferey Wright about his acting work and his activism. We talked before the events of this week and before Lynn passed. Actually, all of the talks this week are before both these sad events. I talk to guitarist GE Smith on Wednesday and actor Chris Cooper on Thursday. Big week. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Maron