New York City, People!
I’m flying back from NYC right now. Outside of a few minor bumps it was a great trip.
I have to be honest, I love doing Jimmy Fallon’s show. Being a panel guest was such an important part of my life for so long when I was coming up and I hardly do it anymore. I’m not talking about guesting on a podcast. I’m talking about being a guest on The Tonight Show. I know it doesn’t mean what it used to and the media landscape is a scattered shit show but the context is still what it is and I think Jimmy is a good host. He’s a good audience. He’s in it. It was fun.
It was like the old days but I am older and many fewer fucks are given. Probably almost all the fucks. Easier to enjoy it.
The screening of the documentary about me ‘Are We Good?’ went well. It was the second time I’ve seen it in front of an audience. It went over great. Which means, to me, it got laughs in the funny places and feels in the feely places. I want to thank everyone who came out.
Tracy Letts moderated a conversation with me and Steve Feinartz, the director. That was amazing. Talking to Tracy in any situation is amazing. He had a totally unique point of view about what the film was about. The assumption, and it wouldn’t be a wrong one, is that it’s about processing grief. Me processing grief, which includes doing comedy about it.
Tracy thought the film was about work. The work. Of an artist.
I rarely call myself that or see myself that way. I guess I know I am one but it seems to be pretentious to call myself one. I’ve always felt that. I’d rather just go with comic.
But looking at the doc as a film about work was helpful to me in reframing my life. My work is how I process everything. Whether it’s on the podcast or on the stage. My life, certainly up to this point, has been about processing it through my work. The work is kind of my life to the point that I don’t live a full life. There are other reasons for that but those are also what I process in the work. I put it all out there.
It’s like the reality of my life is a panicky farce and the work gives it definition and attempts to make it relatable as I work it out. Make it real. Put it out there.
Is that, or has that been, a full life? It is a life full of something but all this sharing of it is a bit depleting. Because the sharing of it is the work and the work leaves me chronically exposed and then I have to incorporate that into how I live. It starts eating itself and stagnates the life I’m living and I’m running out of time.
So, the only choice I have after 61 years is to accept what I have called a life and try to live it differently if that will bring me some peace.
Ease up on the panic, the compulsivity, the urgency, the anger. Find some space and be who I am now and see where that takes me creatively. I have no idea how to create outside myself. I am the center and project of the creation. I have to find another place to come from or at least a way that is not directly attached to my mind constantly reflecting on itself.
I’m not sure I’m even making sense but some new vision has been opened by looking at the film the way Tracy saw it. There’s a bit of sadness to it. Being self-condemned to the creative work. And that’s a life sentence it seems.
I’d say the highpoint of the trip was going to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with Kit. She had never been there. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. When we decided to go I just couldn’t wait to see that Blue Whale. That feeling of walking into that room with that giant model does not disappoint. It was just as exciting as it ever was. Looking into that Squid and Whale diorama and feeling that same haunted vibe that I did as a kid and realizing why it's never left. Finding myself lit up by all the dinosaur bones and realizing that I am, and always have been, a Triceratops guy.
Good trip.
Today I talk to Cristin Milioti, a truly great actress. On Thursday I talk to the very singular and funny Megan Stalter. Great talks.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
