Definitive Answers: Recent Episodes

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Oh hey, how’s your brain today? Feeling hopeless like my friend Sarah up there over Roe being overturned? For sure.

Here’s where I’m at, and I don’t expect you to be here with me yet: We have to hope.

I’ve said this before in this space, but I think it bears repeating today. Because yeah, this decision comes down from the Robe Gods, and Joey B says, “Be peaceful, be peaceful,” and there are ACTUALLY people still saying, “Vote in November” right now in this very moment, so it’s easy to go, “Man, without access to a flamethrower, I think I’m pretty powerless here.”

Is a march or protest everything? OF COURSE NOT. But is it nothing? I don’t think so. Take it from my friend and political mentor Bettina, in text messages earlier today:

Rituals are for the living, the people doing them. It’s about being in community and feeling less alone and finding people.

To say gatherings don’t do anything in the long run to build power is like, “Aaaand??? So what?”

Lots of things don’t do that, but the more we are able to turn to others, feel less alienated, and less cynical, the better we will be. For the next fight, the next day, the next step forward.

You physically embody an alternative way of being and coming together that folks may find hard to forget. Seeing a police station burn down and having THAT poll higher than the president… People can’t say that’s impossible, because it happened.

The thing about getting involved in politics is: what is it? What is the substance of the things we’re trying to do?

Pass laws? Laws need enforcement.

Build systems? Systems need implementation.

Educate people? Ideas aren’t actions.

It’s easy to get bogged down in readings, voting guides, donations, or meetings and wonder if you’re even doing anything. The more time I spend doing the readings and going to the meetings, the more I realize what we’re actual doing is building relationships. That’s why “the work” can feel ephemeral, ‘cause you can’t point to a stack of relationships like you can a paper on a president’s desk or a brick through a station’s window. But fk it, that’s just some st we gotta recognize to move forward.

I’m here for relationships. Going to a protest tonight will deepen mine and hopefully show other people that there are hands outstretched, ready to take them to their abortions.

Got a response to something here? Want to work with me? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

Parker Callahan is a comedian, and he’s so f*g funny. Like this:

And this:

And this too:

Content warning: mushrooms are aliens, platonic soulmates, sharks eating dead bodies, 2019 Diane Keaton vehicle Poms, chosen queer family.

Also, please call (313) MIST-URA and leave me a voicemail to play on the show! All the calls have been spam so far, and that is s**t.

MOOD BOARD

If you’re in Chicago today, I’ll see you here at 5:30pm.

Weird one to follow up that first bullet point, but it’s true. The Bear is a new FX show that just dropped its entire first season on Hulu, and I’m in an episode! Episode 6, I believe, though I’m not there yet. Very odd show so far, and I’m stoked to have a resting sad face for 15 seconds of it (buddies did show me a clip of my part).

Can’t make it out today? Check out these threads or donate directly to your local abortion fund (or any abortion fund, really).

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

New Soccer Mommy sounds good so far. For some reason, it was the thing I wanted to listen to after hearing about the Roe decision, and “Shotgun” had the lyrics that I didn’t know I was looking for:

Whenever you want me, I’ll be around
I’m a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound

Physically,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com

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Let’s try something different. This week, I dedicated my podcast, This Is Your Afterlife, to the type of discussion I usually have here in Definitive Answers. Rather than conjure another topic, I present it here for you, in audio form.

I wanted inspiration in the midst of so much darkness, so I turned to a familiar source of comfort for me, Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic.” In the episode, I read from the essay, play clips of her giving the original talk (at least I think it’s the original), and tie Lorde’s concept of The Erotic to the concrete practice of unsentimental, active, disciplined hope that Mariame Kaba talks about.

I guess I’m thinking a lot about hope these days. Feel free to let me know what you’re thinking about, or what you think about what I’m thinking about.

If you’re dead set on reading, you can view the show’s transcript here (and all the show’s transcripts).

Content warning: gun violence, Uvalde, Buffalo, despair, Audre Lorde, Mariame Kaba, hope.

Texts:

Audre Lorde: "Uses of the Erotic" (printed in Sister Outsider)

Beyond Prisons podcast: Hope Is a Discipline feat. Mariame Kaba (excerpt printed in We Do This 'Til We Free Us)

MOOD BOARD

Chicago Abortion Fund’s Fund-A-Thon is over, and we raised just under $1000 (I think, I can no longer see the link). We didn’t hit our $1600 goal, but HOLY S**T A THOUSAND BUCKS IS SO GOOD AND YOU MADE THAT HAPPEN!! I’m so happy and proud of the folks who read this newsletter and contribute in ways like this that make it feel like a real community. Thank you.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

I mentioned attending the Chihei Hatakeyama show a couple weeks ago and didn’t provide musical accompaniment! I’ve been dipping my toes into his album Afterimage, which was inspired by a photo found in a Turkish antique store that serves as the cover. I don’t hear the story, but I get plenty of the beautiful, billowing stillness I come to Hatakeyama’s music for. The last, titular track is 20 minutes of quiet grandeur.

At the show, Chihei recommended three CDs to me at his merch table, and I bought two, based on covers alone. Of course, the one I left behind was Afterimage, which I like the most after having heard all three. In my defense, here are the other two covers:

Pretty cool covers, right?!!

In margarine,
DM

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Great-tailed Grackle photo: Sandrine Biziaux Scherson/Audubon Photography Awards

I’m not the guy to write about the shootings. I’m a guy who plumbs my own depths—fears, resentments, attempts at being better—hoping for overlap with you. But from that perspective, I’ll say this: I do have hope. Or “choose,” maybe. I choose hope. Because I believe it’s our moral imperative.

I don’t think hope is fuzzy. Here’s Mariame Kaba in We Do This ‘Til We Free Us:

Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism.

For the quote in context, I’ve included audio of me reading that chapter for a book club last year (so ignore the promo at the end).

I haven’t allowed myself to read every story, to learn the names of the dead in Buffalo and Uvalde. I’ve not been numb, just angry and fed up. Mind-boggled that “let’s not make this about politics” is still a talking point of the POLITICIANS. I thought they’d have come up with something even more craven by now.

I’m not the guy to write about the shootings, but that’s what I’m doing. Because we’re here, and I want you to stay here. With me. It’s hell, and I need you. With each breath, our lives are asking, “Will you fight?”

It’s not fair. It’s too much. But we have to hope. Not all the time, maybe not right in this moment, but we have to think on a bigger timeline than our lives, huddle together, and hope.

Here are better words than mine:

Welcome to Hell World: “A Comprehensible Tragedy” (Luke O’Neil)

This Monica Trinidad Twitter thread.

Got a response to something here? Want to work with me? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

Dylan Rodriguez is an OG abolitionist scholar and activist. Talking to him was a righteous, serious, lively, and fun time. In retrospect, I think it’s accidentally a decent balm for this week, a reminder of why we fight our hell.

Content warning: copaganda, collectivity vs. individualism, Boyz II Men, academia, Geronimo Ji-Jaga, humility, rude baby.

MOOD BOARD

Here are places you can donate to survivors of the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings, as well as educate yourself about ongoing prevention efforts:

Buffalo Survivors Fund

League of United Latin American Citizens – Uvalde Fund

Uvalde Victims Relief Fund for medical expenses

Everytown for Gun Safety provides educational resources about gun violence (you can also donate to them, but I don’t feel comfortable right now suggesting donations to anything but direct relief to victims and their families).

Review key pieces of gun legislation currently moving through Congress listed on gun violence prevention group Brady United’s website.

We’re up to $910 for Chicago Abortion Fund’s Fund-A-Thon. It ends in just a few days, so donate now to get us to $1600 well ahead of time!

A palate cleanser: I’ve been loving these Desus & Mero interviews in the bodega, and I’ll watch anything with Jerrod Carmichael.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

I can’t believe The Thermals’ The Body, the Blood, the Machine was released in 2006. A stripped down, three-chord punk concept album about a couple escaping a Christian fascist state feels as/more relevant now than the end of the Bush years. Funny how political art ages better than conventional wisdom would have us believe.

If you haven’t, you should listen to the whole record, but I picked “A Pillar of Salt” because of this line:

We run in the dark. WE RUN IN THE DAAARK!!

It’s dark, and we’ll need to run. Not necessarily away.

We don't think we’re special, sir, we know everybody is,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com

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Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.

I’m Dave, a comedian and budding abolitionist. I love making light of heavy st and taking frivolous things too seriously. Hella Immaculate is my existential, spiritual, political, creative-process-and-culture-obsessed alt-weekly.

You can support my work by sharing it or paying me to keep making it! Do that through Patreon, and you’ll get hella goodies and other chances to connect.

No essay today, just a clip from this week’s episode of This Is Your Afterlife. My guest sent me “This Compost”—a Walt Whitman poem that is the closest thing to a distillation of my guest’s vision of the afterlife—and I read it between my intro and our conversation, with a song from his band underscoring my reading.

You can read the text of the poem here, but I’m proud of how the audio turned out, and I think you’ll like the clip above.

This Compost

1
Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?
Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv’d,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
2
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will
none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas’d corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

I talked to: Matthew Sage, multi-instrumentalist member of Fuubutsushi, an ambient jazz/folk/field-recording quartet who put out 4 albums this past year, each tied to the season it was released. I think the winter one, Setsubun, might be my favorite, but they’re all so good and really kept me tethered to the earth and the present this past year. Their newest, Natsukashii, the summer album, just came out.

We talked about: All of the things we had in common! It was uncanny, and I think I’ve made a new art man friend. Here’s a small sampling of our similarities:

obsession with naming things, especially bands

nondenominational Christian upbringing

knowledge of the Christian ska band Five Iron Frenzy

type one diabetes!

surviving comas!!

went on trips with our partners last fall to close-by Midwestern “fall color” destinations (him = Wisconsin, me = Michigan)

It’s one of my favorite episodes in a while.

THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN

Watch the mushroom/mycelium documentary Matt and I reference in the episode, Fantastic Fungi. It’s an entertaining and inspiring look at our planet’s largest living organism.

Unwind TONIGHT with a Friday the 13th “Yoga Nidra guiding you into deep rest and meditation, exploring the themes of thresholds and liminal spaces.” It’s on Zoom at 7pm Central Time, again, TONIGHT!!! Register here. Taught by my partner, Hope Barnes, so, yes, I am undeniably biased, but she really is quite talented at leading yoga nidra and puts a massive amount of time and care into crafting each one. And I helped her with her sound setup, so you know that s**t will sound crisp!

Fill out this survey with your thoughts about police, if you live in Chicago. It’ll take 90 seconds and help the Defund CPD campaign a lot. And you don’t have to be an abolitionist, just willing to share your honest thoughts (multiple choice, no essays).

Come to the next Local Live(s) show I’m co-hosting and co-producing with the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday, August 25. LL combines storytelling, live journalism, and music in the closest approximation of real human interaction you can get on Zoom. I’ve helped curate a stellar lineup, and I’m really stoked for this. Free!

Listen to/watch these playlists of podcast episodes and videos about abolition if you want to deepen your abolition education. Assembled by Damon Williams, who is performing at this month’s Local Live(s) and helps steer the city’s Defund CPD campaign!

Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

It’s the song under the Whitman poem up top! Matt said when Fuubutsushi finished this song, he was taken aback, didn’t realize they had this in them. After listening to it on repeat all week, I can hear why. It’s awing, rooted, levitational.

So flavorous and juicy,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com

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Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.

I’m Dave, a comedian and budding abolitionist. I love making light of heavy st and taking frivolous things too seriously. Hella Immaculate is my existential, spiritual, political, creative-process-and-culture-obsessed alt-weekly.

You can support my work by sharing it or paying me to keep making it! Do that through Patreon, and you’ll get hella goodies and other chances to connect.

The audio above is a bonus clip from my podcast this week with Cameron Gillette.

I asked him about funeral planning, and he said “not open casket” because open casket funerals disturb him. A few years ago, he and I attended the same open casket funeral, and I concur with Cam.

My take on funerals is that they’re for the living. Normally, I’d be like, “Who cares? It’s the loved ones’ body now. Let them do whatever they want.” But seeing your friend embalmed leaves a lasting impression. I’m not suggesting it’s enough to overshadow an entire bank of memories, but the not-right sense from the sight is an unwelcome deposit.

Part of my support for closed casket funerals is because the image at an open casket is not a mutual experience you’re having with the person who died. It’s an experience with the embalmer and the corpse, not your friend. It doesn’t fit.

Of course, there’s a morbid and experience-collecting desire to look. And I don’t think looking will ruin your relationship postmortem, but it can loom large. The funeral Cameron and I attended, that friend has been dead almost as long as I knew him, and the unexplained blue chalk marks (is there measuring in embalming?) on his face and hands linger.

Choosing a closed casket is less about saving the deceased from disrespect and more about saving their loved ones from distraction. If we stipulate our own closed caskets, our friends and families won’t even have to know the discomfort and heartache we save them.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

My guest: Cameron Gillette, another one of my favorite comedians you may not know. He just released his first special, “The Best Set I Will Ever Have.” He’s funny like this:

And like this:

We covered: Screaming “thank you” at a waterfall, learning firsthand how people talk about you when you’re not around, Christian bodybuilding performance teams.

THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN

Watch This Is Pop on Netflix, a docu-series on super-specific topics in pop music history. The Boyz II Men, Auto-Tune, and Swedish influence episodes are especially good. So many gems about the creative process, finding your place in your craft and the world, and how to weather ups and downs as an artist. I would watch shows like this 24/7 if I could (and never create anything).

I’ve held off listing fundraisers here the past couple weeks because I want them to be meaningful, and if I’m being honest, I’ve got some fund-needing-org-finding fatigue. Let me know what you’ve been supporting, financially or otherwise!

Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

Superwolfis one of my favorite albums. It came out in 2005, and one night shortly thereafter I blacked out in my dorm room ripping the borrowed CD to my hard drive and woke up to paramedics speaking loudly and my vomit all over my laptop, so even if I hated the album I could never forget this collaboration between Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney (of Chavez, one of the most underrated bands ever).

Superwolves is the 16-year follow-up, and it’s a worthy f*g successor. I find Superwolf’s music hard to describe (I’m just gonna call them Superwolf). “There’s a guitar and a voice and opaque lyrics”? “Mellow and menacing”?

Rather than tug the boat any longer, I’ll turn it over to BigBewtieHoles, the YouTube commenter who summed up Superwolf best:

“Make Worry for Me” is the opener and early-favorite jam from Superwolves, though “Watch What Happens” is also a beautiful, seemingly straightforward and earnest creative/life exhortation.

I’ve got melody on my mind,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com

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Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.

We can make a world of vital art free of corporate dorks by directly supporting artists. Joining my Patreon is the best way to support me. Even $3/month gets you cool st AND validates my life choices.

This week on my podcast, I talked to Edgar Blackmon, the funniest part of that show “Alone Together” and the writer of one of the best live sketches I’ve ever seen. In the clip above—a bonus from the extended episode—Edgar shakes me back to the reality that just because Drake meant a lot to me in my 20s doesn’t mean he has to be my #1 forever.

I mean, duh. I don’t know why Permanent Favorite Taste exists as an ideal in my mind.

Maybe it’s an addict-y sort of extremism: I need a definite, concrete solution to life. I need it right now, and I need it to last forever. Why not transfer that desperation to art?

Looking back, though, it’s fun to see goofy tastes I thought were The Answer to Everything Forever.

Some highlights:

3rd Wave Christian Ska

Entry: 8th grade
Exit: Not fully out of my system ‘til junior year of high school. Okay, senior year.
The Damage: listening to bands like the Insyderz, O.C. Supertones, Squad Five-O, and Five Iron Frenzy; starting a band, naming it Chozen, and not holding a single practice

Death Cab for Cutie

Entry: 11th grade
Exit: Junior year of college
The Damage: thinking it a pinnacle of literary achievement that Ben Gibbard wrote lyrics in complete sentences; romanticizing my breakup from my H.S. girlfriend

Chipotle

Entry: Junior/senior year of high school
Exit: Never fully left, but cooled to “just another place to get lunch” in the past few years (I’m 36)
The Damage: starting a “Chipotle Is the S**t” Facebook group in college; the closest I’ve come to making a food thing my personality; using it as a location for MULTIPLE first dates in my 20s

My Morning Jacket

Entry: Sophomore year of college (2003)
Exit: Still bangs but dormant since 2009
The Damage: not too bad actually; starting a roots rock phase that led me to The Band; subjecting current best friend/former girlfriend to them to the point where when I played the new album (Z) in my car for her years after we dated and asked her how she liked it, she said, “I need to admit something. I never liked My Morning Jacket that much.”

Drake

Entry: 2009
Exit: Strong singles from the past few years kept my superfandom on life support up until its last big gasp, “Nonstop” in 2018
The Damage: quoting lyrics in the only breakup I’ve had based on a betrayal (“I need someone I leave through the front door with/ ‘Cause we don’t wanna hide no more”); terrorizing the streets of Chicago scream-alonging lyrics on bike rides; imagining shitty hookups in my 20s were part of a glamorous lifestyle

Pete Holmes

Entry: 2011
Exit: 2014
The Damage: the reason I started standup; the depth of my then-fandom being my now-greatest taste-related embarrassment; establishing an artist archetype I’m terrified of becoming (un-self-aware narcissist not smart or curious enough to speak on the spiritual subjects he chatters about endlessly to avoid sitting with his own fear, discomfort, and dissatisfaction); hate-watching the entire first season of “Crashing” (could make a podcast with a You Made It Weird number of episodes about the ways that show was false and disgusting)

I don’t know what my current version of this is. I do think I’ve tended to pick up longer lasting tastes as I age. But a spotless taste resume is no fun. I hope I always retain the ability to go gaga over some straight-up Supertones-level garbage.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

My guest: Comedian/actor Edgar Blackmon, whose IMDB looks like this (I had to have Popstar in this screenshot):

We covered: reincarnation onto other planets as remedial as Earth, hell as a birthday party filled with haters, almost giving up on his L.A. dream, a utopia of a Beyonce/Jay-Z concert at Soldier Field
Extended version on Patreon: “Space Gardening with Edgar Blackmon”

THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN

Find a vaccine appointment if you’re eligible in Illinois by checking out this giant COVID-19 Vaccine Signup Info spreadsheet. I started refreshing websites in earnest this week with the spreadsheet’s guidance on places and times to check.

Even more helpful? The Vaccine Volunteers IL and Chicago Vaccine Angels orgs who went searching on my behalf. The Angels even found me a next-day appointment! I couldn’t get to the Chicago suburbs for it, but THEN I found an accessible appointment AND was able to pass on my original one in the Chicago Vaccine Hunters Facebook group (the only good use I’ve found for FB in… 3 years? 5? ever?). I hope any of these resources help you! And non-Chicago/Illinois folks, I’m sorry they’re so local.

Read this story about Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old boy Chicago police killed this week. You probably know I’m for abolition of the police and prison industrial complex. If you are too and wanna talk about how we can learn/do more, let’s talk. If you aren’t, let’s definitely talk. I’m not trying to be a dickhead to anybody. I just feel like I’ve had my eyes opened this past year, and I’d love to continue learning and sharing what I’ve learned.

Donate to Morris Home in Philly, “the only residential recovery program in the country to offer comprehensive services specifically for the transgender community.”

I donated $15. Go to this page, click the button to “Choose a program for your donation,” and select just “Morris Home” from the drop-down menu (it’s long with a couple fake-outs, but the main “Morris Home” option is near the middle-bottom of the menu). Reply with what you donate, and I’ll report our total next week.

Celebrate! Last week, we donated $10 to Red Canary Song to support Asian sex workers in the wake of the Atlanta shooting.

Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

This is not the Drake diss Edgar and I discuss in the clip above. It’s an even better Pusha T song.

People freaked out over his last album, Daytona. At 7 songs, it was all-killer-no-filler. It was the best of that summer 2018 slate of Kanye-produced albums.

But I never fully cracked it to reveal all its wonders.

I took another stab last week on a rainy walk to pick up hummus and baklava, and man, it opened right up for me with “If You Know You Know.” When Pusha T is on, it’s like watching a basketball highlight reel. Here, he starts that way before you’ve even got your second earbud in.

Best line:

A rapper turned trapper can't morph into us
But a trapper turned rapper can morph into Puff

I wish I could say I felt that from experience as a trapper/rapper, but I’ll settle for vicarious thrills.

“In my 20s” is not an excuse,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com

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Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.

We can make a world of vital art free of corporate dorks by directly supporting artists. Joining my Patreon is the best way to support me. Even $3/month validates me an unhealthy amount.

This week on my podcast, I talked to Meaghan Strickland, a very funny standup and my close friend. The clip above is a bonus from the extended episode, and it includes a realization I want to expand here.

In December 2018, I snagged a weekend of 5-minute guest spots at the Comedy Bar in Chicago, a touristy spot three floors above a local deep-dish chain in one of the city’s douchiest neighborhoods. It’s like a grown-ups’ Chuck E. Cheese, except the animatronic band is local standups trying to pinpoint the EXACT difference between men and women.

I was excited to book these spots. It was a few months after my first Edinburgh Fringe. I didn’t see a future for myself as a strictly-club-playing, road-dog standup, but this felt like I was pursuing all avenues to getting money, a higher profile, and access to bigger opportunities.

Backstage one night, the hosting comic asked what I was reading. I held up The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, a 600-page brick not exactly ideal for reading in public (but great book!). When I explained in more detail the depression book with the self-explanatory title, the host responded, “You know you’re allowed to lighten up, right?” Fair.

I don’t remember the sets, and that’s just it. There’s something particularly painful as a standup about not even bombing, just being unremarkable. It threw me into an existential crisis, as most bad sets do.

I texted a friend/hero/sometimes mentor, Chris Gethard, a fellow weird white guy with alternative taste and lots of feelings who nonetheless flourishes at New York City’s comedy club-iest comedy clubs. I asked him how he did it. He talked about having some intro material that was hard-hitting, with surefire punchlines (which I’d thought I had before that night). He said it was like a boxing match, and he took some pride beating the audience into submission so they would listen to his longer, more emotional stuff.

I respect Gethard so much, and his answer makes me so sad. I don’t want to treat a show like a boxing match. The language of comedy success and failure is hyper-masculine and violent: bomb, kill, own, murder, die, crush. I reject that dynamic. I’ve felt the feelings these words describe, but domination doesn’t feed my soul like the intimacy, vulnerability, and joy at my best shows.

Back then, I wasn’t able to own the epiphany I describe to Meaghan, one of my few definitive takeaways from quarantine:

I don’t want to be a club comic.

Like I say to Meaghan, that Zoom show I did went great, so my confidence in rejecting this identity might be a result of one good set. And as confident as I am, it’s still scary to say, “I don’t want to be a club comic,” because there’s a LOUD voice in my head that says I have to do lots of clubs to be a Real Comedian.

It’s like I’m an electronic musician, and even though I know I want to make ambient music, I feel obliged to impress the party DJs.

Anyone looking in on that scene from the outside would say, “Great! Ambient music is a totally legitimate genre that exists, and it sounds like you know what you want, so you should do that.”

But that voice in me thinks, “But I want to make ambient music and still have the DJs respect me and think I’m the best at what they do too, even though I don’t really do that or even want to.”

Thanks to a year in quarantine, I haven’t seen anyone that voice could use as grist for the comparison mill. Turns out isolation is a real resolve-booster.

When the pandemic ends, I’ll see the party DJs again. And like all epiphanies, this one will lose its charge. I just have to hold onto the truth of it.

THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE

My guest: Comedian Meaghan Strickland, who is this funny:

We covered: which of her jokes I’d tell at her funeral, friends who make you funnier, cultural misunderstandings around garbage disposals
Extended version on Patreon: “Diapers, Disposals with Meaghan Strickland”

THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN

Read this L.A. Times profile of saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Sam Gendel, who I recommended a few weeks back. I had never seen the Clown Core videos! I love Sam Gendel’s music, but now I’m in awe of His Whole Thing.

Tell me if you’d like to join my Sunday Workshop. It’s a small group that grew out of my Unblock the Artist classes. We meet weekly for artists of all genres/media to discuss and hone their work, and I have a couple spots available for next month. It has become a lovely community, and facilitating it has grounded me this past year. If you’re interested, email thisisdavemaher@gmail.com.

Donate via Red Canary Song to one of the victims of last week’s Atlanta shooting or one of the organizations supporting sex workers—especially Asian sex workers—listed at this link.

I donated $10 directly to Red Canary Song. Reply with what you donate to any of these funds, and I’ll report our total next week.

Celebrate! Last week, we donated $30 to Chicago Community Jail Support to provide direct aid to folks released from Cook County Jail.

Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.

MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?

My dad loves an accomplished instrumentalist. He’ll get albums for Christmas by dudes I’ve never heard of but apparently they’re the 7th best zydeco guitar player in the world and just finished a run at the Grand Ole Opry. I knew Chick Corea as a pianist my dad liked in that “this guy’s got chops” tradition.

It slipped my mind that CC played on some of my favorite Miles Davis records, but his death in February gave me an unfortunately posthumous reminder to check out his solo albums. I’m glad I did.

This isn’t the best version of “Crystal Silence” (that’s the one on the Crystal Silence album), but it’s the one on YouTube and still great. I’ve realized recently that the Fender Rhodes piano is one of my favorite sounds in the world, and Chick plays it here like a tranquil, wobbly dream. Mellow morning music.

Definitively for now,
DM

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisdavemaher.substack.com