Insert laugh track here

While I was wading through the Great Dismal Swamp of Justice last week I needed something to make me laugh.

Thank Dog for Rory Scovel.

I can’t believe I never heard of Scovel until Jason Zinoman plugged him in his New York Times column. Herself and I gambled on his most recent Netflix hour, “Show Must Go On,” and after that we gnawed like famished rats through his collected works. The shows available on Netflix, HBO Max, and YouTube, anyway.

Good shit. He writes, but also wings it. Writing on stage must feel like juggling chainsaws, live babies, or leaky plastic bags of runny shit. Dude does it anyway. “Live Without Fear” from 2018 includes bits from six improvised shows at the Relapse Theatre in Atlanta. Here’s the opener:

“I appreciate you guys coming out tonight. That takes a lot of goddamn courage. To literally be like, ‘OK, what is the description of the show?’ ‘Oh, it says he’s no longer willing to do the homework.’ ‘All right, let’s go see that then.'”

It got me thinking, “I bet Marc Maron interviewed this dude on his podcast, and I was right. Fascinating stuff.

If you could use a laugh too, start with “Show Must Go On” and then backtrack him, the way we did. It’s like “The Ascent of Man,” but in reverse. And with more chuckles.