Tag: Marc Maron

Insert laugh track here

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
A clip from Rory Scovel’s 2024 HBO special, “Religion, Sex, and a Few Things in Between.”

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.

O, my heavens!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
“Be a giant or grain of sand / Words of wisdom, “Yes, I can.”

I overslept this morning and was rewarded for it.

Shambling drowsily through my morning chores, which include unburdening Miss Mia Sopaipilla’s litter box and removing the contents to the trash bin outside, I glanced up at the banana moon — and saw a shooting star.

Wow! Bonus! A Geminid meteor putting on a show just for me. I tipped Herself to it, she brought Miss Mia outside, and we saw a couple more before the gradually swelling morning light overwhelmed the zippy little fireballs.

The light show peaks tonight around 8 p.m. Dog Standard Time, according to EarthSky.

Could this be an omen? Is the Lizard Portal finally closing? Maybe. I haven’t seen a day coyote lately. Like my fellow Burqueño Marc Maron I’ll go mystical if I’m terrified.

It’s (not) in the bag

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Don’t bring it home?

So, we’re not supposed to buy anything today?

That doesn’t sound like much of a rumble on the Richter scale of resistance to me. “Dang The Man?” Seriously?

A lot of us have already been sold a sizable bill of goods. And as we should’ve known, it’s not the initial cost, it’s the upkeep.

This “grass roots” call for an “economic blackout” feels like a reverse Dubya (“Don’t go shopping.”). It also reminds me of a line from Marc Maron’s 2020 Netflix special, “End Times Fun,” in which he neatly skewers us for smugly slipping our shopping fingers into the crumbling dike of environmental catastrophe:

“All of us in our hearts really know that we did everything we could. Think about it: We brought our own bags to the supermarket. Yeah, that’s about it.”

Elon Musk doesn’t care if you don’t buy a Tesla today. He’s too busy downsizing Social Security into a median and a cardboard placard on a rainy day.

And Jeff Bezos couldn’t give a shit if you skip your Friday visit to the Foods Hole. He’s launching his plastic fuck-puppet into orbit with a couple other “female celebrities.” It’s gonna be like “Sex in the City,” only in space, and with Mister Big down here on earth giving The Washington Post some pillow therapy in its bed at the nursing home.

“The Right Stuff” this isn’t. In fact, it sounds like something the Democratic National Committee would do, if it did anything, which mostly it doesn’t.

Anybody seen the DNC lately? Maybe they’re out shopping for a clue.

Day coyotes and the lizard portal

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
It was just after I stopped to take this pic that I saw the coyote.
The Double Cross and I took a break at the Kiwanis parking lot. No, I wasn’t draining my lizard.

So I’m noodling around in the Elena Gallegos Open Space on the Soma Double Cross, enjoying a fine mist of a light drizzle and temps in the low 70s, when a good-sized coyote ambles into my path on a fast, double-track descent.

In broad daylight.

I’d been dodging lizards all morning, so the coyote sighting instantly brought Marc Maron‘s 2020 Netflix standup “End Times Fun” to mind.

I couldn’t find that particular video clip online, so I’ll have to make do with a transcript from scrapsfromtheloft.com.

Here’s the weird thing about being a Jew. You know, I’m not religious, but I am prone to prophecy. Um, and I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. I’m not saying I’m a prophet, but if I’m terrified, I’ll go mystical, you know? I mean, I don’t mind. I’ll do it. And sometimes it doesn’t make sense. It makes sense to me, but, like, I’ll give you an example. [inhales sharply] Like, I was hiking and, um. … This wasn’t too long ago, and I’m looking at the ground, I realized, “Wow, a lot more lizards now.” I don’t know what that means, but … like, I think it’s deep. I think that Trump has opened the lizard portal and I … think you should share that. Why can’t that be a little thing of information that you spread around a little bit? Just walk up to somebody, like, say, “Maron said the lizard portal’s open.” And people will be like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, but it sounds scary. Sounds real. Sounds like it’s happening.” “The lizard portal?” “Yup, the lizard portal is open. Saw a coyote out during the day. That’s not right, they’re nighttime monsters. You gonna tell me the lizard portal isn’t open, it is, and day coyotes are among us, and you’re gonna say that’s not a fucking problem? That’s not a harbinger of what’s happening?”

Lizard portal open? Check. Day coyotes? Roger. Oh, yeah, and did I mention he followed with a riff on (wait for it) fire season?

Our state is on fire right now. It’s on fire all the time. Every year, California is on fire to the point where it’s just the way it is. Two weeks ago, my friend Lynn said, “Aren’t the fires a little late this year?” How is that something you say … like it’s a season? It kinda is a season. Once a year, if you live in California, you’re like, “Ah, fuck, there are ants and shit’s burning. Must be summer.” 

Maron’s a former Burqueño, so you know he wasn’t just talking about California. His dad still lives here. I’m certain he’s hiked the Elena Gallegos, seen the coyotes and lizards, smelled the smoke.

Hey, I’m Irish. Not religious. But I know a prophet when I see one.

Are you ready for some … comedy?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

Nope, no balloons or cylindrical objects up there. Not even a “feets ball.”

A quick peek outside this morning found no mystery objects floating over the Sandias, but I understand that some sort of “sporting event” lurks just over the western horizon.

Something involving the “feets ball,” a televised gladiatorial spectacle designed to indulge the American appetite for mayhem, shopping, and bad noise.

We do not follow the “feets ball” here at El Rancho Pendejo. It reminds us of the Marvel nonsense, in which people are paid handsomely to put on uniforms and helmets and then butt heads like randy goats. Herself calls it “punch porn.”

Marvel’s costumed employees generally enjoy longer careers than the “feets ball” gang, because they are only pretending to stomp each other into a thin paste. The NFL’s grunts ain’t playin’, though they call their line of work a “game.”

In that “game,” the average career is just 3.3 years, thanks to injuries, retirement, or getting cut by one’s team. Robert Downey Jr. lasted 11 years as Iron Man. And the only brain damage he has was self-inflicted, before he signed on with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Though I’ll bet his head hurts when he thinks about trying to count all the money he made playing Marvel’s souped-up Tin Man with attitude.

Anyway, instead of watching the “feets ball” or “Ant-Man and The Who: Quadrophenia” we will be checking out Marc Maron’s new HBO special, “From Bleak to Dark.”

Maron riffed on Iron Man and the MCU during his last standup special, “End Times Fun,” available on Netflix. Like Downey Jr. (and Your Humble Narrator), Maron chose the scenic route to brain damage over getting spiked nose first into the Astroturf like a lawn dart, six inches shy of the goal line.

Maron’s not for everyone. But then neither is the “feets ball.”