Flex your throat and your heart
Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.
I’m Dave, a comedian and budding abolitionist. I love making light of heavy shit and taking frivolous things too seriously. Hella Immaculate is my existential, spiritual, political, creative-process-and-culture-obsessed alt-weekly.
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I just woke up from a dream where Marc Maron gave me his agents’ card and told me to use “Queen Air” as my airline when the agents picked me up and I went on tour. I’m antsy, man.
I’ve been mainlining music documentaries like I’m trying to binge the stories behind all of recorded music. Antsy for success stories, struggle stories, stories of artists incorporating their principles into their art and leaving behind their art for their principles. Eager for stories about scenes and communities of weirdos that provide a rising tide for each other.
I’m craving stage time and community, from my couch. Somehow “I need to perform regularly to maintain a balance of sanity and sense of purpose in my life” is one of those lessons I lose easily and have to remind myself of much too often for my taste.
I’ve got plenty of ideas swirling around my head for how to return to my show Feed Wolf Ice Cream and for a monthly variety show to start testing that Feed Wolf material. But I’m feeling the need for ideas to be perfect before putting feet on the ground, and I know from experience and from teaching dozens of students what a dirty, rotten trap perfectionism is.
I’ve got to get back on stage in general, and book this monthly show without knowing the full marketing gimmick that will draw an audience. If I wait any longer, book me a Queen Air flight into the side of a mountain.
Funny, this Superwolves just song came on:
Watch What Happens
Other folks will make mistakes and leave you with the mess
Other folks have ways of walking past but you know best
They're lost to begin with, like far too many souls
If you know what's right, breathe and act upon your heart's own goals
Watch what happens when you act
Watch what happens when you do
Whatever, big and small, you can
To make her strong and make her true
Other folks may not have time to fix things for our kids
You can blow apart their minds and show them how we live
Just 'cause time is racing forth don't mean you have to run
Put one foot square and solid down on earth, for all's not done
Watch what happens when you act
Watch what happens when you do
Whatever, big and small, you can
To make her strong and make her true
Watch what happens when you rise
Oh, and woo your counterpart
Oh, vocalize what slept too long
And flex your throat and your heart
This is just a diary this week. I hope you can relate.
THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE
One more week of no new episode. Procrastination and anxiety to blame. The Matt Sage episode is still great (I re-listened to it myself, which is rare), and there will be a new one on Tuesday!
THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN
Watch these documentaries, if you want on board my music (and comedy) doc journey.
Beyond Barricades: The Story of Anti-Flag. I’ve never given too much thought to Anti-Flag’s music, but the principled way they’ve gone about their career and not given up sticking it to fascists and those in power is admirable. There’s one point where the drummer talks about them leaving their major label deal, and he says something like, “Sometimes I think about how many rich people we made lose money, and that makes me really happy.”
The One and Only Dick Gregory. A comedy role model for me who gave up his career at its peak to go join civil rights fights in Mississippi with MLK and in L.A. after the Watts riots, then returned much later in life to be cantankerous as hell. One of those old “I was on ‘The Tonight Show’ and became instantly famous” stories that’s impossible to replicate now, but his passion and slow cool on stage are blueprints for sure.
Don’t watch this one.
Oasis: Supersonic. I learned: they sold lots of records, they had big concerts, they were very into the idea of being a “rock ‘n roll band.” Zero insight.
Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.
MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?
I think The Kid LAROI is my new Post Malone, a corny white boy I find myself endlessly charmed by and choose to just embrace it. This is literally the #1 song in the world right now (I heard it at Dunkin’ Donuts this week), so I’m not telling you anything new or obscure, but fuck man, I’m just a sucker for those falsetto runs in the chorus.
Breathe and act,
DM