Hamster wheel ramp to the stars
Welcome to Hella Immaculate, I love you.
I’m Dave, a comedian, podcaster, storyteller, teacher, and abolitionist organizer. 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.
If you enjoy this, please consider joining my Patreon. You can get playlists, shoutouts, and bonus podcast audio. You’ll also stock my fridge with insulin and have the satisfaction of keeping my work independent—meaning I’m accountable only to The Mystery and you.
I’m tired of living in a constant state of dissatisfaction.
As much time as I spend creating, planning, taking in art I love, and pursuing the independent creative life of my dreams, I spend even more time in distraction, comparison, worry, and judgment (of myself and others). The things I make are reflective and thoughtful, so it feels weird to be like, “Yeah, I make this podcast exploring death and the meaning of life, but I fill as much time as possible watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’” But it’s true.
It’s becoming unlivable. I’ve had this realization before, but I hope it starts to stick now.
As much as I truly, truly, I-hope-it-doesn’t-come-off-as-protesting-too-much-because-I-just-want-to-emphasize-it truly do not care about “Saturday Night Live” and am positive I would hate working on it, the recent cast announcements fucked me up a bit without me even realizing it at first. It’s just such a comedy industry brass ring that it provides a perfect yardstick by which to measure myself against my peers and wish I were further along my own path.
Yesterday, I had lunch with a 23-year-old who moved to Chicago a month ago. She loves improv and wanted a lay of the land, and I did my best to provide one through a lens of my own skepticism about the scene and the fact that I was most active in improv a decade ago. She used to intern for Chris Gethard’s Beautiful/Anonymous podcast, and Gethard has become a friend of mine, so he put her in touch with me.
I namedrop Gethard because he’s a hero to me and the fact he’s become my friend is worth me stepping back and being like, “Holy fuck, dude, cool life!” And as I spoke to this woman at lunch, I remembered there are so many things like that. I have a home at the Annoyance. I know many of the Neo-Futurists, the performers I respect most in the city. I’ve brought my first show to Steppenwolf and two shows to Edinburgh (with diminished audiences the second time, but I still put up a great show that connected with a lot of people). I make a podcast that allows me to talk to cool people about important things, pretty much my favorite way to spend time. I create and teach my own classes. In fact, someone walked by this lunch and asked me about registering for a workshop!
I’ve spent so long running on a hamster wheel lined with images of outer space, thinking if I just run hard enough, I can launch into orbit. Walking on the sidewalk seems so mundane, but there are places to stop for food, unexpected sights to see, and friends to meet and talk with along the way. If I spend the same energy on each activity, it’s easy to tell which would actually get me further toward ANY sort of goal.
I’m gonna be spending time concretizing a gratitude practice, building up the inner muscles to put down the remote and sit, or write, or listen. I’ve been running on the outer space hamster wheel all my life. It’s so shiny that it’s easy to return to without thinking. But if I can practice seeing the sidewalk, I can start to walk through the things that actually make up my life.
THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE
My guests: Low!!!! Legendary, nearly-three-decade running indie band, “the slowcore band,” and married couple Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker.
We talked: Guilt, justice, redemption, Christmas, childbirth, full-on nervous breakdowns.
Tuesday was the biggest download day This Is Your Afterlife has ever had. I’m very happy I get to make this show, and I’m excited to do cool things with it and bring it to more people.
As I mentioned last week, I’m teaming up with Claire and Meaghan from the Reversaroo for This Is Your Aftershow, a sporadically released debrief show. Full episodes will appear on my Patreon, with teasers in the main feed. We’re starting with this Low episode, so expect that before I talk to you next!
THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN
Sign up for my Personal Story Workshop. I’ve pushed the start to November, so there’s still time! Email thisisdavemaher@gmail.com to register or with questions.
Subscribe to Music Journalism Insider. I’ve snagged a gig writing about music documentaries for the highly nerdy newsletter’s “Stuff You Gotta Watch” section. It’s a nice way to get paid for what I’ve been watching all day anyway. If you’ve enjoyed me talking about music docs here recently, check out MJI! If you’re like, “Dave, please tone down the music doc talk,” now I’ve got an outlet to exorcise that urge.
Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.
MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?
I’ve featured Dallas Latinx dreamy indie pop band Luna Luna in this space before, but I used last Bandcamp Friday to catch up on their discography, including their excellent new album, Flower Moon.
Here’s a highlight. “Baby Loner”’s got all the Luna Luna elements I love: the breathy vocals, the falsetto vocals, a couple great hooks, and the clean, plucked guitar notes that sound like they’re climbing to heaven.
Humbly,
DM