No-Bullshit Magic
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 don’t have an essay for you this week. I’m a little tired from painstakingly lining up pieces of things I hope will make the future exciting—for me, for you, for fans of comedy, for abolitionist organizers, for people getting radicalized, for people hungry for art that doesn’t fit in easy boxes—and the anxiety that comes with trying to overcome the fear they’ll fall flat.
Here is one of those things: my new Personal Story Workshop. If you’re interested, please reply to this email. If you know someone who could be, please forward it. First session starts October 7, and registration ends October 4.
If you like the way I tell stories (e.g. my “This American Life,” Dave Maher Coma Show, “I'm about to try to convince you that this Lithuanian electro-pop duo can change your life,” or “Caring for the Bedsore on My Butt”), let’s work together!
This Personal Story Workshop is a spinoff of my popular Unblock Workshop, which grew from students requesting a space for specific feedback. That’s now a fully facilitated workshop running every Sunday morning for over a year (with a few spots left for October, so reach out if you want in on that one!).
This will differ from the one on Sundays in two key ways:
We’ll focus on personal stories (naturally) in any genre. As long as you're working in an autobiographical mode, you’re welcome.
It will run on Thursday evenings.
Here’s the structure:
We meet every Thursday on Zoom from 7pm-9pm Central Time.
Workshop format, i.e. instead of a class where I’m speaking on topics and offering exercises, the focus is primarily on generating work, revising it, and giving feedback in community with other writers.
Workshop runs weekly, but the commitment is monthly. You commit and pay one month at a time, and if you opt out a month, you’re welcome back, as long as there’s space.
Everyone gets the chance to workshop their work at least twice per month.
Registration’s capped at 8 people.
Payment is on a sliding scale (ask me for info), and I’m happy to work out payment plans.
This workshop is for you if you’re:
A nerd for craft and creative process
Open to feedback
Looking for a creative community
Preparing for storytelling shows
Creating a one-person show but need outside eyes
Writing a memoir and want consistency and accountability
Trying to level up your standup by writing jokes about your actual life
This workshop might NOT be for you if you’re:
On a tight deadline
Looking for a career boost (but hey, I get it)
Uncomfortable sharing personal work
Hyper-focused on a finished product
Not into group feedback (I do offer 1-on-1 coaching!)
In a procrastinate-y phase (again, get it)
I’ve worked very hard this past year and a half to create classes and workshops that are intimate, challenging, and encouraging for writers, comedians, storytellers, and artists of all types. No-Bullshit Magic spaces where people are reminded of the Mystery of creativity but given practical, concrete advice that sidesteps the usual creativity cliches.
I’d love to share one of these spaces with you.
Join me?
THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE
My guest: Me! Well, not “my” guest. Previous guests and TIYA fans Meaghan Strickland and Claire Favret ask me my own questions in a classic “Reversaroo” format that we all know so well and which definitely is not just a word we invented.
We talked: Destination funerals! Refusing cremation to facilitate bones pranks. CONTINUATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. And unfortunately, a memory of the fucking Del Close Marathon (really disappointed in myself here).
It’s so fun. I honestly love it. I’ve listened myself. Vanity project? Sure! But hey, what even is life? Enjoy it!
THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN
Come see me try to remember how to do standup or something else opening for Cigarette Sandwich at the Annoyance tomorrow (Saturday) at 9:30pm!
Read over this cool “intro to prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition” curriculum (like, from an actual class), and find some friends to do some of the readings/viewings/listenings with you!
Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.
MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?
I’d guess most of us have heard OF ZZ Top, and actually heard the hits like “Sharp Dressed Man.” But if I’m reading my audience right, you might be in the same boat I was before this week: have a pigeonhole for them, respect the myth, maybe have a sense they’re better/more complicated than you’ve given them credit for.
I watched ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas this week (which is just okay: fun but surface-level hagiography), and that sparked me dipping my pinky toe into the music. There’s so much, and I’ve barely digested any of it, but it’s worth pointing out just how wild and varied their catalogue is.
So here’s two tracks. The earlier one, “Master of Sparks,” has the syncopated drumming I love from anyone (proto-Queens of the Stone Age, for sure) and mystical lyrics. The later one, “Rough Boy,” is a ballad I’d never have guessed belongs to ZZ Top. Lots of typical 80s production flourishes (cooing washes of background vocals, big reverb-y drums) put to their greatest effect.
This feels like summer music, so treat yourself while you can still remember the season.
Thank you,
DM