Who watchers the Weight Watchers?
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.
You can support my work by sharing it or paying me to keep making it! Do that through Patreon, and you’ll get hella goodies and other chances to connect.
I gained a lot of weight in quarantine, to the point where I was genuinely scared to be seen out in the world by friends and acquaintances, old and new.
Now I’ve spent a couple months hanging out and seeing people, and I’m surprised to find myself comfortable and near peak confidence. It’s partially the stillness that came in lockdown and the handful of self-realizations from it that have crystallized so far, but there’s something more.
I’m fine being a fat guy for now. I’m fine for now with being fat for now.
That is, I can’t promise my mental (or physical) states won’t change, but I’m not the Cyrano de Bergerac of bellies at the moment. And I know exactly why.
Finally, I am—unequivocally!—fat. For most of my life, my weight has fluctuated, and I’ll never forget the days of shopping in the husky section at JCPenney (kind of sexy when I reconsider that word, “huuussky”). And for the past decade, I’ve been fat quite equivocally.
I was always big enough for dudes on the street to shout, “Hey, big guy!,” but small enough to claim words like “big” and “schlubby” (not sure how this is better than “fat,” since there’s a whole hygiene and laziness component) and for my friends to be able to say, “You’re not fat…”
That is not the case anymore! I have a big fat belly. And it’s not ideal, but just knowing it, not having to question it, is freeing. I’m a fat guy, and for now, that’s okay. I can stand up straight, and in the process, get a little less fat-looking.
THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE
I talked to: Alex Stone, a great standup and the co-creator of SYFY’s “The Movie Show,” a comedy series with puppets “set inside a public access movie review show that tapes deep in the heart of Modesto, California.”
We talked about: Cincinnati/Sycamore High School (we both went), frustrating afterlife answers from rabbis, cherished memories with friends who’ve died, bombing in front of people you despise vs. admire
THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN
Watch the music docs I’ve watched this week? I’ve been hunting for good ones ever since I saw the Lil Peep one. Highlights:
One More Time with Feeling: a black and white doc about the making of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Skeleton Tree, Cave’s first album after the tragic death of his son from falling off a cliff on a hike. Heavy. Really heavy.
Antifa - Chasseurs de Skins: doc about French antifascist/antiracist skinheads and their confrontations with the more notorious/well-known type of skinheads. Interesting, and got me asking an underlying question the doc doesn’t address at all: Does violence actually solve shit?
Yung Lean: In My Head: the psychotic debauchery and tragedy of the Lil Peep doc, but with a happy ending. Good shit about high-intensity living versus putting the craziness in your art and living a more stable life.
Listen to All Rhodes, a playlist I made entirely of songs that feature Fender Rhodes electric piano, one of my favorite sounds in the world. You have to subscribe to my Patreon, but I’ve restructured it so you can get access to the playlists at the lowest tier for $3/month!
Kickstart your creativity by joining one of my workshops in September. I’ve got an ongoing Sunday Workshop for feedback on all genres of creative work—especially writing, comedy, scripts, and storytelling. It starts at 11am Central Time, and it’s a really special, supportive, and intimate community.
And I’ll be launching a new workshop of the same type on Thursday evenings. If you’re interested in learning more about either, reply to this newsletter or email me fresh at thisisdavemaher@gmail.com.
Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.
MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?
I pressed “play” on this song as I read the Pitchfork review of Lantlos’ new album, Wildhund, and I immediately perked up and started moving. This is the most excited I’ve been about a heavy rock album in a while. What I was hoping the new Deftones would do for me, this has actually been doing.
My buddy Boomer asked me for the one-line pitch on the album, and I gave him two:
“German ‘blackgaze’ pioneers make the best Deftones album since Saturday Night Wrist Side 1”
“The drums, man. The songs sound like crystals floating midair.”
I didn’t know shit about Lantlos before, but ever since cranking this on speakers and air drumming my ass off in a rare moment alone in my apartment, me and my cat know Lantlos viscerally.
Feel it all at once,
DM