Fifty, Folks-



I made it to 50 and I am doing okay. Thanks you for all the birthday greetings and congrats dispatches.



Before I start rambling I just want to invite everyone to come to the LA Podcast Festival. I’ll be doing a live WTF there on October 4th with Dana Gould, Jimmy Pardo, Dave Anthony, Paul Gilmartin and Aisha Tyler. Come if you can.



On the other front, yeah, I made it to 50. I believe I am in good health and I am succeeding in many ways. I am not freaking out. I am doing better than okay. I am doing well. Yet I can’t seem do relationships right. I am trying. Hard. My heart is heavy and I appreciate the fact that you all have had to hear it in my voice over the last few episodes. Thank you for bearing with me if you have actually been listening. I will get through whatever is going on. I am just trying to be a better human. It is a struggle to grow—at 50. I believe it is possible but it can be just fucking awful.



My little Jewy brother told me that my birthday fell on Simchat Torah this year. I am not a god person nor am I a spiritual person but if I am feeling a little emotionally battered I will bend toward the mystic on occasion. I was born on Kol Nidre. I am either a child of collective semitic shame or atonement. I guess that is up to me to decide on any given day. Either way given that it is such a holy day there must have been some mystical significance to that being the night I was born. Again, I only believe that when things are weighing heavy on my heart. The fact that my 50th birthday fell on Simchat Torah, which is the day that the Torah readings for the year end and begin at the beginning again had importance because I am going through some stuff. So, I will look for meaning. Clearly the god that I am unclear about has a plan. I’m not sure what that is but it has something to do with growing through shame and trying to behave differently. Or it has nothing to do with me and I’m just being grandiose and narcissistic and projecting self importance onto serendipity and mythology to feel meaning in my life and find strength and hope. In other words—I believe when it is convenient.



I came to the Meat Puppets late. I guess it’s never too late for music but when I first heard The Meat Puppets II in the late eighties it was a pretty mind blowing bit of business. When I had the opportunity to interview Curt Kirkwood in Austin I jumped at it. He’s a real straight forward guy for a psychedelic genius. I hope you dig the talk. One of the great livers of the wild life will be on the show Thursday. The devilish raconteur that is Joey Diaz laid it out in the garage. Strap in your brain to dig his tales. Great talk.



Enjoy!



Boomer lives!







Love,

Maron