Unhappy, storm-tossed one, uncomforted!
I will lay carbuncles as your building stones
And make your foundations of Sapphires.
See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced.
Maron riffs on Beat phenomena with their sacred texts, established rituals and prescribed pilgrimages. He spends some time exploring the dark side of things, as his obsessions with cocaine (known to Maron as "magic powder"), conspiracy theories and famous self-destructive comedians convince him that the gates of hell open beneath Los Angeles. As his quest matures, he reveals the religious aspects of Corporate America, pontificating on the timeless beauty of the Coca-Cola logo and even taking a trip to the Philip Morris cigarette factory, where the workers puff their own products with a zealot-like fervor. The culmination of Maron’s Jerusalem Syndrome comes during his own tour of the Holy Land, where, with Sony camcorder glued to his eye socket, he comes face-to-face with his own ambiguous relationship to Judaism and reaches the brink of spiritual revelation—or is it a nervous breakdown?
Maron has considerably adapted and expanded his praised one-man show to craft a genuine literary memoir. Whether he’s an authentic prophet or a neurotic mess, he’ll make you laugh as you question the meaning life. The following is from Marc Maron’s The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life As A Reluctant Messiah (Broadway Books, 2001):
The first time I had actual words with God, he started it. We moved to Albuquerque in 1972. My mom, my dad, my brother, myself, and an old English sheepdog named Mac crammed into a Caprice station wagon and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway. Buddy Holly’s "That’ll Be the Day" blared through the back speakers and my father was laughing and singing. Buddy Holly: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Collection was his favorite eight-track. We heard it over and over again. He told us Holly had been killed in a plane crash at the peak of his powers. I would stare at the picture on the tape, trying to connect the man with the voice and the horrible end he met. For years the human manifestation of death in my mind wore black horn-rimmed glasses. It was also then I realized that sometimes God took some people home for being too damn good.
My brother and I would lie out in the back bed of the station wagon and look out the rear window, up at the clouds. It happened as we drove through the Arizona desert. I don’t know if I was in waking consciousness or if it was a dream, but I saw this huge guy standing over the clouds with his arms crossed like someone overseeing fieldwork. He was about the size of the Jolly Green Giant. He had no shirt on and he was wearing satiny Turkish-looking pants that ruffled in the wind like a hot-air balloon being inflated. I couldn’t see his face because there was pure light emanating from it and a cloud in the way, but he looked like a giant genie. It was clear to me at that moment that he was God, the grand instigator of earthquakes, snow, and death. As I remember, I was squinting, trying to see his face, and I heard a booming voice say, "What are you looking at? What are you going to do about it?" He was challenging me. That was the moment I was infected with Jerusalem Syndrome.
"I don’t know," I said. "I’m eight."
Then the montage of roadside signs flew by on the sides of the car and my consciousness: McDonald’s, Arby’s, 7-Eleven. Civilization, context, consistency, food. Then my brother yelled, "McDonald’s, McDonald’s, let’s go to McDonald’s."
Eight years old, eight-tracks, rock ‘n’ roll, death, and God in the desert.
Once we got planted in the Land of Enchantment, being a Jew became a part of my life. My father opened his medical practice and worked. My mother went back to school and painted pictures. There were other Jewish families in Albuquerque, and in time we got to know most of them. Most of us went to the same synagogue and all the kids went to the same Hebrew school, which is where I began to understand my unique talent for driving people to the edge. In my mind, the entire Hebrew school concept had nothing to do with learning about Judaism. It was there to let me blow off the steam and rage that accumulated in my being during regular school. Why not? It just seemed that there was less on the line. So what if they kicked me out of Hebrew school? What could happen? I wouldn’t be allowed to be a Jew? So, twice a week, at four in the afternoon, I would go to Congregation B’nai Israel and redefine the phrase "the Jewish problem."
I verbally abused the teachers, constantly cracked jokes, and cussed. I generated as much anarchy as possible via spitballs, farts, fights, and preadolescent sexual outbursts. I was very proud to have pushed two of my Hebrew school teachers to tears. One of them actually quit because of my behavior. I relentlessly made fun of this kid who sat in the back of the room picking his nose with a crochet needle. I swear, he did it every Monday and Wednesday for three years, until one day he bled and had to be sent to the hospital. I mocked all rituals and traditions at every opportunity and I laughed during services.
The first time I got loaded was at a friend’s bar mitzvah party in the social hall, after which I projectile-vomited all over the stall of the boys’ room. The first time I smoked a whole cigarette was in the back parking lot of the temple with Herb, the gentile shul janitor from Brooklyn, who wore cowboy boots and told tales of pain about his ex-wife to dizzy twelve-year-olds. His entire face seemed to wrap around each draw on his filterless Camel. He resonated a reality of a life lived and left. Herb was the first heart-hardened man I ever knew and I listened to him because he let me smoke.
The only things I remember actually learning about Judaism and Hebrew prior to my bar mitzvah were that kelev meant dog, adonai meant God, your head had to be covered in the sanctuary, mezuzahs have a rolled-up piece of paper in them, Hitler and the Germans once bull-dozed piles of dead Jews into holes and the ones they didn’t they made into soap and lampshades, Golda Meir and the guy with the eyepatch were important in Israel, and Jews were different from everyone else and that’s why nobody likes us. Holidays meant presents on Hanukkah; honey-dipped apples on Rosh Hashanah; a long, draining meal on Passover, with symbolic crackers and questions during which we left the door open for a ghost to come in and get drunk; no food and no school on Yom Kippur (introducing the idea that all good things are grounded in some kind of suffering); strange desert fruits hung from the ceiling on Sukkoth; triangular prune cookies shaped like a bad guy’s hat for Purim. They were delicious.
I studied for weeks preparing for my bar mitzvah. The Torah reading was Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17 which began with these words:
My haftorah was Isaiah 54:11-55:5, which began with these words:
I understood none of it then because it was in Hebrew and I don’t remember ever reading it in English. Now it seems to prophesy my entire spiritual life.
I wore a light-blue leisure suit on Friday night and a navy three-piece suit on Saturday morning. My speech, as I remember it, was essentially an overview of my haftorah and what it meant to me, via the cantor who made me write it. It also included a long apology to the congregation for my past behavior. I was never confirmed and I wasn’t convinced.
My Grandma Goldy gave me a gold-plated Elgin pocket watch to mark the occasion. The date 8-20-76 was engraved on the inside of the cover. My best friend, Dan, gave me an antique collapsible top hat and a cane. Show Time—high school—the need to belong and the quest to be different.
*Marc Maron is a leading figure in the "alternative" stand-up comedy movement. A founder of the fabled Luna Lounge evenings in New York City, he has been featured in his own "HBO Comedy Hour" and a "Comedy Central Presents" special and has had regular guest appearances on the Conan O’Brien and David Letterman shows. He has performed his one-man show, The Jerusalem Syndrome, at the prestigious U.S. Comedy and Arts Festival in Aspen and at an extended sold-out off-Broadway run at the Westbeth Theatre Center.
