It's 2001 and I'm on a first date, drunkenly making out with a girl in her car. My first date with her, by the way. Not my first date ever. Also, we're not making out while driving. That would be weird. The car is parked. She pops in a CD by some newfangled guy named John Mayer. I hate it. Soulful, ballady kinda stuff. I'm a Radiohead/Sigur Ros-listening hipster TV writer. Not exactly the right demographic. Your Body is a Wonderland? Is this a love song or the ultimate nightclub diss? "Girl, your body so big, they done turned it into a theme park! Can I get a what-what?!"
The CD is on repeat, meaning Mayer is the leitmotif for our two hours of clumsy car seat groping. Halfway through the goings on, she invites me to see him in concert the following week. I agree, because at the point she asked, boobs may have been involved. The next morning, I realize the dreadful corner in which I've painted myself. Being a mature individual, I do the adult thing. We break up so I can avoid hearing Mayer croon sugary lyrics to screaming fans for an inappropriately painful amount of time. Dodged a bullet there. In your face, ballad-boy!
This article is about how much I like John Mayer.
Fast forward five years after Mayer crashed my car date. I'm on a plane to Vancouver, watching Jimmy Kimmel Live. Who's the guest? Oh great. John Mayer. And here I am, strapped to my seat like a hostile witness. Or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. Mayer plops down in the guest chair, and instead of inane chatter about Grammy wins and personalized clothing lines, dude rhymes off eight minutes of comedy gold with the ease of your garden variety Patton Oswalt. Witty, original stuff. And edgy as a mofo. One bit involves a 'leaked' recording of him calling a chat line while pretending to be Jack Johnson. "Jack Johnson the singer?" phone sex girl asks. "No, uh... The boxer, the dead boxer. Anyway, um, I want you to bite the tip of my cock while you cinch my balls with a fire-wire cable." Magically subversive. Not what I was expecting from someone I assumed was two chromosomes off from Josh Groban.
Then, just to rub my face in my own preconceptions, he hits the stage and rips out a version of Wait Until Tomorrow badass enough to bring Jimi Hendrix back to life. Now fast forward to a couple of weeks later, and a friend has sent me the link to his one-off comedy special John Mayer Has a TV Show. To my chagrin, it appears the Kimmel performance wasn't a mere fluke. Great, Mayer's smarter and funnier than most comedians I know, and plays guitar better than every musician I've ever admired. Believe me, if anyone has reason to hate this fucker, it's me.
So unless you've been shipped off to a morally questionable mission on Pandora, you're no doubt aware Mayer's in a touch of hot water courtesy of his now-infamous Playboy interview. Yep, he went a bit overboard with his candor, something he'll be the first to admit and I'll be the first to agree with. Dude kinda blew it on that one. Putting this all aside a moment, it's intriguing to note the media and John Q. Snuggie-Owner had been deriding his pithy statements long before the fireside chat with Hugh Hefner's peeps. Why? Because nobody likes a wisenheimer. Okay, scratch that. A clever wisenheimer comedian is usually commended for his forthrightness. Ditto a clever wisenheimer hip hop, alt rock or heavy metal musician. That being said, a clever wisenheimer VH1-friendly singer-songwriter is always a douchebag, apparently. Why? Well, uh... you know... because... uh... finish your peas!
"He's such an asshole!" I hear this a lot in reference to Mr. Mayer, and it's a bit of a noodle scratcher. 'Noodle' being a euphemism for 'noggin,' not 'penis.' I tent to classify assholes as people who derive enjoyment from hurting others' feelings through disparaging comments or actions. You know, bad people like Pol Pot. Or Reggie Mantle from the Archie comics. Or your mother.
See what I did there? An example of being an asshole. Interestingly, if you follow Mayer on Twitter or in various interviews, dude seems pretty darn reverent towards his fans, exes and human beings in general. In fact, the only ones on the receiving end of his silver-tongued wrath are folks like Perez Hilton. Folks that, to quote my ever-so-slightly younger self from a previous paragraph, "derive enjoyment from hurting others' feelings through disparaging comments or actions." Does this make Mayer the noble Robin Hood of the celebrity blogosphere? Perhaps that's an embellishment. But clearly he's no Gargamel (a.k.a. the Himmler of the Smurf forest).
It's now the summer of 2009, and my brother and I are playing a role in helping produce the Massey Hall shows for Just for Laughs, the world's largest comedy festival. At the same time, we're organizing a big ol' comedy event for Doctors Without Borders called Musicians Without Instruments. For both affairs, Mayer seems like he'd be a pretty intriguing outside-the-box addition. A little stand-up, some spoken word material, a few anecdotes -- the cool people in the crowd'll crack the hell up. I pitch both shows to his L.A. agents, explaining that John could be performing comedy for thousands of people alongside such critically adored heavyweights as Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, and David Cross (amusingly, comedians who say more controversial stuff by 9am than Mayer would in a year).
Despite the big names and the hundreds of thousands of dollars the charity component would raise, Mayer's agents refuse to mention the offer to him. Yep, cockblock o'clock, y'all. Not that I'm too surprised. You see, their client's evolved sense of humor must be an unwelcome distraction when the best way to keep the euros flowing involves him shutting up, looking broody in videos and making the girls weep into their freshly-purchased concert shirts. Ipso facto, they're doing Mayer's career a favor by keeping him in the dark on offers to strut his comedic stuff, right?
Ah, but this is where they've miscalculated. By shutting the guy out of ways to express his inventive musings, Mayer's people have left him with only one possible outlet for any material over 140 characters: interviews. And being the clever, sassy wisenheimer in interviews doesn't grant someone the same immunity given as those being the clever, sassy wisenheimer in front of comedy audiences. Same words plus different context equals very different public perception. And this can lead to awkward situations. Not unlike the time your mother and I had sex.
Again, an example of being an asshole. Anyhow, Mayer seems to have learned a lesson from his not-so-clever Playboy comments, and has stated he's putting the kibosh on his trademark unfiltered interviews. Probably for the best. A little impulse control can go a long way, 'specially when the 'friendly' guy chatting you up knows the fallout from a poorly-worded joke will sell a bongload of magazines. Every comic has their off night, where their foot and their mouth merge like two drunken first-daters in a parked car. And it looks like Mayer's officially had his off night. Reckon he should consider it a rite of passage, learn from the experience and move forward. But here's hoping he doesn't completely shut off the funny because of one bad spell. Original comedic voices are hella rare, and should be given the chance to evolve and flourish. Even when they come from the mouths of people you're not expecting.
At least, gentle reader, that's what your mother told me last night.