Everybody Lives

Every Wednesday night I get the opportunity to ask myself an uncomfortable question: Why did I care so much about John Mulaney’s first marriage?

The answer — that I held less regard for his pain than I did for his then-wife who seems a lot like me — puts me out of line with my own values. Mulaney was a drug addict, using a terrifying combination of uppers and downers to stifle his problems. I had sympathy for him in that, but only as far as it extended to his loyalty to his now ex-wife.

Four years, a stand-up special, and a memoir have passed. Neither Mulaney nor Anna Marie Tendler has directly addressed what occurred in their marriage when seemingly everything torpedoed into the ground. In contrast to how I felt and behaved four years ago, I really appreciate that neither of them has made their business my business.

Mulaney’s new variety show, “Everybody’s Live,” has been a highlight of my week during this season’s 12-week run. Most of the time, it’s not a good television show. It’s sort of a disaster. Mulaney doesn’t hide this behind a fourth wall, either: He tells the audience repeatedly that their team is figuring it out on the fly. I like watching the creative evolution — the elements that stay, the ones that don’t. But mostly, I’m just entertained by John Mulaney.

I love the top-of-the-hour monologue, which is scripted candor. Mulaney makes fun of the show, he makes fun of Richard Kind, and he regularly makes fun of his own prior addiction to cocaine. He talks about his cocaine addiction so much that it no longer gets even a little bit of a rise out of me. He has beaten the dead horse. The horse is dead, John. He’s beaten the scandal right out of it.

But there was a monologue a few weeks ago during which he talked about his daughter, Méi. He noted that his second child got a lot less public attention than Malcolm, his first child with his wife Olivia Munn. It was a great joke; it pointed out exactly how weird it was that outside observers had seen a newborn baby as a character in a celebrity scandal.

It was weird, but it didn’t feel so weird at the time. A lot of his fans felt let down by him blowing up his own life. Mulaney had become so skilled as a performer that he’d crafted a facade that seemed real. That’s what performers do: they perform. Did everyone seem to forget that? I did.