I'm Worried About Me

Doug Mellard spends a significant portion of his set working through the quiet, hallucinatory panic of being trapped with his in-laws during a global lockdown. Marooned in New Mexico after fleeing Los Angeles, Mellard delivers his material in a sharp suit to a crowd consisting of a few masked locals, six dolls, and a dog. Released by Stand Up! Records in 2021, the performance captures a comic losing his mind in real time, turning the isolation of the desert into a bizarre, high-energy stage.\n\nHe works through the absurdity of panic-eating to the point of food poisoning, trying to talk boomer relatives out of organizing backyard barbecue-raves, and dodging an LSD-toting podiatrist. He also wonders how much better Tony Romo’s 40th birthday party would have been if Mellard had been there to attend instead of hoarding toilet paper.\n\nThe performance leans into the surreal nature of its own existence. Mellard matches his fast-paced delivery with the quiet backdrop of the Southwest, creating a strange tension between his desperation for an audience and the literal mountain scenery behind him. Rather than a polished theater, the show is a document of a comic trying to make a handful of desert seniors and a line of plastic dolls laugh while the sun goes down.