Barry Maher and the Skeptic's Guide to Positive Thinking

The flight arrives at Philadelphia airport just after 4:00 AM. Twelve hours late. Barry Maher left home at 5:30 in the morning the day before. The car rental agencies have long since closed so he grabs a cab to Atlantic City. He'll arrive with just enough time to check into the hotel, shower, shave, dress, dash over to the conference center and check out the hall. By 8:30 he'll be addressing 2,000 convention-goers who expect him to funny, entertaining, perhaps even enlightening. "Once I hit the stage the adrenalin will kick in," he explains. "I'll never even know I haven't slept. Of course after I'm finished, I may have to crawl back to the hotel. But hey, it's a five star hotel. This ain't digging ditches I do here." The adrenalin does its work. Maher's keynote is called "Filling the Glass: The Skeptic's Guide to Positive Thinking," the title of one of his books. It is funny and entertaining but it's also realistic, even hardheaded, anything but the standard, "Let's all think happy thoughts and the world will be wonderful" motivational spiel. In fact, kidding the "You-can-if-only-you-think-you-can" types, Maher proclaims, "If you're absolutely, one hundred percent, without the slightest trace of a doubt, convinced you can do something . . . Get a second opinion!" Somehow the skepticism and hardheadedness end up making the presentation more motivational, even inspiring. As Maher tells his final story, the room is rapt. He finishes, there's silence for a heartbeat, then the hall erupts into applause that swells into a standing ovation. A table has been set up at the back of the room, and for the next half hour, Maher signs copies of his books and chats with attendees. Actually he does much more listening than talking. The people who wait to speak to him seem to want to tell him their stories as much as they want to comment on his presentation, perhaps more. He's patient and far more attentive than you would expect from a man who hasn't slept in over 24 hours, even through two rather long, disjointed stories. One woman leans over and whispers something in his ear, then clasps his hand in both of hers and enthuses, "Thank you so much!" Maher is clearly uncomfortable with people making too much of him personally. "I try to be entertaining," he tells an interviewer later. "I don't give advice; I just talk about a few things that work for me, things I've picked up from the people I've been lucky enough to encounter in my life." "Is that why you make yourself the butt of some of your own stories," the reporter asks. "It's just easier to freely admit to being a bit of a nutcase--okay, more than a bit--to show that I've dealt with, and still deal with, the same issues the audience faces. I'd rather do that than to pretend to be some sort of second-rate self-help guru then get caught on the phone in the hotel lobby foaming at the mouth when my agent wants me to do a book for some editor like the one who asked if Marcel Proust was a hairdresser. This was the same guy who later decided that Jasper Johns must be a company that rented port-a-potties." "You're making that up." Maher smiles. "If you think my life looks strange from the outside, you should try it from in here." "Still, what you do is designed to be more than entertainment, and more than just passing on a suggestion or two." "There's nothing wrong with entertainment. But sure, I try to make people feel a bit better about themselves and their lives, about who they are and who they can become. But I have to do that by dealing with the realities they face, not by blowing smoke up their skirts. I just happen to believe the real world provides more than enough motivation to justify our lives, to inspire us and move us. I believe that life provides its own justification, one more powerful and more enduring that anything any fantasy or fairy tale can offer." He grins and adds, "End of pontification. That's the danger in being interviewed. It can make you start taking yourself very seriously." One long-time friend describes Maher as, "bringing the best of the 1960s into the realities of 2004." Maher groans playfully when he hears that, then laughs, "That quote should cut my bookings down to a much more manageable level." Another friend described him as "part Lenny Bruce, part Stephen Jobs, part [Zen master] Alan Watts." Maher chuckles at that as well, adding, "And part P.T. Barnum." After his keynote in Atlantic City that day, Maher catches a few hours sleep and grabs a workout at the hotel fitness center. He's religious about staying in shape and insists he's in far better condition than he was when he was in his early 20s. "Of course that isn't hard. I was smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day then. I could scarcely climb a flight of stairs, or do much of anything else, without losing a lung." Several attendees from that morning's session stop to talk with him. He looks much younger than his 57 years and the women who stop to talk linger longer than the men. One attractive woman perhaps in her early thirties bats her eyes and takes pains to mention that she's a former model. She tells him that he "absolutely glowed on stage." Maher explains, "That was probably the light shining off my see-through hairdo." When asked later about the loneliness of the road and the temptations of women who might be taken by his "stage glow," he laughs again. "What am I, Wayne Newton? Besides, I got casual sex out of my system years ago, before it become trendy. Or deadly. Anyway I was never that good at keeping it casual. Probably because I've been lucky enough to have been involved with some [extraordinary] women. So I'm only interested in deeply meaningful relationships." Then he adds, "Hopefully with nymphomanical blonde triplets." For all his self-deprecating humor, there is a sexual element to his stage presence and to his easy charm. One woman who attended the Atlantic City keynote said, "He has an erotic power that comes through his self assurance in his abilities, who he is, where he is, what he's doing and of body, mind and soul." Then she became even more explicit. A "friend and lover" from Maher's younger days explains, "Barry charmed most (maybe all) the women I knew who met him. For me, and I suspect for the others, this was because he always treated me as an equal in every way . . . at the same time, he was the most sympathetic listener and tender and caring companion." She also described him as "a bit of a weasel, concerned with his fellow mankind/womankind (but not always averse to taking advantage of them)." When this last is quoted to Maher, he shakes his head with a sad smile and says, "That's got to be one of two ladies. Unfortunately, either one of them is probably right. I didn't become perfect until much later than that. Like I say, I've screwed up relationships with some of the most wonderful women anyone would ever want to meet. The good news is that I've managed to stay friends with most of them. Though with the kind of life I've lead, I've lost far too many people who were important to me. Not just through death, but also simply through losing touch. That's a mistake. In my business I spend a huge amount of my time surrounded by strangers: some of whom think they know me because they've heard me talk for an hour or so. We all need people in our lives who know that we can sometimes be weasels." Characteristically, he grins and adds, "Though she certainly could have picked a more flattering animal. Like a vulture or a pig." Pig probably wouldn't be appropriate. At least not as in "male chauvinist pig." When told that one of those women in his past had been described as "a stunning, world-class beauty," Maher seems almost insulted. "What she was," he explains, "was intelligent, well read, sensual, funny, fun to be with and as independent as Mahatma Gandhi. 'World-class beauty' makes her sound like some primping Miss Universe contestant or some big-haired centerfold. She was a great friend. We just never really made it all the way to falling in love. My loss." What Barry Maher does love is what he does. "What's not to like?" he asks. "You fly into town. They treat you like a celebrity, you talk for an hour or two, they hang on your every word, say wonderful things about you, give you a nice check and then you fly back home. Hard as I might try, I don't have much room for complaint." His life hasn't always been so easy. In his early years, he was broke more than once. He started out as a novelist. "Actually I started out trying to work as little as possible and enjoy life as much as possible," he insists. "Somehow over the years, I lost my bearings, and now I work far too much. Though I still enjoy myself--a lot." That much is obvious. As Maher tells aspiring writers when he speaks at writers' conferences, his novels "were never successful enough to be called obscure. They aspired to obscurity." His fantasy/science fiction novel, "Legend" in fact made UPI's yearly Ten Most Underrated List when it was released, "along with the New York Knicks, who never even made the playoffs, and a Meryl Streep movie about a dingo that ate a baby." Over the years it's become somewhat of a cult classic, and an all-new, re-edited edition of "Legend" has just been released. At 4:00 PM, Maher checks out of the hotel in Atlantic City and climbs into a limo headed back to the Philadelphia airport. He opens his laptop for a few final touches to the notes for the presentation he'll be delivering the next day in Niagara Falls, Canada. This time the flight is on time, the rental car is waiting in Buffalo, and he makes it to the hotel without incident. His corner room has a breathtaking view of the falls. He'll spend a couple of nights there, then head home for a few days before leaving to speak on an Alaskan cruise. It ain't digging ditches.