Whitmer Thomas Makes HBO Special at Flora-Bama

Earlier this year, Whitmer Thomas crossed the rubicon every young comedian strives for. After years of grinding it out in Los Angeles and New York’s comedy club circuits, the 30-year-old Alabama native released his very own HBO special, The Golden One, in February. A disarming blend of music, comedy, and personal documentary, the hour-long special is an often funny, sometimes sad, and always engaging excavation of his personal history and hangups, with the traumatic loss of his mother functioning as its beating heart. Thomas’s mother, a musician whose success never equaled her ambition, passed away from alcoholism shortly after Thomas moved to L.A. to pursue a career in show business when he was just 18 years old. The trauma led him to shun alcohol and drugs for most of his adult life, which Thomas addresses in the song “Partied to Death,” the show’s cathartic highlight. 

Filmed at the Flora-Bama Lounge, the Pensacola bar where his mother performed with her twin sister as Syn Twister, and directed by his best friend and longtime collaborator Clay Tatum, Thomas fills the special with tales that border on the horrific, like the time Thomas’s dad saved him from being abducted by a stranger. But through a warm delivery and non-threatening approach, Thomas manages to walk the line between tragedy and comedy with grace. Having honed his craft as a member of the skate-punk comedy group Power Violence, Thomas, who self-identifies as an “aging emo kid,” grew up idolizing Blink-182, which he once called “the ultimate parody band.” It made sense, then, to connect him with Blink bassist and vocalist Mark Hoppus, for a conversation about comedy, creative catharsis, and finally making it. —BEN BARNA