WTF with Marc Maron (it's a podcast)

I can kind of get why Maron's persona is an obstacle for some people, but I've been a fan of the guy for so long that it's almost impossible to be annoyed by him now (though there are definitely still occasions where I'll be thinking "okay, let's move ahead...").

Some of my favorite guests have been Stephen Tobolowsky, Maria Bamford, Adam McKay, Louis C.K., Judd Apatow, and Patrice O'Neal.

n/a do you mean El Chupacabra saying Double-U Tee Eff?

ha ha maybe? it seems odd that i would be that far off but ???

Dino stamatopolous one was alltime classic and listening to it got me into Moral Orel which is beyond brilliant. Also Starburns.

the Pardo one was great. funny and a lot of great nuggets about how comics approach their craft.

Loved, loved loved Bobcat today. The stuff about his Dad, his crazy biker brother, Kurt...love him. Maron doesnt grate on me anymore, I tend to focus on the guest

The joke about Michael Jordan's dad and Kurt the only one laughing-- A+

Also loved the reason he's called Bobcat (basically as an FU to someone else).

I loved the story about their idea for the All Apologies video idea, with JFK assassination and the pie, and the tour manager saying they can't be in the same room anymore.

Wasn't Kurt really into SNL, at least as a teenager?

My all-time favorite wtfs:

Louis CK
Paul Scheer
Maria Bamford road trip
Janeane Garofalo
Stephen Tobolowsky
Joe Mande

Enjoyed Laura Kightlinger confirming what I thought about Todd Barry (funny but he goes to far in dealing with hecklers to the detriment of the rest of his set, or at least he has the 2 times I've seen him in person). Enjoyed the Robin Williams and Carl LaBove episodes a lot, and his subtle skewering of Bobby Slayton was great.

Anyone other than me pay to upgrade the app? Only really worth it to be able to listen to the old episodes.

Ed Helms seems like a sweet dude, but I think because of that, he didn't really gel with Maron, who seems to need his guests to be more darkly confessional to fully engage with them. Also Helms seemed sort of surprised that Maron hadn't seen Cedar Rapids and didn't know what it was about.

I got to listen to most of the old ones before he created the app, so just use the app for the new eps now

Robin Williams was great, i forgot that one.

otm. also helms doesn't really seem comfortable talking about himself at all.
xpost

Yeah Ed Helm is a sweetheart

Yeah, that was my Ed Helms takeaway. He's uneasy talking about himself (and at least 10 minutes before the interview was over, I was hoping they'd take a break so he could go outside and get some fresh, non cat-infected air).

Laura Kightlinger's childhood sitch = whoa! She seems like a bro, though, and I'd kick it with her.

Just heard Marc Maron on the CBC lately and that spurred me to download a bunch of these and have been enjoying what I've heard though my big complaint is the sheer amount of often-pointless yammer at the beginning of each episode.

The Louis CK ones aren't available in the iTunes feed (they just fell off the bottom I guess) but you can still download them if you search for them in the cached versions using Google search.

Fast forward

Anyone who's just now getting acquainted with Maron needs to hear his Not Sold Out stand-up album from 2002. The ones since then have also been funny, if slightly more self-loathing, but the set that comprises Not Sold Out is masterful.

Fast forward
― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic)

Yeah, I guess. Might get to that. I find that I'm listening to a lot of these when my hands are incapacitated (cooking or something) so not always an option, and thankfully so far it hasn't been TOO irksome. Though we'll see after I have 20 of them under my belt!

seems like a sweet dude, but I think because of that, he didn't really gel with Maron, who seems to need his guests to be more darkly confessional to fully engage with them.

I was suprised at how well the Stephen Tobolowsky ep went because of this - Maron didn't dig for any of the painful stuff Tobolowsky's talked about, but just let himself get caught up in the guest's storytelling ability and say some "wow"s at his IRL bloozzzz-rock encounters

My favorite ep so far was W. Kamau Bell & Dwayne Kennedy talking about race and comedy. I could've listened to a couple more hours of that.

Patrice Oneal & Mike DeStefano (RIP) are the 2 best I've heard.

have no idea what greg fleet looks like i just assume hes superhans from peep show

he kinda looks like a middle-aged smackie whinnyingly asking you to lennim twenty bucks

The two-parter with Mencia is sort of different from the rest of the podcast but is AMAZING -- Marc Maron, Comedy Detective, and the case of the Ripped-Off Jokes -- the whole thing has the intensity of those scenes in the interrogation room from Homicide: Life On The Street

live wtf from brooklyn was very funny especially chuck klosterman.

Greg Fleet on today! <3

Oh no, Andy Dick on Thursday. I may skip that one.

yeah that's going to be weird and awkward... I may have to listen in stages

I still blame him indirectly for Phil Hartman's death, so unless his hour with Marc is some kind of self-flagellating apology fest, I'm not interested.

yeah, and I've heard icky stories of him crashing high school proms and shit...dude is not right

remember maron saying andy dick was someone he didnt have time for as he wouldnt take responsibility for his actions (think it was on joe rogans interview)

the great thing about Maron is you have to believe he'll confront Dick about all that stuff. he's not an obsequious kind of guy

Yeah that's the thing with Maron's guests -- if I don't know them or dont' like them, Maron's the reason I listen.

Though I have to say there's something about Joe Rogan I really don't like.

(lol apropo of nothing)

I haven't listened to the Rogan ep yet, even though it's been downloaded.

the great thing about Maron is you have to believe he'll confront Dick about all that stuff. he's not an obsequious kind of guy

― Mordy, Monday, April 25, 2011 1:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

OTM. The deeper he went into the Gallagher and Mencia interview, the more I thought, "Any other interviewer would have stopped five questions ago."

*interviewS

Apparently Andy Dick is still staggering about the wilds of Portland, as the Bridgetown Comedy Fest organizer announced from the stage last night that no one knew where the hell he was, he had missed his flight, and if anybody sees him, please to DM the organizer on Twitter, etc.

What a champ, that guy.

Oh Andy.

Maybe it's just me...but the Rogan interview didn't feel real to me. He was open and talked about his life and whatever but his tone, the way he responded to questioning, he just felt very closed off and like he was tolerating Maron and not actually participating fully. Or something. Maybe I just don't like Rogan.

Oh and he would spout these random little lectures about bizarre pseudo-science that made me actually yell at my car stereo at one point AGGH YOU ARE SO FULL OF SHIT and then I had to stop listening for a little while because i'm crazy :)

Maybe Marc is secretly working through the entire cast of Newsradio. Can't wait for him to talk to Stephen Root!

the Joe Rogan interview was (another) one that made me think "Marc has some deep, DEEP issues"

andy dick interview has the potential to be amazing

But if it was a cavalcade of batshittery, wouldn't Maron be hyping it as such? He did with Gallagher, and I haven't heard a peep about Dick on the latest WTFs (unless it's on today's, in which case I'll stop talking now).

I actually liked the Rogan interview! I don't like him as a comedian or actor but he seemed a lot more thoughtful guy than I expected, and like I think I said on the comedy podcast thread, Maron was being pretty annoying in that interview. He seemed to have all these preconceived notions about who Rogan is (basically a really aggro dude) and then wouldn't back off from those notions no matter how many times Rogan denied them, which isn't really great interviewing technique. Rogan did creep me out when he was talking about all the steroids he does.

I want Maura Tierney to start doing standup so she can be a guest.

Bobcat Goldthwait episode was one of the best of the recent batch btw.

Did you guys listen to Matt B. Davis? Very old-school ep with escalating tension between Marc and guest, you get to hear two guys who can be kind of assholes rubbing their scars against each other, I loved it

Yeah, I just listened to that one the other day, even though he teased it ahead of time I really didn't expect it to get as tense as it did.

yeah it was great oldschool wtf
but i wanted to email marc afterward to tell him: gah Matt is a bully, fuck that guy

every once in a while i will check in with this podcast based on the guest -- and then will be reminded why i never listen. this dude WON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP. LET YOUR GUEST FINISH HIS SENTENCE. god what a jerk!

He did a decent job not stepping on A. Whitney Brown's toes last week.

God, if you hated a new episode for that reason, please don't listen to anything before, like, four years ago. xp

I generally listen to every WTF episode whether I know the guest or not. Sometimes I'll skip if I really don't want to hear a particular guest talk for an hour (Neal Brennan and Tiffany Haddish was a rare week where I skipped both), but I also skip ones where it's been made extremely clear that the interview was an uncomfortable one. That means I'll probably never listen to the Ben Kingsley ep.

I listened to some of the Kingsley episode just now. Pretty awkward. It seemed like Ben has all of his stories set down word for word and didn’t necessarily dig Maron’s interruptions and attempts to connect.

The Tiffany Haddish ep was pretty illuminating and the Daniel Stern was interesting too

ben kingsley best maron episode of all time

i absolutely love WTF, have listened for years and years, he's a great host and has the best conversations of any regular podcast interview person, except maybe tyler cowen

however, how to love WTF as i do:

skip 100% of interviews with musicians
skip 100% of interviews with "thinkers"
skip 100% of interviews with authors
skip 90% of interviews with directors
skip 50% of interviews with actors (you can tell within 5 min)
skip 0% of interviews with other stand-ups

yes, stand ups are most reliable

The Tiffany Haddish ep was pretty illuminating

I tapped out of this v early, did she talk about her comedy paedo video lawsuit or The Int3rnational Alma Mat3r School Of Asc3nsi0n Bless3d Univ3rsity?

totally agree that the standup eps are the best but I like the musician ones, I can't explain why since there's so much of Maron fan-stammering about the albums and then asking the musician "So you met xxxx?" but for some reason I like them anyway

I skip the ones where they talk about politics but it can be unpredictable which ones those are

Tiffany Hadish was just weirdly "People were unfairly mad at me for drunk driving, why are people like that"

skip 0% of interviews with other stand-ups

lol these are always skipped regardless of podcast, comedians are some of the least interesting people on earth

with WTF musicians and maybe some oddballs like a chef are the only ones I don't immediately archive

every actor interview is a free ~*MasterClass*~

I tapped out of this v early, did she talk about . . . The Int3rnational Alma Mat3r School Of Asc3nsi0n Bless3d Univ3rsity?
― bae (sic), Saturday, May 25, 2024 9:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

What's this?

I promise I tried googling various combinations of those words, to no avail

sounds like a Scientology thing

try H3ir Holin3ss or H3ir Princ3ss

Something about Daniel Kaluuya’s manager

cryptic sic tic

I like Maron but can't deal with the musician interviews. I just feel like he's out of his element or something, even more than when he interviews directors and authors. Which is why I think the interviews with comedians are typically the best episodes

I liked the recent one with Tammy Faye Starlite, who was part of the late 80s / early 90s NYC performance art and alt-comedy scene Maron was also part of. The two had similar interests and frames of reference (Maron didn't have to have done any homework or read a book), so they could relax and engage.

milo z, if the only thing you listen to is musicians than we are not into wtf for the same things! but the reason the comedian ones are good are not necessarily bc they are "interesting" or "uninteresting" people - but (1) because they are good at talking, that is mostly their job; (2) i like listening to shop-talk between peers.

yes to the shop talk, and i hope Daniel Stern fit into your 10% of actors - good amount of shop in that one partly because he’s comedic

oh thanks for the rec, i hadn't decided on that one yet, seemed dubious

I think Maron is going to find a way to mention in every single episode that his mother told him she didn't know how to love him as a baby, and I'm here for it

The Molly Ringwald one is pretty funny because Maron keeps asking her about stuff and she keeps saying "well I wrote about this in the New Yorker" -- i mean, not that Maron is expected to study the full dossier for every guest but in this one you can really tell that Maron knows nothing except that she was the preppy girl in the Breakfast Club and he's basically "so like what's been up since 1985 with you?"

The Molly Ringwald one is pretty funny because Maron keeps asking her about stuff and she keeps saying "well I wrote about this in the New Yorker"

This is pretty dumb on her part; does she not realize that their conversation is being recorded, and will be shared with people who have no idea that she wrote something for the New Yorker? I mean, an interview isn't a conversation; the questions are prompts meant to elicit information that will be of interest to the reader/listener. I frequently ask questions of artists that I know the answer to, because I want them to tell the story for the reader's benefit. If I ask a musician a question and they say, "Well, as I said when I was profiled in DownBeat," fuck that person.

yeah, that is weird. Perhaps she thinks she's just there to promote something new?

If it's related to her and John Hughes, she may have written that piece so as to rehash it just once instead of permanently being asked the same questions and not wanting to be off-the-cuff about them.

an interview isn't a conversation... I frequently ask questions of artists that I know the answer to

two huge differences btw you and maron

i mean obv he cant be expected to read every article and interview for every guest. but if someone had written a big article in the new yorker that got a lot of attention a handful of years ago reflecting on the one big thing they're most famous for, not unreasonable to expect that an interviewer wouldn't be totally ignorant of it imo

always amazing to me that Maron has this reputation as one of the great interviewers when every fourth or fifth guest gets noticeably annoyed that he knows little to nothing about them

haven't listened to that interview, but I liked her recent appearance on Search Engine: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/search-engine/how-do-you-survive-fame-pNaUIh_12Pz/