WTF with Marc Maron (it's a podcast)

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.

could listen to 5 more podcasts of Bobcat. Love him.

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.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, 25 April 2011 17:47 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wtf?

Hartman's friend and former SNL colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's former NewsRadio co-star Andy Dick of re-introducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition.[48] In 2006, Lovitz claimed that Dick had approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die."[49][50] The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had a further altercation over the issue.[50] Dick does not believe he is at fault in relation to Hartman's death.[48]

I've heard Dick questioned about Brynn Hartman before, and he just bounces into five minutes of "I didn't go to her house and put a GUN in her hand and tell her SHOOT PHIL, I wouldn't do that. She was MENTALLY ILL, that's not the cocaine's fault. I didn't know she had a problem with coke, or I wouldn't have given her any. Oh maybe I would have, I was on coke, hahahahaha. Of course' it's a tragedy but you can't dwell on these things. Whatever! I do what I like!"

I know it's an integral part of his personality, but I'm getting weary of the "problems" Maron has with almost any comedy that didn't spring from exactly the same place as he did, or with comedy scenes he feels excluded from. This episode he didn't "get" absurd humor--which is okay. But he's always lightly dissing alt comedy and nerd comedy, has said he doesn't understand British comedy. He rarely has black comics on the show, possibly because stand-up is pretty segregated and he never plays the same clubs as those guys. (I'm pretty sure I've heard him scoff a few times when young stand-ups talk about Chris Rock being their main inspiration.) The only people he likes seem to be the ones who gave him breaks (like Conan), who came up in his era or before him, or younger comics who praise him.

I dunno, I was listening to the Aziz Ansari WTF last night, and they definitely didn't come from the same place (couldn't have -- Ansari is about 20 years younger than Maron). And Ansari wasn't praising Maron to the skies or anything.

yeah but didn't have some thing where he thought Aziz was going to be arrogant?

He always ends up coming to a resolution with his guests on the show, but then he regresses again. He'll get along with some alt type comics, but then a few weeks later he's back to talking about how he feels excluded from the alt scene. It gets to seem like schtick--he has to have a problem with each guest that can be worked out on the show.

The point is he is capable if turning the corner, and he is getting better at being less combative. But at some point, it is still his show and it will always be about him to a certain extent. Maybe Maron just isnt your bag

Yeah that was a fun listen, Giamatti was so giddy

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.