WTF with Marc Maron (it's a podcast)

he seems manic-y for sure

it's so annoying how he resents almost all of his guests/is jealous of them, ESPECIALLY tim and eric

huh i don't get that sense from him.

he comes off very hostile to them and, bizarrely, can't grasp their sense of humor/what they're 'all about', and he's angry they're so popular

"TGIF? So that was it? That was the joke? What's funny about that? Huh?"

I think he was honest in that Tim and Eric podcast about being jealous of their success and pushing the "I just don't get it" thing because of that. He comes right out and says as much, if I recall correctly.

But Tim Heidecker seemed like he nailed what Maron really objected to about them: that he saw Tim and Eric as emotionally detached or not revealing anything about who they really are as people in their comedy. Maron brushes it off - but it sounded right to me. Maron's very into the warrior-poet, confessional, bleeding-to-death on stage ideal - any kind of an "act" or schtick gets his back up.

tim & eric aside, i don't get a lot of resentment from him during interviews of the more famous guests, if anything it's the lesser-known comedians that he pushes more.

If anything, I think he has pushed the "I used to be jealous of you but now we are hashing it out so we can be friends" angle WAAAY too hard since the success of the Louis CK episode.

Like it worked really well that time so he keeps going back to the well.

yeah - that's the whole "Are we good?" thing (for a guy who hates schtick, he certainly has his share). I know it's kind of a crutch - but I think the hashing out old beefs thing actually has produced some of his most interesting stuff. Or at least he feels lost without it - which is why the music interviews seem so aimless a lot of the time.

what did you all think of the Rivers Cuomo interview?

he comes off very hostile to them and, bizarrely, can't grasp their sense of humor/what they're 'all about', and he's angry they're so popular

I actually do get them, and I'm also angry they're popular. Ugh.

I'm always baffled by the notion that Tim and Eric are popular. Outside of my girlfriend and my brother, I don't know if I personally know anyone else who's into them.

The out-and-out resentment of success angle of "are we good?" has actually faded a lot - he's a legit famous guy with a TV show who talks to movie stars every other day now - kind of hard for him to be the unjustly unappreciated Lenny Bruce guy when he's interviewing Claire Danes or whatever.

tbh I haven't noticed any significant change in his behavior/attitude during interviews, or even during the monologues, in quite a while.

Yeah I can't say I see anything alarming about his behaviour lately either.

he just seems extra amped up

I just don't listen to any of the WTFs with comedians, with actors and musicians he's sometimes pretty dumb (WHO WERE YOUR GUYS, and being a bit condescending with female musicians IIRC) but I don't hear any of the weird jealousy stuff.

well, he recently did an interview that was 60% his resentment that he didn't get into Harvard and his guest did

Looking back on that one, I think both of them were in on the joke.

that one was great.

struggling with the idea that someone listens to WTF for the musician interviews and not the comedians

The musician interviews have been both some of his worst and some of his best.

The Patton Oswalt one from a few years back is a great example of the jealousy thing.

I think "Are we good?" is part of his AA making-amends, so he'd be doing it with or without the show.

every member of the State has had to answer to Maron's delusion that they were the biggest thing in the world back in '94

He's been in AA at lot longer than he's been making amends for this sort of stuff, I think.

struggling with the idea that someone listens to WTF for the musician interviews and not the comedians

Comedians just aren't, as a rule, interesting people to me?

Wow, that wipes out 80% of the podcast game for you.

no shortage of non-comedians being interviewed on podcasts

I need my podcast hosts to be comfortable on mic. Comedians are generally good at that, many many non-comedian podcast hosts are not.

Comedian hosts are fine, usually, unless they're Jeff Garlin or Chris Hardwick.

I don't get a ton of time to listen to podcasts, so it works out. 1 WTF a week, various NPR-y ones, and several food/cooking podcasts do it.

what is a good cooking podcast

Cooking Issues w/ Dave Arnold
Splendid Table (sometimes good, sometimes too NPRy)
KCRW's Good Food but that's more about food than cooking.

Anerica's Test Kitchen podcast is good for cooking knowledge, but the call-in segments run too long. I usually skip through most of it.

good musician-on-musician podcasts i've been listening to lately:

No Effects (one of the dude from Tanlines)
Secret Skin w/Open Mike Eagle
Wandering Wolf (Yoni Wolf)
and Blockhead's podcast with a friend of his that's not about music or interviews at all

The WTF explicitly plays up the jealously/resentment angle. Like:

Neighbors director Nicholas Stoller is someone who movie studios trust with millions of dollars in production costs. Naturally, Marc wants to know how Nick got that way. He suspects Nick’s Harvard education has a lot to do with it, much to Marc’s chagrin as someone who went to nearby Boston University and spent his own college career on the outside looking in.

Or:

Kathy Griffin stops by for a true throwback WTF episode. It’s a throwback because Kathy and Marc spend the first 10 minutes defusing past tension and figuring out the root of their problem. Then with that out of the way, they talk about the alternative comedy scene, Kathy’s struggles to fit in with the stand-up crowd and her unlikely breakthrough as a reality TV star.

Those are from the site.

Bill Clinton stops by the Cat Ranch for a very special episode. Marc asks the President what his parents did, whether he met Lorne in the mid-90s, what it was like to live in Arkansas.

unresolved tension from years ago is not the same as currently resenting his guests though.

xp

lol

? This is pretty clear on that front:

He suspects Nick’s Harvard education has a lot to do with it, much to Marc’s chagrin as someone who went to nearby Boston University and spent his own college career on the outside looking in.

xpost "So Mr. President, did your childhood involve livestock? Any milking or breeding? Did you handle snakes or is that the Branch Davidians?"

Today's interview is a step outside the norm. Maron gets to condemn pedophilia in the black community a lot.

sure but that episode is by no means his standard interview approach.

chris parnell one was sooooo boring. :(

Marc's meeting with the former President brings up bad memories of the time he ran for class president and lost.

wtf was that shit about ebola in the parnell open?

Maron interviewing Clinton posts are cracking me up.

good musician-on-musician podcasts i've been listening to lately:

I'll add How Did I Get Here to the list, but the Austin localism does fly over my head sometimes.

Kenneth Starr! Yeah, that guy did some stuff. Who were your other guys?

Did you ever have that moment where you're like, 'There is no Plan B. If this presidency thing doesn't work out I'm going back to being a line cook.'? I worked as a line cook. Once I sauteed this guy's onions perfectly and he sent them back. So anyway, ever hear The Stooges on vinyl? It's crazy, right?

Are those actual quotes? If they are that's all a bit sad.

what is it if they're not?