BONUS Marc's Comedy Albums
Guest:check one check okay i don't think i'm gonna even get into the um the specials you've done because we've talked about those from time to time and this is really about your your cds which you know anyone can listen to at any time and you know a lot of people have not heard some of those early ones yeah but they're all streaming
Marc:Well, you know, it's a weird thing about, you know, finding success when I have in that there's so many bits that I worked so hard on, you know, for so long that just are, you know, in the wild.
Marc:They're just, you know, you always keep producing in light of this idea that, you know, once you've done it, it's been seen.
Marc:But most of my stuff is.
Marc:It has never been seen or heard by most people.
Guest:Well, and the wild thing about that to me is that, you know, I went back and listened to these four CDs of yours.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And it's like the first two of them,
Guest:those to me were like, they defined who I knew you as.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like basically the timeframe in which those were recorded and the comedy you were doing across those, let's say five years.
Guest:Like that was when I first met you and started working with you and would see you regularly in the clubs.
Guest:I would go either down to the cellar and see you work or, you know, beyond San Francisco, we went to the punchline once I saw you do four shows there.
Guest:Like,
Guest:This to me was like your library.
Guest:Like these were your jokes.
Guest:They defined.
Marc:Not sold out tickets still available.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So let's go back.
Guest:I mean, this this is interesting to me that you did your first comedy album.
Guest:um in it was released in 2002 and this one i do not have a physical copy of not sold out so i don't know based on you know what it would say inside the liner notes of that when it was actually recorded because it was a dan schlissel production i'm assuming it was recorded well before 2002 it wasn't a dan schlissel production oh i had no idea who dan schlissel was at that time he reissued it
Guest:Oh, OK, because that's the interesting thing.
Guest:Not Sold Out has a reissue for like three years later, which is very funny to me that like a an album came out in 2002.
Guest:And then there's a special remastered edition of this first comedy album from Marc Maron in 2005, which is they have two different covers.
Guest:That first one, it's the the cast of freaks sitting at club tables watching you.
Marc:Well, the way that worked was I self-released that.
Marc:I see.
Marc:And Jason Spiro, who was a guy who used to hang around comedy, he would record things, he would take pictures.
Marc:He was kind of a weird guy.
Marc:I just remember he lived in this...
Marc:strange storefront apartment down in the Lower East Side.
Marc:And when Napster started to happen, I just remember him downloading every song possible from the entire world.
Marc:He designed my first website.
Marc:He did a lot of photos of me.
Marc:And he had a DAP machine.
Marc:And it was similar to how I did some of my other records.
Marc:I did that record...
Marc:Not long after 9-11.
Marc:So, you know, that's why you get that stuff.
Marc:You know, you get there's some material in there that is relative to 9-11 because that was 2001.
Guest:So you think, so the fact that this is copyrighted at 2002, it probably was not that long before.
Marc:No, it was recorded somewhere between 9-11 and the end of 2002.
Marc:It was probably recorded in early 2002.
Marc:I kind of did it spontaneously.
Marc:There wasn't that many people in the room, probably 60 or 70.
Marc:The city was still pretty in shock from 9-11.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I felt a need to, you know, to dump that stuff.
Marc:So I did it at Stand Up New York.
Marc:I got an off night.
Marc:And I swear to God, it was maybe half full.
Marc:And Jason recorded it.
Marc:Not greatly.
Marc:It's not a great recording, but he recorded it.
Marc:And then, you know, with maybe his helper, I just found a place.
Marc:like anybody does when you're self-producing CDs.
Marc:I had him throw together that cover art, which eventually didn't last because of copyright possibilities with the cast of Todd Browning's Freaks.
Marc:And...
Marc:And I self-released it in soft cover, you know, just the envelope cover CDs at thousands of them.
Marc:I still have a few hundred of them if you want one.
Marc:And, you know, just sold it at shows and tried to get it out there, but I didn't sell many.
Marc:But that was all on me, you know, just boxes of unopened boxes of CDs and soft cases.
Marc:But I was always kind of proud of a few bits on that record, the ones that I remember, that I think...
Marc:In thinking about them, and I imagine you see this too, that I was always barking up the tree I bark up.
Marc:And all the work becomes sort of this ongoing conversation, building out my intellect and my feelings and then becoming more self-reflective.
Marc:But the bit about the guy who goes in to see his own FBI files, I think is one of my best bits.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I thought the FBI had a file on me.
Guest:I thought that I was, you know, that special.
Guest:You know, it was like, the sad thing was, I think I kind of wanted them to have a file on me.
Guest:I think it was some sort of secret little 60s fantasy I had, man.
Guest:That's how important I am.
Guest:You know, like, I was telling my friend that, I said, I think the FBI has a file on me.
Guest:He's like, who the fuck are you?
Guest:So I don't really talk to that guy anymore.
Guest:But I realize he's probably right.
Guest:I mean, why would they waste manpower on me unless they were breaking guys in or punishing them, you know?
Guest:What kind of stake out would that be?
Guest:Well...
Guest:It's noon and he's still in bed.
Guest:How the fuck did we get this assignment?
Guest:The fuck did you do?
Guest:What time is it now?
Guest:Two o'clock.
Guest:Jerked off twice, still in bed.
Guest:This is sad, man.
Guest:All right, look, he's gonna make a phone call.
Guest:No crying for no reason.
Guest:You know, this guy's not an enemy of the state, he's an enemy of himself.
Guest:I say we get back to HQ and let this wrap itself up.
Guest:Why don't you get one of them drug stool pigeons and go over there and give them an eight ball.
Guest:Let's really watch it unfold quickly.
Guest:Oh, the sadness of it all.
Guest:I've had those moments where I'm very cocky and build myself right to see myself like going down to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and walking in.
Guest:I demand to see my file.
Guest:It's my right as an American to see my FBI file.
Guest:Marc Maron, comedian, provocateur.
Guest:Yahweh.
Marc:And you know, the bit about the terrorist wives, which is, you know, kind of a play on a hackneyed.
Marc:I, you know, joke about women.
Marc:Um, I thought that was a really good bit.
Guest:That was like a big closer of yours for a while.
Guest:Like anytime I saw you do 10 minutes somewhere, that would always be what you closed with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it was relatable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it, because of the, the trope of married guys.
Marc:Right.
Um,
Marc:Yeah, I did it on Letterman.
Guest:That's also the one you tried to do on Letterman, right?
Marc:And they made you change the wording of it?
Marc:Yeah, only because, and it was correct.
Marc:You know, Eddie was correct.
Marc:I don't know if it was my first or second Letterman.
Marc:Maybe it was the first.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:Yeah, probably.
Marc:Maybe the second.
Marc:You know, the idea is like, we're going to go and fly the plane into the building.
Marc:You know, he said, you know, we're shooting at Letterman in New York.
Marc:And he said, you know, that's a little much.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just change it.
Marc:We're going to take over the world.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm like, I was so like, I'm like, no, it's like, it's not going to, you know, but he was totally right.
Marc:And it worked great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's, it's funny.
Marc:Like you.
Marc:Another ice cream based joke.
Guest:That's, is that your, is that your first ice cream based joke?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe.
Maybe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a, well, what is it?
Guest:The line is that he has to go get chunky monkey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Chunky monkey.
Marc:I'm doing the voice and everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't give a fuck.
Guest:Well, but see, that's the funny thing was that like, like, you know, we think about it now and that comes, that's the first thing that comes into your head.
Guest:Like, oh man, I was doing like a terrorist voice and that's probably whatever.
Guest:But at the time it was totally cathartic.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I think that the kind of condemnation of stereotypical accents, it doesn't bother me.
Marc:I don't do it.
Marc:I don't really care if people do it, to be honest with you.
Guest:So that, so that comes out and you, you know, you're really, so you release that, you know, on your own, like you said, how do you wind up getting with Dan Schlissel in, where was he out of Minneapolis?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think, you know, he, his label had become, you know, uh,
Marc:It got on my radar somehow.
Marc:Stand up records.
Marc:Stand up records.
Marc:And he was recording peers of mine.
Marc:And I thought it was sort of a big deal that, you know, this record label that does stand up and this guy's into it.
Marc:And, you know, I think I don't know who he had recorded before me, but he had a small roster, maybe Bamford and a couple other people.
Marc:And I just reached out to him.
Marc:And said, look, what would it take to have you do a record?
Marc:And it was sort of a big deal in the sense that what it took for him to make a record was a big deal.
Marc:So that second record, again, that was the first one I did at Giggles.
Guest:This is tickets still available.
Guest:And yes, recorded at Giggles in Seattle, Washington, December 3rd and 4th of 2004.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I think I probably worked pretty hard on that material.
Marc:Like it was, I can't remember what's on there, but there's probably a lot of politics and I don't, I have to look at the liner notes.
Guest:Like this was directly during Air America.
Guest:So you have you have stuff about Bush, a lot of Bush stuff in there.
Guest:This is I would say if you want a mental framework for what where this stuff kind of reappeared.
Guest:This is primarily the stuff that was on your 2007 Comedy Central half hour.
Guest:You know, the stuff about your dad and depression and the bipolar coaster.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, the only difference between.
Guest:uh depression and uh disappointment is your level of commitment that bit great joke yeah like you know this again this to me was a lot of stuff that was like defining mark marin material the bitter jesus who's walking out into the into the water and saying i used to be able to do this like all of that was like if like the kind of macros in my head of your jokes this must have happened just before i started air america
Guest:Oh, I mean, it might have been that you started developing the comedy there, but to be recorded on December of 2004 means you're in the heart of it.
Guest:You were like in full Air America brain when you recorded this.
Marc:That seems crazy to me.
Marc:So I was already, you know, half awake and everything else.
Marc:I fucking, I don't remember that being the case.
Marc:I thought we...
Marc:You know, we, you know, it was done a little before, but I guess that's just my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think maybe what it is, what you're recognizing is this was, like I said, this was the stuff I first started to know you, you know, from working with you personally and you were doing.
Guest:So you were doing it before Air America, but just the same way you just did a special that you spent two years putting up.
Guest:You probably spent two years putting this material together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, where are you getting that date of recording?
Guest:It's right on the CD, right here.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:On the liner notes.
Marc:Well, I did it at Giggles because I could be impulsive about it in that I could call Terry, who was, rest in peace, but he was kind of a...
Marc:chief skate and you know the room was kind of beat up but it was structurally very good and i could kind of book it out on a fairly short notice and for dan to do a record at that time you he had to drive all this fucking equipment and set up you know really basically a full sound booth in the back of the goddamn club it was a big deal and
Marc:And, you know, he took the big problem with Dan at that time is he would take forever to produce these things.
Guest:Well, this doesn't come out till 2006.
Guest:So we're already off Morning Sedition.
Guest:I remember you having copies of this CD when we started doing the Marc Maron show in L.A.
Guest:But yeah, it was about two years after you recorded it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it was just crazy, you know, and he would record four shows and cut it up and level up like whatever he was doing.
Marc:It took too long.
Marc:And his commitment to the quality was, you know, that's one thing.
Marc:But still, you know, there's another side of it.
Marc:It's like just Mike, the crowd and Mike, my face and let's just fucking get it out.
Marc:But it was a long fucking process.
Marc:But I remember doing it.
Marc:And again, like, you know, that's a small club.
Marc:It wasn't it wasn't packed.
Marc:Maybe one show was and you could use that as a foundation.
Marc:But I felt like I was in a pretty good place.
Marc:I think it was one of those brief windows where I thought everything was going to happen for me.
Guest:Well, again, I think that probably is because Air America, to you, that was at the period of time where it felt like it might take off, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I don't know what the tone of the bits were, but it's probably not that different than who I am now, really.
Guest:I think it's, you know, I would say just having listened to it and I have a hard time separating it, you know, from, like I said, the kind of guy I knew that like the formative way this was for me in like introducing me to your comedy, you know, more than just a few minutes on Comedy Central that I'd seen throughout the 90s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like this was this to me was like kind of defining early stage Marc Maron.
Guest:But listening to it, it's it's interesting to me how much of them are more like
Guest:bits like they really have these first two albums really have the structure of a guy working in clubs sure I mean well that was before you know I that I was that guy and I'm looking at this
Marc:This track list.
Marc:And, you know, I've been working on some of these bits for a long time.
Marc:So, you know, some of these bits were finally seeing their day on record.
Marc:But I think some of these bits, you know, I was working on for a couple of years at least.
Marc:And, yeah, sure, I was still working in that way because I had not had the realization that if I don't start coming directly from me, all this stuff can cross streams with other people.
Marc:And I kind of got more...
Marc:Well, Luna kind of did it, but that was long behind me at this point.
Marc:But this idea that if I do stuff that's directly from my point of view about me, people couldn't step on it.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:So you record it not sold out in, you know, probably we're targeting about the beginning of 2002.
Guest:It comes out later that year.
Guest:It gets re-released in 2005 while you're on Air America.
Guest:So that maybe is a little bit of a bigger audience gets to hear that one.
Guest:Then this ticket's still available, recorded in 2004, comes out in 2006.
Guest:But after that,
Guest:you don't record anything for a couple of years and this is during the period where you're not working regularly on the radio you know you're kind of grabbing um odd jobs here and there on the mic and you're mostly trying to do comedy but also at the same time your your marriage is ending so that kind of sets the table for you to record final engagement and
Guest:Which says here it's recorded April 4th and 5th at Giggles Comedy Club in Seattle.
Guest:Does not have a year, but based on the timing, it has to be 2008.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you recorded in 2008, April 4th and 5th.
Guest:It does not come out per the Schlissel usual till 2009.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that was a bad time because after I got back from Air America, you know, and finally got home, it wasn't too long after that, that, you know, my wife left me because I remember I'd been on the road with Rollins and Garofalo whenever that was.
Marc:And, you know, Air America had crapped out.
Marc:It brought me nothing in terms of recognition.
Marc:You know, I had some money saved.
Marc:And, you know, now I was, you know, back in, you know, just, you know, back to my life.
Marc:And she leaves me.
Marc:And I come unglued in a very big way.
Marc:And it was during that time, I don't know when I was doing...
Marc:You know, that that one man show in the basement of the Bleeker Street Theater.
Guest:You basically did that after this, like that one man show was like you corralling what you put on this album into a kind of, you know, theme.
Marc:What was that called again?
Marc:Scorching the Earth.
Marc:Scorching the Earth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So this album, again, I was in trouble mentally.
Marc:And I called Terry at Giggles.
Marc:I said, you know, I think I got to do something.
Marc:I called Dan.
Marc:I'm like, I think I got something.
Marc:You know, it's not... It's not...
Marc:It's totally tight, but it's essential stuff to what I'm going through, and I am going through it.
Marc:It's not going to be pretty, but I think we should get it down as a record.
Guest:How was the call made to allow you to do two CDs?
Guest:That usually wasn't normal.
Marc:Well, I mean, there was a lot.
Marc:You know, it was a dump, dude.
Marc:It was just a dump.
Marc:I've been out there in the fucking wilderness, you know, doing my comedy, building these bits in some way.
Marc:You know, I was mentally, you know, furious and sad and heartbroken.
Marc:And I just needed to do something.
Marc:you know, to justify my fucking existence in the world as a comic.
Marc:And I think it was just that there was so much there.
Marc:You know, when you get bits that aren't all fully fleshed out and you're riffing a lot, you know, I ended up doing however long it took to do them, an hour and a half, whatever I was doing.
Marc:And again, we did four shows, not sold out at Giggles.
Marc:It was sad.
Marc:It was brutal.
Marc:And I haven't listened to this while, but people have come up to me and even somebody mentioned it
Marc:in one of the articles about the new special, that this was the darkest comedy CD he'd ever listened to.
Marc:I don't remember who that guy was.
Marc:Was it, it might've been the guy from Atlantic?
Marc:I think it might've been Vikram Murthy in the Atlantic, who's listened to all your stuff.
Marc:Well, you know, he knew this record.
Marc:And then out of nowhere, not long ago, Louis Katz said it was the best record, the best comedy record.
Marc:He loved it because it got him through a breakup or something.
Guest:all right this is gonna sound dark but if you had died before wtf yeah you would be remembered for this album like it would be one of those things that people talk about that are like that guy he burned hot and fast and that was the end of him but man that fuck you gotta listen to that fucking thing like it would be one of those legendary things it's
Guest:And I think only the fact that you have a different story in your life now that happened, you know, by way of the podcast and by way of just your growth and everything, it does not become a defining point in your legacy.
Guest:But look, I just listened to it again.
Guest:It is bracing.
Guest:Like...
Guest:and i will still i've said this to you before it's got absolutely some of your best stuff in it's got some of your wrongest stuff in it for sure but that part about how racism is just about fucking the fear of fucking yeah white racism is founded in a fear of fucking
Guest:White racists are paralyzed with fear that brown people will outfuck them and surround them and make them powerless.
Guest:And that's just a horrifying nightmare to them.
Marc:But on a deeper level, white racists are afraid that brown people will fuck them and make everybody brown.
Guest:And then they won't know who to hate anymore.
Guest:And that's a deeper fear.
Guest:Because you can brown up white in one generation.
Guest:You understand that, right?
Guest:All it takes is one brown load to make white brown.
Guest:And a white racist knows that it takes eons to unbrown whites, if that's even possible.
Guest:So that was, you recorded that in 2008, and we had not yet elected a black president, and that bit basically presages everything that was to come right up until today, you know, in terms of, like, culturally and politically.
Guest:And, you know, I think that's something that a lot of people always kind of point out in your comedy series,
Guest:even going back to your 2005 HBO half hour, I mean, you might not have been on the right mark with the internet, you know, saying it was a fad or whatever, but you're definitely on the right track with like the, where the political headwinds were pointing and just everyone's kind of ability to get plowed over by authoritarianism.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I, I should listen to this record again.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's definitely bits and pieces in this thing that were part of my thinking at that time that I was still kind of looking for somewhere to go with them, and they still ended up on the record.
Guest:I mean, we're going to get to your final CD, and it's your final...
Guest:special that's cd only after that all your specials if they are available on audio they were also filmed uh but you have a fourth and final cd uh this has to be funny and and just before we go away from final engagement i would say like the the biggest thing i was thinking while listening to this was
Guest:was you know if i had been involved with this final engagement the way i was for this has to be funny i would have ruined it because i would have cut it by half and i think that what makes it a kind of amazing listen is that it's not cut it's that you left it on two cds is that it is so raw and almost accidental like it feels yeah
Guest:not appropriate that you're hearing this guy go through this and, and no one was there to protect you like in a, in a weird way to the benefit of this, this, this artifact.
Marc:Well, that's for sure.
Marc:You know, I was really, really in, in, in mental trouble and, you know, because however I was picturing, you know, heartbreak or whatever my relationship with Mishnah was, you know,
Marc:as I've gotten older, I can see my side of it very clearly.
Marc:And I'm not going to say I had it coming, but I understand it.
Marc:But at that time, the idea of being left, and also the idea of my career being nowhere again, and just the blow I took to my ego and my sanity, where everything was really out of control.
Marc:The miracle that I didn't drink or use again is...
Marc:is, is, is present, but, but that's a dry as fuck record of a guy that's got no way out of, of his feelings, except for that, those shows, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember you playing it for me when we were doing that, um,
Guest:that, that guardian job where we were driving across the country and it had not come out yet.
Guest:You had a, you had like Dan's first pass at it.
Guest:So, so that's what, you know, if you want the timeline, like that was in October or so of 2008.
Guest:So it had taken like, you know, six months or whatever since it had been recorded.
Guest:Now you had the first pass on it.
Guest:It didn't come out till later in the next year, 2009.
Guest:But I remember listening to that in the car with you and being like,
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:What did this guy go through?
Guest:Like, this was way worse than I was even privy to.
Marc:Well, by the time I got to you guys for break room, you know, I was just humbled.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Like, that's the thing.
Guest:I had not really seen the the the fury.
Marc:Yeah, I was incapacitated at that point.
Marc:And and I think somewhat relieved that that job had gotten me a way to stop hemorrhaging money through the divorce.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, you know, I was like, you know, I was on the other side of it, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, um, these are basically like a trilogy of records right down to the titles, uh, not sold out tickets, still available and final engagement.
Guest:It's actually like as pretty perfect, uh, comedy trio of titles I can think of.
Guest:Uh, but also I think like thematically.
Marc:I meant every one of them.
Yeah.
Guest:There's a, on the episode that you did with Mike Birbiglia, you know, where he asked the questions back at episode 200, like he asked you that was like, was final engagement?
Guest:Like, was that a real title?
Guest:And you were like, yeah.
Guest:Like, I don't, I didn't know that there was anything after that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't even know if I'd stay living.
Guest:Well, that's, that's the darkest part of it.
Guest:But now knowing you as well, like you say that, you say that after every special that you think you might be done.
Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When you dump everything.
Guest:But yeah, so those also these, I don't know, I'm guessing because the first one was self-produced that you didn't have anybody doing any liner notes to them.
Marc:I got hip to the liner notes.
Marc:I don't know if somebody, did anybody do liner notes for the reissue of Not Sold Out?
Marc:I don't think so.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:I don't have that one physically with me and I'm guessing not.
Marc:I don't think I did.
Marc:Maybe I did.
Marc:Well, that's the other fucking thing that's funny about tickets still available.
Marc:It's like, it was so funny, dude.
Marc:All I wanted was to cover to look like one of those old, you know, 1950s kind of comedy records where they do kind of a legit line drawing of the guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's been some more Saul records.
Marc:It was a style of cover.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:At a different time.
Marc:And I just wanted to find an artist to do that.
Marc:And I don't remember how I found the guy.
Marc:I think I'd seen some smaller pieces of him.
Marc:It was some weird dude.
Marc:Someone named Tubbs.
Marc:Yeah, out in Brooklyn.
Marc:He was a really out there guy and artist.
Marc:But I'd seen some of his work somewhere.
Marc:And I'm like, this guy could do it easy.
Marc:And I said, do you think you could do it?
Marc:And I showed him what I was talking about.
Marc:I showed him the style I was talking about.
Marc:He goes, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then he says he's done.
Marc:And he painted this thing that must have been like four feet by five feet unrolled.
Marc:Oh, no way.
Marc:Dude, what the fuck is this?
Marc:It was this giant piece of art.
Marc:And I'm like, well, this is what I want, but I'm going to make it a lot smaller, dude.
Marc:And he had done some other text around it.
Marc:He made it this big, weird art piece.
Marc:And all I wanted was that line drawing.
Marc:And it was like just one of those weird kind of like Brooklyn artists.
Marc:Like, you know, he was not an illustrator.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He was kind of out of his mind a little bit.
Marc:And, you know, I just had to, you know, pay him for it and then, you know, crush it down to that.
Marc:Because that's all I wanted.
Marc:It's the same thing with the guy who did the cover of my book, Jerusalem Syndrome, Charlie Miller, had done this beautiful piece of art and was so annoyed at the graphics on the cover around his art, you know, because it diminished the painting.
Guest:So the liner notes for that one, though, were done by Jerry Stahl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a nice essay about you.
Guest:It's pretty close to the heart for you.
Guest:The liner notes for Final Engagement, it's interesting.
Guest:They're by Dylan Godino, who was the editor of an online comedy site called Punchline Magazine at the time.
Guest:Do you remember how important we thought these fucking guys were?
Guest:Well, you know, the interesting thing is that like I read this thing by Dylan and it's like he was he he's basically like trying to be the Pied Piper of you.
Guest:It's like this guy is so important.
Guest:You know what?
Marc:Why isn't anybody listening?
Marc:And he eventually came around like I think he's a little hard on me at first, but then like he really he really kind of got me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's telling that he was the one you chose for that CD, considering how out of the loop you felt.
Guest:You were like, like you said, we thought this comedy ecosystem online was very important at the time.
Guest:And it kind of was.
Marc:Well, I also...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, he was the only guy really doing a deep dive and respecting the form.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, doing thoughtful stuff around journalism, around comedy.
Marc:He was the guy, you know, before Zinneman, you know, and and he was a smart guy.
Marc:And, you know, his.
Marc:Though probably not widely read, you know, that that side of his was was important, at least to me, because I wanted, you know, I wanted validation from smart people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and, you know, and I wasn't just going to it wasn't going to come to me out of nowhere.
Marc:You know, so I thought that I thought that was the avenue and the fact that he was a champion of mine.
Marc:Why not get him to do it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if you remember this too, and I'm glad you didn't do it ultimately, but there was a point where you were considering naming that album before you chose final engagement.
Guest:You were going to call it the naked format, which was something that John Manzo from Air America had told you you were good at.
Guest:He said, you're very good at the naked format.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think he made that up.
Guest:Probably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's probably not a thing that exists.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I thought it was a thing, but I liked it.
Guest:It's actually not a bad thing to reuse somehow, the naked format.
Guest:But you did not name that, and those are kind of a discreet trilogy, I would say.
Guest:Your fourth and final CD, audio-only special, was done two years later.
Guest:In January of 2011, it was recorded, released later that year on Comedy Central Records.
Guest:And this is the only CD of yours that I produced.
Guest:This was recorded across two days at Union Hall in Brooklyn.
Guest:to a packed room as opposed to your earlier albums.
Guest:And I've said this before, like I remember being there for these recordings cause I was producing it and, and being like, Oh man, this is it, man.
Guest:He finally did it.
Guest:Like I thought that was the peak, you know, like, like after having been with you for at that point,
Guest:seven years yeah to to like know what you had been going through uh you know on those other albums just in your struggles to try to get recognition and to to have a whole room full of people who are now like a year and a half into being fans of yours through the podcast that was the same weekend that dan saltstein did the new york times piece on you
Guest:So it was a crazy week for you emotionally.
Guest:There was all sorts of shit going on back at home with your girlfriend.
Marc:Oh my God, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like the, the things I do to myself to make my life more difficult.
Marc:Like, so I'm, yeah, it was crazy.
Guest:Well, the album starts out with that thing about like, let's fuck it up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's like the voice in your head to saying, let's fuck it up.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Things are okay.
Guest:And I can't handle it.
Guest:When things are going well with me, there is a voice inside my head saying, you're going to fuck.
Guest:You're gonna fuck it up.
Guest:You're gonna fuck it up over and over again.
Guest:And I just wish that voice was louder than the voice saying, let's fuck it up.
Guest:Come on, you pussy, fuck it up.
Guest:You pussy.
Guest:Burn some bridges, alienate your friends, ruin your career, start drinking again.
Guest:Sit on your couch drunk and crying with nothing left to lose.
Guest:Have you forgotten what freedom feels like, you fucking pussy?
Guest:Doing well.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:So that's happening right now in my head.
Guest:Welcome to it.
Guest:Which was what was going on for real.
Guest:Like that was reality was being reflected there.
Marc:Oh my God, dude.
Marc:I couldn't sleep because like, like a day before I left for New York, I couldn't take it anymore.
Marc:And I broke up with Jessica and I,
Marc:She had stuff at my house.
Marc:It was very dramatic.
Marc:I remember Ashley Barnhill was my assistant at the time.
Marc:And I'm like, you know, you got to keep an eye on the house.
Marc:You know, don't let her in the house.
Marc:She didn't live with me, but she had stuff there and I put the stuff out and it was very drama, dramatic.
Marc:And she, you know, Jessica certainly had her problems.
Marc:So I go to,
Marc:And I got, you know, cats at that time.
Marc:I don't even know how the hell, you know, given what I'm going through now with my cats, I can't, I don't even know who the person was at that point in time.
Marc:Because I had two or three cats then.
Marc:I might have still had Mishina's cat, but I definitely had Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:And, you know, they, I don't know if they were still going outside.
Marc:You know, it was fucking nuts.
Marc:And I leave all this chaos to go to New York to do, you know, the interview that changed our lives.
Marc:And I'm sitting there, you know, talking to the journalist.
Marc:Um...
Marc:for the New York Times piece on WTF, and I'm getting texts from Jessica, you know, like, why can't I get back into the house?
Marc:I'm hiding under the deck.
Marc:You know, the police are here.
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:And I'm trying to do this interview with this guy for the New York Times.
Guest:And then I had to go tape this shit.
Guest:Yeah, I remember walking away from the Union Hall with you, and you were mostly talking about that stuff, not the special that you just recorded.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, well, I think that's the way I keep myself out of joy and a sense of pride is I just immediately go to the cancer.
Guest:Well, and so aside from this being a sold out show over two nights, and I mean, Union Halls, it's a small room.
Guest:It's not like you were selling out a theater, but it was a big deal, I thought.
Guest:And this was, you know, at the kind of epicenter of the hip world.
Guest:funny Brooklyn comedy scene at the time too.
Marc:Yeah, which I think the other undercurrent of all this stuff is that is a scene I never felt like fully accepted me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or innately dug what I did.
Marc:But I had to be reckoned with because I...
Marc:like as much as anybody else was an architect of that scene.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, but I was still like, you know, who I am and, you know, fundamentally a club comic, but there was always this push to, you know, to, to, to be validated by that community, but also to, you know, stick it to them.
Marc:So, you know, it was always a kind of a, not even a tightrope act, but it was just sort of like, you know, I ended up here and,
Marc:This was not my goal to be performing, you know, for an alt comedy crowd.
Marc:But, you know, this is the, you know, the community that reluctantly accepts me and puts me up, you know, into a place of reverence, you know.
Guest:Yeah, well, interestingly enough, one of the people in the audience that night was Ira Glass.
Guest:And he is the person who did the liner notes for the CD at your request.
Guest:He's also basically directly responsible for the title of it, because in his liner notes, he pulled out the idea that, you know, his favorite moment in the set was this spontaneous...
Guest:interaction you had with an audience member who kind of, you know, reacted to you saying something about your mother.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And the person went, oh, my mother just is, you know, she's got this eating problem.
Marc:She's been 119 pounds my entire life.
Marc:And because of that, I am also frightened of food.
Marc:And I've tried to figure out why, but the only thing I could come up with is that the horror to her of having a child that might be overweight was so profound.
Marc:Her fear was just displaced onto me.
Marc:Like, I really think that for about the first 12 years of my life, my mother just saw me as her fat.
Marc:That she, I think...
Marc:Some part of her thought that if she just ate less, perhaps I would disappear and she would not have to worry about the fat that was on me that was somehow connected directly to her.
Guest:This has to be funny.
Guest:and that is, that is only in the one, like you recorded the show twice and I had, you know, pieced it together over two shows like that you're supposed to do with a comedy set, comedy special.
Guest:And, uh, but that only existed that one time, which is what made it onto the CD and became the, the title of the CD and listening to it again, it's, it's very, um,
Guest:it's very close to the bone of WTF.
Guest:Like it's not hard to listen to that album and just basically see what it is you have become over the past 15 years.
Guest:Like that's the guy, right?
Guest:This is the, this is, there's the trilogy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that you had, which represents this kind of before guy and the phases of him.
Guest:But then that album, it basically leads directly into everything that was yet to come.
Guest:You doing your television show, you getting other acting jobs, you getting several one-hour specials that were filmed on major outlets.
Guest:You can hear it in the way you do that CD.
Guest:I think probably also, it probably had something to do with
Guest:you had been doing a year plus of intros on the, on the podcast to kind of shape these the same way you were shaping things in clubs.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:But shaping them with, without the restriction of, you know, being driven by getting laughs.
Marc:So, so I think that between Air America and then early WTF and my decision to keep it as personal as possible, that it, it,
Marc:The things other than comedy broadened my confidence and grounded me more in myself.
Marc:And I think over time, I don't know if it's totally apparent here.
Marc:Maybe it is.
Marc:Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit that, you know, I became a very sort of efficient and calculating long form comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would say what's apparent in this has to be funny is you were now, you know, kind of firmly entrenched as a long form guy.
Guest:This is the first CD with a really long set piece.
Guest:It's like 14 minutes long and it's just one story.
Guest:It's the thing about the creation museum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would say the one thing that's not readily apparent on this is the efficiency part of it, which you would get better at as it went on.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This sort of like working the story for jokes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:As opposed to just working it for momentum, which has to be done initially.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, like it's sort of the raw goods.
Guest:But this is the real first feeling of a thing where you had a room full of people that you were like, oh, you came here to see me.
Guest:Well, come sit where I'm sitting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not going to go down there with you.
Guest:Come up here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I'm going to.
Guest:I'm going to kind of lay back.
Guest:I'm going to tell this at my pace and you have to meet me at it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was not, it does not have the form of something that is honed on the road for a year and a half.
Marc:Cause I had found a comfort zone where I could just,
Marc:talk which is something i still do but over time these things become more joke efficient like you know i'm working on a bit now where it just starts with even the in the new special the evacuating with cats that that really begins with just a recalling of the story told at a at a at a an intensity and pace that's going to you know create laughter in and of itself and and create a a feeling yeah and
Marc:And then over time, you kind of find the beats.
Marc:You kind of fuck with it.
Marc:You maybe add a couple things for funny.
Marc:But I imagine on the Creation Museum, that was just the raw goods.
Marc:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:But I mean, it's also, it's like it has a very nice...
Guest:uh roll out like there's nothing about that that piece that like you would wind up cutting down because if you did it's just like well but you lost the jokes there those were good jokes leave them in sure sure yeah no i'm i i i tend to lean you know go the other way is it make it longer not shorter generally
Guest:Yeah, although that is just a fairly tight, I think it's about a 70-minute CD.
Guest:It works exactly as it is.
Guest:It doesn't need to have a double like the other one did.
Guest:The artwork on that was done by Dima, who did a lot of our art, has done the art.
Guest:If you see the art on the side of the WTF cat mugs, that's him as well.
Guest:I love that cover.
Guest:Love it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You talking to.
Guest:That's Boomer.
Guest:Boomer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, all the cat heads, actually, now that I think about it, are Dima, like the Boomer Lives head and those old shirts that we had.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's all Dima.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just thought that was a great, you know, depiction of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like I, I, I see me in that, you know, like the cover for final engagement was just pulling from that kid's artwork that we use for the podcast.
Marc:And then I had the weirdo on the second album.
Marc:And then the first album was the, the freaks cover.
Marc:I don't even know what's on the reissue.
Guest:The reissue is the one with you as the devil.
Guest:Like, you know, Oh yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:I remember that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That, that was, that's kind of a weird thing.
Marc:It's when you had that like kind of almost faux hawk haircut.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was like, yeah, that was, that was definitely a 2000 and,
Marc:Two or three haircut I had.
Marc:Yeah, I know who took those pictures.
Marc:I like the effect of that graphic, but I don't think it really spoke to necessarily who I was.
Marc:But I definitely loved this cover.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I was, you know, even having worked on it, I was a big fan of this album and I was happy to go back and listen to it again, to like listen to it all one stop, just press play and hear it all at once.
Guest:It made me realize that...
Guest:you were done doing that basically no more comedy albums for you like listening to it again.
Guest:It's very clear that you were ready to be doing this like in a film setting.
Guest:And I think, you know, thinking pain is this kind of bridge to your other specials, which are all done in larger theaters.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like this one is just is similar.
Guest:Like, you know, thinking pain is kind of on a similar level with, with this, with this has to be funny.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I think that was before—it was where I was leaning on the thrill of not having it all together.
Marc:And, you know, as time went on, primarily inspired through spite towards Birbiglia—
Marc:Where, you know, Thinkie Payne was loose.
Marc:They, you know, it was like an hour and a half.
Marc:You know, I was in a small room.
Marc:I had my notes, which was a crutch.
Marc:And it was kind of freeform-ish in terms of organization, not unlike This Has to be Funny.
Marc:But it was after that special that I was watching, like, Birbiglia and how he structured his...
Marc:his shows in terms of callbacks and stuff.
Marc:And literally I was like, I can, I can fucking do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was, it was a very conscious decision, uh, you know, and I, and I don't know that I've ever given him credit for the inspiration, uh, to, to, to start, you know, stepping up and, uh,
Marc:And having some discipline around structure and editing and maximizing funny as opposed to just enjoying the who knows what's going to happen vibe, which I like.
Marc:And I still use leading up to specials.
Marc:I still build like that.
Marc:But once I'm going to put it on film.
Marc:It's like, well, tighten this shit up and find a through line or a callback or two and figure it out.
Marc:Put the puzzle together and tighten it up.
Marc:Leave a little room if something's going to happen the day before or the week before.
Marc:That always keeps me on my feet.
Marc:In the new special, there's a couple of lines that are great fucking lines that happened a week before.
Marc:But ultimately, the structure is sound, you know, and that was a discipline that I developed out of spite of more organized comics.
Guest:Well, I think that's a good thing.
Guest:But I also think anybody who has watched the new special Panicked or any of your recent specials from the previous years.
Guest:I think they will enjoy going back and listening to some of this stuff if they haven't heard it in a long time or if they've never heard it because it is a real different side of you.
Guest:It's the same guy, like you said, especially even listening to those early 9-11 era stuff.
Guest:You can hear Marc Maron in there.
Guest:It's not a different guy, but it's interesting to kind of
Guest:listen to how you were working the brush you were painting with it's it's uh it's definitely um a different experience and um and all of those things are streaming so uh all three of those not sold out tickets still available final engagement and next week here on the bonus feed um i will put up
Guest:because it's one record I've produced, so I have the master files of it.
Guest:I will do a special remastering of This Has To Be Funny, and that will be next Tuesday's bonus episode for you.
Guest:So go listen to some of those other ones, and you'll have that one here in the feed next week.
Marc:Well, that's great.
Marc:And also, like, you know, I've been very aware over the last three specials how I've integrated my influences.
Marc:Like, I'm very hyper-aware, though I'm not in the moment, but once everything's done, you know, where my particular...
Marc:courage or craft was influenced by a handful of people and where they show themselves.
Marc:I like doing that because I think I have thoroughly my own voice, but I can see my influences coming through in certain bits.
Marc:And I see that as an homage or a tip of the hat or a kind of action of gratitude to what built me.
Guest:Yeah, well, everybody can go back and take a listen to those.
Guest:And I'm sure you will find your own versions of what those are when it comes to who Marc Maron was over the years.
Guest:Thanks, man.