Marc Maron has always been a jealous guy. For years the veteran comedian has watched pals like Louis C.K. and Jon Stewart become household names while he’s struggled to stay afloat — gigging in small clubs, running a largely ignored one-man off-Broadway show, hosting unsuccessful radio and TV shows — while also battling two divorces and a debilitating drug addiction. Over the years he’s begrudgingly come to be known as, for lack of a better term, “the comic’s comic”. Case in point: he’s appeared on Conan O’Brien more than any other comedian, 47 times by his count, but most people couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup. “There’s no such thing as a career in comedy,” he’s famously joked, and, for him at least, that seemed to be the case.
But with a new book, a new show, and a thriving podcast now in its fifth year, it’s safe to say that Marc Maron is finally having his moment. A personal memoir, “Attempting Normal“, came out earlier this month, and his new show, IFC’s “Maron“, debuted last week. In it Maron plays a dramatized version of himself as he navigates past missteps, relationships, and newfound success. Like Louie C.K.’s show “Louie“, Maron finds the comic examining real-life failures through the lens (shield?) of meta-comedy. In the show Maron is selfish and cowardly, but he’s also very insightful and charming. After watching a few scenes one begins to wonder if he even had to write anything that resembled a script before the cameras started rolling.
Such unfiltered honesty lies at the heart of Maron’s charm. WTF With Marc Maron, his homespun twice-a-week podcast, has more than 2.5 million listeners each month and ranks second in iTunes top comedy podcasts. He goes back and forth with comics, celebrities, and musicians such as Amy Poehler, Ben Stiller, Jon Hamm, Mel Brooks, and Dick Van Dyke about everything from failed relationships (mostly his own) to the entertainment industry to past drug and alcohol addictions. He is revered for being able to catch his subjects with their guard down. One episode finds Maron and Louis C.K. having a frank talk about why their friendship fell apart; another has him talking about alcoholism with Robin Williams. If his show is even half as genius and insightful, he should be just fine. “People say stuff to him that you can’t imagine them saying to anyone else,” Ira Glass, host of This American Life, told The New York Times in 2011. “And they offer it. They want to give it to him. Because he is so bare, he calls it forward.”
