A Thousand Times Here for It

3/23/19


Just when I thought I wrote enough about comics here, Marc Maron comes out with his 1000th WTF episode!


Marc Maron is a comic I liked in the 90's but when I didn't hear much from him anymore, I didn't think anything of it. This was before social media was around and gave us such close up, at your fingertips access between celebrities and fans alike.


“Relationships may seem closer than they actually are” -a long distance friend I ‘met’ online once wrote, paraphrasing a rear view mirror warning sign, which I thought was tragically brilliant of him to say.


In the late 90's I was a late teenager and had Marc’s SPIN magazine picture up on my bedroom wall for a little while. Yellowish faded jeans, black t-shirt, glasses, full head of hair, grimacing with outstretched arms towards the camera. Probably a “young comic to watch out for” kind of article. I liked his energy and I liked when he hosted Comedy Central's “Short Attention Span Theater” but had no idea he greatly struggled with addiction, didn't know he was so difficult to work with or be around, never even knew he was jealous of Jon Stewart's rising fame.


Eventually I caught up with more Marc Maron stuff, a few WTF episodes, his IFC show “Maron”, his book “Waiting for the Punch”, some more current stand up specials on Netflix, and picking up more factoids, such as he used to be close friends with Sam Kinison, something I never would have figured on my own.  To me, Marc had way more of a 90’s sensibility, that godforsaken label for lack of a better term, “alternative comedy”, not so much the bombastic 80’s of Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay, larger than life testosterone-driven, misogynist “Married With Children” and Howard Stern humor, though I have to say that stuff made me laugh too. Still, over the top comedy like that along with raunchy MTV videos made me squirm as an 80’s child. I liked bubblegum pop music, fun, bright 80's fashion, Saturday morning cartoons, and wholesome sitcoms.


I went from being a sensitive little 80's child to a sensitive, troubled 90's teen and so that more inward-looking, toned down, self-deprecating (to the point of self-loathing), hyper self-aware, offbeat 90's sensibility (in both comedy and music) appealed to me.


WTF co-creator Brendan McDonald said something very telling at one point of the show, having to do with Marc evolving from being someone who was angry at the world and angry at himself, to someone who works with that anger more in order to better connect with people and tries to improve things- things from within and- around him, I suppose. Well, that is one hell of an evolution and I am so “here” for it! Congratulations on #1000, guys :)


My evolving goals


Aside from my driver's license goal that I've been on and off pursuing, two other goals I have in mind (as I put the proofreading one on the back burner for now) are 1) getting back into the playwrights group I stopped attending a few years ago, and 2) working on my Patreon profile





Happy April xoxoxox