WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1603 - WTF Origins: A Full Maron Special Presentation
Thu, 26 Dec 2024
Marc presents a special compilation of mini-series created for The Full Maron feed on WTF+ called WTF Origins. In this series of recordings from the past year, Marc and WTF producer Brendan McDonald talk about pivotal moments that were important in the creation of WTF, including Marc's days at Luna Lounge in the '90s, The Marc Maron Show in Los Angeles, Break Room Live with Sam Seder, and the decisions made in the sink-or-swim early days of the podcast. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Das Geile ist, wir dürfen auf der Bühne an euch Zuschauer und Zuschauerinnen einen 800-Euro-Voucher für Backmarket verlosen. Es lohnt sich also nicht nur wegen unseren schönen Gesichtern zu kommen. Tickets gibt es unter www.kino-am-olympiasee.de.
Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? How is your what the fuck miss? Or your what the fuck Annika? No? Yeah? Huh? Yeah? I hope it all went well yesterday. I hope that you're feeling some sort of gratitude or relief that it's over or gratitude for your life or some sort of holiday spirit business. I hope you had a good season.
I hope as we go into the new year, we can sort of get our brains together and figure out how to deal and get through. Those are my New Year's resolutions. This year... Again, I'm going to focus on dealing and getting through. Huh? Right? So today we're doing the thing we seem to be doing every Christmas for the last bit of time, for the last few Christmases.
This is a compilation of a series that we actually did for the full Marin called WTF Origins. And this is me and Brendan, my producer and business partner for many years now. Many years. I don't even, like you cross some line with the years where you're like, holy shit, it's been that long. While you're in it, you don't feel it.
But we talked about the things that were important in the creation of WTF, as well as the early days of the podcast. I want to believe on some level, not just for my ego, that we are historical figures and that WTF is a historic podcast, which it is. And on some days I wonder... Did I unleash this fucking thing on the world? Would it have happened without me? Certainly it would have.
And as things move on and move past, you know, you do reflect. And I guess sometimes when we do shows like this, it's good for me to listen to it, to... Ja, genau.
And we've done a lot of these fucking things and I've talked to a lot of people and a lot of those talks were kind of amazing and enlightening and touching and informative and, you know, creatively speaking, you know, were my lifeline to humanity in a lot of ways. Und in diesem Video sprechen wir ein bisschen über die Luna-Lounge-Tage, wo die Art von Alt-Comedy-Ding in New York City stattfand.
Wir sprechen über die Marc Maron-Show, die Brendan mit mir hier in Los Angeles produziert hat, nachdem wir aus Air America gedreht wurden. Und dann sprechen wir ein bisschen über Break Room Live, was wir gemacht haben, als sie mich zurückgezogen haben.
And then we kind of finish with a discussion about, you know, WTF and how that came out of all those things, but also out of my experience and Brendan's experience and how we kind of work together on this thing. But it is nice to look back just to make sure, because my brain is addled and fucked up from the pace of technology and from engaging with it and from age and from...
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Chapter 2: What were the pivotal moments in the creation of WTF?
Er könnte es sein. Ich erinnere mich nicht darauf. Sie waren nicht mit uns auf den Shows. Aber vielleicht war er da. Ich war damals wirklich von der Musik aus so entfernt. Ich ging einfach nicht dazu. I don't, I missed all of it. But it wasn't like the world's crossed over. It wasn't like, you know. Well, I think probably with some of the performers it did, but not me.
You know, like, I think that, like, I was always sort of an outsider. But I think around the, you know, like Cross was out in L.A. He really wasn't. around New York yet. But like, I imagine with some of the state guys and with some of the, with Garofalo, I'm sure there was crossover in terms of hanging out and stuff. But I didn't hang out with people. Right. So I didn't see it.
But you know, at some point, you know, there was a lot going on. You had pianos down there, right? With Todd. Todd and David Cross came to New York. Yeah, Tinkle, yeah. Tinkle at Pianos. And that was a venue that had comedy, alt comedy. There was a lot of those kind of shows coming up. I do know it waned. I remember it kind of waned. You know? And it became less vital.
Like, at the beginning it was very vital to me.
But do you think it became less vital because it became more mainstream?
Yeah, but you know, the heat came off it. I mean, dude, it was crazy down there. You know, like when something pops in New York, it's like this lines around the block. And then, like, I remember at some point it's like, nobody's... Ja, genau.
Having already done the comedy exploration thing, you're now faced with, am I just going back to clubs? Am I just going back to being a feature somewhere? Or do I take this new gig? Which is probably why at that time in your life, taking the radio gig made sense. Oh mein Gott, Alter.
Ich war so auf dem Spiegel. In den 90ern hatte ich noch nicht aufgewachsen. Ich war in einer Beziehung, mit der ich unglücklich war. Ich lebte in Queens. Sie wollte Kinder haben und ich wollte nur sterben. And I was doing segments on a local TV network. You remember that? The desk segments for Metro TV. And in my mind, I was like, well, maybe this will work out for me. I'll just find a local gig.
Because everything had crapped out. Deals crapped out. I did not build relationships on the road like you were supposed to. I wasn't doing the type of comedy that anybody wanted. I could work in San Francisco, I could work in Boston. There were places I would go and headline, but I wasn't a known quantity. So then the marriage breaks up in 99.
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Chapter 3: How did Marc Maron reflect on his early comedy days?
Right, he just didn't want to be funny. Und ich meine, ob er es wollte oder nicht, ich denke, er dachte, das ist der Publikum, den ich engagieren kann, welcher, zu seinem Redaktion, ist der Publikum, den er seitdem auf seinem eigenen Gig engagiert hat. Aber es ist so seltsam.
Ich habe nie, auch die original Air America, ich habe nie ein Teil von etwas, außer von diesem, außer von Break Room Live, wo es zu Verlust von Anfang an geblieben war. Wie es von Anfang an unbegründet war. Because the technology wasn't there. The technology wasn't there, the personnel was a problem. Karl should have said, absolutely not, no Sam.
If he wanted the thing that he ultimately wanted, which basically you and I then went and made as a podcast, it would have been better. But the dichotomy between you and Sam never allowed for the thing to gel, ever. Never.
I guess I felt bad about that, but I also didn't have confidence enough in myself because we had no writing staff. There was no set. There was no context. Karl had no idea about nothing. By the time you got in, we ended up building segments that would serve both Sam and I. But the bottom line was we were working with very new technology that wasn't Ja, genau.
Yeah, no, and it was this idea that it would come in the middle of the day. You know, a lot of websites around that time, mid-2000s, they had, you know, verticals on their site that would support like a tech window. That was the idea here, was you'd have a, this would help build Air America as a digital media brand that it would rival like the Huffington Post. That was the goal.
Und wenn das die Art von Show ist, die wir machen, dieses Live-Streaming-Ding, dann muss es sowohl absolut nichts sein, wie nur Produktion, zwei Leute zu sprechen und eine Agenda zu setzen und dann zurück und zurück zu gehen. Und das hat nicht funktioniert, weil du und Sam, oder wir müssen etwas Persönlichkeit in dieses Ding machen.
Wir müssen ein Show mit Charakteren machen, mit einer Vibe, richtig? Und das war, wo die Idee, es in der Break-Room zu machen, begann. Die Idee für Break Room, ich weiß nicht, wer es mitgebracht hat. Ich weiß genau, wie es geschehen ist. Wir hatten einen Tag, an dem wir das Studio nicht nutzen konnten. Und wir sagten, wir machen heute ein Show in der Küche. Gehen wir da rein.
Und dieser eine Tag war besser als alle anderen Tage, die wir gemacht haben. Weil du mit Mitarbeitern interagiert hast, als sie ins Restaurant kamen, um ihren Abendessen zu machen. Und wir wussten es, als der Tag fertig war. Wir waren so, das ist das Show. Like the dynamic that went on in there today, that's the show. So we went and pitched that. We should do this in the break room.
And it required a complete overhaul. We had to redo the website. We had to change everything that we had structured promotionally for this thing being called Marin v. Cedar. Now it's called Break Room Live. But it was actually probably easier as a technical undertaking because all they had to do was run some cables from next door to the break room. That was it.
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