by Marc Maron
JUDD APATOW—COMEDIAN, DIRECTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER
I often think it’s ridiculous that in this business, at some point you start to make a living at it, because it is the perfect example of something that you would do for free. I say to my kids, “I don’t know what you want to do for a living. I just lucked out that the thing I do pays well, but I would do it anyway. It’s just it happened to be a weird jackpot, but if it was like, eighteen grand a year, I probably would be doing it right now and we would be in a tiny apartment together.”
BOB ODENKIRK—ACTOR, WRITER, DIRECTOR, COMEDIAN
I told my little daughter this the other night. We were talking about some comedy scene that I’d showed her or she’d seen, and I said, “So you see, honey, that’s what comedy is. Comedy is about honesty.” Because that is a very core truth to me. For me, comedy has always been a way to be honest about shit. Like, just fucking say what you’re thinking.
GARRY SHANDLING—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR (1949–2016)
Needing to know the answer is an addiction. The truth actually is in the silence. People are afraid to have a silent moment. Silence is all the truth and all the wisdom in the world. You’ve got to stop fucking talking. Everybody is fucking talking and jumping up and giving their opinion too quickly.
JIM NORTON
I’m just trying to tell the truth. I’m not always right. I think most of us bat about .500. We’re right half the time, wrong half the time. Whenever we’re talking about the war or we’re talking about health care or any real issues, half the time people will agree with you. Half the time, they won’t. Half the time, I’ll be point on. Half the time, I can be proven wrong. It doesn’t matter as long as I’m truthful about the way I feel about it. Anyone who’s so married to an ideology that their opinions about things won’t change just because it doesn’t go hand in hand with the ideology is fraudulent anyway.
BOB SAGET—COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER
My mother said, “When you grow up, not everybody is going to like you,” and I said, “I need names.” Now I have the list. I know who they are. You can just Google.
MARIA BAMFORD—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
My favorite movie is Ratatouille, because the message is, “No matter how much people are disgusted by you, you’ve got to follow your dreams.”
SARAH SILVERMAN—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
I’m dreaming. I’m just sitting at home and dreaming and not feeling shitty about not knowing what’s next, but realizing instead that we’re just looking through a pinhole and we don’t know what the fuck’s coming up next. Instead of going, “Oh my God, what if I never have another show? What if, what if, what if?” You don’t have to predict what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen will unfold. The future’s going to happen whether you predict it or not.
In the meantime, why don’t you sit there and realize that everything that’s happened to you so far, you have not been able to predict? Just know that whatever’s coming is not anything you’re going to know right now. If you go, “Oh, there’s nothing out there. There’s no opportunities for me.” That’s how it’s always been. You know what I mean? We’re looking through a pinhole, and we don’t know what’s out there.
GARRY SHANDLING
We are all making decisions based on fear. We have to be very, very, very careful. The other thing we’re addicted to in America is the idea of security and trying to make everything permanent and solid and secure, when in fact, life itself is impermanent, not solid, but purely energy as proven by quantum mechanics.
The idea of trying to make it something secure and going as far as putting up walls around it is ignorance. It’s just ignorance. That’s all based on fear. We should do what we can to prevent terrorism, but this incredible panic about protecting what we have is what a human being on his own can’t do. There is nowhere in any religion, any philosophy, where it says once you have the stuff, make sure no one else gets it. We should be embarrassed.
RUPAUL CHARLES
There are two types of people: the people who believe the Matrix, lock, stock, and barrel, and the people who understand that this is all just a construct. This is all illusion. Those are the two types of people, and I’m always looking for the other people who were going, “Yes. It is illusion.” Against the mediocrity, the cultural expectations of Middle America and the American dream.
TOM SCHARPLING—COMEDIAN, WRITER, RADIO AND PODCAST HOST
I always have to think about just the next thing, and the thing after the thing, and the thing after that. I try to go for these walks, and I just leave my phone behind, and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll just try to reclaim it like a half hour at a time.
Does your leg ever feel like you feel the vibration and you don’t even have your phone in your pocket? What’s going on with that? That’s a new thing for the human condition. “Oh, yeah, I felt my upper thigh vibrate. Oh, my phone’s not in my pocket.” What is that? That’s like a sickness.
WHITNEY CUMMINGS—COMEDIAN, WRITER, PRODUCER, ACTOR
My favorite quote, and I’m really into quotes that I don’t know who said them, this one quote kind of changed my life. “Comparison is the worst form of violence against yourself.”
Marc
Wow.
Whitney
I know.
Marc
How about when I hit myself in the head with a hammer?
Whitney
I don’t know. That’s self-love in a lot of circles. That to me is a healthy relationship.
“Comparison is the worst form of violence against yourself.” I used to run around and say, “She has more than me, I should have more than her,” but that is just a way to self-abuse.
GARRY SHANDLING
I started to box about eleven years ago. The reason is twofold. One is it’s out of my comfort zone completely. I never was a kid who got into fights. The idea of really being in a ring where someone is going to start throwing punches was crazy to me. The main reason is that you don’t have time to think. It becomes completely intuitive. Someone is throwing a punch, you have to counter or you move or step back or you move but you can’t think about it. When you land a punch, you can’t think about it.
Marc
Are you good at it?
Garry
Well, I’m sure getting better than I was, which is better than getting worse.
Marc
Do you wear headgear?
Garry
I do. I wear headgear that goes from my head down to my knees. It’s the biggest one they’ve ever seen.
TOM SCHARPLING
I go down to Princeton a lot, and I’ll go down and walk around the town. It’s an amazing town. It’s absolutely beautiful. The campus is amazing. I’ll just walk around. I’m looking at this school, and it’s like, “Why didn’t I go here?” It haunts me.
There are times I’ll go down there and be like, “It’s a really great place for me to get my head straight and take in the beautiful campus and everything.” There are times where I walk around it and I’m just furious. It’s in my backyard. Bill Bradley was my hero as a kid. He went here. If I’m writing my story out, this is like a lock in terms of what my arc should have been. I walk around and it just haunts me. This school that should have been. This should have been my life.
Then I just start to think, “Man, if I went here, I probably would not be where I’m at now.” I wouldn’t trade that. I’m happy I’m where I’m at now, and I’m happy that I’ve got the skill set to stick up for myself in whatever weird version of sticking up for myself I do. I still do it in terms of a career. You navigate through things and you take punches. You get back. I don’t know if I would have that if I had gone to an Ivy League school and had the normal, ideal experience. I don’t know if I would have the skill set I’ve got now that is helping me get to do exciting things.
ANDY RICHTER—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
The only thing I really believe in is some form of yin and yang. Just in some sort of equali
zer. Just the fact that if something’s really good and something’s really awesome, there’s a price for it. It’s going to suck. It’s got to suck somehow. It’s got to be awful in many, many ways.
RUPAUL CHARLES
Coming down here on the 101, there was an accident across the freeway. But everyone on my side was slowing down to look. It’s like, “You know what? Govern your ass. Handle your shit, ladykins, because you’re the problem.” Everybody wants to look. It’s like, “It’s an accident.” Part of the rebel or the whatever in me is like, “I will not look. I will not be part of the problem. I won’t look. I won’t look.”
PAULA POUNDSTONE—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
I went backpacking with my daughter on Mount San Jacinto about two years ago now. In fact, it was February. We were in twelve feet of snow. We had the experience of getting dehydrated. I think because of the altitude and stuff. We weren’t gone long. It wasn’t long enough to risk life, but it did take us days to recover after we got home.
One thing that I noticed as we were hiking. We’d planned for this trip for a long time. It was a good thing to be doing. It was spectacular scenery, of course. We’re hiking along, and I’m noticing myself sort of sinking like a rock emotionally. I couldn’t figure out why. I’m like, “Wait. I’m where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing, with whom I want to be doing it. What’s the matter?”
Later, when I realized that we didn’t drink enough water, it actually was one of the most eye-opening things of my entire life. Do you know it’s really important to drink water? As it turns out. I drink a lot of diet soda. That does not help. I still drink a lot of diet soda. I know it’s not good for me, but I do enjoy it. I drink a lot of water now because it actually is connected to your emotional well-being, which is why, when you go to a therapist, they never say, “Would you like a glass of water?”
I realized that lives are complicated and all, but to some degree, some elements of happiness and balance are so much easier than I ever thought them to be. Drink some water and get a decent night’s sleep, and it’s the darnedest. All those years, all the therapy, all the angst, all the journaling, all the miserable phone calls. I look back on it now just with deep humiliation. It’s like, “Okay. Drink some water and go to bed.”
PENN JILLETTE—COMEDIAN, MAGICIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
My parents never had a drink of alcohol, never had any drugs. I’ve never had a sip of alcohol or any drug. They would never talk about it. They would never say, “So-and-so shouldn’t be drinking.” That never came up. Never a discussion of someone being a drunk. Every time someone says, “Why don’t you do drugs or drink?” they always want to make my father and mother into alcoholics, and see this horror of when I was a child. No one wants to accept the opposite. They want to have some traumatic moment. They want to have me be AA or something. I think because it’s just the story that’s told most, especially in the U.S. It’s not the international story, but kind of the American story, like that atheists are bitter.
One of the first questions you’ll get, if you’re an out-of-the-closet atheist, is, “I guess you were really fucked over by Christians, and they treated you badly.” “You went to Catholic school,” or they’ll go the other way and say, “Something really bad must have happened in your life.” In my experience with hardcore atheists, it tends to be if your family was so perfect that it made Leave It to Beaver look dysfunctional, that puts you on that road more. Because it’s the absolute truth. If your love from your parents is unconditional and constant, and they just nurture you properly, then you become twelve feet tall and bulletproof.
When people talk to me about the eternal love of Jesus Christ, I just go, “Jesus Christ going one-on-one with my mom, my mom wins.” My mom’s love was so unconditional, so pure, and provable, provable with apple pie, provable with smiles, provable with being there for me every single time I needed her. There’s proof.
LORNE MICHAELS—PRODUCER, WRITER, COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I have a family, which is really, as cliché as it sounds, the most important thing in my life. You sort of realize that you don’t have your work in lieu of a family. You just have this and a family. It’s a different feeling. One feeds the other. If you cannot care about the people you work with, you probably are going to have a hard time caring about the people you live with.
I think the reason I watch Yankee games is because there’s something about when you follow baseball, you understand why you need a third baseman. If somebody hits it in that area, and you don’t have anyone, you’re going to be very embarrassed.
There’s something about knowing you need others in order to be remarkable, that’s a big deal.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
You’ve got to prepare yourself for good things to come into your life, and also the bad things that come when you open yourself up to the world at large. That was the biggest change that happened in my thirties, that I had to make. It was like going back to learn my first chord on the guitar. I had to learn the first chord on myself and build it just the same way I built the craft of playing and singing. Slowly, step by step, angry, sometimes joyful, until finally I was able to put together a me that other people, once they got to know me, would be able to stand. Once I was able to do that, then kids come along and a wife and a relationship and you do your best to try and not fuck those things up as you go, which is not easy to do. But suddenly, you wake up one morning and there’s a life there.
CARL REINER—COMEDIAN, WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, ACTOR
You know what’s interesting? Downtrodden people, you can’t take music away from them. You can make yourself happy by singing or writing a song. You can’t take that away from them. You can take physical things away from them, but a sense of humor is necessary to get through life. You’ll kill yourself if you don’t have a sense of humor. How did the people live through the Holocaust? They must’ve found something worth living. I’m sure humor might’ve been on the line. It saves people.
AIMEE MANN—MUSICIAN, ACTOR
My attitude is, life is messy for everybody. It’s hard out there, man, and I get it. I certainly understand and have compassion for why you make decisions that don’t seem smart and end up damaging other people, because sometimes the right answer is not obvious, and everybody’s crazy. Everybody’s operating at a deficit, and everybody’s operating out of obsession and fear and desperation and longing. Life is messy. It’s not easy for anyone.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
The more you do something, you lose fear. I was talking to somebody the other day about why I actually think I’m a better president and would be a better candidate if I were running again than I ever have been. It’s sort of like an athlete, you might slow down a little bit, you might not jump as high as you used to, but I know what I’m doing and I’m fearless. You’re not pretending to be fearless.
Also part of that fearlessness is because you’ve screwed up enough times that it’s all happened. I’ve been through this. I’ve screwed up. I’ve been in the barrel tumbling down Niagara Falls, and I emerged and I lived. That’s such a liberating feeling. It’s one of the benefits of age.
It almost compensates for the fact that I can’t play basketball anymore.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Marc and Brendan wish to thank all WTF guests, past, present, and future, especially those whose contributions were used in this book. Thank you for your humor, generosity, and honesty. Thanks to John Oliver for writing the foreword. Thanks to Frank Cappello, Ashley Barnhill, Sam Varela, Sachi Ezura, Anastasia Kousak, Ashley Grashaw, and Jesse Thorn for your assistance on WTF throughout the years. Thanks to all the folks at Midroll, Libsyn, and iTunes who help get the podcast out into the world. Thanks to John Montagna, Nathan Smith, Dima Drjuchin, Jim Wirt, Travis Shinn, and Martin Celis for your personal artistic contributions to WTF. Thanks to Joanna Jordan, Abigail Parsons, Kelly Weber, Lindsey Johnson, Clare Bonsor, and Elizabeth Walid for getting many of these people to talk to us. Thanks to Colin Dic
kerman and James Melia for being great editors. Thanks to the rest of the Flatiron team, including Bob Miller, Marlena Bittner, Liz Keenan, Nancy Trypuc, Molly Fonseca, Erin Gordon, Steven Seighman, David Lott, Emily Walters, Shelly Perron, and Keith Hayes. Thanks to Henry Sene Yee for designing the cover. Thanks to Laury Frieber for making sure we didn’t break the law. Thanks to Daniel Greenberg for representing us so well. Thanks to Olivia Wingate for being there at the very beginning. Thanks to David Martin and Kelly Van Valkenburg for making sure everything got signed. Thanks to Harvey Altman and Rob Urio for making sure everything got deposited.
Marc: Thanks to all the people who listened to me, talked to me, and put up with me. Without them I literally wouldn’t know who I am or if I exist. I also want to thank Sarah Cain. She’s a trouper. I love her.
Brendan: Thank you, Mike and Dorothy McDonald. My gratitude is the least I can give you in return for raising me so well. Thank you, Ian McDonald. You were the first person to teach me what was funny and why—a quality older-brother move. Thank you, Marc Maron. I have the career of my dreams because of your talent, your trust, and your friendship. Thank you, Owen McDonald. You are the greatest thing I ever produced. Thank you, Dawn McDonald. You are the reason I strive to be my best every day. I love you. Sorry I had to go away for days at a time to work on this book. I’ll be around more now.
INDEX
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