July 15, 2013 Books by comedians in the 1980s and 1990s were often little more than retooled versions of their stand-up routines, but in recent years, memoirs and essay collections from the likes of Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt have shown that comedians have more than the next laugh on their minds. Marc Maron’s bestselling collection of personal essays, Attempting Normal (Spiegel & Grau, 2013), sits among these, though not comfortably: Maron never seems comfortable, especially when he’s eating at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack.
Marc Maron is in many ways a transitional figure in the evolution of the American comedy scene. He once had the job of cutting lines of cocaine for superstar Sam Kinison and was also among the vanguard of New York’s Luna Lounge scene of alternative comedians. Maron hosted a clip show on Comedy Central, published a version on his one-man show, The Jerusalem Syndrome, co-hosted morning drive for the ill-fated Air America radio network, and was facing career oblivion as an unbookable road comic when he started his podcast, WTF, in 2009.
The basis for Maron’s career resurgence is a brutal openness about his own fears and failings. The success of his twice-weekly podcast, which is downloaded tens of millions of times every year, has allowed him to become a big draw on the road and to expand into television with his IFC sitcom, Maron. The publishing world also came back to him for his memoir/essay collection, Attempting Normal.
In this podcast interview, Maron talks about his desire to return to Prince’s, his difficult relationship with food in general, and the benefits of delayed gratification he enjoyed when writing his memoir and television series. Marc Maron will appear at Zanie’s Comedy Night Club in Nashville on July 18, 2013, at 7:30 p.m., on July 19 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m., and on July 20 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets are $25.
