Marc Maron: Difference between revisions

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Marc Maron (born September 27, 1963) is an American stand-up comedian.

He has been host of The Marc Maron Show, and co-host of both Morning Sedition, and Breakroom Live all politically-oriented shows, produced under the auspices of Air America Media. He was also the host of Comedy Central's Short Attention Span Theater for a year, replacing Jon Stewart. Maron has been a frequent guest on the Late Show with David Letterman and made 44 appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, (more than any other stand-up performer).^[1] He was a regular guest on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and hosted the short-lived U.S. version of the British TV Rock Trivia gameshow Never Mind the Buzzcocks on VH1.^[2]

Maron has been featured in his own specials on HBO and Comedy Central, as well as on comedy showcases such as the Cam Neely Foundation fundraiser, which also featured such performers as Jon Stewart, Denis Leary, and Steven Wright. He can briefly be seen in the film Almost Famous as the "Angry Promoter" who engages in quasi-martial arts fisticuffs with Noah Taylor, then chases the tour bus yelling "Lock the gates!" ^[3]

In May 2008, he toured with Eugene Mirman and Andy Kindler in Stand Uppity: "Comedy That Makes You Feel Better About Yourself and Superior to Others."

In January 2009, a collaboration with Sam Seder which had begun in September 2007 as a weekly hour-long video webcast became Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder, produced by Air America [1]. Until its cancellation in July 2009 the show was webcast live, weekdays at 3PM Eastern, with episodes archived for later viewing as well. In its final incarnation, the show was quite informal, taking place in the (actual) break room of Air America Media, with the cafeteria vending machines just off-camera. This meant occasional distractions when Air America staff and management alike would occasionally come in for food and drink. Maron and Seder also held court in an online "post-show chat" with viewers, in an even less formal continuation of each webcast, after the credits had rolled.

His first one-man show, Jerusalem Syndrome, had an extended off-Broadway run in 2000 and was released in book form in 2001. In 2009 he began workshopping another one-man show, Scorching The Earth. According to Maron (in Scorching The Earth) these two shows "bookend" his relationship with his second wife, comic Mishna Wolff, which ended in a bitter divorce.

During his career, Maron frequently appeared in the live alternative standup series he'd organized with Janeane Garofalo called "Eating It," which used the rock bar Luna Lounge in New York's Lower East Side as its venue from the 1990s until the building was razed in 2005.

In 1995, Maron auditioned for Saturday Night Live, when Lorne Michaels was overhauling the cast. He attributes his turndown to an awkward personal meeting with Michaels^[4]

From almost the first day of the progressive talk radio network Air America Radio's broadcasts in 2004, Maron co-hosted Morning Sedition, a three-hour early-morning radio show with Mark Riley, which aired weekdays from 6am-9am Eastern time. The show was unique in the Air America lineup, in its heavy reliance on both live and pre-produced sketch comedy, utilizing the talents of staff writers, as well as the on-air hosts. The format was a left-leaning near-satire of typical morning "Buddy" radio programs, including recurring characters, interviews and listener call-in segments, and it attracted a loyal fan base.

As 2005 waned, it became known that Maron's contract would not be renewed as of December 1, 2005 due to problems with then Air America executive Danny Goldberg. Goldberg reportedly did not "get" the comedy or agree with the satiric and often angry tone set by Maron and other writers (Jim Earl and Kent Jones) for a morning-drive time show. Removal of Maron constituted the disassembling of Morning Sedition causing many fans to circulate online petitions to the management of Air America Radio.

On Monday, November 28, 2005, it was officially announced that Maron's contract had indeed not been renewed. His last Morning Sedition broadcast was on December 16, 2005, and the show was discontinued shortly thereafter.

On February 28, 2006, Maron began hosting a nighttime radio program with Jim Earl as sidekick for KTLK Progressive Talk 1150AM in Los Angeles called The Marc Maron Show from 10:00PM PST until midnight PST. The program was frequently delayed (sometimes for over an hour) due KTLK's contractual agreement to broadcast local sports events - which would often go into overtime. The Marc Maron Show was never nationally syndicated by Air America Radio despite reported contractual clauses promising so. ^{[citation needed]} The show was streamed online live, but the show was not publicized, and the existence of the stream was not well promoted.

On July 5, 2006, it was announced that The Marc Maron Show's final episode would air July 14, 2006. A few days before that date, Maron bluntly discussed his long struggle with Air America Radio's executives on-air.

Following the cancellation of his self-titled show, Maron occasionally guest-hosted for other Air America Radio personalities. These included: Springer on the Radio on November 6, 2006 and The Sam Seder Show on December 1, 2006, the entire week of December 18–22, 2006, and on February 15 and 16, 2007. Beginning in October 2007 he again returned to the Air America airwaves, as an occasional fill-in for both Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes. He also had a regular guest appearance on The Sam Seder Show on the 3rd hour on Fridays (occasionally missed due to travel).

At his August 21, 2007 appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, Maron "riffed" on his separation and divorce from his second wife, Mishna Wolff.

In 2008, Marc and Sam Seder expanded their prior collaboration on a weekly hour-long video webcast (streamed at The Sam Seder Show website) into a daily show (and "post-show chat") produced by Air America Media called Maron v. Seder. The show became Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder starting in 2009, and could be viewed on Air America Media's website. On July 15, 2009, after less than one year, Air America Media canceled Breakroom Live. This was almost exactly three years since his previous Air America program - The Marc Maron Show had been canceled (on July 14, 2006). Past Breakroom Live episodes can still be found through Air America Media's website (as of this writing.)

According to the show's hosts, the reason given for the cancellation was financial. Ironically, the day before the cancellation, the show got some of the first real publicity it had received (outside of mentions on Air America's own website, and in Air America email newsletters) when maximumfun.org posted its podcast of an interview with Maron on The Sound of Young America.

On the final Breakroom Live webcast, Maron noted that this marked the third time since 2005 he'd been told by [an ever-changing series of executives at] the network that his services would not be required in the immediate future. Co-host Sam Seder pointed out that this would be the end of his fourth show at Air America since the troubled network's inception.

Early in 2009, Maron had begun workshopping a new long-form one-man show entitled Scorching The Earth, a dark yet comic examination of his separation and divorce from his second wife. Immediately following the demise of Breakroom Live, Maron brought a truncated version of the work to the Montreal Just for Laughs festival.

On September 1, 2009 a new twice-a-week podcast called WTF with Marc Maron debuted.

Marc Maron lived in an apartment in Astoria, Queens but revealed on the 22nd WTF podcast that he was moving back to Los Angeles and did so in the fall of 2009. On 19 August 2010 Marc released his 100th WTF episode.

• The Jerusalem Syndrome (2001) ISBN 978-0767908108

• Not Sold Out (2002)
• Tickets Still Available (2006)
• Final Engagement (2009)
• WTF with Marc Maron - Best of WTF, Vol. 1 (2010)

WTF with Marc Maron (see table for description and mp3 links)

• The Marc Maron Show
• Morning Sedition
• WTFpod

WTFPod.com

Wikiquote has quotations related to Marc Maron.

• Marc Maron at IMDb
• WTF with Marc Maron - Podcast
• Sam Seder and Marc Maron video webcast
• Break Room Live website - Archived Episodes
• November 2004 interview with Marc Maron
• Review of Marc's 2000 one-man-show, "Jerusalem Syndrome"
• Youtube:Marc Maron in Cameron Crowe's [Almost Famous]-(5 min 48 sec)
• Review of Marc's 2009 one-man-show, "Scorching The Earth"
• Review and Interview from 2009 Montreal "Just For Laughs" Festival run of "Scorching The Earth"
• Interview with Maron on The Sound of Young America from maximumfun.org
• Interview with Marc Maron on Music Life Radio
• Sedition Radio, a SHOUTcast stream of comedy and interviews from fan-archived episodes of Morning Sedition and The Marc Maron Show.

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