If you’ve ever heard his podcast before, you can imagine the kind of emotionally incisive musings you’re going to find in Marc Maron’s Vice interview about WTF. Of course, that doesn’t mean you aren’t to get choked up at the dignity he ascribes to all of our poop jokes. Says Maron, comedians “defy people to love them and if they can build something out of that, then they’ve got a truly dark and beautiful gift to give to the people who are willing to get it. Celine Dion never says, ‘Fuck them, fuck my audience.’” Out loud anyway.
Maron talks at length about the relationship he’s built with his listeners, which has formed in large part due to the intimate rapport he tries to foster with his interviewees (the occasional bizarre studio meltdown aside). “The risk of having an intimate conversation at this juncture in history is extraordinary. You want people to see you a certain way. People have become so self-involved and so career driven and so wary of being revealed,” he says. Maron later concludes, “I want to make sure everyone knows that comedy is good.” No one can say he isn’t doing all he can to get the word out.
