I just finished watching this on Netflix. A few months ago a roommate added HBO GO to the "options" in the living room, and after catching up with the last few years of surprisingly good HBO programming (Boardwalk Empire, Trailer Park Boys, and True Detective).
And then one day I saw a comedy series menu thumbnail with the name MARON in it. It was his HBO series that details a fictionalized version of his real life late-stage comedy success as a pod-cast recorder in his garage, bumbling through this all-too-relatable existential single male Gen-x crisis (even at age 27, I somehow relate to most of it), played out as though direction for the show came directly from his stream of consciousness.
I returned to Netflix after a few weeks of not watching much/any TV, I saw this new stand-up special and, never having seen anything else he's done (still haven't gotten around to his pod-cast for some reason), pressed play.
Ninety-some minutes later I feel like I'm an idiot for not following this guy for years. His deprecating everyman persona that he's seems to have just decided "fuck it, i'm just going to make fun of myself by talking about myself as if i were alone and in the giggly stage before teenagers fall asleep." Couple that with the guilt of relating to his descriptions of the baggage of his broken-yet-average upbringing, and you would be hard-pressed to find a modern philosopher that can paraphrase so many abstract bits of your own life in the natural and endearing way that Marc Maron serves it up.
If you loved Calvin and Hobbes as a kid, never became a team captain, tried a drug more than once, and more importantly over-analyzed a chapter in your past, than you will most likely feel the same way as I now do about him.
To summarize: I thought This live show was straight up hilarious, and multiple levels more complex and resolved than most other working comedians today. I think he does an as good, if not better job at relating to his audience than Louis C.K.
And then one day I saw a comedy series menu thumbnail with the name MARON in it. It was his HBO series that details a fictionalized version of his real life late-stage comedy success as a pod-cast recorder in his garage, bumbling through this all-too-relatable existential single male Gen-x crisis (even at age 27, I somehow relate to most of it), played out as though direction for the show came directly from his stream of consciousness.
I returned to Netflix after a few weeks of not watching much/any TV, I saw this new stand-up special and, never having seen anything else he's done (still haven't gotten around to his pod-cast for some reason), pressed play.
Ninety-some minutes later I feel like I'm an idiot for not following this guy for years. His deprecating everyman persona that he's seems to have just decided "fuck it, i'm just going to make fun of myself by talking about myself as if i were alone and in the giggly stage before teenagers fall asleep." Couple that with the guilt of relating to his descriptions of the baggage of his broken-yet-average upbringing, and you would be hard-pressed to find a modern philosopher that can paraphrase so many abstract bits of your own life in the natural and endearing way that Marc Maron serves it up.
If you loved Calvin and Hobbes as a kid, never became a team captain, tried a drug more than once, and more importantly over-analyzed a chapter in your past, than you will most likely feel the same way as I now do about him.
To summarize: I thought This live show was straight up hilarious, and multiple levels more complex and resolved than most other working comedians today. I think he does an as good, if not better job at relating to his audience than Louis C.K.