Marc Maron (pictured) does stand-up, hosts a popular podcast, and his TV show is beginning its second season; at the TV upfronts in New York, the never-ending search for Latino audiences goes on; an artist-turned-radio producer seeks to find out why he's compelled to draw while riding the subway.
Marc Maron talks about resentment and how everything could still go wrong
Comedian Marc Maron's career is about connecting with anyone who's willing to connect with him. He says he wants to engage with celebrities, with listeners, with everyone.
Maron's currently doing everything from a stand-up tour to podcasting to unleashing a new season of his IFC show "Maron" upon the world.
"All those things are not in a day, obviously," Maron says. "That would be a hell of a day, if that were a day. Days are filled — this morning I met with a friend at the coffee shop to talk personal stuff. Now, I'm going to talk relatively personal stuff with you. Then I'm going to go back to my house and do a short interview with Richard Lewis to help him promote what he's got going on."
What makes a WTF interview?
When it comes to what makes the cut for a guest booking on his "WTF" podcast, Maron says it's about desire.
"Am I interested? I don't know everybody. A lot of times people have to say, 'Do you know this guy?'"
The first few years of "WTF" guests were largely people Maron knew, though he's also worked with bookers to get larger celebrities. He doesn't do press junket interviews because that's not what his show is about, but he's willing to get someone during a junket if that'll make the interview happen.
"The point of the interview primarily with me is to connect with a new person," Maron says. "If you listen to the first 200, it's just me having celebrities in the garage to help me with my problems. I mean, they may not have known that, but I think they did. That's how the whole thing evolved, is I have a sort of innate need to connect, and over time I've grown a broader ability to empathize and engage and listen in an emotional way that I don't think was possible at the very beginning."
Maron says that his own needs have changed over the years, but that he finds he's moved by people's stories and enjoys the process of conversation. The pursuit of conversation means there isn't much prep that goes into a "WTF" interview.
"I generally don't do thorough research. I do not make a list of questions, because then I'm hinged to them, and I will know too much going in."
Maron says he doesn't believe in the old saying that, in an interview, you should know the answer before you ask the question.
"The only times where I've regretted not having questions is when people do not play along with the conversation, or they do not engage in conversation. Then you sort of think, 'It'd be helpful if I had some questions,' because I'd like to follow the conversation wherever it goes organically."
Maron tries to get a sense of who someone is, he says, and if they've had a broad career or are there to promote something, he's sensitive to that.
"I generally focus on where they come from, what their life might have looked like, what their journey was professionally, doing vague research — the type of research almost anyone could do."
Interviewing musicians and filmmakers
He says it's a little tricker with musicians than other types of guests.
"When you like a musician, it's like, I like those two records. And then all of a sudden you look them up, and they've done 90 records. So are you going to sit and listen to 90 records? I have, I've done that. It doesn't necessarily change the interview at all, but I do want to have respect."
One of those instances: When he had on Maynard James Keenan from Tool.
"I listened to all the Tool records — which, you've really got to be a fairly angry teenage boy to engage with — but I was doing it a couple years ago. But we ended up talking about parrots."
Maron says he worries with filmmakers that he'll end up having missed a movie and that it'll hurt the conversation, but when he had Paul Thomas Anderson on, he ended up having an engaging conversation about how he felt about Anderson's films.
"So it's really from my personal knowledge, and just maybe bolstering that a little bit with getting a sense of who I think they are, and then a lot of times, they diminish that sense."
'Maron' on TV
The IFC show is a heightened, alternate look at the real life of Marc Maron, but he says that there's still truth in it. "It's all the actual story," even when it isn't literally true, Maron says.
One of the most popular episodes of his show was "Radio Cowboy," which shifted from Maron to largely focus on the character of Phil Hendrie. Maron says it explored something he doesn't think has been explored much: The paradigm shift from away from people listening to traditional radio, the kind with morning zoo crews and wacky sound effects.
"I have a lot of respect for real radio people, and to see somebody work a board ... efficiently, especially alone, is pretty phenomenal," Maron says. "And it's silly, it's ridiculous, it's tedious, it's annoying, but it's an amazing skill set — it just doesn't have relevance that much anymore."
Watch Maron talking about morning radio in his stand-up (warning: contains adult language):
Over time, Maron says that he's getting better as an actor — he looks back at the first season and sees himself being a little tight, but by the third season, he's become comfortable in the role of himself. Maron says he didn't realize the first season that he needed to define the TV version of himself.
"Because it's not based on a life — these are 22-minute stories. They're teleplays, they're little movies. They're not based on a 24-hour life cycle, or even perhaps the full emotional range of me within a particular situation."
Maron says that certain parts of his personality make it into the show, including a certain "curmudgeonliness" that he says isn't necessarily who he is 24 hours a day, but that provides something for the show to base itself around.
How everything could go wrong
The new season of "Maron's" through line is his character pursuing bigger opportunity, he says, following him as he develops a talk show. But there's more than that.
"What this season really explores is 'What if the worst that could happen, happens?'" Maron says. "The career trajectory stuff takes a real turn — but not an impossible turn. So it departs from my real life, but not emotionally, because everyone who knows me and knows the character knows that what happens this season is possible, but you hope it doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't happen."
Maron says that the way things could go awry was driven home to him when a fan came up to him on the street.
"This guy's like, 'Oh my God, Marc Maron, I love you man! I love everything you do! I've been with you since the beginning, man. I'm so behind everything you're doing, I'm really rooting for you, you're great. It's such a thrill to meet you. How's it going?' And I go, 'Well, everything's all right. I'm just hoping I don't screw everything up.' He's like, 'You will! You will! But we'll be there for you! We'll support you still. We're looking forward to it,' almost."
Leaving behind resentment
Maron's grown a lot from the beginning of his show, when the sense of resentment was palpable (as Maron himself openly acknowledges).
"Some of those resentments have gone away, definitely. But some of them — there's still a way that any individual, no matter what they do in their life, no matter what success they achieve — and I'm not saying this is for everybody — but they're always going to judge themselves against another," Maron says. "It takes a sort of discipline for the type of person that experiences this to say that person's success has nothing to do with you, and to believe that. It does not imply anything about you. That might just imply an inability to enjoy one's own life."
Maron says he's achieved a life with more self-acceptance and that he's thrilled to be making a living in show business and selling tickets to his shows, as well as generating creative material.
"I'm a little tired. There's part of my brain that's sort of like, 'All right, so I did everything that I wanted to do — can I stop now? When do I stop?'"
The resentment issues in Maron's life have become more about why he's not even more successful than he already is.
"It's just this feeling of, well, why don't more people really — why am I not for everybody? And I don't even want to be for everybody — I'm barely for me. So I'm thrilled that I have this audience, but there's still part of me that's like, 'Why am I not Kanye?' I don't understand why I don't have that notoriety and that popularity."
Maron says he's trying to remind himself to understand not to be driven by insecurity and competition.
"There's no real winning, there's no game, other than being content with who you are and having peace of mind."
A world where podcasts didn't exist
Maron says that things like self-acceptance and success wouldn't be quite so possible without podcasting having lifted his profile.
"I would be scrambling. By the time I started doing the podcast, I didn't know how anything was going to turn around, because traditional TV was not really happening for me; stand-up comedy, I was not selling tickets."
At the time, other opportunities just weren't working out for Maron.
"It's a sad sort of fantasy. I probably, knowing the relative cowardice I have about making dramatic changes, would just be plugging away miserably, doing stand-up for a limited number of people."
The Maron family
One place where the TV show gives a real intimacy is in its depiction of Maron's family. He says that the show gives him a chance to not just rewrite history, but to project theoretical situations that will never happen.
In one scene about his family, he says that it looks a lot like how he'd think things would be like if it were possible for his family to be together in a similar way in real life.
"A lot of this stuff is founded in real emotional dynamics. And I think that Sally Kellerman as my mother did a brilliant job. I think she is my mother. I think Judd Hirsch, once he focused on the type of depressive and personality, emotionally, that my father has, that all locked in."
He says that that projection continues in the next season with how he deals with his ex-wife.
"[The show is] a way to resolve things. I'm not sure my father saw it the same way in terms of how he was characterized. My mother was very thrilled, even though her character seems a little nutty too, but I think my father felt a little bit betrayed by it, or that it was too personal."
Maron says that he tried explaining his point of view on the show to his dad.
"I say, 'Well look, this is my life. You're part of my life. If I'm going to experience or use my life as a place of exploration or creativity, this is the way I see it.' And I don't know that he necessarily even was arguing with the depiction. He was arguing with the necessity of it."
What motivates Maron now
Through all of it, Maron's learned how to tell when he's doing a good job.
"I know when I'm doing a podcast and I'm having a great conversation. Like if I feel engaged and something amazing is happening, I feel it, and I'll call my producer Brendan. I'll say, 'This is good. And I'm excited to put it up.' And that happens a lot."
Maron says that, with the show, knowing that he's doing well has come with watching his evolution as an actor and seeing the show's stories come together.
"And actually, for me, just having the feeling of watching something I've made without going, 'I can't even watch it! This is killing me!' I used to not even be able to watch myself do stand-up."
Maron says it's still difficult. He's been recording sets he's doing on the road in order to turn them into a new hour of material — around 20 sets so far — and he still hasn't listened to them. Still, he finds joy in doing stand-up.
"The moments I like about stand-up is when something happens that is completely unplanned, by anybody, me especially," Maron says. He works out new material on stage, so, "My process protects me from being consistent."
Maron knows there's a certain danger when you put yourself on stage in front of people, or online.
"Everybody's just one tweet away from having to leave the country, disappear, go into Twitter Protection Program."
In the end, he wants people to laugh. While recording his interview with the Frame, he kept looking over to the producer booth.
"I'm looking to see if I'm getting laughs!"
Maron says he actually likes having the tables turned and doing interviews of his own — especially when interviewers get away from the usual to ask him things he hasn't been asked or thought about before. So next time you run into him in the street, try to ask him something new rather than telling him you know he'll fail.
"Maron" returns on IFC on Thursday, May 14.
Using science to find out why one artist was compelled to draw people on the subway
Scientists are using fMRI machines to study what happens in our brains when we watch movies, hear music — or freestyle rap. I wondered if all this research on creativity and the brain could help me figure out why I feel compelled to create art in a strange location.
Breaking a cardinal rule in New York City
When I lived in Los Angeles, I went to art school and then worked as an animation storyboard artist. Getting to work, I had so much road rage stuck on the freeway and trying to avoid gridlock on surface streets.
Eventually, I moved to New York to get into public radio. I felt more fulfilled in my career, but I had the opposite problem on the way to work. The subway rides were boring and tedious.
Then I discovered an app called SketchBook. You draw directly on your phone with your fingers. So I started sketching people on the train.
Now I’m breaking a cardinal rule — looking at my fellow New Yorkers. I try to be sneaky, but I’ve been yelled at. People have moved to other seats. One guy drew a cartoon of me on his hand and wrote “Death” with an arrow pointing to my caricature (which was actually pretty good).
I started to wonder, what is going on in my brain that compels me to do this? When I worked in animation I got paid to draw. I don’t even sell these subway drawings. I could stop anytime. Actually I did stop after that guy threatened me — but only for a week. So why do I keep at it?
There isn’t a lot of research on how our brains function when we draw. But there is a lot of information on how the brain takes in visual information.
Drawing and the brain
First, I visited David Sulzer, who runs an fMRI lab at Columbia University. He says your brain is breaking down all that visual information separately — it recognizes the shape, then the color, then distance. Those different synapses talk to each other to create this image in your mind’s eye. So how does your brain know it’s looking at a work of art?
“These things in my book are learned. They are cultural,” he says. “If what’s rewarding is intrinsic then we should all like the same things. And to some extent we do, but to a very large extent and probably what we define as art — we don’t.”
Then he picks Goya as an example. “You could say, well look, Goya could draw better than anybody and we call him a genius. You know what’s different between a Goya drawing and, uh, who can I pick on?” I volunteer myself. I ain’t no Goya.
“You’re not Goya, so an Eric drawing and a Goya drawing — are we going to see that at the level of fMRI?” he asks, and then responds, “Absolutely not.”
Switching an inner monologue on and off
Ed Vessel runs the Center for Neural Science at NYU, and he says different things are going on in your brain when you look at artwork — and his research can explain why I feel so compelled to draw on the subway.
He recently did a study where he puts his subjects into an fMRI machine. Then he flashed images of paintings. The subjects were asked to click a button when they had a reaction to a painting — any reaction.
“There can be a painting that is not necessarily beautiful in the conventional sense — and may even be deeply disturbing — but that we really emotionally resonate with,” he explains.
Normally when he puts subjects into an fMRI machine, the motor functions of their brains take over because he’s asking them to do boring stuff like pressing keys on a keyboard. That brain region, which gets suppressed, is called the default mode network. It’s an automatic internal monologue that Vessel images as, “Hmm, I wonder what I should do tomorrow, or maybe I should do this, or I forgot to do that, or what was that person I saw this morning, and what did they say to me?”
Vessel explains, “Normally these two are very separate. Normally I can drive down the road and I can respond to cars coming at me and I can put on my turn signal and I can have my internal monologue going on separately.”
But when his subjects felt moved by a work of art, the internal monologue was activated. Even more interesting, it got switched on after the image had gone away, in a moment of reflection. The artwork was almost literally speaking to them.
The happiness in creative flow
That’s when I realized why I feel compelled to draw on the subway. I don’t like my default mode network. It’s full of neurotic chatter. When I draw, I’m merging that inner monologue with my motor functions into one creative stream.
It’s that flow that keeps me at it. Researchers have looked at the state of flow as it relates to happiness. It’s not something you can detect on an fMRI, but it is real. And you don’t have to draw to tap that experience. It could be knitting, or yoga. It's whatever you feel good doing, even if it puts you in a precarious situation — like drawing testy New Yorkers riding the subway to work.
Eric Molinsky is the host/producer of the bi-weekly podcast "Imaginary Worlds," about sci-fi and other fantasy genres — how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief.
Upfronts: NBC courts Latino viewers, Spanish-language TV courts millennials
The networks are going hard after the Latino audience, and Los Angeles Times reporter Yvonne Villarreal joined the Frame to break down the efforts from both English and Spanish-language media at the network upfront presentations.
Hot & Bothered
NBC is the network going the hardest with Latino programming. This show from the network stars Eva Longoria.
"It's basically a self-referential series. She plays a telenovela star, and it's about her life and what's going on in her love life, too," says Villarreal.
Shades of Blue
This NBC show stars Jennifer Lopez as a member of law enforcement, balancing her work with family life along with corruption. The actual "Out of Sight" TV spinoff didn't work, so maybe putting J. Lo back in the field from her acting peak will catch on. It also looks to provide her with a post-"American Idol" escape hatch (along with her recently announced Las Vegas residency).
Superstore
America Ferrera, whose "Ugly Betty" seems to have been a bit ahead of its time with the success of shows like "Jane the Virgin," comes back to primetime in a comedy — also from NBC.
"I don't know how much of [the new Latino programming] is just the success of 'Jane the Virgin,' because 'Jane The Virgin,' while critics love it, isn't a huge ratings hit for the CW," says Villarreal.
"But with shows like 'Empire' and 'Scandal' showing the power of shows with diversity, I think networks just started waking up to [the idea that] this is the way we can tap into this audience."
Not all the new aims at Latino audiences have been a hit — ABC just canceled "Cristela," the sitcom starring Latina comic Cristela Alonzo.
"I think one of the gripes Cristela has been vocal about is not having enough marketing for the show — ABC wasn't doing enough to promote it, so maybe there's a lesson there," Villarreal says.
Alonzo wrote about the experience of the show and its cancelation in a long blog post earlier this week.
Univision
The Spanish-language network faces the loss of a flagship show "Sabado Gigante," which is going away after being on the air in one form or another since 1962.
"They haven't really discussed what they're going to do Saturday night, but they have a show from Simon Cowell called 'La Banda,' which is their version of their singing competition, and it has Ricky Martin as one of its judges," Villarreal says.
The network also has several partnerships, including Robert Rodriguez's El Rey channel and Fusion, a joint venture with Disney. Univision is using both of those channels to super-serve bilingual millennials," Villarreal says.
The network also had a high-profile guest to kick of its upfronts presentation: Bill Clinton.
"Bill was there to tout the growing power of the Latino consumer," Villarreal says. "He noted that when he was president about two decades ago, it was more common for young Latinos to drop out of school or help support families, and he emphasized that now they're more likely to stay in school and their level of education and prosperity has increased. And so he was telling advertisers, 'If I were you, I would study the changing demographic very carefully.'"
Telemundo
The network is launching "La Sorpresa de Tu Vida" ("The Surprise of Your Life"), a weekly two-hour Saturday night show with younger hosts.
"Their approach with it is making dreams come true and surprising contestants," Villarreal says.
The family-oriented show is set to bring in celebrities and special guests to help fulfilling dreams.
The programming that Villarreal is the most excited about: two musical biopics, capitalizing on the success of "Empire," on two of the biggest stars in the history of Spanish-language music: Celia Cruz and Juan Gabriel.
"It's interesting because these are superstars that maybe our grandparents know better," Villarreal says.
She wonders how pairing the older names with a younger format will do with younger viewers. We'll all find out next season.