What the...
Last week, Marc Maron announced that after nearly 16 years, he’s shutting down WTF with Marc Maron, his trailblazing podcast, effective this fall.
Twice a week, every week, Marc’s been churning out conversations with comedians, musicians, artists, actors, directors, all manner of artists (and, famously, President Obama). No surprise, then, that he and his producer Brendan McDonald are “burnt out.”
When something that’s been as frequent a presence in your life as WTF has been in mine, you can’t help but take some time to consider the impact of it going away.
I started listening to WTF sometime in 2012, and when it comes to a close, it’s definitely going to leave a void for me — not only because I find the show entertaining, but also because I’ve developed an intense, maybe even obsessive, one-way relationship with Marc.
I can imagine the questions that will start to creep into my mind once the show is gone.
How will I know what Marc’s up to? What movies is he watching? Who is he hanging out with? What’s up with his parents? How are his cats doing? Did he ever get his refrigerator fixed? How is he feeling about his weight? Has he found any new vegan restaurants he likes? What am I supposed to do now?
And I’m sure I won’t be the only having those thoughts.
Back in early pandemic times, I wrote an essay on the odd nature of one-way friendships in the age of podcasts, focusing specifically on my relationship with Marc. I never tried to get it published anywhere. It was just one in a series of pieces I wrote to help me cope with the uncertainty and anxiety of the period.
I thought of it again this week in the wake of Marc’s announcement. So I thought I’d publish it below.
(Also, I wrote about Marc’s comedy special From Bleak to Dark back in February 2023.)
May 23, 2020
My Friend / Lynn Shelton
I’m generally imperturbable, not frequently prone to surprise. But when my friend Zoë texted me one day last week to say that Lynn Shelton had died, I was truly shocked. And upset. And finding myself grappling with a set of confusing feelings that people have probably felt for as long as celebrity has been a thing.
Lynn Shelton was 54 years old. She was a filmmaker and television director. While we’ve all been in lockdown of one kind or another – physical, emotional – during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve grown accustomed to hearing about famous people getting sick, some even dying.
But Lynn Shelton didn’t die from the virus. She apparently died from a previously undetected blood disorder. A couple weeks ago, she was said to be ill with what sounded like strep throat. Within a few days she was gone.
But here’s the thing about me and Lynn Shelton – my feelings about her death had very little to do with her. They had everything to do with her romantic and artistic partner, comedian Marc Maron.
Maron and his podcast WTF have been in my life twice a week, every week, since sometime in the summer of 2012, when Zoë suggested I give it a listen.
Since then, no matter where I’ve been living, where I’ve been traveling, whom I’ve been dating or not dating, Marc has been with me every Monday and Thursday, without fail. I haven’t missed a single episode.
The podcast medium can be an intensely personal experience for the person speaking into the microphone and the person listening on the other end. And probably no one speaking into the mic has laid himself as emotionally bare as Marc.
By his telling, he started WTF out of desperation in 2009 when he felt like his career just wasn’t panning out. He didn’t know what else to do with himself, so he started the podcast with his former radio producer Brendan McDonald, inviting comedy friends to be guests and just chat.
Before each conversation, Marc would always spend time talking about what was going on with him. These intros could go all over the map, encompassing the joys of pulling off a great stand-up performance, comparing the relative merits of nicotine lozenges and nicotine gum, something he was feeling guilty about having recently eaten, resentment toward his self-involved parents, the challenges of caring for feral cats, a record he had been digging lately, ranting about trolls on Twitter… ranting about a lot of things, actually.
For a long time, the podcast was polarizing, because Marc was polarizing. His slightly raspy, slightly lispy voice was not for everyone. His tendency toward abrasiveness and anger could put people off. Most of my friends didn’t listen to him.
But he was also smart, insightful, a great conversationalist, funny and brutally honest about himself. He was a real person with real struggles, who also happened to be a talented entertainer. And he was doing the podcast, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. It was like pushing out a new episode every Monday and Thursday was the only thing he could do to cope with the world. His pain and struggle and need to express himself were there for anyone to hear.
As I tend to do – when I fall for something or someone, I fall hard, and I became an obsessive listener. It didn’t matter if I was a huge fan of his guest or had never heard of them. Hearing Marc unpack their stories and careers was always enlightening and interesting. But I think for me, the feeling of having a friendship with Marc was what kept me coming back. Yes, he could be abrasive, and sometimes he said things that made you cringe. But his idiosyncrasies were kind of the point.
I read his books, saw him perform live in New Haven, watched his eponymous TV series, along with most of the other shows, films and specials he did as he slowly clawed his way to Hollywood success. It was like watching a friend’s album improbably climb the charts.
The true joy of the experience was hearing and seeing Marc evolve and grow as a person and an artist into his mid-50s. As he seemed to get a better handle on his demons, his work got richer and his fame grew (or maybe it was the other way around). The bitterness and anger receded a bit, replaced by appreciation and pride, a little bit of hard-won satisfaction with his place in life.
Cut to last July. Marc was starring in an indie film called Sword of Trust, directed by Lynn Shelton. Following a screening of the film, they were to appear together for a Q&A at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.
I bought a ticket, of course.
The movie was quirky and weird, Marc basically doing what Marc does, playing a version of himself. When the lights came up, Lynn and Marc took the stage, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I don’t remember anything in particular about what they said, but what sticks with me is how Marc slouched and fidgeted in his chair, just as I imagined he would. And how much fun it was to see him. And what great chemistry he seemed to have with Lynn. (And how a power outage had plunged a wide swath of Manhattan into darkness during the screening. But that’s a separate story.)
Little did I know that in a few months, Marc would casually mention one day on the podcast that his relationship with “Sara the Painter” had ended some time ago, and that he and Lynn Shelton were dating.
It all made perfect sense.
Over the ensuing months, Marc’s happiness was palpable. Even though the darkness of the Trump era weighed on him, his career was still climbing the charts, and he seemed to be in a loving and rewarding relationship with a fellow artist, collaborator and peer. As a listener, it was amazingly gratifying to hear. My friend had finally put together the pieces of his life in a totally fulfilling and satisfying way.
And then Lynn was gone. Shock. Sadness. Pain.
Which brings me back to my point about the strangeness of celebrity and friendship and death. I didn’t personally know Lynn Shelton. I’ve never met Marc Maron in the literal sense of the word. He wouldn’t look twice at me if we passed on the street.
Yet when Zoë texted me about Lynn’s death, I was so upset — for Marc. For my friend.
In normal circumstances, when a friend’s loved one dies, you know what to do. You comfort them as best you can, offer your support and love. But what do you do when you don’t actually know your friend? What do you do with those feelings?
All I can do is keep listening. I hope he’s okay.