Marc Maron Talks His New Netflix special, Season 4 Of ‘GLOW’ And Being 85% Woke

Honestly, at first Marc Maron’s new Netflix special seems like it might be kind of a downer. For starters, it’s called End Times Fun, and secondly, the trailer reveals Maron sitting on a stool dressed in a white button-down and vest, like a professor about to lecture the class about how everyone failed the test (and in this case, the failed test is the possible downfall of humanity).

But as the special starts, the 56-year-old stand-up, actor, and podcaster does was he does best: managing to talk about very important, dark, serious things while also managing to be really funny and entertaining at the same time. It feels kind of like a magic trick. It also feels like something only someone with Maron’s years of club experience could manage to pull off.

During his hour, Maron takes on everything from crappiness of climate change to to crappiness of Marvel movies, building tension in the room to red-alert levels before release it again, to laughter. In a way, he’s doing what he’s always done, both as a stand-up and as the host of his WTF podcast, but here it’s somehow warmer (even given the subject matter), impeccably structured, and strangely engrossing. It also has a personal warmth and deprecation that’s lacking from other notable political comics—it doesn’t feel like a screed by a know-it-all who’s telling you how things should be or why we’ve screwed up, it feels like a friend who’s honest analysis make us feel better understood and less alone. Allllmost comforted, but not quite.

We chatted with Maron about his creative process putting together End Times Fun, his thoughts about what we can do to save the world (besides bringing your own bags), and his feelings heading into filming the last season of GLOW.

Forbes: A lot is going on with you right now, and also the world is falling apart. Can you relax at all?

Marc Maron: I do. I try to. I like this last week I actually had a little cold and I was able to mess around and watch movies. I try to make time to relax. I’ve gotten better at it over time: shutting off my brain and not dumping as much toxic stuff into it. I just wanted exercise. I take hikes a couple of times a week. I don’t know if that’s relaxing, but it definitely clears my head.

What movies did you watch when you were sick?

The Criterion Channel. A Place in the Sun with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. What a dark movie. It’s really good. I watched a ZZ Top documentary and that documentary The Pharmacist on Netflix. I watched Better Call Saul. Lady in the Blue Dress with Denzel because I interviewed Don Cheadle yesterday. I wanted to see that one because that’s sort of when people noticed him for the first time.

Your new special is super political—and the theme is that all of it is moving us toward the end time. What should everybody be doing besides bringing their own bags to the grocery store? 

There’ve been indicators that we should have all been doing something years ago but there’s a lack of civic engagement. I’m guilty of it, too.

I think the compulsion here is to distract ourselves or try to rationalize it somehow or think that it’ll pass. It’s is just the nature of who we are as Americans, maybe even as people. I don’t even have kids and I’m panicking.

I’ve been doing the joke about the Coronavirus. I’ve been doing shows at The Comedy Store that are packed and everyone is going out. We have this pandemic, but Americans are like, but that doesn’t mean us, right? It’s not going to be bad here, is it?

So, I don’t know how we fight our own compulsions to rationalize and deny and entertain or the idea that we’re doing enough. We’re living a slow-motion kind of a train wreck and that doesn’t seem to be quite enough.

Do you think comedians have a responsibility to talk about this stuff? 

No. I think there’s a certain type of comic that does this—like how there are specialists in any field. It’s certainly not for everyone and it’s not for every comic.

How do you pull it off successfully? Because honestly, going into your special I was like: this is going to be a downer. But it really wasn’t. 

That was tricky, man.

I look at that special and I can see the entire arch of how I got here. My entire evolution intellectually, comedically—the evolution of my skillset. I can see my references. I can see who my heroes are in this special.

There was a period in my comedy where I was more confrontational. A little more intentionally provocative and making people uncomfortable. I really set out to make this palatable to everyone and to sort of come at it with my own sense of being grounded around the material, and also realizing that we’re all on the same boat.

I was careful to pace it. I knew at what point during the special that relief was needed from certain topics. The way it’s structured, there’re definitely points where I shift gears and sometimes I even say that I’m moving into something a little easier to digest before back into the deeper stuff.

I was very aware of that and I think it’s just from years of experience that I’ve been able to present this type of material fearlessly and with a tone that I think is charming and entertaining. 

There are a couple of really great moments where you built tension up kind of incredibly before releasing it for everyone.

We’ve got to take chances on stage. Like the last bit evolved over the last couple of years. I realized from doing it and from being empathetic that it was going to be challenging for people who believe certain things. It’s sort of a trick. I think it worked, but it took a while to get the rhythm and tone right.

I do all my writing through talking it through on stage—improvising and repetition. I was still discovering things up until a few days before I shot this thing, finding a through line and callbacks that would make it feel like one piece.

Your callbacks were really well-done in this special. Do you have any sort of formula for that?

No, it’s the fun of doing what I do in that they reveal themselves.

There is no formula to it, but after a couple of years of continuing to build new jokes, you start to see how things fit together. Why does the wizard portal work as a callback? Or why does it work as anything? I don’t know.

My favorite line in that special is my mother saying, this is from the restaurant we brought my son to. When it came up as a callback, it’s too funny to me for some reason. It’s so simple. It’s so harmless. I love doing it.

How often do you get out to do standup with your schedule?

I’m always out. What is today? Monday. I’ll put in today If I’m in LA, I go to the Comedy Store pretty much exclusively, and I’ll do three or four sets there Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

It’s like going to the gym. I go there, just work out a little bit. Try some new stuff. Got some new stuff going already and some stuff I didn’t use on the special that still is pretty viable.

I took some stuff out, believe it or not, that was pretty dark. I like it a lot, but I knew they would have had enough. And I’m glad I did because those pieces are getting better and funnier.

You mentioned in the special that you’re 85 percent woke. Which is very funny, but also I interview a lot of male comedians in their 50s, and you’re super woke for that demographic. How do you stay this woke and what are your feelings on how comedy has changed? You don’t seem very grumpy about the state of comedy like many of your peers.

No, I’m not grumpy about the state of comedy.

Look, if you’re incapable of self-examination and the examination of your own behavior, it doesn’t work.

I think that all men are on the spectrum of male toxicity. It goes from basic insensitivity and minor lack of respect to murder. So, you’ve got to figure out where you are on that spectrum and address it. I think the most difficult thing for men is really to be empathetic with women because we don’t like their lives. There’s a sensitivity that has to be engaged that I just don’t know that every man is up to.

If you are able to get there, it’s hard to continue thinking that you’re the victim because you can’t say certain things or act a certain way.

Men my age and older are stubborn. They’re set in their ways, but I think a lot of them are wiling. I just think that they have to be given the chance and afforded a little bit of leeway. They’re not monsters—I mean, there are monsters—but there are some dudes that are just basic assholes. They could get it, but they’re very defensive and oversensitive and reactive. They just have to be sadly kind of led like children.

And I think you’re doing some of that important child-leading work. 

I think my woke joke is an honest joke. I think I’m 85 percent woke and then the other 15 percent I keep to myself. The problem is that some men are like, why do I got to keep that to myself? Well, because it’s the right and decent thing to do.

If your comedy relies on this idea of political incorrectness or not being able to do things, you’re going to do whatever you want. No one is taking anyone’s right to speak away. But you’ll either have to deal with blowback or you can figure out why you want to say those things in the first place and what’s behind it.

People change habits. No one’s using the word Chinaman anymore. Language evolves. Culture evolves and people respecting other people is part of progress. It’s also part of being a progressive. I think there’s a way to be funny around this stuff and move the culture forward without digging in around being mad you can’t say tranny anymore or that bitch is a bad word. Really, that’s the hill you want to die on? Is that it? 

We only have one minute—can you talk to me about GLOW Season 4 before we go?

I don’t know much! I start shooting this week. I’m in eight of the 10 episodes, and they’ve shot one episode. I’ve read one script and it’s definitely going to be different than the other seasons—there’s a whole new world to it, it seems.

Are you excited?

Oh, absolutely! It’s sad that it’s the last season, but it’s good knowing it’s the last season, especially for the writers because now they can end it properly as opposed to sort of half ending it every season because you don’t know if it’s going to be the last. The writers of the show know that this is it, so we can go out the way they want to go out with it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.