Marc Maron on grieving Lynn Shelton and the first joke he made about her death.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Getting people to laugh at how social distancing made the mourning process lonely and awkward: Nowthatschallenging.
Maron spoke at length onGood Onefor the first time about the process of writing material about losing Shelton.
Two months into the pandemic, Lynn passed.
Obviously, this was a special circumstance, but Im curious how it felt in the moment.
How do you think about that episode that you put out?I dont know.
I havent listened to it again.
I was in complete shock and severely traumatized.
We dont have to ever do anything.
I wasnt looking for recognition or even love or anything else.
This is an inevitability about life.
It is, I think, in the abstract for most people, the idea that we die.
Id never sought out the conversation around it or listened to anybody go through it.
As a fan of yours, I think youre a person who has a tendency toward more catastrophic thinking.
What was that like?I dont go to self-pity.
Im not really that person.
I mean, I think I was justifiably angry.
Everyone, I think, is in some degree of grief.
I mean, if you just show up with some food, it really goes a long way.
[Chokes up.]
I think it really is a powerful thing when people show up.
Like, when she died, I hadnt really even spent time with her family.
But I didnt think it was my place.
So that was awkward and horrifying.
I was just being approached, but it was true.
Out of respect, I stopped really talking about it publicly other than my podcast.
At the time, you talked about thinking maybe you wouldnt, maybe you were done with comedy.
I think you once said, Maybe Im cured, I dont have to do this.Maybe Im all better.
But I started doing Instagram Lives compulsorily on a daily basis.
I got a lot of peculiar fans from that.
Thank God I didnt!
I didnt do any outdoor shows.
I didnt do any Zoom shows.
If its not, well see.
But as soon as people went back to clubs, I was like,The race is on!
It was just brutal.
I mean, some people like that shit.
I did a whole CD, thatFinal EngagementCD.
I was a mess.
But Louie Katz, a comic, he was like, Man, that one helped me.
That one was the best one.
I was going through a breakup, and I listened to it a lot during that.
I was like, Thank God!
You might be the only one!
But it wasnt so much too soon.
Its so right there, and its so hilarious, but its brutal, man.
Its like an old-school misdirect joke.Yup!
I mean, when I watched it, I was like,Thats the spirit of comedy in me.
Im not sure when or how I started talking about her.
Every day with vaccines: Are we testing?
Are we getting vaccines?
Are we going out again?
It was devastating, and I dont think we really talk about it.
The way it happened was me just talking about what was happening.
And then the hummingbird thing sort of evolved, and it all came from just talking about it.
I could sit in it because the space was held by my fans.
Thered be a sort of rawness to it.
Thats a good answer.I dont know that its about maturity.
Its not like I just wrote a great tag.
No, Im totally relying on the muses of whatever.
Maybe it was indulgent, but I wasnt promoting it as a finished show.
But dealing with death is different because its not bitter.
Its a different kind of rawness.
I mean, its not everybodys idea of entertainment.
Im not sure itwasentertainment.
But I dont know that I thought about the audience.
I mean, Ive had to accept that Im definitely not an arena act.
I have a good business going.
I have people who respect what I do.
I think Im doing great work.
Until two days ago, Im not sure I would have considered myself a dark comedian.
This is the area that I live in.
I can do light stuff I talk about my cats!
But the timing of this thing for me, in terms of where we are culturally … Whatever I did on this special, those are the real risks.
And the fact that that line could counter that I just thought was amazing.
And I didnt know what to do with that.
I didnt even know if it was wrong, in a way.
Wrong that you had the thought at all?Well, just that: Was it morally inappropriate?
And then Im like,What are you talking about?
Youve done the worst kinds of things onstage.
Theres nothing I havent done onstage.
And also the idea ofWhat would she expect out of me?
Would she like it?
I had only talked about that onstage a couple of times, and it became part of the special.
What were you hoping to communicate?Im just saying that theyre hacks, and its an angle.
Thats really the big unsaid thing, is that anti-woke is the new hack.
Theres no nuance to it.
But this is just an excuse to ride the momentum of an audience thats been built on these premises.
They are the hacks, and they are the groupthink victims.
Its really kind of profound.
Its up to you.
You do have that right.
But it did sort of have that feeling of,Is this wrong?
They cant speak for themselves!
They dont have a public-facing leader that we know of!
Its like Jack Kevorkian, right?
I used to do a bit about that.
I should bring it back, too.
It was a great bit.
I dont know if I gave it away or not.
So that was a real question, because I rode an edge with that.
I knew the jig was up and it was bound to happen that someone will have lost someone.
And I said, Did you lose somebody in a plane crash?
and she goes, Yes.
And I go, Im so sorry.
Ill do my cancer chunk now, and that relieved the tension.
Where did that come from?Ive tried to do those kinds of shows.
It always felt like kind of an excuse.
Youre so locked in doing the performance of the mourners Kaddish.I am, yeah.
I just love the sound of that.
Its so great for non-Jews.
Like, if youre a Jew, youve heard that melody a million times.
But if youre not a Jew, its sort of like,Oh my God!
Hes really Jewing it!
And also, just the nature of shiva was okay, because it was raw.
We had to go to the house she had rented; she had just moved.
So that was helpful.
That was the intention.
I mean, I dont know what else to do in the face of normalized antisemitism.
Do we shut up?
Its just one of these things.
I did it in my last special too.
Because the last special, we were in the middle of a fascist takeover of our country!
So I was freaking out every fucking day.
And during this special, he was still president when COVID hit!
It was a nightmare waking up every day to his dumb face, and then to this horrible disease.
I dont know if Im making that better, but I do know that its the opposite of hiding.
Youre making it undeniable.
I mean, its a little aggressive.
But thats the point.
Its literally the definition of what provocative is.
It is to provoke a response.We get it, Jew!
Youve acted more and more in the last ten years than you have before.
Do you feel like the acting work youve done has translated to your stand-up?
So Im like,All right, now do some other things.
I enjoy physical comedians.
Its my guilty pleasure.
Id much rather watch some goofball than somebody whos like me, and I always envied it.
Im sure they feed each other.
You were last on the podcaston March 13, 2020, right when the pandemic started.
Like, an hour after we spoke, Donald Trump declared a state of national emergency.Really?
This was before the shutdown.
I think what I did find is that that is really going to be the big struggle.
So theres something about audiences … What does that mean?
Yeah, I mean, I definitely embrace it.
I would not be an actor without her, really.
I dont remember when we started shooting that, but it was within that first year of her passing.
And I thought,I have to do this for her.
I have to use these emotions and honor her and take this chance.
So yeah, I mean, I venture to do those things.
I really always wonder about those jokes.
Because you say in the special she would have liked that joke.Im not sure.
Well, yeah, Ill now wait for the lights to go out.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
