Marc Maron and Friends: Real…Rare…Stand Up

by February 1st, 2009 - Culture » Performance »

Eventually something came unstuck in his mind and Oliver wrapped up his set nicely, giving way to a much larger and aggressive set by Marc Maron. It was an effective if unbalanced bookend for the night, as he brought out some of his own material on topics hit on by the other comedians and his fevered progression brought him into darker and more personal areas. While he made note that he very strongly does not like those that think some comedians use their comedy as a form of free therapy, in a very useful way it can at least stylistically be categorized Psychiatric Comedy.

I remember many years ago watching an Aspen Comedy Festival performance of his on Comedy Central. Even to the audience at home it was very obvious that the festival audience was something extraordinarily terrible and you could certainly catch this vibe staring into the eyes of Maron as he took the stage, instantly realizing the bit of fate ahead of him and deciding to throw a conceptual molotov at the whole damn thing, launching a very long set almost exclusively on the subject of suicide and the meaninglessness of life. Terribly interesting and enjoyable…and uncomfortably funny with the head to head clash of hate between performer and audience.

This night did not rival that performance, but Maron certainly did get into his gift of dark, crass, extremely personal and unguarded humor as he launched into tales of unsuccessfully seducing the naked pictures sent to him by admirers on his cell phone and masturbating to the ghost memory of his ex-wife’s ass amid the judging gaze of his litter of cats. Thankfully, there was present the wonderful national geographic shock and awe culture clash of an older couple who’s expectations seemed to have been a bit more generic when deciding to join a stand up audience that night.

Disturbingly, however, it wasn’t just these two that reacted somewhat coldly to some of his material. And it was indeed a cold somewhat subtly indignant hush hovering around some of his material, not simply a guffaw put to rhythm by a shaking of the head, but a true sighing judgment from quite a few in attendance. In a city and a particular community within it that is so often perhaps fictionally celebrated for the uncensored cutting edge and a collection of open minds that thrive on the limits of what can be said, it has turned into, or perhaps has always truly been, not a collection of minds, but rather a collective of frightened PC policing thoughts that suck the unadulterated joy out of everything for everyone in the room, resulting instead in a world of soft applause life support of more mediocre, redundant, but more safely acceptable art forms and points of view.

But fuck those soulless, possibly exaggerated fools. I still enjoyed it immensely and would love to see more nights like it. Overhearing an off-stage comment by Marc Maron, it seems he is somewhat interested in semi-regularly doing such shows as well.

Here’s hoping…

A real…rare night, not only because the price of a ticket was so little for such an awesome trio of talent, but more so the very nature of the night, which allowed established comedians to try out new material and the audience – at least me – to be struck in the face that these personalities previously perceived as isolated in the other worlds of television and stage, in fact come from and return to the audience.

Additionally, though I’m certain each of the comedians are doing several significant things in the near future, I would like to make note of Marc Maron’s upcoming performance of apparently new-ish material, Scorching the Earth, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York city on Feb. 21st.

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