Waiting for the Punch

by Marc Maron

  When I saw him for the first time in Scent of a Woman I just knew what true love was. I knew what love at first sight was and it was the strangest feeling, sitting in a movie theater thinking, he’s for me and I’m for him and that was it.

  Strange. Believe me, when I was a kid, just like eight, nine years old, I always thought I’d have Cary Grant in my movie or Harrison Ford. But something happened when I saw him.

  SAM SEDER—COMEDIAN, WRITER, DIRECTOR, ACTOR, RADIO HOST, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR

  I grew up with Jon Benjamin.

  Marc

  You guys were best friends?

  Sam

  Yes.

  Marc

  Like, when you were ten?

  Sam

  No, no, we were archenemies first.

  JON BENJAMIN—COMEDIAN, WRITER, DIRECTOR, ACTOR

  Sam was my actual bully in junior high.

  Marc

  And then you became friends? Why? Because you negotiated it?

  Jon

  No, we became friends later, probably out of desperation.

  I started prep school in seventh grade. I was a little guy. I loved disco, which was a very unpopular musical movement at the time. He was really “husky,” I guess would be the best word.

  Marc

  So he comes up to you and he says, “Hey, Shorty!” and you go, “What, Fatty?”

  Jon

  Well, no. He would want to beat me up. That was the thing.

  Marc

  He was a “beater-upper”?

  Jon

  Yeah, he would chase me and stuff like that, as I remember. I was terrified of him. He was, I think, fairly serious about it—although I don’t know if that was true at the time—about killing me. There was that feeling. He sort of ruined a good year in my life.

  SAM SEDER

  Jon’s sort of like a pathological liar. I mean, he’s a little bit reformed, but a lot of what he talks about, that stuff is imaginary. We were enemies, but then I think through high school I didn’t really deal with him at all.

  JON BENJAMIN

  In any event, Sam left that prep school, and I went to college in Connecticut. This small college. My parents are dropping me off, and I’m nervous about being there. My roommate was a very strange guy from Spanish Harlem. Not many people at Connecticut College from Spanish Harlem. I open the door across the hall, and Sam Seder is there. Which I thought, at the time, was like seeing the Virgin Mary, in a bad way.

  I just was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” That’s the guy who used to beat me up for a year and a half, now he’s practically my roommate. His dad is there, dropping off his clothes, and I’m like, “What are you doing here? This is going to be bad.”

  Then it ended up like that feel-good story you’d see on TV. We became best friends, through alcohol. We knew no one else, and he was like, “Let’s go get some beer and get drunk, and go to college.”

  SAM SEDER

  I know exactly the moment you and I met.

  Marc

  It was in Harvard Square.

  Sam

  Yes, and I had done an open mic. I was with a couple of friends who I had invited. You were walking with your soon-to-be first ex-wife. I said, “Oh, that’s Marc Maron.” You turned around, you were like fifteen yards ahead of us, I don’t know how you heard me, or maybe you sort of sensed that there were people, and you turned around, and you said, “Is there a problem?”

  That moment I remember really well, because at the time I was like, wow, he’s really cantankerous, but what I came to realize was that was your way of saying, “Can you ask me for my autograph?” That was basically what you were saying. “Is there a problem?” Like, why would there be? No, we’re in Harvard Square, we’re walking around. I don’t know, what possible problem is there? It was really you saying, “Hey, could you come over here and ask me for my autograph, please?” That’s what that was, and that dynamic is really I think what I’ve come to understand about you.

  Marc

  Like when I’m doing that, I just need attention?

  Sam

  That was the subtext.

  Marc

  The subtext of “fuck you” is “come on, let’s hang out”?

  Sam

  Right.

  Marc

  Yeah, that’s true.

  Sam

  Well, it’s not even just hang out.

  Marc

  It’s like “take care of me”?

  Sam

  No, it’s not even take care of me, it’s like …

  Marc

  Celebrate me.

  Sam

  Yeah. Exactly.

  Marc

  Are we all right, me and you?

  LOUIS CK—COMEDIAN, WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, ACTOR

  We’re under development. You’re one of the people I’ve known longer than almost anybody.

  Marc

  For some reason over the years, despite whatever happens in our lives, I feel very close to you as a friend. When you were having trouble and your marriage was falling apart, I had this idea of your life in my head and I hadn’t really been in touch with you at all. And then when you told me what was going on, I was like, “Holy shit. How did I miss your entire life?” And then I got very saddened by the fact that I had been out of your life, and then some resentment happened.

  Louis

  We were best friends for a long time. A long, long time. It’s hard. There are times when it’s hard to be your friend’s friend.

  Marc

  Well, it’s not like I have any new friends.

  Louis

  Oh, that’s good. So I wasn’t replaced. Good. That would feel worse.

  As far as trying to stay friends with somebody that you have a hard time thinking about what they’re doing against what you’re doing, focus on them needing a friend. It takes a good friend to stay with you in hard times. It takes a good friend to stay with you in good times. Everybody needs support, everybody does. So you’re letting me down, if you see me doing something and you have a hard time coming to terms with it because of how you’re feeling about your own life. What’s really happening is you’re letting me down as a friend. You’re being a shitty friend by being jealous.

  I coulda used you. I got divorced. I got a show canceled. I could have used a friend. Those times that were making you jealous, I was struggling. But you shut me out because you were having a hard time. And then I did it to you, out of resentment.

  Marc

  Well, can we get back on track or what?

  Louis

  Yeah. I think we can.

  Marc

  You understand me. Not a lot of people do. You were always able to give me a great deal of relief.

  Louis

  We understand each other’s flaws really well. We share some, and we’ve known each other long enough. That’s why we’re able to tell each other things that we don’t want to tell anyone else.

  Marc

  Well, I love you, man.

  Louis

  Yeah. Same here.

  Marc

  Let’s just try to be better friends.

  Louis

  Okay.

  PARENTING

  “I Was Doing It the Wrong Way”

  I think anyone who knows my work at all knows I am not too happy with the way I was parented. It’s okay. You can’t choose them. It’s random. I’m not mad at them anymore. It is their fault that I struggle in the ways that I do in certain areas of my life, but life does go on. How emotionally crippled you let yourself be does become a choice if you are self-aware enough. I believe it is difficult to unfuck yourself completely, but at the very least you can train yourself to act better and hope that it will take.

  I really had no idea what people were talking about when they talked about self-parenting: what it meant and that it is necessary. Obviously, I know the basics, like living alone, paying bills, shopping, cleaning myself, how to get online, and mailing a letter. The emoti
onal component is different. It’s not essential that you have to be emotionally healthy to survive. Sometimes the opposite is true. In the last decade or so it’s become very clear to me that the choices I’ve made with my life were weird, extreme attempts at self-parenting and self-acceptance. Most of my creativity is a corrective.

  As someone who is not a parent, I wind up learning a lot from people who are. Ali Wong came into my garage and pumped breast milk in the middle of our interview. It was an important moment for me, seeing that level of commitment and devotion from a new mother. A similar thing happened when I was talking with Louis CK about his kids and he got choked up recalling the emotional moment of his first daughter’s birth. I’ve known Louis for decades, but I’m not sure I ever saw him cry. A big part of my brain is awestruck by people who put in the arduous work of parenting. It’s probably why it terrified me most of my life.

  The one thing I have done for the longest in my life is stand-up. I wanted to be seen, heard, and to be myself. I wanted the audience to be my parents. I wasn’t looking for adoration or love because I didn’t trust either. I just wanted to be myself and be accepted. I fought with audiences for years because I thought they were judging me, and of course they were. That’s what they do. I would go out of my way for years to defy their liking me and I thought it was just my style. If they liked me, I would alienate them, just like a kid fights with his parents.

  I would exhaust my friends, girlfriends, and audiences with needs that could never be met because the time to meet them was gone and my parents had dropped the ball. I had to put the cap on my personality and accept that those old childish needs weren’t going to ever be met and that’s okay. I’m okay. I’m me. That is self-parenting. It’s painful. I don’t think I fully processed the grief of not getting my needs met when I was a kid. I had to be humbled by life, accept that, get sober, stop yelling at girlfriends and wives, stop draining my friends, treat myself better, and be proud of what I do.

  I have self-acceptance now. Age helps. I didn’t really grow up until I was in my late forties. I brought myself up pretty well. I’m glad I never had kids. I just didn’t want to put them through my own selfish struggle with being a grown-up. It wouldn’t be fair. I have cats. They don’t talk and they barely like me. It’s perfect.

  AMY POEHLER—COMEDIAN, WRITER, PRODUCER, ACTOR

  I don’t like anyone else’s kids. You think having kids makes you like all kids, but it doesn’t. You just like your kids. Especially if you’re by yourself because you’re like, I don’t have my kids now. This is the time where I’m supposed to pretend like I’m twenty-four and traveling the world by myself.

  LESLIE JONES—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR

  Children are crazy. We are crazy because we’re full of hormones, we’re full of new beginnings, we’re full of veins that are being developed. We are crazy. I hate to say it like this, but they are like pets, because you have to train them. That energy goes somewhere. It’s either going to go for the positive or is going to go for the negative, and my mom knew that about me because I was that kid.

  My first comedy special is named Problem Child because my mom used to call me that. She sat me down one day and she was like, “You know you are a problem child, right?” It wasn’t even like I was doing things on purpose, I was just a clown and I did not know it. I was just always in trouble.

  ALI WONG—COMEDIAN, WRITER

  So many people discouraged me from having a kid because they were like, “Why are you going to have a kid? We’re never going to see you again.” It’s true. It’s very rare to see a female comic who has a kid or is pregnant. Female stand-up comics don’t get pregnant because once they do have a baby, they disappear. They become a martyr and then they stop doing stand-up, but that’s not the case with male stand-up comics. Male stand-up comics, they have a baby and they get up onstage a week after the baby’s born, talk about it, and then they’ll complain about how the baby’s shitty and they’re boring and annoying and all these other shitty dads in the audience are like, “That’s hilarious. I identify.”

  Then their fame just swells because now they’re this relatable family funny man all the sudden, and they get an HBO special and a sitcom deal, and the mom is at home suffering with bloody nipples, broken pussy, career over, and so, for me, I had a lot of anxiety about it being over once I had a kid, and I was like, “I’m not going to let that happen. I don’t want even being pregnant to slow me down.” I planned it that way because I was like, “I need to know for myself that this is not the end.”

  LAKE BELL—ACTOR, WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER

  I birthed at home. It was very important to me. I would do it again, even though if you asked me right after, I’d be like “Fuck you.” It’s just a massacre.

  Also, I just had no idea that it was that hardcore. I knew birth would be insane, but I didn’t know the aftermath was insane. Nobody tells you about that. You’re like, “Oh, I’m injured. I am an injured person.” I thought I would just kind of bounce back. I make lists, I’m kind of organized, and I felt like, all right, I’ll be able to kind of troubleshoot this new priority shift.

  It was just like I was hit by a wave. I didn’t know what the fuck happened. I totally was depressed. All that chemical shit happened to me.

  Partially I think why I wanted to do it at home was, I just was like, this is going to be my thing. I want this experience, I want to feel it, I want to be there. I’m impressed with this whole mechanism, my body’s just kind of operating. I got very nervous about whether I’d know what to do. The truth is, your body knows what to do.

  ALI WONG

  It’s just so weird to me when people have these overarching statements about what it’s like to have kids because it’s so different. Do we make any overarching statements about what it’s like to have parents? Every parent is different and every kid is different.

  Like breast-feeding. Basically, breast-feeding is super sensitive because some women don’t have time, and they want to go back to work or maybe they don’t have enough milk in their breasts to breast-feed. But on the west side of Los Angeles, there are these crazy lactivists that make you feel like your daughter’s going to turn into a prostitute if you don’t breast-feed.

  CAROLINE RHEA—COMEDIAN AND ACTOR

  I remember the first time I was pumping, my boyfriend walked in. I said, “If you never want to have an erection again, ever, you will watch me pump.” It is the grossest. First of all, that noise. And you are literally in a pasture by yourself. But you know, it’s important.

  I was not going to breast-feed because I got gestational diabetes. I actually lost twelve pounds. I think it’s hilarious. The only time in my life I’ve really consistently lost weight I was in my final trimester of pregnancy. My boyfriend was so afraid of me because I was so angry, but he says, “You know, breast-feeding is really good for the baby.” I’m like, “I’m not doing that. It’s disgusting!” Of course the minute the baby was born, I looked at the baby, and I’m like, “Oh my God, does she have eyelashes? Could I have some Häagen-Dazs?”

  After I’d been resugared and I felt better, of course I breast-fed, and it’s the most painful thing. That’s what the epidural is for. It’s unbelievably painful. Everyone says how natural it is. No. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, and it’s totally bonding, and it’s ridiculously painful. They put so much pressure on you at the hospital. They literally say to you, when they ask you if you’re going to breast-feed, they say it like this, “Do you love your baby?” I’m crying, “I love my baby.” You don’t know that they have invisible shark teeth. Rows and rows of them. But it’s the most rewarding thing and you have to do it for your baby.

  LAKE BELL

  When you are all of a sudden bedridden, you can’t walk upstairs, and you’re torn, and you’re literally beaten up. There’s this little thing that is insatiable, like I don’t know what she needs, or I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I also have this person that I share my life with tha
t can go down to the shop and get something, but I can’t. That’s frustrating.

  ELIZABETH BANKS—ACTOR, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER

  Women should not be expected to bounce back. It’s I think a true disservice with all this going on right now with these celebrity moms. First, I just want to remind people that celebrities generally are genetically superior human beings on a certain level anyway. They’re mostly thin, they’ve got trainers, they work out, they’ve got money, they’ve got the ability. If you’re holding up certain celebrities as your benchmark for what to look like after you’ve had a child, just go be with your kid for a minute. Don’t get to the gym right away. It’s all right.

  MARY LYNN RAJSKUB—COMEDIAN, ACTOR

  I never really thought about having a kid. There was one time where I called my mom and started crying out of nowhere. I was on the freeway, and I called her. I said, “I’m too old to be a young mother,” but I didn’t even necessarily want to be a mother. I was just having that passage-of-time thing. I was like, “Oh, I’m not having a baby in my twenties.”

  It was terrible when the baby was born. It was really, really hard. Your whole life as you know it is just completely shaken up and turned upside down, and pushed all over the place. Just, everything that you want to do, everything that you are doing, you can’t do any of it. Even just simply waking up every three hours, and being enraged about that, and you can’t, because there’s this helpless creature. It pushes your buttons on every level of having to deal with being responsible for something. Everything else that you thought had meaning is just stupid. “Oh, this job or that job.” This is a creature. Everything else is like, “Who cares? Who cares about all these things that I was worried about?” They don’t matter when your job is to keep something alive, and to take care of it.