I was up way too late last night, even though I shouldn’t have been. It’s been way too goddamn hot, and last night it had gotten so bad that there was no way I was going to fall asleep. But I wasn’t just awake; I was also feeling a little loopy and couldn’t get comfortable. So, instead of trying to meditate or cue up some SMR, I opened my phone. To my great surprise, I saw a notification for a new podcast entering my feed. The podcast was Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, but it was a little different than usual. Instead of a chat with a fan, as is usually released on Thursdays, Conan had published a chat with Marc Maron.
Maron and O’Brien have a long history together, beginning when the former was a frequent guest on the latter’s talk show. Now, decades later, Maron has his own talk show that is coming to an end, and Conan, having seen Maron in the hall at Sirius XM in NY, stopped him for a chat. Neither was prepared for the encounter. They did it on the fly, deciding to “raw dog” the situation, as Conan explained with a deadpan drawl to kick off the episode. He noted his excitement for raw-dogging Maron to a room of his disgusted employees, and it was a perfectly silly way to kick off a short interview.
The most striking aspect of the interview is how far Maron has come over the years. For a noted curmudgeon, he sounds like he’s in a really good place. Granted, he’s gone through a lot during his 16 years as a podcast host, including immense tragedy, but he’s come out the other end as a man who seems centered and happy, which is not how I would have described him when I first started listening to his show back in 2013. He’s been podcasting for a long time, but I do have to push back against something Conan says toward the beginning (not the raw-dogging part, that’s fine).
Conan makes several references to Marc Maron inventing podcasts, or even being there on the ground floor. Maron was definitely an early adopter, but it’s funny that Conan sang his podcast praises in front of his producer, Matt Gourley, who has been podcasting longer than Maron by almost four years. Gourley launched the improv podcast known as SuperEgo in early 2006, whereas WTF with Marc Maron didn’t hit the airwaves until late 2009. It’s a silly little thing to notice, but it cracked me up to hear Conan praise Maron as an elder podcaster while speaking to one of the eldest in the field.
This felt like a special episode, and I would have rather it go longer than it did (it’s barely half an hour), but it’s nice to have. Conan and Maron have the rapport of two people who have been friends for decades, and that’s just nice. It’s a good vibe to kick off your day with, and you can watch it below, or you can listen to it here, at EarWolf’s website, which I’m floored to find still exists. But watch it, download it, and you can say you were there too (Matt Gourley reference) when Conan O’Brien raw-dogged Marc Maron.
