the difference between “I’ve been through that and this is what I’ve learned” and “I’m fucked. Everything sucks.” That said, be careful not to medicate bitterness because you’ve mistaken it for depression, because the truth is, you’re right: Everything does suck most of the time and there’s a fine line between bitterness and astute cultural observation.
I had many dreams as a teenager. One was to be an artist—any kind of artist, preferably a comic. And if I was a comic, I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live . I loved John Belushi and Chevy Chase. Nowadays, that dream doesn’t even make sense to me: Inever really did characters other than the one I am becoming and I certainly haven’t watched the show in years. But back in 1994 it almost happened. I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels.
Lorne had seen me a couple of times and was considering me for the cast of Saturday Night Live . Along with SNL , Michaels produced Late Night with Conan O’Brien . I had appeared on the O’Brien show the night before the meeting. I was feeling like a player. I had smoked a little weed that morning so I was a little buzzed. I was also reading Bruce Wagner’s Force Majeure and there were times when I wasn’t real clear whether I was a character in the book or what was happening was really happening. I was on the precipice of realizing a dream I had since I was a teenager. I had been waiting in the SNL lobby for about an hour and a half when the head writer of the show came out. He seemed more nervous than I was and stammered out, “Okay, he’s ready to see you.”
It was a private meeting in Lorne’s office. I walked in with the writer and Lorne was putting something on a bookshelf. Lorne Michaels is a big presence. He’s not really fat or tall, but in showbiz he is a god, possibly self-appointed. The head writer and I are standing there and he doesn’t acknowledge us. He just continues to work at the bookshelf. He has heard us walk in. It is already awkward.
The head writer is seeming increasingly nervous and eventually says, “Lorne, Marc Maron is here.”
Lorne turns around and says, “How was Conan last night?”
“Fine, it was good. It was.”
“Did they laugh at you? Were they laughing ?”
I looked at the head writer like what the fuck?
“Yeah, I did pretty well.”
“It’s better when they laugh , isn’t it?” he says.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
Then Lorne turns around and says, “I don’t know what youthink you are doing down there below Fourteenth Street, but it doesn’t matter.”
A few days before the meeting I had been featured with some other comics in a New York Times piece about the burgeoning alternative comedy scene on the Lower East Side. In retrospect, telling me this might have been the only reason Lorne had me into his office. He wanted to school me.
The meeting was off to an awkward start.
That was the beginning, weird. Then we all sit down. I’m there in front of his desk. In front of me, right behind a picture that’s facing him, there’s a little bowl of candy. I was tweaking about the whole situation. So everything suddenly felt very loaded and I was thinking, I’m not going to take any fucking candy. It’s a test of some kind. He’s testing my self-control. But how could that be the case given this show’s history? Maybe I should take the entire bowl and put it in my mouth and dance around the room like a clown. Then I’ll definitely get the show. I can’t talk with candy in my mouth .
I became very self-conscious.
I leave my head and check back into the situation at hand and Lorne is philosophizing. He speaks like everything he says is to be taken in on a very deep level. He is a man who clearly has the last word. He was in the middle of a long discourse that I had missed because I was thinking about the candy. He is saying, “You know, comedians are like monkeys.”
I laugh uncomfortably.
“People go to the zoo and they like the lion because
I had many dreams as a teenager. One was to be an artist—any kind of artist, preferably a comic. And if I was a comic, I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live . I loved John Belushi and Chevy Chase. Nowadays, that dream doesn’t even make sense to me: Inever really did characters other than the one I am becoming and I certainly haven’t watched the show in years. But back in 1994 it almost happened. I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels.
Lorne had seen me a couple of times and was considering me for the cast of Saturday Night Live . Along with SNL , Michaels produced Late Night with Conan O’Brien . I had appeared on the O’Brien show the night before the meeting. I was feeling like a player. I had smoked a little weed that morning so I was a little buzzed. I was also reading Bruce Wagner’s Force Majeure and there were times when I wasn’t real clear whether I was a character in the book or what was happening was really happening. I was on the precipice of realizing a dream I had since I was a teenager. I had been waiting in the SNL lobby for about an hour and a half when the head writer of the show came out. He seemed more nervous than I was and stammered out, “Okay, he’s ready to see you.”
It was a private meeting in Lorne’s office. I walked in with the writer and Lorne was putting something on a bookshelf. Lorne Michaels is a big presence. He’s not really fat or tall, but in showbiz he is a god, possibly self-appointed. The head writer and I are standing there and he doesn’t acknowledge us. He just continues to work at the bookshelf. He has heard us walk in. It is already awkward.
The head writer is seeming increasingly nervous and eventually says, “Lorne, Marc Maron is here.”
Lorne turns around and says, “How was Conan last night?”
“Fine, it was good. It was.”
“Did they laugh at you? Were they laughing ?”
I looked at the head writer like what the fuck?
“Yeah, I did pretty well.”
“It’s better when they laugh , isn’t it?” he says.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
Then Lorne turns around and says, “I don’t know what youthink you are doing down there below Fourteenth Street, but it doesn’t matter.”
A few days before the meeting I had been featured with some other comics in a New York Times piece about the burgeoning alternative comedy scene on the Lower East Side. In retrospect, telling me this might have been the only reason Lorne had me into his office. He wanted to school me.
The meeting was off to an awkward start.
That was the beginning, weird. Then we all sit down. I’m there in front of his desk. In front of me, right behind a picture that’s facing him, there’s a little bowl of candy. I was tweaking about the whole situation. So everything suddenly felt very loaded and I was thinking, I’m not going to take any fucking candy. It’s a test of some kind. He’s testing my self-control. But how could that be the case given this show’s history? Maybe I should take the entire bowl and put it in my mouth and dance around the room like a clown. Then I’ll definitely get the show. I can’t talk with candy in my mouth .
I became very self-conscious.
I leave my head and check back into the situation at hand and Lorne is philosophizing. He speaks like everything he says is to be taken in on a very deep level. He is a man who clearly has the last word. He was in the middle of a long discourse that I had missed because I was thinking about the candy. He is saying, “You know, comedians are like monkeys.”
I laugh uncomfortably.
“People go to the zoo and they like the lion because
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