Sounds pretty insightful to me. There’s the old cliché that we become more conservative (read: reactionary-right-wing) as we age—but not everyone does.
Maher was always a fairly self-involved guy. But as he turned his focus on the State of California thwarting his home-improvements (don’t get him started!), he’s gone in that “all government is bad” Republican direction.
(Granted, that direction has been somewhat warped by Donald’s Imperial ambitions, in which government–meaning Donald–should control EVERYTHING.)
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This week’s show panel is Bill, Michael Smerconish, and Nancy Mace. The entire right-wing spectrum, going all the way from A to B!
OTOH, Maher is enough of a celebrity that he can attract famous and interesting people not only to his show, but to his basement man-cave for aimless chats, which are then released as the “Club Random” podcasts and YouTube videos that I mentioned earlier. Whereas I don’t know Marc Maron from a hole in the ground.
Probably true. Also true of a great many bright, creative people, so not exactly a put-down.
Maher has had right-wing nutjobs on the show many times. As he’s said many times, he himself is an old-school liberal, but the RWNJs can make for interesting conversation. And while I don’t know much about Smerconish, I don’t know why you’d lump him in with the likes of Nancy Mace. Smcerconish supported Obama in 2008.
Anyway, as I also said earlier, Maher pisses me off sometimes. There was no reason to have ape-man Tom Homan as his interview subject last week. But I’ll defend him when I think the facts are on his side.
One big difference I see between Maher and other stand-ups is that Maher doesn’t do self deprecating humor much and when he does it’s often a sort of humble brag. This makes his self absorption more stark.
This speaks more to your own general level of ignorance than the obscurity of Maron. Who is quite well know in several spheres, from stand-up to podcasting to acting.
“Fanboy for Bill Maher” is an odd description of someone who’s criticized him plenty, including right here in this thread. I just don’t concur with the unqualified hate, or believe that he’s 100% wrong about everything. I just find him reasonably entertaining, even if sometimes maddening, and enough people seem to agree with me that he’s had the same show on HBO for 23 years, a record that AFAIK was broken only by Carson on the Tonight Show. And HBO is not just any old network – they have a reputation for the quality of their original programming, and are also the home of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver which I like even better.
That’s a good point. He really doesn’t do self-deprecation at all.
That’s why I referenced a Right-Wing Spectrum. Basically the opposite of ‘lumping him in’ with Mace.
Smerconish bills himself as being a spokesman for the center, but arguably CNN showcases him as their proof that they are not providing left-leaning content. His take on Trump has always been ultra-normalizing: “Just give the guy a chance!” is a frequent theme of his commentaries.
But, yeah: not overtly MAGA. (I never said he was.)
Not that leftist self-deprecating humor is that widespread, but ability to make fun of oneself is especially rare among right-of-center types. It’s impossible to conceive of diehard MAGAs, for instance, laughing at themselves or other MAGAs.*
*there might be a touch of “humor” during infighting with their co-nimrods as they battle for public exposure, but only in a nasty, insulting way.
Yeah, I wouldn’t call you a fanboy. Just someone who watches his show and likes it sometimes and other times gripes about it (and Bill himself).
Maron’s podcast “WTF” is huge. He’s been running it since 2009, which was around the time that podcasts started going mainstream. One of his episodes (where he remembers an interview with Robin Williams, where Robin had discussed contemplating suicide) was later inducted into the Library of Congress. In 2014, his podcast was labeled the #1 comedy podcast by Rolling Stone. His show has won a number of awards over the years.
Anyone who listens to podcasts has probably heard of Marc Maron even if they’ve never heard his show.
I have not listened to it myself, I have a few podcasts I subscribe to and I can’t really keep up with the ones I have. So I can’t personally endorse it.
But I think at one point or another, every podcaster I listen to have brought him up as kind of the gold standard for comedy podcasts. (Most of what I listen to are comedy podcasts for the record.)
It’s like how every late night talk show host probably mentions Johnny Carson at some point.
I’m sure there are many people that I should know about that I don’t, and I acknowledge my ignorance in that respect. If my unfamiliarity with Marc Maron is an indicator of ignorance, so be it. OTOH, there are probably people I admire that many have never heard of. My circle of knowledge and that of the general population is similar but not a perfect overlap.
I agree. Maher reminds me of a friend of mine with whom I used to have long late-night philosophical arguments. He and Maher both had the same annoying habit, prior to making some point or rebuttal, of chuckling loudly because the argument they were making was – in their minds – so obvious and the point they were refuting so obviously stupid – in their minds – that it was downright funny (in their minds). I see this more often on “Club Random” than on the actual HBO show. My dear friend has now passed away but quite frankly both he and Maher were, each in their own way, pompous asses but had many things of value to say.
I only know the name because I watched a lot of standup comedy in the late 80s and early 90s and he hosted a show on Comedy Central. Other than being in GLOW, I had no idea what he’d been up to in the last thirty years. Good for him for being so successful.
Then you should know not to use your own knowledge or ignorance of someone as a debate point to support someone’s cultural worth, as you attempted to do with Maher vs Maron where you were clearly contrasting (your perception of ) Maher’s celebrity with (your perception of ) Maron’s lack thereof as though it countered anything Maron said.