I'll fess up: I rolled my eyes when I heard that Marc Maron was going to be the guest last night. I am not a fan of his. That's not to say that he's not a talented stand-up, since he is. And I like WTF just as much as everyone else. But I skip over his rants and just get to the interviews, although I think a lot of times he can be a bully on his own show.
I thought the stuff w/ Seder wasn't really anything interesting. I was really dubious about the show after that part and was paying a lot more attention to the basketball game.
But by the end of the show, I actually came away with a greater appreciation for Marc Maron and also found him to be really likable. Tom really did an AWESOME job interviewing him for the entire show -- it was completely different than any other episode and it really reshaped Maron in my mind. The stuff with them talking about Groupon made me legitimately laugh out loud, since I have no idea what the hell it is either but my wife's pretty obsessed with it.
The stuff with Mike at the end was also great and surreal. I'm really itching to go to Massa's at some point.
It also really made me appreciate Tom even more than I currently do. Professionally, I'm a journalist and one thing I've learned is that the best interviews are just conversations that you record (with the interviewee just steering things in a certain direction.) There are a bunch of people who are superb at this: Neil Strauss, Terry Gross, Howard Stern, Jesse Thorne, etc. Tom showed last night that he has that same gift and, if he just did an interview show, it'd be terrific.
So, Tom, kudos -- you did a great job doing something completely different than usual.