Tim and Eric on Marc Maron's WTF podcast talk about Irony, awkwardness and being in on the joke

VIDEO: Tim And Eric, It's Not Jackie Chan (Original)

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast: Episode 536 - Tim and Eric
MARC MARON: (23m) It was essentially that. It was the lameness that was hilarious. Intentional lameness.
TIM HEIDECKER: Intentional stupidity that you have to be on the same page with the idea that I'm not really suggesting that as a name
MARON: Of course and he got that immediately and history is made
HEIDECKER: Irony, that's the word. You all have to be on the same page that we're all f*cked and most things are garbage. Most products, whether its movies or TV shows or books are mostly garbage and mostly patronising to us

I've been in trouble the last few weeks with group emails. You create a shorthand with people where there's an understood context in how to interpret each other. You take things with a grain of salt and don't accept everything at face value. It's an invisible language between friends. When you expand the circle like you do with group emails, sometimes it gets lost. The two people who seem most at odds get the code but everyone else takes it seriously. The tone shifts, it gets weird.

Video Game Playthroughs of life: 'Review' with Forrest MacNeil [or Myles Barlow]

I grew up playing Videogames but have not played obsessively for close to a decade. The last game I recall being committed to was 'Super Mario Sunshine' (2002) for the Nintendo Gamecube. In the intervening years games have developed more realistic graphics and incorporated more engaging, moralistic narratives. With the online component and achievement building of personas and worlds in Games like 'Minecraft' and 'Second Life' there's a whole universe of Gaming I'm unfamiliar with.

Several of my friends are gamers and I'm often tantalized by their gaming conversations. I've never revisited gaming as I like to manage my "time sucks" which I know Gaming would be. Instead I just ask a lot of questions, consume shows like 'Good Game' or 'The Indoor Kids' and watch IGN Video Game Reviews.

A good friend told me that he found watching Video Game Walkthroughs a satisfying replacement to actually playing Videogames. He could engage with the emotion by being alongside the Player without having to expend as much mental energy and stress. I found this amusing at first but realised that a lot of our entertainment is passive anyway. We watch Sports without playing and enjoy Cooking shows without picking up a utensil or sampling the meal. This is what cinema is built on.

The thing that's different with Playthroughs is that Videogames are already one level removed from reality, so observing someone playing is two levels removed from the actual experience.

VIDEO: The Last Of Us Gameplay Walkthrough Playthrough (Full game)

I started wondering how a Playthrough of life might look like and how appealing that would be. The closest I could come up with was the Documentary format, then I remembered 'Review with Myles Barlow', a satirical black comedy about a critic who reviews life experiences in response to viewer questions. The Australian show has since been adapted for American audiences by Andy Daly, 'Review with Forrest MacNeil'.

VIDEO: Review - Life as a Thief

A friend of mine recently Facebook posted that her Eevee evolving into Sylveon (Pokemon XY for Nintendo 3DS) was her "proudest achievement so far this year" which was met by congratulations all around. She remarked astutely "It's all the same to the reward centre of my brain".

Other posts on "Life as a Video Game"
- Dan Harmon and Duncan Trussell: We are in a simulation echo. God was originally a mortal programmer who "sacrificed himself as a player"
- Exploring Worlds in life and in Video Games - The Indoor Kids #59: Why we Play, with Pete Holmes
- Onnit Blog: Self Improvement in Video Games VS the "Real World"
- Kumail Nanjiani and Pete Holmes talk about "affecting the world TODAY"
- Skateboarders GoPro Train Derailment aftermath - 'Strange Days' visceral experience
- On being a Badass: Comedians Harland Williams and Pete Holmes featuring band 'Biting Elbows'

Apollo Robbins, master pickpocket featured in the New Yorker

I've often wondered why the things I'm most fascinated by are the things I should be most fearful of. I've always been drawn to charisma, psychology and manipulation. My most memorable encounter with it in real life was in Istanbul, Turkey when I was exposed to the "clip joint" scam. Now that I've been in South America a few months I've been alert to pickpockets. So far, only the sauce scam has been attempted on me;

I'd seen Apollo Robbins on one of my favourite shows, 'Brain Games' with Jason Silva but had never heard his full story until I found this interesting New Yorker article in a Porto Alegre hostel.

VIDEO: Apollo Robbins, The Master Pickpocket: Tricks of the Trade

A PICKPOCKET’S TALE: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins
by Adam Green for The New Yorker
Recently, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military have studied his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention. Teller, a good friend of Robbins’s, believes that widespread recognition is only a matter of time. “The popularity of crime as a sort of romantic thing in America is profoundly significant, and Apollo is tapping into that,” he told me. “If you think about it, magic itself has many of the hallmarks of criminal activity: You lie, you cheat, you try not to get caught—but it’s on a stage, it has a proscenium around it. When Apollo walks onstage, there’s a sense that he might have one foot outside the proscenium. He takes a low crime and turns it into an art form.

Harmony Korine and James Franco in conversation with Marc Maron: Taste, performance art and playing a character

'Spring Breakers' Harmony Korine and James Franco
in conversation with Marc Maron on a live WTF in Austin

Marc Maron talks to renaissance man James Franco about how much of his projects are genuine. As someone who navigates the world of Blockbuster movies, Arthouse, Soap Operas, Tabloids and Art, Marc tries to understand where Franco's "performance" starts and ends:

WTF with Marc Maron: Episode 374 - James Franco, Harmony Korine, Nate Bargatze, Peter Sagal
MARC MARON: (1h 06m 30s) Why did you do the 'General Hospital' thing was that an experiment?
HARMONY KORINE: You just wanna ask why he does so much shit
MARC MARON: No no because after he hosted the Academy Awards, afterwards people were like "Is he f*cking around?" What was going on with that. You do the General Hospital thing and you make a documentary on that. Where does the goof end?
...
JAMES FRANCO: There's just different levels of engagement. There's no reason not to be able to do all different sides. When I go and act in a film like 'Oz'. I Play the Wizard of Oz and the goof ends. I wanna fit in that world. I'm not trying to wink at the audience and say hey its me the actor behind the character. I want that character to fit into that world. But as soon as I'm done with that project there's no reason why I have to stand behind the facades of these characters and be noone...
MARON: So when you were doing the General Hospital thing, was that funny to you?
FRANCO: I mean it started off like as you said an experiment. I was talking to an artist friend of mine and we were gonna do a movie where my character had formerly been in a Soap Opera. And that got us talking about "Hey what if you were really in a Soap Opera?". And I'd also been reading this book by this guy called Carl Wilson called something like 'Journey to the End of Taste'... the conclusion he gets is that different people get different things from art or culture...

It strikes me that Franco is embodying the privilege that Camus envisions of the Actor in 'Myth of Sisyphus', someone who truly embraces the absurdity of life. Marc in typical comedic fashion takes a shot at Franco for being too precious but to the Actor's credit Franco reiterates the importance of "staying in character".

JAMES FRANCO: (1h 11m) Before I went on, I thought "Oh am I going to have to act Soap Opera style?". And when I got there, a big lesson for me was how important context is and how context transforms a performance...
MARC MARON: And sometimes you just can't transcend the context
FRANCO: No it transforms you. You can never transcend the context to a certain extent and nor do you really want to. If you're trying to transcend the context then you're just making the movie about you and your performance. I see movies as a Director's medium, I always want to serve the Director and the film so I don't want to transcend the context, its just that sometimes the context is weird 

VIDEO: Marc Maron Talks Accidentally Offending James Franco During Live 'WTF' Podcast At SXSW

Find other Marc Maron posts below:
- AV Club's Nathan Rabin talks about Podcast Culture on Marc Maron's 300th episode of WTF
- Actor, Writer and Traveler Mike White speaks to Marc Maron about Adventure
- Dan Harmon talks Television with Marc Maron on GT4: "Hamburger" Art and living in a "concrete, Orwellian Honeycomb"
- Is Andrew W.K a persona that has been played by multiple actors? Marc Maron in conversation with Andrew W.K.

Dan Harmon talks television with Marc Maron on GT4: "Hamburger" Art and living in a "concrete, Orwellian honeycomb"

VIDEO: GT4 - Dan Harmon On What Really Happened With Community

Dan Harmon on his artistic aspiration for television

DAN HARMON: Why do they win? Why does the robot get to eat the people? The thought never crossed my mind Marc. I aspire to mainstream success. Television is a populist, derivative, democratic medium. You're suppose to make a hamburger that everyone wants in their mouth. That's when you know you're doing it well. I grew up on Zemeckis, Spielberg and people who believed that making things for everyone didn't mean it had to be stupid
MARC MARON: Do you think 'Community' was that hamburger.
HARMON: Sadly enough - Yes. I think in the third season you can start to see me go "Never mind, just give me a good review in the Times".
MARON: It's a very misunderstood hamburger... 

Dan Harmon on Television's role in society

HARMON: Good TV should be like crack in that every rock gets the job done. Yes you're meant to keep smoking it and there's a difference to a one rock experience and an overall crack experience
MARON: So you weren't really making burgers at all. You were making crack?
HARMON: I mean that's the goal in TV. Crack, cigarettes, pick your metaphor. Its not exactly a healthy thing we're doing. A mac and cheese isn't healthy. It's not good for you. You should be watching Nova. You shouldn't be watching Joel McHale and a couple of knuckleheads in a community college. But that being said, people work hard and they watch 6 hours of TV on average because they live in a giant concrete and steel honeycomb. What else are you gonna do? Rollerskating?... We live in an Orwellian system with a habit trail. With television you're engaged with the pacification of the masses but I think the masses need to be pacified, they deserve it.

Find other Marc Maron posts below:
- AV Club's Nathan Rabin talks about podcast culture on Marc Maron's 300th episode of WTF
- Actor, writer and traveller Mike White speaks to Marc Maron about adventure
- Dan Harmon talks television with Marc Maron on GT4: "Hamburger" Art and living in a "concrete, Orwellian honeycomb"
- Is Andrew W.K a persona that has been played by multiple actors? Marc Maron in conversation with Andrew W.K.