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One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs's life forever.... Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation.
Jimmy O. Yang is a stand-up comedian, film and TV actor and fan favorite as the character Jian Yang from the popular HBO series Silicon Valley. In How to American, he shares his story of growing up as a Chinese immigrant who pursued a Hollywood career against the wishes of his parents: Yang arrived in Los Angeles from Hong Kong at age 13, learned English by watching BET's Rap City for three hours a day, and worked as a strip club DJ while pursuing his comedy career.
Hello. It's Todd Barry. Yes, the massively famous comedian. I have billons of fans all over the world, so I do my fair share of touring. While I love doing shows in the big cities (New York, Chicago, Cleveland), I also enjoy a good secondary market (Rochester, Springfield, Toledo). There's something great about performing in a place where they don't expect to see you.
As this book's title suggests, Norm Macdonald tells the story of his life - more or less - from his origins on a farm in the-back-of-beyond Canada and an epically disastrous appearance on Star Search to his account of auditioning for Lorne Michaels and his memorable run as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live - until he was fired because a corporate executive didn't think he was funny. But Based on a True Story is much more than a memoir; it's the hilarious, inspired epic of Norm's life.
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.
One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs's life forever.... Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation.
Jimmy O. Yang is a stand-up comedian, film and TV actor and fan favorite as the character Jian Yang from the popular HBO series Silicon Valley. In How to American, he shares his story of growing up as a Chinese immigrant who pursued a Hollywood career against the wishes of his parents: Yang arrived in Los Angeles from Hong Kong at age 13, learned English by watching BET's Rap City for three hours a day, and worked as a strip club DJ while pursuing his comedy career.
Hello. It's Todd Barry. Yes, the massively famous comedian. I have billons of fans all over the world, so I do my fair share of touring. While I love doing shows in the big cities (New York, Chicago, Cleveland), I also enjoy a good secondary market (Rochester, Springfield, Toledo). There's something great about performing in a place where they don't expect to see you.
As this book's title suggests, Norm Macdonald tells the story of his life - more or less - from his origins on a farm in the-back-of-beyond Canada and an epically disastrous appearance on Star Search to his account of auditioning for Lorne Michaels and his memorable run as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live - until he was fired because a corporate executive didn't think he was funny. But Based on a True Story is much more than a memoir; it's the hilarious, inspired epic of Norm's life.
Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.
Twitter Trolls. Facebook Freaks. Instagram Exhibitionists. These are just a few of the creatures our technology-obsessed culture has spawned in its quest to simplify our lives. The madness is so universal now that everyone has dealt with it. You login to Facebook, read a stupid post, and immediately want to tell your "friend" to go have relations with himself. Thankfully, popular comedian and television host Jim Florentine has a solution for those of us on the verge of bashing our iPhones to bits.
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
Take one look at Kevin Smith: He's a balding fatty who wears a size XXL hockey jersey, shorts, and slippers year-round. Not a likely source for life advice. But take a second look at Kevin Smith: He changed filmmaking forever when he was twenty-four with the release of Clerks, and since then has gone on to make nine more profitable movies, runs his own production company, wrote a best-selling graphic novel, and has a beautiful wife and kids. So he must be doing something right.
In the mid-70s, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away".
Rising young comedian Moshe Kasher is lucky to be alive. He started using drugs when he was just 12. At that point, he had already been in psychoanlysis for eight years. By the time he was 15, he had been in and out of several mental institutions, drifting from therapy to rehab to arrest to...you get the picture. But Kasher in the Rye is not an "eye opener" to the horrors of addiction. It's a hilarious memoir about the absurdity of it all.
After a decade spent in isolation in the Ugandan jungles thinking about stuff, David Cross has written his first book. Known for roles on the small screen such as "never-nude" Tobias Funke on Arrested Development and the role of "David" in Mr. Show with Bob And David, as well as a hugely successful stand-up routine full of sharp-tongued rants and rages, Cross has carved out his place in American comedy.
Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remembers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, including a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch.
A hilarious and emotional personal account of the life, times, mistakes, and crippling codependence of comedian, producer, director, actress, and writer Whitney Cummings. Full of intellect, pathos, and profundity, I'm Fine...and Other Lies is, in Whitney's words, her first book, which means her last date. With her signature incendiary edge and self-deprecation, Whitney comes clean about what has shaped her into the trailblazing comic that she is today.
At 24, Sebastian Maniscalco arrived in LA with a suitcase and saved up minimum wages. He knew no one and nothing about standup comedy, but he was determined to go for it anyway. At 44, he's on the Forbes' list of highest earning comedians, sells out arenas, and has starred in four hit comedy specials including Why Would You Do That? on Showtime. Stay Hungry tells the story of the 20 years in between.
With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his 14 years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction - from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity.
HBO's Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver presents the story of a Very Special boy bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny. Meet Marlon Bundo, a lonely bunny who lives with his Grampa, Mike Pence - the Vice President of the United States. But on this Very Special Day, Marlon's life is about to change forever....
From the outrageously filthy and oddly innocent comedienne and star of the powerful 2015 film I Smile Back Sarah Silverman comes a memoir—her first book—that is at once shockingly personal, surprisingly poignant, and still pee-in-your-pants funny. If you like Sarah's television show The Sarah Silverman Program, or memoirs such as Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea and Artie Lange's Too Fat to Fish, you'll love The Bedwetter.
People make a mess.
Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find - minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cat fancying, flying airplanes with his mind - but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.
Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving tale of hope and hopelessness, of failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f--kup who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.
"An already enjoyable memoir, the audio version benefits from the improvisatory ease Maron developed as a stand-up comic, Air America radioman and host of the popular 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast, from which much of the book's content was developed. The audiobook, which includes excerpts from the podcast, veers wildly from personal history to confession to documentary to punch line to psychoanalysis to intellectual rant to anti-intellectual armoring to inside joke to dead serious to deflatingly unhyperbolic to high to crude to political to nostalgic to philosophical to historical to proud to self-abasing, and it keeps the listener happily off-balance." (Kyle Minor, Salon)
I'm sure this book will polarise listeners / readers. If you have your life all together, then you will most likely thoroughly dislike this needy, self centred and often pathetic man, and hate the book. If however, you have you own special basket of issues you wrestle with on a daily basis, chances are you will warm to and be charmed by this needy, self centred and often pathetic man, and love the book.
I loved the book - its one of the best I've heard on audible. Laugh out loud funny in places.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Absolutely. Marc is not only funny, but manages to be amazingly honest while doing so. His accounts of his own experiences are both harrowing, and hilarious at the same time. His world view is different from most, and the way things are described is evidence to this.
What did you like best about this story?
I don't recall one single part that stood out, however I remember laughing out loud several times which is quite rare for me. There are several stories that are too outrageous to be made up, and another few that seem to be quite easy to relate to my own life and experiences.
What about Marc Maron’s performance did you like?
These questions are fairly annoying...
Marc did extremely well, and I'm fairly positive that after listening to the podcast for a while that I wouldn't have been able to accept someone else reading this book. His voice is expressive in a way that brings out the tone of what he is trying to say.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I almost did. I listened to most of it during a car ride, and the rest while working.
I do wish it was longer...
Any additional comments?
No... Audible has drawn this review experience out quite long enough.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
If you could sum up Attempting Normal in three words, what would they be?
honest ... complex ... informative
What aspect of Marc Maron’s performance would you have changed?
Mr. Maron reads a little fast. Perhaps that's how he does his stand-up so maybe I'm the silly one judging him on how he does his regular routine with a unique comedic timing. Yet, I felt every chapter was genuinely something he endured through his life. Perhaps, he simply read with genuine passion.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I didn't want to listen to it all in one sitting only because I'm a commute-driving/daily workout audiobook listener who works an already overly stimulating job, and this book was quite a lot in one sitting. However, Mr. Maron was fascinating in pieces! For those who have less stimulating lives, this audiobook will really get you thinking.
Any additional comments?
The lives of comedians are very perplexing to me, and yet, somehow I always wanted to know more about them. Mr. Maron did just that! While telling us all about his life, he told me about the lives of the best comics, and I appreciated that. But if Mr. Maron has any other books, I'll definitely get them, but it'll be in book-form - words on paper - that is.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Mark Maron would make a fantastic fictional character. I would sit on the edge of my seat waiting for the next adventure of this excentric esoteric person. Mark Maron is not a fictional character, and that is.... distubing... . I hope I never meet him in person because I would be frightened of what inter-dialoge he may be having with himself about me. I think stand up comic was a great career choice for him, I don't know where else he would fit in normal society.
Listen to the book the first chance you get, don't read it. The author reading the book really makes it perfect.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
What did you love best about Attempting Normal?
I appreciate how honest Maron is in this book. There are many funny stories, a couple that drag a bit, and some self indulgent moments, so it's not perfect, but over all a great listen.
What did you like best about this story?
Maron makes me feel better about my own life by sharing the lows of his life.
Have you listened to any of Marc Maron’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
If you like WTF you will like this book.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
I've watched or listen to Marc of and on for a very long time. I knew what to expect going into this and wasn't disappointed. His comedy and his life isn't for everyone.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Imagine Charles Bukowski doing stand-up, and you might get an idea what Marc Maron is like. Everyone who likes comedy has their own reasons and favorite styles; I think mine is that it's a handy outlet for laughing at all the crazy, dark sh*t people go through. After basically failing at life — drug addiction, getting fired, ruining two marriages — Marc finally found his groove with his WTF podcast, and here he explores similar territory: neurotic anxiety, anger… and cats! At its heart is a remarkable longing to connect emotionally with other people, which is what makes Marc's humor so wonderful. The audiobook features a Lorne Michaels impression that DESTROYS me, cameos by Louis CK and David Cross, and lots of filthy, filthy stories. Marc Maron proves that comedy is not just entertainment but can be art.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I love Maron's writing. This book is very creative. He os down to earth and human. Highly recommemded.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Funny, honest, and relevant, listening to Mark diffuses the tension of ego and helps provide a clearer perspective on the humanity of our insane society.
Thank you Mark!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
A solid essay based book. Lots of punch lines lots of sexuality. If you're neurotic you'll enjoy it.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
A very funny,clever, witty insecure and insightful man who made me laugh loud out. The fact that he likes cats gives him an added appeal in my view and his (presumably) honest portrayal of his love life was a joy...in parts. I had never heard of him previously but would certainly buy any further books he writes. Highly recommended
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of Attempting Normal to be better than the print version?
Not read print version but his voice and delivery add so much so I'd guess it was better.
What did you like best about this story?
Honesty and his usual no nonsense approach to story telling.
What does Marc Maron bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Pace and delivery of story was excellent. Brings to life his pain and makes the more awkward parts even more awkward.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
His relationship break-down and ex-wife stories. Hilarious and brutally honest.
An intresting look into the mind and life of Marc Maron. Realy well read by Marc, he projects alot of emotion throughout.
racism and sexism delivered at high intensity by an old white comic. id been listening for maybe 15 minutes and he was following a man with skin "a suspicious shade of brown" down the aisle of a plane.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful