The 10 Most “WTF” Moments in Marc Maron’s New Memoir

The cult comic and host of the must-listen WTF Podcast unloads some serious shit.

Anyone who listens to his podcast knows Marc Maron has had one helluva life, from suffering cocaine-induced psychosis after partying too hard with Sam Kinison, to feuding with Jon Stewart, to getting his own TV show, Maron, which debuts this Friday on IFC. But in his great new memoir, Attempting Normal, he shares some of his craziest stories yet. Here are 10 of them. What the fuck, indeed.

One night in Boston after a gig early on in his career, a coked up and drunk Maron picked up a hooker on his way home to the apartment he shared with his girlfriend. While getting a blowjob, the hooker asked him to feel her breast for a lump. There was a lump, but that didn’t stop Maron from finishing. “It was a very sad orgasm. My dick was crying.”

Around the same time, Maron spent his time performing at crummy clubs around New England with a highly disreputable fellow stand-up named Frankie Bastille, who would spend the long car rides with his nose buried in a bag of heroin

Maron met his first wife at his brother’s wedding. Maron was the best man, she was the maid of honor. He was fucked up on cocaine and booze. She didn’t know what she was in for. Soon after, “I would lie in bed blasted on coke with my heart exploding out of my chest, next to someone sleeping comfortably, and I wanted to wake her up to tell her I was dying but I would have rather just died.” Surprise! The marriage didn’t last.

He met his second wife at a gig in New York. She was a fan who said he looked like death. They started hooking up, he started to get clean. The only problem? “Of course, I was married to another woman. That put a crimp in things a little bit.” Still, he got sober, so there’s that.

Maron’s second encounter with a prostitute also took place late at night, after yet another gig in Boston, and yes, again he was coked up. Right after the hooker told him she was actually just in town for her father’s funeral, the cops showed up. After he was (miraculously) let off, Maron noticed “the head of my dick was sticking out the top of my pants, with a half unrolled condom hanging off it.” Classy.

He had a full-blown panic attack recently when he encountered a “Middle Eastern-looking man, olive-skinned with Semitic features – a dubious shade of brown” lingering by the bathroom on a cross-country flight. Eventually he realizes he’s being racist. And delusional.

This exchange with his mother:

Mom: I just wanted to tell you I am going into the hospital overnight. Everything is fine. I just wanted you to know.

Me: What do you mean? What’s wrong?

Mom: Nothing. Don’t worry.

Me: Just tell me what’s up I can handle it.

Mom: I’m getting my boobs redone.

Me: Redone? What? When did you have them done originally?

Mom: 1976. Right after your bar mitzvah.

Me: Really, you had like the original fake boobs?

Mom: Yes, the doctor said they need to come out. They’re calcifying.

Me: Okay, that’s enough info. Well, let me know everything is okay.

I felt like my entire life was a lie. All those years I just thought my mom had great tits.

While in college, a hungover Maron was walking over a bridge when he noticed two sets of legs sticking out from under the overpass, one set human and one inflatable and dangling. “Some guy, out of necessity or what desire I don’t know, was fucking a blowup doll under a bridge in the middle of the day. I didn’t know what to do with that.”

After a gig in Nashville recently, Maron went to the legendary Prince’s Hot Chicken, where they apparently won’t even sell the Extra Hot chicken to white people. After suffering through plain old “hot,” Maron went back to his hotel and absentmindedly touched his balls. Then, as that pain started to subside, his insides started burning up. “Wouldn’t it be ironic, after all I’ve been through in my life, to die from an overdose of hot chicken.” He lived.

As a kid, Maron suffered from severe abdominal pains, and his father – a doctor – would give him rectal exams to see if it was an appendicitis. “If your father is finger-banging you in the bathroom, that is a bad thing.” Keep in mind, his father was an orthopedic surgeon. No wonder he had problems.

Attempting Normal is out today. 

Get more comedian coverage with Take a Peek “Inside Amy Schumer” and Burned: The Oral F***ing History of the Comedy Central Roast.