There Are Many Reasons To Get Marc Maron’s ‘Waiting For The Punch’ But Here’s The Best One

Waiting For The Punch Book

“Everyone goes through a rough patch.”

I hate that expression.

My specific issue is with the conjunction “a” because rough patches are never singular. Rough patches occur once a week. I’m on my 37th rough patch this year. Maybe I’m thinking about it all wrong. Perhaps my particular rough patch has no middle or end, it’s just one continuous road of kicks to the groin.

My saving grace over the last few years has been WTF Podcast with Marc Maron. It’s been a mentor, a friend, and most importantly, a distraction. For at least an hour — sometimes longer depending on how much time I have and how awful I’m feeling — Maron’s discussion with his guest transport my brain to anywhere other than “in the moment.”

I once had the chance to talk to Marc. He was everything I imagined during the countless hours of listening to his voice bouncing around in my head. Standoff-ish at first, open and honest for the bulk of the discussion, hilarious in more than a few instances and then just a regular guy. We discussed health insurance at length. He was choosing his plan. Right before we hung up, I wished him luck on his choice. He joked about hoping his choice was correct and to “finish all the paperwork before I actually die.” It was really the only way the interview could end.

I remember the exact episode, it was Dax Shepard, when I said to myself “I need to start writing some of this stuff down.” He told a story about how his stepfather changed his life by once asking him “what the fuck are you doing?” At the moment, Shepard was making a sandwich, but his stepdad said “no. In life. You need to stop and focus and ask yourself ‘what the fuck am I doing?'”

I never got around to writing down all of the advice, wisdom, and lessons learned from listening to WTF because too many kicks to the nuts tend to keep a man busy. Thankfully, Marc and his producer Brendan McDonald were smart enough to do just that in their new book Waiting For The Punch: Words To Live By From WTF.

Waiting for the Punch is more than just a collection of interviews from the podcast. It’s some of the most famous, not-so-famous and sometimes even infamous people on earth discussing the problems relatable to every working grunt sitting in his car listening on the drive to work and every woman running endless miles on a treadmill. People like Bruce Springsteen, Judd Apatow, Conan O’Brien, Mel Brooks, Amy Poehler, and even President Barack Obama. Famous people who seem like they’ve got it all figured out, sitting in a dusty garage, working through life’s problems and discussing their own rough patches.

The reasons to buy the book are many — it’s funny (the John Oliver forward itself is a killer), it’s relatable, and it’s broken down into section so you can pick it up anywhere, at any moment, and dive right in.

The biggest reason to buy the book is the same reason I purchased it the day it was released. Waiting For The Punch might be the funniest self-help book ever written. Every guest is proof that the rough patch does eventually end, and a new one might be just around the corner, but that one ends too. A person just needs to stick it out, take the crotch shots, and keep pushing forward.

This too shall pass.

BUY IT NOW: $19

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Chris Illuminati avatar
Chris Illuminati is a 5-time published author and recovering a**hole who writes about running, parenting, and professional wrestling.