Episode 1677 - Tom Scharpling

**Marc Maron** (0:09)
All right, let's do this. How are you, WTFers, WTF buddies, WTFniks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron, this is my podcast. How are you doing? How can I help? What can I do to... What do you need? Is there... Are you okay? I... Oh my God! Ugh, what a time we're living in. What a time we are living in. It makes me wanna...
You know, I think, you know, sometimes... There was a time where poetry had a tremendous impact. And I guess there's an argument to be made that a lot of things are poetry, you know, music, some writing, ad copy. But there was a time, I think, and there probably are still poets that do this, where you're trying to crunch the big equations, the existential, the philosophical, the mystical, the personal. There was a time where poetry was sort of the mathematics of eternity and trying to wrap your brain around it. And sometimes I think, you know, maybe that's what we need is a little poetry, just to, you know, frame things in a way we can understand. So now I will read to you, The Second Coming by William Butler Yates. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming, hardly are those words out, when a vast image of spiritus mundi troubles my sight somewhere in the sands of the desert, a shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its low thighs while all about it, just real shadows of the indignant desert birds, the darkness drops again, but now I know that 20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle and what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. Yeah, that's a nice, I hope you're having coffee. I think that's a nice way to start the day. I do want to say this in terms of the center not holding is that violence never the answer. Violence begets violence and man, just untethered times. And yeah, I hope you're doing okay. Today I talked to my friend Tom Scharpling. He's the host of The Best Show and someone who's deeply connected to the history of this show. He's been on eight times before and we did six separate bonus episodes with him called The Marc and Tom Show. He's celebrating the 25th anniversary of doing The Best Show and he'll be on the road doing some live shows to commemorate the milestone. Always good to talk to Tom. Good friends. I've had some weird revelations and experiences about the past and about friendship lately. I'll try to get into it, maybe, maybe I'll get into it. But I do want to say this. I want to thank a couple of people. Actually, well, I want to thank Dr. Bronner's. Dr. Bronner's soap, all in one soap, because I, you know, I talk to the Bronner that's in charge now, the grandson, and I love the company. And this isn't a paid plug. And I have a lot of their soap and they've always been supportive of the show and I think they're a very decent and well-sourced company that are always trying to be proactive and progressive and do the right thing. And I was reminded of this because I have been using that soap since I was in college. And I realized, you know, I reached out to the guy over there who's in charge of their kind of public relations. And I just wanted to thank him because I realized that maybe like five or six years ago, if not more, they sent me a big box of those soaps. And I've been using them, like I haven't had to buy soap and I've been using Bronners, I feel like my whole life. And it just towards the end of the show here, I just wanted to thank them for keeping me clean. The documentary about me, Are We Good? Opens on October 3rd in New York and Los Angeles with special screenings around the country on October 5th and October 8th. Go to arewegoodmaron.com to see where it's playing and get tickets. And hopefully, look, that'll, if people go, it'll be in more theaters. And you can still get in on the Kickstarter pre-sale for our graphic novel WTF is a Podcast written and illustrated by Box Brown. You can go to z2comics.com/wtf for that.