Interview with "Are We Good?" Producer, Julie Seabaugh

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to Julie Seabaugh, longtime comedy journalist and producer of the new Marc Maron documentary Are We Good? which premiered at SXSW in March and is set to play at Tribeca next week! Together we discussed her career, the incomparable Marc Maron, and the role that grief plays in our favorite comic acts.

Credit: Troy Conrad

Rua: "Welcome, Julie! Thank you for being here today, can we start with you introducing yourself?"

Seabaugh: "My name is Julie Seabaugh. I'm a longtime comedy journalist of 22 years now. I've covered the art form for places like Rolling Stone, Variety, Hollywood reporter, The New York Times, The LA Times, GQ, etc. But more recently I've branched out into books and documentaries. I have a 2018 book called: 'Ringside at Roast Battle: The First Five Years of L. A. 's Fight Club for Comedians' about how the roasting scene has grown. I have a book with Byron Bowers coming out next summer. Next year I'm part of the team putting together the Mitch Hedberg documentary. That's gonna come out, and I have some other ideas to do other things. But yeah, I'm just really excited to have the Maron documentary premiering at Tribeca."

Rua: "Now, as a comedy journalist, have you always been a fan of Mark Maron's work?"

Seabaugh: "Yeah, I've covered him 5 or 6 different times before, either solely as a profile, or maybe part of a group. Recently, last fall, he was part of a LA Times piece I did about why comedy should not be influencing political lectures. So he's always been someone who I've known and appreciated. He has a very unique perspective. He puts it all out there pulls no punches when it comes to discussing his own shortcomings of failed relationships, his family, his cats, you know music, and he also has a very unique way of writing. He will kind of take maybe some notes about topics on stage, but he really traditionally writes from a very kind of id perspective based on, you know, his connection with the audience, like he needs that live audience to kind of bounce things off of even his initial ideas of the inception. So I've always just found that him very unique and kind of a brilliant guy. He's only been getting better over the years. The 2023 special, From Bleak to Dark, and which was the culmination basically of putting together this material about Lynn Shelton's death was the best work of his life. It honestly was, but I knew it would be, you know, from the time she passed he was kind of threatening to quit comedy, which I knew he would actually never do. But the material he put together would be phenomenal. And it turned out I was right. So, following that process where you kind of get the insight into all the context of what was happening in his life, and how he starts taking it on stage and using it to. You know, I'm always a big fan of turning tragedy into comedy. I think it's a very vital, you know role that comedians play in the world. It's the best art form there is, in my opinion, and Marin is definitely one of the best doing it in the business."

Rua: "And for those who don't know, Lynn Shelton was Maron's partner who sadly passed away unexpectedly in 2020, and a lot of Are We Good? is dedicated to her memory. Could you speak on the role of grief in this doc because it has quite the impact?"

Seabaugh: "Like I said, I've I've always been more fascinated with kind of how we use comedy psychologically to overcome just everything we're faced with in this life. And it was a time and a place where this guy was faced with a huge amount of grief when Lynn passed. He didn't even know at the time. You know what had caused it, you know, and turns out it was an undiagnosed leukemia. But we basically see the next 4 years of him processing this on stage and off. And the question I was most interested the whole time was the fact that Lynn had very unequivocally, demonstrably made him a better person when they were together. You know he'd finally found a sense of happiness and belonging and optimism for his life that he'd never really had before. And you know, when she was gone. It was just a question of is he going to kind of revert to the person he has been in the past, or is he going to continue carrying her on with him. You know the the film tries to be a little open-ended on that, but if you look hard enough, and we kind of see that reflected in his newer relationships, how they've evolved with different comedians. You know, his romantic relationships, especially his father, who has for the most part been kind of the villain of his life. So it is kind of reflected of how he does continue to carry her with him in the way he newly interacts with other people, but also himself."

Rua: "Can you speak on any personal experiences you've had in your life where comedy was the best medicine?"

Seabaugh: "I have been someone who has dealt with a lot of depression, anxiety, you know, suicidal ideation, imposter, syndrome, all that good stuff. I was originally born and raised on a farm in Missouri didn't even know what comedy was until college, when Dave Attell came and did a show I'd already been writing. That was kind of the path I wanted to take, but more film and music, and I suddenly in that moment realized I was supposed to be writing about comedy. And really, from that point on, it has been very foundational in the way that I not only can socialize and see the world, but process stuff individually myself. I am endlessly fascinated by turning tragedy into comedy. And being able to laugh at things takes the scary parts away. It's something that can be overcome if you can laugh at it, because we're always going to be faced with stuff, but it has to inevitably be up to us to figure out, you know; are we going to let it pull us down and destroy us or are we going to kind of fight back by laughing at it? That's a lot to put on comedy shoulders, but yeah, that's certainly the part I've always been drawn to in comedy. And I could honestly like talk about how healthy comedy is all day long. It's also super subjective, I'm not going to tell you what you can and cannot laugh at, because everyone has their own path. But we all do experience grief inevitably at some point, and it's my hope that we can also use comedy to deal with it."

Rua: "Amazing, I couldn't agree more. Now, who do you think has more to learn from Are We Good? longtime fans of Maron or people who have never even heard of him?"

Seabaugh: "Ooh, that's a good question! Definitely fans of Maron, especially in the details. You know, they'll recognize certain themes in his life mannerisms, interests, that kind of thing. For people who are maybe not as familiar with him, there's definitely a history lesson in there too. You can kind of see the evolution of comedy, the industry, and how different things are from the way they used to be through this story. He's a prime example of somebody who's done everything there is to do in the business, and still wants more. And again going back to the grief thing, grief is universal, tragedy is universal, but the subjective side of comedy is what can really connect us individually. I would think that people will see that there's more to comedy than just making jokes on stage. Comedy used to be a bit more mainstream, for you know, complaining about spouses and airline food and all that kind of stuff, but Marin is a prime example of someone who will go deep. He emotionally pulls no punches whatsoever, so I would hope that people who don't necessarily know him can kind of understand. He is definitely one of the best practitioners of the art form. So I hope everyone kind of understands that like grief happens to everyone, this is just one example of a guy who dealt with it and maybe we can do the same."

Rua: "That's really beautiful, thank you for sharing. As someone who has been in the game for a long time, I'm curious if there are any really extraordinary comedy specials you can recommend?"

Credit: Troy Conrad

Seabaugh: "The new Sarah Silverman PostMortem, I think is phenomenal. She's actually dealing with grief as well as she loses her father seeing the context of what was going on while she's creating that and just really diving in deep and being honest with herself. Yeah, I highly recommend the new Sarah Silverman. One of my favorites has been Gary Goldman's the Great Depresh, which is kind of a hybrid of special slash documentary of really like getting a hardcore look at what depression can do to people. When I moved to New York right out of college, I would watch Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian almost every night, religiously. But yeah, there's always good stuff to watch. Those would kind of be my recommendations at this point. There's definitely something for everyone out there."

Rua: "Thank you, if there's anyone who would know what's good it's you. I have to ask, what's next for Julie Seabaugh as a producer?"

Seabaugh: "So there's this Mitch Hedberg documentary coming out next year that's been in progress for about five years now. There's also an idea that's been presented to me that's dealing with kind of the divide we're seeing in comedy these days. But I'm very interested in exploring the sort of psychology behind a lot of the new comedy fans that we're seeing, especially since the pandemic. Especially since social media and podcasts and all that stuff can help comedians discover and really connect with their fan base so much easier without all the traditional gatekeepers. So yeah, that's up next, and maybe a couple other surprises here and there. But yeah, it's all just telling comedy stories through different formats. It's just sort of celebrating this art form which I personally think is so important, and I hope that others do too."

Rua: "Well I'm definitely looking forward to it. Thank you so much for your time today, Julie. I know audiences will adore Are We Good?"

Seabaugh: "Thank you for having me!"

We would like to thank Ms. Seabaugh again for appearing on our publication. Are We Good premieres next week at the Tribeca Film Festival on the 14th. Tickets can be found here. Julie Seabaugh's work can be found on her personal website. Thank you for tuning into Cinemasters.net and remember to never stop watching!