Pass the Whiskey... Please

Are you going to the Bridgetown Comedy Fest? Do you read twitter obsessively? Well lucky for you, I’ve created the handy list below to put some funny in your feed.  It’s like a very special #ff, a day early!

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I think I am afraid of babies because if I had one my friends would stop inviting me out. Also, 9 months without whiskey and cigarettes. HOWEVER, it WOULD give me something other than work to talk about.

I’ve been a stand-up comedy nerd for as long as I can remember. Probably because my parents are also stand-up comedy nerds. I grew up listening to their George Carlin and Steve Martin records, watching HBO specials with them, and I was 12 when we first got cable, and I was able to watch stand-up near constantly on Comedy Central.

There’s not a lot of options for going to comedy clubs when you’re 12 in small town VT. Instead, my friends and I would would pack into my parents basement and play the special I’d taped earlier in the week. And we’d laugh our asses off to the likes of Richard Jeni, the Amazing Jonathan, Carol Liefer, Marc Maron, Janeane Garofalo, Mitch Hedberg, and so on. I even remember Rosie O’Donnell being funny!

It was, however, Marc Maron (and the immense teen crush I had on him) that got me seeking out podcasts.

He came through town last spring for the Bridgetown Comedy Fest, and brought his WTF podcast with him. At the time I didn’t go (but I should have) nor did I have a clue what a podcast was. And sadly I didn’t even look it up right away… it wasn’t until I went back to the bridgetown site to look someone else up that it sparked something in my brain…

And now I’m immersed. I listen to podcasts constantly. At work, on the bus, and any other time an outside source isn’t demanding my attention. And its with that authority that I bring you my TOP 5 PODCASTS list:

1. WTF with Marc Maron
Recommended Episode: #117 with Ira Glass
As a comedy nerd this is probably the best podcast out there. It’s published twice a week, and he’s a comedian that mostly interviews comedians. However, it doesn’t force itself to be funny, although it often is. Sometimes it’s more like therapy. And sometimes you learn things. I chose to recommend the Ira Glass episode because it’s probably the most accessible to people who are not comedy nerds. However if you’d like to hear about the effort it takes to be a comedy nerd, listen to the two part series with Judd Apatow.

 2. The Dork Forest with Jackie Kashian
Recommended Episode:  #9 with Beatallica
This show is excellent. Each episode has a guest or a pair of guests (or a whole band!), and they are asked, “So what are you nerdy about?”  Then each person talks about their comic book collection, or their obsession with the Kennedy family (Episode 3) or whatever it is their passionate about. I have yet to find an episode I’m not impressed with.

3. The Nerdist
Recommended Episode: #39 with Rainn Wilson
I was initially resistant to this show, mostly because I associated the main host, Chris Hardwick, with another show I watched when I was 12. However, the more I listen to this show, the more I adore it. The guests vary, but my adoration was solidified with the “Comedians You Should Know” episode (#51).

4. Rumpus Radio featuring Stephen Elliott
Recommended Episode: #8 with Steve Almond
This is the first podcast I’ve liked that isn’t hosted by a comedian, however it doesn’t lack in humor. I actually find it quite funny, and perhaps slightly more intelligent that the rest of the podcasts I’m praising. The only downside I’ve found so far is that the theme song is super, super catchy, and if someone catches you singing it they’re going to think you’re making up the words to a song you don’t know well, and that you’re weird because the lyrics are, well… weird. 

5. The Smartest Man in the World with Greg Proops
Recommended Episode: #4 Kings 
Holy monologue, Batman, this dude can talk! This podcast is incredible funny, witty, smart, and… I wish I had the vocabulary of Greg Proops to describe it! So just check it out!

Enjoy 

Some of the people who follow or find me here, may remember me from a place called LiveJournal. If this applies to you, congratulations, you found me!

There are many reasons for which I abandoned LiveJournal. The primary being that it was set up as a diary of sorts, and since I’ve hit that part of life where I settled down and hit an even keel, the emotional minutia of daily life didn’t seem to warrant a special post. In short, I nolonger felt it necessary to write about how I felt about everything.

What happened, however, is I became a crafter, an office comedian, a reader, and many more things I’ve yet to discover are considered talents or items of interest. It’s these habits I hope to document.

So henceforth my blogging efforts will be guided by crafts, cooking, books I read, stories involving my coworkers, and so on.

I am looking forward to this endeavor.

i created a tumblr.