When anger is your artistic medium, sometimes you need to take a little time to just chill. When Lewis Black picked up his phone on a recent weekday morning, I heard a different side of him than what I had become accustomed to. He was measured, calm, and other than the occasional raspy cough, kind […]
Continue ReadingIn the opening minutes of his new HBO special, Chris Gethard regrets that he doesn’t have some inciting incident that he can blame for his lifelong depression. “I hate to say it,” he says, “but sometimes people just break.” Afterwards, he pauses for a moment, and you can almost hear people in the audience thinking […]
Continue ReadingAfter a jam-packed March, April eased up a bit in terms of standup special quantity, but delivered some serious quality offerings. In case you missed it, here’s a rundown of what dropped last month. Louis C.K. – 2017 (Netflix) 2017 is Louis’ seventh special and the first in which he wears a suit. Through longer-than-usual […]
Continue ReadingTo say 2017 has been a bumper-crop year for Jonah Ray would be an understatement. Aside from pulling double duty as co-host of Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist Podcast and solo-host of his own Jonah Raydio, the 34-year-old comedian also has not one, but two hit television shows airing concurrently. His Netflix reboot of the cult […]
Continue ReadingPod-Canon is an ongoing tribute to the greatest individual comedy-related podcast episodes of all time. As readers of this column perhaps know by now, I am a fan of podcast episodes that begin pleasantly enough but quickly devolve (or evolve, depending on your perspective) into crazed psychodramas full of tension, veiled and not so veiled […]
Continue ReadingPod-Canon is an ongoing tribute to the greatest individual comedy-related podcast episodes of all time. As readers of this column perhaps know by now, I am a fan of podcast episodes that begin pleasantly enough but quickly devolve (or evolve, depending on your perspective) into crazed psychodramas full of tension, veiled and not so veiled […]
Continue ReadingAl Madrigal is making up for lost time and he doesn’t have much time left. Don’t worry, he’s fine. But in his own words, he “started late” and has given himself until the age of 50 to see what he can accomplish with his comedy career. If this year is any indicator, the accomplishments will […]
Continue ReadingWonder Woman star Chris Pine hosted this week’s slightly offbeat, thankfully mostly Trump-free episode of SNL, and despite the fact that most viewers probably had a hard time identifying the actor – a fact that he addressed right up top – Pine was a playful and deft addition to the cast, smiling through typical hot-guy-host […]
Continue ReadingJes Tom (they/them) is a weird queer standup comic based in NYC, gleefully providing the nonbinary queer Asian American radical cyborg perspective that everyone never knew they wanted. You can find them on Instagram @jesthekid and watch the short film they created with fellow comic Chewy May here. This week, Tom talked to me about […]
Continue ReadingIn the second of Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix specials, there’s a moment in the middle of his performance where he makes a not-so-bold declarative statement. “I hate bloggers,” he says with conviction, angrily expressing his frustration related to an online backlash he’d previously sparked amongst the LGBTQ community. In making this statement, Chappelle belatedly joins […]
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