The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Noah Gardenswartz‘s biggest week ever kicked off Monday night with an appearance on Conan, where the comedian joked about a subway poet, moving in with his girlfriend, and trying acid for the first time. Gardenswartz has his debut stand-up comedy album coming out this weekend, coinciding with the premiere of …
Enough people have compared the state of our 2016 presidential campaign with the 2006 film Idiocracy that its filmmakers decided to write some new copy for future “President Camacho,” but all of your advance spin on it scared off both the actor who’d star in the videos and the studio …
Ms. Pat’s early career sounds a little bit like the role Sally Field’s in the 1988 movie about comedy, Punchline, except only Ms. Pat grew up in a bootleg house in Atlanta, became a mother of two by the time she was 15, sold drugs, was shot twice, and arrested …
What do they say about New York City: There are eight million stories, and sometimes it seems as though eight million of the people telling them think they’re comedians? No, that’s not it. It is a fact, though, that America’s biggest city is also its biggest comedy mecca. Hollywood may …
I bought Doug Stanhope’s new memoir, “Digging Up Mother,” because he told me I was in the book. He could have been drunk when he said that. No, wait. He definitely was, because he said so. Either way, imagine my delight and yours this week when Audible released an audiobook …
The open mic holds everything for the new, aspiring comedian. The alpha and the omega, the dream and the nightmare, but the above all else, the primary entry point for stand-up comedy. An open mic often promises no regular audience members; instead, empty chairs up front and a gaggle of …
After all of the joking by Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show writers and contributors about how they didn’t expect to still be working on their final day with Comedy Central, Wilmore welcomed an interruption from Jon Stewart. It was Stewart’s idea for Wilmore to break off from The Daily Show to …
A quick programming note. Gotham Comedy Live, which had broadcast new seasons of live stand-up comedy straight from the stage at New York City’s Gotham Comedy Club to wherever you’re watching the AXS-TV channel, will no longer air live. At least not for the upcoming season. New episodes begin with …
The odd brilliance and sincerity of Norm Macdonald shines through this new profile of him, diligently reported by The Washington Post‘s Geoff Edgers (included online are months of their text exchanges). Here’s an excerpt of the kind of praise Macdonald’s peers give him, including these quotes from David Letterman and …
We all face moral and ethical dilemmas if we wish to live truly helpful and selfless lives as part of the universe. As a journalist, sometimes people look to me to help solve their dilemmas for them. Many moons ago, when I worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona, I …
