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SN1:EP9 “The Barber of Sunset Park”
This week I visit Eric Aleman, owner of the storied King of Kings Barber Shop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I’ve been going to him for a couple years and it’s always an odyssey which begins on my scalp and ends in my heart.
Eric, like a lot of good barbers, is able to step in and out of conversation. He’ll talk if you want to talk. Or he’ll just step back and keep working on your hair. That’s part of why I like him.
He’s not only a really solid barber, he’s also a talented lyricist, hip-hop artist/ whatever you want to call it. He’s a founding member of BLKLYST. Who you can check out playing at Littlefield’s or here on youtube.
If you listen real close here you can hear him shaving my neck at one point. It’s pretty hard to talk w a knife to your neck, but I did my best.
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SN1:EP1 “Living out Loud”
The inaugural episode of this podcast. (Originally “What’s Your Yarn Worth? w/ Andy Farnsworth.”) An honest, unvarnished conversation with James Greco: painter, inner monologue coach, and person I respect and love a whole lot.
There’s literally zero production on this first episode. Just a straight, conversational document. Pretty much every instinct I had at the time told me not to put this out there, but my friend Tasha listened to it and told me not to trust my instincts. It’s advice that served as a guide for all the episodes that have followed. Anti-instincts.I’d say this episode is intense but what’s intense you know? I probably wouldn’t listen to it in front of kids, but maybe you’re running some kind of experiment. Here you go.
You can check out James Greco’s work here
[Correction: Just FYI I got a little carried away in this one when I was talking about the baby-smuggling grade school teacher. I actually didn’t have her as a teacher. It was my sister that had her. Also, the teacher in high school I was talking about was actually “Mrs. Mishler” not Mueller. Don’t know why I said those things.]
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SN1:EP7 “1-800-BAD-TOUCH”
It’s impossible to tell the story of how I know comedian and psychologist Marc Gerber without getting into a host of sordid and vulnerable-making trauma from my past. He offered some perspective back in June that changed my life and comedy.Gerber is an atypical hybrid of a professionally funny and employably empathetic person. He and I met when I performed on a show at the PIT called Relationshit where he served as on stage therapist for a story I told about a piece of material about my own childhood sexual abuse. In this episode I play the recording of that performance along with another version I did more recently at a recovery show in New Jersey. The revision of this bit over time is the best example I have of how my perpetual over-disclosure has unintentionally helped saved my life.
He also opens up about his own struggles and offers a much needed and practical solution for quelling loneliness, a call to 1-800-Contacts.
Check out his weekly show at Comic Strip Live on Mondays called Three Day Weekend.
Tim Duffy, comedian, writer guy for Comedy Central, takes Andy along on his daily commute from Staten Island into the city.It’s an everyday trip Tim’s been taking for years, but Andy still finds it exotic, which makes him feel a little like a hayseed. Also, on this Valentine’s episode, Andy gets into the thick of it re: what it means to be in love at 41 and how he’s worried he’ll have to start closing the kitchen cabinet doors when he’s finally living with someone for the first time. (Note: Staten Island Ferry is noisy so the audio isn’t perfect here.)
