Months before the world changed, Chad Niel @PlantBasedChad offered me a Tofurkey wrap off a hummus-smeared plate and chided my reluctance to eat after him. Hauntingly, this twenty-sixth @wanderingaisles opens with a foreboding joke about germs and preparing for “the Big One.”
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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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SN5:EP13 “The Bachelor”
An afternoon with one of my real-deal, go-to friends here in Denver, Alex Elliott @alexelliottpics. And by afternoon, seriously, I mean the better part of an entire afternoon.Mostly Sprouts and us just talking in my truck. Verité podcasting. I didn’t cut much because it’s really hard to get tired of this guy. He’s a genuine, wise, cat who never brags or name drops AT ALL even though he totally could. For example, I was months into knowing Alex before he happened to casually mention he was a finalist to be on “The Bachelor.” And (paraphrasing here): “It’s funny you bring that up because one summer I filmed some stuff with Jimmy Fallon and slapped Hannibal Burress in the face a bunch of times for a thing.” Stuff like that. Introducing Alex Elliott. Consider supporting the show on Patreon! (or just tell a friend). -
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.
