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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SN2:EP3 “On Being in Jeff”s Apartment When He’s Not There”
A tiny documentary on what it’s like to be in a friend’s apartment when they’re not there. Followed by me and Jeff talking about: people who don’t wring out the kitchen sponge; getting way deep into the nature of storytelling (he helps coach me through an impossibly climax-less story I keep insisting on telling). He comes over and cooks me the mushrooms I helped watch for him one weekend in March.Jeff’s a real heavyweight and it was an honor to have him on. He’s “a storyteller, standup, and the guy behind “‘And I Am Not Lying,‘ a variety show that combines stand-up, storytelling, burlesque, sideshow and music on the second Friday of every month at UCB East.”
He’s won a bunch of Moth StorySLAMS, And you may recognize him from stories on This American Life, The Moth, and some things he’s written for The Paris Review Daily.
He also teaches a storytelling class that’s a “six-week workshop for experienced comics and storytellers, to teach the structure and technique of comedic storytelling.” If you’re interested go to his site and contact him here.
Oh and at the end of the show I play one of the stories he told on the moth. With thanks and attribution to The Moth. That’s from their show on the week of August 5th, 2015.
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SN1:EP2 “Child Power”
Livia Scott is not only a freakishly funny and compassionate person, who I was stoked to get to spend an afternoon in Prospect Park with, she also offers a compelling theory about my childhood that helped me find my inner 2nd-grader’s Walter White.
She explains the origins of her body suit and why she is so proud of a particular song she wrote, one that confirms all my worst fears about my genitals. Listen as we “embarrass our way to the right hand of God.” And go see Livia in her shiny suit on the Livia Scott Sketch Program at the UCB Chelsea this Wednesday, November 11, at 9:30
