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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:EP8 “The Sacred Struggle of Bedtime”
It’s one thing to be invited into the home of a comic, but to see them in the thick of motherhood is, to me, like the spotted owl of documentary conversation. Today’s episode is a sort of extreme form of eavesdropping. An audio portrait of the sacred struggle to get a kid to bed with comic, mom, and brilliant facebook satirist Julie Kottakis. AKA Madge the Vag.
I first saw Julie perform at the New York Fringe festival last year in her solo show “Does This Dress Make Me Look Alone” which she called an “Alone Woman Show. She did address the circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of her daughter, what it’s been like to care for her on her own, but I hesitate to bring that up because there’s a danger in thinking this was just a mom doing a one-woman-show about being a single mom. That sells it way short. Her performance spanned the range of comic and tragic registers and she laid out some rawness in a way I don’t remember seeing before. Not tell it like it is stuff. Afterbirth type stuff. Literal and metaphorical. Frankly, I wish more comics packaged their jokes less and did more of what Julie is doing.
As you’ll hear in this episode she offers her life with abandon and pushes nothing. Frankly, I was surprised she allowed me to put some of this audio in here. Having wireless mics on people makes them forget they’re on tape sometimes and that yields some very candid moments. The moments people don’t talk about like a 5-year-old kid that still asks to breastfeed sometimes. Take a listen. I’ve received permission to use all of it. And I’m so grateful to Julie for that because it’s stuff people need to hear I think.
It’s a very real, very earthy, and absolutely beautiful and generous look at something a lot of us who don’t have kids take for granted. And if you don’t laugh at this, rot in hell.
Friend her on facebook (Julie Kottakis) if you can because that’s where the really good stuff happens. Also @theweirdjulie
Music this week:
“When the Saints Go Marching In” – Marysville Marimba
“Glockendoodle” – Aaron Campbell (@banjoporkchoppy)
Technical Help from:
Vince Fairchild at WNYC (@vincefair)
Doug Shugarts at WBUR in Boston
Consulting Producers:
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SN4:EP7 “Burnt On Wonder”
The erudite Brian Earl: comedian, improv genius, and savant, guides Andy through the Willy Wonkian aisles of Standard Restaurant Supply in Salt Lake City. (Where all the restaurants get their stuff.) The perils of first dates for comedians, drinking out of shoes, Dad jokes as population control.
Adrian Lambrinos invited me to a sweat lodge ceremony in April and it was such a powerful experience it shut me up for about 9 months. This is my attempt to take you through it with me. Glad to be back.
