For better or worse, this episode is likely one of the first podcasts ever to provide an audio chronicle of the day before a colonoscopy. Today my walking companion is Katina Corrao. Much has been written about her positivity, but what is sometimes left out is just how much loss she has experienced in her life. We bond over the grim and I marvel at the horsepower of her attitude. I hate the word “attitude,” but she helps me accept it again. This episode was recorded on January 27, 2016 and February 22, 2016 and is one of the longer ones I’ve done with a guest. And for good reason. Hang on until the end, or just treat it like two back to back episodes, maybe. Check out Katina’s album Hot Date that debuted at #1 on iTunes or stream the live performance here. I enjoyed having her part my clouds for a while. Music this week by Aaron Campbell, A guy drumming at the West 4th Stop, and Direwires.

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.