I helped to write this book! I was first author for one chapter and second author on another. It’s now on available for purchase. What a little dream come true.

What happens if you want to start a stand-up career when you’re already famous?

The first comedians I ever interviewed. I was terribly nervous. They were terribly sweet.

Interviewing Mark Normand and learning to love The Comedy Cellar

I can't tell you how excited I was. Honestly. I'd been idealizing that venue since high school.

Stand-up comedy is fickle and comedians who were once supremely relatable and ubiquitous are often pushed aside for a new crop who better represent the issues of the day. 

I don’t pretend to have much pull on the comedy tides at large, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my top draft picks for the bearer of this future comedy era.

In the same way that what I looked for and hungered for from stand-up comedy evolved as I got older, stand-up comedy at large has taken many different shapes over the past 100 years as the needs of the people changed and evolved.

From minute one, comedy is full of weirdos, and these comedians often feel like the weirdos that just stuck around the clubs. “I don’t mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel,” says Bill Hicks. “But I am, so that’s how it comes out.”

“I like the kind of humor where nobody knows what’s going on.” Kaufman stated. “I’m not into comedy. I think comedy is the most unfunny thing there is.”

To know me is to know how much I love Bobcat Goldthwait.

While many comedians make their living telling heartfelt stories about themselves or extolling biting social or political critics, there is something to be said about comics who just tell jokes.

“I wanted a list,” he explains to his audience, “That’s the problem, nobody gives you a list. Wouldn’t that make sense, if they didn’t want you to say something, they’d give you a list?”

An open letter.

Orwell’s first rule, “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”

My favorite comedian as a middle schooler? Easy answer: Demetri Martin

There is something pure about the way Maron seems to have fallen in love with stand-up comedy.