Tag: comedy

Posted in: 2022

102. In Memory of Smart Comic Writing

This episode, published on the 12th anniversary of the death of standup comedian Greg Giraldo, covers his life, his writing, and his character.

Further info:

– Greg Giraldo: A Comedian's Story, by Matt Balaker and Wayne Jones (book)

– Give It Up for Greg Giraldo (video documentary)

– Dark Side of Comedy: Greg Giraldo (TV series episode)

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NOTE: Apologies for the sometimes poor audio of this episode: I was recording on a laptop with spotty wifi and with none of my regular audio editing tools – Wayne

Posted in: 2022

87. Philosophy, Comedy, and the World’s Problems

My guest on this episode is John Gibbs, who’s a retired lecturer in cultural studies and US politics, as well as a podcaster on philosophy and popular culture. He and his fellow members of the Spinoza Triad like to use philosophy to understand contemporary culture. John also created and maintains the Politics Shed site, and hosts a Friday morning slot on Teachers Talk Radio. And to top it all off, he’s performed standup comedy, focusing on surreal storytelling.

Note: view this episode also on the Writing & Editing YouTube channel.

Posted in: 2022

#36: writing funny: an interview with a standup comedian

The comedian who’s my guest today is actually someone I’ve known personally for the past 5 or 6 years. Matt Balaker. He and I co-wrote a biography of the great standup comedian named Greg Giraldo, which was published in 2019. Matt is a really great guy, generous, easy to talk to, and very funny. It was a real hoot working with him. I’ve never actually seen Matt perform standup—he lives in the US and I live in Canada—and when I visited him while we were writing the book, we were concentrating on the book. So I wanted to ask him about the writing process in standup comedy, and also about his relatively new venture as a podcaster himself.