Humor and the Abject Podcast

Behind every good podcast is a great podcast studio manager. Here at Humor and the Abject, I’m fortunate as all hell to work every week with my own studio manager, Staffonly, to bring you conversations with some of my favorite artists, comedians, writers, and filmmakers. She does all the heavy lifting by making the sound collages and editing conversations, and she also provides a nice contextual introduction every week. For months, I’ve been getting literally hundreds of emails from people asking who exactly Staffonly is, where she came from, and what happened when she was abducted last year by those dick-worshipping scorpions. So this week, I’m proud to bring you all a very special--and long overdue--episode of Humor and the Abject. My guest this week is the one, the only, Staffonly.

Artist, stand-up comedian, and occasional curator Jennifer Sullivan is my guest this week. We talked about the show she put together last summer called “Cosmic Joke” at Safe Gallery, channeling Julian Schnabel, contexts for stand-up comedy, why legal weed is strangling Denver’s artist community, balancing real life and studio residencies, early Saturday Night Live, why performance art could stand to be a little more entertaining, going off-script, quitting vices, and tons of other stuff. You can catch Jennifer performing at friend-of-the-podcast Jennifer Vanilla’s live show this week on Tuesday, February 6th at the Windjammer in Ridgewood alongside Natalie Casagran Lopez, Teeny Lieberson, Sam Regal, Jen Goma, plus a video from Peter Smith. Also -- pick up a copy of this month’s Art in America for a new feature I wrote called “The Practical Precariat” featuring Jaimie Warren, Brontez Purnell, Jillian Mayer, and comedian Chris Gethard, and come out to a live panel about the piece on Monday, February 12th at Neuehouse in New York.

This spring, Kendra Jayne Patrick is opening up a new gallery called Harrison. She and I were both previously involved--at different times--with the artist-run gallery Essex Flowers, and I had always been super thrilled with the programming that she led there. She stopped by this week to talk about the current pop-up show Harrison programmed at Bortolami, the next steps in her program as she opens her physical space, why being a gallerist and a curator are distinct roles, getting into the New York art scene after attending law school, the ironic parallels between going to law school and pursuing an MFA, and much more. Also, some fucking car alarm went off multiple times while we were recording, but Kendra was a total champ about it. We’re sponsored this week by generous cash gifts from young Keanu Reeves and old Ted Kaczynski.

Musician, performance artist, professional muse, and self-described “Culturally-Absorbent Prototype” Jennifer Vanilla is my guest this week. Following her mildly frustrating Instagram live post trying to find parking in Bushwick, she managed to locate my apartment and, subsequently, my kitchen studio. We had a great discussion about her monthly show JVL@B (Jennifer Vanilla Live at the Bar) at the Windjammer in Ridgewood, the interesting relationship she has with dance music edits, why shipping to Canada is such an outrageous pain in the ass, why I love and miss the brooding falls and winters of the Pacific Northwest, whether feeling “special” is important, the role of the producer, scandals surrounding the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, the Jennifer Vanilla aesthetic, and distinctly ‘90s humor. We also shared the end of a Toblerone and she showed off some of her commercial voice acting skills.

Subscribe to Humor and the Abject on Drip: https://d.rip/humorandtheabject In another exclusive episode for our Drip subscribers, Darcie Wilder and Azikiwe Mohammed dropped by to talk about the stupid amount of media that each of us has been consuming now that it’s winter. We learned that Azikiwe once had a treehouse, that Darcie spent her entire freshman year of undergrad without speaking to her dorm roommate, Sean’s history with DVDs of the Notre Dame Marching Band, our favorite and our most-despised karaoke jams, the occult origins of the television program “House,” which mainstream sitcoms are better than okay, why UCB moving onto Darcie’s block means that improv is (actually) all around, and why everyone is the Unabomber.

Skyping in from the Windy City this week is comedian and illustrator Sarah Sherman AKA Sarah Squirm. We talked about her outrageous monthly show HELLTRAP NIGHTMARE, why being gross rules, how Chicago is a unique city for comedy, feeling guilty all the time while constantly seeking approval, the improv bro uniform, why noise music is hilarious, the changing landscape of contemporary comedy, the origin story of Screedler, and our mutual unhealthy obsession--and close encounters--with the men of Jackass. If you’re in Chicago, make sure to check out the HELLTRAP NIGHTMARE x Wham City show on January 18th, plus Sarah Squirm headlining the Empty Bottle on February 12th, AND a show with upcoming Humor and the Abject podcast guest Jennifer Vanilla on February 20th. New Yorkers: HELLTRAP NIGHTMARE will be in Brooklyn on April 20th (nice). If you don’t already know the outro song, I’m not sure that I can help you.

For the first episode of 2018, I had the privilege of interviewing the absolutely fabulous performance artist Alexandra Tatarsky. If you haven’t seen her live, I honestly don’t know what the fuck you are doing with your life. Alex sat down in the kitchen to discuss her early comedic influences, her monstrous 2017 touring performance piece “Americana Psychobabble,” studying the intricate art of clowning and miming, creating uncomfortable spaces for audiences and herself (and why that’s a good thing), institutional critique, and much more. We’re sponsored this week by how insufferable Scotland is, how unreal Stephen Miller’s voice and hairline are, guano, restaurant closures, and how god damn cold it is in New York. The outro song is “Proud to Be” by D.F.L.

2017 is finally over, and to celebrate I had musician Zain Alam come over for the final Humor and the Abject podcast of the year. Zain is the mind behind the brilliant musical project Humeysha, which Noisey describes as “a marvelously mellow kind of psych-pop, clean and sparkly like a diamond baguette, dappled with Bollywood-toned lilts.” We talked about the band and its unique visual identity, how his time in India changed his life, odd time signatures, the South Asian diaspora, his faith in Islam, attending Harvard, musical inclination skipping a generation, racial profiling, and new music. We’re sponsored exclusively this exclusively by Minions. Buy Humeysha’s first album on Bandcamp, baby.

Merry Christmas from Colorado, my good bitches. Andy Kaufman Award-winning comedian Brett Davis stopped by this week to discuss his public access show “The Special Without Brett Davis,” as well as creating a world with hundreds of characters, recent beef with character actor Michael Rapaport, large scale collaborations, kicking off a career in comedy by opening for punk bands, ruining Tinder dates, his new podcast about laundry, and much more. We’re sponsored this week by Christmas, Colorado, and the fact that my sisters are like permanently on weed gummies. Could you imagine being as categorically uncool as Gavin McInnes?

Artist Sara Greenberger Rafferty paid a visit to my kitchen this week to talk about her recent traveling survey “Gloves Off,” as well as childhood pranks, context and timing, television shows like “Mr. Robot” and “Nathan for You,” dissecting mainstream comedy, the influence of syndicated sitcoms on her Midwest sense of humor, making work that’s about being alienated without it being alienating, and her two-volume book project “Women Aren’t Funny” that we put out through Social Malpractice Publishing. This week’s episode is sponsored by holiday video messages from your family, cashiers who steal from their idiot bosses, Mark Cuban’s obvious erectile dysfunction, and the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on 10th November, 1975.