Author of “How Not To Kill Your Baby.” Plus Gary Shapiro completes this week’s musical assignment.
Humorist Jacob Sager Weinstein
Category: Authors
Conniff, Markoe And Overton
The current state of porn, privacy, and Victoria’s Secret. David defends the burka and treating women as robots in a roundtable with Merrill Markoe, Rick Overton and TV’s Frank Conniff. Please subscribe to us on iTunes, like us on Facebook.
Howard Bloom
An interview with American author Howard Bloom. Mr. Bloom first worked as a a publicist for singers and bands such as Prince, Billy Joel, and Styx. He has published three books on human evolution and group behavior, The Genius of the Beast, The Global Brain and The Lucifer Principle. This interview was conducted by our Executive producer Troy Conrad and was edited by Alicia Cordova. Please subscribe to us on iTunes and like our show on Facebook.
My Seinfeld Year
Fred Stoller recounts his time writing for Seinfeld on today’s program and in his new Kindle Single “My Seinfeld Year.” It is the hysterical yet bittersweet story of what happens when Fred finally gets the showbiz stability he always dreamed of as a staff writer on one of the greatest shows in television history. THIS is a great episode.
Merrill Markoe
New York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe’s new book is Cool Calm And Contentious. In this hilarious collection of personal essays, Merrill reveals, among other things, the secret formula for comedy: Start out with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men, toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and unappeasable people, and—voilà!—you’re funny!
Buy it now On Amazon
Also new music from Gary Stockdale. And Dylan Brody recorded live in concert.
Barry Crimmins Political Satirist
Air America Radio writer and correspondent, internationally renowned political satirist and author of the acclaimed Seven Stories Press book Never Shake Hands With A War Criminal helped bring the Boston Comedy scene into the modern age when he founded two of Boston’s most fabled clubs: The Ding Ho and Stitches. Such acts as Steven Wright, Paula Poundstone, Bobcat Goldthwait, Kevin Meaney, Jimmy Tingle and many, many others cut their comedic teeth in the rooms Crimmins started and at shows he produced.
The Boston Herald’s Robin Vaughn’s review of one of Barry’s shows included a concise Boston Comedy history lesson.
“In 1979, Crimmins, a politically minded comedian from upstate New York, started booking Boston’s brightest, brashest young wits into the Ding Ho, a seedy Chinese restaurant in Inman Square. The club, run for and by comedians, was an unpedigreed underdog, but broke conventions of the day in paying its performers reasonable fees and maintaining Crimmins’ comedy booking standards. He was hell-bent on originality and unforgiving of plagiarism. It was boot camp for the best comics in Boston and some of the most successful standups in the country. ”
According to that same Vaughn review, Crimmins hasn’t lost any prowess as a performer.
“To his old crowd, Crimmins is the patron saint of original, creative comedy in Boston and a brooding ideologue. His wit is as sharp as his sense of social justice, which has been known to eclipse a joke or two. But his hour-plus show, ‘Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian Soul’, served as a persuasive example of what intelligent stand-up comedy, politically themed or otherwise, can be.”
After helping jumpstart Boston comedy, Barry left production to concentrate on performing. In short order he gained attention as one of the top political satirists in the country. He has made countless television appearances on everything from The NBC Nightly News to The HBO Young Comedians Special to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He has recorded two CD’s: Strange Bedfellows on A&M and Kill the Messenger on Green Linnet. His writings appear regularly in the Boston Phoenix as well as several other publications. He was a staff writer for the syndicated Dennis Miller Show and has toured in performance with Billy Bragg, Jackson Browne, Utah Phillips, Michelle Shocked, Steven Wright, Dar Williams and numerous others.
This show was edited by Ben Schultz.