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A couple folks have some very legitimate questions for Kevin and Joel gets a very exciting email that could change his and Kevin’s lives forever.

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Today we interview Levi Mann, comedian!

The conversation is hot right out of the gate as we discuss what he uses as fodder for comedy. Does his material stem from television shows like Marvel‘s S.H.E.I.L.D., of which Levi is a huge fan? Or does his material come from people (not the magazine, actual people)? Is there truth to Joel’s claim of the manipulation of the media?

Then Joel asks if they have beef. As the scene of the potential beef unfolds, we touch on comedians having pow wows with other witch doctors of comedy to sort out their joke potions. Does this eye of newt work? Does this need some tongue of squid? Then Levi reveals his marine zoological knowledge.

We try to answer the question, “could there be a happy racist?” We also touch on low income housing, Indians going to college, Canadian entertainment, the penny being retired and worthless as well as being the white minority.

Levi reveals his comedy stems from his observations of people at Tim Hortons, where he works. Turns out he’s racist towards his own kind: white, but mostly the western whites.

Is Levi OCD or just organized? Is he manic depressive, bipolar or a sexual deviant? These are all enjoyable quirks, like picking one’s nose as people watch or chewing on ice. Kevin likes being watched whilst chewing on ice. Levi laughs at Kevin‘s issues, but that brings healing because humour ALWAYS does.

Then we get into a very intense discussion on ice varities! Cubes, moons, chips?

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST: Where do various cubes come from? Do penguins make ice chips?

We are excited to learn that Levi’s name comes from Leviticus which is in the Old Testament of the Bible. Maybe it was a misstep to ask him if he wears Levi’s Jeans, but it did inspire some old, tired pants jokes! Before long, we get back on the course with Biblical pick-up lines. Will Deuteronomy win that pretty girl’s attention or is the Beatitudes a good go-to?

Joel gets confused about what Tim Hortons is and thinks they sell Red Bull, Rockstar Energy, Diet Coke, but he’s corrected. Levi tells us Niagara Falls is a tourist town and has diverse guests from all over the world. Then he tells us Canola Oil is the number 1 commodity in the world. This starts Joel into his “stick to the pan bit” inspired by the BP oil spill. Joel reiterates that hard Cs are funny!

Then we do Mike Birbiglia’s Tweets (the lizard king of comedy)!

Just purchased a winter coat made of chicken Parmesan.

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) November 13, 2013

Levi teaches us about why chicken Parmesan is funny as a coat and how eating it will put on some excess fat for winter. Amazing vision for comedy, Levi! It’s a coat made of food and fat is funny.

Then we discuss the art of “writing from stage”, a tactic that some comedians use. That makes them hit and miss, but sometimes it can be very funny. Then Kevin and Joel confuse Levi’s friend Larry Smith for Larry the Cable Guy, Larry King and Garry Shandling/Larry Sanders. Levi doesn’t write on stage, he does one man improv.

The conversation turns to “The Show Must Go On” by Queen and Freddy Mercury even if there’s open-heart surgery going on. Joel calls Freddy gay, but Levi thinks he’s Bi, which confuses Kevin and Joel to talk about ‘N Sync, Bye Bye Bye and Mighty Ducks with “We Are the Champions“. They also talk about that “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment in Wayne’s World in the mirth mobile.

Levi mentions Jim Carrey from Ace Ventura, Liar Liar, Excessively Excessively Excessively (a forthcoming film), Mr Popper’s Penguins and Mr Popper’s Penguins 2. Joel mentions Dr Dolittle and the Eddie Murphy version. Then they discuss Braveheart and Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson, William Wallace and Jesus Christ. And Robin Williams. And the little known William Wallace and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We have a Jumanji talk involving Tom Hanks, Chris Rock, Big (the comedy film) and Toy Story. Beware there are SPOILERS!

Joel tries to share his famous metaphor about butter on bread: white, whole wheat, pumpernickel, marble rye. Using butter with ham, marmalade or peanut butter, so creamy. Levi takes the opportunity to do some crazy accent about sandwiches. Is it Italian, Spanish or Cuban? This devolves into discussing Scarface, Carlito’s Way, Scareface 3: The Reckoning and Donnie Brasco. Kevin confuses that for Donnie Darko. Levi talks about his Stallone, Kermit and customer impressions. Joel finishes his metaphor citing Mark Twain, Jay Leno, Little Richard (Kevin sneaks him in), Sandra Bullock, Gilbert Gottfreid and Seth MacFarlane.

Joel makes the very meaningful point that real comics are the butter on the top of pancakes. Levi quotes Pineapple Express, appropriately. Then we argue about when people eat those pancakes, obviously. Levi regales us with a tale of making pancakes stoned from a mix, interestingly. Joel suggests making them from scratch, actually. We enlighten you about Levi’s gift for thinking and funnying outside the box, but how important it is to feel inside that box first and then give a football kick to the box and do your own thing!

Then we do Comedy Soup and get a little confused about what’s soup and what isn’t soup. Joel keeps making puns. Levi does an amazing job navigating the duo through his comedy rant based on the ingredients.

Another good facebook contest: Did Levi make soup? What was the soup? Was it a gazpacho?

We get into American cuisine like chicken and waffles, burger donuts and Twinkie hot dogs from UHF with Michael Richards and “Weird Al” Yankovic. It’s also a frequency. Watch it on Netflix. Follow us on twitter.

And then there is a beer pouring sound effect contest: If you think Joel’s is best, tweet #1 to OUR TWITTER. If you vote for Levi, Tweet #2 to HIS TWITTER and OUR TWITTER.

Tweets by @OhHeyMann

Our next competition: Did Levi Mann plagiarize his “can you call a blind man to the witness stand or is that hearsay” joke?

Score:

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Have a great week!

This week we tributize Russell Peters! But we don’t get into his story right away…

We question why Ricky Gervais had a wildly popular podcast, but we don’t! how did he have millions of downloads? We thank our listeners while trying to educate our listeners about subscribing on iTunes. We’re also on Player FM for android.

We also discuss that Gervais tweeted that Mike Birbiglia is the new Woody Allen. It appears that tweet has been deleted. We try to understand what that means because it doesn’t really make logical sense. We compare Sleepwalk With Me, Sleeper, Annie Hall, The Producers (Mel Brooks) and Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s the High school Musical of the 1980s.

Kevin mentions how Birbiglia’s coffee joke can really lighten one’s burdens of the day: “I’ve been listening to this rapper, Busta Rhymes. Sometimes he’ll say a really good rhyme, and he’ll say his name afterwards. He’ll be like, ‘Cat in the hat, and that was that — Busta Rhymes.’ I really like that. I’d like to do that with jokes. Like, ‘I like drinking coffee, but if I ever reach a point in my life where the best part of waking up is Folgers in my cup, I’m not sure I wanna wake up — Mike Birbiglia.'”

“@birbigs: Love all u folks who came out to @sleepwalkmovie. To own the movie for $5 go to sleepwalkmovie.com I absolutely loved it.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 29, 2013

@rickygervais this tweet made my year.

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) December 17, 2012

Of course, we discuss Cheerios and the British comedic sensibility. We remark on British weather, the bonnie Cliffs of Dover. This delves into an in-depth conversation about Dr. Who… or at least a mention.

We review our Louis C.K. episode and the “heads up” we gave him. As students of comedy, our opinion is rich as we putter around the comedy restaurant in various roles as a funny bartender (not Al Murray), a cleaner or a hilarious busboy (Steve Buscemi in the 70s).

We finally pull our magical brown rabbit out of our hat: Russell Peters. He’s actually famous in the whole world, not just New York City. Joel pulls out his New York accent and discusses his four day exchange program trip to NYC where he saw Central Park, MoMA and The Guggenheim. Of course, we couldn’t talk about his NY trip without talking about Jimmy the Sledge! There’s an M. Night Shyamalan twist with flair of postmodernism. And Joel wishes he could exchange with a New York Comedian.

Then Russell Brand is accidentally brought up. We talk about his politics and his platform. We try to start talking about Peters again, but the conversation slips back to Brand by mistake.

It’s revealed that Peters started stand-up in 1989 and does observational comedy about races and ethnicity. We talk about his ethnicity being Indian. Then Kevin gets very close to being racist and is chastised by Joel who wants to keep the podcast above board and politically correct.

Facebook Question of the Week: Is India currently residing in Asian and, if so, does that make it racist to talk about things that are in Asia as places?

Bit of a Facebook contest: How long has Russell Peters been doing comedy (show your verified work)?

Then Joel drops the bomb that comedy comes from a place of pain. Kevin cites Hamlet as an example a tragic jester (by Shakespeare). We realize it’s a healing thing that brings everyone together, even the Arab nations. That’s why Peters is compared to the great healer, Michael Jackson. Then Kevin talks about Russell’s shaving habits for some reason.

Give to the Philippines!

Peters grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada a little after the big bang might have happened, but before 1989, and it was hard for him because all the Canadians bullied him as he was probably the only Indian boy. And out of that pain acorn grew a comedy tree. We touch on video games (Pong and Mario) which will upset the human child’s mind, according to Joel’s thesis on the affect video games have on our internal physiology. We discuss India’s lack of cars, diet of rice and curries and use of tiles and sandstone. And we mention the lack of clean running water. All of this affects the buds of the comedy tree.

Somehow we get on alien technology like Apple iPhones and other way too advanced products. We touch on Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Wi-Fi, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone.

Russell Peters becomes a boxer, like in the song by Simon and Garfunkel, then he became a DJ in Toronto. We imagine Russell Peters in Winnifred, Alberta, just railing on the Canucks (official Canadian term for Canadians). We wish he’d try out some more Canadian jokes so we can learn about Canada and the Canadian accent. Instead he’s the entire Sugar Hill Gang in white-bread slacks, coming out to duelling DJs in his most recent hour “Notorious“! Branding genius!

Then Kevin gives our listeners a great hint about how to listen to and watch comedy stand-up specials. He suggests a still of Peters looking sad and then reading the transcript of the comedy special.

Brand comes up again and is described as being welcome on Pirates of the Caribbean. We also touch on a couple of his television appearances.

Then we talk about the difference between the Eastern and Western cultures in regards to superficiality versus the depth of sound. This stems from an appears Peters made on the George Stroumboulopoulos show where he spoke about his father.

This catapults us into a remarkable conversation about music pools in various cultures and music theory.

Facebook contest, the 3rd: There are 7 notes, plus sharps and flats, 3 per chord: How many combinations could you do?

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Have a great week!

Our first Interview episode couldn’t be better with our guest Zach Shade! We start in right away enjoying how not unlike Shaft Zach’s name is. Of course, that highlights how incredibly white and nerdy he is (not unlike the song by “Weird Al” Yankovic), which happens to be a brilliant segue into his Jewish based comedy.

We try to understand Zach’s influences, the things that inform his comedy. Not only is it his Jewish disposition, but also relate-able things from his life, but not hilarious moments at his uncle’s funeral.

We get right into Hitler, Eva Braun and holocaust jokes which aren’t offensive or racist because he’s a Jew. We talk about Germans and Nazis. This somehow leads organically to discussions involving Robin Williams, Family Guy, Lou Ferrigno, King of Queens, Patton Oswalt, Kevin James and a review of Paul Blart Mall Cop‘s movie poster.

The conversation deepens as we ask “where do jokes come from?” We talk about some pretty hilarious word pictures which might work in such movies as Eddie Murphy‘s “the Klumps” franchise.

Hilarity ensues as our dear guest illustrates how important that 37% of delivery is as he regales us with a story complete with an in-depth description of its physicality. We get a little peek into a potential romance that could have blossomed in that controversial, but albeit hilarious, moment.

Kevin also mentions Sandra Bullock again because he’s obsessed.

Even though the previous story had happened in Montreal with French people, we talk about Greeks, Scandinavians, Chinese people, Ethiopians, Australians and Americans. You can barely mention America without saying a few words about President Barack Obama. So, we mention him too.

We discuss how Jerry Seinfeld ripped the Chinese a new one by mocking their eating utensils.

Here is that video:

Talking about influences, process and inspiration, we touch on Jim Carrey, Assassin’s Creed and mashups on Glee.

Then we take time to discuss Zach’s pre-show rituals. It’s important to know what to eat, drink and what to sit on. Funny is often found in food. We discuss the dressing of his burger and fry options. Does he or doesn’t he add salt to his fries? We get that answer! We mention Gefilte fish and Mike Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk with Me” is mentioned as a cornerstone of “knowing thyself”.

As this goes on, we happen onto How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory, Ashton Kutcher, Charlie Sheen and Alan Harper. We remind people about Punk’d.

We talk about how it felt being on stage and when Zach went on dressed as Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror Picture Show. This naturally develops to more discussion about Hitler and his cheeky nature whilst performing his speeches. We discuss the issues of your body starting to work against you when you’re on stage.

Then we have our first segment of COMEDY SOUP! And yes, Zach gives us some soup!

And another segment called “Mike Birbiglia’s Tweets“. We have a laugh over a very Immanuel Kant tweet.

The episode takes a strange turn when we start to discuss Zach’s paranormal investigations! There are some spooky stories, so be careful when you listen. You could be freaked out. Joel suggests a Ghostbusters type film for Zach to write. He’d prefer to write a film for director Martin Scorsese.

We learn all about ghosts, poltergeists, demons, Paranormal Activity films, ghost boxes and the general thousands of planes of existence. Zach misquotes the Bible to illustrate something about ghosts. (“Misquotes” looks like “mosquitoes”). He tells us some scary stories about interactions with a Kool-Aid glass and a poltergeist in his grandparents’ haunted home. Kevin brings up Occam’s Razor and it’s naturally compared to Murphy’s Law in regards to trying to get some Oreos and a glass of milk. He also compares one of the three spirits to a short-haired Wookiee from Star Wars.

As a comedy podcast should do, we bring around this ghost hunting talk to the world of stand-up. What would happen if there was a ghost? Joel brings up Jews having sex through a sheet. Here are some Google results about that.

Kevin wins this podcast 2 nothing!

Questions or comments? Email: [email protected]

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Have a great week!

This is our first Listener Mail (LM) episode where we talk to YOU the listener about emails that you’ve sent us regarding the podcasting that we’ve been doing for you. It seems a little circular and redundant, but maybe in a deep way, that’s life.

Kevin mentions his BLOG and gives the INCORRECT link, so I’ve corrected it here: http://itskevinthegreatblog.tumblr.com! I’m not sure if there are ways to subscribe to his blog or comment and message on it, I don’t care, but you can figure that out and have wonderful conversations with him.

As you listen to our podcasts, you will notice we discuss many comedy minds (which is a term I prefer to “comics” or “comedians/comediennes”). Each podcast will have a blog post associated to it here which will give you links to more information about those comedy minds, those humourists, and any other things we touch on that the common man may not understand. I’ve already done this for our Introduction Episode and our Louis C.K. Tribute.

You may find there’s no reason to send us emails or comment on anything because you will get all the information you need on my blog posts. We do enjoy being tweeted, facebooked and soon you’ll be able to see hilarious videos on our YouTube! If you want to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, click the link below or the picture in this post!

Subscribe on iTunes!!

Questions or comments? Email: [email protected]

Our twitter: twitter.com/thejkaround

Facebooker? Like: facebook.com/thejkaround

Have a great week!

In this first Tribute Episode, we don’t just celebrate the “comedian’s comedian” Louis C. K., we also give him some tough love advice to get on the cover of GQ Magazine and to open for Mike Birbiglia! As we try to de-magify Louis’ comedy, we dip into a very intense conversation which really should be on the View. Is J/K Around Podcast the forum for a rape exposé? That’s something we’ll need to review for ourselves.

Then we celebrate his finest moments from his career: Pootie Tang with Chris Rock, writing for Conan and other HBO shows, dyeing his hair. This, of course, leads to us discussing Kevin’s Pootie Tang 2 which takes a fascinating Sci-Fi angle. We highlight the Sudoku style in which one would need to write for Louis, so he could fill his brilliance in the blanks. Dream cast? Emma Watson or Sandra Bullock, any of the Seth’s: Seth Rogan, Seth Green and Seth MacFarlane. And, of course, Louis himself as Captain Kiejrnglung!

The science fiction talk turns to science fact as Joel touches on his theory that we would need the power of light and Hindu-style meditation for us to be able to live on Mars. This brings the duo to politics, spirituality and philosophy (aka LIFE). And Kevin reveals the subtext of Pootie Tang 2. Because Louis is a god like Zeus, yet he pretends to be human like us, we felt we needed to put him in the same company as other gods: Adam Sandler and Lisa Lampanelli.

This raises the issues facing comedians who are girls (comediennes or female comedians as they’re offensively called). We confirm that all comedians are funny if they’re girls, but not always if they’re guys. Interesting female comedians: Maria Bamford and Tig Notaro who with thought let their funny personalities overshadow the funny jokes sometimes. Of course, we do talk about Louis’ show Louie and how sometimes comedy is ruined by substance.

Joel compares Louis’ commentary to him explaining that his “Internet Bit” is really about Darfur, Rain Forest deforestation and the risk of Star Wars and Disney taking over the Nation and America. It’s agreed that Get Smart had social commentary, which is why it’s unwatchable today.

This is the famous “Internet Bit”:

Other comedians we reference: Blue Collar Comedy, Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Nat King Cole, John Pinette, David Cross and Joe Rogan (Newsradio, Fear Factor).

This week’s contest: Tweet scene ideas or written pages for Pootie Tang 2 to @thejkaround and, if it’s good, we’ll retweet it and maybe act it out!

Here’s the cellphone bit we reference in this episode:

Suck the magic as hard as you can with us in our social media:

Questions or comments? Email: [email protected]

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Have a great week!

Welcome to the first Episode of J/K Around Podcast. Here we discuss what you can expect from the podcast (interview and tribute episodes) as well as some of the greats we might be discussing: Mike Birbiglia, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Jeff Dunham, Charlie Sheen, Larry the Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy. We touch on amazing shows like The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. We also use rich metaphors like Lego and KerPlunk to describe comedy itself.

This episode really lays the ground work, bedrock and foundation for the rich conversations we will be having for episodes to come!

Questions or comments? Email: [email protected]

Our twitter: twitter.com/thejkaround

Facebooker? Like: facebook.com/thejkaround

Have a great week!