Dodge City

Jordan Carlos, an actor, comedian, and writer, grew up in Dallas and moved to New York City in 2001.

Unlikely TV recaps; stressful TV shows; bobbing and weaving; a prejudiced professor; Boy Band the movie; Ohio’s Oregon district; holiday movies; Maine and Texas chambers of commerce; Jordan and Dodge both have relatives in Houlton, Maine; Bob Marley’s Maine comedy stranglehold; Maine humor; lobstermen who can't swim; Jordan spying on Dodge's romance; anxiety about small plates; working with Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Agee, Dave Allen, Dominic West, Noah Baumbach, Ben Stiller, and Dustin Hoffman; fighting fraud complex and self doubt; doing work where your voice is heard; creating a famous jingle; writing for Larry Wilmore.

Elena Simon moved to NYC from West Hartford, Connecticut in 2005 to go to school and stuck around. She’s a musical and comedic performer and has also been a DJ and yoga instructor.

Samhain; invoking the goddess; cofounding a wellness center; being Jewitch; Nordstrom Rack; attending Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and the New School; learning choreography of Cats from orignal cast member; New York vs. London playbills; FOMO meets ROHMO; a sex-positive intentional community; DJing at swingers parties; sneaking into Bungalow 8; Suvi cooking; tips for balancing a busy life

TheComedyWitch.com

Instagram / Twitter: @thecomedywitch

Mark Hudson is a actor/improviser and waiter who moved to New York City from Huntersville, North Carolina in 2009.

Parsing Christian denominations; NASCAR in Mark’s hometown; earplugsuperstore.com; improv and sketch mentors; church as theatre; a musical mom; managing anxiety; reiki; wearing a mask vs. being your authentic self; nervous laughter; being a peacemaker; twerking before it was a thing; prom king; stripping on the Q train; the horrors of underwire; questioning one’s metrosexuality

Instagram: mthudson9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLV0qkODCoA

Phil Dejean is a lifelong New Yorker and longtime NYC public school teacher and cable access TV host.

Vegan accoutrements; belting out The Smiths; feminist singles night; being a school marm; hosting at Manhattan Neighborhood Network; crying in public; teaching etiquette in school in Harlem; rape culture deprogramming; Dodge’s personal trainer Roger; Leg Scene Magazine; Rocky Horror Picture Show since 1982; the sea change of digital immersion; Transatlantic accent; vegan nutrition; Luke Cage and racist TV viewers; Bojack Horseman; married on MTV; Jake Fogelnest’s early days; bottoming out in Astoria; pet enslavement; locked into Manhattan residency; bird ladies.

Twitter / Instagram / YouTube: @checkerphil

Pixie Esmonde, a costumer for Broadway and touring shows and a comedian, moved to Manhattan in 1977.

Dealing with noise in the studio; riffing on the alphabet; 39 years in NYC—first time in Bushwick; Catholic girls school; working with the Moscow Circus; eluding the KGB in ’75; Timbuktu production; working with KISS, Eartha Kitt, Melba Moore, Marlene Dietrich, Sammy Davis Jr.; 33 years in the same NYC apartment; meeting Alvin Ailey and Arthur Miller; squares on smartphones; teaching the nieces and nephews.

Sharron Paul is a comedian, writer, actor, and producer from Brooklyn.

A Dodge-a-log about a rainy commute; Lyft Line politics; street harassment; cat sitting; rides and phone calls from Dad; the Staten Island Railroad is a thing; Macy’s injuries; consonant clusters; Dodge’s shitty old landlord; Swamp Yankee cabaret; Eartha Kitt and Bobby Short; séance planning; Sharron’s boy band obsession.

Twitter: @sharronica

Instagram: @sharronicanyc

Facebook: *Cheap Date* comedy

Podcast: The Shade of It All

YouTube: Girls Are Roommates

Paula Spiro moved to New York City in 1969 and was a drummer for rock and punk bands through the 80s. She later founded a music school and gives drum and voice lessons and band consulting.

Badassery; First Flight music school; astrology and drumming; drumming since age 9; coping with Mercury retrograde; Dodge's dream of a feral cat live web cam; Paula's early days of gigging, agents, and all-female rock bands; mob interference; subversive women of early rock; riding with Sandy of the Hell's Angel's; self-reinvention.

Facebook: Drummers Underground NYC

Lifelong New Yorker Brian August, a digital media CEO and musician, created an augmented reality app for the Twin Towers in 2011 that he turned into a tool for real estate developers.

Brightly-spandexed cyclists; getting hit by a bike on the UWS; bike messengering in the 80s; NYC tap water; NYC land masses; all the neighborhoods we've lived in; Barclay Center vs. Madison Square Garden; beach plums on Fire Island; Words with Friends; Tumbleweed Connection; being in a bunch of bands; tracing the Twin Towers; building an augmented reality app.

Twitter/Instagram: @brianaugust

110stories.com

www.facebook.com/tumbleweedconnectionnyc

www.thejamnyc.com

Native Baltimorean Robert Landon is a travel and fiction writer who splits his time between Manhattan and Buenos Aires.

Muscle T; accessing emotions; Amtrak bathroom horrors; the prune pusher; second yoga class ever; Robert's cats' lineage; DUMBO in '89; Irvine Inc.; trichotillomania; memory loss from grief; the Amazon does not run through Argentina; not watching directors' commentaries; travel writing, swamp Yankees.

www.robert-landon.com

A Bronx native who lives in Manhattan, Taffy Jaffe is a stand-up comedian and retired therapist.

Her boyfriend Vinnie and their four marriages; ageism; starting out at drag shows in the 80s; entertaining at the bar as a toddler; hanging out with her grandson; taking her daughter to women's rights marches; Grace Paley and the women's house of detention; rape and abuse culture; the power of numbers for women comedians.