The Blackout Diaries Podcast is back after a break spent on filming the TV Pilot. Unfortunately we received some tragic news that a dear friend of the show, Mike Polino, passed away from a rare auto-immune disorder. Mike owned The High Hat Club, which is where the Blackout Diaries performed for two years while The Lincoln Lodge was moving. He was a great dude and a hilarious presence behind the bar. We share some Mike stories -- including one he told at the live show about his attempt to fake an injury to avoid relationship trouble. Mike's bar The High Hat Club, was filled with characters and is sorely missed. This leads to a discussion on closed or dead bars- bars that closed up shop and that we miss. We share stats on how bar and restaurant closings are not nearly as common as people think along with some stories about our favorite closed bars.

CJ Sullivan and Sean Bair-Flannery talk spring break! We share some personal stories: Sean details how traveling with your kids on spring break can somehow land you in more troubling embarrassment than drunks and CJ shares a story about driving straight through the night to meet friends with no plans. We share some stats on how much money spring break generates for destination towns but, despite this, some towns despise spring breakers, including Miami Beach's "Breaking Up With Spring Break Campaign"

Comedian Hannah Belmont tells three, short, hilarious stories at our live show, ending with how she went on a date with her older manager at a Mexican restaurant while in college. Hannah joins CJ and Sean in the studio and they discuss her story in more details, everything from the COVID vaccine to Lalapalooza and bad bosses. CJ and Sean discuss the theme of 'bad managers' for the episode, detailing stories of some of their bad bosses- Sean's in IT and CJ's at a hilarious bar in Philly. We also share some stats related to bad managers, like how coworkers are dating more often, post-covid and the alarmingly high occurrences of sexual harassment in the food service industry.

An episode on The Super Bowl! CJ and Sean talk about their favorite moments watching America's funniest city, Philadelphia, win a Super Bowl and then party. People cooking pigs on trains, riding a top trains, maybe taking horses inside trains? We also talk about the city of Philadelphia's strategy for keeping cars and buildings safe and why anyone who says Kendrick Lamar's performance was a bad a halftime show is NO student of history- that Americans forget how hilariously mediocre the shows you used to be. We also share some mind-bendingly large Super Bowl stats, that the NFL shares with everyone and they are repeated as fact, but there's no way they are true, like how much money host cities make off the game and fans.

Comedian Jamie Shriner tells the story of her first road comedy gig where she drinks too much at the show, then goes to a strip where she is brought on stage. Jamie joins CJ and Sean in the studio to share some more details on the story (that was recorded at our live show) along with some of her tips with how to have a good experience at strip clubs. CJ and Sean then talk about strip clubs and their role in boozing. We discuss a Hollywood strip club where the dancers have unionized, a Detroit strip club mogul who built an offensive statue next to his ex wife's house and we bring up the recent Justin Tucker Rub & Tug controversy and how NFL stars can use technology to find masseuses who are willing to give them a handjob rather than assaulting people.

Comedian Chris Trani tells the story of when he was too drunk to enter Wrigley Field so, after security rejected him, he found a local Chicago softball game. Chris joins CJ and Sean in the studio to talk about the unique ways men plan a re-union weekend, versus women. We also discuss nicknames- the good and the bad. We share a study that suggests nicknames might be better to use if you have a very weird birth name and we tell some stories about some of drinking buddies who have great nicknames.

A Dry January Episode from The Blackout Diaries. Sean is doing Dry Jan with his wife and talks about how that began and CJ updates everyone on how he escaped the burning hills of Hollywood. The outgoing Surgeon General has announced that America should put cancer warnings on all bottles of alcohol and we discuss why that may not be effective and why getting people to quit drinking is much harder than quitting cigarettes- because alcohol is a lot more fun. We also share some articles about the warnings of Dry Jan and talk about how most of them do not apply to the kind of person that will consider taking 30 days off.

Comedian Kait Carmody tells a story at our live show about her recent trip to Ireland with her father, who was born there. Kait, who is also our newest coproducer at The Blackout Diaries, then joins CJ and Sean in the studio and we discuss everything from Ireland to how vacations are different with your family, versus your drinking buddies. This leads to a theme on family vacations. Sean tells some stories from his recent trip to Hawaii with his family and CJ shares some stories about his dead saving money on vacations by locating fly-by-night airlines.

An amazing standup comic and friend to many, Kenny De Forest, passed away a year ago this week. On this episode, we celebrate Kenny with a clip from his last appearance on our live show along with stories about Kenny from other comics. Comedian Aaron Weaver shares a great story about what it was like to hangout with Kenny and Matty Ryan talks about how much Kenny meant to everyone, as seen at the tribute show that was organized for Kenny. Cj and Sean add some of their own stories and impressions of Kenny, along with how standup comics tend to 'process' death (i.e. drink).

Comedian Kevin D Williams, a Chicago legend, stops by the studio as our first, post-election guest and shares his thoughts on the election. We play some live clips of Kevin and then talk Presidents. Kevin shares why he thinks Trump should have been banned from running for office, based on his experience at a McDonalds. And CJ and Sean share some of their favorite historical stories about hard drinking presidents.