THE ONLY ALBUM THAT HAS EVER BEEN REMIXED

During the pandemic I set out to put together a remix album of my first standup album, something I don't think any comedian had ever done before. I reached out to a bunch of musicians and got 21 of them on board to each remix one track from my album. Because it's not really clear what a remix of a standup track is, I told them they could do whatever they wanted as long as they referenced my original track in some way -- they could sample it, they could use my words as lyrics in a song, they could literally just do the bit themselves, or they could do something weirder than all of that. What I received back from them was the most diverse slew of content you could possibly imagine. There are grime rap songs, sketches, house music, country songs, folk, industrial, instrumental hip hop and so much more. Everybody crushed it.

Over the course of months I collected these 21 tracks into a full-length album and released it through Aspecialthing Records as a double-vinyl package alongside my standup album. It actually came with a supplemental 7-inch and CD-single in order to fit all the remix tracks in the package. I designed and laid out the packaging, made the website for the album, put it on bandcamp, coordinated royalty payments with the artists and got them all tagged (or not tagged) correctly in every store and streaming service. Once it was done I slept for years.

Buy the vinyl, listen to the digital album, or check out the project's website.

ONE RECORD A MONTH

In 2024, I made a pact with myself that I would put out one record a month. I designed all the packaging, matched the right color vinyl with the right the designs, self-distributed a few via CD Baby and put them all on my bandcamp. One was a split release with a band called SMALL, one was a companion to my magazine I'm Scared, and one was shaped like a gun. I collaborated with artists on three of the covers and otherwise made all the art myself. A small-run vinyl plant I love very much called Lock Grooves manufactured most of the releases, but two I had to source from other places. The packaging often came from Lock Grooves as well, but just as often I worked with printing places around the country to get the right thing made. I made the website, I managed sales and eventually put it together into a singles collection and a box set that hasn't been released yet.

Check out the records, check out the website, or listen to the digital versions on bandcamp.

MOSTLY TRAINS

In 2023, my old friend Ismael Loutfi and I decided we should hit the road together. We'd both toured a lot but never together, and we also were both pretty frustrated with comedy in the social media era. We decided we should as old school as humanly possible, and thus, we went on tour by trains. Mostly.

We took a train up to Portland, Maine for a show, and then down to Boston for another. Then down to Portsmouth, NH where we did a show and hitched a ride to the middle of the woods in Vermont for a gig. (This is the "mostly" part.) We took a boat across the river from Burlington to Plattsburgh then caught a train up to Montreal for a show. Then a train to a show in Toronto, then a train to a show in Detroit, then Cincinnati, Chicago, a sleeper car train ride back to the east coast, a Philly show, a Brooklyn show, then sleep. We promoted the hell out of it -- helped immensely by a beautiful photo shoot from Sam Cashell -- and got some great crowds for our crazy tour. I mapped out the route, booked all the shows, booked all the travel and managed the money, and it was so much more work than I could have possibly imagined. What a blast, though. I've put a lot of tours together; they were all a lot of work and they were all a lot of fun but this one stood on its own.

Check out the website!

AWFUL LEVEL LEAGUE

Kyle Ayers and I refused to let the pandemic stop us from performing, but we also hated Zoom shows. (The comedy community spent 2020 and 2021 lying to themsleves that telling jokes into a webcam to a crowd of 20 where you can't hear laughs and can barely see faces is the same as a live standup show. It drove me insane. I stopped doing them entirely after the first few months.)

Instead, we started a Twitch show called Awful Level League on Kyle's channel that combined two of our favorite things -- 1) Super Smash Bros and 2) punishing our friends. Every week, Kyle and I would build shitty levels in Super Smash Bros' level builder and invite a different comedian on to be subjected to varying types of constantly losing the game in a frustrating way. It was a blast and we built it top-to-bottom. I designed the art and skinned the channel for it, and Kyle managed the stream on his end, skyping in both myself and our guest. We built up a devoted following of people who pop into the chat to talk smack and make fun of the levels with us. We played in a private online room but gave out the login code on the show, so some of the fans would join in the game and play with us. To this day I'll still see some of their usernames pop up here and there in my notifications on Instagram and think, "Oh dude they're from Awful Level League!" It was a cool thing.

NUMBER 5

This is one of my favorite things I've ever written. It's the beautiful and heartwarming story of a very nice serial killer. I co-wrote it with Pat Bishop, he directed it and I starred in it. I also produced it, cast it, found all the props and costuming, scheduled the shoots, managed the money and designed the flyers we use in it. It bopped around the internet a little bit and then got picked up by JASH.

HOLY FUCK. LIVE COMEDY.

I used to run a weekly show in downtown L.A. with my friends. (See Holy Fuck. Free Comedy. below.) I knew I wanted to end it on a high note and create some sort of document of what we did, so we recorded an album before we said goodbye.

I grew up loving the cheap compilation albums punk record labels like Fat and Epitaph would put out, so we made a comedy version -- and our version -- of that. The result is a $10 double-disc album featuring 44 standup tracks and three original sketches from Eric Andre, Dana Gould, Hasan Minhaj, Natasha Leggero, Rory Scovel, Moshe Kasher, Kyle Kinane, Sean Patton, Beth Stelling, Whitmer Thomas and so many more. Rooftop Comedy released the album, whose director would later leave and start Blonde Medicine Records, and take the album with him to his new label. (His name is Dominic Del Bene and he rocks.) You can buy the digital album from them or listen on Spotify. I'm so proud of it.

HOLY FUCK. FREE COMEDY.

From 2009 to 2013 I ran a weekly standup comedy show in downtown Los Angeles. I started it on my own and by 2011 it'd become such an operation that I'd brought on Jeff Wattenhofer, Matt Ingebretson, Megan Koester and Jessica Ruiz, all friends of mine who continue to make great thigns to this day. It was in a beautiful movie theater and kicked off every week with original sketch videos we -- and some of our favorite comics -- made for the show. Incredible comedians would perform, many of whom are straight-up famous now. When we ended the show in 2013, there was a line so long around the block that hundreds of people couldn't get into the show. Patton Oswalt and Marc Maron performed and we ketp the show going, throwing comedians on stage who were there hanging out, as long as the crowd was able to stay awake. I think we wrapped up at about 1:30am.

At the time it was just what we did and I don't think it sunk in til years later just how special it was. It was like... an amazing feat. We made exclusive video and artwork for the show every single week, booked some of the best comedians in the country, many of whom ended up making exclusive sketches for the show too, and also screened shorts on the big screen from comedians shooting on zero budget at all, including my sketch group WOMEN. We ended up featured in the LA Weekly, the LA Times, LAist, Timeout and a bunch more, and we documented the show for posterity in the form of a two-disc compilation album. (See Holy Fuck. Live Comedy. above.) My dear friend G. Lewis Heslet put together shot the last show in super 8 and cut together this rad little movie.

For more about the show, including links and every flyer we ever made, check out the show's website.