dischargingfoul

We broke into an All-You-Can-Eat buffet on bottomless diaper night & ate 3 soft serve machines. Metal & all.

What's the furthest back into their old, "shitty" material anyone's reached for an idea that ended up killing unexpectedly?

I'm being 100% serious, but was terribly unclear. I meant before he/she even summoned the courage to perform stand-up & perhaps had years of material, but maybe their humor sharpened & they weren't sure if the old stuff was even worth going back to evaluate. So like, let's say you're 30 & decided to finally chase your dream, do you access stuff you might've written as a dumb 23 year-old?

This is like the 4th time I didn't read the episode info & was kinda blown away upon eventually realizing that the last character was Hines. He's Brendon Small-esque.

I lose my shit whenever Scott noticeably muffles laughter & I hate when you can tell he's doing a good job at it. This was one of those eps (I'm sayin I loved this episode).

I've become a Weinbach fan recently, definitely gonna check out his new stuff, and that The Witness video game. This ep felt like a return to form (shame Stard wasn't available) & I hope The 2WhoCh Crew continues to harness this positive Summah momentum. Also, Virginia sending perps to Texas honestly sounds like it was just an underground way to bring "justice" to non-white people. I'm too scared to even look it up.

RE: this week's How To Act, I understand where Howard's coming from. There's a very noticeable politeness & social grace that you either have or you don't, & if you have it, it precedes you in the public "marketplace". If you don't have it, you wouldn't even be able to point it out in another person. It's all about having merely an average level of self-awareness when it comes to your own emission of noise pollution & how you're impacting other people's personal space, but I'd say 90% of people aren't even familiar with those concepts & it makes the rest of us feel like assholes when we become annoyed by their self-centered behavior. "Hold the door for women, & the rest will just happen naturally." --Ebenezer Scrooge

that comment was somehow the most memorable part of a great episode; it just kinda hung there for a second. it was indeed cryptic.

Song of Summah thus far is "Yamborghini High", folks. Video seriously reminds me a li'l bit of Dragonboy Suede's vid for Newborn Baby Colt & some of the lyrics feel like they could've been penned by Suede himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he was an anonymous collaborator on the song or video. Howard knows A$AP Rocky, right? Also,

Ron/Tom Petty was one of the best new characters I've heard in a while. 3 years of eating nothin but "grass" sounds like quite an adventure. Nice.

Brilliant of Maria to stay in her character from Hollywood Handbook. C+

Was anyone else relieved that this ep wasn't actually recorded at SXSW? I just think this show in particular works better without the thunderstorm of a live audience.

Alpaca, I was actually worried for a sec that someone might possibly think that's what I meant, so I guess I'll explain. I think "lazy rap" is a phrase that discredits the genre a bit. Not every rapper is in the Kanye/Eminem/Tupac alpha dog mould, & modern rap doesn't require every line to be punctuated with that sort of "A-HA! Look what I just did! FUCK THE WORLD!" edge that used to be the norm. Rap can be more about vibe, ambiance, & flow today than it could've in the past, & I think that's what fans of the music can be happy with. Alternative rock didn't inspire the most new fans back in the 90's, but it was indeed a new evolution of the genre. Madeintyo & other rappers this decade have tapped into alternative rap, & there's nothing unskilled or lazy about it (look no further than Earwolf's many forays into the difficulty of freestyle rapping to get an idea of just how difficult it is to catch/flow with a beat). But yes, I do prefer hard-working, white rap to lazy rap most of the time.

That was great. April came in a little hot with her takedown (personally, I think lazy can mean different things to different people when it comes to rap, & I disagreed with her assertion) & Howard gave her the perfect schooling on why that song is a shining example of the sharp, quickly-evolving rap cycle we're in. I also don't think April is too "mom" to begin to appreciate new rap. High-five!

Appreciative of the response, Chris; thanks for shedding a little more clarity on the production end of the podcast (I was unaware you use twitter to "open the lines"). I should've been more clear that by "people he knows", I meant "stars" (or if not the stars themselves, people whose "selected" stories/backgrounds were near-identical stories to to theirs), & that the season-ending reveal was going to be that even the down-on-their luck common folk who call in could still have a renaissance to realizing whatever their dreams are. I guess in the end, it doesn't matter whether that would be scripted or not, but I take your word for it that the call-ins are livewire. This is a genre unlike any other podcast.

So, these are obviously "origin stories" of people he knows, right? As good as Gethard may be at empathizing with/ creating an arc for these callers, it feels a little too clean, tidy & polished for these to truly be anonymous, random (spontaneous?) calls, especially considering the after-school special ending from episode 1. Two hours in, & I can hardly remember an instance of anyone talking over each other. Maybe that's supposed to be obvious to everyone except me, but the logistics of the true, "reality" angle of this show just don't add up. Even if he had a staff of people listening to every last minute of voicemails, & chris was selectively calling the most interesting ones back; & even if, after that, he stayed true to the idea of surrendering an hour of his time--in real-time-- to sculpting the call into a listenable hour, that's still an incredible amount of man-hours for a free show, & that means episode 23 will actually be from March 30, 2016, & the conversations lose some of their legit "reality" by no longer being as current. Or it could be a beautifully-packaged commentary on the insane waste of time involved in trolling & internet bullying, which would really speak to the "Beautiful" in the title, in which case I'll shut up & for sure keep listening to this non-hilarious, though engrossing comedy podcast.

there was a moment near the beginning when something incredibly loud happened & i was rudely reminded that Stard wasn't in charge of the levels today. #engineerfear

The abundance of tools in PFT's bag of tricks/tools is astounding. I could be wrong, but I think a couple times, this actually frustrated Gilly, & the slight tension in the air added to the ep.

"Ku's Beauty Corner" should have its own theme music by now, no?

for some reason the image of Tony Shalhoub/Monk singing I Can't Drive 55 gave me a good laughlaugh.

whitney seemed to calm down & get out of her own head a bit after the first break. she's definitely a little more Hollywood than the average guest (the shock & awe that her bf wouldn't know the soaring heights of her career was endearing), but the regulars were able to work with that. in an alternate universe, the path this could've gone down might've featured her as an unwilling, unknowing straight man while gemberling took veiled shots at the real whitney as gene. if she ever comes back to the show--presumably after much continued success--maybe she can play up the hollywood narcissist angle to great effect. this ep really highlighted the diff b/tw the worlds of stand-up & improv for me.

i really got a good laugh over john lennon trying to tear off a best buy employee's shirt, exclaiming, "I will buy this from you!" during the madness of black friday. "Get outta here, ya bum!"

this episode felt a lot more organic than some of their recent ones. case in point, when howard mentioned that he'd brought up his hair care products a few weeks ago & nobody believed him, i think it's because it was from an episode that i found very "scripted". it was from the early stages of the new format, i think with stephanie allynne, & they were talking about skin care or something... it felt like they were reading copy of a paid advertising section or told to wedge in an impromptu ad, & they seemed to even acknowledge through the 4th wall how awkward it was. anyway, i'm probably botching the details or it mighta been a completely different episode, but i think i even commented on how weird the new direction of the podcast was, & if Ku/Stard didn't remember the recent convo that served as the seed for Shamp and Cond, i bet that's why.

noel wells know-els well what i'm talkin bout!

i thought Zin was neil campbell til he plugged mike o'brien's album. mike's hilarious, i remembered him having a great ep of hollywood handbook not too long ago, & sure enough, he made a return appearance on that show while he was in the building i guess. can't wait to hear it. zin definitely should be a character on the tv show some day.