Heyo.
Switching up the format this time. This is an interview conducted in the fall of 2018 with friend of the mailing list / NYC-based comedian Darius Emadi. I was trying to get admitted into some uppity college course taught by a professional arts critic at the time, and you had to include a sample media piece, so I submitted this as fodder.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t get selected for the class, but Darius is a fantastic storyteller, and offers some great insights about his evolution as a performer / time in clown school.
When played at 1.25x speed, the conversation runs just under 30 minutes, so feel free to pop this on while doing your laundry, or alphabetizing your dress shirts by brand name, or whatever it is people even do anymore.
Show Notes:
Here’s a link to the interview Darius refers to with Marc Maron and Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen starts talking about Gaullier at the 1 hour 10 second mark:
Another reason I wanted to include this is to serve as a sort of virtual intro to Darius, for those of you who don’t already know him. He and I have some plans to talk about comedy specials released on major streaming platforms - specifically those in the realm of the recently-plugged Tom Walker and Middleditch & Schwartz specials.
I go back and forth on committing to this venture. On the one hand, so much of our collective content overload in this indefinite binge-watching era is done without the proper amount of digestion or reflection on whatever was just consumed (if any).
But on the other hand, any “appreciation” vehicle – be it a book club over Zoom, a podcast like Cole Cuchna’s Dissect, or a Twitter thread about the mother of Angelica Pickles – is oftentimes far more about the members of the club themselves, rather than the subject ostensibly being appreciated.
In other words, any outlet that allows a person to articulate their appreciation for [THING THEY LOVE] mainly serves as validation that consuming so much of [THING] was worthwhile, rather than a complete waste of their utterly non-refundable currency that is time.
It’s why people join discussion groups, or buy branded merchandise, or subscribe to self-indulgent mailing lists that occasionally make compelling points.
Because your attention, and dollars, when put into .gifs, or hoodies, or Disney+ subscriptions are proof. Certifiable, tangible evidence that you made a worthwhile choice in your otherwise-spoonfed consumption habits. Out of the thousands of musicals, and recipes, and reality TV shows, ~Y O U~, our contemporary Magellan, discoverer of hidden nectar, get why [THING] is so [WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO] / [ADVERTISING FOR].
In a way, it’s oddly charming.
(And yes, Charlotte Pickles was ahead of her time)
But mostly, it makes me waffle back and forth indefinitely on whether or not to go through with this sort of thing. In other words, “My friend over there is shy and wants to know if you would listen to his podcast ?? Haha just kidding… unless…??”
So if you gave this a listen, and are intrigued by the lens of comedy we’re attempting to articulate here, do let me know if you’d be keen to listen to us talk about specials in an infrequent but semi-regular interval, a la The Ringers’ Re-Watchables movie podcast.
Thanks for giving this one a chance!
Interview with Comedian Darius Emadi