I’ve been lazy/busy/distracted/out of it lately so I haven’t kept up with linking to the podcast episodes on here as they are released. I am sorry. I promise I will not commit such a heinous act again for the next few months.

Anyway, here are links to get us up to speed. Even if you don’t know who these fuckfaces are please give it a listen. They’re my fuckfaces and they will become your fuckfaces and then we can all facefuck together, okay fuckface?

(sorry, ‘fuckface’ is my new favorite word, fuckface.)

Episode 80 – Sean Flannery – “I consider the NFL to be borderline evil.” Join the thousands and thousands of Chicagoans that have seen his one man show “Never Been to Paris” at The Comedy Bar, Thursdays. It’s grab-your-tits funny.

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Episode 81 – Megan Gailey – “All these fancy people can’t be bothered by regulars. We don’t need them touching us.” Already got the SP write up.

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Episode 82 – Dan Ronan – “I have scars on my legs still from rides in the Bluebird of Happiness.” Already got the SP write up.

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Episode 083 – Drew Michael – “I have some open ligaments sticking out.” Drew features and headlines all over the place. He’s a founding member the highly respected weekly showcase, Comedians You Should Know.

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Episode 084 – Bombs Away with Kevin Hogan – “When did I fail wizard school?!” Keep up with Kevin’s zany adventures on Twitter: @khogancomedy and at the podcast he co-hosts: The Friesen Point.

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Episode 085 – Just the Gratuity with Matt Riggs – “Tipping is a big deal in this country. Tipping.” Matt is a podcasting LEGEND. He talks into microphones all the time. Check out Bad News Good Timing and his other podcast: Matt Likes Girls.

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Episode 086 – Pat O’Rourke and Rob Gregory and Me – “What is this? A Difficult-Bake Oven?” Check out their podcast: Somebody and Me. I was on it. I was fuckin’ hilarious. Twitter: @SomebodyFunny

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Episode 087 – Saurin Choksi – “Is this really happening? Is this what he does?” Both of us new to the Chicago scene at the same time, Saurin was my first friend in Chicago comedy. Awww. Saurin’s website: SaurinChoksi.tumblr.com and twitter: @saurinchoksi

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Episode 088 and 089 – Tyson K, parts 1 and 2 - “I’m getting drinky.” During this episode Tyson, myself and co-host Joe McAdam start and finish a case of beer. That’s why it went so long and why it’s some funny-ass podcasting. Tyson’s Twitter: @TysonKComedy

Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Episode 091 – Matt Kona – “This taco truck. It was run by these burlesque people.” Matt was in town from Boston. Despite his huge beard we had a really interesting conversation. I also did an episode of his excellent podcast, Comics Coming Up. Matt’s website: MattKona.com and Twitter: @MattKona

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Episode 090 – James Fritz – “Yeah, warts don’t always just come from women.” (out of order because I messed up the filenames. Oops). James and I are extremely nice and friendly towards each other, which is weird cause we’re not. And that makes for great podcasting. James’ podcast: You Could Be Dead and Twitter: @JamesFritzComic

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There ya go! I hope I got all the links right. Many hours of enjoyment (maybe). Putting this post together reminds me what I love about being in comedy: all the funny and interesting people you get to meet. The nobodies and the somebodies and everyone in between. Well, not everyone. Some of them are jackasses just like every industry.

If you listened to all of those without navigating away from this page then you really need to make better choices with your life. Please bookmark the podcast or subscribe through an RSS thingie or subscribe through iTunes. It’s a wonderful to not get a lot of work done while your stupid boss thinks you’re actually a good employee. Or car trips! Or while riding the local train/bus/prostitute.

Join the Winners and Losers Revolution, fuckface!

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Two episode update! Hey carbon units! Yeah, you. Check out these episodes of the podcast.

Episode 081 – Bedroom Sighs with Megan Gailey (@MeganGailey)

Megan Gailey (above)

Episode 081 welcomes comedian Megan Gailey back to the podcast. She’s a powerhouse of talent, and not just in the dressing herself department. Audiences first see her warm smile, classy accoutrements and confident demeanor but are quickly thrust into the tormented hellhole that is her mind, laughing and screaming the whole way. I’ve seen her command a room like a serial killer in a classroom on parent teacher conference day; try and ignore her! Plus she’s just fun and smart to talk to. I asked her what it’s like having your gender constantly pointed out in comedy, she shares her experience almost working at the Super Bowl and then attending it and seeing the Madonna. Plus we play another round of the famous DALAI LAMA or PORNSTAR game, the game of teats and tweets. We were joined by comedian and human tempura Joe Fernandez.

I first met Megan over three years ago in improv class, level 1, when she was making up a missed class by sitting in with ours for the day. I remember thinking, “Who the hell this hot bitch think she is being all attractive AND funnier than the rest of us? Sheeit.” And then I got into stand up and there she was. Now we’re tennis buddies. It’s cool. Oh, she also played an important role in the short film I made. See if you can spot her!

It won’t be long before she’s famous so I hope to have her back on the show as a guest as often as possible before she gets all over the magazine covers and starts living in a plane that never lands or something.

Direct Download: 2012.02.20_WL_081_-_Bedroom_Sighs_with_Megan_Gailey.mp3

Download via iTunes

Listen right here:

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LINKS

Megan’s co-hosts her own podcast: NakedSportsLive.com and is a member of the hit comedy hit squad, Your Funniest Friends.

EPISODE 082 – Dan Ronan (@RonanComedy)

Dan's Twitter Avatar. Shrug.

Episode 082 is with my good friend Dan Ronan. We haven’t been friends long but the times we’ve shared together have been some of the most stimulating of my life. Oh wait, I’m thinking of egg rolls. Crunchy on the outside, filled with Yahweh-knows-what on the inside– the world’s perfect food.  Dan’s swell, too. Not egg roll swell but pretty close. He and I are going to know each other for a very long time because we’re both terrified of the world and that’s what keeps a person alive.

Dan’s still young but his soul is already shriveled up and dead. That’s why he’s such a funny comedian. After I ask him why the fuck I haven’t been booked at the show he co-books (The Lincoln Lodge) we trade childhood memories and insecurities and fears and shit like that. He’s like the little brother I always wanted to ignore.I don’t really remember all of it but it was a revealing conversation.

Aside from the constant eye contact it never got uncomfortable. Here!:

Direct download: 2012.02.27_WL_082_-_Dan_Ronan.mp3

Download via iTunes

Listen right here:

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LINKS

Lincoln Lodge website: TheLincolnLodge.com Dan’s Twitter: @RonanComedy

Thanks, reader. Now get back to your regularly scheduled distraction.

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Episode 079 of the podcast is a big one. Pete Holmes was the guest. He may not be a household name, but he’s certainly a householmed name… God, what a terrible way to start this post. Get it now, ya holmosexuals!

Direct Download: 2012.02.06_WL_079_-_Pete_Holmes.mp3

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Listen right here:

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Aside from being a headlining comedian, Pete writes for television, does voice over work (Ever hear of the ETrade baby? Of course you have.) and has published cartoons in the New Yorker. His sketchwork on the Internet is prolific and enviable and he does his own podcast, You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes on Nerdist.

Begun in October 2011, it instantly elbowed its way into my regular rotation, becoming a must-listen for me and my billions of friends on the Internet. A majority of his guests are accomplished comedians, many of whose achievements match his own as well as others who toil in different facets of the laughter industry. Pete’s favorite pommel horses are comedy, sex/relationships and religion and he approaches each topic like a malfunctioning tennis ball machine, peppering the listener with varying intensities of felty bruiseyness. The times he goes down Memory Highway with the comedy friends he started with in Chicago are of particular interest to me because I feel/hope I’ll one day pass similar signposts. It’s entertaining. It’s thoughtful. It’s pure Pete Holmes.

He was kind (or bored) enough to do my podcast. For all he knew I was just another Twitter jackass who asked him to do a podcast. He didn’t have to say yes. But he did. And that’s the kind of risk-taking that makes Pete such a strong performer, as I got to see for myself the night before the interview. A lady friend and I went to the Up Comedy Club at Second City to see him headline. He was everything I want to be on stage: tall, white, hilarious and paid. As for the lady friend… I can report that that relationship ended as quickly as it didn’t begin. Coffee is for closers. I drink tea.

Every time I watch a headliner perform a full set in front of a paying audience I observe the show with the eagerness of newly sentient robot pouring through a stack of books, seeking wisdom and insight– something, anything that could help me grow as a comedian. It’s kind of an awful way to be and is one of the things I lament as a comic: that I’ll never be a pure audience member, a work-a-day dolt out to see a performance, hoping for a good time and genuine laughs and that whichever babe I’m with eventually starts rubbing my thigh in anticipation of eventual toe-curling penetration. Instead I study the complex psychological interaction between the performer and the audience, the interaction I spend most of my time parsing and dissecting as I work on my own stand up career. Doesn’t stop it from being impressive; just makes it impressive in a different way.

After the show Pete was seated at the merch table (‘merchandise’ for you civies (‘civilians’ for you norms)). I introduced myself as the Twitter jackass and we settled on a time to record the show.

I’m always surprised that you can just walk into hotels, go to any elevator and wander around any floor, especially nice ones like where Pete was staying. (He assured me they’re rarely as nice.) I feel like I’m supposed to check in at the desk or something, let them know I’m not a psycho. But I suppose such a requirement would hamper the pizza delivery and prostitute industries.

Anyway, it was a great interview. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from people who’ve listened. The one frustration was that I screwed up the levels on the mixing board, making my voice sound a little off. See that picture there. All I had to do was turn that knob on the left down. DAMMIT! SO ANNOYING!

It’s really not that bad, you’ll see, but I get especially irritated when a problem’s solution is so easy. Thanks for reading.

LINKS:

Check out Pete’s website: PeteHolmes.com and follow him on Twitter: @PeteHolmez

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Episode 078 of the podcast featured Stephen Markley. He’s a writer/author. He’s got credits coming out of his fingertips. We met at an open mic about a year ago. He wasn’t there to do comedy but instead did a brief reading from his book, Publish This Book. We chatted briefly about doing the podcast and ten months later I remembered and invited him on. Here’s the result:

out of context quotes:

“No one’s ever had a healthy relationship. It just doesn’t exist.”

“It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure except someone already made the choices for you. AKA a book.”

Direct Download: 2012.01.26_WL_078_-_Stephen_Markley.mp3

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Stephen also writes a regular column for the Red Eye called Off the Markley that covers movies, politics and culture. I’ve become a regular reader of it and you should to. The guy is pretty good at putting words together and as a person who for a long time wanted to put words together for a living I can express only heartfelt jealousy at his publishing achievements.

Always judge a book by its author.

It’s a real book, by the way. By a real publisher, made of real paper and real ink. (digital versions available). The guy isn’t even in his 30s and he already published a book, which makes me think I gotta finish one of the several novels I started between video game/masturbation/confusion sessions in college. I got this one idea. It takes place in the future. The world has run out of oil. People cook with butter only. The two leads are more alike than they’d care to admit, two sides of the same loin, you might say. After implausibly trading identities they match wits, recipes and more throughout the story in a race-against-thyme free-range thriller that spans the Northern Illinois Metropolitan region. It’s called Butter Face Off. It’s mostly just dudes running and beating each other up with prison trays. There’s also a single sentence multi-page sex scene to keep the reader excited. And some shit about insect-shaped cars. I’ll start chapter 2 eventually.

So yeah, check it out. It’s a great episode that covers a lot of ground, from the usual Winners and Losers fare of body fluids and body fluid harvesting to the intricacies of the literary world, with a good dose of politics for you head-nodders out there. We figure out Lost and share our most intimate desires in another round of ROMANTIC FANTASIES, which is a segment we do on the show where I make guests uncomfortable by asking them to describe a romantic fantasy. Stephen’s not a comedian by trade but he seems to think like one, which is probably a compliment?

I’d like to have him on the show again to talk movies and politics and to argue about all sorts of things about which I’m too ignorant to have an opinion.

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Episode 077 of the podcast featured comedian and film star Liza Treyger. She lives somewhere around here and is very funny and very fashionable, unlike me. I have stains on my clothes. If I can’t remove the stain with sink water then it’s bleach. If I can then it’s food. It’s the Chicago way.

Have a listen!

out of context quotes:

“Today I was watching a Law and Order: SVU called ‘Slaves.’”

“Because they’re surrounded by yes women.”

Direct Download: 2012.01.23_WL_077_-_Rich_and_Stylish_with_Liza_Treyger.mp3

Download via iTunes

Listen Right here:

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LINKS:

Liza’s Twitter: @GlitterCheese

Jeff’s Twitter: @Jsteinbrunner

Hank’s Twitter: @Hank_Thompson

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Download via iTunes

Listen right here:

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Screengrab of #withmydick, trending locally. Click to zoom.

We discuss the hashtag #withmydick. It originated in the mind of Mike as a fun phrase he would use on stage but because of the miracle of Twitter and the alcohol-lubricated intentions of post-show revelry it became something far greater than Mike ever imagined. Read about it in this article Kenny DeWrote on the Chicago comedy blog: ComedyofChicago.com. It happened the day before Christmas and united the Chicago comedy scene into a unified whole.

The center of #withmydick is the two-chambered beating heart that is Mike Lebovitz and Kenny DeForest. One ventricle, one atrium, and a whole lot of fluid with nowhere to go. All the proof you need is contained in this screenshot from the bottom of Kenny’s article:

This kind of love brings a tear to my brown eye.

Follow Mike Lebovitz on Twitter: @MikeLebovitz and check out his show Comedians You Should Know

Follow Kenny DeForest on Twitter: @Kenny_DeForest and check out @SpeakEZComedy and Truckload O’ Comics

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Get it here: WinnersAndLosersShow.com

Former and banned co-host of the Winners and Losers Show, Joe Fernandez, did the podcast with me. Why is he banned, you ask? That’s not the question. Why did I not ban him sooner? That’s the question. That kind of clarity is why people come here.

Direct Download: 2012.01.12_WL_074_-_Sounding_Effective_with_Joe_Fernandez.mp3

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Listen right here:

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I’ve been doing more 1 on 1 episodes recently because booking one person is a lot easier than booking two. Coordinating three schedules instead of two makes doing so five times more complicated. That’s a lot of math to throw at you so take a moment to clear your head. I was never good at math. It’s too rigid. Too honest. I need to hide behind a veil of vaguery, which is why words make more sense to me than numbers.

If you ever catch yourself doing complicated equations on a mirror then you know for certain you’re a genius. Assuming you’re getting the answers right, that is. Reflective horizontal surface mathing is a sure sign that you’re a virgin and/or in a movie or a 60 Minutes profile. That’s when there’s no return, except maybe a return to the mirror store to get a new math-resistant mirror.

A really unfair photo of Joe Fernandez

Joe Fernandez is good guy, except for the time he squirted water down my buttcrack and I almost broke his face. That sounds like I hit him. I didn’t. I almost did. It would have hurt a lot because I was very angry.

In this podcast Joe and I show off our impressive improv skills building a scene from Batman in which The Penguin goes custom umbrella shopping. It’s so realistic you can practically smell the wood-paneling and aftershave and umbrella bullets. The Radio Play Gods would be proud. We also discuss various romantic fantasies about hypothetical women in our lives and futures. It’s like listening to a women’s magazine. Wait, that sounds awful.

Unfortunately some jackass podcast host interrupted this episode by playing silly, absurd and poorly-timed sound effects followed by uncontrollable giggling. It’s terrible podcasting. Whomever that is shouldn’t be allowed to host a parasite.

And just because doing so is hilarious doesn’t mean he won’t maybe not do it again some day.

See what I mean about clarity?

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