It's Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting. Feel free to spread the word and share these emails with your friends. If someone forwarded this email to you and you want to start getting them yourself, you can sign up here.
Upcoming Shows
EVERYWHERE:
Season 2 of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas is in full swing. Last night's episode was all about mental health in schools and why we tend to only talk about it after a tragedy. Link
You can listen to You're the Expert on any podcast app. Three comedians interview a scientist about her work and why it matters. Link
NYC:
TONIGHT! Saturday, April 20 at 9:30 p.m. at The Brick. I'm on Bit Tank, a parody show where comedians pitch jokes to comedy entrepreneurs for real money. Link
Saturday, May 4 at 9:30 p.m. at The Brick. I'm on Carley Moseley's improv show alongside some of the funniest people in NYC. Plus everyone in the audience gets a snack cooked by a professional chef. Link
SEATTLE:
Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. Join me in the audience for Liz and Mollie's talk about their best-selling book No Hard Feelings. link
You can find ticket links for all upcoming shows online at my website here.
This week’s list
GREAT:
I love Jenny Lewis' new album On the Line. But I didn't know almost anything about her other than her music until I read this great profile of her in Pitchfork. "After a turbulent childhood and two decades of brilliantly vulnerable songs, the L.A. idol has finally arrived at something like happiness." She was born on Elvis' birthday, became one of the most famous child actors of her time, and then reinvented herself as a critically acclaimed musician. Jenny Lewis Escapes the Void
FUNNY:
Everything Taryn Englehart writes is perfectly crafted and hilarious. She's one of those comedy writers who sees the code inside the comedy matrix and can just pull punchlines out of thin air. (Does this Keanu Reeves metaphor make any sense? I bet it would've really resonated in 1999.) If you watched last night's episode of Problem Areas, Taryn was the one who pitched "Adult Baby Walkers" and watching that idea come to life was incredible. She's also the author of some of my favorite Reductress pieces like "How to Stay Up Late for No Reason Other Than Ruining Tomorrow" and "People Think I Hate Millennials, But Really I Just Hate My Son, Brian" You can see more on her website here: Taryn Englehart.
INTERESTING:
Tax Day is officially past, so we've all settled up with Uncle Sam now. (If you're only discovering that your taxes are overdue right in this instant, I'm so sorry. But also, you need to hire an accountant.) Income tax in America is needlessly complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. (See Joe Zimmerman's perfect joke about this.) But it's also the way we fund so many crucial government services and programs. Which makes the lengths wealthy people go to avoid paying their fair share even more reprehensible. To put some numbers to the problem, "the top 0.5 percent in income account for fully a fifth of all [unpaid taxes]... that's more than $50 billion each year." ProPublica has an extremely important and surprisingly fascinating investigation into how they do it. The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn't Go Well.
Thanks for reading! If you like these emails, please forward to a friend or come say hi at a live show. If someone sent you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.
Enjoy the weekend,
Chris