S01E06 Interview: Carly May

The JK Around Podcast: Taking the Magic Out of Comedy

Today’s podcast features Carly May as our special guest comedian* for a special December Time episode!

The show starts off on an educational tip as Joel and Kevin teach our listeners about synthesis and photosynthesis. Our podcast picture is a great example of these concepts.

We, again, mention how funny hard C (or K) sounds are and Carly has one (or more) in her name. We discuss Milton Berle‘s autobiography, his thesis on good comedy.

We finally get to talking about Carly May‘s comedic stylings. She writes from her own experiences, she picks her own brain in a stream of consciousness sense, but isn’t a story-teller. It’s what defines her, which is still a mystery.

We get into the concept of staples in shopping: milk, chickpeas, hummus, grainy things. But there are staples in comedy too. Each comedian has there own hummus joke or chickpea jokes. Joel’s is his catchphrase, “chickpeas? Chick, please!”

This leads into the “why girls aren’t funny?” issue, that stigma that comes with female comics. She tries to steer away from it and doesn’t go on about anthropology. They discuss brunettes, blondes, black haired girls, short-haired, long-haired. These are all beautiful women and should be accepted as themselves. Comedians are separated by offensive material, or because they’re loud enough! They shouldn’t be separated because they have breasts too. Carly can make just as good dick jokes as any man. Hard dicks aren’t funny though, they’re the ultimate commitment.

This leads to discussing Jenn Tisdale who committed a pornography film. Joel suggests this is not unlike that idea Ricky Gervais put forward in his “kill a prostitute” joke. We ask Carly if this is empowering? Joel parallels this to King of Comedy by Martin Scorsese starring Al Cappuccino or Roberto Panini from Taxi Driver. He kidnaps Jerry Lewis and tries to get on the tonight show. Jenn has kind of kidnapped herself. We ask Carly what she’d do for publicity in lieu of porn.

Carly mentions her friend who opened for Doug Stanhope and other guys she knows opened for our hero Gilbert Gottfried. Then we talk Paris Hilton and how she broke through with her sex tape to bring us “that’s hot” which was amazing.

Then they consider who the best porn partner would be for her Seth Rogan (the Judd Apatow route), Chris Rock. We suggest Zach Shade should maybe get on this bandwagon with her. Then Joel figures Eddie Murphy in a Klump fat suit would be funny, but Kevin disagrees and keeps Joel in check. They discuss nudity being funny: bums (poop).

We talk at the beginning of Carly’s comedy journey. She lets us into the world of her metaphorical shelf. They discuss what might be on the metaphorical fridge: Honeycombs, honey mustard or a jar of honey. This reminds Joel that the Tisdale thing might be a result of an uneducation in the world, stemming from poor grammar in cereal commercials of our youth.

Kevin and Carly discuss their history together as students at Capitol City University, CCU, (go fighting Bulligans!!). He took a one day trip to Canada. Kevin told Joel in Facebook Chat and then Google Circles. His face lit up!

They discuss the concept of “the only way to fail is to never try“. They discuss miracles that take place which make people rich. Like discovering electricity. Joel says tsunamis bring people big money and the BP Oil Spill. South Park got a 3 part episode which gazillions of people watched. We compare our show to cleaning the oil off a duckling like in the Palmolive oil spill commercial!

We ask Carly what her most terrifying moment on stage was. It was that they didn’t laugh. We think of the possibilities as to why they didn’t laugh. Were they sexist? Was Carly too pretty? Or maybe she was just too young and the audience was expecting My Little Pony or Hello Kitty jokes? Some horrible people have a female limit and can only stand shows like Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place! Then we reach the real meat of the show as we observe that Gilbert Gottfried, Kevin James, Louis CK and Mike Birbiglia are all unattractive people who get funny responses! Even Lisa Lampanelli might be losing her funny with all that weight. Joan Rivers looks younger every day, that’s why she’s not funny anymore.

Of course, Carly was saved by the man with the 132 pound scrotum in her second set as he was popular in the media. Carly shares an incredibly funny word picture which probably killed that night. Joel makes a very good point about shrinkage.

Then Kevin and Joel take a moment to talk about the joys of December Time! This would be similar to Christmas, Hanukkah or the minor winter celebrations. We share memories of the Nation’s traditions and stories of yore: chickpeas, floss, shoelace, raccoons, GMOs, tumours, ticks, the Grumpus, December Time jokes, Papier Mâché, bitter unsweetened chocolate, pancake batter mustaches, churned blueberries (pretend raccoon dung), cat tails stapled to the fridge, fireworks, helium balloons, the mountain heights of the festivities, fiery arrows, confetti.

Mike Birbiglia’s tweets! Carly shares how much she hates cats and why his tweet is funny!

My cat has organized with other cats in the neighborhood and they’re demanding infinity amounts of food and love.

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) November 27, 2013

This inspires a mention of Garfield, the grumpy cat.

This week’s facebook contest: Create a Garfield meme that says something like, “I don’t hate Mondays anymore because of the JK Around Podcast“. Tweet it to us or Facebook it before December 32nd.

Joel brings to light the “bzzt” that “infinity amounts” and “forever number” (math comedy/funny language comedy) can bring. We wonder if Carly would ever go skiing, bowling, dinner theatre, parasailing, sky-diving, for the comedy of it.

They discuss other winter celebration traditions like presents in socks or wooden shoes. Joel wishes his Dutch joke would work for more people.

Me: “Why are there no raisins in this oliebollen.”
Mom: “There are! There are prunes!”
Me: “Mom, prunes aren’t raisins!”
Mom: “Well, if your Opa would lay off the komijnekaas, I wouldn’t need to put prunes in the oliebollen for his digestion!”

Carly regales us with a hilarious slapstick comedy skiing story which puts one in mind of a classic hilarious cartoon (see right) or Looney Tunes.

Then they discuss the principal in the discipline about surprise being funny in comedy. That’s why some of M. Night Shyamalan‘s movies are the best comedies.

Then we do COMEDY SOUP! Carly makes some absolutely delicious soup (like Jamie Oliver)!

Another facebook/twitter contest: Send us YOUR December Time memories!

Make sure to follow Carly on twitter! twitter.com/currlychugh

She should have @carlymay

Carly wins the podcast with 10 points for adding December Time to her soup.

Happy December Time!

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Have a great week! Class dismissed… Ugh.

*female