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Calorokashock Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily
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comedy news. Is gonna lead off today taking a look
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at Vulture's best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I
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usually don't agree with them. It doesn't mean that I'm
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right and there wrong, or they're right and I'm wrong.
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It's just a list. My list is just a list.
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I will have my list for you on Saturday if
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you're new to the show. When I do these list episodes,
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when I'm commenting on other people's lists, I don't look
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at them in advance. I like to react in the
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moment to things so twofold from my own list. I
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want to make sure I didn't forget anything. And a
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good way to make sure you don't forget anything is
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to look at someone else's list. So we'll jump in
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the pool here. There are so many comedy specials I clearly,
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and if you listen to your list, I don't see
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them all. If you include the YouTube quote unquote specials
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recorded to the chuckle hut, forget it, you'd never get
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through it all. I do try to watch the majors
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on the bigger streamers. So let's see what Vulture likes here,
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and they probably got some screeners that I haven't been
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able to get access to. I tried to reach out
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to the HBO people to get a couple things and
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just couldn't get anywhere. It's so hard to even get
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through to a human. There was one website I was on.
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It was like, who's recommending you to even log into
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this press website? I was like, all right, relax, relax.
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Vulture writes many of this year's best comedy special share
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a reflective sense of mid career reconsideration. The most striking
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of these is from Kamil Nanjianni, whose special Night Thoughts
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allows him to reassess his career and relationship with comedy
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after more than a decade away from regular stand up. Okay,
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here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's
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on Hulu and it's not out till December nineteenth, and
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as we all know, the Hulu publicists will not get
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back to me. So that's a good example of something
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that's on a list that I haven't seen. Apparently it's
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pretty good, according to Vulture, they write for other comedians.
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The retrospective meditation is about grappling with existential dread rather
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than non Gianni's focus on the trap of his external
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public persona. They name check specials by Berbiglia, Maren Cameron, Esposito,
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Bill Burr. Then they write Otsko at Kotska's Father on Earthquakes,
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joke telling Business are also reflections on their comedic identities,
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but they operate without the same wistful existentialism. Meanwhile, Steph
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Tolev's filth Queen and Jordan Jensen's Take Me with You,
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or a matched pair of specials on human debasement. Let's
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jump in all right, they have at number ten Jordan
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Jensen's Take Me with You from Netflix. They write, no
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other comedy special this year accomplishes quite the same mixture
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of emotion that Jordan Jensen's does. Jordan's appeal is how
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transparent she can make the glass while peering into her
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own brain, and there's no question that what's going on
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in there is darker than most other comedians work right now,
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up to and including Bill Burr's lengthy thoughts on death.
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Now I'm checking my notes. I feel like I had
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hit play on this and bailed on it. But I
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also have in my best of list. Personally, I have
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a section called not on list, and I don't see
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that I wrote this down. I do think I hit
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play on it and wasn't feeling it again, these are
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just list so vultures. Number ten as Jordan Jensen's Take
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Me with You. I've added it to my list of
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things to put eyes on. At number nine, they have
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earthquakes joke telling Business. I did not hit play on that.
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You'll find that on Netflix. Just earthquakes not really my thing.
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They write catchphrases or a high wire act. They deliberately
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swim upstream against the current fashion for naturalism and stand
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up sets. But the catchphrase in Earthquakes Joke Telling Business
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is really canny. As he talks about his family, black fatherhood,
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marriage and immigration politics, he keeps inserting the same pivot
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line between each section. These ain't jokes. Number eight Ian
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Edwards untitled on YouTube. Okay, see, I'm glad I'm doing
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this list. This was not on my radar at all.
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Great and I love this description. Ian Edwards reinvents no
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comedy wheels in untitled. This is a YouTube special shot
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at the comedy store where a guy stands next to
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a stool tells jokes about relationships hotel check in lines
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and gender reveal parties. I will add that to my
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checkout list. Good job so far. Vulture. Number seven, they
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have Bill Burr's Drop Dead Years. Absolutely no, it's Bill
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Burr's worst special. I'm not even going to couch. It
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is not his best, it's his worst. This is a
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bad pick. This is one of the specials that makes
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me say, Hulu is where you go to do your
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comedy special when you're on the way down. So that
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could be a warning for Kamil Nan Johnny as well.
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I can't agree with you here on Bill Burr Vulture Road.
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Is there anything better, sharper, more ticklish, or more thrilling
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than Bill Burr doing comedy about he's slowly realizing that
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he and everyone else will eventually die. Yeah, I can
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name twenty five other specials this year that's better than that. Sorry,
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I normally like Bill Burr specials. When that one. Number six,
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they have Otsko at Kotska's Father on Hulu. I think
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I have that one in my middle tier. I mean check, yes,
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I have that as number two in my middle tier.
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And again I'll do my list next weekend. It's on Hulu.
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I liked Otsco's previous special better than this one. That
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seems to be the theme that I find with Hulari's specials.
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They did pull out the best joke in the set,
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which always seems to get pulled out. Otsco tells it better,
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but she says, I asked my husband how to turn
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on the washing machine, and that's how he realized that
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he'd been doing the laundry all these years, which is
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a great joke. And I got to take a break
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at some point, so halfway seems to make sense. Be
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right back. Taking a look at Vulture's Best comedy Specials
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of twenty twenty five, at number five, they have Mark
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Maren's Panicked, which I'm I'm gonna have at number one.
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I don't see what's going to pass this. This is
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peak Mark Marin was an HBO special. Vulture Rights. It's
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not exactly Mark Maron's fault that he's become such a
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great comedian for this moment in history. At another time,
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a perpetually anxious comedian who can't keep from ranting about
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his paranoid worries about the end of the world probably
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would not feel like such a helpful guide to life.
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Maren's new special speaks to a national mood better than
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anyone else this year. I wonder why they have this
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so low. Number four, Cameron Esposito has Four Pills. I
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do like Cameron a lot, but this one is on
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dropout and I don't have dropout, so I haven't seen it.
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Vulture says, calling Four Pills a special about the pandemic
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is unfair. Cameron's New Hours about marriage, divorce to Spare
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ag retrieval's mental health, and what it's like to discover
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things about yourself after the age of forty. Number three,
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they have Mike Birbigli as the Good Life. I don't
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really dig what Birbiglia does. I do have it in
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my middle tier at number five, and I wrote civilians
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will like it. I'm a comedy snob and I don't
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really like these shows that Birbigley does. It's just not
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my style of thing. I get that people like it.
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These are just lists, but this will not make my
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top ten, Vulture says, given Birbiglia's track record, it's not
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exactly a surprise to turn a New Hour and discover
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a painstakingly crafted meditation on the meaning of life. But
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it's still a magic trick every time it happens, and
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by embracing a more casual mundanity, the good life sneaks
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its way into the top tier of Verbiglia's work. See
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I think that magic trick line. They're saying it as
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a compliment. That's my problem. I just feel like it's
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a performance. And I understand all these things are a performance.
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But like when she and Gillis gets up there and
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I understand these are written jokes and he's performing them, well,
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I just feel like he checking and driving these of
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the room. I always feel like Berbiglia is performing a
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stage played. It's very, very crafted. It's just not my thing,
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but fine. On number two they have stef Toolev's Filth Queen.
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You'll find that on Netflix. I have that in my
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personal not on list section. The title gives it away.
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It's just not my thing. Vulture rights. Filth Queen does
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exactly what it says on the tin. It is proudly
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and thoroughly gross. Steff Toolev catalogs the many horrible qualities
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of the human body with the care and consideration of
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an obsessive collector. Each fort is treasured for its own uniqualities.
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Et cetera, et cetera. Not my thing, not interested in that.
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And they have number one Kamil Nanjianni's Night Thoughts again
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on Hulu December nineteenth. Haven't seen it, Who's not going
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to get back to me? Who knows Vulture rights? He
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probably could have rolled up to an hour long standup
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special taping, delivered a half hearted life update, and walked
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away mostly on scathe. Instead. Night Thoughts slices deep into
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his last decade, carefully excavating how fame in the public
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eye have changed how he sees himself. Vulture has some
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other how many highlights from the year. They have listed
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Brent Weinbach's Popular Culture on YouTube, Rosebud Baker's The Mother
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Load on Netflix, and Roywood Junior's Lonely Flowers are the
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other three they spotlighted. Now, if you're relatively new to
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the show, I could totally fairly imagine you right now going, John,
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do you even watch comedy specials? Because I mentioned I
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didn't see a lot of the ones that Vulture liked,
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I'll fly down my list really quickly. Right now. I
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have it as Marin, Kevin Hart, Riife, Jim Jeffries, Justin
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Willman's Magic Lover, John Marco, Moe Ammer, Dusty Slay, Kreischer,
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Brett Goldstein, remember that one was real good. Michelle Wolf,
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Sarah Silverman, Matt McCusker, Mattelane, and Tim Dillon would be
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my fifteen top right now, and then I've got nine
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more in my middle tier and a whole bunch on
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my no thank you list. But again, I will do
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that next week. It'll be out on my substack, and
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it'll be an episode or two in this feed. And
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that is your comedy news on a Sunday. Have a
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great day.