Drunk History, Vol. 3: Oney Judge

Hey, remember Jen Kirkman? She’s the woman who can’t eat apples in Negative Scanning. Anyway, she was in this series where Derek Waters gets one of his friends drunk and makes them tell an historical tale while other famous people (Jack Black, Michael Cera, Danny McBride) act it out, hiccups and all. Anyway, Jen Kirkman downs a bottle and a half of wine and tells this story about Washington’s favorite escaped slave.

Oh and those air raid sirens you’re hearing – yeah, standby for an onslaught of F-bombs.

Enjoy.

Drunk History, Vol. 3 w/ Jen Kirkman.

OK.

More On: Jen Kirkman

So, Jen Kirkman was on Wiretap in February talking about apples. It’s quite a different medium for a stand-up comedian – Jonathan Goldstein’s psychiatric-esque stoicism is a bit removed from the guffaws of a comedy club. JG has a way of making funny things sound somehow sad and vice versa. Anyway, I researched some Jen Kirkman in context and, I must admit, judging by the top Google hits, you might mistake her for a Web porn starlet. Here:

• Jen Kirkman’s Blog – “You’re in my Area.”
• “Bad Sex” on Nerve.com – a quick story about fantasizing about Frasier.
• Jen Kirkman on Spike.com’s “Fifteen Minutes of Fem.” Topics: jumping the housekeeper, not having kids, going to hell
• Google Doozy of the Year – Jen Kirkman video for “Female Masturbation” (SFW, though you really shouldn’t be watching standup comedy videos on the clock)
  

Oh, plus, she’s on Myspace, too which, I guess can be construed as a little risque.

Anyway, more coolness abound, Jen Kirkman regularly performs at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Largo and has opened for Maria Bamford, who, appears on several other Wiretap episodes (i.e. “Life and Afterlife”, “The Quick-Fix” and others), which is perhaps how JK got in touch with JG, hmmm? Maybe not. She seems a pretty significant comedian on her own. She’s apparently also toured with Greg Behrendt and is a writer on Chelsea Lately. She also a does a bit of voice acting, showing up in cartoons such as “SuperNews!” (as the voice of Hilary Clinton) “The Very Funny Show” and “Home Movies.”

I’m considering buying her album off Amazon.com and I’m going to comb my records to see if she appears in any other Wiretap episodes. I’ll let yinz know re: its funniness.

OR Check it out yourself:

Jen Kirkman - Self Help

Negative Scanning

Hello, okay, so basically, I’ve been summarizing all episodes in my notebooks with the intent of posting pages on this blog, as you can see on the sidebar. But anyway, the other day, someone stumbled upon my other blog looking for the episode where Jonathan Goldstein and Jorge Just end up ordering for each other in the diner. It was a very short bit, more of a prologue than an act, but it was pretty funny and ever since someone was searching for it, I’ve been trying to find out which episode it was. Well, turns out its Negative Scanning, an episode about, erm, negative scanning. As defined by Starlee Kine’s piece, “Scanning the Pandas” from which this episode takes its name:

If you’re a positive scanner, it means you always see the bright side of things, even when maybe you shouldn’t. Negative scanning is when everything seems to be going just fine, but you still manage to find something wrong. It’s not being able to wear your favorite shirt, the one that makes you feel like a different person, because there’s a pen dot on the sleeve. It’s not being able to enjoy your wedding day because you’re pretty sure the guy at the deli doesn’t like you.

As you can imagine, the episode is fraught with pessimism, featuring a short story on loneliness from J. Robert Lennon, calls with comedian Jen Kirkman and Gregor Ehrlich and a palm-reading for Jonathan Goldstein.

Check out the summary or give it a listen.

Shouts outs to SupernintenoChalmers, as always, who brings us the Unofficial CBC Wiretap Podcast. Without his work, we’d all have to move to Canada or get satellite radio.