From The Comic's Comic

November 2021

Comedy doesn’t have a Human Resources department, so leave it to Piffany to dole out honors and/or discipline accordingly. Piffany’s Employees of the Month for November 2021 are Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin. Congrats Jackie and Laurie!

But first, a disclaimer for anyone new dropping into the Substack and this particular feature. My Employee of the Month is solely my opinion and pretty much, at least for now, focused on the world of comedy. It grew out of my year-end podcast debates with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman over trying to name an annual MVP or Most Valuable Performer in comedy, which we’ve done each year since 2015. We’ll reconvene again later this month, and perhaps these past Employees of the Month will help guide the discussion. In the meantime, it’s just something nice and fun to do to honor a comedian (or in this case, two comedians) for their outstanding contributions to the field in the past month.

Yes, it’s time to give kudos to The Jackie and Laurie Show. And also The Jackie and Laurie Show.

Kashian and Kilmartin have remained hard-working, consummate pros in stand-up comedy since the 1990s, and they both managed to celebrate new stand-up albums in November while continuing to elevate other women in comedy and shining a spotlight on the harsh and hilarious realities of working in comedy through their weekly podcast. If you want to reward Jackie and Laurie financially, please buy their merch and subscribe to their Patreon!

Kilmartin’s new album, “Corset,” off of 800 Pound Gorilla Records, centers around her experiences as a single mother as her son has begun to enter those formative teen years. And yes, I recognize the irony of posting her album here from Spotify in light of the ongoing spat (which just shows how the battle lines are gerrymandered, since the 800 Pound Gorilla guys co-founded Spoken Giants, whose demand for publishing royalties prompted Spotify to remove their clients from the platform, and yet, here both Laurie and Jackie remain on Spotify, so hooray!?!)

She also delivered a killer tight-five that includes some “Corset” jokes in a performance this month on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

A few days after Kilmartin’s TV spot, Kashian released her new album from 800 Pound Gorilla Records, “Stay-Kashian.”

Multiple bits from the album have popped up on TikTok this month, with her Rapture bit already clocking more than 312,700 views at this writing. Substack doesn’t support TikTok embeds yet, but she’s also got it up on the ol’ YouTbue, too.

Kashian opens her new hour with a chunk of jokes about how stand-up had to evolve and adapt during the pandemic — she certainly adapted, performing on Zoom and on platforms such as RushTix, where she threw an album release party with support from Mary Lynn Rajskub, Guy Branum, and of course, Maria Bamford. Kashian has toured with Bamford for years as Maria’s opening act when she’s not headlining herself.

And even in her own special, Kashian still managed to shout out and promote two other stand-up comedians: Karen Rontowski and Antoine Young. “Stay-Kashian” also has great jokes about generational differences, being the last women to put up with shitty men, how being an OK ally feels like whenever Godzilla is the good guy, and the upside of gender pronouns. Her stories about her elderly father clearly sound like a great sitcom pitch in waiting for a development deal.

So what are you waiting for, network execs?!

You can watch all of “Stay-Kashian” on YouTube.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

November saw lots of comedians making cases for themselves, too.

• Cecily Strong made us all feel like fools for thinking she was ready to retire from Saturday Night Live, with a powerfully moving abortion revelation in character as a clown on Weekend Update as well as consistent working anchoring the live episodes from front to back. Strong has a lot more to share with us, and we are here for it. Her December may get even bigger and better when she revives Lily Tomlin’s one-person show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, at The Shed.

• Pete Davidson was both the best and the worst thing about the Jonas Brothers Family Roast this month on Netflix. Davidson just got named co-host alongside Miley Cyrus for the live New Year’s Eve special on NBC. And, oh yeah, he began dating Kim Kardashian!?!

• Dave Chappelle still keeps his name in the news, and it just feels like trolling at this point.

• There are a number of great comedians doing great work on HBO, from John Oliver to Issa Rae to Larry David to John Wilson, but somehow, none of them have gotten as much buzz this month as the return of Succession?

• The Grammy Awards announced their annual nominations, with recognition for Chappelle (in spoken word, not comedy), Bo Burnham (in visual categories, but not comedy album), and Best Comedy Album noms for first-timers Nate Bargatze, Lavell Crawford, Chelsea Handler, plus repeat noms for Lewis Black, Kevin Hart, and yes, you’re reading this correctly, Louis CK.

But again, congrats this month to Jackie and Laurie. You both deserved it!