Reviewing Podcasts is weird, especially when it’s one you’ve been listening to off and on for six years and have never seen live. There’s just a certain amount of fandom that keeps you from doing an impartial review, so I’m mostly going to tell you want happened. Obviously I loved it. The host of The Dork Forest, Jackie Kashian, is my favorite person in comedy and her enthusiasm to hear and learn about other people’s dorkdoms is often catching. In person it is even stronger and funnier because there is so much more going on with the expressions and gestures of the guests. It’s that special something that always makes it worth it to pay to see a free podcast live.
On this episode of The Dork Forest the guests were Andy Kindler and Bobby Tisdale. It was clear immediately that Andy Kindler is the ham and he was going to be heard. Not in a bad way, just that he is an intense force of personality. So Kashian focused on Tisdale’s dorkdoms letting Kindler add what he wanted to the conversation.
We started with a love of breakfast foods, beginning with grits. Lost of discussion about what you put in them and many asides to other topics, but Kashian made noble efforts to keep the conversation focused and she brought us back to breakfast by steering the conversation towards pancakes. We all agreed that thick pancakes are not the best, but got a good suggestion from Kindler to cut them in half and fry them in butter as leftovers.
Then Andy Kindler got his time when the conversation turned to coffee and we learned a bit about roasting and brewing. But someone in the audience made the mistake of loudly disagreeing with him and got picked on for the rest of the show for it. Then we went back to one of Tisdale’s hobbies of whittling. I had no idea real people did that. We stayed on that topic for the most part for the rest of the show. Of course there were asides letting us know more about Kindler and that he is really into watercolor painting, taekwondo and music.
It was an intimate show, with the club not nearly full and much of the audience was there alone causing them to be extra focused on the show, which I think helped it feel more personal. Overall, it was an excellent start to my last day of Sketchfest and addition to my weekend of unintentionally (intentionally?) stalking Jackie Kashian. I mean, I’m probably her only fan who always wears dresses, bright lipstick, and has blue hair. And is also too shy and terrified to even say hi. I mean, she’s going to eventually notice me being at all her shows, right?
