Dom Irrera talks

If you don't know who Dom Irrera, he's sort of the Godfather of road comedians— stand up is a punishing trade, and comedians try to get away from it when they can. It's also a very pure form of comedy, and Irrera is one who has stuck with it year after year, completely killing it since the 80s. I saw him on a Sunday night at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles back in 1989— Sunday is their traditional open mic night, when pros come out to try out new material, to keep their chops up, or because it's just what they do. It's not an amateur thing; there were several people on that evening who had been in movies recently, and the second person on was Richard Pryor. Here's Dom in about that period:



So, Irrera has been doing a podcast, on which he basically just hangs with other comedians, and talks shop— there's quite obviously no preparation, no real questions, not even much effort to be interesting to an audience— it's just a straight pro comedian hang. It's very cool. The Hang has kind of died off as a thing musicians do, but clearly it's still a major thing in professional comedy. Here's Irrera talking to another legend, Richard Lewis:



You can get part of the series on iTunes, or you can go here and get them all.