Red Bar Radio

It was December. I was snowed in. Called into work, as I was not able to even get my truck out of the parking lot. Also, snow and ice is terrifying so it is probably best that I couldn't even get to a real street.

Anyway, as I sat there, in my apartment, I began looking for some entertainment. I quit WoW about a week before this happened -- so I was pushed into the situation of trying to find something else to do indoors. I had rejuvenated my bass playing and had been having fun with that. But if you take over a year break from bass, your fingers turn to mush after you play for a couple hours straight. So that wasn't even really an option at this point.

I was reading a forum where someone pointed out the guy who was the subject of ridicule of this particular thread, (which was well-deserved, but now we're getting off topic) was actually a guest on this internet talk show I'd never heard of called Red Bar Radio. I listened to the episode he appeared on and laughed my ass off. Then I listened to more. I couldn't stop! This show was like crack. I've never heard anything like it before. It really is a unique show.

The host, Mike D always has a cohost -- usually a local (Chicago) comic will come on the show. They'll talk for a while and then take calls from listeners (who can call in on skype, or on a regular phone) and you can watch the whole show via web cam on Stickam.

Anyway, the tagline of the show is "We make fun of everybody". And they really do. It is exactly my style of humor. They ridicule each other, and callers, and whoever else is unfortunate enough to be the subject of discussion on the show. It's hilarious. Mike D is a strong comic. He really is. He is often funnier than the comedian cohosts he has. Granted, there are some very funny cohosts, so this would place Mike D pretty high up on the list. He's just so fucking funny. He doesn't give a fuck. But he's joking. Calm down. It's just comedy.

I've heard him say he doesn't think anyone over the age of 35 would enjoy the show -- and I think he's right. It's a new generation of comedy, and it's awesome.

So I was snowed in for a few days and then had about 9 days off work for winter break. The snow was pretty bad during most of the break, so I had lots and lots of time to listen to the past episodes. No joke, I must have listened to somewhere around 80 hours of this show. Granted, I'd often be cooking or cleaning or whatnot (as most people do while listening to talk radio) but still, I really gained an understanding of the show.

One of my favorite episodes is when comedian (and frequent co-host) David Angelo brought this guy Jordan on the show with him. It was awful. It was one of the worst shows I'd heard, because this guy was horribly disrespectful of the audience and clearly felt like he was superior. He is a camera man or something (he never really did say what it was that he did for a living, other than it involves film and comedians). He was a pretty big nerd. Mike D and David Angelo later defended him as a person, but admitted he was a huge dick on the radio show.

It was getting hard to even continue listening. He was arguing about how CRT monitors are superior to plasma and just generally didn't have anything to say that was funny or worthy of my time (or this show!).

Then the show, which was shaping up to be one of the worst that I'd ever heard, took a drastic turn for the absolutely awesome and hilarious. This Jordan guy basically said all Mike D's listeners were 13 year olds and he wanted callers to call in to challenge this. He got his ass handed to him. You really have to hear it to understand, but this guy was such a movie nerd. He seemed to think he was going to win this thing by citing obscure movies that he thinks are awesome. This isn't a fucking movie nerd radio show. It's a comedy talk radio show. He was completely out of his element. The audience wasn't having it.

He ended up getting so upset by the callers who pointed out what a douchebag idiot he was and how he was wasting everyone's time (in a very funny way). At one point, Jordan calls the caller a "waste of space" and asks why the caller is getting so upset about TVs? The caller pointed out (correctly so) that Jordan was the one who sounded upset (you could hear it in his voice). It wasn't more than a couple minutes after this (right around the time Mike D read off some of the instant messages he was getting from listeners about how horrible Jordan is) that Jordan showed his true colors, got really upset, actually stormed out of the studio (he even halfway slammed the door to emphasize his level of anger and sadness).

It was so hilarious and awesome. It went from having Jordan be the worst thing ever to hit Red Bar Radio to him being the reason that show is one of my absolute favorites now.

Anyway guys seriously check this show out. I love it so much I signed up for the exclusive content membership which is $10 a month (they have some awesome videos -- some are like television episode-length videos, for example the one where they go to the Renaissance fair to interview "creeps". So funny.

Of course the $10 is well earned by Red Bar Radio. I intend to keep my membership up as long as the show continues to be such a great source of entertainment (they do a couple shows a week usually, and often have a decent after show which you can get on the pay area (you can also hear it live for free on their site or stickam but the archives don't have the after shows)).

I want to support this awesomeness and I am so glad I found Red Bar! Check it out guys!

http://redbarradio.com