PREMIUM: Is Anything Funny Anymore? Bestselling humor writer Neal Pollack is still laughing

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To doomers and nihilists, the whole world is a joke — and it’s not even funny. Writer Neal Pollack may be a natural skeptic, but he thinks that’s nonsense and he returns to the podcast to talk about better living through laughter (and not in a “live, love, laugh” kind of way). He discusses his various careers — professional writer, professional poker player, three-time Jeopardy champion — his thoughts on COVID-19 lockdowns, the culture of Austin, and his recent battle with sofa dermatitis.

Most importantly, he talks about his upcoming course for The Unspeakeasy School of Thought, Writing Humor in Humorless Times. Unlike most writing workshops, which limit students to the arduous activity of writing, Neal will also be available to teach students how to be funny on Twitter/X, TikTok, at dinner parties, or even while muttering to themselves while walking down the street.

GUEST BIO

Neal Pollack is the author of 12 semi-bestselling works of fiction and nonfiction, including the memoirs Alternadad, Stretch, and Pothead, the novels Jewball, Keep Mars Weird, Edge of Safety, and Never Mind the Pollacks, and the cult short-fiction classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature. His “Greatest Living American Writer” satire pieces have appeared in McSweeney’s, Salon, The Federalist, The Spectator, and the Jewish Daily Forward/. He is a three-time Jeopardy! champion, a certified yoga instructor, a semi-professional poker player, a Generation X legend, and the editor-in-chief of Book and Film Globe.

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HOUSEKEEPING

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I have not achieved everything I wanted to as a writer.
0:06.0	You know, I've not been a massive bestseller, you know, I certainly, but I have achieved a lot.
0:10.0	So I'm happy with my life.
0:12.5	You know, I have something fun and interesting to do every day.
0:15.8	And sometimes that's writing.
0:17.5	But if it's not, it's fine because I have other things to do.
0:19.8	It's actually like having other interests that I can then write about, you know, frees me from the sort of neurotic
0:26.3	change that bind a lot of writers. Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down.
0:35.2	My returning guest is one of the funniest writers I know, Neil Pollock.
0:40.6	Neil is the author of 11 bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction. He is known to many as the
0:47.6	greatest living American writer, and you can Google that if you want more on that. He is a three-time Jeopardy Champion.
0:57.1	He's a competitive poker player.
0:59.2	He's the editor-in-chief of the book and film globe.
1:02.0	But most importantly, at least for the purposes of this conversation, Neil is going to be teaching a course for us at the unspeakeasy.
1:09.8	This fall, he will be teaching a course
1:12.4	in humor. It's called humor and humorless times. And it's about how to be funny, how to be funny in
1:18.1	writing, how to be funny on social media, wherever you might need to be funny, especially just in your
1:24.1	life as you walk through the world. It's a great opportunity to work with him,
1:28.2	and this is a great conversation. We cover a lot of ground. You can go to the unspeakeezy.com
1:34.2	under courses and find out more if you want to take the class. And in the meantime, enjoy this
1:39.2	conversation. I certainly did.
1:47.7	Neil Pollock, welcome back to the podcast.
	...

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