InTALLerable

Ep. 154: So Many Folds!! (Ft. Talon Saucerman)

Talon Saucerman is an 18-year veteran stand-up comic & Comedy Works regular.  He moved from the humble prairie plains of South Dakota to pursue art school in the “big-city” of Denver, CO.  We talked about Talon’s experience growing up in Midland, South Dakota, how most of the U.S. (outside of cities) is just an outlet mall, after American Furniture Warehouse, after Home Depot, and we hear about Talon’s worst drives to shows, mostly horror stories from shows in Nebraska & Wyoming. 

 

He tells us about navigating the chaos of performing comedy during the covid pandemic, how infeasible it is to promise charging stations across our interstate system (hint, they use GAS generators), and Talon tells me about what first drew him to try stand-up comedy.  From installing phones & internet at Comedy Works to finishing 2nd in the New Faces competition his second year performing stand-up  —  this episode is as wild a ride as Talon’s life!  

 

This episode is named in honor of Talon’s time in art school that he spent painting nude portraits of exclusively elderly models, after the art school pulled the bait-and-switch, because the first model they brought into the art studio was, well, an actual model.

 

Follow Talon @Talonsaucerman on socials  —  Check out his website for upcoming dates  —  Talonsaucerman.com 

 

I’m grateful to laugh with Talon and learn about his life & journey in stand-up.

The tallest of thanks to him for coming on our silly show!! 

 

FO & BW

Ep. 153: Unintentional Side-XP (Ft. Pat Treuer)

This guest is Top Shelf Studio’s 2024 recipient of ‘Kindest Guest of the Year’ award!  Pat Treuer is a talented stand-up comedian, a graduate of Second City in Chicago, a corporate salesman who jumped from his 14-year career in the corporate world to creating a new niche during the Covid Pandemic — producing stand-up comedy shows for corporate gigs over Zoom.  His skills, drive, and timing all coalesced into Pat making a full-time living though corporate Zoom shows (usually after he spent the morning shredding the Breckenridge powder). 

 

Pat teaches me about his own challenges of learning by doing.  Both in stand-up, by building his new hour with the addition of new skills on his mixing board, and incorporating this process of learning-by-doing to create a vibrant new act.  We talked about Pat’s dream of one day being on SNL, how that dream led him to pursue classes at Second City in Chicago, how he made the leap to being a full-time comic, and what lessons he has learned from working alongside other veteran comics. 

 

From the politics of the entertainment industry, to extended metaphors, finding ‘why’, & Pat’s reasonable rules for what we should write jokes about — this one is chocked-full!

 

It’s a beautiful life & I am grateful to have had a chance to learn & laugh with Pat. 

Please go follow Pat on instagram @realfunnypat

His website is —realfunnypat.com

 

Go watch @OfTheComics on YouTube — Pat’s 7-part series of stand-up comedy followed by a roundtable with the comics.  It’s mandatory homework for true fans of the show! 

 

FO & BW

Ep. 152: Worm Ethics, Tarantula Ownership, & American Cryptids (Ft. Nate Malouf)

It is rare that I am lost for words when describing a guest of the show, but this is one of those times.  Our guest today is 24 year old, Colorado native, & stand-up comedian — Nate Malouf!  

You can follow him — @suffering.malouf — on Instagram

Nate provides Top Shelf Studios with perhaps the coolest wing rating to date by changing the scale altogether.  And on top of that, he’s too generous, this guy!  He also brought some truly top shelf studio gifts: loose pills & artwork he made to bless our studio’s feng shui with ‘The Big Shoe’ vibes.  

From frustrations with bureaucracy and the new ever-present need to “sign-up” for nearly every basic aspect of our lives, to Nate’s life and his journey in joke writing & stand-up, we hit as many side quests as possible.  Thankfully, he dispels common worm myths, while affirming that if there is someone out there in the world who knows more about worms than Nate Malouf, I do not need to meet them.  

Nate tells me how he couldn’t afford braces as a kid, so he chewed staples, hoping they got in the grooves.  He hates concrete, but he dreams of living in a world with walkable cities, where we can all stroll down the block to our favorite local non-binary-owned coffee shop. 

 

I beg you not to miss this one.  Skip at your own peril.

 

FO & BW

Ep. 151: Curating the Saddest Christmas Possible (Ft. Jeff Morris)

 

Fellow riffer, a former Pacific Northwesterner, & stand-up comic Jeff Morris is our guest today!  He joined us on Christmas Eve for an episode that ranged from opening a 90’s ‘Godzilla’ pack of collectible cards, to how not-sorry we felt to learn that HawkTua coin investors had the rug pulled, and lost it all. 

 

Jeff tells me all about his plans to curate the saddest possible Christmas for himself.  Alone, with some Chinese takeout.  I don’t want to spoil it all but he found a 2 pack of sugar cookies and left them out to harden for a week.  It’s *chef kiss* amazing. 

 

You can follow Jeff @Jeff_Dingus_Morris on Instagram 

Ep. 150: America By A Thousand (Ft. Nathan Inge)

In celebration of our 150th ep. milestone, we are lucky to welcome back a legend of the show from the early-days.  My guest is one of my childhood friends & my high school debate partner, Nathan Inge.

 

For the last year or so, Nathan has been living & working in Amsterdam, focused on an entirely new problem space.  We are fortunate to get his first amendment rights on display for our listeners while he visits Colorado.  Most Europeans he meets have asked “Why?”, confused by Nathan’s story — moving from the US to Europe.  Safe to say our global soft power is safer than the news leads us to believe; the USA is still the land of opportunity. 

 

We discussed the difficult process of finding an apartment in Amsterdam, what it has been like for Nathan living in an old apartment building, how generative AI models & LLM’s are used by software engineers, and how creative applications of generative AI lack practical use for creatives (artists, writers, etc), because their goal is to provide the “globally-most-average” result based on the model’s training data. 

 

Where does AI go from here?  How should someone connect the dots between inspiration and action?  What the heck is a momma-bike?  Thankfully, I have someone far smarter than I am to ask all these questions. 

 

Later in the episode, Nathan details his old apartment ‘Trifecta’ — mice, mold, & bedbugs.  I must say, I am proud to be an American, where at least we can solve our pest problems with chemicals sold at every Wal-Mart; the best Europeans can manage is Vinegar.  

Now I understand why we are annexing Greenland. 

 

FO & BW

 

Ep. 149: America, the Land of Urgent Cares (Ft. Sunee Dhaliwal)

Sunee is a talented stand-up comedian who began performing in Vancouver, Canada.  He then spent some of the pandemic in Edmonton, then a stint in Toronto, before his recent move to the Mile High City here in Denver!  We are lucky to have him join the fray of incredible Denver comedians. 

 

Go see him perform comedy at one of the best places in the country to see stand-up, Comedy Works, on January 15th & January 21st.  Follow Sunne on Instagram @sunnydcomedy & buy tickets at comedyworks.com — Buy tickets, laugh a ton, and let’s help him sell it out!!

 

We had a fun hang, got to know one another, and enjoyed some smoked wings.  Living the dream, folks.  Sunee shared about his journey to become a touring stand-up in Canada, how he got his start initially, and how challenging navigating the pandemic was for Canadian performers due to provincial regulations being vastly different across the county.  We dig into silly conspiracies, talk about how sad it is to see people losing their grip on the reality they live in, the controversy of fake Spotify artists being pushed onto playlists — I’m sure we covered more than I can say here, but please enjoy this Top-Tier guest in our humble little studios! 

 

Thanks to Sunee for coming on, for sharing his perspective & journey, and for bringing his positive light into this world.  I hope we can have him back sometime!

 

FO & BW

 

Ep. 148: Love Thy Neighbor! (Ft. Melissa the Trailer Park Manager)

Folks, I am proud to say this episode is someone who I hoped I may someday get on a mobile-road-pod, but thank goodness she moble’d her way all the way home to TSS for a legendary episode I completely fumbled half of with a stupid camera error.  More learning by making massive mistakes, we love to see it!

My guest is Melissa, one of the community managers at the company I work for at my day-job. She manages a manufactured home community in the midwest, specifically in Lansing, MI. Melissa is hilarious, hard-working, and cares about her family above everything. 

She told me about growing up in Metro Detroit, what makes a ‘Good Michigander?’, Faygo & attending an Insane Clown Posse show, how she learned later in life that her dad was in the Hells Angels before she was born, not taking ‘NO’ for an answer & what it was like raising three kids as a single mother, and how she managed to set a good example for her younger sisters by living a bad-example lifestyle in her adolescence. 

I am thankful for Melissa sharing her perspective on the need for us all to meet our fellow Americans in the middle to share in our common values, instead of cutting family members out of your life because of who they voted for — whether on the right or the left. 

 

May her hilarity & wisdom be as enjoyable for you as it was for me during this shorter, but just as awesome as ever, episode of InTALLerable. 

 

P.S. // Yearly Newsletter to the board:

This past year our show has grown in unexpected ways, welcoming new & unexpectedly fascinating guests who bring our listeners authentic, human conversation in an unfiltered setting.  It’s our right, ain’t it!? — “Use it or lose it!” — I think Superman said that about his X-ray vision, if I’m not mistaken..  

If this is your first time finding us, welcome!  If you have listened before, thank you!  

I enjoy talking to guests that I probably wouldn’t otherwise talk to — about their life, their passions, their struggles — at least not in the free-world, sandbox-style that I do on this silly little satirical show. 

I am objectively young, and though my spine is fused..  I'm inexperienced, foolish, naive, riddled with poor decision making & attention seeking behavior, let me spare you continuing..  (Is this going anywhere??) 

As I reflect, I think I am “further along” (whatever that is supposed to mean for a 27 year old in the US in the year 2025), than I would be if I hadn’t dug into the resistance that comes with making this show.  Sending that first message, asking that guest who I think, “Oh, they’ll never come on..  They are busy with their life. Don’t bother them. Why even ask?”  

The process of engaging with people different from me in their life, their perspective, beliefs, knowledge, or their passions, has made me challenge myself in positive ways.  So before we roll over the new year, I want to say thank you for being part of that, whether you are a long-time listener, a guest of the show, a new-found-fan, or a future listener.  Thank you for being on this ride with me!  Let’s see what we can do in 2025.

FO & BW

Ep. 147: Pay Me in Beer & Wings (Ft. Tanner Coffman)

Tanner Coffman is hilarious.  A stand-up of over two years, his perspective & wisdom for life is beyond his years.  Follow Tanner on Instagram @trashbagtanner

 

“It's him —Luigi!”  We discuss the ethical qualms of the public’s reaction to recent news of the United Healthcare CEO gunned down from behind by a childhood video-game-character-named assailant seen getting his Starbucks before the attack.  What an anticapitalist hero.  

 

We don’t condone violence, heck we don’t condone anything… Or do we?  Tanner challenges me throughout as we have a fun time devil’s advocating in circles; eventually Tanner has had enough of the silly mind games and wants..  Real..  Solutions??  I do my best to offer points of substance, but the Monday morning quarter-backing is rough on this one y’all.  

 

Tanner shares a bunch of stories of moving to Colorado in his early twenties from Texas, we dig into his perspective on stand-up as he offers the perspective that he thinks he could be done now, and has already accomplished all he set out to.  I found Tanner a wholesome grandpa in a young man’s body, as he talked about the power of perspective, and he expressed his displeasure with the victimhood mindset, mainly, in that it doesn’t provide you any advancement. 

 

We learn how Tanner found love on a now-defunct dating app, we talk ‘Dude-Guy’s Law’ (Moore’s Law) and the rapid advancement of technology, and I find myself trying to expound on who or why humans would be mined in an all-new Intergalactic Satirical Situation! 

 

If you could, please rate the show wherever you listen. It may help us grow, may not, but let’s give it a try!

 

FO & BW

Ep. 146: Man in the Arena // Vape in the Keister (Ft. James Copper & Makana Gellatly)

Two returning guests join TSS for an episode full of riffs, stories, and fun with new friends: James Cooper & Makana Gellatly.  We reflect on our recent staff open mic, where Sean was declared dead, after he was buried by the Denver legend, Sam Tallent.  I will be completely serious for a moment to share a shed truth with our listeners. Sam did the funniest 15 minutes of inside-baseball material, followed by: “Well I’m not gonna stay this whole time, so let’s bring up your host, Sean!”  Needless to say I bombed — a dream I didn’t know I had, fulfilled by my shattered ego & knowing I’ll never be that funny. 

 

James shares about getting back into the swing of stand-up, we knock around some skit ideas, including a racist person preparing for their monthly mentalist appointment, we grill James about his favorite Colorado institutions like Casa Bonita, and we learn about Makana’s rough night in a bathroom.  We share our favorite political quotes of all time, discuss a 6.2 million dollar banana sold as “art,” only for it to be taken off the wall & eaten by the man who bought it at auction.  Makana now believes pigeons are real after spending almost a year living among them.  Let that be a cautionary tale of the importance of our environment. 

 

These dudes rock, grateful they shared some of their time kicking it with me & our audience.   A tall thank-you to them both. 

 

FO & BW

Ep. 145: Farmland for Civilization (Ft. Makana Gellatly)

The Founder returns! At long last, the highly anticipated event of the holiday season is here!!

After a year of living in New York City, our OG co-host — Makana Gellatly — is back with a new aura of NY elitism to share with the fans. We hear about living in a shoebox, moving to midtown Manhattan, and how it only took him 1 month of living in NYC to yell at tourists to get out of the way on crowded sidewalks. Makana & I wrestle with the conclusion that we aren’t (and will never be) as talented at trading stocks as our elected representatives in Congress. Pelosi’s knowledge is unmatched, we are just surprised that BlackRock hasn’t come calling for her services. 

Makana shares how his grandma got interested in Tarot card readings during the 2024 presidential election & how heartbroken she was at the result. The cards misled her into believing it would be a Kamala landslide, how could the spirit realm possibly be wrong?!?

As always, we hear some bold public-policy solutions proposed by Makana: a ‘Casey Anthony’ button for airline travel, a firm anti-parade stance in cities, and he speculates on the “Free-Play” segment of the Biden administration. Don’t miss out on some spicy bartending stories near the end of the episode, Makana didn’t almost get stabbed for nothin’!

 

FO & BW