25 Minutes of Silence with Joey Clift

17. KATIE WILLERT

Katie Willert is one of the stars and writers of the long running, Webby Award nominated series After Hours on Cracked.com. Founded in 2010, the series is an institution of online culture and Katie’s stern, yet charming character is one of the series many highlights. With multiple web series and hundreds of millions of views under her belt, Katie is an expert when it comes to acting and writing for the internet, dealing with internet trolls, and achieving something that is very rare in the internet space. Career longevity. Katie and I could have talked about that, or our experiences coming up at the same time in the Los Angeles sketch comedy scene in the early 2010s, but instead we sat in silence for 25* minutes. Katie used that time to clean her apartment while I Facebook chatted with a friend from high school.

Note – Due to a glitch in my stopwatch app, Katie and I technically sat in silence for 28 minutes.

16. RON GILBERT

Ron Gilbert is a legend in the video game industry. He designed the PC classics Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island and other successful point and click adventure games and created the SCUMM scripting language. Arguable the best thing about Ron’s games is his strong comedic voice. Ron’s games ooze humor. I could have spoke with Ron about his several decades long career in gaming, his comedic influences or his upcoming game, Thimbleweed Park due out in early 2017, but instead we sat in silence for 25 minutes. Ron used that time to work on Thimbleweed Park while I folded my laundry.

15. LINDSEY BEER

As of 2015, Lindsey Beer is one of only two female screenwriters to contribute to the multi-billion-dollar Transformers film franchise. Besides writing for the upcoming “Transformers: The Last Knight”, Lindsey is also writing the upcoming films “Barbie” staring Amy Schumer, “The Kingkiller Chronicle” and “Dungeons & Dragons” among many other films. Lindsey and I talked for nearly an hour about everything from 90s professional wrestling, to her experiences working in some of the most high pressure writers rooms in Hollywood before we started recording the episode. During the episode, we just sat in silence for 25 minutes. She used that time to read a sci-fi novel.

14. ANDRES DU BOUCHET

Many people know today’s guest as classic Conan characters “Tony The Cameraman” or “Comic Khan” but I know him as Andres Du Bouchet. In his time writing for Conan on TBS as well as its precursors The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and Late Night With Conan O’Brien, Andres particular brand of comedy has been a part of the late night world for nearly a decade. With life experiences from writing for the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2013, to his Emmy nomination, to the release of his two hilarious stand up comedy albums “Naked Trampoline Hamlet” and “20-Sided Guy” Andres would be an amazing person to talk to about writing for late night television and finding humor in the absurd. Instead of covering any of that, we sat in silence* for 25 minutes.
* – We recorded this episode in a bustling coffee shop.

13. ARIANA LENARSKY

Ariana Lenarsky has lived an interesting life. As a former professional lullabyist she sang people to sleep for a living. Articles she’s written have appeared on McSweeney’s, Elle and The Huffington Post among other places. Under her twitter handle @aardvarsk, she was named one of the”48 funniest women on Twitter according to some of the funniest women on Twitter” by someecards.com. Instead of talking about any of those things, we just sat in silence for 25 minutes. We used that time to quietly write poems that we read out loud at the end of the episode.

12. ASTRONAUT JERRY M. LINENGER

Jerry M. Linenger is a former NASA astronaut who flew on the Space Shuttle and Space Station Mir and a retired Captain in the United States Navy Medical Corps. In 1997 he spent 132 days, 4 hours and 1 minute in space. This was at the time the longest duration flight of an American male. While aboard Mir, he faced many harrowing circumstances including the most severe fire ever aboard an orbiting spacecraft, a near collision with a resupply cargo ship and a failure of Mir’s onboard oxygen generator. I’m a huge fan of space travel and I could have talked to Captain Linenger for hours about his experience as one of the only 536 people who have ever rocketed into the cosmos. Instead, we sat in silence for 25 minutes. Captain Linenger used that time to read a book and clean out his rain gutter while I flipped through book one of The Walking Dead.

11. THE DEVASTATOR PRESS (AMANDA MEADOWS AND GEOFFREY GOLDEN)

Founded by Amanda Meadows and Geoffrey Golden, The Devastator Press is the only all-comedy book publisher in America. Amanda and Geoffrey created “The Devastator” in 2010 as a means to promote comedy books and writers that they love. Since then, their books have been reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Wired, The A.V. Club, Bleeding Cool and ComicsAlliance among other places. If you’re looking to create literary comedy, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more knowledgable and passionate than Amanda and Geoffrey. Instead of talking about their growing comedy book empire, Amanda’s new book “We Don’t Think You’re Racist!” or Geoffrey’s “Dream It! Screw It!” we just sat in silence for 25 minutes. They took that time to read while I drank a coconut LaCroix.

10. AHMED BHAROOCHA

Ahmed Bharoocha is a stand up comedian and actor who has performed on Conan, Tosh.0 and Adult Swim’s Dream Corp LLC. He recently released a very funny Comedy Central half hour stand up special as well as his debut stand up album “Almond Badoody” on Comedy Central Records. From his times touring the road, to his days ruling the internet with his sketch comedy group “Dead Kevin” Ahmed would be a great person to talk to about success in the different schools of comedy. Instead of discussing any of that, we just sat in silence for 25 minutes. Ahmed used that time to read one of the Harry Potter books.

9. SOVEREIGN SYRE

Sovereign Syre is a stand up comedian that has opened for Marc Maron. She is host of the podcast “Observations” on iTunes and also a former adult film actress. We spent close to an hour talking about the struggles of transitioning between entertainment mediums, male privilege and the difference between the sketch and stand up comedy scenes in Los Angeles after we recorded the episode. While we recorded the episode we sat in silence for 25 minutes. Sovereign used that time to work on her novel.

8. ZOLTAN ISTVAN

Zoltan Istvan is journalist and entrepreneur who is running for President of the United States of America under the Transhumanist Party ticket. He currently writes the blogs “The Transhumanist Philosopher” for Psychology Today as well as “Transhumanist Future” for Vice’s Motherboard. He even gave a TED talk called “The Beauty of Being Alive” about life extension and Transhumanist science. Zoltan would be a great person to interview about science, politics and Transhumanist philosophy. Instead of talking about any of that, we sat in silence for 25 minutes. Zoltan used that time to work on an article about “The Venus Project.”