Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm a stand-up comedian, filmmaker, actor, writer/editor, and musician. I write for places like The Onion, McSweeney's, Cosmopolitan, Someecards, I'm a commentator on VH1, MTV, Huffington Post Live talking head shows, and I'm a former editor for Jezebel. I'm the creator, producer, writer, director, music composer and star of comedy web series Gold Stars. Season 2 is currently in pre-production and if you'd like to give us money please give us money.
I'm also the producer and host of the monthly Tinder Live! comedy variety show in NYC, producer and host of podcast, Are You Afraid Of The Snark?, which is a thing where myself and comedians and writers from The Onion, The Colbert Report, VH1, MTV, and even former cast members themselves join in mocking the 1990′s Nickelodeon TV show Are You Afraid Of The Dark? in the form of a podcast. Listeners can then sync up the running commentary track with each episode. It is the greatest.
I also tweet a lot.
What hardware do you use?
For my Tinder Live shows, I use an iPad hooked up to a weirdo cable hooked up to a projector and all of this happens atop a rickety ladder. It's pretty interesting to watch. I have a MacBook Pro that, while only a year old, does not move as quickly as I'd like it to. I use that for everything I do.
For my Are You Afraid Of The Snark? podcast, we use a series of microphones that are not mine and use a splitter to connect 4 sets of headphones to the sound from my roommate's television that is an actual television and not a computer that plays TV shows and basically sit around on my couch making jokes while it streams live.
For my band, It Was Romance, I have a Shure 58A microphone that I hook up to a preamp that goes into my computer which goes into GarageBand. I have a Marshall mini amp that is much louder than its size would indicate and I have two electric ukuleles that I hook up to Boss distortion pedals and a Big Muff pedal. I also have a red bass guitar, a mini accordion, a 1960s xylophone, a toy piano, and some good headphones, but I feel like there are way better headphones out there. I'm obsessed with the idea of finding the perfect headphones.
And what software?
I know everyone I talk to uses Microsoft Word but my copy of it stopped working ages ago and I hate opening up documents so I just write everything in Gmail drafts. Not even in Google Docs. Just in email drafts. I had no idea this was super weird until a fellow comedy writer friend saw me do that and literally said, "Whoa" like it was otherworldly.
I use Final Cut to edit the web series, GarageBand to edit music (even though I've heard Logic is 4 million times better), and I use simple websites to create my show flyers, which I think actually look really professional.
What would be your dream setup?
An actual recording, filming, and editing studio. Really just a pile of money would be cool. I do so many DIY/low budget things and it'll be really neat to see and hear what I can do once I get really great equipment. I'm excited for that.