Comedian Greg Giraldo, one of the regular Comedy Central celebrity roasters and judge of Last Comic Standing, has died today at the age of 44. Giraldo had been hospitalized in New Brunswick, NJ after he accidentally overdosed on prescription pills last weekend. His overdose came hours after he performed at a rally to mark National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month.
Comedian Greg Giraldo, 44, Died After Overdose
Pencil This In
THEATER: Let’s never take for granted that we live in a city where, tonight, for instance, we can stop on our way home from work and peer into a storefront window, where video screens broadcast a live criminal confession being performed inside. The storefront belongs to theater production company chashama; the “happening” tonight is the concluding part of Televised Confession, a multimedia performance installation by Stephanie Vella. “Inspired by the use of televised confession by oppressive regimes throughout the world, Televised Confession explores how the televised image changes our experience of guilt, accountability and social order. On stage, a performer confesses to a crime. Live-feed video and amplified sound carry her mediated image out to the sidewalk and the passerby. The spectator must choose between the broadcast image and the real person.” - John Del Signore
Doug Benson, Comedian
27. The story goes something like this: I was working as a standup comedian. I started doing standup when I was twenty-two and was fairly clean living. Some drinking, but no drugs to speak of. I started performing in the Bay Area at clubs around San Francisco, working with some of the comics up there who smoked almost after every show. I started doing it with them. For the first few years that I smoked pot, I was kind of a pot mooch. I just smoked basically when I was working with other comedians who smoked pot and then eventually I realized that I had to strike out, buy some on my own, and now I'm a card carrying medical marijuana patient.
Professor Showalter
Michael Showalter has joined the faculty of the Peoples Improv Theater. The PIT is home of the most prestigious professional comedy writing program in the country and has added him as one of the four new teachers to their faculty.

