After listening to almost every episode of “Mohr Stories” I think I am most happy with the amount of laughter that has been recorded. This struck me as odd yesterday when I stopped to think how much laughter has been recorded in the past six months. Listening to Mike Catherwood laugh made me laugh so hard that when I took a piss I missed the toilet. I was heaving as he was sobbing. Mike Catherwood during the last ten minutes of his third episode sounds like a grieving Italian widow. He has long lost the ability to form his mouth into the standard, “Ha ha ha!” position and instead it is simply hanging open as he groans. Hearing Colin Quinn’s thick and hearty Brooklyn laugh is something that I have always sought out and wanted to hear. Colin is one of the comics that you feel as if you have really accomplished something if he likes you. He is a true, “Comics comic” and in the podcast explained his act as, “A dog whistle for comics”. If that’s true, I must be a damn German Shepperd because everything that comes out of Colin’s brain makes me laugh like an idiot. Hearing Dave Attell laugh brought back such visceral memories from sharing an office with him at Saturday Night Live. Gary Gulman’s honest and gentle laugh brought me all the way back to the stages of “Last Comic Standing”. Barry Katz, during, “Get a Helmet” laughs so hard that he gets up from his chair and walks out of my garage. I am laughing NOW when I wonder what my neighbors thought when during a rain storm, a six foot ten inch blond Jew comes stumbling out of my garage clutching his chest. Many of you probably don’t even hear one of the best laughs. That would be the laugh that comes from the show’s producer, Matt Cohen. Matt Cohen is one of the original good guys. And old soul. old school, east coast guy with beaming blue eyes and beats by Dre headphones. Matt listens to HUNDREDS of hours of podcasts every week. He stars in his own podcast “Bagged and Boarded” and works for Kevin Smith and the Smodcast network. Chances are, if you have a podcast, Cohen has heard it. He is a master at what is happening right now in the medium and buries himself in all things podcast related so that he can give you an honest and accurate asessment of the landscape. While listening to “Mohr Stories” a few times each episode, you will hear Matt Cohen’s machine gun laugh just a few feet off mike. To me this is always like hitting the bell on one of those strong man games at the boardwalk. You know, those games where you smash a hammer onto a pad and a red light slides up a giant thermometer with different levels of accomplishment on it. “Whimpy” and “Getting Warmer” and “Tough guy” light up as you smash the hammer down. For “Mohr Stories” the bell at the top of the giant, comedy thermometer reads “Matt Cohen”. What’s great about Cohen’s laugh is that it not only surprises you but since he sits so Zen/Yoda like and so quietly for so long, that when he does burst out laughing it scares the shit out of me. I sometimes forget he is even there (future producers of the world please take note). There really isn’t a better re-introduction to someone’s presence than to hear them laugh at something you said. One simple burst of laughter that reminds you of their presence; JOY. With one burst of laughter they are saying, “I’m here, i’m present, I’m happy.” WHat more could any host ever ask for? BEfore you think that this blog entry is all about washing and shining my own balls and then using them to pat myself on the back, let me quickly explain why so much laughter being recorded makes me so happy. I haven’t gotten any A list celebrity actor guests like some other podcasts. Mark maron routinely gets better guests on his podcast than Leno and Letterman combined. Joe Rogan made me insanely jealous by nabbing one of my heroes, Travel Channel’s Anthony Bordain. Dane Cook has been a guest on both Mark and Joe’s podcast and I’ll admit, I really would have loved to have had him on “Mohr Stories” first. My point is, my podcast has been a bit of a show business anomaly. It stays on top without any big name guests. Whether the guest be Tom Segura or Gary Gulman or Aisha Tyler or K.P Anderson or Mike Catherwood or Barry Katz or Colin or Dave or Jeremy Guthrie or Eddie Ifft or Jim Jeffries one theme resonates. These are simply my friends. I have not have any of them on because they may have a big show coming up or a movie coming out or they want to promote a product. I have had each of them on because they are good people. They make me laugh and I like to talk to them. (If any of my guests want to promote anything I will bend over backwards to sell, sell sell.) These “guests” of mine (put in quotation marks because to call them my guests feels horrible and phony) these guests of “Mohr Stories” have decided to spend a day at Fake Mustache Studios and sit and talk. They are doing me a great favor by showing up and sharing stories. Buddy Hackett really drilled into my head the importance of keeping comedy a brotherhood. We should all be rooting for each other and lending a hand. If a comic you have never met moves in down the street from you, Hackett told me you should be able to just walk up to his door and say hello. The fact that you are both comedians will erode and pesky formalities and you can just dive head first into friendship.To sit in my garage with these people and laugh, has been one of my professional life;s greatest joys. I was recently asked by an interviewer what in my career am I most proud of. For the first time in my life I had an immediate answer. The Podcast.

How strange and wonderful is it that two people can sit across from each other with no rehearsal or planning, just tell stories and laugh like maniacs. My cosest friends laughter is recorded forever. People that I love to be around are in hysterics for eternity. Mohr Stories was Patrice Oneal’s last interview before he died. He and his wife came up to my hotel room when I was staying in Manhattan. Patrice and I sat at a table and chopped it up for about an hour and a half. If you listen to it (episode “I thought you were dirty!”) you will hear Patrice’s beautiful cackle in the first five minutes. That laugh was always the most contagious. If you were ever listening to Opie and Anthony while Patrice was on, you could hear him ignite the entire studio by letting his laugh fly. If you weren’t laughing at what Patrice was laughing at, his explanation of WHY he was laughing at it would reduce you to hysterics. Please don’t think I am speaking in superlatives because he has passed. I promise you I am not exaggerating at all. Patrice was an absolute force of nature. One of the great comics of any time, he was really poised to ascend to the upper echelon of all time greats before he passed. During our podcast together, Patrice admitted that he had not worked as hard as he should have during the first part of his career and he was going to make a change. He was going to get better. He was going to work harder. The notion that Patrice O’Neal had to work hard at all was is and always be preposterous. To try and predict where his career would be today with his new found determination is devastatingly unfair.

Patrice left us far too soon. My first and lasting memory of him will always be of him leaning back in his chair in my hotel room and laughing. Patrice laughing.

I didn’t plan on this blog about laughter to ramble into Patrice dying…. Somehow I should try and circle back around and wrap this thing up. Record the laughter in your life. Record your parents laughing. Be sure to have hours of footage of the laughter of your children. Record your friends and you having a good time. Use all of this technology to your emotional advantage. I certainly will. I can push a button and hear my friends laughing. I can hear myself laughing like a lunatic with my friends. I don’t know, this all seemed so amazing and hippy dippy beautiful in my mind before I wrote it out. Hopefully you will recieve it in the manner it was intended. I am very lucky to know these beautiful, laughing people.