Jackie Kashian “This Will Make an Excellent Horcrux”

(Stand Up!) It is probably unwise to make a statement as bold as my forthcoming one on the basis of only hearing two comedy albums, but as a child who coveted Redd Foxx and Steve Martin vinyl above anything I saw on TV or in person, the fact that I have never seen a live set, a TV clip, or even a Youtube video of Jackie Kashian doesn’t bring me pause in saying I think she is my favorite stand up comic working these days. Her albums are so enchanting, smart, and ridiculously funny that she wins my imaginary comedy derby. The fact that her cadence sounds like a dated, stand-in-front-of-a-brick-wall 80s comic only makes her genuine originality all the more impressive. Kashian earnestly talks about her pleasant marriage, her Midwestern family and values, her lifelong love of books, and plenty of other seemingly edgeless topics and manages to reveal angles where the razor sharp edges genuinely draw laugh-blood. And she’s by no means on track for the Christian comedy circuit – there’s a bit about shaved pussy cunnilingus on her new record that’s so ridiculously clever it might win joke of the year. She may not have the absurdist or nasty tone to mine for Comedy Central or sitcom riches, but I hope the biz treats her right because this is pure gold!