If you've just started out in stand-up comedy, you need these things: 1. Matt Ruby's Sandpaper Suit blog. It calls itself a "how the sausage gets made" account of the New York comedy scene. A massive inspiration, it's my current gold standard for "inside baseball" comedy thinking on the internet. Pair it with Matt and Mark Normand's "We're All Friends Here" podcast, a disgraceful temple of comedians over-sharing their darkest moments.
2. The Connected Comedy podcast. Don't listen for the laughs. Listen for the lessons. Hosts Jordan Cooper Chelcie Rice, Josh Homer and Josh Spector are breaking down what success and failure mean on the business side of the comedy world, now that the internet and social media are changing the model for everyone, all the time. Full disclosure: the intro music sucks, and you may find yourself getting scolded a lot. Fuller disclosure: you need to be scolded. We all do.
3. Bryson Turner's Comedy Hajj blog (with contributions from Lawson Leong and Lucas Molandes). Bryson is New York City''s leading philosopher-clown. Just read him. Then watch his self-produced special here. Bryson is taking us somewhere and it's very cool.
4. Christian Polanco 's Offstage podcast. I'm a new fan of this, but it's a great podcast about relationships featuring comedians happy to cut the riffs, and dial up the honesty.