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Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera

“[A] hilarious and much-needed book.” —Samantha Bee, Emmy Award–winning comedian, author, and host of  Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

For fans of the perceptive comedy of Hannah Gadsby, Lindy West, and Sarah Silverman, Academy Award–nominated and acclaimed stand-up comedian Jena Friedman presents a witty and insightful collection of essays on the cultural flashpoints of today. Growing up, Jena Friedman didn’t care about being likable. And she never wanted to be a comedian, either. A child of the 90s, she wouldn’t discover her knack for the funny business until research for her college thesis led her to take an improv class in Chicago. That anthropology paper, written on race, class, and gender in the city’s comedy scene, was, in Jena’s own words, “just as funny as it sounds.” But it did lay the groundwork for a career that has seen her write and produce for  The Daily Show   with Jon Stewart , the  Late Show with David Letterman , and the Oscar nominated  Borat Subsequent Moviefilm . Friedman’s debut collection,  Not Funny , takes on the third rails of modern life in Jena’s bold and subversive style, with essays that explore cancel culture, sexism, work, celebrity worship, and…dead baby jokes. In a moment where women’s rights are being rolled back, fascism is on the rise, and so many of us could use a breather as we struggle to get by, Jena applies her unique gifts to pull a laugh from things deemed too raw, too precious, and too  scary  to joke about. She shares her stories of taking on those who told her she was too brash, too edgy, and too “unlikable” to make it. She deftly dissects how we get coerced into silence on the issues that matter most, until they’ve gone too far afield to be turned back around again. And she shares her struggles to make it (-ish) in a world that, more often than not, would rather tune out than listen to a woman confronting the indignities we’ve been told to bear.

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Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera

Jena friedman. one signal, $27.99 (256p) isbn 978-1-982178-28-4.

Reviewed on: 01/27/2023

Genre: Nonfiction

Compact Disc - 978-1-7971-5251-6

Downloadable Audio - 978-1-7971-5249-3

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ebook ∣ Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera

By jena friedman.

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9781982178284

Jena Friedman

Atria/One Signal Publishers

18 April 2023

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ESSAYS ON LIFE, COMEDY, CULTURE, ET CETERA

by Jena Friedman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2023

A serious memoir with jokes, self-deprecating yet rarely self-diminishing.

A funny but critical look at the depredations of life as a woman comic.

Friedman is an acclaimed stand-up comedian, a writer for programs like The Daily Show , and a TV host. While this book chronicles her rise from improv bit player to Adult Swim personality, she stresses the minefields she encountered along the way. As she notes throughout a narrative that emphasizes a litany of grievances, personal and otherwise, comedy is an unregulated industry, which leaves room for sexual abuse, pay disparity, and everyday microaggressions. Being a woman in the business sometimes means bombing when taking on touchy subjects: The author opens with her being met with silence on election night 2016, when Trump’s victory was clear and she quipped, “Get your abortions now” on a panel with Stephen Colbert. For a book that turns on taboos and industry humiliations, Friedman is an amusing writer who happily dives straight into uncomfortable territory. For example, she recalls writing a satire of American Girl dolls targeting xenophobia, considers the lasting appeal of dead baby jokes (“a reflection of a traumatized society trying to heal itself through culture”), and transcribes her asking the likes of Jon Stewart and Patton Oswalt the kinds of dunderheaded and/or sexist questions she’s fielded—e.g., “What’s it like to be a man in comedy?” The author is thoughtful on cancel culture, at once seeing how it can be overblown (“It’s always kind of funny when a famous comedian whines about cancel culture on a platform where we all can hear them”) while describing how former colleagues and supporters like Roseanne Barr and Jeff Garlin were impacted by it. The prose is sometimes exaggerated, and the text is repetitious and padded in parts, filled with old sex-advice columns, a review of a Jeff Koons exhibit, and other ephemera. Still, Friedman’s attitude of refusing to tolerate sexism—and willingness to mine it for comedy—prevails.

Pub Date: April 18, 2023

ISBN: 9781982178284

Page Count: 256

Publisher: One Signal/Atria

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION

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Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton

LOVE, PAMELA

by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that ." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy , which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera Hardcover – 11 May 2023

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• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Atria/One Signal Publishers
• Publication date 11 May 2023
• Dimensions 15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm
• ISBN-10 1982178280
• ISBN-13 978-1982178284
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria/One Signal Publishers (11 May 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1982178280
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982178284
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm
• 884 in Political Humour (Books)
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Jena Friedman Has Just One Thing to Say About Her New Book: “Please Buy It”

The comedian and former late-night show writer debuts Not Funny, a (funny) book of essays about her life in comedy.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Shondaland editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Comedian and writer Jena Friedman has always wanted her work to speak for itself. She came up through the ranks when sex jokes and personal reveals were the ways for women to get laughs at comedy clubs, so it’s commendable that she’s held tight to her moral compass and kept her personal cards close to her chest.

“I just feel like there’s this tendency, especially with women artists, to focus on our personal lives rather than the work that we’re doing, and I’ve always tried to fight against that,” Friedman tells Shondaland. “It’s probably why no one knows who I am [ laughs ]. I have a joke about that in Ladykiller .”

“I went to see my mother right after I taped [ Ladykiller ], and I got to read her my book,” says Friedman, who was very close with her mother before her recent passing. “She’s always wanted me to write a book, and she’s very alive in the book. After I finished reading it to her, she asked, ‘Are you going to do a book on tape?’ And I said that that was the plan, and then she said, ‘Well, you should hire someone to help you with the performance.’ That’s her comedy: just total deadpan. She’s always been funny.”

Whether Friedman got her comedic talent from her wryly witty mother is not for us to say. Maybe it was from her older sister, whom she describes as domineering but also very funny. But Friedman admits that it’s weird she became a comedian at all.

“I’m from New Jersey, outside of Philly. I had a good childhood; my parents were not artists, and it was never something that was encouraged,” she explains. “No one in my family is in the arts, so I think it just kind of came out of left field.”

Jena Friedman Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera

She addresses the adage that to be a good comedian, you need to have trauma in your childhood, but she thinks that sort of reputation isn’t so common anymore: “I’m not saying I’m not a dark person,” she adds. “Because if you see my work, there’s a good amount of dark. I just had a pretty healthy, basic upbringing; I was captain of my high school’s tennis team.”

In Not Funny , Friedman talks about her upbringing, but she mostly focuses on how she got into comedy, her career as a stand-up comedian, and the profession’s evolution over the last 15 years. However unlikely it may have been that Friedman ended up there, she always felt compelled to keep at it. Her humor is in spades throughout the essay-style book, and she offers both astute and hilarious commentary on many things within her industry, including what it’s like to be a “female comedian.” (You’ll have to read the book to get the joke.)

Before Not Funny hits bookstores on April 18, Shondaland talked to Friedman about why she wanted to write a book, how the industry has changed since she began, and if she thinks ChatGPT is coming for our jobs.

VALENTINA VALENTINI: You’ve written and produced movies and TV, you’ve acted, you’ve directed, done stand-up specials, and now you can add author to the list of creative talents. Why did you want to write a book?

JENA FRIEDMAN: I’ve been approached at different points throughout my career, but it always kind of fell on deaf ears because the amount of work that it takes to do it just felt insurmountable to me. This time, it was the timing. It was one of the waves of the pandemic where people were sheltering in place again, and I thought, “Okay, I think I have the time and the focus right now to do this.” A lot of it was encouragement from my mom too. She always told me to write a book. Like, a lot. To the point where I was like [ rolls her eyes ]. I was 38 when I started writing the book, and it took a year, but I felt like I finally had enough perspective to actually have something to say and contribute to the conversation. Also, people are burning books now, so I wanted to get in before they just stop making them.

VV: You talk about the evolution of your comedy in the book. Can you tell me a bit about that here?

JF: Stand-up comedy is very humbling because no one really starts out funny. Most stand-up comedians have been doing it for 10 or sometimes even 20 years before they break. Though with social media now, it’s changing because your first attempts at comedy are blasted to the world. So, you do have TikTok stars who have huge followings, and it doesn’t take 10 years to do that. But historically, before social media, people would be toiling in comedy club basements and finding their voice. When I first started, pre-social media, I was doing that — figuring out who I was, finding my voice. Over the years, my comedy has been infused with more empathy, more perspective. With every comedian, the more you do it, the more original you become. I think I was playing a character more so when I started out, and now I’m kind of myself onstage trying to make sure that what I’m saying is obviously funny but have more of a point — my point of view is more distilled as I’ve gotten older, is what I’m trying to say.

VV: You came up one way, but do you think that would be possible today?

JF: Our industry is insane, and it’s getting increasingly harder. I think there used to be a little bit more of a set path, but it’s the arts, so there’s no set formula. But now it’s just kind of all over the place. You can build a big TikTok following and get known that way, and then you tour off of that. Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with stand-up. It’s so labor intensive, but at the same time, it’s the purest form of comedy. You don’t need a producer, you don’t need someone to green-light anything, you can literally just get in front of a crowd and do it. If you’re having writer’s block or if you’re waiting for something to get green-lit, you can just jump onstage at an open mic; you can take the time to just do stand-up. And you can make money — not a lot, depending on who you are. So, the beauty of stand-up for someone who’s doing other things is that it kind of keeps you fresh and keeps you busy and occupied. And unlike other art forms, it’s very democratizing.

VV: Isn’t there something to be said for paying your dues, though? I’m not talking about the toxic and sexist stuff that was happening in comedy clubs, and things you touch on in the book, but just the aspect of building character and a work ethic.

JF: In every industry, you want people who have perspective and humility and experience to be your critics and your creators. But at the same time, there’s a mythology to paying your dues which excludes people on the basis of what the gatekeepers allow in. That’s negative and not productive. I guess you could say I paid my dues, and I still am. I always found that when one door closed, I just had to find another way to get through. And by getting through, I mean literally being able to, like, pay rent by doing comedy. And I’m still there, still just trying to figure out how to keep doing the thing I like to do for money.

I know that these times feel apocalyptic, and they are. But in this one pocket of the world that I came up in, there are so many more voices that are being heard and people who are getting paid. Most importantly, getting paid. And I talk about it a lot in the book, even though the industry is still bad in some ways. I think the economics of every industry should be more openly discussed because when they’re not, women and marginalized people often get the short stick.

VV: Speaking of apocalypses, you shared a post on your Instagram about using ChatGPT with pretty funny results.

JF: I had listened to The Daily from The New York Times about ChatGPT, and so I told it to write a joke in the style of Jena Friedman. And what did it say? Like that it was offensive or goes against their policies or something.

VV: And how do you feel about that?

JF: I love it.

VV: As a writer and a creator, what do you think about ChatGPT?

JF: I feel the same way that I remember feeling for my friends who are photographers when Instagram came out. I think ChatGPT is going to displace writers and creators. You’d like to think that people would rebel against it and actually want homespun, organic art that has flaws. But from what we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem like that’s really the case.

VV: Well, I guess your job is safe, though, because it refused to write in your voice.

JF: Well, my job has always been safe because there is only a small amount of people that appreciate what I do. I’m not competing with the robots.

VV: Is there anything else about the book we should know or that you’d like to say about it?

JF: Yep. I would love people to buy it.

The cool thing about writing a book is everything you want to say is in the book. I’ve never written a book before, and I love how there’s an immortality in the words now. You just put your stuff out there, and it’s there forever. I’ve sent it to some comedian friends, and they’ve told me that they didn’t know about all that time in Chicago and everything. It’s been a good feeling to put my experience into words. And it’s weird that I don’t have anything else to say about it, because I’m usually continually ranting. But yeah, please buy it.

Valentina Valentini is a London-based entertainment, travel, and food writer and is also a senior contributor to Shondaland. Elsewhere, she has written for Vanity Fair , Vulture , Variety , Thrillist , Heated , and The Washington Post . Her personal essays can be read in the Los Angeles Times and Longreads , and her tangents and general complaints can be seen on Instagram at @ByValentinaV .

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51% #1763: Jena Friedman on "Not Funny"

On this week's 51% , we speak with comedian and writer Jena Friedman about her new book Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera , reflecting on her experience as a woman in comedy and her personal brand of funny. We also catch up with comedian Rachel Feinstein as she makes her way through her U.S. tour.

Guests: Jena Friedman , comedian and author of Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera ; Rachel Feinstein , comedian and actress

51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, New York. Our host is Jesse King, our associate producer is Jody Cowan, our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

Episode 602: Jena Friedman, Micky Dolenz, Scott McCaughey

Comedian Jena Friedman on her hilarious and ironically named essay collection, “Not Funny.” And, The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz reveals what it’s like to be the last remaining member of the iconic band. Also, Scott McCaughey, the man of many bands, including R.E.M., stops by to talk about his prolific career.

Featured in this Show

Jena friedman conquers another medium with 'not funny'.

You may be familiar with Jena Friedman as the host of the smart, darkly comedic yet thought-provoking TV series, “ Indefensible ” and “ Soft Focus .”

Or perhaps you’re familiar with her work as a standup with her special, “ Ladykiller ” or her work with “The Daily Show.”

Now Friedman is turning her attention to a new outlet with the essay collection “ Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera .” Pivoting from joke writing to non-fiction is a whole other beast, she told WPR’s “BETA.”

“I think writing essays, especially when they are earnest, there’s a vulnerability to it and I think that exposes you a little bit more,” she said. “Whereas like with a joke, you can hide behind it. But if you’re writing an essay about something, you’re exposing yourself in a way that I’m not totally used to.”

Friedman also admitted that essay writing, or perhaps getting started on essay writing, is her biggest hurdle.

“I think a lot of comedians and performers, you kind of become a performer because it’s easier to do that than sit down and write,” she said. “It’s my Achilles heel. It feels like pulling teeth to sit down and write a first draft.”

Fans of Friedman’s trademarked edgy, sometimes offensive but always sharp satirical style will find lots to enjoy here, as even the origin story of the title is layered.

“I got into comedy by writing an academic paper about comedy, which was very not funny,” Friedman said. “ I just think the term ‘not funny’ is so funny to me because it’s so subjective and random, and I just thought it would be a really fun title for the book .”

The title also turns the tables on the backlash she’s received to her satirical tweets that some feel went too far and dubbed “not funny.” Plus, there’s also a practical reason for it, Friedman said.

“If you’re not a fan of my comedy, and you Google my name and ‘not funny,’ a link to the book will come up,” she quipped.

A standout essay is one titled “An American Girl’s Story.” It was inspired by backlash that the Middleton-based doll company American Girl faced in 2005. By then, American Girl had been sold to Mattel and the fictious backstory they created for their doll Marisol Luna disparaged an actual Chicago-area working class Mexican neighborhood .

“It was funny that there was so much controversy around this doll company, but also the company itself, just how tone-deaf they were. It just was perfect comedic fodder to make fun of them,” Friedman said.

Friedman, who was writing political sketches for a small Chicago theater company at the time, constructed a concept and extended sketch of a satirical doll company called “Refugee Girl.” The bit was similar to the famous Garbage Pail Kids satirical swipe at the Cabbage Patch Kids doll line.

“It was like this overly earnest company that had all these refugees from all over the world. And I wrote a play and I got all my friends in Chicago to trust me, to perform in my play. And we put it up. And the whole experience was wild,” Friedman said.

Each week, Friedman would perform in a series of sketches, each as a new doll in the “Refugee Girl” line. She would provide her own hilarious, satirical and equally tone-deaf backstory to dolls like “Fallujah Jones,” an Iraq war refugee settling on the west side of Chicago to teach little kids about “Western neo-imperialism from the safety and comfort of her pink-and-white Laura Ashley bedroom.”

Friedman’s ability to offer up sharp social criticism effectively is on display in the essay “Brief Interviews with Hilarious Men.” The title itself is a play on David Foster Wallace’s famous short story collection, “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.”

In the essay, Friedman interviews several of her fellow comedians like Bob Odenkirk , Fred Armisen and her old Daily Show boss, Jon Stewart, and gender swaps the inane questions she and her fellow female comics have faced for years.

“I remember seeing a video of Merrill Markoe in around 1980 and the interviewer said, ‘Do you think women can be pretty and funny?’” she said.

Friedman herself recounts receiving similar questions as recently as 10 years ago.

“It has gotten better, but we still get questions that I think when you’re interviewing someone, if you can sit back and say ‘Would I ask a guy the same question,’ and if the answer is no, then you know, that’s a lame question,” Friedman said.

Even the experiment wasn’t on equal ground, though, Friedman explained, because some of the comedians were aware of her premise. She did find a fascinating discovery that some comedians — like Jim Gaffigan and Patton Oswalt who were on tour and answered the questions in writing — had far different takes.

“It was so great that they answered the questions, but it was just funny because so much about comedy is context and tone,” she said. “When you read them, they’re so off-putting, but when you’re actually having the conversation with someone and even like my tone or my inflection and something kind of mitigated any harshness in any of the questions.”

Friedman extends this conceit past gender, to race.

“ I think that artists want to be perceived for the work that they do, not their identity for the most part,” she said. “Identity always factors into it. But I remember seeing someone recently emailed me and asked me to weigh in on like Jewish humor, and I just was kind of put off by that.”

“I’m definitely Jewish, but my humor isn’t necessarily about being Jewish,” she continued. “When you talk to anyone, think about just the types of questions that you’re asking and why.”

Friedman said the toughest essay to write in “Not Funny” was one about cancel culture. She feels the discussion about it is so “tedious and exhausting” and struggled to find a unique approach.

“I did kind of come up with my shtick, which is really just that conversations about cancel culture themselves are kind of a grift and like, I want in on it too,” she said.

Friedman plays off of her own experience with a short-lived tenure as a writer for the TV show “Roseanne,” which was canceled after creator and comedian, Roseanne Barr, posted a series of incendiary tweets in 2018.

“It did get me thinking,” she said. “I was able to incorporate my experience working for Roseanne, that brief half day where I was writing on her show before she got canceled, and just weigh in on other things that I actually have experienced firsthand connected to cancel culture.”

“Not Funny” is available from Simon and Schuster.

57 years later, Monkee Micky Dolenz is still too busy singing to put anybody down

If there’s one person who really knows that there’s no business like show business, it’s George Michael Dolenz, better known as Micky Dolenz .

When he was only 11 years old, Dolenz played Corky on a children’s TV show called “ Circus Boy .” In 1965, he was cast as a member of the TV sitcom “ The Monkees ,” where he played a member of the fictional band by the same name.

His fellow Monkee, the late Michael Nesmith , said that it was Dolenz’s voice that made the Monkees distinct. And Nesmith was right. Dolenz has one of the most distinctive voices in the history of rock and roll. And even though he is 78, his voice is still as strong as ever.

Dolenz eventually learned to play drums, which came in very handy during the recording of the Monkees’ third album, “ Headquarters .”

Dolenz joined Wisconsin Public Radio’s “ BETA ” via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles to talk about his illustrious career.

“The album (‘Headquarters’) was very special to all of us. ‘Headquarters’ was the first album where we were allowed to go to produce and write and sing and perform on the entire album . Up until that point, we really just had not been allowed to tell the story. Peter Tork told the story, going into one of the early recording sessions in the early days with his bass and they said, ‘What are you doing here?’”

“Headquarters” was the Monkees’ third consecutive No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 charts. It sold 2 million copies within the first two months of its May 1967 release. “Headquarters” only lasted one week at No. 1; it was replaced the next week by the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

One of Dolenz’s favorite songs on “Headquarters” is “Mr. Webster.”

“And I guess because it’s a story and we didn’t do many songs like that. It reminds me a lot of ‘Rocky Racoon,’ which I sang on the tour when we were doing the (50th Anniversary of) the (Beatles’) ‘White Album’ with Todd Rundgren and Christopher Cross, because I’ve done so much musical theater now in my late, late life. And I love story songs,” Dolenz said.

In 2016, the Monkees released an incredible album called “Good Times!” It was produced by the late Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne . Dolenz said Schlesinger “enormously” influenced the album.

“He was a tremendous influence, and I was all for it. I’m a singer and I want a good producer and I want good songwriters and I want good musicians, you know?” Dolenz said. “I thought Adam was the perfect choice for it because of Fountains of Wayne. I put myself in his hands, and I was very happy to do that. The album is one of my favorite Monkees albums.”

One of the most powerful songs on “Good Times!” is “Me and Magdalena,” which was written by Ben Gibbard from the band Death Cab for Cutie . It’s a textbook example of how well Dolenz and Nesmith’s voices blend together.

In the summer of 1967 (two summers before the best days of Bryan Adams’ life ), Dolenz wrote a song called “Randy Scouse Git.” It was the first song written by Dolenz to be commercially released, and it went to No. 2 on the British charts.

“It was almost this stream of consciousness thing about my experiences there in London in the swinging ’60s when I went over there. The Monkees were huge, and the Beatles threw us a party. And I was in my hotel room at the Grosvenor House. I remember just noodling on the guitar, and I just started singing verses about people,” Dolenz recalled.

“(The lyrics) ‘the four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor’ was a Beatles album, ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ (There were) a lot of references to my first wife, Samantha, then being in the limo and not being able to go anywhere and hiding,” Dolenz said of “Randy Scouse Git.”

The English record company wanted to release “Randy Scouse Git” as a single. But much to Dolenz’s surprise, the record company executives wanted to change the title.

“They said, ‘You have to change it (the title) because it’s rude. And I said, ‘Why?’ And they said because it translates into ‘horny Liverpudlian putz.’ So they said, ‘You have to have an alternative title.’ So I said, ‘OK, that’s it: ‘Alternate Title.’ And then it went to No. 1.”

One of Dolenz’s most impressive vocal performances is on the song “Goin’ Down.” You might remember it from season 7, episode 5 of the iconic TV series, “Breaking Bad.” It’s the only song that Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork and Jones collaborated on.

“It was Mike Nesmith who said, ‘Well, listen, why should we do ‘Parchman Farm’ by Mose Allison ? Great tune, but it’s a cover. Let’s get somebody to write words for this track. And we went to (singer/songwriter) Diane Hildebrand and she came back with the words. And we played the track and I was going, ‘Floating down the river/with a saturated liver,’ and she said, ‘No, no, Micky. It’s twice that fast.’”

Dolenz says the last time he performed with Michael Nesmith was “poignant.”

“It was the Greek Theater, the last show that tour,” he said.

“Nobody talked about it, but I think everybody kind of felt that it was probably going to be the last time. He had his health issues, quite serious ones,” Dolenz continued. “He was tender. But he was a trooper. He came out and did those shows, even when we would say, ‘Are you sure you want to do the show, you want to go out?’ And he did. He wanted to .”

Scott McCaughey is The Man of Many Bands

Scott McCaughey is the man of many bands.

You might know him as the founding member of Seattle’s alternative rock band that made its mark in the ’80s: Young Fresh Fellows . Or you might know McCaughey from his band The Minus 5 , or his work as an auxiliary musician in the studio and on stage with R.E.M .

McCaughey’s current band is called The No Ones . R.E.M.’s lead guitarist Peter Buck is one of its members. The No Ones is a bi-continental collaboration that covers a lot of ground including southwest Norway, Athens, Georgia and the Pacific Northwest. And The No Ones cover a lot of ground musically on their latest album, “ My Best Evil Friend .”

Besides McCaughey and Peter Buck, the other members of The No Ones are two Norwegian musicians — Arne Kjelsrud Mathiesen and Frode Strømstad . McCaughey and Buck met them while performing in various festivals In Norway.

Strømstad sent a couple of tracks to McCaughey to add a bass track to, “and (Strømstad) was kind of singing on them, going ‘la-de-da-da-da.’”

McCaughey told Wisconsin Public Radio’s “ BETA ” he asked if the songs had any words.

“And it’s like, ‘Well, not really — kind of, but not really,’” he recalled Strømstad saying.

Strømstad then asked of McCaughey: “‘Do you want to write them?’ I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll try that.’ So it made it more of a collaboration. And we thought, ‘Well, let’s call it a band.’”

Several songs on “ My Best Evil Friend ” are about being in a band, though McCaughey said this record is more about being a fan of music than about being in bands.

There’s a good chance that McCaughey might hold the record for the number of bands he has been in and continues to be a member of. Is this why so many songs have that theme?

“With The Young Fresh Fellows , my first real band, we did a lot of that right from the get-go. We were singing about being in a band when we weren’t even really a band at that point.”

The fabulous sounds of the Young Fresh Fellows

In 1984, McCaughey and his fellow Fellows released their debut album, “The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest.”

It’s a spectacular album, and one of the things that makes is so distinctive is the way the band used sound clips from a Pacific Northwest Bell promotional record with the very same name.

“ Chuck Carroll , the original guitarist of The Young Fresh Fellows, had found that record,” McCaughey said. “And we just thought it was super funny because we had just moved to Seattle. So we were sending this tape to all our friends and kind of making fun of the fact that we were in Seattle, and we loved it there.”

In 1989, the Young Fresh Fellows released their fifth album, “This One’s for the Ladies.” One of the songs is a cover version of The Kinks’ “ Picture Book ” from the band’s 1968 concept album, “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.”

The Fellows’ bass player, Jim Sangster, really wanted the band to record a cover version of “Picture Book,” but McCaughey didn’t think he would be able to sing the song. Sangster was adamant, and the result is an excellent cover version and a very creative music video.

The Fellows record with the Viscount of Viroqua, Butch Vig, at Smart Studios in Madison

In March 1991, The Young Fresh Fellows recorded an album called “Electric Bird Digest” here in Madison, Wisconsin, at Smart Studios, which unfortunately no longer exists. And Butch Vig produced this album just a couple of months before he produced Nirvana’s iconic “Nevermind” album.

“ He (Butch) was just amazing to work with. We had heard a lot of stuff he did with like Killdozer and Urge Overkill . We really liked the sound he got. And we thought, let’s let’s see how much it would cost to do it. And he was really reasonable. It was just so much fun working with him,” McCaughey said.

One of the most intriguing songs on “Electric Bird Digest” is “ Swiftly But Gently ,” which does not sound at all like a typical Young Fresh Fellows song. And that’s probably what makes it so intriguing.

“I’m surprised we got it on the record because I guess I just really liked it. And I didn’t really even come up with much of a song. It was just a line that I just kept kind of going over and over in my head,” McCaughey said.

McCaughey joins R.E.M.

In 1994, McCaughey started working with R.E.M. in the studio and live in concert.

“Peter (Buck) and I had gotten to be pretty good friends over the years,” McCaughey said. “We just started playing music together because he likes to play music all the time, as do I.”

McCaughey said the Fellows’ schedule wasn’t busy, and Buck was about to go back on tour with R.E.M. after five years. The band wanted an auxiliary musician and eyed McCaughey because he can play bass, guitar and keyboards.

“And I’m not a real hotshot on any of them because they didn’t really want hotshot musicians. So I auditioned, and it worked out really well, and I stayed with them for 18 years,” he said.

One of McCaughey’s favorite R.E.M. songs to play was “Circus Envy,” which he loved because it was a “thrashing rocker,” which they didn’t play very often .

McCaughey’s health scare

McCaughey suffered a really serious health scare in 2017, so we’re fortunate that he is still with us and still writing songs and performing.

When it happened, he was on tour with Alejandro Escovedo and The Minus 5 .

“It was an amazing tour. We were having a really great time, and we had a day off in San Francisco, my favorite city, where I used to live. And I was walking down the street and suddenly all the strength sucked out of me, and I was sliding down into the street and just lying there and I couldn’t talk or anything,” he said.

Two good Samaritans helped McCaughey. They thought that he had suffered a seizure. They called 911, and McCaughey was taken to the hospital, and then to another hospital.

“It wasn’t a lot of fun,” he said.

McCaughey said one doctor insisted that he was a drug casualty. The doctor didn’t identify McCaughey as a stroke victim and didn’t order an MRI.

“They finally found out who I was, and Peter Buck came down and was kind of reading the riot act,” he said.

The doctor finally ordered an MRI and determined that McCaughey had indeed suffered a stroke. He couldn’t talk for a few days and was paralyzed on one side.

“ I guess in the long run, I’m really lucky because I’m still fairly functional ,” he said. “I’m not at the level I was before that. But I can’t complain because I’m here and I can still write songs and I can play guitar.”

McCaughey explained he had to relearn guitar, because the part of his brain involved in speech was affected by the stroke.

“So I can’t remember words now,” McCaughey saod. “It’s harder for me to write lyrics. But I manage.”

Episode Credits

• Doug Gordon Host
• Adam Friedrich Producer
• Steve Gotcher Producer
• Steve Gotcher Technical Director
• Jena Friedman Guest
• Micky Dolenz Guest
• Scott McCaughey Guest

Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.

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Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera

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Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

• I . Sorry, Mom, I know you wanted me to be a management consultant.
• II . Good call, Nick.
• III . A cult with an even better job placement track record than Scientology!
• IV . Internalized misogyny can be a real bitch.

About The Author

Jena Friedman is a comedian, filmmaker, and creator of AMC’s Indefensible and Soft Focus with Jena Friedman on Adult Swim. She has worked on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and  Late Show with David Letterman , and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Artnet, and The Guardian . She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won a Writers Guild of America Award for her work on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm . She splits her time between Los Angeles and New York. Find out more at JenaFriedman.com and follow her on Twitter @JenaFriedman.  

Why We Love It

“Jena Friedman is a pull-no-punches woman in comedy whose point of view and approach are simply made for our tumultuous times. Her essays on likability, reproductive rights, reckoning with a predatory English teacher from her past, and her struggle to understand when a trusted friend in comedy faces accusations of abuse are bullseyes on the crucial issues of today.” —Nick C., Senior Editor, on Never Far from Home

Product Details

• Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers (April 18, 2023)
• Length: 256 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982178284

Browse Related Books

• Humor > Topic > Political
• Humor > Form > Essays
• Biography & Autobiography > Entertainment & Performing Arts

Raves and Reviews

"In fact very funny. And [Friedman] somehow manages to do that while taking on some of the, shall we say, darker topics, like sexism, celebrity worship, and women's rights." — Cosmopolitan

“ Not Funny feels as if you're having a direct conversation with Jena. A mix of lethal deadpan delivery and biting sarcasm with impressive intelligence not only makes this book phenomenal, but announces the arrival of a singular voice." —Phoebe Robinson, New York TImes bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

“Jena Friedman is brilliant at mining the darkness for a joke you'd never dare say, that makes you jealous you didn't think of it yourself. I am here for every word of this hilarious and much needed book.” —Samantha Bee, Emmy Award-winning comedian, actor, commentator and author of I Know I Am, But What Are You?

“I feel misled. Not Funny is in fact extremely funny! And smart and thoughtful and even a little offensive, just like Jena” —Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, writer, producer, and creator and star of Borat

“Jena dares you to laugh at things we're told not to laugh at, perhaps because that's how they keep us from seeing the truth. A page-turner through and through: Just when I'm thinking 'it can't be!' Jena tells you it is. And I'm laughing through it. Jena proves with her writing that not only is laughing at dark truths important, it's revolutionary.” —Atsuko Okatsuka, comedian, actress, and writer

“I’ve skimmed this book and it seems pretty funny. I have every intention of reading it as soon as I finish The History of The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.” —Larry David, writer, actor, and co-creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm

“Jena’s comedy is and has always been radical. She’s dark, unapologetic, and biting. It’s really funny and a little frightening.” —Ilana Glazer, actor, writer, and co-creator of Broad City

“From her sharp and fearless comedy specials, to the deadpan interviews in which she expertly skewers a fine array of sexist miscreants, Jena Friedman is actually not funny --she is hilarious and brilliant.” —Merrill Markoe, New York Times bestselling author of Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

"A funny but critical look at the depradations of life as a woman comic [...] A serious memoir with jokes, self-deprecating yet rarely self-diminishing.” — Kirkus "[Jena Friedman] sparkles with the casual brilliance of fellow comedians and humor essayists Lindy West and Sarah Silverman." — Library Journal "Entertaining and soulful... this is a blast." —Publishers Weekly "Don’t let the footnotes fool you; this isn’t a dry academic treatise. . . . Perfect for fans of dark, feminist comedy such as Hannah Gadsby or Samantha Bee." —Booklist "It's no slight against comedian Jena Friedman to say that the title of her first book should be taken largely at face value. . . . For an injection of power and agency, readers could scarcely do better than Not Funny. " — Shelf Awareness

"Jena's always been fiercely honest both onstage and off, and this book is no exception. If you want to laugh and scream, give NOT FUNNY a read." —Naomi Ekperigin, comedian, actress, and writer

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