Exciting news from LA: The Depressed Comedian episode of my Mental Ideas Podcast has been officially selected by the Cinemonic Entertainment Core for their 2021 Cinemonic Podcast Festival! I explore why depression is no laughing matter (or is it?) with American cartoonist Larry Feign, best known in Hong Kong as the creator of the Lily Wong cartoon strip. The festival takes place Dec 15, 2021 at 7.30pm, LA time. Mental Ideas returns to RTHK in 2022 as a weekly strand of the 123 Show!
Tag: The Depressed Comedian
Happy As Larry
Larry Feign, my guest in The Depressed Comedian episode of my Mental Ideas Podcast (clip of us yakking @ The AIBs below), has a new book coming out June 28! Instead of being The Depressed Comedian, he is now officially Happy As Larry.
Larry is bestselling author of some 15 comic books and children’s book series The Fart Brothers, the latter of which he wrote under the pseudonym MD Whalen (until I outed him on air). Presumably, he feared it was a stinker. The Flower Boat Girl is his first historical fiction novel and the culmination of over a decade’s work. You can preorder the book on Amazon and read the first rave review of it here! 🙌
Mental Ideas @The AIBs 2020!
My virtual awards date was Hobo-dog Kaye (RIP 😢 – though he did at least wait until the awards show was over to do it). My attire was my dressing gown. The time was 2am. I’d run out of wine 4 hours ago so I toasted The AIBs 2020 with a cup of FUEL high protein instant porridge. It was an intense two-part awards program presented with unwavering gravitas. The lightest moment was when the AIB uploaded a mugshot of my leering face dementedly side-eying the award. Even I was scared my photo might glitch to life and shatter the screen of my iPad in a spontaneous smash and grab!
Luckily, it was all over before I could get in one good swing of my axe! Sky News StoryCast and Tortoise Media‘s My Mother’s Murder was announced the Factual Podcast category winner. Congratulations to the Association for International Broadcasting on two excellent awards shows and all the worthy winners! It was a bewildering honor to have been nominated and one of the highlights of my year (2020: sooooooooo gooooooooooooood!)
Hats off (because he has no hair) to the legendary Larry Feign, my guest in The Depressed Comedian episode, which the AIBs featured in their awards show!
Mental Ideas Podcast Shortlisted for 2020 AIB Award!
The Association for International Broadcasting have just published their shortlist for the 2020 AIB Awards – and I am blown away my quirky Mental Ideas Podcast is among the nominees in the Factual Podcast category! 🙏 The winners will be announced at a virtual event, streamed live by Al Jazeera Nov 13 & Nov 16. Oh 2020: what a rollercoaster of highs and lows (mainly lows) you have been! If I hadn’t started the year with bipolar disorder, I’d almost certainly have developed it by now… 🤣🤣🤣
Crazy – Mental Ideas Podcast
Crazy is a cheeky little fiesta of madness and the last episode of the first series of Mental Ideas Podcasts so DON’T MISS IT!!! The Mental Ideas Podcast will be back in 2021! You can download all the episodes from this series on RTHK‘s Podcast One platform. Stay tuned for news of spin-off Mental Monologues!
You can catch me presenting my humorous new audio column on Noreen Mir’s fantabulous 123 Show on RTHK Radio 3 from September 29, 2020! I’m also cranking into production of two new podcasts, Hong Kong Marriage Stories and Writer Unblocked. If you’re interested in taking part as a guest, get in touch!!!
A HUGE thanks to all my mental guests: Mat Ricardo, Christina Yung, Larry Feign, Florence Wong, Ruben M, Josh Walters, Dan Davies, Kiki Wong, Jackie Chan, Philippe Joly, Eugenia Kim, Raffaello Degruttola, Ifat Hyndes, as well as to Nick Samuel for composing the mental music, Angie Mann – and especially to the legendary Noreen Mir for exec producing and all her endless encouragement, guidance and support!!!
Until then amigos, if you can’t stay sane, stay crazy!
Links!
Crazy on RTHK Radio 3
Mental Ideas Podcast: Full Series 1 (2020)
The Depressed Comedian
A Bipolar Love Story
The Agitated Air Stewardess
The Psychopathic Actor
The Criminal Sleepwalker
Death & The Frozen Tundra
Virtually Eugenia
The Depressed Banker
Trolls Anonymous
The Unwellness Entrepreneur
Money
Crazy
https://mentalideas.org
Mental Ideas Podcast Lifts Off on RTHK Radio 3 TODAY!!! (April 2, 2020)
The Mental Ideas Podcast lifts off TODAY – April 2nd – on RTHK Radio 3! (Sorry about the short notice, but I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I posted this on April 1st.) Tune in LIVE on Radio 3 or via the RTHK app @1.30pm or download the podcast on the RTHK and Mental Ideas websites!
HUGE thanks to my mental guests and especially to composer Nick Samuel for creating the mental music, zingers & stingers!
UPCOMING EPISODES:
APRIL 2 – The Depressed Comedian
Depression. It’s no laughing matter. Or is it? Why are so many of our best loved comedians depressed? I trance in and out exploring this tragi-hilarious topic with award-winning cartoonist (creator of the SCMP’s iconic Lily Wong strip and the first cartoonist to have a full-page spread in Time Magazine) depressed humorist (at least he seemed a bit disappointed by the end of the interview) and best-selling author Larry Feign!
APRIL 9 – A Bipolar Love Story
In a Mental Ideas Podcast exclusive, I am rewarded for all my bad work with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview a living legend live on RTHK Radio 3! JACKIE CHAN is on the podcast!!! No, I am not making this up!!!! She works in banking and has bipolar disorder!!!!!! Oh. But she could kick THAT Jackie Chan into 2021!!! (Well, it can’t be any crapper than 2020.) Plus, who wants to interview THAT Jackie Chan anyway? Not since he’s been outed as a spy for the CCP. (Well, I wouldn’t have minded tbh.)
APRIL 16 – The Agitated Air Stewardess
One type of podcast guest that’s proved easy to secure in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic is grounded airline cabin crew. Bipolar disorder is a condition that’s traditionally been associated with mad creative geniuses, like Van Gough, Beethoven, Mozart, Theresa May and Carrie Lam. But what if you work as a first class bathroom assistant for a living and don’t have a creative bone in your body? The Agitated Air Stewardess is a harrowing tale of triumph in the face of absurdity. And I know I’m not supposed to have favorites but Florence Wong ROCKS!!!
APRIL 23 – The Psychopathic Actor
Psychopathic actor and entrepreneur Philippe Joly attempts to explain to me why psychopaths make such great CEOs and movie stars. But since I usually meet Philippe at the studio to improvise sketches, the interview quickly deteriorates. He also has the gall to bring up his experiences working with Jackie Chan. No, not the bipolar banker I interviewed in Episode 2. The other one.
APRIL 30 – PUBLIC HOLIDAY – NO SHOW!
MAY 7 – The Criminal Sleepwalker
I’ve got a criminal record as long as your arm, but most of my heinous crimes were committed while I was in Nod. At least that’s what I told the popo.
MAY 14 – Death & The Frozen Tundra
A deadly podcast about Death by Anxious Showman Mat Ricardo is poignantly paired with American actor Dan Davies presenting the weather forecast… in Wisconsin. It may be Spring, but Winter is Coming…
MAY 21 – Virtually Eugenia
Virtual Reality dance-maker Eugenia Kim joins me on the podcast and explains how her bipolar disorder has fueled her creativity and inspired her latest VR film! It’s called Lithium Hindsight. And yes, it IS better than Avatar.
MAY 28 – The Depressed Banker
She banks. She cares for her Mum. She writes books and takes magical photographs of Hong Kong old shops. She’s in tears twice during the interview and has the most infectious raucous laugh I’ve ever had the pleasure of developing tinnitus from. She’s Christina Yung: the Positive Depressive!
JUNE 4 – Trolls Anonymous
Mat Ricardo reminisces about the time he was starting out as a street performer and a member of the public walked onto his pitch and took a dump. Left to raise the tone (uh-oh) Dan Davies gets trollied in Wisconsin and gives a moving account of his own experiences with internet trolls. Only he has another word for them (and he uses it a lot).
JUNE 11 – The Unwellness Entrepreneur
I coin a new catchphrase from an interview with wellness entrepreneur Ifat Hyndes and test it out on a taxi driver. Mat Ricardo talks about the power of acceptance. Frankly, it’s unacceptable.
JUNE 18 – Money
I talk dirty. Great big wads of dirty money. You can’t use banknotes anywhere in Hong Kong since the first wave peaked. Too dirty. Toilet paper is our only currency now.
JUNE 25 – PUBLIC HOLIDAY – NO SHOW!
JULY 2 – Crazy
I’ll leave this one to your imagination…
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