This is the only picture of Bryan Cook on the internet smiling. For the most part he scowls. Or at least, that’s what he wants you to believe. You see Cookie was raised up tough in the back-woods of Maine, a place where throat-chugging fermented maple syrup everyday was the norm, where men ripped the heads off of ducks sometimes just because, where getting beat into logger gangs was a six-year-old’s right of passage. If they weren’t a pussy, anyways. This instilled in him an inherent mistrust in the world, the belief that your best buddy could boot-stomp ya behind a Hannaford’s any second, just for looking at his best wharf-hog wrong. Like you would ever eye that fucking pig Shelly.
Such an upbringing made him skeptical. It made him scowl.
That’s why I like this picture. Because it shows the real Bryan Cook. The giggly tabby cat Bryan Cook. The host of the Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction show and podcast (now available on the Nerdist network here), Bryan Cook. The furious, hilarious stand-up comic Bryan Cook. My buddy.
I met Bryan a few years ago at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and we hit it off immediately. Since then I’ve stayed with him several times in Seattle and Los Angeles, where he now lives, and he’s crashed with me as well. And it’s always a blast. In comedy every once in awhile you just meet someone who you’re automatically in tune with. A person with whom no real introductory steps are necessary because you both just get it and you’re friends now. That’s the case with Cookie. So enjoy the podcast you’re about to listen to. In it we discuss, among other things, our mutual love of ska and Bryan’s hate for his bitch-boss Joan Rivers, against whom he and the entire staff is currently striking after being treated like shit as writers for her Fashion Police show on E!
Yeah. That’s right. My boy Cookie wrote them ill fashion disses. He’s been doing it for years. Ever since he dubbed his buddy’s lumberjack flannel “wicked queah” when he was seven and promptly took his first boot to the face.
It’s Maine shit. The type of shit that’ll make a man scowl.
Here’s one of Cookie’s favorite videos:
You can listen to the episode on iTunes here.
I know exactly where this is – this is the night I met Bryan. Last September. I think it’s a couple days after I met you, too, Adam!
Bim Skala Bim, bros! Best ska trombonist ever, and you know trombone is the most important ska horn.
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