{"id":1947,"date":"2017-08-16T14:04:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T18:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=1947"},"modified":"2017-08-16T23:03:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T03:03:49","slug":"dot-podcast-ep35-billy-d-washington-never-left-stand-up-but-hes-coming-back-plus-new-music-from-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2017\/08\/16\/dot-podcast-ep35-billy-d-washington-never-left-stand-up-but-hes-coming-back-plus-new-music-from-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"DoT Podcast Ep35: Billy D. Washington Never Left Stand-Up, But He&#8217;s Coming Back, Plus New Music from BIRDS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been a fan of comedian Billy D. Washington for a while. He\u2019s a smart comic, talented in a lot of ways. He can work clean, he can do political satire, he can write from a more observational aesthetic, and he plays a mean piano. Last week, a post he made on Facebook caught my attention. He said he\u2019d been watching all these new stand-up comedy specials, the gold mine frenzy we\u2019ve had lately, and he\u2019d decided to \u201ccompete\u201d again. I got in touch with him immediately to see what he meant, and he said he\u2019d been concentrating on making a living to raise his kids. They\u2019re out of the nest now, and he was looking to be \u201crelevant\u201d again. To get the call when CNN is looking to find out about the comedy business. To get on late night again. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s something I think happens frequently to comedians. Maybe they start out with that dream of fame and fortune, but practical concerns get in the way. They either quit or find a way to make it work from a financial perspective. Washington never stopped doing comedy, but he stopped chasing the fame and fortune dream. What he\u2019s looking for now may be a little different. Something in between. Opportunities to show a broader audience what he can do. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jy5O7htyGgc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I hadn\u2019t spoken to Washington since he came to Boston probably a decade ago. I hope I don\u2019t go that long before I speak with him again. He brought up some aspects of stand-up I had never heard before, like the demise of the \u201cnon-celebrity\u201d black comedian. We spoke about how the fact that he can do so many kinds of comedy may have meant he became less identifiable. He\u2019s not the ace satirists, the music parodist, the clean comic. He\u2019s all of those things, depending on the bit, which makes it harder to brand him. <\/p>\n<p>When the conversation is over, stick around to hear \u201cGet Away,\u201d the debut single from Brooklyn band <a href=\"https:\/\/allbirds.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">BIRDS<\/a> from their album <em>Everything All At Once<\/em>, out Friday August 18 from <a href=\"http:\/\/greenwayrecords.storenvy.com\/products\/20391842-birds-everything-all-at-once-lp-cass-pre-order\" target=\"_blank\">Greenway Records<\/a>. It\u2019s great fuzzy pop, something to prop you up a little bit. <\/p>\n<p>You can listen to and download the podcast from the player below, or subscribe\/review on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/5649185\/height\/90\/width\/640\/theme\/custom\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/autoplay\/no\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"640\" scrolling=\"no\"  allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_547\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-547\" style=\"width: 175px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/department-tangents-podcast\/id1093377146?mt=2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"547\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/itunes\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"175,175\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"itunes\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes! &lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" alt=\"Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes! \" width=\"175\" height=\"175\" class=\"size-full wp-image-547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg 175w, https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-547\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been a fan of comedian Billy D. Washington for a while. He\u2019s a smart comic, talented in a lot of ways. He&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,7,11,1],"tags":[1376,1377,703,1378],"class_list":["post-1947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedy","category-music","category-podcast","category-uncategorized","tag-billy-d-washington","tag-birds","tag-department-of-tangents-podcast","tag-greenway-records"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/DoT-Podcast-35-Banner-Billy-D-Washington-copy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lGwW-vp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1951,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions\/1951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}