This is a head, a podcast about Chokes. I'm your host, Jesse David Fox.

I'll tell you the truth. Part of the reason I thought of doing a mini season of episodes from our archive

is because sometimes listeners tweet at me asking slash telling me to have people on that I've already

had on. Of this subset of comedians, Tignatara was the most frequent request.

This is not to shame those nice people, but just to say, I get it. I'd love to have Tignatara

on if I could, and well, in our I could so I did. That's because I truly

believe Tignataro is one of the greatest comedians period. That's it. Full stop. You know I think a lot about what it means for someone to be one of the best stand-ups or the best stand-up at a given time. You know, you can't just say the person who makes the most people laugh as there are a lot of

hacks who play basketball arenas and you know broad appeal is not necessarily what it means to be

good for me you know I try to think of who's both the most self-inspired and themselves and also has the best ability to articulate that point of view.

Tic can do everything a stand-up can, but she does it in her way. Her work

can be personal or silly or both at the same time, her pacing, legendary, and she pushes

boundaries, not the boundaries that get talked about a lot in comedy in terms of language and taste, but the bounds of what is possible with the form.

You know, I loved this interview as it was a first of a type of interview that we do on the

podcast. You know sometimes people pick jokes that feel like a culmination of their work.

You know sometimes people pick jokes that are seen as

classic, some pick an early joke that provided a roadmap, and sometimes, like in this

case, the joke represents a breakthrough. The breakthrough is artistic, but it's also for those who are doing it

right and giving themselves through their work deeply personal. For TIG that joke

was her massive story about meeting singer Taylor Dane over and over again, which she performed in a variety of places,

including the version will be playing from her 2011 album, Good One, no relation.

It blends storytelling, joke writing with an anti- comedian sense of repetition as play and it paved the way for a lot of what she did afterwards as she went through in an unbelievably trying stretch of life

TIG became the comedian she is because of this joke and that comedian is

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