Rude Talk in Athens

"Rude Talk in Athens is brave, brilliant, and incredibly funny. There are loads of very specific characters, including Mark himself. It's the Mark Haskell Smith version of hanging out with Stanley Tucci and Anthony Bourdain, but in present day and ancient Greece. I agree with everything he says about comedy and have never read anything like it." ―Barry Sonnenfeld, Film Director and author of Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker In the 5th Century BCE, the city-state of Athens gave every male citizen the right to voice their opinions and participate in civic life, but this first blush of democracy resulted in a mob of drunken Athenians parading gigantic phalli through the streets as they gleefully hurled insults at each other. It was from this wine-sodden revel that comedy was born— a complicated and messy origin that grows only more relevant in light of our democracy's current struggles. Twice a year,...