Good Times: With Steve Simeone

Good Times: With Steve Simeone plays like the part of a comedy night that happens after the last set, when the stories come out. Comedian Steve Simeone greets listeners as buddies. In both episodes sampled here his friend Lee joins him, a stand-up who is under the weather and cheerful about it anyway. Those episodes start with the same recorded toast to family and to remembering the little moments. It works as a mission statement. Nostalgia drives nearly everything, but it is the specific kind that names the room. One conversation goes back to Los Angeles around 2000 to 2002. A Sunset Strip nightclub called Dublin's, across the street from the Laugh Factory, ran a celebrity night of rappers and athletes on Mondays and a comedy night on Tuesdays promoted by Jay Davis and Ahmed Ahmed. Dane Cook closed that Tuesday show, and the talk follows him to a Comedy Central half hour, his albums and the MySpace years, when he became a kind of blueprint for comics marketing themselves online. There is even the detail that Jay-Z rapped about the place. That is the texture: small facts, remembered fondly, with no need to turn them into an argument. Another stretch turns earnest. It argues that every headliner should buy the opening act a meal and spend time with them, because the gesture brings camaraderie and hope at the point in a career when money is scarcest. The memory behind it is vivid: living well on the road with Pauly Shore, then going home to microwave pizza again. Self-promotion is there, but softened. Club dates in Calgary, Arlington and Brea come up as casual asides, and Lee's only plug is a request to watch his stand-up on Instagram. One episode also carries Thanksgiving wishes, a cold-and-flu reminder to wash hands and hopes for a magical holiday season. Beyond comedy, the talk drifts toward food. The pace is leisurely and the enthusiasm is sincere, with quick agreement carrying one story into the next. For a starting point, '#246 - Swapcast with Cousins and Sons Podcast' includes the Dublin's and Dane Cook history, and '#233 - Chris Mancini' includes the case for feeding the opening act. The sign-offs say the rest: an 'I love you, buddies' and a reminder to 'be on the lookout for all the good stuff in life'.