Comedy, books, road dust, and grace.
Tom Rhodes Smart Camp turns loose monologues and occasional conversations into a rough-edged notebook of travel, literature, spiritual comparison, and personal repair. It can move from Ireland rain to samurai maxims to baseball memory without sanding off the crankiness.
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Tom Rhodes Smart Camp is less a formatted comedy show than a rolling personal archive. It is messy on purpose. Recent episodes move through hotel rooms in Dublin, a Los Angeles apartment packed with thousands of books, a car headed elsewhere, childhood baseball fields, and the mental afterweather of heartbreak and recovery. The show’s center is a standup comedian thinking aloud about how to live with more discipline, humility, curiosity, and nerve. That sounds grand. The delivery is usually closer to a friend making coffee while complaining about wind, candy, microphones, presidents, illness, and the strange behavior of human beings. Literature matters here. One Hundred Years of Solitude becomes an excuse to talk about old pleasures, book ownership, and the fragile future of reading. Hagakure and Psalms sit beside each other as competing manuals for courage, surrender, and disciplined grace. A private tour of a book vault becomes a rush of awe over old rare books and the people who preserve them. The show loves objects that carry memory. It also knows objects are not enough. In the more vulnerable episodes, the host talks about quitting smoking, divorce, financial trouble, a break-in, witnessing suicide, and the people who stayed close anyway. Those passages give the comedy weight. The sentimentality is real, but it has calluses. Ashna Rojan appears as an ex-wife and close friend whose judgment still matters, especially in the rule that nobody on the podcast should be made to look foolish. Baseball gets treated with the same seriousness as scripture: skill, fathers, coaches, practice, and the old dream of being good at something. Travel is not used as postcard material so much as a pressure system. Ireland, Utah, Hawaii, and Los Angeles all become places where books, weather, people, and mood collide. The result is a show for listeners who can tolerate digression because they understand that digression is often where the honest part is hiding. It is irreverent, literary, sentimental, cranky, and unexpectedly prayerful.
Made for: For listeners who like reflective comedy with long digressions, literary references, travel stories, and spiritual friction. It especially fits people who want warmth without polish and sincerity without clean edges.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating standup life, sacred texts, baseball memory, book collecting, and personal recovery as parts of the same moral weather. Its looseness is not a lack of substance; it is the path the substance takes.
Tom Rhodes Smart Camp is a festival of ideas, knowledge, stories, books, and adventures.I have been a comedian for more than 40 years, traveling the world to perform comedy. Whenever I can, I will share my adventures with you on this podcast. Together with my creative partner and best friend, Ashna, we 're offering a blend of wisdom, humor, and heart. About Smart Camp podcastTom Rhodes Smart Camp is a festival of ideas, knowledge, stories, books & adventures.Join us for - Smart Ramble (Tom talks freely)- Smart Talk (Tom has a guest)- Smart Bestie (Tom and best friend Ashna Rodjan)- Smart Books and Movies (Review on Books and Movies)TomI have been a comedian for more than 40 years. I travel t…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Tom Rhodes turns books, performance stories and personal memories into warm, digressive comedy driven by genuine curiosity.
Tom Rhodes follows curiosity wherever it leads, moving between solo reflections and loose conversations without forcing either into a tidy comic premise.
Little League batting tips and a 1611 Bible? Tom Rhodes has room for both in your headphones.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A bruised, candid return that finds warmth in friendship, quitting smoking, and the people who keep showing up.
Tom Rhodes returns from time away with a bruised, open-hearted account of heartbreak, quitting cigarettes, marijuana, and cigars, divorce, a break-in, and the people who helped keep him moving.
A cold-weather ramble slowly sharpens into a funny, earnest reflection on samurai discipline, humility, and the value of being wrong.
The episode starts in a deliberately unpolished place: the host is sick, the weather is brutal, and the path toward Hagakure and Psalms is more meander than march.
A dawn reading turns into a warm, slightly wandering defense of books, pleasure, and being heard.
A Los Angeles balcony at daybreak gives the episode its opening mood, with coffee, sunlight, and Beverly Boulevard easing into a darker literary turn.
A forgotten tar roofer's baseball lesson becomes a warm salute to the people who shape a kid's confidence.
Baseball comes back as a boyhood memory with dirt on it: Oviedo Little League, batting practice with his dad and Uncle Bob, and the brief, believable dream of turning pro.
Piff recalls a walkout twelve seconds into his full-hour set after asking for someone's wallet.
An hour-long set turns into a useful story about nerve, self-doubt, and the strange permission structure around comedy rooms. Piff the Magic Dragon recalls being told that doing the full hour was the kind of thing reserved for legends, then finding the audience reaction hard to…
A fraying scarf leads a funny, rueful wander through books, clothes, taste, and memory.
John Cooper Clarke's book collection becomes a rummage through the objects that give a life its particular shape: Jonathan Meads, Against Nature, high-break jackets, flat-front pants, and a beloved Tootle scarf fraying after 20 years.
Joe Rogan's marathon one-on-one talks, from UFC judging debates to Bob Lazar's UFO claims.
Bateman, Hayes, and Arnett riff, then talk shop with guests like Adam Sandler.
Peter Sagal leads NPR's live news quiz, pairing celebrity guests with listener call-in games.
Comedian Chris Gethard takes one anonymous call a week and can't hang up first.
Comedian Josh Blue and host Tom discuss their friendship and quirky topics like toilet seats on a back porch in Denver.
Comedian Tom Rhodes continues his conversation with poet John Cooper Clarke in part two of their 'Book Roulette' episode.
Tom Rhodes interviews Piff the Magic Dragon, a British magician and comedian based in Las Vegas.
A podcast episode mixing a BMO ad, a CAMH mental health fundraiser promotion, and a personal update from Tom Rhodes about his home burglary.
Tom Rhodes opens by returning after a long gap, saying he had not released a podcast since December and that he had been through heartbreak, quitting cigarettes, marijuana, and cigars, plus a turn to hot yoga, roller skating, and weightlifting in Los Angeles.
Tom Rhodes compares the samurai code of Hagakure with the biblical Psalms, exploring their philosophical and spiritual insights.
Tom Rhodes discusses the importance of his podcast rule that nobody looks like a jackass, after being reminded by a friend.
Tom Rhodes talks about being in Dublin, Ireland, and discusses Halloween candy changes.
Tom Rhodes reads Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude after finishing the book and watching Netflix's eight-part adaptation.
Tom Rhodes says Coach Maybe’s line that "a home run should be the accident of a line drive" shaped both baseball and his life.
Comedian Jen Kober discusses comedy, courage, and cannabis, sharing her defiant move away from L.A.
Jeffrey Baldinger discusses his college thesis comparing the Jewish humor of Rodney Dangerfield and Larry David, focusing on their contrasting comedic personas.
Comedian Drake Nelson discusses his move to Crescent City, California, during the pandemic to help his mother after his father's passing from kidney disease.
Tom Rhodes interviews journalist Julie Seabaugh about the evolution of comedy and their shared love of books and vinyl records.