Every month, for just the price of a Starbucks Flat White, you can support a writer who is fat, white
My name is Charlie Demers — I’m a Juno-nominated comedian and I’m a BC Book Prize -nominated author, and my voice features prominently on your parents’ favourite public radio show & your child’s favourite Netflix cartoon (so long as your parents listen to CBC’s The Debaters and your kid watches either of the Emmy-winning programs Beat Bugs or The Last Kids on Earth). I’ve led an idiosyncratic life that has included, among other things, membership in a communist sect; opening, on various occasions, for Sarah Silverman, Marc Maron, Hannibal Buress, Bob Odenkirk & David Cross; organizing a union at a video arcade; making a cooking show pilot with my mother-in-law; writing jokes with Dave Foley of The Kids in the Hall; introducing Noam Chomsky at an anti-war rally of more than fifteen thousand people at Vancouver’s Sunset Beach; sharing a bill talking about anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder along with Stanley Cup finalist Kelly Hrudey & his daughter; learning a Cantopop love song for my wedding banquet; and, most recently, going to seminary. The various interests, proclivities, and personal deficiencies which brought about a resume that eclectic will give you some idea of the range I want to cover on this here blog-newsletter hybrid.
I am a writer-performer, and even at the best of times, the stress falls on the first of those terms — I’ve written seven books (five & a half if you don’t fully count collaborations, you lousy bean-counter!) & edited another four by other authors; written four plays (three & a half if you don’t fully count collaborations, you truly insufferable bean-counter!); and too many essays or book, film, & theatre reviews to count (I guess you’ll just have to make due with counting your infernal beans! Your precious, eminently countable beans!).
And that’s what I do here; I write. On an admittedly altogether too-irregular basis, I write about what’s going on, or write reviews of books or films (usually old ones but occasionally something new), or I write about comedy, or if I really want to weird people out I write about faith.
For the first year or so of this venture, give or take, I was also posting weekly one-on-one conversations with some of my favourite people from the worlds of comedy and lefty politics; it was called the Full of Chit-Chat podcast. The podcast is currently on hiatus, but every now and again I think about bringing it back. If I got the sense that there were demand for it, that might move the needle.
Why subscribe?
Subscribers to get full access to the newsletter and website. They also used to have earlier access to an unedited cut of the podcast. Either way, subscribers never miss an update.
Lately I have been making a greater percentage of posts subscriber-only. Not only do I feel more comfortable writing in a very open and honest and probing way for a smaller and supportive community, but I’ve also wanted to show my very sincere gratitude for those who helped get me through a very difficult financial time, when the pandemic made live comedy work impossible. I like to think that, even though the posts don’t come as regularly as I’d like to be providing them, subscribers get a lot of what I hope is high-quality work for their money. I set my subscription rate at the lowest peg allowable on Substack.
Also, if you want to tell me what a buffoon I am — I’m afraid you’ll have to cough up the price of admission. The comments section is also uniquely for paid subscribers.
Stay up-to-date
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.
Join the crew
Be part of a community of people who share your interests.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
