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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Jodie Wasserman

A New York club comic who treats a set like an argument.

1 special · 2001

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Jodie Wasserman treats a comedy set like an argument she intends to win. She paces the stage visibly annoyed, gripping the mic stand while she works through her grievances. When she talks about failing a drug test or her complicated relationship with donuts, she doesn’t invite the audience to relate. She demands they listen. The cadence is pure New York club comedy: a blunt setup, a short pause, and a punchline delivered with genuine irritation.

Specials

On stage

She is a lifer in the New York scene, the kind of comic who knows every club manager and has played every back room. In the early 2000s, she made the standard cable rounds with spots on Premium Blend and Comic View. Rather than wait for theater bookings, she co-created Spin Cycle Comedy, producing live standup shows inside functioning laundromats. Decades later, she still brings the same open hostility to club sets and local podcasts.

Her best material weaponizes her own bad habits. She refuses to sand down her rough edges to make a crowd comfortable, daring the room to judge her. The downside to never letting up is that the volume rarely drops. When a minor traffic inconvenience gets treated with the exact same loud frustration as a major life disaster, the set can start to sound like one unbroken yell.

Before standup, Wasserman earned a degree in psychology, a background that surfaces when she coldly breaks down her own terrible decisions. In early 2020, she survived a brain aneurysm, recovering and returning to the mic with the exact same fight-ready stance she had before.

At a glance

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