I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: January 16, 2026] Chris Gethard

When I first saw a poster for a Chris Gethard show (I’m guessing at House of Independents), I thought his name was a joke–Get Hard, ha ha.  I’m sure he took a lot of abuse for that in school.

But I looked him up and discovered that he was part of an amazing podcast called New Jersey is the World (it ended about a year ago).  Gethard (pronounced Getherd) grew up in New Jersey and spent many years writing for Weird NJ.  And he knows this state better than just about anyone.

He does comedy nationally, but he seems to really relish doing shows in NJ.  Last year he did a show in every county (in pizza places, in basements, in a used furniture store (!) and now for the second time in Flounder Brewing.  (I’m bummed I missed the last one).

He has regular routines, but he also loves to tell stories about New Jersey, especially weird New Jersey.

He told a story about a guy getting really high and running into him at Northlandz and thinking that Chris was a hallucination.  He told a story about being an ambulance driver and when that didn’t get a response he tsked us for not supporting first responders like we were the snooty people on the other side of Rte 22 (the Peapack Gladstone crowd).  He also talked about hiw Somerville is so much nicer and how he told a friend that Somerville used to be a quieter place like Raritan or Manville and the friend said NOT MANVILLE.

I enjoyed a long story about Pig Lady Road (Roycefield Ave) in Hillsborough and how we should take our kids there to scare them.  And another about The Devil Tree.

He also had a spot on comment on why we shouldn’t give teachers guns–they’re at the breaking point all the time.  And their job is mostly looking after our shitty kids so we don’t have to.

His last story was about anxiety and when he dated someone in high school.  The sister of the best friend of the girl he dated was at the show (and said her last name when he wasn’t going to).  It involved buying condoms at Pathmark and was very funny.

I haven’t laughed so hard in quite some time.