Simon Rich imagines the conversation at Mount Sinai. Featuring Seth Morris and Paul Scheer. Simon's new novel is Elliott Alagash.

The other day, Mike Birbiglia called me. It's always a pleasure to hear from Mike, who's just as nice a guy in real life as he seems on stage, but in this case, he had a specific issue that needed addressing.

He'd just heard Kasper Hauser's This American Life parodies. His question was simple: "Are they as funny in real life as they are on these audio bits?"

Yes. They are.

"So, do you think they might want to open for me in San Francisco?"

Yes, I'm sure they would.

"Do you have their number?"

Yes, I do.

And it was settled.

Kasper Hauser are opening for Mike at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on October 19th.

Be there, or be square.

We did a version of this sketch for The Sound of Young America for Halloween. The video is even better.

Batman takes on his nemesis, The Riddler, who takes on himself in this comedy sketch from writer and performer Sarah Gee. You can catch Sarah perfoming at Improv Olympic in Chicago Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights.

Lately, I've been enjoying the sketch comedy doings of The Whitest Kids You Know thanks to Netflix on demand. I have fallen in love with the one called "Timmy".

Sketch comedy performance has the tendency to be crass and heartless (WKUK is no exception), but Timmy always bucks that trend by bringing sweetness, pathos and just the right amount of sadness to the scene.

When I become a Hollywood bigshot, my first order of business will be to greenlight the Timmy movie.