Andrew Hankinson

Before Tim Dillon was a comedian, he was a guide on a New York City bus tour—but not your average, chipper host. He’d rant, crack jokes and ignore New York attractions like the Empire State Building, unloading thoughts on the commercialization of Broadway. Eventually, Dillon quit and became a successful comedian, named one of “10 Comedians You Need to Know” by Rolling Stone this year. Now, as part of New York Comedy Festival, Dillon hosts a comedy show on a tour bus with the Real New York Bus Tour. We asked the host of the very funny NYC comedy podcast Tim Dillon Is Going to Hell about what to expect on the wild ride. Why do a show on a bus instead of on a stage?There was something really fun about when I used to do bus tours. I was on mic all day, trying to be funny and subversive. I really love the idea of taking people out into an environment, bringing humor, and educating them about these things they don’t know much about—big money players, real estate and developers. They know that this stuff is going on but they can’t really put names and faces to it. What's the tour like?Even though I’m only 32, it’s the kind of tour you might get from an old curmudgeon who’s done his research and is not thrilled with the direction of things. I talk about food and restaurants and hipsters and gentrification, but I try to do it all in a funny way to make people laugh, and also kind of link them up, so people are like: “Wow, this is kind of interesting, we had no idea that some of these

In 2001, Luis J. Gomez quit community college to start selling comedy-club tickets in Manhattan, and he’s been hustling ever since. He has appeared on Comedy Central’s Roast Battle; he cohosts the podcasts Legion of Skanks, Real Ass Podcast and Believe You Me; and he produces and hosts the live show RoastMasters, at which comedians compete to defeat each other with insults. Before the roast-off resumes its weekly residency at the Stand Comedy Club on Tuesday 30 at 10:30pm, the very funny New Yorker spoke to us about the therapeutic power of insults. Is anything off-limits at a roast battle?There are no rules. Typically, the roast battlers sit down with each other before the show and decide on what’s off-limits, but if I hear that roast battlers are telling other roast battlers that things are off-limits, that doesn’t make me want to put them on the show. My father was murdered when I was four years old and my mom died of cancer. I roast-battled Aaron Berg, and he came out dressed up as my dead father with a knife sticking out of his head. Did you laugh?I laughed my ass off. If I had been visibly bothered, it would have projected an energy onto the audience that would have made them go: “Ah, I’m not comfortable with this.” I got killed in that battle, by the way. He took a huge chance and went as dark as possible. It seems like it’s a safe space for comedians.Roast-battling sends a message that people still want to hear dark, edgy jokes. You see it on message boards, you see i