Among all the mainstream ‘crossover’ markets where adult entertainment has found fertile ground, perhaps no pairing is more natural than porn and comedy. Among other things, historically speaking, comedians have been granted more leeway to explore the margins of ‘acceptable’ conversation than are the likes of journalists and talk show hosts. It’s also true the adult industry is chock full of people who possess a good sense of humor – and the ability to both take and dish out a good-natured ribbing or a pointed zing.
The comfortable pairing of adult entertainment and comedy certainly isn’t lost on Bo Blaze and Chris Park, the co-hosts of “Comedians Talk to Porn Stars” on the BLAZO!! Comedy Network. The show offers a series of hilarious conversations with the likes of Lauren Phillips, Codi Vore and Meana Wolf, to mention just a few of the popular performers who have recently joined Blaze and Park on the podcast.
YNOT recently sat down with Blaze to talk about the podcast’s roots, ambitions and its general disposition – which Blaze emphasizes “is all about having great conversations with cool people who happen to be porn stars.”
YNOT: Tell us a bit about how you wound up doing interviews with porn stars to begin with; was part of it simply that Exxxotica has a big Jersey show and you’re a Jersey guy?
Bo Blaze: I am an alternative life coach and I have written a book about BDSM called 50 Shades of Curious: BDSM for beginners. I have taught various BDSM & Polyamory classes at Exxxotica since the very first one in Edison, NJ, so I was there every year and always had a table.
When we restarted BLAZO!! a few years back (it’s actually been around since 1999 with a long hiatus), we were putting up clips of NJ comedians and other comedy content. We created the NJ Comedy Syndicate, to help organize the surprisingly fertile NJ Comedy scene.
One of our NJ comics, Clint Esposito, asked us what we thought about doing a show where we interview the girls at the show. In 2016, we had interviewed the girls on more political topics for a show that never aired and we didn’t want to do that again. So, we thought about asking them questions about comedy. We liked the idea of not talking to them so much as porn stars, but just people who happen to do porn for their job.
And now because of the pandemic, we couldn’t interview anyone! So, we decided to do Zoom interviews which opens up the world to us. We have been toying with a more podcasty format for a lot of our “Comedians talk to….” shows and we think this is really growing into something great.
Our first episode in the new format with the awesome Meana Wolf has done really well and people seem to love it. We then released our second with the tiny terror Liv Revamped and a really exciting one from NJ’s own Lauren Phillips.
In the past we’ve interviewed: Brandi Love, Cory Chase, Romi Rain, Lexi Luna, and Tera Patrick just to name a few.
YNOT: How long have you been doing comedy and what other forms and formats have you explored?
Bo Blaze: BLAZO!! actually started in 1999 and was a victim of the original .com bust. We had a pretty popular cartoon called “Lil Pengy” and another crazy one called “Rabbi Blazo Sings the Classics” and NJ Author and writer at the Aquarian James Campion’s site was part of the network, just to name a few.
The NJ Comedy Syndicate ran several well-known open mic nights in NJ up until the pandemic, hosted by myself and my co-host Chris Park. The biggest of which was the City Lounge mic in Lyndhurst NJ, where we would get up to 40+ comics doing 5-minute sets. Those were some very long nights.
You would not believe the number of really great comics doing the open mic scene in NJ. I have over 250 comics from North Jersey alone that have worked at our open mics over the last couple of years.
YNOT: Tell us a bit about the NJ Comedy Syndicate; is the name an intentional echo of “crime syndicate” or have I just watched too many Sopranos episodes?
Bo Blaze: No, you are absolutely correct. NJ has the mob identity which was famously portrayed in The Sopranos series. I just wanted to create a group for all these amazing NJ comics, to give our scene more of an identity. What better than an homage to our more edgy NJ Pride lol. If you look at Youtube.com/blazonetwork or our website at Blazo.com you’ll see many of our favorite NJ comedians sets.
YNOT: If you could interview any porn stars for the show – and this isn’t limited to anyone currently active, or even still alive – who would you choose?
Bo Blaze: Wow, That’s tough. Here are some of our favorites. From the old days: Traci Lords, Dorothy Stratten, Linda Lovelace and of course Johnny “the wad” Holmes. More recently: Angela White, Riley Reid, Rocco Siffredi, fetish star Sasha Foxxx and for so many reasons, August Ames.
