Hey, I’m Tim Barnes, you are the genre, and in this episode I’m chatting with comedian, writer, and fashion designer Rebecca O’Neal. We’ve been friends circa 2012 in the Chicago comedy scene and I was thrilled to bring her aboard the writers’ room for JUDGE TRAVIS. O’Neal wrote episode 4 of JUDGE TRAVIS which premiered February 18, so you can either listen after this interview or before!

We commiserate on the pluses and minuses of a sheltered childhood, nostalgia for the Chicago comedy scene that defined us, and the testy waters of the entertainment industry as it stands now.

O’Neal is a powerhouse of creativity and JUDGE TRAVIS is all the better for it.

Enjoy!

-Tim

Listen toYou Are The Genre episodes a week earlier than the rest by selecting a paid subscription to the newsletter!

Merch and more are coming soon at YouAreTheGenre.com

CREDITS:

* Host: Tim Barnes

* Guest: Rebecca O’Neal

* Theme Song: “You Are The Genre” by Freddie Nunez

* Music Engineer: Adam Smith

* Podcast Art: Madhuri Shukla

Hey, I’m Tim Barnes, you are the genre, and in this episode I’m chatting with actor/comedian Brandi Denise. She’s performed on THE TONIGHT SHOW, acted in the POWER series, and now voices the role of the bailiff in my new scripted audio series JUDGE TRAVIS. Before that role, we likely bumped into each other at some point in the Chicago comedy scene. It’s a testament to her clarity of voice as a performer that when it came time to start casting the bailiff role, she was immediately on my list.

When we spoke for this interview near the end of 2025, I was excited to learn more about her path as a comedian and star on the rise. Also, check out her Hulu special!

Hope you enjoy!

-Tim

Brandi Denise is an actress and comedian known for her standout roles on Power, Power Book II: Ghost, and BET’s Games People Play. She rose to viral fame with her unforgettable guest appearance on Abbott Elementary, sparking widespread buzz for her performance.

A 2022 Just For Laughs New Face, Brandi has been featured on BET’s ComicView and was named one of Vulture’s 2024 “Comics You Should and Will Know.” Her Comedy Central feature hit over a million views in 2022, adding to a growing list of viral moments. With over 350,000 followers, she’s built a loyal fanbase across both screen and stage.

Her debut comedy special is now streaming on Hulu, presented by Kevin Hart’s LOL Live series—cementing Brandi as a powerful voice in comedy and culture.

Listen toYou Are The Genre episodes a week earlier than the rest by selecting a paid subscription to the newsletter!

Merch and more are coming soon at YouAreTheGenre.com

CREDITS:

Host: Tim Barnes

Guest: Brandi Denise

Theme Song: “You Are The Genre” by Freddie Nunez

Music Engineer: Adam Smith

Podcast Art: Madhuri Shukla

Hey, I’m Tim Barnes, you are the genre, and in this episode I’m chatting with writer Andrew E. Colarusso. I interviewed him in text form a few years back in the newsletter, but now he joins me in audioland to discuss his latest collection of poetry PETTYGOD. The collection is irrepressible, holy, profane, tender, hilarious, "too hot to touch."

Our two creative paths intersect in strange ways. For instance, another text interview of mine with DuVay Knox influenced one of the poems in PETTYGOD. Which is why I should warn you: some explicit words are said in this episode!

Andrew owns and operates Taylor & Co., an independent bookstore in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. I worked there for a while as the “Monday guy” and can attest that it’s a uniquely inviting space filled with an eclectic roster characters popping in each day.

As risk of being petty, Andrew also flips the script and interviews ME about my scripted audio series JUDGE TRAVIS.

I hope you get to check out both of our projects.

-Tim

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“Andrew E. Colarusso’s newest is a sharp-edged erotic, politically unflinching poetry collection where syntax is shattered to reveal deeper ancestral reckoning. Like Kamau Brathwaite, Colarusso understands the page as a score to conjure rebellion, bend grammar, break form, and tune the line to the frequency of diaspora, confessional grief, and spiritual survival. His language pulses with both prophecy and protest, as seen in poems like ‘The Pussy Detective,’ which blends pulp poetics, satire and sovereignty, and refuses the sanitized gaze of empire while regarding the vernacular as sacred terrain. In ‘Who Hath Known the Mind of God,’ the writer reckons despair and the brutal intimacy of city life as it unfolds into a fever dream of love and despair. Across his work, interiority becomes a site of disruption, therefore, Pettygod be a living archive for the haunted and the holy. Colarusso scribes like fire, raising sacred spaces from ash, where fracture and ruin form the raw scaffolding of a resilient desire to be free.”—Mahogany L. Browne