Marc Maron isn’t the only comedian who’s turned a podcast into reconstituted celebrity. Chris Hardwick, who used to host MTV’s Singled Out back in the day, has a similarly successful twice-weekly “Nerdist Podcast”–which has an audience of about 200,000. Hardwick was recently profiled in the LA Times and has a new book out: The Nerdist Way. He’ll be making an appearance tonight at Meltdown Comics on Sunset for a reading/signing. And it looks like he’ll have company.

That’s right, king of all geeks Wil Wheaton will be joining tonight’s nerdfest as a moderator. We’ll see if the dual draw is big enough to pull the geek/nerd set away from their battlestations.

Podcasts continue to be a boon for aficionados of stand-up comedy. Around every Internet corner are fabulous, extended reminiscences from comedians chatting (usually) with each other about the good and not-so-good old days.

On the November 17 episode of comedian Jay Mohr‘s “Mohr Stories” Smodcast, he welcomed fellow comic Dave Attell. Way back in the day, the two shared an SNL writers’ cubicle with three others. They chatted about all sorts of 30 Rock moments, including their memories of the late Chris Farley:

Mohr: “Remember, Norm [MacDonald] would do warm-up and then he would bring out Chris Farley, who would just stand there and wave. It was like AC/DC came on stage in Sydney, Australia. The crowd went crazy…”

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If you have not yet sampled the monthly “Pod F. Tompkast” from comedian Paul F. Tompkins, you need to do so.

From the hilarious non-sequitur intro lines – “A 2,000-year-old vampire peruses her Netflix queue with disgust…” – to topics like whether “knucklehead” could have been a term of endearement during Shakespeare’s time, it’s a blast. There are now a dozen episodes archived, including the most recent July 1st posting, recorded mid-June at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles.

One of FishbowlLA’s favorite things about the rise of podcasts by the likes of Tompkins and Doug Benson (“Doug Loves Movies“) is the authentic laugh track. No canned slider-board inserts here; it’s just real folks, laughing (or not) at real gags.

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No idea how they’re going to pull this off, but KCRW has decided to air 10 episodes of Marc Maron‘s wonderful podcast WTF–which, if for some reason you can’t figure it out, stands for “What the Fuck.” And therein, seemingly, lies the trouble. Maron begins each and every show by saying fuck no less than 12 times, and isn’t shy about using it during his interviews either. Why should he be shy? It’s his podcast.

But the FCC might have something to say about the matter if anything close to an unedited podcast goes over the airwaves. Especially on Sundays at 11AM, which is when KCRW plans to run the program.

The shows KCRW chose to air are all old, so they’ll have plenty of time to scrub them clean. It will be interesting to see what’s left.

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To help cement the June relaunch of the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club on Universal City Walk as a “Podcast Theatre,” filmmaker-turned-new-media-mogul Kevin Smith has a 24-hour live podcast event planned for Memorial Day weekend.

From noon on Sunday May 29th through noon on Monday, May 30th, Smith will preside over “Poddammit,” a live pod-a-thon featuring ten live podcasts and numerous guest appearances. Tickets for the event are $100 and limited to 250 attendees, while fans can also listen live via Smodcast Internet Radio (S.I.R.). Programming premieres include:

The ABC’s of SNL: Smith and Lovitz will kick off a new weekly series about the backstage goings-on at the Lorne Michaels comedy institution.

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It was a good weekend for open and honest discussions of sexuality in the media–aided by the public coming out of two major public figures. Getting a lot of chatter today is CNN anchor Don Lemon’s decision to come out as a gay man. Lemon was profiled by The New York Times‘ Bill Carter in yesterday’s paper. Lemon’s decision to discuss his sexuality comes about a month before the release of his book on the same subject, “Transparent.”

Lemon argues in the Times that his decision to come out was especially difficult because of his race.

“It’s quite different for an African-American male. It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.”

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A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that former LA radio mainstay Warren Duffy (pictured) was launching a SoCal satellite arm of his wife’s D.C. based organization CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow). Today, he offers up an inaugural podcast that amounts to An Inconvenient Rebuttal.

Duffy sounds a bit like the late, legendary Paul Harvey. He starts off his 26-minute broadcast with some statistical ammunition:

“Some bad news from the federal government for Al Gore and his crowd of environmental exaggerators… The Environmental Protection Agency handed out a new report this week, and guess what? Greenhouse gas emissions are down, and down dramatically, and we didn’t need California cap-and-trade to do it.

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Comedian, WTF podcaster and Highland Park resident Marc Maron was on Conan last night talking about a cabinet he found more intriguing in his old age than the vagina of a 27-year-old fan who wanted to sleep with him. Funny stuff.

At the end of the interview, Maron got a commitment from Conan to come on the podcast. Looking forward to that one. We’ll see if Conan keeps his word.

When FM powerhouse KLSX 97.1 ditched the talk format in early 2009 in favor of an all-music “Amp Radio” slate, it took down a number of beloved local personalities including Tom Leykis and the so-called “Triplets” – Frosty, Heidi and Frank. Then, last fall, when the trio was dropped once again from new home KABC 790 AM, Frosty Stilwell announced he was leaving the hijinks fold.

Remarkably, in the few months since, Heidi and Frank have found a faithful paying audience with their new podcast. Andrew Wallenstein shares their subscriber stats via a nice profile piece today at PaidContent.org:

The Heidi and Frank Show has attracted well over 6,000 subscribers who are paying anywhere from $5 per month to $50 a year for access to a trove of audio and video programming, including two hours every weekday morning. There’s limited access to a layer of free content intended to get unacquainted viewers sampling and, if this freemium model holds up, signing up for added benefits like ad-free podcasts.

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Bill Simmons most recent podcast is a good one. Simmons had openly gay ESPN sports reporter LZ Granderson on to talk about longtime Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley‘s recent “coming out” column. Simmons says he expected more from Buckley’s piece.

“In 2011, is it too little to come out and write a column that says, ‘I’m gay?’”

Granderson disagreed: “I’m certain his words touched someone that needed to hear those words. It was evident during the discussion surrounding ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’ we have a long way to go to discussing homosexuality in a rational way. So I’m happy he did it.”

Though Granderson has lived as an openly gay man for years–he was an out gay man before he was an out sports fan–he says, “I never wrote an ‘I am gay column.’” Though he certainly has covered gay issues in relation to sports, Granderson’s first column that addressed his own sexuality came after he was gay bashed at a party in New Orleans for the 2008 NBA All-Star Game. “My t-shirt didn’t reach my knees, so they thought it was too small,” Granderson says, of what started the incident. Eight to ten men then surrounded him, calling him “faggot,” until police broke up the scene.

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