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WORK TITLE: T-Shirt Swim Club
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WEBSITE: https://iankarmel.squarespace.com/
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PERSONAL
Born October 9, 1984, in Portland, OR; married Dana Schwartz, 2022.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Portland State University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Comedian. Has performed stand-up comedy; Chelsea Lately, staff writer and roundtable regular; Carpool Karaoke, producer; Late Late Show with James Corden, New York, NY, co-head writer. Has appeared on various television programs; creator of the All Fantasy Everything podcast; actor in Good Looks, Summer of 69, and Game On!.
AWARDS:Named “Portland’s Funniest Person,” 2011; Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special nomination, 2016; Emmy Award, 2019, for Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live From Liverpool.
WRITINGS
Former weekly columnist for Portland Mercury.
SIDELIGHTS
Ian Karmel is a comedian who has performed stand-up and has also written for various television programs. He served as the co-head writer for CBS’s The Late Late Show with James Corden. Karmel also served as a producer for Corden’s Carpool Karaoke program, which won him an Emmy Award in 2019.
Karmel coauthored T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People with his sister, Alisa Karmel. The personal account recalls the ups and downs that came from coping with his weight problems throughout his life. Karmel turned to comedy to help deal with the way others treated him because of being overweight. He reveals a number of fond memories of eating various delicacies while mixing in angry or painful memories of the snide comments or bullying that he faced. Alisa, who also had her own struggles with being overweight, turned to psychology so she could help others with body image issues professionally. Karmel was able to lose weight and accept that stress and personal insecurities were the root cause of his overeating. Alisa offers the psychological background to support her brother’s journey of self-discovery.
In an article in the Portland Mercury, Suzette Smith claimed: “Like many memoirists, Karmel wants to recount his pitfalls and wins to make the reader laugh and additionally impart useful experience. But he shies away from the role of advice-giver; T-Shirt Swim Club is more a cautionary tale—or simply a tale—than a ten-step program.” Smith recorded Karmel when asked about how he viewed his sister’s assessment of his situation. He stated: “I think we’re all kind of case studies to the people we love, but just mostly behind our backs. This time I actually got to read it.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor opined that “the Karmels serve up a comic and philosophical exploration suffused with hard-won wisdom and charming wit.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2024, review of T-Shirt Swim Club.
Mercury (Portland, OR), March 19, 2024, Suzette Smith, “Ian Karmel’s Memoir T-Shirt Swim Club Covers the Comedian’s Weight Loss and the Immaculate Snacks of His Youth.”
Oregonian, April 27, 2023, Kristi Turnquist, “As ‘The Late Late Show’ Nears Its End, Oregon’s Ian Karmel Says He’s Too Busy to Feel Wistful.”
Ian Karmel is an Emmy nominated LA-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Originally from Portland, Oregon, he is currently co-head writer for the Emmy award winning The Late Late Show with James Cordon, of which Ian was one of the founding writers in the show's 2015 re-creation. Previously he was a staff writer and round table regular on E!'s Chelsea Lately. Ian's stand-up has been featured on Conan, The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, and most recently showcased on Netflix's The Comedy Line Up: Part 1. His debut comedy album, 9.2 on Pitchfork, was released in 2015 to rave reviews. Ian's weekly podcast All Fantasy Everything, from Headgum studios, is in its second year of production. Featured on many best of lists, it's a lighthearted show where funny people and experts come together to fantasy draft pop culture.
Hometown hero, Ian played an instrumental role in Portland's comedy renaissance and was voted Portland's Funniest Person in 2011. Beloved for his appearances on IFC's Portlandia, the Blazers wrap-up show Talkin' Ball, and long running weekly column in the Portland Mercury, Everything as Fuck. With roots in improv and theatre, Ian's training includes The Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade. In 2013, Ian was invited to the prestigious Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal, where he was a breakout stand-up in the New Faces category.
Ian currently tours as much as possible and regularly preforms around Los Angeles. You can catch him co-hosting his own monthly show, Good Looks, named one of 10 Best New Stand-Up Shows by LA Weekly.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ian Karmel
Born October 9, 1984 (age 39)
Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Alma mater Portland State University
Occupations
Actorwritercomedian
Years active 2011–present
Spouse Dana Schwartz (m. 2022)
Website www.iankarmel.com
Ian Karmel (born October 9, 1984) is an American stand-up comedian and writer.[1][2] He was [when?] the co-head writer for CBS’ The Late Late Show with James Corden. He wrote for the 2017 and 2018 Grammy Awards as well as the 2016 Tony Awards. His work on the 2016 Tony Awards earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special.[3] His work on Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live From Liverpool won him an Emmy in 2019.[4] Portrayed Kevin Duckworth in the film Summer of 69.
Early life
Karmel was born into a Jewish family in Portland, Oregon and raised in Beaverton.[5][6] He graduated from Westview High School, and subsequently earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Portland State University.[7]
Career
Karmel trained at the Los Angeles improv company The Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade. He has been a regular contributor to the Portland Mercury, writing the weekly column "Everything as F*ck".[8]
He made his late night debut in 2014 on TBS' Conan,[9] and was also in 2014 featured on Comedy Central's Adam DeVine's House Party Season 2.[10]
In 2015, he released his album 9.2 on Pitchfork through the Portland label Kill Rock Stars.[11]
Karmel was featured in the Netflix 15-minute standup special series The Comedy Lineup, which premiered on July 3, 2018.[12]
Karmel's other TV credits include IFC's sketch comedy series Portlandia[7] and the Travel Channel's food reality TV series Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America. He has been a guest post-game analyst and commentator for the Portland Trail Blazers.
He also serves as the lead voice and creative force behind the weekly podcast All Fantasy Everything on the HeadGum network.[13]
Filmography
Television
Year 2008 Title Summer of 69 Role Network Notes Ref.
2020 Game On! Self CBS [14]
Mar 19, 2024 at 3:30 pm
Ian Karmel's Memoir T-Shirt Swim Club Covers the Comedian's Weight Loss and the Immaculate Snacks of His Youth
His two stand-up shows at Revolution Hall will steer clear of memoir material, but probably still include funny party stories.
SUZETTE SMITH
IAN KARMEL (LEFT) PHOTO BY KENNY MCMILLAN, BOOK COVER COURTESY OF RODALE BOOKS
Shortly after I finished T-Shirt Swim Club, I worked out. Which isn't to say that the first book by comedian Ian Karmel advised me to do that. There's just a genuine pump-up quality to Karmel's memoir, which he co-wrote with his sister, Dr. Alisa Karmel.
T-Shirt Swim Club is, as Karmel described to the Mercury during an interview, "a journey through a lifetime of being fat." Plot twist: Karmel has slimmed down significantly over the course of several years—though partly shrouded by the pandemic—going from 420 pounds to something in the neighborhood of 230. He describes this in the book as: "I’m the person who went from 420 pounds down to 219 pounds, and back up to 240 pounds, and back down to 223 pounds, and back up to 250 pounds, and back down to 230."
At his two upcoming Portland stand-up shows, on March 23, you're not likely to hear about Karmel's physical changes… well, you're not likely to hear about his weight changes. He'll still be talking about his health. He told us the new show is, "about confronting getting older," then laughed, "all the fun stuff."
"I was a pretty wild dude for a long time in terms of drugs, alcohol, partying, and living," he said. "So, I could not conceive of a world where I lived until 50. I don't think it was a conscious thought, but now I'm realizing I've treated my body very poorly. And being on the other side of that, I'm looking at life, and all the other things about aging—like not being able to party anymore."
Karmel grew up in Beaverton, was the first-ever Portland's Funniest Person, and wrote a longstanding column for the Mercury called Portland As Fuck. His clever comedy earned him a job writing for Chelsea Handler’s late-night show Chelsea Lately, and he eventually worked his way up to the position of head writer on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Somewhere in all that professional success, Karmel's first comedy album 9.2 on Pitchfork came out on indie record label Kill Rock Stars. Now, nearly a decade later, the special he's about to record will be only his second.
And while he says material from the book isn't in the show, themes of the show are certainly present in his book. Concern about his partying-shortened lifespan was a major catalyst for Karmel to embrace "boring habits," like working out and eating healthier. "We can and should talk about how BMI is bad and biased, but biased studies don't make you more susceptible to heart attacks and strokes," he writes in a chapter titled "Regarding the Heart Attack I Thought I Was Having."
There's an element of weight-loss journey to T-Shirt Swim Club, but a strong current of body positivity runs through it. Though the name of the book is rooted in body shame, Karmel's relationship to being fat hasn't always been wholly negative.
The memoir moves through various phases of his life, like the joyful snacking of his youth: "The snacks were immaculate. Dunkaroos, Fruit by the Foot, and Lunchables roamed the earth." He segues into a measured, positive reinforcement he received in high school, as a defensive tackle, but remains troubled that his body "was only accepted on the condition that it absorbed and delivered pain for other people’s amusement."
In college, Karmel added alcohol to his excesses, and T-Shirt Swim Club contains hilarious, epic party stories, such as: "I tried to put my arm around the most important looking cop so I could tell him that my landlord was just being a prick… and my friend Nic had to lure me back to the house with a tub of imitation crab."
Like many memoirists, Karmel wants to recount his pitfalls and wins to make the reader laugh and additionally impart useful experience. But he shies away from the role of advice-giver; T-Shirt Swim Club is more a cautionary tale—or simply a tale—than a ten step program.
Karmel could have shirked responsibility completely—told a bunch of wild stories, and bounced. Instead he included the second part of the book, which was written by his sister Dr. Alisa Karmel, a doctor of psychology who also possesses two masters degrees, one in child psychology and the other in nutrition.
Dr. Karmel's second half of the book carries a personable, responsible tone. She addresses subjects like fad diet pitfalls and cruel media stereotypes that normalize anti-fatness behavior. Her chapters read like rational companions to the stories her brother related earlier—the misguided emulation of fat movie and TV characters of his youth, and the eventual typecasting as "Tubbs the Obese Comedian" in the Showtime series I'm Dying Up Here.
The digestible pointers she lays down in "The Beacon of Hope for Fat Adolescents" chapter struck me as simple, useful, and something that even non-parents could remember to model. She also applies analysis of her brother's progressive weight loss and things that worked for him, which was illuminating, even as it also felt like a case study of her own sibling. Ian Karmel wanted to tell us a good story. Dr. Alisa Karmel wanted us to see what was potentially useful in that story.
We asked Ian Karmel what he thought about his sister's case study—with him as the subject—and he replied that he loved it. "I think we're all kind of case studies to the people we love, but just mostly behind our backs. This time I actually got to read it."
Ian Karmel has two shows at Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, Sat March 23, 7 pm (SOLD OUT) & 10 pm, tickets here, 21+
T-Shirt Swim Club by Ian Karmel and Dr. Alisa Karmel PsyD, MScN will be published by Rodale Books on June 11.
As ‘The Late Late Show’ nears its end, Oregon’s Ian Karmel says he’s too busy to feel wistful
Updated: Apr. 27, 2023, 11:51 a.m.|Published: Apr. 26, 2023, 4:13 p.m.
THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN
Ian Karmel took a break from his role as co-head writer for "The Late Late Show With James Corden" to perform a stand-up set as a guest on the show last August. CBS
By Kristi Turnquist | The Oregonian/OregonLive
As James Corden prepares to exit “The Late Late Show,” the late night series on CBS has been celebrating memorable moments since the British-born Corden took over as host on March 23, 2015. But while viewers may be getting choked up, Ian Karmel, the show’s co-head writer, says he’s been too busy to get emotional.
“I’m still at the point where I don’t know how I feel about the show ending,” Karmel writes in an email. The show will conclude with a primetime special, and then the final episode of “The Late Late Show,” both airing on Thursday, April 27. That means the work hasn’t stopped.
Karmel, who grew up in Beaverton and was a stand-out in the Portland stand-up comedy scene before moving to Los Angeles in 2013, writes in the April 26 email, “I know I will be sad, but the thing about a nightly show is that you have to keep making that show right up until the very last moment. We haven’t stopped working for long enough for me to get wistful. Every minute that I’d spend reflecting has been taken up by trying to figure out a sketch for Will Ferrell and Harry Styles or editing the last ‘Crosswalk the Musical’ or writing our last monologues.”
Ferrell and Styles have both been announced as guests on the final “Late Late Show,” which will air beginning at 12:37 a.m. late Thursday (technically, it’s early Friday, but let’s not split hairs) on CBS. Before that, “The Last Last Late Late Show With James Corden Carpool Karaoke Special,” celebrating the series and one of its most famous ongoing bits, will air, at 10 p.m. on CBS, with guests including Tom Cruise and Adele.
THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN
"The Late Late Show with James Corden" executive producer Rob Crabbe, left, and co-head writer Ian Karmel, right. CBS
“I will say, this is the right time to end the show,” Karmel writes. “Late night television is like sprinting a marathon, especially the way that we’ve done it. We take big swings as a show. That’s been our strong suit. Other late night shows rely a bit more on a host sitting behind a desk delivering jokes, and I think the ones that do that well are amazing, and it requires a discipline and dedication to keep making that fresh and interesting, but we’re the show that jumps out of a plane with Tom Cruise and dances in the street with Allison Janney and re-enacts Natalie Portman’s entire career in five minutes and sings in a car with Stevie Wonder, and that takes so much energy, creatively and also physically - energy from the writers, the production staff, wardrobe, everybody. Literally everybody. We’re happy, but we’re exhausted. It’s been amazing, as a writer, to work with Corden, because even eight years in, he’s willing to be on set for five hours shooting something. He’s there working just as hard as the rest of the staff. That’s so rare.”
Karmel won a 2019 Emmy for his work as a producer on “Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live From Liverpool,” honored as outstanding variety special.
Regular viewers know that, in addition to his behind-the-scenes work, Karmel has also appeared onscreen on “The Late Late Show,” trading humorous back-and-forth comments with Corden before guests take the stage, playing roles in comedy bits, and doing stand-up, as in an episode last August, in which Karmel joked about his upcoming wedding to writer Dana Schwartz.
“I’m going to miss the on-screen banter with James, but that’ll just switch to banter that happens at lunch, instead of on a television show.” Karmel writes. “Honestly, if it’s a crowded restaurant, it won’t even be that big of a ratings hit for us.”
“The Late Late Show” hasn’t been the only item on Karmel’s plate, as he still performs stand-up and hosts the “All Fantasy Everything” podcast.
Asked what he has planned for the future, Karmel writes, “I’ve got a book coming out next year that I’ve written with my younger sister. I’m not sure I can talk about it because we haven’t announced it yet, but I can say that it’s a book! Outside of that, I’m going to catch my breath for a moment. I’m finally going on my honeymoon with my wife Dana! We leave a week after the show wraps. I’ve had some other job offers, but selfishly, I want to take the summer and figure out what I want to do next. I’ve been extremely lucky. When I moved from Portland to Los Angeles I got a job working for Chelsea Handler on ‘Chelsea Lately’ within a couple days. When that show ended, I immediately started here as the first writer on ‘The Late Late Show.’ I’ve been writing in other people’s voices for the last decade and I want to try and see what I can do when I write in mine. Worst case scenario, I’m hoping the Old Spaghetti Factory will give me some shifts again.”
Considering his success, it doesn’t seem likely that Karmel will need to go back to the Old Spaghetti Factory any time soon. And, though Corden recently compared notes with fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel about how they share a penchant for getting teary-eyed, for now, Karmel is keeping a stiff upper lip.
“As far as crying about ‘The Late Late Show’ being over,” Karmel writes, “I haven’t yet, but I’m a lot like my mom, and she cried about 15 times when she came to the studio for the last time last week, so... I’m sure the waterworks will start any second now.”
Karmel, Ian T-SHIRT SWIM CLUB Harmony (NonFiction None) $28.00 6, 11 ISBN: 9780593580929
Being fat is like the punchline in one of life's cruel jokes. It doesn't have to be.
Ian Karmel, who has spent much of his life dealing with weight problems, recounts how he became a comedian, first in stand-up and then as a writer, as a response to his size. Early on, he notes that he will be using the term fat throughout the book. "It's a loaded word," he writes, "but I don't think it's the word's fault that we treat fat people like garbage." His sister and co-author, Alisa, who also struggled with her weight, took a different path. She gained a doctorate in psychology, aiming to help others deal with body image issues. Ian engagingly recounts the wonderful meals, drinks, and snacks he has consumed, but he also chronicles the difficulties of dealing with snide comments and bullying. His defense mechanism was to tell the joke before someone else did, and this is the element that makes this book remarkable. After a string of funny stories, he often slips in something painful or even angry. After several health scares, he realized that he had to lose weight--and did. He acknowledged that much of his overeating was due to stress and insecurity and that confronting those issues was essential. At this point, Alisa enters the text, and in the closing chapters, she bolsters Ian's journey of self-discovery with an examination of the psychological underpinnings of weight problems. The book could have easily turned into a clumsy plea for sympathy or a bad-tempered rant, but Ian and Alisa tell their interlocking stories with grace and humor. Ultimately, the book is about resilience and growth; for this reason, it has something to say to everyone.
The Karmels serve up a comic and philosophical exploration suffused with hard-won wisdom and charming wit.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Karmel, Ian: T-SHIRT SWIM CLUB." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A789814784/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3a103587. Accessed 8 May 2024.