Early phone calls to the club revealed that ticket sales were light and the Walking The Room shirts still had yet to be made. The morning of the show, I was filled with dread. My mind racing with the thought, "It's too early in the Cuddle to do this. We don't have enough fans!" Par for the course, I was wrong.

By the time I was standing behind the curtain, guitar in hand with the band, I was certain this was gonna be a great night. And it was fucking awesome. The part I had miscalculated was: who it was for and what it was about.

The Starfish Circus was for Cuddlahs, Customers, Maxfuncons, NNFs, Comedians of Comedy, the Uncools, TOFOPers, Gryphons, Elefons, one Reigning Monarchs fan and assorted uninitiateds and, had there only been 10 of you there, it still would have been a blast because it was you guys.

We weren't trying to sell an idea to people that didn't want it.

The cynics will often tell you that Internet communities and social networks are a way of not really connecting with people. They will say that they are facades for real interaction but, in the classic words of the Elephon, "They can go fuck themselves!"

I think Internet communities are a way of finding people you really connect with all over the world and then figuring out how you all get together in a room for a "gathering," or perhaps a Starfish Circus.

To those of you that traveled far, to those that didn't, to those of you that brought gifts, to those of you that just walked to the club, to those of you that wished us luck and to those of you that couldn't but would have if you could have, we thank you from the bottom of our soiled clown suits.

Comedy podcasts run the length of the field, from one-man ruminations to frantic bit-factories to interview shows. Some are free, some cost, and many offer a combination of the two options. Below the fold, I offer a far-from-inclusive introduction to different types of comedy podcasts and have tried to include a few that are acknowledged to be influential.

What the Fuck? Comedian Marc Maron's podcast has gained huge momentum over the last year and for good reason as far as I'm concerned. Wide in scope, Maron combines introductory monologues of mind-bending self-absorption with interviews, on-site reporting (Creation Museum, anyone?) and live shows.

Sometimes the interviews are super funny. Tom Lennon of The State and Reno 911 and Bob Saget of Full House, America's Funniest Home Videos and How I Met Your Mother almost bent space-time they were so funny. Sometimes, like his interview with the late Mike DeStefano, they're touching and at other times, like Judd Apatow and Robin Williams, they're extremely interesting, winkling out details you'd never heard elsewhere.

Two interviews were profoundly squirm-worthy: Gallagher (who walked out) and Carlos Mencia (who required two interview for Maron to dislodge him from his talking points.) Few journalists could match Maron's interviewing technique, neither for quality nor for the risks they take.

Comedy Death Ray Radio. CDR Radio grew out of Comedy Death Ray, a weekly Los Angeles-based comedy show that began in 2002 and has been credited in part for creating what is now known as "alternative comedy." One of CDR's co-creators, Mr. Show writer Scott Aukerman, is the host.

The strong position the show has given the podcast in the world of comedy and comedy fans has given it a lot of reach. Wise guest choices (Paul Tompkins, Andy Richter, Nick Kroll, Reggie Watts, Sarah Silverman, Russell Brand and Tig Notaro) have kept its momentum up.

Walking the Room. Comedians Greg Behrendt (best known for "He's Just Not That Into You" and "telling jokes in front of people") and Dave Anthony (he's this one guy) co-host a slop-bucket of a podcast, sloshing with unspeakable filth, studded with neologisms and streaked with tittering.

Recent episodes include "Old Yeller Hamster and Fish Cliffhanger," "Blood Toilet and the Little Big Dollhouse Explanation" and the vacuum-inducing "Blood Face Nap Man and Cracky the Bike Thief." Sometimes the show's very funny, sometimes a bit insidery, but always a performance and (so far) free as the wind.

Other comedy podcasts of note

• Jimmy Pardo's Never Not Funny
• Paul F. Tompkins's Pod F. Tompkast
• Superego
• The Sound of Young America
• The Nerdist
• Greg Fitzsimmons's Fitzdog Radio
• Doug Benson's Doug Loves Movies

If you'd like to read much, much more about comedy podcasts, more by far than I hate myself enough to match, check out Splitside's "A Seriously Comprehensive Guide to Comedy Podcasts."

Finally, if you want to tell me that podcasts have never been more popular and will be the vehicle of our salvation, or that Gervais is a genius, or just recommend comedy podcasts not mentioned above, have at 'er. And speaking of 'er, where are my comedy podcast ladies at? They seem a little thin on the ground.

Today Taylor McKnight launched a new site that he's been working on since Spring, and he says it's like Hype Machine for standup comedy.

The premise is simple, though the site doesn't offer any details about how it works on the back end. TheLaughButton aggregates stand up comedy MP3s and videos from around the web. You can listen to "editor selected" favorites, to a random selection or to the most popular short comedy files as voted by users of the site.

The four person team behind the site curates the large collection and it appears there's about a thousand audio files up now. That doesn't sound like so much, until you think about 14 from Bobcat Goldthwait, 53 from Dane Cook, 100 from Bill Cosby and 178 other comedians represented on the site. Who needs more comedy than that?

There's no account creation, at least so far, there's not much of anything beyond guffaws, voting and links to search Amazon.com to purchase full albums from the comedians you like.

Poking around the site, it looks like TheLaughButton may eventually enable visitors to grab widgets to display their favorite comedy on their sites and collect affiliate payments from album purchases made through their widgets.

McKnight says there's an iPhone app in the works as well - an aggregation of comedy and music content in one interface.

This All Makes Sense

Comedy is something people search for a lot on the web. Voting for the best comedy makes finding good content all the easier. Letting people put a widget of their favorite comedy on a site and sharing the money made from sales is a very smart way to spread TheLaughButton all over.

If McKnight and a loosely associated group of people who seem to be involved with the project are able to give it the push it will need to go beyond the inherent search power the content has - this site could end up doing well.

In the mean time, it's a fun place to hang out.

Photo of McKnight by Flickr user kaekae0318.