When two longtime comedy lifers sit down with snacks and stories, things tend to go off the rails in the best way. In this episode of Snackin’ & Yakkin’, host Big Ben Kennedy hangs out with comedian Jared Stern to fix a cursed recording, drink Dirty Dr Peppers, remember lost clubs and comics, and plug a surprisingly wholesome yo mama haiku book.

Comedy Lifers Reunite After a Cursed Recording

This was technically their second time doing the same episode. The first version never saved, which put it in the rare “lost tape” club of the show, along with a vibrating-camera disaster Ben once had with comedian Josh Mills.

They open with a bit of wordplay about “snacking and or yakking,” which sends them into a Simpsons riff about the priest warning against “rock and or roll music.” Right away it feels like two comics who have been sharing green rooms for decades, not guests trying to impress each other.

Ben and Jared go back more than 20 years in the Delmarva and DC comedy scene. They met as young comics at a long-gone Baltimore spot called Winchester’s and have basically aged into the “old guard” together.

Stand-Up Roots at Winchester’s and the Second Place Club

Winchester’s Comedy Club may be gone, but it lives rent-free in their brains. Ben did his first open mic there on August 17, 2000. Jared followed about a year and a half later, in late February 2002.

Hosting duties at Winchester’s passed through several comics over time. Vito ran it first, then Ben took a turn, then Mike Shader, who both of them think probably hosted Jared’s first open mic. That room fed into weekend work and regional bookers like Comedy Blast and Hysterical, which helped launch a lot of mid-Atlantic comics.

Those circles are why Jared recently found himself in a mini-Winchester’s reunion at the Harrisburg Comedy Zone, working with Larry XL and making plans to meet up with Mike Storck. Two decades later, the same names still pop up on the same lineups.

Back in the day, those comics also shared something else: second place. At a late-night Silver Diner hang, they welcomed Ben into what they called the “second place club.” Everyone had killed early rounds of “Funniest Person” contests, only to lose the finals to crushers like Chris White or the late Eric Myers. The premise was simple: they were all good, just perpetually not quite the winner.

Remembering Comics and Mustafa’s Green Room Moment

As they talk through old lineups, it hits them how thin the Winchester’s alumni roster has become. Names like Mac McClellan, Mustafa, and Erik Myers all come up in a mix of love and sadness.

One story about Mustafa has clearly been told a hundred times and still makes Ben laugh. During a “Funniest Person in Baltimore” year at the Baltimore Improv, Channel 2 news came to the green room to do interviews. Jamie Costello handled the questions. Mark Ondayko from 98 Rock was also there.

Asked what got him into comedy, Mustafa said on camera, with full sincerity:

“Well, I been kicked out the Navy. And I ain’t got no job, so I thought, “Shit. Fuck it.”

Mark’s deadpan reply, “Yeah, that’s going to make air,” sent everyone into tears of laughter. They eventually let Mustafa redo the answer, but that first take became legend.

Dirty Dr Pepper, Round Two

Snack time for this episode starts at a Sonic drive-in. Jared discovered something on their menu called a “Dirty Dr Pepper,” which is just Dr Pepper with a little cream and a squeeze of lime. That idea followed him home and evolved.

His house recipe now goes like this:

• Fill a glass halfway with crushed ice
• Pour in Dr Pepper or Dr Pepper Zero Sugar
• Add a small splash of coconut cream coffee creamer
• Stir and sip

The first time he did the show, though, he miscommunicated. He said “coconut cream” and Ben bought a can of actual coconut cream from Trader Joe’s, not coffee creamer. The fat separated in the cold soda, turned into white chunks, and floated on top like caffeinated iceberg bits. Ben spent most of the episode fishing them out and flicking them toward the trash.

This time he brings the zero-sugar coconut Coffee Mate instead. One sip in and he knows he poured heavy, but it is still “so good” it scares him. Jared admits this Frankenstein drink has basically become his after-dinner treat. During the pandemic he used to hit his home bar pretty hard. Now, he says he rarely drinks at home and has swapped whiskey for Dirty Dr Pepper as his digestive of choice.

Dots Pretzels and the No-Bowl Roast

To go with the soda, Jared suggests Dots Homestyle Pretzels. Ben has already featured them on the show before, when his buddy John Stout brought a cinnamon sugar flavor and a giant bottle of Yoo-hoo. That episode ended with Ben buzzing on sugar so hard he barely slept.

In that earlier taping, they forgot bowls, so Ben spread the snacks on a paper towel between them. John okayed the idea off-camera, then the moment the cameras rolled and Ben started pouring pretzels, John leaned in with, “What, you don’t have bowls?” and roasted him mercilessly. Ben still lights up telling that story, because he loves a good, friendly ambush.

Radio Roots, DC101, and Getting Fired the Hard Way

Ben actually knew Jared first as a radio voice, not as a stand-up comedian. He was a DC listener who bounced between HFS, 98 Rock, and DC101. On DC101 he kept hearing about “Jared Stern” on Elliot in the Morning and saw his name plastered on their early 2000s website alongside bits like pickle juice contests and the infamous “Shantytown” stunt, where Jared once got pranked while napping.

Years later, after sharing lineups and meals with him, Ben suddenly connected the dots: “Wait, you’re Jared… Jared Stern.” Jared, confused, said, “Ben, that’s been my name the whole time you’ve known me.”

Jared’s path to that job started at the University of Maryland in 1997. He picked communications purely because it had the least math. His junior-year internship landed him at DC101 with music director Buddy Riser, where he helped program the local music show Local Licks. When the station fired its morning team, Buddy filled in temporarily, brought Jared along, and that “temporary” slot lasted about a year and a half.

When DC101 hired Elliot for mornings around Labor Day 1999, Elliot asked to keep one person from the old show. He picked Jared. For a while it was a dream gig.

Then Jared did what many early-twenties creatives do when they get their first cool job. He got lazy, believed his own hype, and stopped doing the work. In January 2002, the station fired him.

That job also wrecked his college career in the short term. Once he got hired, he stopped going to class, skipped his exams, and failed every course. Maryland was changing its registration system at the time, switching from phone-based MARS to an online system. Jared argued that he must have dropped the classes in the old system and the records got messed up. Using the logic “no sane person would just stop going,” he convinced them to change 12 credits of F to 12 credits of “Incomplete.” His parents were furious anyway and later sent him back to finish the degree. Since he has no kids, he still calls that transcript rescue one of his greatest accomplishments.

Ben’s Radio Forays and Ian Gary

Ben never landed a full-time radio gig, but he did flirt with it. On 105.7, he had a Monday segment called “Big Ben’s Blitz” on the midday show Out to Lunch with Miles and Thrill. He would take over for a while and riff on news and nonsense. That show later moved to Seattle and turned into The Men’s Room, which has become a hit in that market.

Before that, Ben tried to get in with HFS in Baltimore. The morning show host Graham needed an in-house comic. Both Ben and a younger comic named Ian Gary auditioned. Ian got the job and later recommended Ben as a possible replacement when he moved to California, but Graham kept blowing off their meetings. Ben finally wrote the whole thing off and swore off that show.

Ian, meanwhile, has been in what feels like every commercial on television and even popped up in Top Gun: Maverick. Ben also has a weird family link to him. His best friend from elementary school, Jay, has a mom named Kelly, and Ian is Kelly’s cousin. Ben went to Ian’s graduation party as “Jay’s friend,” but Ian’s parents recognized Ben from a big Baltimore Sun feature about his stand-up contest run. Suddenly the party for Ian turned into “pepper the comedian with questions” time, and Ben spent the night trying to pivot the attention back to the graduate.

Albums, Merch, and Justin Schlegel

Jared’s latest big project on the stand-up side is his album Live on Broadway in Hanover, PA, recorded at the artist-run Church of Satire Comedy Club in Hanover. He had it pressed on vinyl, partly because fans are drifting back to physical media. CDs collect dust, but vinyl feels special again. People can find the album, his podcast, and more through Jared Stern’s site.

Ben also once put out a stand-up album called You Don’t Know Me. He had the CD manufactured by Disc Makers to look like a mini record, complete with fake grooves. It did not magically sell more copies, but the release show crushed. He packed out Whispers in Glen Burnie with help from Doug Powell and Justin Schlegel, charged admission that included a copy of the CD, and paid his openers well. He recouped his production costs in one night.

Justin gets a lot of love in the conversation. He now co-hosts mornings on 98 Rock and recently dropped a full special, Chaos Theory, which lives on the DLP Agenda YouTube channel. Fans of sharp, unfiltered Baltimore energy can find the special through The DLP Agenda video feed. Justin always admired Ben’s storytelling chops and once told him he was one of the best long-form storytellers in their scene.

“Between Two Sterns” and the Many Jareds

Jared’s other big claim to fame is an oddball podcast called Between Two Sterns, co-hosted with another man also named Jared Stern. The second Jared first messaged him on MySpace years ago after doing his first open mic in New York. Someone at the show recognized the name and thought he was “the DC guy,” so he reached out to ask how famous the original Jared was and if he needed to change his name.

They stayed in loose contact. In early 2020, they realized that second Jared and his extended family were living in Bethesda, less than an hour from DC. They planned to grab a drink and finally meet in person. A few weeks later, the world closed for COVID.

Instead of a bar meetup, they started a podcast. Their third real conversation ever ended up being episode one. The first season is basically two strangers with the same name slowly becoming friends, then brothers.

At some point they decided to hunt down as many other Jared Sterns as they could find. The only rule was that the spelling had to match. So far they have interviewed an Australian Jared Stern, a South African Jared Stern, a Jared Stern who lives in China, a private investigator Jared Stern, a professional dancer Jared Stern, and, biggest of all, a Hollywood Jared Stern who worked on Wreck-It Ralph, co-wrote Mr. Popper’s Penguins and The Watch, and wrote and directed DC League of Super-Pets.

They thought that writer-director would be their white whale, but a college friend of stand-up Jared turned out to know him personally and made the connection. By episode 20, the whale was on the hook, which forced them to keep finding new angles for the show. They recently celebrated 150 episodes. Release schedules come and go, but since co-host Jared moved to northern Virginia, they often record in the same room.

A Yo Mama Haiku Book That Parents Can Hand to Kids

Of all the projects Jared plugs, the most surprising might be a book titled 1700 Esoteric Syllables About Yo Mama. The idea hit him when he noticed that “haiku” and “yo mama” both start with five syllables if “yo” stays as one. He and co-author John Irons, host of the quiz podcast Captain Game Show, wrote 100 yo mama haiku and packaged them into a book that lands closer to Shel Silverstein than to a roast battle.

The insults stay silly and clean. A few examples they read:

Your mama so broke
paying for a bucket
is on her bucket list.

and

Your mama so old
she knew Alexander.
He’s got potential.

The book includes playful illustrations and even kanji headers for categories like “mean” and “broke.” It sells for 17 dollars, which they like to point out is about 17 cents per haiku, or one penny per syllable. Readers can find a link to the book through Jared’s Bluesky profile, which points to the Amazon listing, at Jared Stern on Bluesky.

Emo Phillips, Weird Al, and Full-Circle Comedy

Jared’s inner comedy nerd is also very happy these days. He grew up memorizing albums by Emo Phillips and Steven Wright. Now he occasionally features for Emo on the road and even texts with him like a normal colleague. Emo is, by Jared’s account, exactly as kind and strange as fans hope.

In December, Jared is set to feature for Emo in Bloomington, Indiana, at The Comedy Attic. The club has the show listed as An Evening With The Incomparable Emo Philips, and ticket info lives on The Comedy Attic show page. For fans of offbeat one-liners, this is comedy church.

Emo also opened for “Weird Al” Yankovic on tour, which led to another nerd milestone. Emo got Jared backstage at a Weird Al show. After Weird Al finished his official meet-and-greet line, he came down the row, shook hands, and posed for a quick photo with Jared. Short, sweet, unforgettable.

Ben shares his own Weird Al moment. At a Charleston show on the Mandatory Fun tour, he went all in for the costume contest as a working Wheel of Fish from UHF. He had second-row seats, spun his prop wheel when Al walked in singing “Tacky,” and Al pointed right at him on the line “take off my shirt at least.” A stranger’s YouTube video of the entrance caught the whole thing. To this day, the thumbnail is basically Ben’s face in a loud Hawaiian shirt, looking like the happiest extra in the world.

One Episode, A Lot of Comedy Life

This hang between Big Ben Kennedy and Jared Stern covers a lot of ground in under two hours: old clubs, lost friends, cursed recordings, Dirty Dr Pepper experiments, radio highs and lows, a podcast full of doppelgängers, and a clean yo mama haiku book that would not scare a school librarian. For anyone who loves stand-up, it is a reminder that a working comedian’s life is rarely a straight line. It zigzags from small-town contests to DC morning radio to vinyl albums to featuring for Emo Phillips.

For more on Jared’s work, including his album, Between Two Sterns, and 1700 Esoteric Syllables About Yo Mama, visitors can head to his official site. Then, of course, it is time to grab some Dots, mix up a Dirty Dr Pepper at home, and hit play on the episode.

Check out more episodes on the blog!