Six Degrees: Too. many. people.

Greetings, all, and welcome to another edition of “How ’bout I procrastinate by blogging about everyone under the sun?” with your hostess, me. Here are some items regarding the usual cast of characters that I’ve been sitting on for far too long. Read on after the fold, and enjoy!

John Oliver (Writer and correspondent, The Daily Show)

• It’s been a while since I’ve been on a regular posting schedule for these Six Degrees updates, so please forgive me if I’ve already blogged about this (I don’t think I have, though). Rock the Vote has once again pushed for increased voter participation and, this year, they’ve inspired a spin-off: www.peanutsrocksthevote.com. John Oliver has filmed a charming little promo for this; watch all the way to the end for quite possibly the cutest “woof-woof!” ever.
• Folks in the Las Vegas area can catch John (and cohorts Rob Riggle and Rory Albanese) in The Comedy Festival at Caesar’s Palace next month. Look for them on Saturday, November 22nd – you know you want to.
• If you can’t make it to Nevada just to see the gig, but you can’t get enough of John Oliver, you might try purchasing the audiobook for Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates,the all-star cast for which includes both Mr. Oliver and fan favorite John Hodgman. Sounds like a winner to me!

Rob Riggle (Correspondent, The Daily Show)

• In other Rob Riggle news, interested fans can catch him at Philadelphia’s Theater of the Living Arts on February 20. Fellow Daily Show stalwart Adam Lowitt (producer) will open for him; you can get additional information on the gig here.

Eric Drysdale (Former writer, The Colbert Report)

• In the “Gone, but not forgotten” category, former Stage Manager and Stephen Colbert snack “Bobby” has a couple of shows coming up at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in November. Keep up with Eric’s latest doings and buy tickets for Eric’s shows here.

Laura Krafft (Former writer, The Colbert Report)

• Also amongst the “Dearly departed” is former writer Laura Krafft, who also has some performances scheduled for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Look for her here.

Kristen Schaal (Contributor, The Daily Show)

• While we’re on the topic of the UCBT, it’s worth noting that sometime Daily Show contributor (and Flight of the Conchords fave) Kristen Schaal has two appearances scheduled there. Kristen will appear in the New York Comedy Festival’s Best Sketch in New York show on November 6th and the Time Out New York Approved show on November 7th.

Aasif Mandvi (Correspondent, The Daily Show)

• I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, but if you think back to a year ago, the deeply upsetting writers’ strike (a.k.a. the “horrible corporations’ refusal to treat its writers right”) was just gearing up. We’re all glad that’s in our past now, but one of the after-effects can be seen at www.strike.tv/home, written up here (WARNING: the link to StrikeTV from the article looks a bit off, so try this one, instead www.strike.tv/home/). If you’re looking for a familiar face in the cast of one of the new offerings, have a look at Global Warming, featuring none other than Aasif Mandvi.
• In other Aasif news, The Hollywood Reporter notes that he will be hosting the Gotham Indie Movie Awards on December 2nd, and the presenter list so far looks pretty interesting. Good luck with your hosting duties, Mr. Mandvi!

Wyatt Cenac (Writer and correspondent, The Daily Show)

• It took me too long to get this posted so I didn’t get to mention Wyatt’s gig last night at Comix, but here’s notice for something slightly less fleeting. Wyatt co-stars in the well-reviewed movie Medicine for Melancholy, which you can read about here. Check out the trailer, while you’re at it:
  
  

  It’s always great to see familiar faces in surprising new outlets, and I’m looking forward to seeing more from Wyatt.

Steve Bodow and DJ Javerbaum (Head Writer and Executive Producer, respectively, The Daily Show)

• The Star (Canada) had a nice article out the other day, with some interesting quotes from Steve and DJ. This quote from Steve particularly caught my eye: “Really, we’ve been busting our asses off, but there’s been such an embarrassment of riches in terms of material in this election … Normally, we have two or three extra minutes of stuff for the show, but we’ve been producing seven, eight extra minutes each day, and it’s just cut, cut, cut. So that’s unfortunate, but we like to think that only the best stuff is making it on air.” What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall at one of those writers’ meetings!

Lewis Black (Contributor, The Daily Show)

• If you haven’t seen Lewis perform live, the next best thing is probably going to be getting a recording of his show, and that’s going to be even easier now that Comedy Central has struck a deal with file sharing service Lime Wire. CNN has the skinny here.

John Hodgman (Resident expert, The Daily Show)

• John has been everywhere lately. Seriously, everywhere. I can’t begin to blog all his latest doings, but here’s a smattering of links for you to start with. Believe me, they’re all worth your time!
• An online chat with John via The Washington Post.
• CC Insider’s Matt Tobey blogs about his meeting with John.
• The wonderful First Book organization writes about John’s appearance in DC. [Hey! We were there, too!]
• John promotes the brilliant David Rees comic, Get Your War On.
• John talks about “lost” time at TED.
• Boing Boing continues to feature John Hodgman’s hilarious SPAMasterpiece Theater.

As ever, we encourage you to check in with local venues for any scheduling or lineup changes before attending events listed on this site, and please leave additional items in the comments. Thanks, everyone!

Tip of the hat to Keith C., EmperorJon, Grace, DB, and everyone else who sent tips that I’ve forgotten to mention!