UW-Madison alumnus and 10-time Emmy Award winner Ben Karlin headlined a group of authors promoting their new book, “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me,” Sunday at Memorial Union Theater.
Karlin, a former executive producer of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” was joined by his four co-authors, including UW-Madison dropout and current head writer for The Onion Todd Hansen.
The five men related how their personal relationship experiences helped fuel the book.
“That intense desire you felt to be free of your long-term high school girl friend can turn … into an unbearable eight-month fit of jealously, rage, sobbing and self pity—just by finding out that she has been sleeping with a pot dealer from her dorm,” Hansen said.
Karlin and his long-time friends from The Onion are on tour to promote their new anthology, a lesson-by-lesson male recount of hard earned wisdom from unpleasant relationships. The book features confessions from a lineup of writers and comedians.
Karlin outlined the best pieces.
“Andy Richter wrote one of my favorites,” Karlin said of the book’s second lesson. “Girls Don’t Make Passes at Boys with Fat Asses.”
In 2004, Karlin, with “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, co-wrote New York Times bestseller, “America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction,” a satirical textbook on the American political system.
“At the end of my run I had a very important epiphany, which was: What could I do for less money and way less recognition? And the answer was a book,” Karlin said. He left Comedy Central in 2006.
Stanley Schultz, a UW-Madison emeritus history professor, introduced Karlin, teasing him for avoiding “all intellectually challenging work” as a UW undergrad. Schultz edited the “satirical mistakes” of “America (The Book)” for its 2006 “Teacher’s Edition” re-release.
“Long before I decided on my choice of a professional career, I had concluded that anything and everything worth knowing could be found in the pages of a book. Experimenting and experiencing, I thought, were just for poor readers,” Schultz sarcastically added.
Karlin signed books afterward at Tripp Commons. His anthology is on shelves now.
