Each month Serial Optimist will be inducting someone in to The Serial Optimist Hall of Fame. I can only imagine what the lucky few who make it in to this exclusive club will feel. They will probably want to thank many people for the honor, or they might say “Serial what? Never heard of it.” I’ll just tell myself they think it’s a REALLY BIG DEAL. Plus it gives me the opportunity to use the word “inducted”, which for some reason makes me feel old school official. Our Hall of Fame will consist of those who set trends, who inspired, and who contributed all around greatness in art, comedy, music, and culture. No long bios or explanations, the work speaks for itself. The first person to get SOHOFS (that means Serial Optimist Hall of Fame Status…obviously) is one of our favorite all-time artists: Ed Ruscha. His art is all pop, all style, and all great. Enjoy some of our favorites after the jump.

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To Watch Instantly on Neflix is really nothing more than closing your eyes, making a wish, and blindly striking your keyboard. You really never have any idea if the movie is going to be good, you’ve never heard of it, and you’re starting to think Neflix believes you’re a serial killer based on recent recommendations. It’s quite the slippery slope, Netflix, and quit playing mind games with me! Ok, sorry. Don’t worry. We finally have you covered. Each month, our movie guy, (and by movie guy I mean guy who watches everything, goes to every festival, sleeps, eats, drinks movies) will sift through the thousands of movies on Watch Instantly and pick out the ten best. It’s a Guide to a Perfect Month of Watching Instantly. Go!

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At the begininning of each month we will bring the previous month’s five best longreads. April was a great month to kick this off as it included everything from a fascinating piece on the first guy to hack the iPhone to the one thing Aziz Ansari might love more than comedy, food. We curated this list both from the official longreads site as well as other periodicals we follow. These are some of our favorites from April, we hope you enjoy them!

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Every attempt at government eventually comes to a point of being a forest of thousands of shouting voices, any single voice indistinguishable from the other. Comedy is not a form of government, but the Internet has brought about this said forest with plenty of hilarious things getting lost in the thick of videos, podcasts, tweets, and more.

Luckily, there is such a person who is willing to sift through all those “voices” that think they are so hilarious and bring to you the ones that matter/will make you laugh enough to believe in life again* (*assuming that you had lost faith in life recently or another emotionally comparable experience).

I’m that person. My name is Jake Kroeger/The Comedy Bureau/The Comedy Editor for the Nerdist Blog/”Your next comic…” (the host forgot my name one night) and I’m here, once a month, at the wonderful Serial Optimist to let all you wonderful people know This Is What You Need to Know About Comedy in April. (Obviously, the month will change in the title as the month changes, unless an overwhelming amount of you like April for some reason).

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Happy three-year anniversary to our friends at Comedy Bang! Bang! But really, all the presents are for us. The anniversary party podcast features 90-minutes of Zach Galifianakis, Harris Wittels, Brett Gelman, El Chupacabra (Nick Kroll), Marissa Wompler (Jessica St. Clair), Cake Boss (Paul F. Tompkins), and a posthumous visit from Christopher Hitchens. What’s the icing on this anniversary cake? Music from St. Vincent and Toph Shay. So forget everything else you are supposed to do on this Monday morning and start your week off with a BANG, comedy style. Click here for the good listenin’!

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Imagine watching a David Lynch marathon with episodes of ‘Seinfeld’ mixed in then going to sleep (BECAUSE WHO WOULDN’T DO THAT?). Your dreams would no doubt look like the new web series from Matt Cook and Katharine Henner ‘Nights in UltraViolet‘. The 10-episode series follows a shut-in author of legal thrillers who joins his freeloading friends for a night out, triggering a series of inexplicable events. Unlike most web series, ‘Nights In UltraViolet’ focuses on a crafted, serialized story that unfolds, blending with elements of a surreal soap opera. Episodes were filmed in over 20 locations and feature nearly 100 actors in New York. It also features SO pals Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer along with Rob Michael Hugel doing some fun work as the most WTF character Virgil. Now go get lost in the odd mystery (oddestry?) that is ‘Nights in UltraViolet’.

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