Meet John Mulaney, king of the nerds. In his new stand-up set, the 29-year-old Saturday Night Live writer recalls in loving detail the classroom bullying that prepared him for his career as a champion self-mocker. Today Mulaney has a Seinfeldian eye for routine absurdities – nitpicking Ice-T's line readings on Law & Order: SVU, copy-editing a panhandler's sidewalk pitch, questioning the vocabulary used in tabloid headlines. ("No one has said 'bozo' in a thousand years. Who was your source on that, New York Post? Some tiny old lady that chain smokes all day long?") But he reserves his greatest scorn for his own miscues, like when he spends nine minutes reliving a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to procure a Xanax prescription. If Mulaney's self-portrait doesn't quite reach the zany heights of his finest SNL creations, he has an odd charm of his own that's undeniable.

Listen to "Old Gay Man":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."