Mediocre Media Core (recap)

• CSIHOP - came from a discussion with Laurence Simon where I went through a painful variety of other CSI antecedents. CSITUNES, CSIRAN etc.
• Specials - I just don't like the interruption to normal every day life which is more fun than "the holidays"
• Carpathian Tunnel Syndrome - this pun literally came to me in a dream. That's right, I dream in puns. Don't you feel superior now?
• PSA - Sometimes it's just fun to monkey about with sound effects
• Humpty Dumpty - This came from listening to the Steve Dahl show a couple weeks ago. They were talking about albumin because they don't like runny eggs and this bit hatched in my head. There actually is some small controversy about the history of the rhyme. Most people think it's a riddle the answer to which is 'an egg'. But some think it's older than that and refers back to certain historical battles. I learn the weirdest stuff trying to find background info for these stupid sketches
• Blonde White Girl Network - I guess this is really my 2007 wrap up. Seems like all year I just heard about Blonde White Girls instead of news.
  
• Writer's Strike - Would you believe I actually paid money to produce this 40 second joke? I had to buy the mic feedback sound effect. I'm an idiot
  

We Should Be Better

Coming up on this weekends show:

• The media core and the mediocre
• An in depth report on Humpty Dumpty
• What would Hitler watch (hint it's not anything to do with The Jews)
• The Writer's Strike Continues
• Much Much More?

So this morning we all wake up to see that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. Okay, that's not a huge surprise to anyone and I have to admit I don't have strong feelings about it other than that I'm not a big fan of assassination.

What's surprised me today is the venom I've seen spewed at the victim. I've never seen any victim of what is essentially political terrorism be so vilified so soon. Crazy right wingers are pulling out every allegation ever made about her as if they are all 100% true and crazy left wingers are rising to the bait and defending her.

I tried checking out the middle line on her today a bit and results come up inconclusive. We know she was smart, having gone to Harvard and Oxford. She was charismatic and all first hand accounts of her say she seemed to have real passion for leadership. She supported the Taliban and then later admitted it was a mistake to have done so. Kind of like how we supported Bin Laden when he was fighting the Rooskies only we don't much like to talk about that. She was accused of a great deal of corruption which may have been purely political or may have been valid.

I'm not going to lie and say I knew much about her or that I was a big fan. I don't and I'm not. I didn't know enough about her to hate her either. What I do know is that no matter who it is, when they are brought down by a terrorist attack, you don't start jumping up and down saying how great it was. I understand the impulse, I really do. When that movie came out about George W. Bush being assassinated, I was amused. I felt that kind of sick glee about the notion of being rid of such an odious murderer. But that was in a movie, a fantasy. I'd like to think that if such a thing really happened we, and the world, would be more outraged at the violent death than pleased. Otherwise what does that say about us?

I remember hearing about a relation of mine that when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot down he said, "It's about time somebody killed that nigger." Now I'm not equating King and Bhutto but when you celebrate murder, you debase yourself considerably.

ACleveland Yankee in King Razzap's Court Over The Rainbow and Waiting for Godot

The only song in this show was Cool Yule by Louis Armstrong

I'm afraid I have to go about this in a scattershot manner because that's how this week's show was written. Primarily this blog exists to, and yes this is the most pompous thing I've ever said, chronicle the creative process that gets this show in your ears every week.

The Duel - This show started back when I didn't have internet access and so had no podcasts to listen to. One of the songs that came up on shuffle was The Devil's Gallop, a light classical favorite that is the music you hear behind the sword fight.

I've had this track downloaded for over a year but when it popped up a month or so ago as I was waiting for the bus I immediately thought, "Sword Fight!" At the time I imagined it being the climactic ending to some Razzap Snookums adventure .

The Wizard of Oz Ending - I imagined the swordfight going over a cliff not unlike the death of Sherlock Holmes and his arch enemy Moriarty but then how could I end the show? Aha! I could do a ripoff... I mean homage of the Wizard of Oz and that would let me get all my plugs in without using up all of the end credits.

The Intro - I vacillated between doing a Wizard of Oz beginning where I complained about boredom and sang over the rainbow but at the same time I was also thinking of the intro basically how it stands. The main difference between the intro as initially conceptualized and the way it plays in the actual show is the list. I was still operating under the notion that Razzap would be the villain in this show and that he would be zapping me back for some nefarious purpose.

The Knight - This scene is an obvious allusion to or again ripoff of, the scene in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court where the Yankee is captured by a knight. Quite fortuitously I had been looking at iGoogle as my homepage where I have the Shakespearian Insult Generator which sometimes makes up new insults and sometimes uses actual insults from Shakespearian plays. I thought it would be entertaining to have the knight use the best writer of the English language instead of my sorry putdowns.

Two other points on this scene. 1. I stole the line ,"yeah... Sharks are peckers" from a Second Life DJ named Speelo who is something of a Jazzbo. Get him to tell the story of "Yeah... Sharks are peckers" and you will be amused. 2. I stole the concept of changing a violent duel to an insult duel from an episode of Benson that I saw one time as a small child and it stuck with me ever since. I know that the writers of Benson were not the first people to use this idea but I wasn't stealing it from the original source, I was stealing it from 80's sitcoms and the great Robert Guillaume.

Dunstable The Unstable Existentialist - Three quarters through working on this thing I decided it would be better if Razzap and Caleb had to team up against a stronger villain. Except for trying to blow Caleb up from time to time, Razzap's a pretty nice martian and most of the time Caleb's suspicions are unfounded and perhaps based on a certain bigotry towards little green men. I thought it would be interesting to monkey with the dynamic of their relationship by making them work together.

But the question left then is what kind of a villain would be a suitable nemesis for Razzap Snookums who claims to be a villain himself and who has such megalomaniacal aspirations? The villain couldn't be more into world domination without being essentially a clone of Razzap Snookums. An all powerful but completely enigmatic villain seemed the perfect counterpoint to Razz's unknown power and obvious goals.

The rest pretty much was filling in the spaces to get from one thing to another.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

A Holiday Message

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• Razzap Snookums
• Knights in shining armor
• Shakespearian insults
• Sword-fighting
• Existentialism
• and much much more!

It's important at this time to remember the true meaning of the holidays. It isn't about giving gifts or tradition or religion, or even spending time with family and friends. At the heart of the whole holiday season is getting something for nothing.

Not only do we try to work it out so that we give good enough gifts to ensure getting good gifts in return but we also get time off of work. At the end of things if you spent more on travel and gifts etc. than you made in presents and the time you were paid for not working, you lose. But if you take in more than you spend, you win.

It's the basic economic model on which we base our whole society. What could be more beautiful?

Filler Recap

The playlist:

• Tell Me - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
• Darn That Dream - George Shearing
• When the Other Foot Drops, Uncle - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
• Blue Thoughts - Chet Baker
• 100 Days, 100 Nights - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Hashish is there - I found this in my notebook, I don't remember writing it at all. Weird, no?

Intro - Hey at least I'm honest. That Tragedy car is gone now. *phew*

Greenland Resorts - The ice melt is actually closer to 200 square kilometers a year not coming back. I wrote this as I was falling asleep when I heard that fact on the National Geographic podcast.

CIA Theatre - Had I not been a procrastinator, I would've gotten someone else to play the part of Tina. And some day I might get phone sound effect that isn't from the 50's. Probably not though. Anyway, 200 HOURS?!?!? and we're not more upset? They were specifically told not to do that. The 9/11 commission requested the tapes and were told they didn't exist! You wouldn't trust your children with that kind of accountability how can you trust NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE?!?

Rant - eh, it's not called filler for nothing

Come and Go - I'd use that service and I don't even have a car or any clothes that need dry cleaning.

Words (recap)

songs played:

• Words - The Monkees
• My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors - Moxy Fruvous

Three and a half day adventists - Honestly, I don't even know what an adventist is nor why they take so long.

Ted McGinley - I was going to make this a longer piece recapping some of my other wacky peace in the middle east ideas but it was boring. And it did set the scene for the whole reference thing

Ben Cohen - Seriously, you could make this holiday into something really meaningful if you took the God part out of it. We really have made almost impossible strides when it comes to water use. This is one of those things where Govt intervention helped kickstart things. Businesses got all pissed about the restrictions and then rather than give up, they innovated like hell so they stopped polluting and used less water to begin with. way to go! Happy Hanukkah!

Pompous Talking - I listen to a BBC show called Start the Week that is loosely based on. The real show has a collection of interesting guests discussing each other's work. I also really dig the Freakonomics blog and have jumped on the economics bandwagon that studies almost anything through the filter of negotiations and incentives I was curious to see how words stacked up. Obviously it's a skosh illogical but it does seem that people are talking more these days and saying no more. I apologize for the fact that Arnold P. Troutbottom's accent was so fleeting. I was trying to do an old school New England accent but I obviously don't do well at it.

The Librarian - this is embarassing but I started this sketch over a year ago but could never finish it. I imagined it as more like The Hulk Tv Show. For some reason it popped into my head this week as a western which lead to theme which led to me actually finishing it. By the way, The Marquis de Sade as a writer was abyssmal! Content aside, your average slash porn makes as much sense and flows better linguistically. Still I suppose he was a pioneer of bad literature.

Pentecostal Hospitals - That music made glossolalia pop out of my head. No clue why. Six months ago I didn't know that glossolalia was called glossolalia. Now I can't stop saying glossolalia.