Christmas Special (recap)

Once again I’d like to thank the cast of our little Christmas Special

Ian Ralph as Razzap Snookums blakslee.com
Laurence Simon as Santa Claus isfullofcrap.com
Anima Zabaleta as the Cop zabbadabba.com
Arri Gaffer as the Guard
Justin Lowmaster as Sanjay the ‘elf’ thebeandom.com
Daphne Abernathy as the little girl daphneabernathy.com
Laeianna as the mom hodgepodgepoint.libsyn.com

And I’d like to reiterate the slightly hamfisted point I was trying to make throughout the program and that is that slavery is still alive and well in the world today. In fact according to the CIA over 50,000 slaves go through the country or are still here every year. Most of those are sex slaves but they also wind up as domestic slaves, in agriculture and the garment business. That’s just in the USA.

Worldwide there are about 27 Million slaves right now. That’s the highest number there’s ever been in the world. Fortunately, the percentage of people in slavery is the lowest it’s been in history.

I wish I could tell you a surefire way to combat this but there isn’t. Theoretically, you shouldn’t be able to buy anything in the states that was made by slaves but when you buy products made overseas that are super cheap, there’s always a chance. Wal-Mart officially does not deal with providers who use slave labor, for example, but has been caught more than once breaking its own rules on this.

There are a number of organizations who will take your money to support people who actively try to liberate enslaved people but I don’t have any statistics on the legitimacy of any particular group. If you do, please share. I do know that buying things that are locally grown and made or bear a Union or Fair Trade label on them are probably safe.

I’m not trying to ruin Christmas for you and I’m sorry I don’t have better answers for you but I do think the first step to ending slavery is to be aware that it is still going on and trying to shop accordingly. Hopefully, I was able to throw in enough jokes to make it palatable for you. And lastly don’t forget that instead of gifts, if it’s not too late, a donation to Oxfam probably does more good than getting the newest thingamabob or whatsit for the kids. Or at last including some level of charitable giving along with other gifts, is an excellent way to show compassion and teach the real meaning of the holiday season to young people. Personally, I’ve found those gifts to be much more memorable than the gift of stuff in a life full of stuff.

Merry Whatever

Focus, people!

I know it’s the holidays and everyone’s got their mind on Bailouts, Nazis, and Jennifer Aniston (like we do every year) but I think, “we” and when I say, “we”, I mean you really need to focus here.

Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.

However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.

Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.

Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.

Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.

You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.

Focus!

I know it’s the holidays and everyone’s got their mind on Bailouts, Nazis, and Jennifer Aniston (like we do every year) but I think, “we” and when I say, “we”, I mean you really need to focus here.

Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.

However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.

Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.

Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.

Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.

You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.

Ho Ho No

I'm not known for being a big fan of the holidays. I encourage people to not give gifts for the holidays but instead give to charity. When someone tells me to have a Merry Christmas I bark back with, “Happy Hannukah” in a tone that probably qualifies as assault. So I will admit that there is a chance that I might be missing the obvious Christmas tie in that others see in it but I absolutely cannot understand why they are releasing the new Tom Cruise movie, Valkyrie, on Christmas day.

Valkyrie is a movie about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler; which doesn't seem like a traditional subject for holiday fare to me. Although if this is the new thing that's going to take off, let me recommend it on a double feature with Downfall, the movie about the last few days in the bunker for next year. Or if you want to make fun of this strange new tradition, you might want to throw on a saved copy of The Diary of Ann Frankenstein.

The only way it makes any sense, to me, as a holiday movie is if they gave it a hollywood ending and let Tom Cruise win. I could see going to see a movie where Hitler is thwarted on Christmas day and I'm sure there might be a few other Jews who might feel the same.

However, the actual plot to kill Hitler failed. So it's not just a movie about Nazis on Christmas day but it's also a movie about somebody not actually doing something. I wonder what they'll do next if this is a hit; a movie about the Dickstein Brothers, Gene and Alice (don't ask) who almost invented the aeroplane and would have if the Wright Brothers hadn't done it first. Maybe they'll make a movie about all the people who haven't discovered a cure for cancer, that would be riveting, I'm sure.

The thing I really don't understand about this movie and it coming out on Christmas is what kind of a message does it send? If they tell a story anything like the real story it will be about a clever plot to kill Hitler that isn't so much as thwarted as it is avoided by dumb luck. Could there be a more atheistic message? They come up with a plan to kill one of the most evil men ever to live, they execute it as planned, and then Hitler accidentally isn't there when the bomb goes off. If there is a God, it would be a God that actually protected Hitler. Again, I really hope this doesn't become a new holiday tradition. Christmas is bad enough as it is, that would be even worse.

Run Your Mouth

Heard on tonight's show:

• Eyesight to the Blind - Mose Alison
• I Am The Walrus - Scenario
• You Run Your Mouth and I'll Run My Business - Joe Jackson
• Love Is A Many Splendored Thing - Hugo Montenegro
• It's a Sin to Tell a Lie - Fats Waller
• Turquoise - Ken Nordine

Idiot Tag - yet another nod to Guy David

In The Land of The Blind - Nevermind the freudian implications of a one eyed man trying to rul the world. This is just a bit of silliness

Razz Ad - They made me play this one taselon.com is the site for Mr. Ralph's book

Debate Family - It's been a dream since the first debate to write a sketch that features this absurd style of speech extending out into daily life.

Crap on Discrimination - This came from a blog post that Laurence Simon had about this subject in Second Life. I Thought it would fit reasonably well on the show.

Mango - This was written by Anima Zabaleta. Sexy, no?

Tough Love for Third Party People

Coming up on this weekend's show:

Nothing. There isn't going to be a show this weekend but join us next weekend for another exciting adventure of the Black Tie Martini Club!


When third party candidates like Bob Barr or Ralph Nader complain about why they aren't more popular, they sound like Republicans. Primarily, they blame THE MEDIA. It's the media's fault that more people don't know who they are, it's the media's fault that they don't poll well enough to be allowed into the debates, it's the medias fault that they don't get as many supporters sending contributions.

Like traditional politicians, they never put any of that blame on themselves or on their organizations.

I'm not saying I'm against third parties, I'm actually very warm to the idea of breaking the stranglehold of a closed two party system. But most of the independent parties we have and the politicians who run for office from them aren't really ready for prime time. They especially aren't ready for the presidency. I'm sorry but some of these parties are little more than vanity caucuses for wannabe politicians. That doesn't mean they don't have some good ideas but you know what? we all have SOME good ideas. That doesn't mean we deserve special help to become president.

Both Bob Barr and Ralph Nader think they should have been in the presidential debates. They think the system is against them because they only allow people with 15% of the polls in their favor to debate. What I don't hear them addressing in their complaint is where the line should be drawn. Since neither are on the ballot in all 50 states, should Stephen Colbert be allowed to debate? Should I?

I don't think the system is really anywhere near as slanted against independents as most of these independents claim. Sure, the process of getting on the ballot can vary widely by state and some are tougher for independents. And yes, the media doesn't just cover anybody off the street because that person would like them to. I keep offering myself to the late night talk shows and I can't even get the TRL guy to return my calls.

But there really has never been a better time to be an independent politician or party. In the last couple years Barack Obama has shown that the right candidate can succeed with the right charisma, organizational skills, and some good old fashioned chutzpah. I know Obama is a democrat and not technically a third party candidate but how much help was his party giving him in the pre-pimary season which began two years ago? Do you remember how it was a done deal? Clinton had the money, the organization, the party support and was going to win it all because she could kick anybody's ass on either side of the aisle. Only she didn't.

With the internet, social networking, massive small donation, and excellent ground work, Obama went from being slightly more likely than Kucinich to win but less likely than Gravel to a tough party fight to being the likely next president of these united states.

The tools he used, are ones that anybody could use. Sure, he had some help from his party along the way but Ralph Nader had much more "celebrity" back in 2006. Which really had an advantage with the 'system'?

Quite honestly, I think the old model of the independents, to win smaller local and state offices and work your way up in party strength is still a good strong idea. And I think that with the right candidate, a third party candidate could win in this era of smaller independent media. But they aren't going to do it by blaming the media.

And as a side note to the Libertarians. Most reasonable people agree with most of your ideology. The part where we get a little nervous is when you start talking about privatizing EVERYTHING. There are a lot of us who would like to pay less in taxes and who would also like the federal govt. to leave us alone but we really don't want to give up on schools or medicaid or all that other big government stuff. You have one way of really convincing us though: take something and start doing it on your own. Start a number of free, privately funded, good quality schools. Create your own privately funded FEMA. Work together and solve one of these issues we pawn off on govt. that your ideology claims should be privatized. Then we'll believe you. You'd be unstoppable. And you'd get more media coverage than those other third party guys and gals.

A Political Post Devoid of Issues

Forget about the issues for a moment. Forget about the economy. Forget about the war. All that stuff can be complicated and many of us don't pay that much attention to politics most of the time. So lets look at this thing like it was a movie. We all watch movies.

Whenever people complain about Obama being too cool and not expressing their rage and catharsis; I always think that's the good thing about him. To me, and admittedly I am a huge Obama fan, he seems like the archetypical American movie hero. He's the strong silent type. He's a tall, handsome man who doesn't come from around here. He doesn't start fights. He tries to talk to people. Think of Alan Ladd in Shane or Clint Eastwood in the Leone Films. I think this is a large part of what people are talking about when they describe him as, "Presidential".

You know when people talk of Bush as being a cowboy because of his bravado and uh... fear of horses, that's true but only up to a point. Bush is like the hired thug in a western. He's not too bright but he's full of machismo. He's quick to fight. He's most concerned about looking tough and he's kind of a doomed character.

McCain, on the other hand, seems like that character's boss. The Rancher who has bought up half the town and is sending his goons to rough up the people who wont sell. He doesn't like getting his own hands dirty but he'll send his henchmen. He really hates the hero and just can't keep that inside. He had a plan, he was going to win and this interloper came in and blew it all to hell. How DARE Obama come in to try to clean up HIS town.

If we're sticking with the western theme, I suppose Biden might be the Gabby Hayes of this picture. A likeable old timer who isn't essential to the plot but is good for some comic relief, telling parapalygics to stand up or saying Hilary Clinton would've been a better VP choice.

Palin... I don't know what kind of movie archetype she fits. She's a new one. Many imagine her to be the Shannon Tweed character who takes off her glasses and lets her hair down right as the alto sax kicks in but that doesn't belong in a western really. But uh... she's a maverick. That's all that counts right?

Just Like a Georgia O'Keefe Painting (recap)

Heard on this week's show:

Crazy Rap - Afroman
The Brothers go to Mothers - Henry Mancini
Balls - Andrew Calhoun
Amsl's Song - Caleb Bullen

The Angina Monologues - I know, it's a really REALLY cheap joke. Get used to it. The show's full of them

John the Regulator - This song has been stuck in my head for a while and I couldn't stop singing it after the debate. But I didn't want to focus the whole show on politics again because I think a lot of people are just sick of politics at this point

Dick Randy - This was the way to change the theme of the show from politics to dirty jokes. This popped into my head as a concept when I watched an old episode of Lou Grant and they had issues with someone trying to censor theatre to adhere to 'Community Standards'. I couldn't help but wonder what the internet community's standard would be

Organ Emporium - If you're going to fill a show with dirty jokes, you can't go wrong with Big Organ jokes.

Pac 10's and 527s - I was talking with Anima Zabaleta about 527's and she looked up 527's on the internet and found that a number of these groups had dirty names.

Beavers - If you're going to make organ jokes, you need to make beaver jokes to keep things fair and balanced.

Come on Get Happy (recap)

Heard on this show:

Happy Town - Jill Sobule
Samba Triste - Charlie Byrd
Money - Gary Pine and Dollarman
Solar - Chet Baker

MyFace - I heard some analyst talking about Social Networking and when they said, "MySpace and Facebook" I thought of MyFace. The jokes are pretty obvious from there

Intro - I seriously do have to apologize to the ghosts of Cheyevsky and Finch. But I didn't want to do another big serious political show and thought at some point we have to just get happy and start enjoying ourselves despite what's going on.

McCain saves the Economy - I'm not sure I made this point that well. The point is that McCain is a known liar so if he tells us things are bad, we'll think they're good. Which would be a huge help to consumer confidence. I might have lost the point somewhat on this one. Sorry.

Only You Can Help - I'm most proud about this one. It really will come down to $10.00 a day for all of us if they take the full 700 billion. But of course that's for each and every one of us. As it is, if you actually pay taxes, your percentage will probably be higher. On the other hand, we might get something back for our sawbuck one of these days... maybe.

Dickipedia - Nixon jokes never seem to get old.

Family Day/Global Warming - Something of a celebration of uh... the WTF nature of modern life. See, it's ironic because I'm pretending it's all happy good news. Eh. I'll admit it, not classic material.

I love big dictionaries

Coming up on this weekend's show:

-No fucking clue. Sorry!

I'm a big fan of this koo-koo online world we live in. I podcast, I twitter, I blog (sometimes), I consult Google, Wikipedia and YouPorn several times every single day and feel like I'd be lost without them. So I'm not one of these old timey, internet-hatin' crochety (is chrochety the right word? Where could I find a good synonym for it?) geezers who think everything was better back in once upon a time land.

That said, it did occur to me that one of the great pleasures of my youth - I say 'great pleasures' but I mean 'great time wasters' - was browsing the dictionary. Not reading it cover to cover or looking up one word for one reason but kind of lazily flipping pages looking for words that looked cool or maybe risqué or even words I thought I knew the meaning of but knew I'd be hard pressed to define precisely. (define exactly?) I don't know that it was the most defning activity as far as my education or even vocabulary went but I feel it broadened my palette (wait is it palette that has paints or palate? I better look that up)

I don't even own a dictionary anymore. Not a real one. I own a couple specialized ones for novelty's sake but not the kind of imposing, exciting twenty pounder of a reference book that I grew up in awe of. When I was 18 and living on my own, one of the first things I spent real money on was a cheap websters for myself. You had to have a dictionary even as late as the 90's but now you really don't need one. You have a world of reference at your fingertips if you have a computer and a phone line or even a portable phone with internet access.

Sure you can still browse through the random pages of wikipedia just to find out random information like we used to randomly browse through the old Brittanica our grandparents had, and when you need a particular word defined you can get it online faster than your parents can look it up in some old book. But you can't really just browse through an online dictionary to get a sense of how vast your own ignorance is. You can't get the feel of turning ancient impossibly thin paper or feel for the grooves cut into the paper to help you turn to a particular letter. Which is one of those little delights that will be completely lost to future generations.

That said, I'm not suggesting for a second that bound dictionaries are better than online ones or that future generations with access to almost limitless information at their fingertips are going to be any less intelligent or informed than we. If anything they're going to make us look like the provincial rubes we made our parents look like as they did to theirs. But they're liable to miss out on the thrill of cracking those ancient tomes. Plus, it's really hard to use the internet as a step stool.

THINK

Coming up on this weekends show:

A Journey to the Heart of Darkness

That's really all I can say about it except it is going to be my emotional response to the re-fetishizing of war, torture and terrorism. It probably won't be a big hit with the conservative crowd.

By the way, keep an eye on factcheck.org in this campaign. They set the record straight about both candidates on a regular basis but see if you don't notice one side's errors being more like lies and less like exaggerations than the other's.

Both sides stretch the truth and spin, sometimes accidentally I'm sure. But one campaign has had to be seriously smacked down for what appear to be blatant intentional falsehoods, lies, or 'distortions' (to put it mildly).

Also, you should really check out the Daily Show's take on the Gender Card spin put out during the RNC. It's actually some of the best journalism I've seen in a while and it's also funny.

Don't believe either side but don't tune out either and give up. Look into it yourself and find what's true and what isn't. Its easier to do today than it ever has been. To do anything else would be Un-American.

Mocking the Suburbs (recap)

Heard on this week's show:

• Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
• Vacation Time - The Metro Strings
• Hungry Freaks Daddy - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
• I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good Enough) - Thelonious Monk

BTMC Cigarettes - I heard about some celebrity who died as a result of smoking as I was lighting up. It ocurred to me a little truth in advertising might not be such a bad thing.

Ben Cohen on Enemies - This is inspired in part by good ole Daphne Abernathy who really did have a fight with her condo board about pink flamingos on the patio. The rest is just mindless drivel

Dr. Doomsday - This sketch was initially written by Laurence Simon as an ensemble piece inspired in part by Will Ross's Doomsday Cannon in Second Life. But they decided not to do the ensemble piece and I always thought it would be better as a Bob Newhart style telephone conversation so I reworked it a little bit into what it is now. I do have to say, I was SORELY tempted to play "What's He Building In There" by Tom Waits but that seemed a little on the nose.

The Perfect Murder - Was this too subtle, I can never tell. You see the funny part is, he claims to not want to murder his wife but then goes through all this work to do it and then can't be bothered to make egg salad. I originally wrote this as a 100 Word Story but couldn't help but extend it out a bit. Again, "Franks Wild Years" by Tom Waits would've been very appropriate here as it is about a guy named Frank who kills his wife but again it seemed too on the nose.

Cost of the War - I try not to be too polemical when it comes to partisan politics. I know it might not seem like that but you wouldn't believe the things I don't say on the show. I do think this is a question that needs to be raised and I'm starting to think I'm going to need to put together a special Red Meat political podcast as a mid-week special. I'm trying not too, I really am.

The Cliches - Both a tribute to the late great Don LaFontaine and a testament to the godawful movie and tv trailers I've seen in the last week or two.

Hot Air (recap)

(sorry about the delay folks, it's been a long crazy week)

Heard on this week's show:

• Mystery Train - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
• My Death - David Bowie
• Cotton to the Bell - The High Llamas
• What up dog - Was (not Was)
• St. Germain - Le Cinq Modern
• Zilch - The Monkees

Mass Transit - I take public transportation every day. It's amazing this idea hasn't popped up sooner.

Capital Punishment - Somebody had been discussing political scandals including the one where Stephen Milligan British MP got found that way and it did hit me as not the worst way to go as far as death.

What is a Conservative - I still haven't gotten any real answer to this one. Maybe it's not a question anybody else much cares about.

One Afternoon in Iraq - Some news story about iraq where they described the urban fighting just sort of reminded me of our own urban fighting here at home.

Ass Platinum Card - Seriously, when the ass credit market crashes, I'm fucked!

Cover Up - I think this one speaks for itself.

Dove Bars - is anyone else continually confused by the fact that there are two kinds of dove bars that target the same demographic?

Why the push for offshore drilling? Do you know?

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• A look back at the Iran War to come
• Ice Cream or Soap?
• A lot of fun with advertising
• much much more?

Can somebody out there please explain to me why McCain and the republicans are pushing so hard for more offshore drilling? I really don't understand the rationalization for it.

First of all it will take years to get the drills set up. Then it will take years from the time they actually start drilling before it has any impact on the price of gas. And then finally there's a ton of land leased to oil companies that they aren't bothering to drill yet because the price of oil isn't high enough to make it worth their while.

So why the big push for more oil leases now? I don't just mean that to be contentious but there must be some upside for somebody and I can't figure out what it is. I know McCain changed his mind about this after getting some nice donations from the oil companies but why do the oil companies want the ability to drill in more places when they aren't drilling in so many places already? Are they just afraid that somebody else will get the rights to use that space?

It seems like the whole thing is either a nonsense wedge issue like Gay Marriage was in 04 or there's some financial gain for somebody but it doesn't seem that divisive of an issue and I don't see who makes money on this.

Can somebody please explain this?

Untitled Numer Thirty Three (recap)

Heard on this show:

• She's Such A Scream - Tom Waits

• Brazilian Bubble - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra

• I want you to be you - William Shatner

What Do You Care - I was sitting in our local mall/movie theatre the other day where they show movie trailers on video screens all through the foodcourt Which is where all the movie trailers came from in this. Liv Tyler was in every other trailer. Seriously? Is she that good an actress? I don't think so. She's certainly good looking though. I didn't include Scarlett Johanssen in this list because she's actually as good an actress as she is looking.

Ben Cohen - This is one of those that was sitting in my notes and I don't remember why I wrote it. Obviously the thrill of putting in random scientific jargon always appeals

Daphne Abernathy being offensive - This is just boiling down the running joke of getting her to say things she never would outside this (and other) show(s) to its basest elements

Shop n' Slave - Was inspired in large part by Walmart's opining about the presidential race and by the fact that at this point, I'd really be willing to go for part time slavery because of my recent financial tragedies. Honestly, I wouldn't be totally surprised if this model was adopted soon.

Silly News - pointless fact: The Bandsaw and yelling sound effect that I used in this and have used a few times before, isn't actually a pre-existing sound effect. It's two sound effects that I use in tandem fairly often.

Popularity Contest - Okay, I had to react a little bit about the whole onslaught of McCain ads. heh. Little did I know Paris Hilton was going to come along with the best political satire in a long long time days later.

A Whole Bunch of Monsters n' Shit - I've got no beef with Guillermo Del Toro really but the trailer for Hellboy II really looks like it's just a whole bunch of monsters n' shit.

chocolate Sundae hold the nuts?

Coming up on this weekend's show
-The Swearing Nun
-J. P. Slutterpants
-PB Returns

Much much more?



The day before the Jesse Jackson Nut Cutting Kerfluffle came out I had this sinister thought. If Fox News really wants to help McCain out, they'll have Jackson, Sharpton and Wright on their shows talking crap all the time till the campaign.

None of those guys SEEM to ever shy away from a camera no matter what the situation. They're especially hated and feared by racists who feel that all black men are like this or worse and what do those bigots like to watch? Fox News if you believe statistics.

Of course that was before they sunk even lower to reveal Jackson's off air comments. So obviously he won't be willing to go back on. And anybody else will be extremely guarded.

Sure, it was fun. Got the liberals to defend Jackson and speak out against eavesdropping in "journalism" and of course delighted the right wingers who got to see Jackson make an ass of himself.

Now I'm not a fan of Jackson at all. He appears to be more or less an extortionist. Also, I AM a big fan of Obama. None the less, Fox really missed the chance of a lifetime. If they kept having offensive negroes on it would help their cause and allow them to pretend to be more FAIR AND BALANCED.

I guess I'm glad they didn't have my terrible idea. But it would've been even more crazy political theatre. If you're here for the jokes. Fox never disappoints.

True Crime (recap)

Heard on this week's show:
Criminal - Fiona Apple

I know. The show is way too polemical. I struggled with that. I think the idea could've been better executed if it had more jokes and less information. But at least there's Spider Shark at the end huh?

Interview With A...

Heard on this week's show:

• Out in the Street - The Who
• Waiting for Superman - The Flaming Lips

Acting in this week's show:

• Martin Jansen of kaputtradio.libsyn.com
• Daphne Abernathy of daphneabernathy.com
• Anima Zabaleta of nothing.net
• PB Recreant of netrootsnation.org
• Justin Lowmaster of thebeandom.com
• Keltin Alexander of sphereofshadows.com
• Laurence Simon of podcasting.isfullofcrap.com
• Special mention to guy david of guydavid.com

And now the recap:

Dating on Demand: Martin sent this file to me and so I had to come up with some kind of a wraparound for it.

Intro: I apologize to the ghost of Meridith Wilson for that one. I was hoping to get more and stranger examples for what I might "make" people say. Still the two I got were pretty weird.

Interview with PB Recreant: I just thought the race needed a third party to shake things up a bit. PB was on vacation and recorded his part from a hotel lobby with a laptop mic. Hence the curious audio quality. I'm also sending this in as my audition tape for Meet The Press

Man on the Street Interviews: I used a cheap old handheld mic for this and covered my desk with a pint of cappuccino putting it away. Daphne does a fantastic job here of spitting out my exceedingly verbose and faux economist verbiage. Justin sounds a bit like he's calling in from PB's submarine. Of course on any discussion of Gun Control I feel obliged to point out the very basic fact that we don't know jack squat if having more or less gun restriction raises or lowers violent crime. There are way too many factors involved and way too little real research into it. You can find a ton of statistics proving either side but neither will accept the other sides findings. Personally, I think that if you aren't sure, you ought to just go with more freedom but I'm weird that way.

Superheros - This is an amalgam of a bunch of ideas I've had floating around some for a very long time. Sgt. Amazing was originally an idea to explore PR and belief but it turned into another tale of sexism. Sometimes characters just run off in their own direction. The addict as superhero has been explored many times before. I'm always amazed in superhero stories how the hero will do billions of dollars of damage in a final battle with a villain who wants millions of dollars. It would be cheaper to just let them win. Remember when Mighty Mouse got taken off the air for snorting flowers? Norman Zip came from my seeing some superhero thing and wondering why there aren't more mutants doing non superhero jobs in these superhero worlds. As usual Laurence gets the funniest joke in the whole show.

Blogging will be light today

Coming up on this weekend's show (which might be a little bit late)

INTERVIEWS
MORE INTERVIEWS
SOME MORE INTERVIEWS AFTER THAT!
much much more?

I'm trying to do a blog posting here every week but quite honestly, I'm finding I have less and less to say each week. once upon a time I used to blog daily and for a while even had two blogs going but nowadays most everything I need to say, I can do so on the show in a way that's (hopefully) more entertaining than here. I suppose in a way that's a good thing because I'm focusing a lot more of my creativity on the show but it does leave me with the problem of finding something to say in this space along with the warning of what's coming up. In this case, I did it by not doing it. Lord knows what I'll come up with next week.

By the way I totally stole the title of this from my blogcasting hero, Laurence Simon. If you want something interesting to read, check him out instead.

Banana! (recap)

Songs heard on this episode:
Lunar Walk - The Johnny Hawksworth Orchestra
Psychedelic Samba - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
Monkey Man - The Rolling Stones

Featured in the cast were

Guy David - http://www.guydavid.com/
Radar Masukami - http://slundertheradar.com/
Daphne Abernathy - http://daphneabernathy.com/
Ian M. Ralph -
Scott Monty - http://www.scottmonty.com/
Anima Zabaleta
Laurence Simon - http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/

I'm sorry I didn't mention Guy in the credits of the show. I'm just a moron.

And now your recap:

Intro - The Guy David intro is a parody of his own self parodizing intro to his own show.
Martian bananas - Bananas are the worlds number one eaten fruit because they're cheap and chock full of sustenance. Lately, like all the worlds poor, I've been eating a lot more of them too.

Cleveland Steamer - This literally came to me in a dream. I had this image of a woman in an arctic fox fur coat and hat shoveling money into the furnace of a steam engine limousine. By the way, it's really hard to find podcasting nerds who can sound like a real stoner. Apparently there's less overlap between the two groups than you might think.

The Podcaster - ripping myself off from The case of the Flight of the Bumblebees.

Entering Blakslee Publishing - The former bad receptionist has taken a slight leave from podcasting I thought it would be funny if her partner made note of that. The sound effect of the running elevator should've been louder. Oops!

Meeting Razzap Snookums - I don't know why I like to fill the Razzap Snookums episodes with random Jr. High science. Maybe some day he can have his own Mr. Wizzard like spinoff?

The Banana Brothers - Scott Monty really did a great job of pulling off a triple part. I needed one person to do all three roles because as clones they all needed to have a similar enough voice to be clones but different enough to not be confusing. How they opened the door if they don't have any feet or hands... I don't know.

Razzap Showdown - I know, this is essentially the same ending as the last two but uh... I'm consistent to the format? Also the number of crimes committed by detectives in virtually all mystery or detective adventures is astounding.

Coda: I thought one terribly obvious banana joke would be appealing... get it a PEEL ing? *ahem* Also I like to keep the character of Razzap Snookums right on the fence between sinister villain and mostly honest businessman subject to anti martian planetism.

Untitled Number Twenty Six (recap)

Heard on this weeks show:

• It's Summertime - The Flaming Lips
• Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - Charles Mingus
• Tim Russert in the wind - Caleb Bullen
• The Glory of Love - Lenny Dee
• Kiss Me On My Neck - Erykah Badu

Treyf Bagels - For some reason in the cafeteria where I used to work, the bagels tasted like bacon half the time. Always struck me as odd.

Philosophy Corps - This one just kind of popped out of my head. Not sure why.

Candle in the Wind - I'm sorry if this is offensive. I admit it is ironic that I start the show with "don't be a dick" and then have this but its really about the media orgy not about the guy himself who seemed okay.

Coitus System - I saw Coitus as a last name... actually it might have been something similar like Coilus or Cortus and it hit me like it would be a fabulously bad name for Abstinence Only Education. Add that to some Benny Hill rip off double entendre, and you have yourself a bit. WHOO!

Porn, free speech, the law, and religion.

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Computer Blues (recap)

Heard on this show:

• Paris Texas - Ry Cooder

• Travelling Riverside Blues - Robert Johnson

• Too Young To Know - Muddy Waters

I'm sorry but I don't have any really interesting stories about how any of these things came about. Except that Bill Appleton, I think, is the real name of a consultant. I could be wrong.

Love Fest (recap)

Heard on this week's show:

• Thank You (falletinme be mice elf) - Sly and the Family Stone
• Pennies From Heaven - Oscar Peterson
• For a Few Dollars More - Ennio Morricone
• You've Got a Friend in Me - Randy Newman
• Darn That Dream - Thelonious Monk
• The End Of The World - Caleb Bullen

Brisman and Moyle - this just came from seeing an ad about creditor harassment which is technically the opposite of what it sounds like. I suppose the other approach would've been stop child abuse and have a child beating the hell out of a parent

Chew Bubblegum - I think this one speaks for itself no?

Rapture - this one does too. I just think the end of the world is funny

Economixxx - because "stimulus package" sounds dirty.

How old is he?

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• That dirty economy
• Credit
• Much Much More?

Ladies and gentlemen can I ask a favor of you in the general election? Don't mock John McCain for being old. I know, we've all got a million old jokes that we're tempted to dust off and fling at him but his age isn't the bad part about him.

Go after him for not knowing the Shia from Shinola. Go after him for thinking women aren't to be trusted with decisions about their own bodies. Go after him for the savings and loan scandal, fighting against following the terrorist's money trail, or his role in the current economic problems. Go after him for reversing his position on torture.

There's no need to impugn the man for such a silly thing as growing older than the rest of us when there's so much in his record to impugn him on.

The Nicest Rooms In Hell (recap)

What? A return to blogging? Hell, I'm unemployed. I can't say I don't have time for it.

I think this show mostly comes from an idea I think I had when I heard an episode of This American Life about the Christians who were trying to breed a pure red(?) calf or bull or something. Anyway, it's one of the things that is required to bring about the second coming.

I started thinking about how that would go and came up with this basic plot but it had a million other little side plots that would all converge into the rapture and all that. It's such a weird part of organized religion, I'm always fascinated by that.

A few weeks ago I heard that song 'Hoedown' and thought it was perfect hold music and started talking over it, and suddenly running the story through the filter of explaining that history over the phone. The older I get the more I get the message that a ton of the story can be left untold. When you cut out all those extraneous details, it gets better. The part that's rough is a lot of the time you do have to have the details in your mind to make the other bits work.

Anyway big props to Daphne Abernathy www.daphneabernathy.com and Laurence Simon www.podcasting.isfullofcrap.com and Anima Zabaleta for taking part!

Sweeps Week (recap)

Heard in this show:

• TV PARTY - Black Flag

• Thracian Dance - Andreas Brunn, Vladimir Karparow,

• Pigs with Wigs - Caleb Bullen

1-900-con-tract - This came from a real advertisement on an adult dvd for a 900 number where the young lady said, "Hi I'm Porn Star, (whatever her name was) and I liked to get fucked!" For good or ill my first thought was not of fucked in the most pleasing sense but in the pejorative business sense.

Tune in, Turn on, Drop out - I know I'm far from the first person to make this joke but it did seem to fit the theme and when you think about it, that is exactly what most of us do when we watch TV. By the way, I wanted to use some Lord Sitar on this but couldn't find any on line. Any tips on tracking down Big Jim Sullivan's more entertaining work, would be appreciated.

Zom-B-Gone - came from a mixture of 118migration and somebody's terrible cologne.

Lead - I'm sorry to say that although I did sensationalize a bit of this, its all true, just over emphasized.

Pigs with Wigs - is one of those weird things that came to me as I was waking up one morning

Sexy Shoes - I have this one shoe that I shouldn't be trying to use as a slip on and one morning when I was trying to get the wall over the heel to straighten out, I found myself making curious noises. I just took that one step further.

Commedigentsia

Coming up on this weekend's show, we put a little lead in your pencil.

Just a quick little very partisan thought:

A lot of people think that comic left such as SNL, Jon Stewart etc. are biased against Obama. I don't actually believe that and that's a big part of what inspired the rant last week about the stupid bias.

But if there was such a bias, is it possible that the bias exists because a Clinton Presidency has more comedic potential and so the comedigentsia wants them in power to make fun of? Even I can appreciate that it's going to be hard to make fun of President Obama without being accused of racism (also because he has fewer comedic foibles).

Sure, there will be some people who will think that anyone making fun of a President Clinton is sexist but lets face it, she's not that likable to most people and there's still all the blow job jokes from her husband's presidency. So she'll be comic fodder way before Obama would.

McCain is just another slightly out of it ancient white guy; nobody will hesitate from making fun of him, if he wins, until he turns things over to Vice President Rice after whichever illness takes him in his old age.

Like I said, the above theory does not reflect my actual views. I think the perceived bias is mostly illusory and what bias there is, is just a stupidity bias.

WTF POV (recap)

Sorry this one is so late but life continues to rocket on ahead without pause for station identification.

Heard in this week's show were:
Happiness Saturns Rings - Martin Jensen
I Dig Chicks - Jonah Jones
Boogie Stop Shuffle - Charles Mingus
Sunday Papers - Joe Jackson
One Eyed Monkey - Combustible Edison

Crush Toothpaste - Came from hearing an ad for tomato paste

Vote Mars - This came from some of the issues I've been having where office politics shift under my feet. It occurred to me that I could use a zeitgeistometer to clue me in to what is happening behind the scenes when I walk in the door each morning. Then the Clinton/Obama fights provided the rest of the sketch... as usual.

Firefly - The blog that this was edited from was forwarded by a friend. Daphne Abernathy of course kicked ass on this one.

The Media Makes Reality - I know, this is essentially stolen right from Paddy Chayefsky's Network. But the more I try keeping up on the pseudo-news the more aware I am of the stupid bias. Plus, I keep hearing from everybody about the other bias that mostly isn't there but, of course, is there just enough that you can't write off everyone who thinks they see it.

John Wayne - I spent all Sunday trying to watch either damned movie to write the counterpoint to Firefly. I consulted the Oblique Strategies deck and although I don't remember the advice it gave, it made me think I should just tell the story behind the non-story.

Iraq - I don't mean this quite as bitterly as it sounds. Obviously we didn't kill most of the civilians (perhaps not any) and without us there, that cost in blood might still be paid. We did, however, set that scene into motion and it costs us a billion dollars a week for the pleasure.

Stinky (recap)

Heard on this week's show

• Les Yeux Sans Visage - Combustible Edison

• Terrazza -Ennio Morricone

• Piggies - Beatles

• Early Dusk - Ivor Slaney

• Ghetto Defendant - The Clash

• We'll Meet Again - Vera Lynn

Arid - well obviously this is just one of many bits of found audio this week. I got a whole mess of these and I just have to say once again, where are the stories about how THIS war is impacting relationships? Where are the war shortages? Where is the war effort? Does anyone believe that the American Public would willingly agree to parting with ANYTHING for this war... besides their liberty that is. feh!

Push Polling - Yes, I really did this at one point. More people than you'd think asked, "is this true?" it said an awful lot about people as to how they answered that question. I took the time to look up whether the assertions I was making were true or not and told them, "no. it's not true"

Ipanema - sometimes you have to let go with an extended fart joke.

Camel - Not only does smoking stink but doctors selling cigarettes really stinks

Technical difficulties - Obviously this is just a way to point out the cost of the war in blood and treasure, as they say, in a less heavy handed way.

Lobbyists - I don't need to tell you how much lobbyists stink. Thanks as always to Jonathan Swift for his Immodest Proposal. This idea actually came to me in a dream.

Duck and Cover + We'll Meet again - we started in WWII why not end with Strangelove?

The Greatest Story Never Told

You don't really need any of this explained right?

It's mocking the whole 'OOOH SHINEY!' media culture we have going on right now, although to be fair, I don't really think that the media culture has ever been that much better really. Ask William Randolph Hearst. Anyway, I thought this would be a good way to point it out.

blog blog blog

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• no idea
• much much more?

Sorry kids, it's been another crazy ass week here in real life, I'm going through kind of a thing here which is taking an awful lot of my time and brain-power. Hopefully, I'll have something sorted for you by Sunday night. Oh and as for a rant here like I usually do uh... how about a generic WTF? just at everything?

Like Clockwork (recap)

Heard on the show:

1. Thrills - Cake
2. Soft Winds - Phil Bodner
3. Black Box Theme - Tom Waits
4. Mr. Helpmann - Michael Kamen
5. Talking in the Dark - Elvis Costello
6. Masters of War - The Gene Norman Group
7. Royal Jelly - John C. Reilly

• Intro - Obviously the windup that begins things and the announcer winding down are just there to set the overall clockwork theme. Ambercrombie and Felch is just a cheap ass gag.
• Robot Vacation - The beginning of this came as the song popped on my iPod at work. Obviously I was enjoying (ahem) the fluorescent, cold, factory, kind of conditions that the robot pined for. Work has been more than a little stressful lately and I sort of took a roundabout vacation by way of imagining a robot in a similar predicament.
  
• 3:00 AM - I was originally going to do a mock reality commercial of what it would be like to call the campaign headquarters at that hour but then TweetJeebus http://twitter.com/TweetJeebus posted the link to the Clinton interview on religion and as I was listening to it, I thought about her personal relationship with God. Also I kind of had a bit of Israel on the brain. It happens
• Safety Film - This came from watching, of all things, instructional films from the early part of the 20th century. I saw one about Anarchists and the commentary track mentioning how the fear of Anarchist terrorism caused a curtailing of civil liberties and crack down on immigration and thought, 'hmm... that sounds familiar'. Then I saw one about street safety from the 20's. Then later in The Economist www.economist.com I saw about the cost benefit analysis done on The War on Terror and it all sort of cemented.
• Vote Robot - this whole Robot Martian thing is heating up huh? coincidentally, it's also a great way of making fun of the political contest without really taking sides.
  

Dear Stupid People

Coming up on this weekends show:

Robots

And much much more?

Now gather round stupid people. If you're sure you are not a stupid person, you especially need to gather round because those who aren't unsure are usually the dumbest there are.

If you are not sure whether you qualify or not ask yourself these simple questions: Did I support the Iraq War? Did I believe that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction? Did I believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11? Did I believe that Saddam Hussein was harboring Al Qaeda?

If you answered yes to any of those, you are who I am speaking to. If you didn't answer yes, see you next time.

Now then my stupid friends, please be assured I am not trying to insult you. All of us are stupid in some things. If this was how to change a tire, I'd be the idiot and you'd probably be the condescending prick. Good for you. On this one, it's my turn so listen up, okay?

You have to stop whatever other foolishness you're about politically and support Barack Hussein Obama. Now you may initially balk at this but there are two kinds of people when it comes to politics those who scare easily and who believe the latest in the media's swirling maelstrom and people who pay at least a little attention to things. You have proven to be in the wrong category to make your own decisions on this one, so just do as the smart people do, Support Senator Obama.

Hilary Rodham Clinton wants to be president more than anyone else in the whole wide world, she wants to be president so badly she is willing to use political tactics which she should be above. She is using negative campaign advertising. She is making statements about Mr. Obama that Senator McCain will use to attack Obama with in the fall. She has spread outright lies, innuendo, and attempted to so smear her opponent that she might as well be wearing a McCain in '08 pin in her lapel.

To many, such tactics would seem like business as usual or being a tough fighter. There are however two problems with such tactics: the last eight years has shown us what that kind of thinking gets us and the candidate who just wants to win at all costs isn't thinking anymore about what they'll do if they win.

Yes, there are some people who will be scared to vote for a black man, they're a pathetic minority. Yes, it would be nice to have a woman elected president and yes we are overdue. Yes, Clinton could conceivably win the nomination if she scares enough super delegates but at this point it's almost impossible for her to win on votes alone. Yes, she has every right to fight on. She also has every right to register as a Republican and vote for McCain in New York if she chooses. They are essentially the same thing at this point.

Also there are the small matters of her voting for the war, being against free speech and not being against torture but hey, those positions got John McCain his party's nomination, so wouldn't they win Hilary hers?

Yeah, I know, this is a painful polemic that nobody in there right mind would read after the insulting intro but still, there are a number of stupid easily fooled and frightened people who should be encouraged to listen to someone smarter. It's what you do at the doctor's office, mechanic, or even restaurant. Why not trust the people who are smarter about politics than you?

For the Ladies (recap)

Heard on this show:

• Hey Ladies - Beastie Boys
• She's a Lady - Patricia Barber
• I am Nothing - Nellie McKay

• Enhancitrol: It just struck me that 'intimacy' problems, especially in older people might be more hindered than helped by more sex.
• Intro: I know the harmonies didn't match the Isaac Hayes. What can you do?
• Katy's Blog: It struck me when laurence Simon www.isfullofcrap.com got hit by a motorcycle that it would be amusing if he had had something on the website www.death.isfullofcrap.com and then I thought of what could be there? The rest was just that concept's logical conclusion. Initially I was going to have a female actually record the parts but the person I recruited flaked. Hence the bad female impersonation on my part
• Helen Keller's Helpful Hints: I don't remember why this struck me as such a horribly funny idea.
• CGI The Movie: Came from watching trailers for that 10,000 years BC. which I thought was a Ringo Starr movie but what do I know? I hate when it looks like a movie is all CGI. Never saw 300 because of it, don't like the Lord of the Rings movies because of it. Maybe I'm just an old crank. I like movies to have people in them not computer graphics.
• Perilous Times: I like looking at biblical verse because it's so weird. This is a real biblical verse and obviously when I saw Perilous Times, it seemed like a newspaper to me.
• Vote Mars: This is the start of what I hope will be my crowning acheivement of a running gag

another cheap anti clinton attack so I can seem like I'm MSM

From the NYT:

Her campaign “is just hitting its stride,” Mrs. Clinton said, even though she has been running for well over a year, in a race that has gone on longer than anyone expected. “We’re just beginning to draw those contrasts and those differences and that’s when voters start to zero in,” she said, expressing optimism despite 11 straight losses to Mr. Obama in recent contests.

So if she's just beginning to hit her stride after a year plus, how is this supposed to convince us she'll be ready on day one?

I understand it's still close no matter how you judge, delagates, super delagates, states, popular votes but at what point does it go from Sen. Clinton being a 'fighter' to Sen. Clinton is trying to hand this thing to Sen. McCain?

The odds of her winning by enough to make up for lost ground are not good. It's not impossible but it is increasingly improbable. Unless tonight is an unforseen routing of Sen. Obama, shouldn't she hang it up already?



And yes, In all fairness, I should point out that because of her votes on the war, torture, and the first amendment, I wouldn't vote for Sen. Clinton if she was running against another Bush. So I am not strictly unbiased in my writing. But still, if you are a Clinton supporter and Obama had lost 11 straight and was this far down in delegates this late, wouldn't you want him to hang it up?

a stupid question about pornography

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Market Research!

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• The Muppets Re-Take Manhattan
• Candy!
• The Emperor's New Commercials
• A Brilliant Idea
• MORE SHATNER
• much much more?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast is not as popular as it could be, that is to say it is not as popular as it once was before I switched to Libsyn.

I cannot help but think that if I was giving you a show more to your liking, you, would be compelled to proselytize the show to everyone you knew. Is this not what social media Darwinism is all about?

So in order to better serve you, the listener, I have devised a brief questionnaire which I hope you will answer anonymously.

1. If you do not listen to the show, why not? (if you do, thanks! move on along to the next question)
2. What first made you listen to the show?
3. From the time you first knew about the show, how long did it take for you to try it?
4. What could I do to make the show better for you?
5. What do you think I could do to make the show better for other people?
6. questions, comments, complaints, errata etc.

Don't worry, I'm not going to stop doing the show or sell out in some egregious way. I basically do the show for me, the way I want to hear it. It's just that if I didn't write and produce this show but were just a listener, I'd be going crazy telling everyone how they HAD to listen because it's the coolest thing ever and many of you aren't doing that. Some of you are, and I thank you for it.

Untitled Number Seven (recap)

Playlist:

1. Kerry Dancers - Lenny Dee
2. Sinfonia [Partita No.2 BWV 826] - The Swingle Singers
3. By the time I get to phoenix - Lenny Dee
   
4. Overture for a Fist full of dollars - Ennio Morricone
   
5. What a Difference a Day Makes - Stephane Grappelli, and Django Reinhardt
   
6. Barber Shop - Tom Waits

The Bits:

• Haile Selassie Meets Lassie - uh... I have no excuse for this. Obviously the snaps were on there before the music track otherwise it would've matched in some sort of way. But those are real Selassie quotes... so that's got to count for something, no?
• Into - Why would MP3s be on a gold standard? I don't know.
• Infantilism - I've had that in my notebooks for about six months now ever since a disagreement basically devolved into toddler like conflict resolution.
  
• In The Beginning - you know actually, I think some of that was done on a computer simulator. Still it's a super badass experiment.
  
• Shatnerism - This popped out last week one night when I heard an instrumental version of another song and I started reciting the lyrics ala Shatner and I thought, why not do that from time to time?
• Pink Gang - that's excerpted from a BBC story
  
• Romney and his hair - What can I say, hypocrisy cracks me up.
  
• Mobius Sandwich - uh... I was hungry?
  

Brass Ones

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• Real Life Super-Heroes
• Infinity Goes Up on Trial
• A Youth Movement (that isn't political)
• Much Much More?

On Wednesday, Romney said the contest was far from over, by Thursday, he had ceded the race to McCain. Also on Thursday one of the largest international Mafia busts ever went down. Coincidence? Probably

On Wednesday it came out that Clinton had loaned her campaign five million dollars and that many of her staff were going without pay. On Thursday it came out that Barack Obama had made seven million dollars in online contributions in two days.

Here's what I want the future president of these United States to do, Give that seven million to his opponent with a statement to the press about how he 'just wants to keep the campaign interesting'.

You tell me any republican is going to vote for McCain if Obama pulls a bad ass move like that? It can't hurt Obama much with women, he couldn't really do much worse with them anyway but what a message it would send to the world. Here's a guy who is not only charismatic and well spoken with positive ideas, tangible policy plans with a personal history that is the best of what America does but on top of that, he's willing to give someone who's attacked him ruthlessly millions of dollars to keep things more challenging. That's the kind of machismo that terrifies terrorists and our enemies abroad.

I still think if Romney had gone with "Mitt Happens", he'd be the nominee

Pick A Winner (recap)

Heard on this week's show:

• You Can't Fly if You're Too High - The Re Birth Brass Band
• How Sweet to be an idiot - Neil Innes
• For All We Know - Cal Tjader & Stan Getz
  
• War Pigs - Cake with (Steven Drozd)

What the Huckabee - This actually came from the standard warning in front of DVDs about Parental Discretion being advised. The Huckabee thing was just a way to tie that into something that fit the rest of the show

Reductionist Reminders - I have the misfortune of being something of a liberal and so I read the Huffington Post 99% of which is now a reductionist flame war. You are either a bigot or a chauvanist unless you're a republican. I just wanted to take that a little further.

MegaChurch and Casino - For the life of me, I don't remember why I wrote this.

Gambling - This still boggles my mind and is a true story.

Win a Soldier - Every time I listen to some World War Two era radio show, there are always drives to support the war effort. People had to ration meat, sugar and gasoline. They collected cans, rubber and oil. They bought war bonds. The whole nation seemingly went from being fairly isolationist to 100% committed to defeating Tojo and Hitler overnight. I can't help think that if the Bush administration had asked us to sacrifice for the war in Iraq, we would've actually banded together more in support of it as a shared cause.

I do apologize how the last couple Sunday shows have been a little light on content. I've got a lot going on right now and my old routines got all monkeyed with to hell, which is interrupting the creative flow to some degree. Sorry.

leave britney a loan?

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• I have no idea really
• Much Much More?

I had this thought. I've been hearing an awful lot about Britney Spears even though I really try to avoid the kinds of "news" sources that would tell me about her various exploits. Unfortunately, she's so ubiquitous even I know about her "problem".

What is her problem you might ask? The media. The girl cannot steer clear of the media. I know, you thought I was going to say drugs or try to psychoanalyze her or some other kind of typical bullshit but lets face it, her problem is the media. Her records, make money. People like them. All that other stuff isn't any of our damned business.

I think I've figured out an ingenious way that she, or any other hounded celebrity, can stay out of the media though. She needs to start her own 24 hour full access reality show/channel. She needs to have a camera on her at all times, when she's taking a shit, when she's sleeping, when she's watching tv, always.

That way, anybody else who wants to photograph or record her in any way without her consent is stealing her channel's intellectual property. As a person, you don't have any real right to privacy in public but as the product of a corporate entity, they have every right to keep you from ripping off their product which in this case would be electronic images of Ms. Spears.

All she has to do then, is decide how much a subscription to BTV is worth. I might set it at a million dollars a month if I didn't want anyone to watch. She might set it lower or higher depending on which meant more to her, the money or her life.

Of course a less extravagant approach would be to wear disguises and not act like an ass in public but that kind of lifestyle clearly isn't for everyone.

Duality (recap)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

the only way I can recap this show is by internal time line which, unfortunately, corresponds in no way to the way things were pieced together on the show. It reminds me of this puzzle I had when I was a very small boy where each piece was it's own character and the pieces fit together not only geometrically but logically because each piece had it's own little story. It was a crazy conceptual thing and that's kind of how this episode fell together.

This is your dong - is the thing that's been kicking around in my head the longest. This was not my idea but came from Robert Jeffrey Gross and may not have been his idea either. Rob was the keyboard player in the original Black Tie Martini Club. Like many keyboard players and classic rock fanatics, he was very fond of Elton John. We, and when I say "we" I mostly mean "I" used to write parody lyrics and often very rude parody lyrics of our own songs. I mean you rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and at some point you can't help but make fun of them. One day Rob starts singing, "And you can tell everybody, this is your dong. It may be kind of skinny but at least it's long".

I was amazed at such filth! I'd never thought to make fun of that song in that way. I know I asked about it at the time but I don't remember if it's something he had actually worked out the lyrics to in a previous band or with a school chum or if it was just something that popped out of his head that moment but the thought that there could be a complete version of that parody has stuck with me for over a decade now.

Kevin Whitehead of the FCC - this idea has been in my head and notebook for almost a year now. I wrote it down while watching either the documentary "FUCK" or the documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated". I saw them both around the same time and somewhere in there, probably in "FUCK" they had examples of really prurient media being made under the auspice of being a warning. I'd seen a couple drive in type films from the 60's done the same way. Proto-porn disguised as anti-drug movies. So I had the notion of doing something really raunchy as an FCC warning for a long time but had no clue as to what the content would be.

Commercial Break - Then some time last week I was struck by the odd notion that if the FCC didn't keep sex off of TV that you might have porn interrupted by a commercial break. Bookending that with the FCC thing only made sense. Transitioning through a couple of scenes from that is a blatant ripoff from Firesign Theatre but my birthday is in August so I am a fire sign though not a Firesign.

American Idol - If one was going to show the world as it would be without the FCC, then it only made sense to include the Your Dong parody in an American Idol kind of context. Throwing hitler in on the end... I think I stole that from Monty Python. Anyway it gave me a nice out.

Cartoon intro and outro - That just came about because I had this idea of doing a whole episode scored with cartoon cues when I picked up a CD's worth of Carl Stalling music. I still may attempt it but there are so many individual cues in the 15 or so tracks , it could be a full time job cataloging them all into submission.

Note This Podcast has an Implicit tag - is an obvious ripoff of the great Guy David's Night Guy intro www.guydavid.com I was thinking about asking him to record a truly explicit version of his explicit tag warning as I thought this show's filth content needed a little heads up at the beginning. But eventually I decided that it was better to make the warning more surreal than risqué because I've already done warnings like that and because Guy is always asking, "Is the world surreal enough"

Irony Man - came as a reaction to the Implicit warning and the fact that they're making or have made an Iron Man movie. Weird. Seems like if you were going to make a movie out of any Sabbath hit you'd go with War Pigs.

The Intro/Outro is just pure Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. It seemed like a fitting outro since I hadn't had the normal intro, plus I just watched their 40th anniversary DVD and was in a Doo Dah mood.

Finally, Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech. The last time I heard this was on the radio in Austin Texas a couple of years ago. I was out of work and home in the middle of the day and this guy has this show called Eklektikos where he just plays whatever the hell he wants to and it's awesome. On Martin Luther King Jr. day, he just was playing the whole speeches. I almost did this last year but I wasn't feeling either as gutsy or possibly as schmaltzy. Anyway, it's argued to be the greatest oration of the 20th century and one of the greatest of our nation's history. If I told you you could hear the actual Gettysburg address, or hear mozart conducting his own symphony or see Shakespeare performing at the globe, you'd drop everything you could for that experience. The I Have a Dream speech is up there with those, only because we can listen to it whenever we want, we don't feel as much urgency to actually do so.

solving the immigration AND the unemployment issues

Coming up on this weekend's show

• Brilliant Idea(s)
• Sci Fi Parodies
• Fun with economics
• Much much more?

There are approximately 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States right now most of whom are working and productive non-citizens. There are also approximately 15 million legal citizens out of work right now.

Some people want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants thinking that then we'd only have 3 million people out of work. But you'll never catch them and that's punishing people who have done everything they could to get here and work hard.

Why don't we just get rid of the unemployed instead? These people aren't putting out nearly the effort that the illegal immigrants have. I mean there are whole economies built on screwing people who want to come up through Mexico to the border and across. If you can make it through that kind of hardship, you're exactly who we want as citizens. Meanwhile we have this equal number of natural born citizens who can't even beat illegal immigrants out of jobs.

You can't just ship them to Mexico though, that just fucks with the Mexican economy and encourages more of them to come over the border. What we need to do is drop off our homeless into the countries who are beating us economically. We need to unload some of our riffraff on Ireland, Germany, Japan and the like to bring them down to our level. And you know our unemployed are a lot easier to catch than the illegal immigrants, we're fatter and lazier by a long shot.

Pure Imagination is a Powerful Deciever (recap)

Songs heard on this show:

• Cats are Cunts - Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (with Conan O'Brien)
• Hey Bulldog - The Beatles
• Pure Imagination - Caleb Bullen (with apologies to Anthony Newly)

Intro - First of all let me apologize for the technical quality on tonight's show, the input level on my microphone got jacked up and it took me almost to the end of the show to realize that that was why it sounded a little distorted. I'm an idiot. Get it, Drawn Randomly as opposed to drawn cubist or impressionistically? I probably think of David Koresh every time I hear the word Kresh. I had to pimp the Black Tie Martini Club Players google group here in the intro too because I cut a segment of the show where I pimped it and my notions about recess for adults, siesta in America, and the war. I cut those because they were all things I've mentioned before

CIA Reenactment Theatre - See it's all about the Punchlines. get it? PUNCH lines? Also not to reveal too much about my subversive liberal agenda you'll notice that the person being tortured actually gets all the punchlines wrong and the CIA goes along with the bad intelligence anyway, which is what tends to happen with torture. It's not that it's morally wrong (it is) but it wastes more time than it saves overall.

The Farm Story - I really never thought about it until this week but now I wonder if Space did go to a farm or fell victim to some unfortunate happening. For the record the person whose tragedy inspired this notion wasn't especially taken with the idea of self delusion. Still, I think I would be and part of me thinks more people are open to self delusion than they think. Maybe they're a little deluded about their ability to be deluded?

Hey Bulldog - I just have to tell a wacky little story about the original Black Tie Martini Club which was a band I was in back in Chicago in the 90's. We were working on adding the Pink Floyd song Lucifer Sam, a song about a cat, into our act when we had a cat break into our 4th floor practice space. Then we were working on Hey Bulldog when a pit bull broke in and wanted to play with us. The only other animal we ever did songs about after that were elephants and I don't mind telling you, I was a little nervous about adding it to the set considering our past history with animals.

Phil Johnson - this came from listening to last week's show. I had this idea of playing with memory but never was able to finish it. Fun Fact: a prevailing theory about deja vu is that it is the same phenomena as described in this sketch. You store the experience as you experience it, in your memory with old memories so you accidentally remember it as you are living through it, hence Deja Vu. The wacky ending isn't as wacky as I would've hoped. I think you'll be seeing more Pythonesque sketches interrupted by other sketches as 2008 continues.

Pure Imagination - I was going to play the Harry Connick Jr. version of this song but as I was looking for it, I was singing it and thought maybe I could just perform it myself. Whaddya think? Should I have left the music to the professionals?

Be the Media

Coming up on this weekend's show: more about memory (if I remember my notes correctly)

• A Brilliant Idea for your pets
• A very bad memory
• Doesn't anyone remember there's a war?
• Much Much More?

I know that you all know I'm often kind of lost in my own little world, really the whole show stems from that curious quirk, but I've had reason to question if I'm not a little too far off the beaten path lately.

It started with a political email about the sexism inherent in the coverage of Hilary Clinton crying. I hadn't actually heard about her crying but I wrote back a slightly snarky response that I'm sure if any of the other candidates resorted to crying we'd be making fun of them as well. We still make fun of a few sports figures who cried in press conferences and not because of their gender.

But when I mentioned this to a friend she pointed out that A. Hilary Clinton actually hadn't cried so much as was a little choked up and B. it was being covered EVERYWHERE that she was a big crybaby. This friend also mentioned that she thought Willard Mitt Romney had actually cried in the campaign and no big deal was made of it.

I still haven't heard anyone make fun of her for doing anything she didn't do. I'm not saying that they aren't making fun of her in an unfair or sexist way, they probably are, all I'm saying is I never saw it.

Another friend (this does get to a point eventually if you'll just bear with me a moment longer) posted on a blog a mean entry about 2008 predictions and how all the people making them are just pulling them out of their ass and that's about how much they're worth. I had the same response to that as I had the Clinton thing, I hadn't seen anything like that.

And then it struck me, I'm not what most people would call uninformed I don't think, especially about politics and the campaign and yet somehow I'm missing an awful lot of the "mainstream" coverage. For a moment I doubted my own connection to reality but after thinking a bit I think the very fact that I'm ignorant of these media moments is a good thing and in fact indicative of an ethos I have that serves me well and perhaps could you.

Rather than rail against "the media" for covering politics in a skewed and biased way, I apparently just don't watch or listen to that kind of media. I don't think I can change the media. I don't think that letter writing or blogging or complaining is going to make a damned bit of difference and even if it could, it's asking someone else to change to suit my tastes.

If you don't like "the media" don't take it in. Change your own habits. There are plenty of ways to keep yourself informed, plenty of media outlets (albeit mostly new media) that aren't doing these things that are apparently so egregious. It's much easier to do that than to make others change. Of course if everyone did as I do, the mainstream would change because the other way wouldn't be marketable.

Yes, I did essentially just make an Adam Smith's Invisible Hand kind of analogy to media and life in general but it really works out pretty well. Don't buy from people who put out a product you don't like hoping they'll change for you. Buy the product you really do like. If it doesn't exist, make it. If others feel as you do, they'll buy your product instead of the other thing.

I guess that's where the Oddcast comes from; the need to make the kind of show I'd like to listen to.

The Persistence of Bliss (recap)

Heard on this show were:

• Memories Can't Wait - Talking Heads
• How to be Dumb - Elvis Costello
• Casiotone Nation - Soul Coughing

2008 - This came from the idea of creating an audioscape of the open canvas of the new year. I was initially going to come up with a scenario where 2007 would try to usurp 2008's place but that's awfully similar to another sketch I have half written. I also wanted to let people know about the new group and the big plan for the upcoming year of doing 12 old time radio scripts, one a month this year. Speaking of which, that group can be found at http://groups.google.com/group/black-tie-martini-club-players

Celebrate Ignorance Come to Church - I've just had that sitting around in my notebook for a while.

You Are a Work of Fiction - this comes in large part from my listening to Guy David's early Night Guy podcasts www.guydavid.com In the first one he talks about how his memory works and that got me thinking about how my memory works et cetera. This is just the logical conclusion from all that noodling.

Brilliant Idea Dangerous World - I wanted to both rant about Huckabee and tha absurdity of making the world too safe. I wanted to throw in a bit about how when there are warnings on everything it encourages people to tune out and stop thinking, to become more passive, more easily led. But since I don't write these things out ahead of time, I just forgot to hit that point. So much for diligence eh?

Do we need Israel?

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• Welcome to the New Year!
• Welcome to the New Season!
• A Brilliant Idea!
• Much Much More?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm not just trying to get a rise out of you when I say this but... do we really need Israel?

I'm not saying anything against the Israeli people or Jews in general but how much simpler would world politics in general and the "war on terror" be if there was no Israel? I'm not saying it's right or fair but just what if?

The Islamic Extremists would have no more beef with the U.S. right? They'd still need someone to attack though right? Their power base is dependent on an enemy, who would they attack? That's right, the other sects of Islam. Wahabis would be killing Suunis would be killing Shia would be killing Wahabis. Iranians would fight Iraqis would fight Saudis would fight Lebanon etc.

Once they were done, we could put Israel back there, we could put up Jesus Camp, we could put up the greatest Disney world or strip club or bouncy castle or whatever.

Maybe the key to Israel's survival is not to fight but to disband temporarily?

On a parallel line of thinking, if we believe that the majority rules to some degree, aren't they in the minority? Why are they so special? Sure there's that whole bit where they really are an ally unlike our other 'allies' in the region. People will say it's to avoid another holocaust but who are they kidding? The rest of the world does not care if there is another holocaust of the Jews. They could've prevented the one that happened, nobody thought it was politically viable to intervene because it was Jews who Hitler went after. If he'd gone after another group that way first, Europe and the States would've tried a lot harder to stop him but they and their populations didn't like the Jews any more than the Germans did. Hell Truman's wife wouldn't let them in her house. If you ask me, the only reason Israel exists at all is as a ghetto because the rest of the world don't want us there.

I know, that's a little rambly and disjointed but in this day and age I really can't think of a logical reason why we need to have an Israel any more. Judaism is on it's way out, we're not breeding as fast as the other major religions and lord help us it won't be that much longer before religion is dead anyway. Why hold on?

That isn't rhetorical. I'm really curious to know. Why shouldn't Israel be disbanded, assuming it could be done without harming Israelis?