Last Call

And now a word from God.

2009-12-02T18:52:00.001-08:00

Every day on my Google homepage I get a Bible Verse of the Day. No. I'm not a religious man but it often sparks ideas for satire. Today, I saw this:

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
Author/Writer: God and the Apostle Paul
Read the Chapter Philippians 4

It's nice that they gave God first credit but I'm surprised that with two authors, one who is omnipotent and omniscient, nobody caught the typo.

I wonder how Paul and God worked together? Did they trade chapters or verses back and forth or just stay up late brainstorming, go home write and then meet back? Who wrote more?

Open Letter to Senator George Voinovich

2009-07-24T13:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Senator Voinovich,

I, like many, am very concerned about the true identity of own of this nation's most powerful elected officials.

I speak of course of John Boehner. Why won't he show his birth certificate? How do we know that the minority leader in the House is an American Citizen? Are we supposed to merely take his word, the word of a foreigner about this?

We need to take America back from these insidious interlopers. Please introduce legislation making it a requirement that all members of congress prove their American citizenship as a requirement to hold office.

Come to think of it, sir, have we seen your Birth Certificate? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?

Thank you,
Rev. Caleb Bullen

You should write your legislators too about this. Seriously, have you seen John Boehner? He doesn't look like he's even from this planet much less America.

The Opposite of a Call to Arms

2009-06-02T17:58:00.001-07:00

In St. Paul?s first letter to the Corinthians he wrote, ?When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.?

Over the last 30 years politics in America have become increasingly childish, petulant and angry to the point where it seems like we often do not see or hear those we disagree with as people who have differing views but as an enemy to be crushed at all cost.

And yet even the most disparate of us have more that we agree on than we don?t. We all value education, safety, family, and American values as we define them.

When men like Eric Rudolph, James Adkisson and Scott Roeder commit their acts of violence they may help their cause in the short term insomuch as it makes abortion more expensive because of security costs and may scare some away from their legal rights however in the long run they hurt their cause by sullying the reputation of the entire pro-life movement and its supporters in the eyes of the majority of Americans.

In light of Dr. George Tiller?s murder there has been a lot of mention of how certain news channels and websites went out of their way to call Dr. Tiller a murderer or Nazi and during the Bush years there were many on the opposite side of the political spectrum who called the president and his supporters murderers and Nazis. In either case, no matter how heart felt the opinion, such expressions reflected more poorly on the speaker than their subject matter.

Can we as Americans agree to disagree where we do without name calling, without death threats, without incendiary speech or literal calls to arms? Can we as Americans, right and left, pro life and pro choice, religious and atheist, come together to discuss, debate and even disagree like mature responsible people?

And if we can, can we also come together in calling out those who can?t, whether we agree with their fundamental position or not? Can we as a society put away these childish things and speak, at long last, as adults?

Reverse Racism and why its not the same thing as Racism

2009-06-01T13:21:00.001-07:00

In the media wake of Sotomayor?s nomination the term Reverse Racism has been thrown about like so much confetti at a Rip Taylor performance and some contrarians have argued that there is no such thing as Reverse Racism; that there is only racism no matter who perpetrates it.

This argument seems logical enough at first blush. If you pre judge somebody based on their skin color, gender, religion, or ethnic background, does it really matter what your skin color, gender, religion or ethnic background is? As it turns out the answer is yes.

Semantically, racism is racism and bigotry is bigotry and it doesn?t matter one whit if you?re a Hutu who hates Tsotsis, a Jew who hates Palestinians or Rush Limbaugh hating? well? everybody. Unfortunately, we do not live in a purely semantic world and in the real world the bigotry of those in power has more impact than the bigotry of the oppressed.

The racist statement piles on to the tide of existing racism in our society and taken in with said tide helps to make the non white, non male person less likely to feel they can truly excel. Less likely to try. Less likely to? really if I have to explain how racism in general is bad to you, you shouldn?t be reading this in the first place. Let?s move on.

The reverse racist statement though it may be just as bad a statement as the racist statement will only have the same effect when, ironically, there isn?t any more racism. Sotomayors statement isn?t going to make any white kids grow up and think they can?t be judges. Questioning the intelligence of a woman who graduated 2nd in her class at Yale while suggesting she might have only gotten there through affirmative action, taken in consort with the other racism in society, could make a young Latina think she can?t be a judge.

I know this is all very touchy feely and shades of grey for many people but basically it comes down to this. Once there are no pay gaps based on gender or race, when our government representatives approximately represent the demographics of the people, when the percentage of CEOS or Firepersons, or Nurses breaks down approximately by the demographics of the communities they?re in, then there will be no reverse racism because there will be no more societal lean toward non-reverse racism. You can?t have one without the other.

(so shut up, Cracker ass cracker!)

Finally Good News from Wall Street

2009-05-27T11:05:00.001-07:00

The FDIC reported today that for the first quarter of 2009, the banks made a profit of 7.6 Billion dollars. Not too shabby, eh? And that?s profit not income which gets the cost of salaries, rents, and the little chains for the pens taken out of it but profit which shareholders get to take home and roll around naked in. 7.6 Billion dollars of the stuff. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn?t it? Madonna doesn?t have 7.6 Billion dollars and she used to live in a castle! But when you put it into context, all of the sudden it doesn?t seem like all that much money.

For one thing, in 2008 the banks made 19.3 Billion dollars. So if you have a bad attitude about these things you could look at the meager 7.6 Billion dollar profits as a loss of 11.7 dollars. Can you imagine losing 11.7 Billion dollars? I lost two dollars this week because I left some spare change on my desk at work over the long weekend and I?ve been kicking myself ever since. If I had to multiply that loss by five billion or so, I don?t know what I?d do. But even that is candy coating things.

The American Tax Payer was kind enough to loan/give the banks 700 Billion dollars between that 19.3 Billion respectable first quarter of 20008 and the measly 7.6 Billion dollars of 2009?s first quarter. So if you add that in, the banks really made no profit at all and had a net loss of 692.4 Billion dollars. Fortunately, we?re all agreeing to forget about that 700 Billion dollars for now. Because if the FDIC came out and said, ?Good news! The banks have only lost 692.4 Billion Dollars this quarter.? It might hurt consumer confidence.

Good thing nobody?s putting things into perspective on the business pages.

Open Letter to Congresswoman Marcia Fudge

2009-05-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

Dear Rep. Fudge,

I am disheartened to hear of congresses blocking of the $80 Million to close Guantanamo Bay's Prison.

It appears that the Democratic Party is cowering in fear from the roar of a mouse named GOP.

Why should democrats, or America as a whole, have to buy into the Republican's cowardice. I'm sorry that they are so terribly afraid to have detainees in domestic prisons but these are not times for fearful leaders. If our prisons can hold serial killers, drug-addicts, rapists, and arsonists, they surely can handle a handful of accused terrorists as well.

I think that it would help the Democratic party to shun Right Wing timidity and instead embrace the bold and brave spirit that has made this country great.

On the whole, you're doing a great job as a rep. Thank you very much

Caleb Bullen

thoughts on the torture controversy

2009-04-22T13:57:00.001-07:00

I'm making an official prediction here. Let's see how it really pans out.

Very little will be done about torture until closer to the 2010 elections. That's not a weasel word, I don't mean closer like tomorrow would be closer than today, I mean when races heat up, Holder will move on this.

We won't find out much new about the investigation till the 2012 elections are coming up, again I mean once the GOP have drafted their candidate.

There might be some flak fired at underlings but mostly they will try to roll the investigation up to the top.

President Bush will claim he didn't realize all what was going on and the people at large will believe him. He will walk.

Cheney will get thrown under the bus as the torture scapegoat but will have yet another of his many cardiac incidents and will die of natural causes before he's brought to trial much less convicted.

Nobody important will do time. Nobody will feel things were set right from the whole thing. The best we can really hope for is that it will provide political fodder to force the GOP to run as the party of torture or as Christian Democrats for a couple elections.

Feel free to come back and heckle me if my cynicism proves incorrect.

Christmas Special (recap)

2008-12-23T08:27:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-12-19T08:36:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-12-19T08:35:00.001-08:00

Ho Ho No

2008-12-13T15:17:00.001-08:00

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

2008-10-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-09-30T17:33:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-09-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-09-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-09-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

(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?

2008-08-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-07-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-07-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-07-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-05T11:51:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-07-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The porn wars are back on. Recently Max Hardcore was found guilty of obscenity and John Stagliano is currently awaiting trail for the same. Beyond the normal realm of free speech both of these trials are interesting for other reasons as well.

In the case of Max Hardcore, he was tried in some small Floridian town where they were sure to get a guilty verdict. The thing is, he was not selling his wares in that town, he did not make the porn in that town and he did not own any kind of property etc in that town. They arrested him on obscenity charges because he sold his dvds to a porn shop who then made his work available to the community. This, if it doesn't get thrown out on appeal is a landmark decision.

Previously, in order to offend a community's standards you had to in some way do something that involved the community. For example, if they arrested the adult bookstore owner who sold Max Hardcore videos, that would be reasonable under the traditional view of the law. If anyone can be busted because somebody re-sells their work in a particularly conservative community, it could really put a damper on free speech.

Obviously putting a damper on Max Hardcore, isn't anything anybody feels all that bad about. Even most other perverts think his stuff is astoundingly unpleasant. Trust me, if you aren't familiar with his work, be thankful. But this could and probably will put the damper on other more important free speech.

As always my suggestion is to do the opposite. Find a nice small exceedingly liberal community and put the Left Behind guy on trial for obscenity. Or even put Rupert Murdoch on trial for obscenity. Remember Obscenity only has to violate community standards. If your community thinks hardcore porn is A-OK on the noon business report but finds Bill O'Reilly to be offensive, in theory you have grounds.

Its a touchy business because they can't say outright that tits are good and pussy is obscene because that would be censorship. Just like the FCC can't really rule that you can't say Shit Fuck Piss Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker or Tits on TV. That would be censorship. They can say it would violate community standards however. I merely ask, why stop there? Why not declare anything else you don't like to be obscene as well. I keep trying to get my community to ban Small Wonder re-runs but so far, no dice.

The other trial involving the much more mainstream pornographer John Stagliano, you may know him as 'buttman' is slightly more shocking in that its hard to imagine anybody in this century finding his work obscene. But the big news from that trial is that the judge had to recuse himself when it came out that he operated his own pornographic website. This guy was appointed by Reagan and had to recuse himself for being too pervy to adjudicate this particular trial.

Which really begs the larger question: Can't we just admit that we like sex already? Not only do we like sex but we like looking at pretty people having sex. If we didn't like sex, our species would've died out a long time ago. The earliest known artwork mankind has produced is mostly about sex. Some think that's because our paleolithic ancestors worshipped fertility goddesses but if you look at the unrealistic portrayal of women in early statues and paintings with their enormous breasts and hips, it doesn't really look all that different from modern porn. Put a tramp stamp on the Venus of Lascaux and she might as well be more of a pre-cursor to Jenna Jameson than to Jehovah.

If it was good enough for them, its good enough for me. Now bend over, I want to make a cave painting.

Computer Blues (recap)

2008-06-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-06-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-04-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-04-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-04-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-03-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Heard on the show:

Thrills - Cake
Soft Winds - Phil Bodner
Black Box Theme - Tom Waits
Mr. Helpmann - Michael Kamen
Talking in the Dark - Elvis Costello
Masters of War - The Gene Norman Group
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

2008-03-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-03-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

Coming up on this weekend's show

Helen Keller wants to help
CGI
Dead Blog
Perilous Times
E.D.
Much Much More?

Lately I've noticed a strange trend in pornography. Note, I'm not saying a disturbing trend. You hardly ever hear about a trend in pornography without it being denounced but I just wanted to ruminate about something weird.

In addition to the normal legal disclaimers I've lately noticed the disclaimer: "This is a work of fiction any similarity to any person, place or event is unintentional and purely coincidental" is on most adult DVDs. Why?

There was a time when that would have made sense. In the "golden age" of porn, adult films and videos focused on works of fiction. They weren't very good as works of fiction for the most part but there was a time when adult entertainment focused on fictional characters involved in some kind of a story that miraculously involved five or so sex scenes. Pointing out that those were works of fiction might have been a reasonable disclaimer. Imagine if some poor woman had been born with a clitoris in her throat and she heard about Deep Throat and was worried everyone thought it was her, she might sue if there wasn't a disclaimer (and if it was medically possible)

But today's adult entertainment is primarily "Gonzo" Porn which, incidentally, doesn't have anything to do with The Muppets or Hunter S. Thompson. These videos except for the names, breasts, noses, and female orgasms aren't fake at all. They're really more like documentaries. So why do they include that warning?

Market Research!

2008-02-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

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.

If you do not listen to the show, why not? (if you do, thanks! move on along to the next question)
What first made you listen to the show?
From the time you first knew about the show, how long did it take for you to try it?
What could I do to make the show better for you?
What do you think I could do to make the show better for other people?
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)

2008-02-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

Playlist:

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

2008-02-07T20:46:00.001-08:00

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)

2008-02-04T19:50:00.001-08:00

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?

2008-01-24T18:12:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-01-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-01-15T00:55:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-01-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-01-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

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?

Mediocre Media Core (recap)

2007-12-31T16:48:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-17T17:21:00.001-08:00

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)

2007-12-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Post Thanksgiving Hibernation

2007-11-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

To start with here is the playlist for last week's show:

Black Friday - Steely Dan
Bubbles in the Wine - Lloyd Mumm and His Starlight Roof Orchestra
I can't get started/Round Midnight - Dizzy Gillespie
Vamp Finish - Messer Chups
Malia -Hal Aloma and his Orchestra
Bears - Lyle Lovett

Dominatrix Decorators - No clue where that came from. Just a random free association

B lowing up Balloons - One of the things that my new computer has is a TV tuner and right before the holiday I got myself an antenna. I haven't had a TV in years so this is all brand spanking new to me. This bit came from a story about them having a party with the blowing up balloons ceremony the day before the Macy's Day Parade. Obviously, I misheard "Blowing Up"

Thanksgiving- This too came from seeing all the zillions of cheap advertising campaigns based on the holiday and the Black Friday anticipation. I just took it to it's illogical extreme.

Uganda - This story, as I mentioned, came from The Economist newspaper. It's an article I clipped back in the days when I had no PC or online access. It just struck me how great half of the salary I make for talking to old people is to people in a place I wouldn't be for ten times the income.

Mail Bag - this is a true story. Based on real events and weird correspondence

1-900-COMPLAIN - I work tech support for old people dealing with a MASSIVE health care system and often have to sit through people just bitching at the system though they know I can't really do anything about their issues. Again, I just took this to it's illogical extreme.

Political Revolution - This just seems like a good idea to me. I tried making it as interesting a presentation as I could without going too far into the ramifications. Believe me, this could've been twice as long if I didn't edit out a ton of examples, assuming that you, the listener, could figure most of this out yourself

Inuit Folklore - This came as a direct result of listening to Nanook the Schnook. A Martin and Lewis broadcast from the 50's where the radio play they put on was set in the frozen tundra. As I listened I was waiting for a bus Saturday night, freezing my ass off. I just thought, how wrong could one do an 'eskimo story' The rest just followed from there. Before I settled on the story, I tried finding a traditional inuit folk legend but the stories are as harsh as the climate, and much less pleasant than my silly little fairy tale.

I apologize for the fact that the transitions in this show went from me talking as me to me talking as me most of the time. I'd have put more songs in between to help the flow but that would've made the show even longer. What do you think? Should I have made the show longer and less talky or was it okay to just go from one similar piece to another? I'm on the fence, artistically on this one. It probably could've been a shorter and more various show.

Welcome Back Caleb (redux)

2007-11-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! It sure is good to be putting out shows again. Sorry that the feed is a little wonky but you can still get the show on the website until iTunes catches up. Remember, you can usually go here to find out about these things or you can email me. You know the address by now, no?

The coffee bit came to me literally in my sleep. Just one non-sequitur stream of consciousness into another. Had a really hard time with this voice though. I kept trying to slip into Ben Cohen.

A Modest Farm Bill Proposal came from an article about the 10 billion dollar pot crop in California. I was reading that article around the same time as I was listening to a news story about the farm bill. Just like people find meaning in disassociated events to lend credence to astrologers or find shapes in abstract art or clouds, my brain did the same thing with the two stories and combined them quite illogically. I made the mistake of writing this whole thing out though and I like the way I perform these better when I just write down the beats I have to hit and riffing live. That's just a byproduct of not having a computer to work on for so long though.

Duelling Burroughs. This one, like the Chocolate Moses song, came from a discussion or series of discussions with Laurence Simon of http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com I heartily suggest talking to him about almost anything. Before you know it, you'll both be riffing and brilliant ideas will pop into your head. Or, ideas like William S. Burroughs doing a talk show in hell where he interviews himself will pop into your head. That might not be brilliant, but it's certainly unusual.

Also, I had this thought recently, I should put a dead on William S Burroughs impression on my résumé under special skills. I don't know that it would help me get work but where it was appreciated would be a place I could really thrive... I think.

Snoop Dogg I know, I can't do an impersonation of Snoop Dogg and this is a little sloppy. None the less, it's been stuck in my head for a month and I had to get it out. Sorry.

Chocolate Moses oh yeah, I also do something of a Tom Waits impersonation. That's practical, eh?

Okay, let's hope this doesn't take another month to do another show, and let's also hope that iTunes get's things together.

We're BA-ACK

2007-11-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am proud to say that there will be a show this weekend.

I apologize for the extended hiatus but there was a whole mess of technical difficulty which I wrote about earlier.

so coming up on this week's show might be:

Fun with the FARM BILL!
Amish Consulting
Cocaine
Much Much More?

The story so far

2007-11-06T06:47:00.000-08:00

I apologize but the Black Tie Martini Club is still having technical difficulties. Here's the rundown about what happened in lieu of content

I woke up one morning and the machine was dead so I futzed and futzed and got it functioning again and went to work
When I got home, the machine wouldn't power up at all
Thinking it was the physical on/off button I pulled the wires and tried hotwiring it to start (kids don't try this at home it doesn't work)
Thinking it was the Power Supply I ordered a new power supply and case
After moving everything into the new case, it still wouldn't power up. I realized that the CMOS jumper had fallen off, once replaced, it started right up but windows wouldn't load
So I bought a new copy of XP because I don't have the disc anymore from the previous install
XP can't install I get and unexpected error so I call Microsoft
Microsoft thinks it's the disc so I exchange the disc for another and get the same error
I think maybe it's my disc drive because I am getting my unexpected error in that drive so I borrow a CD ROM and try again but still get the same error.
A fan, one of you, loans me money to buy a new computer because they can so I order a sweet new computer from Gateway
I stay home from work to get it on the day it is to arrive but they UPS guy delivers it to my workplace without telling me.
The next day I get it home from work, which is fun on a bus, plug it in and it doesn't quite work right
The drivers are all screwy so I call Gateway
Gateway has me reinstall from the backup disc but that does nothing but take away all the fancy OEM software it came with
I download the drivers it's supposed to be missing from work and load them onto the machine including the updated BIOS drivers... which kills the machine dead
Apparently my computer had the wrong motherboard for the style computer it was
I carry the computer back to work and from here I will mail it back to Gateway and they will mail me another computer or one that is actually fixed a process which should take about two more weeks from the time of this writing.

That's the story so far i guess I can start writing the bits out that have expired here too as they become less than topical.

For example, I was going to do a parody of Ellen DeGeneres' Dog Adoption Breakdown where I freak out about an issue with my Adopt-A-Highway stretch of road going wrong but the time for that has long past.

Again, I'm very sorry to be in forced hiatus for what looks like is going to be at least a month, I miss you all and my silly little show very much. Thanks for all the kind messages. It'll be back... eventually.

A new hope

2007-11-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

No time to rant now kiddies, I should be up and running enough by this weekend to not podfade for a third week in a row but seeing as how I don't have my computer yet and everything has to be re-added, I'm making no promises.

Till then...

Technical Difficulties

2007-10-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have not officially podfaded yet, friends, but my PC has. Programming will be interrupted until I once again have a working machine. I apologize for the inconvenience. Yes, the website is down too for the moment, I was unable to pay the bill online because I don't have a computer at home. Uh... if you want to get things up and running sooner than later, send money. Meanwhile I'm still writing and so you'll probably get some really strange and un-topical shows when things re-commence.

2007-10-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

The Black Moses
Chocolate Moses
Some other kind of Moses?

Fact Check had an interesting article http://www.factcheck.org/specialreports/cognitive_science_and_factcheckorg_or_why_we.html explaining somewhat the reason behind why they do what they do and it comes down to this:

"a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology by the University of Southern California’s Peter Kim shows that meeting a charge (regardless of its truth or falsity) with silence increases the chances that others will believe the claim. Giving false claims a free pass, in other words, is more likely to result in false beliefs "

There's not much more I can add to that. Just keep it in mind. When people make false assertions around you, when people say things that seem wrong, stop them. Point out their error or ask them to prove their assertions. Make them stop and think. It might not change their mind, it might not change their lives but it just might make some cumulative difference when combined with others.

Remember the only thing holding us back from being the people we'd like to be, is us.

The Case of the Flight of the Bumblebees (Recap)

2007-10-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

I think that show pretty much spoke for itself but if you're curious to find out what else those people do you can find them at:

http://daphneandtamara.libsyn.com/
http://isfullofcrap.com/
http://www.blakslee.com/

Also, the whole thing was set off by either the New York Times Science Podcast or the National Geographic Science Podcast where they talked about Colony Kill, possible causes and the fact that some people were breaking out the conspiracy theories because no masses of dead bees have been found.

The reason why, in case you're curious, is that whatever doesn't evaporate gets eaten. They're all protein and water.

GOOD TIMES (redux)

2007-10-08T16:27:00.001-07:00

Look at me updating on time like a good boy, how unusual!

The Santana bit is completely true.
On the Blackwater Vs. Private Contractors issue I should point out that some of the private contractors are doing jobs where they are being paid great sums of money for risky work that isn't security related and some people feel that the military might be able to better do some of these jobs. However it's not like they constitute a private Bushista Army. Sorry Lefties, you're a little whack on this one.
The angel bit came from an Idea I had while dealing with some irrational customer at work. I suggested that we hire a group of actors to play prophets/religious figures etc. to tell people to do what all of our focus tested instructions and FAQs tell them when it was pointed out... perhaps by me, that people tend to only listen to what they agree with even when it comes to Commandments. And thusly the Angel/Devil mixup was born
The GAO piece wasn't really about the war per se just about the ministerial aspects of reforming the govt and govt services. Still, you can get an RSS feed or daily email with all the new GAO reports every day and it's almost always interesting albeit pedantic.

Goodbye Marcel & Republican Dance Party (recap)

2007-10-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry about the lack of bloggage lately but A. my internet has been spotty, B. I've been busy, and of course C. I'm not sure anyone's actually reading this.

The pantomime sketch

I'm not sure exactly how well this one worked, I'll be honest. I like the idea of pantomiming the completely intangible but I think it may have run a little too long. Good idea, perhaps not the best execution.

Marceau by the Sea

This is written and performed by Freereed Freenote who is my second life neighbor. She currently has a little podcast where she reads her stories and you can find that here: http://freereedstorytime.podomatic.com/ She also wrote this next piece

The Artist's Kaddish for Marcel Marceau Mangel

She actually has a whole gallery set up in Second Life dedicated to the memory of M. Mangel who has touched her life quite deeply.

Chicken Fried Watermelon

This comes from two things: Some people I saw stereotyping themselves in such a way as to make Bill Cosby fly into a murderous rage and Romney, Rudy, McCain, and that other guy ignoring the debate on matters of race because they had "scheduling conflicts"

Paranoia

I was reading this article http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyroc245387882sep24,0,2760679.story and it struck me as a perfect halloween tale of terror. Well... it would be perfect if it weren't true. Notice though that no actual explanation was ever given as to who was following her and there were never any charges filed so it's possible that Flynn is making this up.

Blackwater (Cheney Mix)

Tom of Footnote http://footnote.libsyn.com/ suggested doing a parody of the Doobies about the latest Blackwater news. Seriously, the provisional Govt. said, "get out" but the U.S. said, "nope we need them". If the Iraqi government had insisted and we stayed we would've absolutely been seen as colonial occupiers so the Iraqis said, "Okay okay, you can stay".

The Cheney clip is from a recently YouTubed video from 94. It's nothing Cheney hasn't said before and the actual clip is 4 minutes long but I didn't edit out any context or anything. Mind you, I'm not saying with 100% certainty that our involvement in Iraq and Mr. Cheney's change of heart (so to speak) is because former companies of his and many of his pals and cronies are profiting monetarily from our continued presence 'in country'. I'm just saying it's a plausible explanation and there aren't many of those to go around.

Choose Your Own Ad-Kvetch-Ure

2007-09-20T21:01:00.001-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

Poodles
Soap Box Opera
The Robot returns
My "Neighbors"
Don MacLean
Much much more!

Oh there's so much to rant about, which would you like: Jena 6, Jesse Jackson, Republican Scaredy-Cats, 9/11 workers getting screwed, Huffington Post missing the point completely, Republican candidates solidly cementing their reputation as bigotry?

Let me know which you'd like to hear ranted on, I could do a whole show on any of those topics... but such a show wouldn't be terribly entertaining I fear.

Innocence Lost (Redux)

2007-09-17T04:51:00.001-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I apologize if this program was too serious and too "issue" oriented.

I understand that I have a certain responsibility as an "entertainer" to amuse. Normally I won't try to take on an issue unless I can do it with some humor or at least brevity. This idea started out as a funny one where I'd point up the folly of the talking head who said Ramadan increased violence

Next week we'll be back with more madcap zaniness though. I've already got some things written.

Please though, check out Iraq Body Count http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ See if it doesn't give you pause as well when you look in detail at the people as people instead of numbers.

Psst! Season one available here:

2007-09-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned on Monday's show, if you go to the Black Tie Martini Club on Nowhereville in Second Life, you can listen to the fabled First Season of the Oddcast during the day. If you can't find the martini club on nowhereville... look for the giant pink elephant... it's under there.

If you can't get into Second Life, or can't get into it during the day, here's the site that streams the first season of the Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast during the day. http://bluedog.wavestreamer.com:5472/

I can't have too many people on there at once so don't leave it on and walk away please but feel free to listen and catch up, if you need to.

Orange (redux)

2007-09-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Franks - Honestly, I don't know why this popped into my head. I guess I must've been listening to a version of, "I Wanna Be Around" and started singing other words. I actually bear no malice toward Mr. Bennett nor do I do a very good impersonation of him. C'est La'vie.
The Nowhereville deal - Here's the thing kiddies, I'm very excited to make these episodes available somewhere even if it only is in SL. so come on along. Of course if this becomes a popular destination, I'm going to hit you up for donations so that I can buy a cheap computer to use as a dedicated server for the old shows.
Tartaglia & Sons - A friend of mine is a home contractor. She was complaining about how a client owed her $1000.00. Personally, I haven't seen that much money at one time in a long long time so to not take that sum out of their hide, seems criminal to me
Ben Cohen - This obviously came from a real story about mold and depression... I was probably hungry too, huh? This was written and recorded at about 4 in the morning last week one morning when i was still up and had to be at work in a couple hours. I should drink (ie. 'sleep') more.
Happiness is a warm gun - ties into both a way to defeat the aforementioned depression and the following piece about guns. I love a segue!
Guns - Honestly, when I had the idea of doing this, I thought I would find something that I can firmly stand with the right wing on. I looked some of this stuff up once before and was swayed from believing that guns = crime and injury/death to believing that people with guns are safer... looking into it more closely now, I don't know what to believe other than politicians should either actually work to find answers to these questions or shut the hell up
SPAM Poetry - This was a real SPAM Poem. like most of you, I get many every day. For reasons I can't quite understand, some stand out with their own beauty. The 'Aerosmith' mistake was real. I just left it in because I hoped it would amuse you as much as me
ORANGE - Seriously, I listened to Petraus talk ALL WEEKEND when nobody actually knew what he was going to say. Couldn't we do with a little less Political Prognostication and focus on analysis of what has ACTUALLY HAPPENED?!? it's not like there was any shortage of interesting things happening in the news. But if you're still reading this, you probably already know my feelings on that.

Sacrifice

2007-09-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

Spam Poetry
Mold
Pizza Commercials
The Mob Helps Small Business
much much more?

So it's been a little while since I've done even a mini rant but I was listening to some old Abbott & Costello programs (as if there are new ones?) and the talk about all the rationing in WWII got me thinking.

The president has made it clear that the best way we can support the war is by not questioning and by not sacrificing. Heck this is the first war in history where taxes were lowered to fight a war, of course if we could say the same for the debt, we'd be all set. And the reason they haven't asked us to sacrifice is that they feel like we're so petulant that we wouldn't support the war at all if it interfered with our way of life.

I think they might have that backwards. Sure we'd all complain about gas rationing or meat rationing, or tax increases on top of rubber or metal drives to support the war effort but we'd feel connected too. Right now the majority of us that don't know anyone personally in the service don't have the kind of connection, the kind of personal investment that our grandparents and great grandparents did in WWII.

You might argue that this war isn't like WWII, we're not fighting against any kind of Hitler there's no super army trying to reinvent the whole map but many Americans felt that Hitler was of no concern to us anyway. He was Europe's problem not ours. But once our boys were over there fighting, we changed our tune 100%

Maybe we were just more into 'supporting the troops' then but I don't think so. When is the last time you heard anyone left or right say that they didn't support the troops. True, some think support means helping them to win while others think that support means getting them out of harms way but nobody is against the troops. I think it's that we all felt a vested interest. If we were going to have to sacrifice anyway, we damned well were going to win. That's what America does.

Now, I'm not for this war. I'd be pissed off if I had to ration or give up anything for it but I think if I felt connected to it on a more personal level I might be more likely to support it.

Then again... maybe nobody was for this war enough to sacrifice personally whereas they were when it came to Hitler. I guess we'll never know.

Coming soon:

2007-08-31T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have no clue what's going to be on this weekend's show. It's another weekend of existential angst while I try to pull a show out of my ass.

Untitled Show # 12 & 35 (redux)

2007-08-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

Bullseye Stores: this comes from the recent Target commercials about how they're your back to school store, then they advertise a bunch of products that aren't what anyone remembers from college. I just tried to equalize that.
Intro: I've been reading this book called, Aint Nobody's Business if I Do which is basically about the absurdity of making consensual activities illegal. It occured to me that one really could make as good an argument against caffeine as many illegal drugs. Also there was a recent news story about the girl who went to the hospital.
Carlos Mencia: Okay, I know my Mencia impersonation is horrible, sorry. But we remake songs all the time, everyone is okay with that. We remake movies regularly, you'll see a repertoiry company do a play but poor Carlos steals other people's material and he's villified?!? Hardly seems fair.
Camel: I love this song of mine, however, since 9/11/01 people think it's political even though it was written about ten years ago and is just a collection of rhymes that make me laugh
Sending a Message to Our Enemies: I think this speaks for itself. Seriously though, who are our enemies and how many messages can we send by discussion? Isn't discussion, the open debate of ideas the whole point of a democracy?
Spider Man: I just love this version of that song but I love all versions. It, the original, is surprisingly tough to play, we used to do it in the Black Tie Martini Club (the band). It's much faster and with more complicated harmonies than most songs.
Vagina Subsidy: obviously this is influenced by the aforementioned libertarian book... and my love of saying Vagina Subsidy
1-900-GOOD-NAP: uh... I don't want to share... this one's personal.
Je T'Aime... Mais Non Plus: This one's even more personal.

Goodnight Everybody!

From the correspondence file: Villains (coda)

2007-08-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Baleb Cullen,

Thank you for your recent purchase of our services.While we were not able to come to an arraignment at this time, we hope to do business with you in the future.

Please accept this gift (attached Package) as a sign of our appreciation.

Here at Martian Incorporated, We want to be YOUR villain.

Sincerely,
Razzap Snookums
CEO, Martian Incorporated.

(sounds of opening package, a ticking sound, then an explosion)

Coming Up on the Next Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast

2007-08-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm a little backed up here folks so I think this weekend's show is going to be super-sized:

Napping
Long Distance Dedications
Ripping Off Carlos Mencia
Back To School Shopping
Sending A Message To Our Enemies
Brilliant Idea
Won't Someone Think Of The Children
Much Much More?

hey kids 8/28 is the anniversary of the I Have a Dream Speech that Martin Luther King Jr. made in Washington in 1963. I know, there are aspects of it that were plagarized and Dr. King had some skeletons in his closet but do yourself a favor. Look that speech up and read it aloud.

You'll be amazed at how far we've come in some ways and how little has changed in others. It's one of those important documents like the Bill of Rights, I can't help but go back to from time to time to recharge the spirit.

Say it loud, I'm back and I'm proud

2007-08-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hi folks.

I'm back from my little vacation/birthday celebration. Sorry I missed you but the departure interfered with the normal Thursday blogging and then the trip interfered with the normal Sunday show. So next week I think we're going to have a double sized super show or perhaps a normal sized show with less music. Heh.

Villains (recap)

2007-08-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

So, I think this episode mostly speaks for itself but I did want to call your attention to something I realized while I was recording the episode.

Everybody Eats When They Come To My House could really work as a gospel song if you think that Cab Calloway is singing in the voice of Jesus. He clearly accepts everyone because he mentions all manner of ethnic name from Jewish or Chinese to Irish (Mendel, Moxshu, Mickey). And yet all are welcome. It's not The Chosen Eat When They Come To My House or If You're Really Good And Follow My Commandments You'll Eat When You Come To My House. Cab/Jesus/Allah/Brahma welcomes everybody. It's kind of a beautiful all inclusive religious message. Or... it could be that Cab was really high and thought the rhymes were funny. Either way, I dig it.

In case you didn't catch the URLs of the Black Tie Martini Club Players they are
http://daphneandtamara.libsyn.com/ Going Broke With Daphne and Tamara
http://www.letsgetnaughtypodcast.com/ Let's Get Naughty
http://www.blakslee.com/ The Man Behind Razzap Snookums.

I'm afraid

2007-08-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

The Return of Razzap Snookums
The Return of Daphne
The debut of Tamara
More Ben Cohen
Much Much More!

Seriously kids, this weekend's show is going to be a Black Tie Martini Club Players fiesta! There's going to be a bunch of stuff that isn't all me me me me me me me. At least there will be if it all gets written and recorded. heh.

Now then, on to the bloggish portion of the blog. I listened to about half of the Republican debate and they all can make sense on one or two issues but then do so much crazy ass politician double speak playing to their perceived base, I'm afraid of all of them.

That said, I'll vote for anyone over Hilary Clinton who hasn't made the same deal-breaking mistakes that she has. Most of the Republicans have and most of the other Democrats aren't much better so that leaves us where next year? I don't know.

Here's why I cannot vote for Hilary although she's not the worst politician in the world and has many decent qualities; She came out hard in favor of Flag Burning legislation and I believe she came out for the Amendment as well.

I know it's weird to make that my dividing line issue since it's not immediately important to anyone and there are so many bigger problems than flag burning right now. But A. there were bigger problems when Hilary was wasting time coming out against Flag Burning because she thought it was a perfectly safe issue that meant nothing and B. A flag that you can't burn doesn't really stand for freedom anymore.

I know I'm a crazy old coot when it comes to the constitution and it really fucks up my chances of sitting at either big table come dinner time in American Politics but The Constitution of these United States supersedes all the other stuff. If you don't think that the right to Free Speech is essential to our nation's survival, how are we to trust you on the complicated stuff?

And while we're at it, if you're against the personal privacy ensured by the 4th amendment, if you are anti-choice, pro illegal wiretap, if you want to take away American's rights of privacy in the name of your gods and 'safety' how can we trust you with the complicated stuff.

And yes, if you can't understand the second amendment and don't care about protecting the right of citizens to bear arms, you don't understand the Constitution you are sworn to uphold.

So if you believe in the separation of Church and State
If you Believe in Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press
If you believe in The Right to Bear Arms
If you believe in the right to be protected from unwarranted search and seizure

Who can you vote for?

Romney, McCain, Clinton and Giuliani have all failed the above test. I bet if I knew more about more of the candidates they too would fail.

So who does that leave?

Writer's Block Extravaganza (redux)

2007-08-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry about the beginning. My internet connection died partway through uploading the file and that's what happened. WHOOPS!

McHealthy's comes from two things. The first is that anything will taste good if you batter fry it and serve it on a stick, the other is that my workplace tries really hard to get us to eat healthy but the end result is we just load up on plastic calories.

I really did have a bad case of Writer's Block all weekend and was totally stumped. That I could pull any of this out of my ass is amazing.

Amore. This came to me in the shower... I honestly don't know why. For some reason it stuck me like a warning

It is what it is. Can someone tell me where this idiotic and pointless expression has come from in the last couple weeks? I went from never hearing it before to it being on everybody's lips like herpes.

While I'm asking Questions, is Lust for Life about the Kirk Douglas movie of the same name about Vincent Van Gogh?

I think the rest speaks for itself. 100 word stories, interviews, Isaac Hayes... goodnight everybody!

apologies and a wee little mini rant

2007-07-31T14:38:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't been as timely here as possible. the thing is, I had really hoped for more feedback and discussion here. Without that, I am less motivated to post I mean if I'm just talking to myself, I can do that anywhere.

That said, the British are claiming Jimi Hendrix as their own and I don't care for it. There is a series of Oxford Biographies about important and interesting Brits and this week's bio was Jimi Hendrix. Now I know he was more popular there in his life than here but it's not like he was born here and then moved to England right away like Bob Hope or Edgar Allan Poe. He didn't live in England until his 20's and even then he was back and forth a great deal due in part to the United Kingdom tangling him up in red tape over his Work Visa.

I'm sorry but if Jose Everyman tries to cross over the Texas border illegally, we kick him out, he makes it back in and stays here for a couple of years and in that time he cures cancer and then we boot him back to Mexico, when he wins the Nobel Prize for medicine, we don't get to count him as an American just like the British shouldn't get to count Hendrix.

Milestones

2007-07-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

We seem to be approaching things from a business standpoint with such items as How to float an IPO, Brand Loyalty Divorces, Iraq by Numbers and much much more.

Speaking of numbers, can we stop with all the milestones that don't mean anything? Every day we're hearing about the Dow reaching a new milestone. Well until the next burst of the bubble, that'll be happening for quite some time. That's how the system works. At some point it really isn't noteworthy.

Same thing with the War. The death toll isn't going to go down ever so reporting on how we've reached a new milestone in the number dead, is kind of silly. As if the 3,562nd serviceman dead is meaningless but the 3,600th is important. As if there always being a new deadliest month while we're pouring more and more targets into an increasingly unstable environment is going to cause fewer people to be killed.

Barry Bonds, on the other hand, I guess is as valid a milestone as anything but that record will be broken again in another couple decades or less, just like Hank Aaron came along to break Babe Ruth's and presumably there was another record before Ruth.

Seems like each individual home run, death, or portfolio means a lot more in it's own context than all of them together. Maybe I'm just clueless.

Assholes: Recap

2007-07-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

I realize now that I absolutely should've used the Denis Leary song in this show... but I didn't think of it.

Information Officer: I stole this joke from a Rocket Scientist. Literally. Snazz, blogger extraordinaire, saw an information officer and thought up this premise. I only added sound effects and random wikipedia facts. In fairness to me, I did ask permission first.

Emo Emu Girl: I bought some new toys and brought them all into play here. The most obvious is a kazoo. The others are also kind of like kazoos but digital. All of the synth sounds on this song are controlled by my voice. It's amazing what they can do with gadgetry these days. You can sing a note, have a computer read the note and then generate a whole other tone at that note, in real time. I plan on abusing this technology greatly in the near future

Obviously this is a nonsense song but c'mon people, Emo songwriters totally fit under the heading of "Asshole"

Exit Only Orifice: This is a real argument I once got in. I, once again, am all for people doing whatever with their own asses but this one very nice young lady was so against the exit only argument, it took me by surprise, titilatingly.

Asshole From El Paso: gotta love Kinky!

Tums Against The War: Gut feeling? GUT FEELING?!? Gut feeling my ass! Immodium! That's the word I was looking for every time I said Pepto Bismal and Kayopectate.

Broken Hearts Are for Assholes: I know. In today's semi-politically correct society this is a completely offensive song. Oh well. It's a good song and I think I have done enough shows with a pro gay rights stance that I should be allowed to let a song full of gay jokes fly. Besides, when you get right down to it, it's really more about how uncomfortable we, straight males, are about the whole gay thing.

Or... I was a real asshole for playing it. Thematically, it works either way.

Yello Alert

2007-07-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have so much to apologize for it's almost too much to bear. First of all, Podomatic, my podserver, appears to have gone insane and deleted all previous podcasts to this last one. When they come back, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this episode, Yello Alert, vanishes or you get all 123 episodes in your podcatcher showing as new. If this continues to be a problem, I will change servers. Again, I apologize for the multiple fuck ups even though they weren't anything I personally could control. Also, the last two minutes of this show got cut off, I apologize for that as well.

Speaking of Podcatchers, do not install Podcast Ready software onto your iPod. I did and it completely hosed it.

Lastly, my computer needs a new fan and is running a bit strangely because of it, and the heat, so that accounts for some of the digital hiccuping in this program.

now then on to the recap.

Zombie, came from an actual fellow named Razzap Snookums who is a strange little evil green Martian in Second Life. I was throwing one of my soirée's like I do on Wednesday nights at the Black Tie Martini Club on Edloe Island 128,128,93 (for you Second Lifers out there) and he started talking about Zombies being the new black... actually I might have started it... anyway it seemed like a perfume commercial to me, so that's how that came into being.

Trent Lott's Sheep, I know... I know... it's really goats. Somehow that short circuited in my brain and I apologize for that as well. Seriously though, he did say that he electrified his goats... which is weird.

Yellow Alert, This is all true. Why I interrupted it with the group Yello, I don't know.

Poetry, as I was working on the show, I got a fabulous work of Spam Poetry and felt I had to read it, that's how good it was. Here is the full text of said Spam

Bronze the sky, with no
Through the back of the picture at the patch of white
Wheezing ravens, when
XI. Franklin's Last Voyage
In realms of dingy gloom and deep crevasse
To run, as in the time of the bee, seeking
at balls hit again and again toward her offspring.
My only thought is for what has
Hoarfrost is in his bones and on his head,
Covering the land—
Only a fox whose den I cannot find.
With sun's warmth wasted on a stone,
And then I go on until I am beneath an archway,
Its consciousness of my white consciousness,
As if your absence now concluded long ago.
That neither the motionless farm couple trudging
As if your absence now concluded long ago.
He terrifies the Vast, he seems so wild;
Dismal, endless plain—

The Jew, credit where credit is due Chris's Platypus Society is here: http://www.platypus-society.net/blog/ and Laurence's Is Full of Crap empire is here: http://isfullofcrap.com/ I'm not really sure where this idea popped out of but I have random rhymes flowing between my ears all the time.. blame them?

Catharsis, Honestly, the depression over how fucked up our federal system of govt has gone lately, is a huge factor in my not doing a show last week. For the record I was ranting about Price Fixing, Bush not responding to Subpoenas about the Department of Justice firings, Campaign Finance, Bong Hits 4 Jesus, Pardoning Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney claiming he's not part of the executive Branch

Osama Bin Laden Sex tape, Someone mentioned a new tape coming out and with all the Paris Hilton talk, I put 2 and 2 together. Then I was reminded of this old vaudevillian "No, that's good" bit and thought it would be especially amusing if the straight man stopped playing along. The explosions were just a Pythonesque act of desperation

Where's The Show?

2007-07-02T23:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks but between technical difficulties and my hours changing at work and the Supreme Court rendering me unconstitutional, things have been a bit chaotic.

Hopefully the show will be up on Wednesday for your 4th of July enjoyment.

P.S. Don't ever try to use Podcast Ready with an iPod. You'll have a really pretty expensive paperweight.

Terrified by SCOTUS

2007-06-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

A new Cologne
You say you want a revolution?
God retires
Much Much More!

I'm beginning to be frightened by the Supreme Court of The United States. This week while many were on vacation, especially in the broadcast media, they passed some really heavy decisions including two on free speech, an issue near and dear to my heart.

The first ruling was about Campaign Finance Reform. They struck down a portion of McCain Feingold that barred private groups from airing attack ads past a certain point in the campaign.

If you need a little back story on this: Campaign Finance laws are in effect because we don't want candidates to be beholden to particular rich backers. One way around the limits on how much an individual can contribute to a political campaign is through PACs which are private issue oriented groups that can't support a particular candidate but can attack one. So rather than donate to your candidate you simply pay to attack his or her opponent and this circumnavigates the restrictions placed on donations. Many people feel that this sort of thing corrodes the political debate in this country.

However the Supreme Court decided that the Free Speech of the Political Action Committees was more important than the potential harm it would do to society. I might argue that paying for political ads is actually expensive speech and McCain Feingold doesn't stop anyone from expressing their view on the street corner or in a blog or even in an ad on YouTube but when you tell me Free Speech trumps all, I have to back down.

The second Free Speech case was about the Bong Hits 4 Jesus kid. In this case SCOTUS ruled that it isn't impinging the kids free speech for him to be expelled from school even though he wasn't in school when he displayed his banner.

The reasoning on why Bong Hits 4 Jesus doesn't get afforded the same kind of Free Speech protection as... EVERYTHING ELSE is because it's speech that they disagree with. They feel that it advocated marijuana use which is bad and therefore it's not covered under Free Speech. I know, it sounds like I'm making that up but that's really the crux of their argument.

If in both cases they had argued that the public good was harmed by this kind of Free Speech and would be better served by limiting rights, they would've been consistent. If they had argued that in both cases the right to Free Speech trumps all other concerns, they would've been constitutionally correct. Saying Free Speech that helps their cronies is good but Free Speech they dislike doesn't deserve protection is frankly terrifying.

Of course this is the same court that said that whistle blowers in the federal government aren't allowed freedom of speech either.

Another ruling just today was that Price Fixing is now legal again. For many years decades even, it has been the prevailing thought that a free market was more fair than an unfair market. The Supreme Court feels that is limiting the rights of corporations.

The reason all of this scares me is that with all of the recent abuses of Executive Privilege where the presidents and Vice President are refusing to turn over documents about potential crimes and refusing to submit to subpoenas, and Dick Cheney's asserting that he's not in the Executive Branch but the Legislative Branch and therefore isn't subject to the same laws as the Executive; are all things that if pushed will wind up in the Supreme Court. I am shaken to the core of my being as I think about this packed Court okaying blatant constitutional violations, violations that rock the very fabric of this nation, all out of a sense of party loyalty.

This really does keep me up nights.

Talking About Talking (recap)

2007-06-25T20:52:00.001-07:00

Shakespearemint Gum: this stupidly enough just comes from my seeing something that was spearmint and free associating. Don't try this at home, I'm criminally insane. Your mind should not work like that.

Your Mind is On Vacation and your mouth is working overtime: I know that technically this isn't talking about talking but I had so many songs about talking, I had to get some of them in.

Outtake fun: I heard these the first time on Steve Dahl's show a million years ago but when I heard the Kasey Casem bit on Distorted View Daily recently, I felt I had to share them with you. These really crack me up every time I hear them.

There is more to the Orson Welles piece. As you might be able to tell from the Pinky and the Brain bit, there was a problem where Orson had to re-record something because there was a "gonk" somewhere in the recording. If you really like this stuff, you can also find a fair number of Orson Welles video outtakes of him being too drunk to do TV commercials.

How terrible it is to have made the greatest film of all time in one's 20's and then be reduced to this crap for another four decades.

It is Maurice LaMarche not Lawrence LaMarche. I cringe every time I hear myself say that.

It kills me that they did a whole cartoon parodying something that I think most people have never heard.

Brilliant Idea and Telephone Licenses: not surprisingly both of these ideas came to me at work. I really do think that it would be nice to only let certain people use phones... especially if I'm not one and the computer really should start a few minutes early.

Cocaine: I don't remember where this idea came from but once it did, I really wanted to have the announcer interrupt the legal stuff for a much longer aside that has nothing to do with anything... I chickened out and made it too short.

Juneteenth

2007-06-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekends show:

Cultural Literacy of Outtakes
Telephone Service
Cocaine
Much Much More

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Also, Jun 19th is officially listed as Garfield (the cat)'s birthday. Which means that rather than being a particularly unfunny Comic Strip, Garfield may actually be a metaphor for the fate of the emancipated black man in America.

Consider: He beats the crap out of Odie who is the symbol of southern oppression being that he's not only white but a dog, like the dogs used to hunt down escaped slaves questing for their freedom. Odie drools too like the stereotype of the inbred yokel.

Consider: Nermal is the next generation coming up but he has no substance to him, he's all surface. He represents the hip hop generation that is more concerned with bling and 'stret cred' than the struggle for equality

Consider: Jon Arbuckle represents the government. He appears to be dimwitted and to cowtow to Garfield's needs but let's face it, Garfield may be emancipated but he isn't really free is he? Jon owns that cat and seems all but completely indifferent to any of Garfield's attempts to change the status quo and make his voice heard.

Fun For The Whole Family Recap

2007-06-18T21:10:00.001-07:00

Clooney Island is entirely the fault of Time Magazine. They had one thing talking about George Clooney and another talking about Coney Island.

Most of the show was written well after everything I had planned on doing on the show. Which is a good thing because my voice wasn't up to doing the voices I had intended.

Ben Cohen this one came from the Sunday Chat Shows where no one would say that the Surge in Iraq was a failure but they wouldn't say it was a success either. Someone came very near to saying the half empty statement verbatim, I just took it to it's logical conclusion.

Is anybody reading these things?

The FCC bit. I heard about this on NPR's Fresh Air. I know it sounds like parody but it's a real statement, here is the link. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-273602A1.doc I really hope that someone broadcasts this FCC statement live on Broadcast Television. So that the FCC can try fining them for an FCC statement.

Exxon Mobil. I wish they'd just come out and say that some time as well.

The Immigration hunk also came out of the Sunday Chat Shows because they just kept blah blah blahing about the Immigration Bill. Of course historically the concept of press gangs or drafting people against their will is incredibly immoral and lead to the British being able to take over the whole goddamned world. Might does, after all, make right.

The Cunnilingus promo, I know is very similar to a Fellatio joke I made a couple weeks ago but when I heard that music that says, "ling a ling a ling a ling" throughout the whole thing, I thought I had to use that for a cunnilingus bit.

Hopefully by next week, I'll have a voice enough to do some of the other things I had in mind. Meanwhile feel free to stop by Edloe Island in Second Life on Wednesday to hear and see The Black Tie Martini Club in virtual person.

The Cost of Doing Business

2007-06-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekends show:

The Presidents Council on Sexual Fitness
Sponsorship of Gay Pride Parades
Many Special Announcements
Childhood memories desecrated

I have a proposition for the FCC, either define once and for all what counts as news or stop requiring broadcast stations to broadcast news in the public interest. As it stands now, the FCC is essentially mandating a daily Paris Hilton update.

For those of you who aren't up on the history of the FCC, the reason every station broadcasts news is that they have to. They've never made money broadcasting news, it's never drawn as many people as entertainment but they used to look at it as the price of doing business.

They get to use the public airwaves, that's airwaves that technically, you and I own, in a way that basically lets them print money. They're allowed to use it because we let them. We figured they're willing to buy transmitters and we want to see Jack Benny so let's allow them to use our airwaves but the FCC mandates that because they make money off of our airwaves, broadcasters should be required to contribute to the public interest by keeping us updated on what is happening.

There was a time when it was simply accepted as the cost of doing business and even though they didn't make money with news, networks found they could win awards and enhance the value of their corporate brand by having beloved newscasters and good journalism. Think of the kind of reporting that was done by Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite and then compare that to today's top "journalists" Chris Hanson from 'To Catch a Predator"? The Daily Show?

Over time broadcast companies and stations got cocky. They figured since they're making so much money and since TV is so ensconced in American life, they shouldn't have to pay the price of doing business anymore. They started cutting news budgets, stopped investing in news bureaus and started trying to make the news more like entertainment.

Now, the news is virtually nothing but entertainment anyway. We should either tighten the restrictions on what should count as news or let them use that time to do real entertainment. I feel like I can almost guarantee that once they don't have to even pretend to cover news, we'll hear a whole lot less about the Paris Hiltons or Anna Nicole Smiths of this world and maybe the remaining news sources can go back to reporting on the news.

By the way, this new thing of not wanting to pay the cost of doing business, is running rampant through our society. Every corporation these days wants a handout. It used to be that health insurance and retirement benefits were seen as a cost of doing business. No one would work without those things.

I guess we the people, have just lowered our standards to the point past which we feel we can raise them again. Ah well, democracy is as good as the people taking part, eh?

Gone on Vacation

2007-06-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This weekends show will probably be posted by the time you read this blog. Because I'm leaving town here in a couple of hours, I asked the great and powerful Laurence Simon of 100 Word Stories Podcast fame to fill in for me and he has done so admirably. Coming up on this weekend's show:

Happy Days
Abortion
Microwaving Babies
Tech Support
Much Much More

So come on along for an exciting time that is also, full of crap.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

2007-06-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry about their not being a show this week. It has been a week of massive upheaval and personal stress. Not only was this a short week because of the holiday but I moved offices this week and it took two whole days as opposed to the normal 15 minutes it normally takes to pick your shit up and walk down the hall. I'm also having something of an anxiety attack about going out of town next weekend (but that's not really any of your business) and then on top of all that, there's this whole Second Life thing.

Laurence from www.podcasting.isfullofcrap.com and the whole isfullofcrap.com empire bought himself an island this weekend in Second Life. It's called Edloe Island, and if you search for edloe you'll find your way there. In the middle of the island there is a giant clocktower and in the middle of the giant clocktower there is a Black Tie Martini Club. That's right you can go there and drink, dance and be merry without me even being there. It took a lot of time to get set up which is why I haven't done as much work on the show as I normally would have.

What does it look like? Well here's a picture of the main ballroom.

And then here's a picture of the funky lounge area above it.

There will be a grand opening type celebration probably in ten days to two weeks. It will be delayed because of my vacation that I'd rather not talk about.

So again, I'm really sorry not to have done a show this week and then next week, the aforementioned Laurence Simon will be guest hosting the Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast for me. So be kind.

The Black Tie Martini Club is Opening Soon!

2007-05-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest folks. As of 1:30 AM Friday morning, I have no clue what is going to be on this weekend's show.

You see, I've been completely distracted during the day by moving offices and at night by Second Life.

But coming very soon in Second Life will be a live (virtual) Black Tie Martini Club. Complete with music and martinis and all the things that make Second Life worth living.

I guess I'll be talking a bit about that on this weekend's show. And probably I'll brainstorm something else... Let's hope so, huh?

The Good The Bad and The Ugly (though not necessarily in that order) - recap

2007-05-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

The idea for the How To Talk To Your Kids About Satan, came from... I don't remember what set me off but it started as My First Meth Lab. Like one of those playsets for toddlers where they can pretend to be grown up. I tried out a variety of things that would be just too horrible for little kids to do and switched it to a self help pamphlet.

The Squirrel Song, I'm sorry that the drums and Chris Walken are so bad on that. Unfortunately that is the only version I have left. That was originally mixed down on a 4-track cassette recorder and put out on my Tape, The Worlds Best Fictional Bands. I think that song was by Serge and Sam.

It's actually, the same chord structure as "Learning The Blues" a Frank Sinatra song. I was trying to show my friend Andrei how to play it and he kept getting the timing wrong and starting singing about squirrels. I helped finish the lyrics and arrange it so people wouldn't immediately go, "Isn't that a Sinatra song?" Even though it's not a high quality recording, it still is one of my favorites. I absolutely can't sing that high anymore.

Great Moments in the History of Royalty is based on a true fact about Hank 8. It's one of those weird bits of history that has always freaked me out. For the record, he was also the king who associated stank with disease and really encouraged cleanliness in a way that was seen as downright weird by Britain's finest.

How To Talk To Your Kids About Religion. turns out, it's actually about Alcohol. It just struck me that most of their arguments would fit just as well about religion and it's effects. Except for replacing the one term with the other, it's all straight from the Govt.

Honestly, I'm fascinated by the FCIC and it's many many pamphlets and brochures. They have one booklet for immigrants that should be given to every person at 18 just in case. Most of the advice in there is really obvious but its all stuff that will bite you in the ass if you don't know it.

The News. I don't know why but I was in a big tongue twister mode this week. Still, you have to admit, not enough people write new tongue twisters.

The New Covenant This all started from George Carlin's bit about why do people pray on the Sabbath when it's supposed to be God's day off? This also came from an Idea I had back in the days when Rudy Roy Moore was pimping the 10 Commandments in the Alabama Courthouse. The notion to merge those two things... just sort of happened. Still, I think we could all live by those rules pretty well.

America's Favorite Non-Threatening Black Entertainers

2007-05-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

Nazi's, Rap and Gymnastics
How to talk to your kids about...
Great Moments in The History of Royalty
A Bible Lesson
much much more?

There's a bit that won't be in this weekend's show that is bugging the hell out of me. I had this idea that it would be really funny to have Wayne Brady and David Alan Grier, who are both immensely talented singers, comedians, and actors and have reputations as manic improvisers; starring in a very serious drama. I was thinking of something from theatre, a classic, maybe Glengarry Glen Ross, Master Harold and the Boys, No Exit, something of that ilk that requires great strength and seriousness. The obvious catch would be that they would approach this work like they're other work and riff comedically and sing through it. It would be beautifully inappropriate and might even touch on the concept that America's most beloved non-threatening Black Men are fine, so long as they are playing the clown.

But there were two obvious catches to this concept. The first is that I don't have copies of any of these great plays on me and probably couldn't get one for free in time. The second is that I don't do an impersonation of either of those two men that is even close to passable.

That said, if you know either of them, or both of them, I'd very much like to get them to completely fuck up some serious drama together. I think that would be brilliant theatre and art on many levels and entertaining to boot.

Celebrate (recap)

2007-05-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, the whole thing starts with a dog. A friend of mine, the same friend discussed in last night's program and last week's program about intolerance, had a dog with a tumor. The tumor turned out to be cancerous and was surgically removed. At the time, about a week ago, she was told that the dog would probably have six months to a year before things got too bad and the dog had to be put to sleep. So she resigned herself to make the dog's time as good as possible.

Then a couple of weeks ago, the tumor came back. It came back fast and large. So it was eventually decided on that it would be more humane to give the dog a very short and good life than a slightly longer one full of pain, drugs and immobility.

This all hit me very hard. Not only because of her pain but because it seemed incredibly unfair. I know cancer never seems exactly fair but on an older person, they've usually engaged in some kind of risky behavior to make it seem less absurd. Even in an older dog, you could kind of understand it. But this was a young and otherwise very healthy dog. A dog with big sad brown eyes. The fact that you can't explain cancer to a dog also makes the whole thing extra hard to deal with. At least for me.

Anyway, because of all this sorrow. I was thinking about this particular friend a fair amount and also I was generally out of sorts about life. So I thought I would try to combat my own sorrow and discomfort with a celebration.

This same friend, who was on my mind, saved my life a couple years ago now after not really being in contact for some time. But back around the time when we first met, many years ago, she once gave me just about the most romantic sort of moment. It was a spur of the moment thing but in a mutual friend's house in Indiana, she read I Sing The Body Electric to me while petting my hair as I rested my head in her lap.

I thought I would try to re-create that for you all. Admittedly, my version isn't nearly as sexy but I'm not nearly as sexy an individual. Also, she wasn't trying to fit any of it to music. Looking back on it, I should've recorded each chapter individually and fit the music to it afterward but the notion came to me as I was listening to Chicken and Biscuits and I wanted to recreate the moment of the first idea as faithfully as possible. Perhaps it would've been better to forego that immediacy for a more polished approach but my instinct is always that a flawed spontaneous moment is more interesting than a perfect planned one. If you have opinions on this, I'd love to hear them, as always.

Anyway, she's gotten another dog now. It seems a little soon but it is a helpful distraction for her and the other dog in the house so perhaps all is well that ends well.

Don't worry, next weekend we'll be back with more inappropriate humor and barbed attacks at the current state of politics.