BONUS Good Morning, Geniuses! - The Story of Morning Sedition
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:It's six past the hour here on Air America Radio, and this is Morning Sedition.
Guest:Mark, it is 2022.
Guest:That means it's about 18 years since a little 18 years plus since we first started working together on a radio show called Morning Sedition.
Guest:Do you remember that?
Marc:Is it true?
Marc:18 years?
Marc:More than 18 years?
Marc:That's crazy, huh?
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:So I remember most of it.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I remember going to the old building.
Marc:I remember the new building.
Marc:Like I remember walking in.
Marc:I remember all of it, man.
Marc:You know, I remember the driver of my car, the smelly car.
Marc:And he, you know, I just couldn't stand getting into that car every day because it was a weird hour.
Marc:He was a weird guy.
Marc:It smelled funny.
Marc:He always wanted to talk.
Marc:And I'd make him stop at that Dunkin' Donuts so I could get like two giant cups of coffee.
Marc:I had M&Ms going.
Marc:It was...
Marc:I remember bits and pieces, but a lot of it happened in what seems like waking consciousness because I think it did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, what was your life like right before you started doing that show?
Guest:Were you just, you know, I know you and Mishnah had just gotten married.
Marc:I remember I would have to call her when I got to work.
Marc:Like it'd be 12 at night in L.A.
Marc:and I would check in with her when I got up and got to the office at 3, 3.30.
Marc:It was a nightmare.
Marc:So what was going on was...
Marc:Obviously, I saw no choice but to take this job on a lefty radio station doing radio.
Marc:I'd never done it before.
Marc:I got kind of pulled in by Liz Winstead and Garofalo.
Marc:And I guess my career was not going great.
Marc:Because I took a fucking radio job.
Guest:Did you see it that way?
Guest:You saw it like taking a radio job was a step down and you weren't thrilled about it?
Marc:Well, I did.
Marc:But I mean, I was convinced that, you know, this was a massive, important undertaking.
Marc:And the idea was to, you know, stifle W.
Marc:So I wanted to be part of that.
Marc:And I think Janine convinced me that this would be part of that.
Marc:And then, you know, Winstead did too.
Marc:But, you know, the money was fucking crazy, dude.
Guest:Yeah, for a thing that crumbled, they paid stupid money up front.
Guest:At least for you guys.
Marc:I've never made that much money.
Marc:Never made that much money.
Marc:So it was impossible to turn it down.
Marc:But I didn't get it.
Marc:You know, it wasn't like it was just offered to me.
Marc:I had to go meet with people.
Marc:I had to sit there with Shelly.
Guest:Shelly Lewis, who was a former CNN executive.
Yeah.
Marc:And Larson.
Marc:I don't remember.
Guest:Jonathan Larson.
Guest:Jonathan Larson.
Guest:He wound up being our original senior producer.
Marc:But I just remember sitting there and them talking to me, and I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I think I can do it.
Marc:I think I can.
Marc:Yeah, I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Marc:What do you want from me?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Because the whole thing was constructed like a TV station, and it just didn't make sense to me.
Marc:Liz Winstead had a tank of writers up there generating stuff that I don't even think they used.
Marc:To get started with this thing.
Marc:But yeah, I remember being offered the job.
Marc:Then I remember then sitting in a room with Larson and Mark Reilly, because Mark Reilly was in.
Marc:When they interviewed me for the job, I was sitting there with Mark Reilly in his fedora.
Marc:And...
Marc:So it was going to be me and him and then Shelly was like in this Sue Ellicott.
Marc:And so I remember sitting with Larson in a room with Riley with one of those dumb Larson scripts where minute by minute there was stuff written to try to riff with Riley.
Marc:And eventually I was like, this is dumb.
Marc:What are we doing?
Marc:And Larson was, okay, well, this isn't going to work in terms of how I'm doing this.
Marc:Yes, that's true.
Marc:And then I had to meet...
Marc:With Ellicott, we went out to eat or had coffee just so I could get a vibe on her or feel what she was like.
Marc:And that was a little uncomfortable.
Marc:And then I don't really remember converging on it.
Marc:I remember showing up at work that first week and Dan Pashman with the giant packets.
Marc:You know, gives me a packet, and I go into the room where I have a computer, and I freak the fuck out.
Guest:Well, did you know you were going to be doing a morning show from the get-go, or you just were told it's a radio show?
Guest:Did you know it was going to be in the mornings?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, I think I knew it was a morning show.
Marc:You didn't.
Marc:Well, I mean, but you were hired on as like, you know, we got a lot going on.
Marc:We need producers.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, we're going to see where we put you, that kind of thing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's totally what it was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I came over with Joanne Allen, who was one of the news readers.
Guest:I had been working with her at WNYC in New York, and she told me, hey, this thing, it's getting funded by, you know, some good VC people, literally.
Guest:Little did we know that guy wound up being a total scam artist and a crook.
Guest:Go figure.
Guest:We bros are such suckers.
Guest:Oh, man, totally.
Guest:And and so, yeah, I went over, but I had no I thought I didn't know if I was going to be working on Al Franken's show.
Guest:I didn't know if I was going to be working on Janine Garofalo's show.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:They were just like, we will hire you as a producer.
Guest:And I kind of, like, I knew, like, I'm going to get the short straw here.
Guest:Like, I'm low man on the totem pole when I looked around and saw, like, the other people who were getting hired.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm going to get the morning show.
Guest:I know it.
Guest:Which I was dreading.
Guest:I did not want to work a morning show.
Marc:I guess I knew it was going to do the morning show, but I kind of saw it as some sort of opportunity.
Marc:But I had no idea.
Marc:Remember, I showed up with my politics for dummies or democracy for dummies book.
Marc:And I was trying to get up to speed and all that information.
Marc:I didn't I don't think I really knew how much news we would have to do.
Marc:And I'm not sure I really knew anything, but I was just willing to try it because of the money and because of the agenda.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Were you told from the get-go to expect yourself to be kind of on an equal footing of one-third of this morning show?
Guest:Or was it specifically said to you that you'd be in a sidekick role?
Guest:What do you remember?
Marc:Well, I feel like that was it, that I was going to be the comedian.
Marc:And I knew from seeing other comics...
Marc:who had done radio where that leaves you, that, you know, I would be there to lighten things up, you know, after Sue and Mark broke shit down.
Marc:And I was not thrilled about that.
Marc:But I mean, again, the money and my lack of work on the page in terms of comedy and stuff, I just had no choice.
Marc:I mean, that was the deal that I thought we were going to get in there and I would be the sidekick or whatever.
Marc:And I can't.
Marc:I don't really remember day one that much.
Marc:I remember going to that building and realizing that this was, we have taken over a black station.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it was awkward and weird from the get-go.
Marc:The woman, you know, like walking, just walking into the building.
Marc:And then Riley, my co-host, and Wayne.
Yes.
Marc:What's his last name?
Marc:Wayne Gilman.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wayne Gilman had worked there forever.
Marc:It was just awkward and weird from the beginning.
Marc:And it was all about Franken.
Marc:You know, everything was all about Franken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In a weird way, we were almost just kind of like left to like the morning drive day part is like the most important part of a radio station.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You need to stabilize your mornings.
Guest:And then that drives everything else.
Guest:And they were just like, yeah, you guys go do a morning show.
Guest:See what you can do.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:And I think that only wound up benefiting us in the long run because we were able to just kind of operate under the radar of executives, of anybody with any kind of oversight.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:But it became sort of this obsessive, on my part anyways, to know if anyone was listening.
Marc:I mean...
Marc:It was great to have the freedom.
Marc:It was crazy what we were doing.
Marc:I mean, initially, Larson had broken it down by the minute, which didn't work out immediately.
Guest:That was like his TV brain.
Guest:Jonathan had come from CNN, along with Shelley Lewis, who was one of the executives.
Guest:And he was producing basically what he wound up doing, working for Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.
Guest:Like he was trying to do that on the radio.
Guest:It was just like very tightly scripted and like almost like a minute by minute rundown.
Guest:Initially, he...
Guest:he became flexible with it but i remember like starting to work for him for for the show uh as a associate producer along with dan pashman who was also one and we were just like tasked with building all this like supporting material so that we could have briefing books like anytime you guys brought up a subject we'd supposed we were supposed to go in with these briefing books that we packed with research and you know it was just like supposed to be this like airtight ship and what we all had to learn like on the fly
Guest:is the most fundamental rule of like doing live radio, which is it's all improv.
Guest:Like you're riding a wave.
Guest:You're supposed to be like coasting along and finding out what works at any given moment and using collars to tip you off to something else and take you in a different direction.
Guest:We had to learn all that from the ground floor.
Marc:It wasn't fun at the beginning.
Marc:No.
Marc:And I remember there were breakdowns, like we had to cover certain stuff and then Riley would read stuff and then Sue at the beginning would kind of, you know, kind of like in a very convoluted, long-winded way, comment on stuff and I'd sit there impatiently.
Marc:It was a fucking nightmare.
Guest:I remember I'd be sitting in the booth with Jonathan Larson and...
Guest:He'd be going... Sue would be asking... Her thing was supposed to be... I should set this up for people.
Guest:Sue Ellicott was ostensibly supposed to be the journalist of the three of you.
Guest:Mark Reilly was just a kind of long-time radio host.
Guest:You were the comedian.
Guest:Sue had some work done at the BBC, but not a huge body of work.
Guest:That was the other thing that started to become clear to us.
Guest:Like, oh no, this is not really her forte.
Guest:Like...
Guest:She was supposed to be the one doing interviews and like basically being the five W's person on any given story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we'd be sitting in the booth there and there'd be a guest and she'd start like asking these long winded circuitous questions.
Guest:And Larson would just be sitting next to me going, and, or, or, and, and, or.
Guest:because they never ended just continue but but i think that also was the kind of you know we need it we needed to see how it wasn't going to work and then i think in particular there was this moment where uh you were riffing on something about ted nugent and you asked her if she knew what who the nuge was
Guest:Who really are the Nuge fans?
Guest:Oh, me.
Guest:I was huge.
Marc:You were a huge Nuge fan?
Guest:No, of course I wasn't.
Guest:Get out of here.
Marc:I had friends in high school.
Guest:I don't even know who he is.
Marc:Ted Nugent.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Ted Nugent.
Guest:I know the name, but I don't know who he is.
Guest:You don't know who Ted Nugent is?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:How can you not know who the Nuge is?
Guest:Doesn't he have like an armory full of guns in his house or something?
Marc:Well, now he does.
Marc:You know, he was a guy.
Marc:His classic was really Wang Dang Sweet Poontang Sue.
Oh, God.
Guest:That sounds like something on a menu.
Guest:I think I've eaten that with rice.
Guest:You have?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:All right, I'm going to leave that there.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:I don't think it really recovered after that.
Guest:I think that was the end of your on-air relationship with Sue.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All that stuff was, and I remember the breakdowns.
Marc:At some point, we realized that there were all these writers hanging around.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, so that was what you alluded to at the beginning, saying Liz Winstead had kind of amassed this writing crew.
Guest:And just like I was saying, we had built these like briefing books.
Guest:So like, you know, picture this thing.
Guest:This is like a brand new launch of a radio network, not a radio show.
Guest:They were going to launch...
Guest:Six separate shows across an entire day part and sell them all like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And which is weird.
Guest:It's not how you're supposed to do this.
Guest:If you want to launch a network like you, you know, you can provide shows for other affiliates to take.
Guest:But they were like, no, no, no.
Guest:We're programming from 6 a.m.
Guest:to midnight.
Guest:And you got it.
Guest:That's the network.
Guest:And so one of the things they did was hire like a bunch of writers who were supposed to write films.
Guest:For the network.
Guest:And it was like, they made all these comedy bits that were never used, like pre-produced comedy that just kind of sat in a file.
Guest:And then those guys were just in a room, like supposed to be like writing jokes, but there was no infrastructure for them.
Guest:for them to write on the actual shows.
Guest:Like the shows existed in their own little universes.
Guest:And he had these like world-class writers.
Guest:Most of these were guys from The Daily Show that Liz had known from working there, but other areas of comedy.
Guest:And they were really funny and no one was using them.
Guest:And it was like, we noticed the marketing efficiency there.
Guest:We were like, well, how about those guys come right for us?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then one of them would be assigned every week.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They'd all write for us during the day if they could.
Guest:But we had a guy in there stationed with us live during the show.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he'd show up before all tired.
Marc:Like it was Kent Jones, Jim Earl, Tom Johnson were the primaries.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Then those were the primary ones who would come and work, you know, rotate in working on our show.
Guest:Then later we added Barry Lank, Bruce Cherry, Mike Ferrucci to that mix.
Marc:Ferrucci, like he didn't like he was around a bit, but I remember Bruce a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Barry a bit.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:These were all guys who would, they would stake a claim on the show and, you know, write a particular style of comedy.
Guest:Most of them were like character bits, like Jim and Kent and Tom especially were, you know, writing a lot of character bits.
Guest:Barry was doing those radio theater scripts for us where we would do kind of like, you know, old timey radio show stuff.
Guest:Once we realized that the utilization of comedy on the show was going to, like, this is the funny thing.
Guest:We're sitting there working with you, a comedian, a guy who can deliver jokes, who can work with material that people write for them.
Guest:And we were like, you know, barely using you because we had this three headed monster of a show.
Guest:And we knew like we could get this guy working here.
Guest:This has to be something different.
Marc:I remember I'm good at... Like, yeah, I love doing that stuff.
Marc:I'm a good straight man for that shit.
Marc:And really, I can do characters to a degree, but I mean, really, my job in those situations was to be a straight man.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I mean, it wasn't until...
Marc:Until we got rid of Sue, did it really kind of unfold?
Guest:Yeah, and I don't really even remember a point in which it happened where it was like, Sue's gone.
Guest:I do.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah, because I was complaining about her from the get-go.
Marc:to Shelly Lewis.
Marc:It was impossible.
Marc:It was just impossible to deal with the long-windedness.
Marc:It was impossible to get a chemistry going.
Marc:What was I even doing there?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:What was the point of it?
Marc:What are we doing?
Marc:Why am I there?
Marc:I'm not doing anything.
Marc:I was frustrated, and I was just furious about her...
Marc:It just felt like a like a long winded buzzkill.
Marc:Like, look, you know, she's fine.
Marc:But I was you know, we were getting up and busting our balls at at three in the morning and everybody's working.
Marc:But it was just like the thing was a bore.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was driving me nuts.
Marc:It was a morning show.
Marc:And then she had to go home for some reason.
Marc:She went on vacation or went to England or whatever.
Marc:And it was just me and Riley.
Marc:And I was very clear on like, this is our shot at making this thing like hilarious.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was in the moment, too.
Guest:It was very clearly marketable.
Guest:It's like two guys, Mark and Mark.
Guest:One is like the crazy man.
Guest:One is like the the total like, you know, buttoned up normal guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And your sensibilities were totally opposite of each other.
Guest:But you guys had a good chemistry together.
Guest:And and then, you know, in terms of doing of handling all the funny stuff that would just drive directly through you and anything with any kind of, you know, semblance of seriousness like that, Riley could handle.
Guest:And, you know, that it was off to the races once we had that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And once I started to get that, you know, clubhouse environment going where everyone became a character in the show, which I'm not sure, you know, where I learned that.
Marc:But I imagine it's from doing morning radio that, you know, once, you know, Chris, well, Presto, the the the board up became K-Lo, you know, and and then, you know, you became P.W.
Marc:McDonald's.
Marc:Dan Pashman was Dan Pashman's son of Richard.
Marc:Was it Lewis and Linda Pashman?
Marc:You know, there was just these, you know, you know, I created a kind of riff that I kind of do still at the beginning of the show.
Marc:You know, like I do the what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies.
Marc:But it was a long list of people like we started to build it around a sort of comedy zone of atmosphere.
Marc:You know, and everybody was integrated.
Marc:And then we had the writers playing characters.
Marc:But they also wrote for Gelman.
Marc:They wrote for Riley.
Marc:You know, it became an ensemble thing.
Marc:And, you know, it was a boys club.
Marc:You know, what are you going to do?
Guest:Well, yeah, listening back to a lot of this stuff, I really, like, feel like it was pretty heinous that we, you know, we just fully adopted the fact that it was all men working on the show.
Guest:And we had no change to that.
Guest:But, like, that was...
Guest:To quote your current act, it was a different time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was.
Marc:I mean, and, you know, it's not like I don't have, you know, regrets in a way.
Marc:Not too many.
Guest:I mean, but I just thought that... It's also not like we were hiring.
Guest:Like, we weren't bringing any new people into the fold.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it's sort of... But also, you know, we were in, like, a dungeon.
Marc:It was a basement of the goddamn network in a way.
Marc:It was just... You know...
Marc:We'd get done with our show, and people were just getting to work.
Marc:Like, we were barely part of the whole thing over there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was a separate thing, and it was annoying because I became obsessed with, like, who's listening to this?
Marc:What networks are we on?
Marc:Who are we up against?
Marc:And then that weird war between me and Stephanie Miller eventually unfolded, and I was hyper, like, aware of, like, which stations where carried us, and it just became...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It was very taxing.
Marc:But ultimately, the bits made it fun.
Marc:And it was such a weird zone of time to get there 3, 3.30, to be on the air by 6.
Marc:And we were writing bits and recording bits with sound effects, like big pieces.
Guest:Production pieces, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, like at 5.30, 5.45 in the morning.
Guest:Yeah, and the interesting thing to me is that we were folding these things into the show in a very almost traditional morning zoo style broadcast.
Guest:But at the same time, it was, you know...
Guest:laser focused on addressing the political news from the day uh from a a left of center perspective and it integrated those two things phenomenally well like it's just funny that we could have bits about like you know like the like a standard type of like prank caller bit on on uh morning radio but it was you calling the fbi and the cia that was crazy
Guest:Public Affairs.
Marc:Yeah, hi.
Marc:Is this the CIA?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Oh, hi.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:I'm calling from Air America.
Marc:I just wanted to make sure that you guys knew that there was a group, an anti-American group, meeting at the Washington Marriott tomorrow.
Marc:Are you familiar with the JCCR?
Guest:You don't need to call us, sir.
Guest:You should call the FBI.
Guest:They're the ones that deal with domestic issues.
Marc:The FBI?
Marc:Do you have a number?
Guest:No, I do not have, but they have an Office of Public Affairs.
Marc:You don't have a number for the FBI?
Guest:No, I do not have a number for the FBI.
Marc:This is CIA, right?
Guest:Correct.
Marc:Oh, I thought you guys were communicating better now.
Guest:You just need to dial the Office of Public Affairs.
Guest:I don't have the number in front of me.
Marc:That's weird.
Marc:Okay, thanks.
Marc:Thanks a lot.
Marc:I forgot about all these characters, too, like the obsession, the delay obsession.
Marc:Tom Bray, yeah.
Marc:And what was the other guy, the lobbyist that was always, you know... Jack Abramoff?
Marc:Jack Abramoff, the Karl Rove obsession.
Marc:I mean, it was just like day in and day out, these narratives.
Marc:And also, like, we were so in the loop with, like, what was going on in Iraq.
Marc:And then we had that terror timeline guy.
Marc:It was...
Marc:Jeez, man.
Guest:Yeah, we were really... I mean, when we hear from people who remember the show, they always tell us not just that they remember the comedy and everything, but they're like, oh, I relied on that show for news every day.
Guest:That was the show.
Marc:We pulled it off, man.
Marc:And it was a lot, dude, to you guys framing the news properly and then Riley delivering it and me trying not to undermine everything.
Guest:Well, that was the other thing, too, about inventing these characters...
Guest:through comedy bits was, you know, how do we have refillable comedy where you could put this news from the Bush administration and, and their policies and, and regularly refill it in a funny way.
Guest:So that was where all those Jim Earl characters came from, like the, you know, the war on brains so that anytime there was a story about something, you know, particularly insulting in a propagandistic way from the Bush administration, we could put it
Guest:on this character who was, you know, reporting from the front lines of the war on brains.
Guest:What?
Guest:The information in these files will enable the government to ruthlessly study and select our children for sleazy exploitation faster than a micro camera hidden in one of Michael Jackson's llamas.
Guest:Soon, heartless recruiters will be roaming our neighborhoods like salesmen, searching for victims, and armed with so much sensitive personal information, it'll make the Scientologists look like Amway.
Guest:Recruiters?
Guest:Door-to-door recruiters?
Guest:That's right, Mark.
Guest:Ever meet a fellow by the name of Rumsfeld?
Guest:What's the fellow's line?
Guest:Never worries about his line.
Marc:Never worries about his line?
Guest:Or a doggone thing.
Guest:He's just a bang, beat, bell-a-ringing, big-haul, great-go-neck-or-nothing, rip-roaring every time a bullseye salesman.
Guest:That's Secretary Rumsfeld.
Guest:Rumsfeld.
Guest:Rumsfeld.
Guest:He's an army man.
Guest:He's a what?
Guest:He's a what?
Guest:And he sells war to the kids in town with the big brass bombs and the rat-a-tat guns and the piccolo, the piccolo with uniforms, too, with the shiny gold braid on the coat with the big red stripe running down.
Guest:But he doesn't know the territory.
Guest:Or doggone things.
Guest:It's a bang, beat, bell ringing, big hall, great go, necker, nothing, rip-roaring every time a bullseye.
Guest:Salesman, that secretary runs failed, rumps failed, rubs failed.
Guest:He's an army man.
Guest:He doesn't know the territory.
Guest:You can talk, you can talk, you can bicker, you can bicker, bicker, bicker.
Guest:You can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, bicker, bicker, bicker, bicker.
Guest:You can talk all you wanna, wanna.
Guest:All right, all right, Mort, I'm through with this now.
Guest:Look, what do you talk?
Guest:What do you talk?
Guest:What do you talk?
Guest:You can talk.
Guest:You can bicker.
Guest:You can talk.
Guest:You can talk.
Guest:Mort, shut up.
Guest:Shut up.
Guest:Just shut up already.
Guest:Mark, Rami's failed attempt at running a war doesn't give him the right to decimate the next generation of bad poets and philosophy majors any more than your failed career in musical theater gives you the right to yell at me for being this sensitive artist.
Guest:Remember that the next time Marky Jr.
Guest:comes back from the home ec class and tells you you hate his freedom.
Guest:And that's today's dispatch from The War on Brains.
Guest:That was very good.
Guest:Yeah, did yourself today.
Guest:Ship poopy, ship poopy.
Guest:The girl was hard to get.
Guest:I haven't slept.
Guest:You haven't slept?
Guest:What were you up doing?
Guest:Writing this crap.
Guest:Searching all over the internet for the music man.
Guest:What do you think I'm doing?
Guest:We also had the Rapture Watch, which was, you know, the Christian fundamentalist.
Marc:I was so on the pulse of that Christian thing, too.
Marc:We talked to all those writers.
Marc:I mean, geez, man.
Marc:You know, and all of that stuff has evolved.
Marc:It was all the foundation of the shit show we're in now, that's for sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah, definitely.
Guest:But I also did like that, you know, when we wanted to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:we could just do comedy for the sake of comedy or just like hanging out.
Guest:And the audience, once we got their trust in establishing that this was a show that, you know, you had people running it who knew what they were doing or at least presented like we knew what we were doing, they would hang out.
Guest:Like people were okay with hanging out, which is really kind of a genesis for the podcast was knowing, you know, build a relationship with people and they will come to hang.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because we used to do those live shows around New York at restaurants.
Marc:Like we'd have to go get set up at City Bakery or Florent or O'Neill's and like get everything together and like get the live thing, the Strand bookstore.
Marc:I got to sit there with a nervous Eric Boghossian watching Kent do that character.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, Lawton Smalls?
Marc:Yeah, and Boghossian's wringing his hands like, I can't follow that.
Marc:I'm like, come on, dude.
Marc:It's radio.
Marc:We're at the Strand Bookstore.
Marc:It's 6.30 in the morning.
Guest:Yeah, people are just thrilled to see your face.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:That was the first time we really started mining the depths of your dad for comedy.
Guest:Oh, the movie reviews?
Guest:Call him for Dr. Marin's movie reviews.
Guest:Hotel Rwanda.
Guest:It's a real shoot-em-up.
Guest:that was a great one he uh he he didn't know that if i actually don't know at what point he ever figured it out if i don't know that he did i don't think he i don't think he did you would call and say uh i would like uh you to tell me about some movies that you've seen and he would just go and we would we would present it as like the morning entertainment report with dr mara
Marc:Hello.
Marc:Hey, Dad, what are you doing?
Marc:Are you sleeping?
Guest:I was hanging out in bed.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:It's time to get up.
Marc:You want to talk about movies?
Guest:We've only seen a couple.
Marc:But what about the Oscars?
Marc:Have you seen all the Oscar movies?
Guest:We saw Million Dollar Baby and I saw Sideways for the second time.
Marc:Yeah, did you like it the second time?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What did you think of that?
Marc:You think that deserves like the best writing?
Guest:That's a hard call, you know.
Guest:I don't know what their criteria are, what they're looking for.
Guest:You never do, but, you know, it's the politics, it's the whatever.
Guest:I guess is his name.
Marc:Jamati?
Marc:Paul Jamati?
Guest:Paul Jamati, yeah.
Guest:He sort of held the picture.
Guest:He was a great sort of constant straight man in the picture.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:We're pretty selfish guys ourselves.
Marc:It's something we could identify with, I think.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:Hotel Rwanda and The Woodsman were also good.
Marc:Oh, you saw Hotel Rwanda?
Guest:Yeah, it was excellent.
Marc:You think Cheadle deserves the best actor?
Guest:Well, I think he comes close.
Guest:I think he's American.
Guest:He portrayed the Rwandan national perfect as far as accent goes.
Marc:And the other people that are up are Clint Eastwood and Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Johnny Depp.
Marc:Do you think Cheadle's got it over those other guys?
Guest:You got a lot of emotional background in the Eastwood saga from day one.
Guest:He's just sort of been there and done so much.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you can't deny personal input from the judges as to who they're going to take.
Marc:Did you see Kinsey?
Guest:Sure, Kinsey.
Marc:She's up for the best supporting.
Guest:That would be a surprise to me.
Guest:She gets that.
Marc:How about Sophie Oconito in Hotel Rwanda?
Marc:Was she good?
Guest:Yeah, she was good.
Guest:Maybe she was good.
Guest:That's a heavy picture.
Guest:You've got to see that picture.
Marc:I've been wanting to see it.
Marc:I haven't gone to see it yet.
Marc:I know it looks pretty heavy.
Marc:I read about the Rwandan genocide, and just reading about it was devastating.
Guest:Yeah, but this really gets you right in there, almost like Schindler's List, only with more action.
Guest:It's a real shoot-em-up story.
Guest:happening in rwanda you know it's very very very disappointing that those things are still going on it's just cuckoo all right so i'm going to see you in a few weeks yeah i'll be there we got a whole bunch of green chili but i don't know how it's going to stay frozen we got little packets that uh rosie wants to bring you don't you don't go crazy yeah i know all right dad i love you i'll talk to you later thanks for calling i love you bye
Guest:You remember also you had to read the dream diaries every morning?
Marc:That was so wild to do those because we were, you know, I was just pulling, you know, at the beginning, the way that started is that I had a resource in some sort of dream symbolism thing.
Marc:And people would call in, I think.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then it just became too taxing to sort of like, you know, pretend like I was just riffing it because I was just pulling symbolism and mashing it up.
Marc:And then I think eventually Kent started writing them, right?
Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would write them again.
Guest:It would be like, how do you refill things that are in the news and integrate that into something comedically?
Guest:And it would be, you know, we would do, we would hit it at the same time every day.
Guest:That was another thing we learned, like hit things on the clock at similar times every day so that people can rely on them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now I'm going to give you my dream from last night.
Marc:Uh-oh.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:I'm the newest member of U2.
Marc:I play the kazoo.
Marc:So clearly, they're going in a new direction musically.
Marc:So I'm sitting around with Bono and the Edge and Larry and the skinny bass player with the granny glasses, and we're talking about songs to the new album.
Marc:And Bono says, I've got some songs about AIDS in Africa and third world debt and reduction in Jesus.
Marc:Edge says...
Marc:I've sketched out four tunes about renewing our hope and discovering the decency inside each of us.
Marc:Larry says, I've laid down some demo tracks about how perseverance and courage can overcome despair.
Marc:And the skinny bass player says, I'm kicking around some material about the Montgomery bus boycott and the miracle of childbirth.
Marc:They all nod and then Bono says, So Mark, what have you got?
Marc:I clear my throat and adjust my wraparound Bono song glass and say, I've written a song called Smack the Ass.
Marc:Ha ha ha.
Marc:With two Zs.
Marc:They stroke their unshaven chins for a second and nod.
Marc:Bono says, so, is it a metaphor for American imperialism or the war in Iraq?
Marc:I say, no, Bono, it's about smacking a girl on the ass because she's got a hot ass.
Marc:And the edge says, but Mark, after you smack her ass, do you feel the emptiness of the material world and embrace the spiritual essence?
Marc:I say, no, Edge, after I smack her ass, we get all nasty and freaky.
Marc:And then Larry says, so the song's really slow and mournful, right?
Marc:It's an ironic commentary on the difficulty people have connecting on anything more than a superficial level.
Marc:I say, no, Larry, I thought we'd all do it like with, you know, full blast with lots of sirens and moaning effects and a solo for me on the kazoo, maybe.
Marc:And then the skinny bass player says, so it's a mindless party song for teenagers to get drunk and have unprotected sex to.
Marc:I say, yeah, yeah, basically that's it.
Marc:They look at each other for a minute and Bono says, boys, I think we've got our first single.
Marc:I woke up and my bed was filled with an unforgettable fire.
Marc:And then all of Tom Johnson's characters used to kill me.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, he did the one that kept evolving.
Guest:He was like a guy, like an effete liberal, you know, rabble rouser.
Guest:Was that Pendejo?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He eventually wound up calling himself Pendejo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like he thought he was like adopting like a Latin revolutionary gimmick.
Guest:Invariably, he would go down the path of naming his group something and it would always be something like an acronym that was like balls or like gals.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The yelling guy, the guy from Poodle, or the Balls, I forget.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that guy.
Guest:He's on 9-1.
Guest:Okay, all right, put him through.
Guest:Hey, man, what's going on?
Guest:So how's that thing you're working on going?
Guest:You mean the Revolution?
Guest:Yeah, how's the Revolution going?
Guest:Did you guys come up with a better name yet?
Guest:I'll admit we have made some unfortunate mistakes in the naming of our group in the past.
Guest:We are no longer known as Nambla, Poodle, Gals, or Balls.
Guest:We are now called the Tactical Elite and Battle Action Group.
Guest:Okay, so you're going with teabag.
Guest:Teabag, Mark.
Guest:We will go out across the land, find the evil, slanderous conservatives where they live, and teabag them into submission.
Guest:They will fear one thing above all others.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I think this is something you're going to have to find out on your own, buddy.
Guest:But make sure you send me one of those t-shirts before you burn them, okay?
Guest:So last week, your group had a big, scary, revolutionary brunch.
Guest:How'd that go?
Guest:The turnout at our rally was disappointing to say the least.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.
Guest:It was me, my Shih Tzu Stompers, who cannot be left alone, my girlfriend, who while not actually there, as she had a shift at Crabtree and Evelyn, but assured me she would join the rally on conference call, and the Johnsons had to leave early as their toddler Ben is an albino.
Guest:Naturally, the outdoor table irritated his corneas.
Guest:But the Revolutionary Council took a vote.
Guest:You mean you and Stompers?
Guest:Yes, me and Stompers.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And we decided that what T-Bag needs more than anything is a recruiting drive.
Guest:Ah, recruiting drive.
Guest:Since it's just you and Stompers, you decided, hey, maybe some people would help kick this revolution into high gear, huh?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:So where'd you start the recruiting drive?
Guest:My apartment complex.
Guest:Chantilly by the lake.
Guest:Stompers and I took the elevator to the top floor and vowed to teabag our way to the very bottom.
Guest:So how many floors is that, man?
Guest:Four.
Guest:Now, how many apartments would you say are in the complex?
Guest:As many as 16, I think.
Guest:So how many recruits did your liberal action group make?
Guest:Well, I think the hour I chose may not have been the best.
Guest:I found that at 11.30 a.m., most of my potential recruits were at work.
Guest:Oh, so you mean all of them were at work.
Guest:No, Mark.
Guest:It might surprise you to learn I had a very successful recruiting day.
Guest:Heed the names of my new lieutenants that shall haunt the dreams of the right wing.
Guest:Rosa, the cleaning lady.
Guest:And Ethan, a seventh grader who was homesick that day but would not open the door all the way.
Guest:But even through that narrow slot, I managed to teabag him.
Guest:Well, you must be very proud of yourself, man.
Guest:Well, while the police are on their way over to you, why don't you tell me a little bit about that badass revolutionary Rosa?
Guest:Rosa, she spoke no English, but I could see in her the burning spirit of Che.
Guest:So Stompers and I, and Rosa, and Ethan, as soon as he asks his parents, will begin our assault on the neocons.
Guest:To war, Mark, to war!
Guest:Okay, so it's you and Rosa, a 12-year-old boy and a little dog.
Guest:Buddy, that's not a revolution.
Guest:That's the Wizard of Oz.
Guest:Oh, the story of teabag will not be a story for children, I can assure you.
Guest:You can say that again.
Guest:I can't take it anymore.
Guest:I can't let you do this any longer.
Guest:All right, listen, are you in front of a computer right now?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Type in the word teabag, all right, into the Google image search bar.
Guest:All right, go ahead.
Guest:I'll wait.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:T-E-A-B-A-G.
Guest:There.
Guest:Let's... Oh, go sweet road!
What have I done?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:So there you have it.
Guest:That was a guy from the revolutionary group formally known as T-Bag.
Marc:Oh, he was funny.
Marc:I wonder what that guy's up to.
Guest:But, you know, it's like funny.
Guest:The thing you mentioned, like that we would just show up in the morning and, you know, do a bit based on something that was in the news.
Guest:I remember.
Guest:i remember when the pope was getting selected this was like benedict yeah and uh and we knew we were like on the clock for that oh the pope might happen on our watch and we came in that day we just produced this thing of like oh we found we have the secret tapes of how they selected the pope
Marc:We have a new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Marc:Now, we actually, Cardinal Milfington had a friend who was actually in the Vatican, which was, of course, one of the oldest megachurches.
Marc:And he was there, and he witnessed the process by which they picked the pope and was actually able to record some of it.
Marc:And we got this mini-disc this morning, and it's pretty powerful.
Marc:And let's hear that.
Marc:Can we, Kayla?
Guest:Gentlemen, gentlemen, if I may have your attention, please.
Guest:P, as in Paul, 6.
Guest:P, 6.
Guest:Next.
Guest:O, 15.
Guest:O, you know, I like the Old Testament, 15.
Guest:O, 15.
Guest:Ah, here she comes at the next ping-pong ball, as in Ecclesiastes.
Guest:Eight.
Guest:Eight.
Guest:Hey, I got a pope here.
Guest:Everybody, I'm in a new pope.
Guest:Okay, bring over your card, Giuseppe.
Guest:Let me check your numbers.
Guest:Hey, she's looking good.
Guest:We got a new pope.
Guest:Somebody bring over the white smoke.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A lot of people didn't realize that they are forced to speak in Chico Marx-like Italian accents.
Guest:Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Italian accents in a couple of cases.
Marc:Yeah, and even the Ratzinger, who's German, they're all forced to speak like that.
Marc:Because you would think that, you know, he says, I'm the new pope.
Marc:You would think it would be more of a German, you know, whatever that, you know.
Marc:He speaks ten languages, apparently.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So this might have been one of the ten, which was, you know, Italian-American accent.
Guest:As we started to evolve these ideas of characters and bits, one thing was that, like, you know, Jim Earl, who had been the one who was doing the most on-air characters, we were like, just come up with more stuff, like whatever you could think of.
Guest:And one thing he thought of, which we at first couldn't really kind of configure into the show...
Guest:was that he would do obituaries of people that were just jokes about people who had died.
Guest:And it wasn't political.
Guest:It wasn't like, you know, in any way appropriate.
Guest:He would just find these things funny.
Guest:And we kind of figured the way to... This could work as satire.
Guest:If you're satirizing the kind of gauzy, maudlin, sentimental way that entertainment news...
Guest:does remembrances of people right right and so he became right the music and everything and he became this this this obit reader who is always crying he cried through the whole thing as he did it and would pretend it was just his allergies or that someone was chopping onions chopping onions
Guest:And in the meantime, it was just this cover for these jokes that were perfect, but about a person who had just died.
Guest:That day.
Guest:James Griffin, co-founder of the band Bread.
Guest:This week, the music world received word that James Griffin, founding member of the soft rock group Bread, is toast.
Guest:In a statement released today to hopeful fans, Griffin's manager said there was no truth to the rumor he's risen.
Guest:But I guess that news is pretty stale by now.
Guest:Got something in my eyes.
Guest:Who's chopping onions?
Guest:Never one to loaf.
Guest:Griffin helped form bread in 1968.
Guest:And after they released the hits Make It With You and Baby I'ma Want You, bread was on a roll.
Guest:Anyway you sliced it, bread was hot.
Guest:There's a cop button over there.
Guest:Bread made a lot of dough.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Is there a cat in here?
Guest:Griffin had been in good health until last week when doctors labeled his condition as crummy.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:When loved ones discovered his body, witnesses say the former lead singer of bread was crusty.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Completely riddled with fungus.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Nothing could be saved.
Guest:Not even the heels.
Guest:You bring a ficus plant here?
Guest:You know, I'm real sensitive about the pollen stuff.
Guest:One more paragraph.
Guest:Okay, buddy.
Guest:Griffin requested his body be interned at the family cemetery, sandwiched in between two graves.
Guest:Evergreens, flowering plants, very sensitive.
Guest:A lot of suspended particulates in the air this season, right, Mark?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's winter, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just watching him do it.
Marc:That was also the fun of doing the show.
Marc:It was so crazy.
Marc:Just making that stuff happen in the studio.
Marc:Jim and I, I loved setting him up.
Marc:It's sad that he hates our guts.
Guest:Yeah, Jim hates our guts, mostly stemming from, well, I don't want to...
Guest:speak for him he can say why he doesn't like us but he he and you hosted the show when you moved out back out to LA and I think he had some lingering animosity from you calling him a cunt in a parking garage while you guys were doing that show which I absolutely thought had completely smoothed over because you worked together for a whole nother year after that but he still seemed to harbor it you know I apologized you know I and I don't know like it doesn't you know if you try to make something right
Marc:making amends it doesn't mean they'll take it exactly that was my feeling I'm like I'm sad Jim feels this way but I can't do anything more like I mean he's mad at me for being partnered with you there's nothing I can do about that but also like he worked with me for years he did you know live ones he did he kept doing WTF yeah exactly it just came out of nowhere just everything was sort of like
Marc:Something snapped and then it just, you know, it was done.
Marc:Metastasized.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was from years before.
Guest:There was also, there was something for me about watching you kind of develop into an interviewer to a person who talked with people on the show who made connections with them.
Guest:Do you remember that time there was a congresswoman, Corinne Brown from Florida?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:She was in the bathtub.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:she was in yeah we heard we heard like sloshing around while you were talking to her yeah and like you know I don't think most people would have had the impulse that you did most people would just try to continue the interview it was about a fairly serious subject I think it was because the you know Florida voter rolls had been purged yeah so she's talking about like voting rights for especially for African Americans right I don't care whether you're
Guest:Democrat, Republican, or Independent, you should want a fair election.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Why is it that you don't want people to come in and monitor hours?
Guest:Congresswoman Brown, can I ask you a personal question?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Are you in the tub?
Guest:I'm not going to tell you.
Guest:Congresswoman, let me ask you this.
Guest:By the way... I didn't know this was an isolated show.
Oh, Lord.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, like, those moments were great.
Guest:And that was, again, like, I think it was a huge thing for you in terms of, you know, feeling good about being a guy on a mic who drives a thing.
Guest:Driving a thing was huge.
Marc:Well, that was the thing once Sue left was that, you know, I became the driver, right.
Marc:And so we'd have monologues, we'd have talking, we do the, you know, the setup was, you know, we'd start the show by riffing it out.
Marc:But yeah, the interviews are funny because generally my goal was to get them off their script.
Marc:Just making Peter Bergen laugh.
Marc:Was that his name?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was the CNN terrorism expert.
Marc:Yeah, he was just always talking about terrorism in Iraq and I just always tried to make him laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This was like the, one of the only people on earth who had interviewed Osama bin Laden.
Guest:And it was like that you didn't care about that.
Guest:You were like, well, I'm going to see what, what will it take to crack this guy on the air?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But we, I mean, I like talking to him.
Marc:We got good information.
Guest:Yeah, but that was, I think, the appeal of the show is that we would get information out there.
Guest:We would also smuggle it.
Guest:We did a whole thing with the character Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:That was another Jim Earl bit.
Guest:The right to lifers had lobbied that it was sacred life and you couldn't do any research on stem cells because it was akin to abortion.
Guest:And, you know, W had the religious right.
Guest:You know, he was fully enmeshed with them.
Guest:And so there was all this ridiculous regressive restrictions on stem cell research.
Guest:This is for anybody who thinks it's weird.
Guest:Yes, this all happened in the mid 2000s.
Guest:But we decided like we'd make a stem cell character and he would be a total asshole.
Yeah.
Guest:Anti-Semite.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:And the whole thing was like, no, I'm Sacred Life.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hi, I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:Hi, Sammy.
Guest:Hi, Mark.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Hi.
Guest:Hey, how you doing, buddy?
Guest:Look, before we start, I think we should read an email complaint one of our listeners sent concerning you, Sammy.
Guest:Give me your best shot, Slick.
Guest:Bring it on.
Guest:It's go time.
Guest:Okay, here we go.
Guest:It reads, quote, I am a librarian and I'm all about freedom of speech, but to give you a little feedback, the Sammy the Stem Cell bits are worse than offensive.
Guest:They're just not that funny.
Marc:They're just really adolescent.
Marc:I feel embarrassed for you when I hear them.
Marc:Not funny.
Marc:Signed, Dina M. You have an answer for that, Sammy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Try looking up my response in the I don't give a crap section of your local library.
Guest:And listen, my ass, this is outrageous.
Guest:I have a degree in art history, you know.
Guest:I didn't know that.
Guest:You don't think that she has a valid point, though, Sammy?
Guest:Look, you kale-munching hippie.
Guest:Oh, man, come on.
Guest:It's obvious this chick hates my freedom.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:But worst of all, Mark, she hates life.
Guest:I'm a unique, living, integrated human person.
Guest:Don't forget that, you dumb heeb.
Guest:Hey, hey.
Guest:I don't think it has anything to do with her hating freedom, Sammy.
Guest:She has a right to... Wait a minute.
Guest:Did Jesus call me a dumb heeb?
Guest:No, that was Kalo.
Guest:You're a monster, man.
Guest:A monster.
Guest:And you're welcome, Shylock.
Guest:Hey, wait a minute.
Guest:Jeez, you are so disgusting.
Guest:What is your problem?
Guest:What the hell makes you tick?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It's a long story, Mark, but maybe I can say it in a song.
Guest:I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:I hope you never get well.
Guest:I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:Hey, Mark.
Guest:What?
Guest:Go to hell.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:I'm Sacred Life.
Guest:I did your wife.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:Dum-dum-dum-dee-doo.
Guest:I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:Hey, Mark.
Guest:What?
Guest:F*** you!
Guest:Hey, buddy!
Guest:I'm Sacred Life.
Guest:I did your wife.
Guest:I'm Sammy the stem cell.
Guest:Dee-doodly-dum-dee-doo.
Guest:Doodly-dum-dee-doo.
Guest:Hey, shut up, Riley.
Guest:Hey!
Hey!
Guest:I never liked you.
Guest:That makes two of us.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:So you think that Congress is going to vote to fund more stem cell research here, Sammy?
Guest:Well, that's a good question, Mark.
Guest:So far, the bill has brought bipartisan support in the Senate, and they could vote on it by next month.
Guest:However, all indicators point to a veto by President Bush.
Guest:It's an important story, and they'll keep you posted on it.
Guest:Wow, Sammy, that was sincere, straightforward, and completely devoid of vulgarity or insult.
Guest:I'm proud of you, man.
Guest:Exactly what kind of crap I'd expect from a freakbag like you.
Guest:You know, you make me hate all stem cells.
Marc:Why don't you just leave, my friend?
Guest:Read in my mind, a-hole.
Guest:So long, Diplong.
Guest:I left five minutes ago.
Guest:You're the worst.
Guest:Again, I saw this Bush era stuff.
Guest:Like, they were trying to go after Social Security.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we made, we were like, we'll help you guys out.
Guest:Here's some ads that you could do.
Guest:And there was just an ad about how awful old people are.
Guest:And isn't it time they died already?
Yeah.
Guest:who wrote those we like joe things like that we came up with on the spot like we would be sitting we would be sitting around in the office and be like what what is this ad they're playing on they're airing on on radio about like why we should privatize social security it might as well just say like we hate old people right just be like ding oh let's run upstairs and record this real quick
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, we also have this horrendous ad that they've been airing.
Marc:You know, this is, I don't know if you've heard this, but the Swift Boat veterans people have gotten behind in, what's the front organization of their retired people?
Marc:Oh, USA Next.
Marc:USA Next.
Marc:who's rolled out Art Linkletter.
Marc:Who even knew that Art Linkletter was even alive?
Marc:They must have had him in a closet somewhere.
Marc:It's like, Art, we need you.
Marc:And they put together an ad to basically discredit the AARP.
Marc:It's just heinous, folks.
Marc:Listen to this.
Guest:The American Association of Retired Persons is opposing President Bush's plans for Social Security.
Guest:Why would they do that?
Guest:If you want to know the truth about old people, talk to the people who know them.
Marc:Old people are needy.
Marc:I need a ride.
Marc:I need a walker.
Marc:I need something to eat.
Marc:Could somebody please help me?
Marc:I'm in the toilet.
Marc:I can't get out.
Marc:It's horrendous.
Marc:I had to spend 15 minutes helping my mother find her glasses because she forgot where she put them.
Marc:Just forgot.
Marc:Dude.
Marc:They crap in their pants.
Marc:Enough about World War II.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:You were there.
Guest:I'm sorry, but if you're going to dinner at 4 o'clock, you really don't need more money.
Marc:You liberated Auschwitz.
Marc:You were there.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:Can we watch The Apprentice now?
Marc:And when they wear those diapers, they can pee right on themselves, too.
Marc:Just pee.
Guest:Brian!
Guest:My name is Brian!
God!
Marc:I remember this one time, my uncle, he was on the floor.
Marc:I thought he was having a heart attack or he was dead or something.
Marc:Turns out he wasn't.
Marc:Just on the floor.
Guest:Who the hell is Bobby?
Guest:Nobody knows Bobby.
Guest:Dude, they crapped their pants.
Guest:Old people.
Guest:They oppose President Bush's plans for Social Security.
Guest:Isn't it time they died already?
Guest:Paid for by switchboat veterans for whatever cause is being funded by the right wing millionaires at the moment.
Marc:I just remember that clock, man.
Marc:I remember learning how to tease things.
Marc:I remember how to get that forward momentum going and just realizing you had six minutes between breaks and it was like an eternity.
Marc:You'd go to the bathroom like, no, I got plenty of time.
Marc:We got another 45 seconds.
Guest:But that was also important about having these like modular comedy bits during, you know, that you'd know, okay, this thing's going to run four minutes.
Guest:So I can easily build on the front and back of this two minutes and make my segment.
Guest:You know, these were all ways we made it through.
Guest:It is just such an unreal undertaking that if you're not just a guy with a microphone doing caller talk radio, three hours every day is a lot of ground to cover.
Guest:Forgetting the fact that you're doing it at 6 a.m.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It really happened in a dream a lot.
Marc:And I was so jammed on sugar and caffeine.
Marc:And I just remember being done at nine in that decompressing time, that half hour in the office.
Marc:And then just sort of like feeling all the steam just go.
Marc:You know, heading home at like 10.30, 11.
Marc:And just the whole day is garbage.
Marc:Everybody else is having a life.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, I remember you saying that it used to feel like you walked around all day in a pillow fight.
Marc:Yeah, like you'd just gotten out of a really long pillow fight.
Marc:Yeah, that was a feeling.
Marc:It was just kind of like, I don't know.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:But it was the education, and we did it for a year.
Marc:We did it for more than a year.
Marc:We did it for 18 months.
Marc:18 months, and then I did the other thing here.
Marc:That was even more weird.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:When I think about what we went through and what I went through around this medium and with those weirdos at the network and everything, it's kind of astounding that we came out of it all.
Guest:It all is a direct straight line to doing the podcast because we definitely learned what we were good at.
Guest:We don't still do a lot of the type of things that we've been talking about here, these comedy bits and things with characters and
Guest:It's not necessarily ways in which we have continued to produce.
Guest:We mostly just produce you talking on a microphone now.
Guest:But I think the sensibility around this stuff really allowed you and I to align on what we think works.
Guest:comedically, what we think makes people stick with you, build a relationship with you.
Guest:And then it's also just a matter of knowing what the bad stuff was, dealing with these radio people who, like I said, we were fairly well off in the initial year of doing this show that they left us alone and left us to our own devices.
Guest:But we figured out pretty quickly that when it goes south, it goes south hard.
Marc:Well, yeah, they just brought in a new guy, you know, with other ideas.
Marc:And like, you know, people should, you know, like Rachel Maddow, like he was right about Maddow, but she was a newsreader initially.
Marc:And then she was on, you know, it was Liz and Chuck D and her.
Marc:What was that called?
Marc:What was it called?
Guest:Unfiltered.
Guest:Also, like just much like you, Sue and Mark Riley, completely ill-fitting.
Guest:Like these three people should not have been on a show together.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then like, yeah, well, Goldberg comes in as a new CEO and just reconfigures everything.
Marc:We just felt ourselves getting pushed out.
Marc:It was it was like.
Marc:It was all sad and weird, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was definitely sad and it sucked that the show was ending.
Guest:I just I had a, you know, a real sense that like, well, fuck those guys.
Guest:We're going to do this somewhere and somehow.
Guest:And, you know, then they wound up because of all the backlash putting us on in California.
Guest:But that was a compromise situation.
Marc:That's a 10 o'clock at night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And but I still felt like so that was 2006 when we did that show in L.A.
Guest:on the L.A.
Guest:station.
Guest:And that went away within that year.
Guest:So from 2006 to 2008, we didn't do anything together.
Guest:And then we started working on the break room live.
Guest:But I just knew like, oh, yeah, we're we're going to keep doing this.
Marc:But that was the thing.
Marc:I mean, I've been working with you since.
Marc:You know, you were 24.
Guest:yep it's crazy it's it really is like uh you know that there are very few times in life where i you know you you could probably think of them count them on like one hand the number of uh relationships you have that go longer than five six seven years work relationships or whatever like yeah we've been doing this together and having to be on the same page with things right for 18 years that's a fucking long time
Guest:Well, I have, you know, I've enjoyed playing some of the stuff that's playing throughout here, but there's so much more.
Guest:And I think like we can just, you know, keep adding to the selection.
Guest:We can keep adding to the selection of things we're playing for people.
Guest:In future weeks.
Guest:I also want to like pull some other people in who might have some different thoughts and memories on this.
Guest:You know, we're still in touch with quite a number of people who are on that original show.
Guest:And I think we should talk to them and get their take on, you know, what their memories are, how life was for them back then.
Guest:We just we kind of had a very insular, but fun, tight knit group back then.
Guest:And I think everybody kind of who did it took something away from it.
Guest:I also did like that we had a lot of fun interns that we would integrate into the show.
Guest:And that was part of what you were saying, that like creating an ensemble, like if we had an intern who was fun, you were like, oh, get that person on the mic.
Guest:Let's do something with that person.
Guest:What about Little Goliath and Big Goliath?
Guest:Little Goliath and Big Goliath.
Guest:Yeah, they were just two huge guys.
Yeah.
Guest:And he called them Little Goliath and Big Goliath, which was funny on its own.
Guest:But then Little Goliath, whose name was Dave, was very funny and had a funny disposition.
Guest:Jim used to integrate him into bits where Dave would show up in random times in the bit and ask for weed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He'd just come in and be like, you got any pot?
Guest:And then there was one time he, like, this was a shoot.
Guest:He had a legit work dream about Dan Pashman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were like, you got to tell this on the air.
Guest:And we made him tell it on the air and we used the dream journal music.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What an amazing show that is.
Guest:We have no time for anything, but we made time.
Marc:But we made time.
Marc:We made time for our intern, Little Goliath, Dave.
Marc:Now look, Dave.
Marc:I know you get paid, but I'm going to call you an intern because it's better for the show.
Marc:And I don't want to tip the audience off to that.
Marc:Now, what I want to ask you about, he came in, Dave comes in all excited today, Riley.
Marc:You missed it because you were up here working.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He had a dream.
Marc:He had a dream revolving around our own Dan Pashman, son of Lewis and Linda Pashman.
Marc:You dreamt about Dan Pashman?
Guest:I did.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Do you date?
Guest:You know, I mean, maybe if you, you know, analyze it really deeply, maybe it's, you know, an odd sexual thing.
Guest:But, you know, on the surface, I don't think so.
Guest:Yeah, let's just wait out.
Guest:Let's just wait out.
Marc:So you're in your head, and what happens?
Guest:All right.
Guest:I was walking along, I mean, sort of walking along, and suddenly Dan Passion comes up to me, and he says...
Guest:I want to take you on a mission.
Guest:This is a mission that we have to do.
Guest:It's sort of almost like he was my, you know, the boss intern thing going on.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he said, let's get into my car.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I get into his car.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like an SUV.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But beyond an SUV.
Guest:Patchman's got an SUV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was it the Batmobile or something?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Almost.
Guest:Almost.
Guest:It was beyond a Humvee.
Guest:It was almost a Humvee.
Guest:And he starts driving up a mountain.
Guest:And it's rocks, boulders, everything.
Guest:And the wheels...
Guest:start morphing they start kind of changing shapes so that they can actually climb this mountain they become almost organic yeah almost organic almost like amoebas was this the landfill in staten island was that what you were climbing it was it was a mountain like a rural like almost like yosemite park or something okay okay
Guest:So finally we get up to the top of the mountain and we get out and we're hiking around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Hashman says to me, I need to check for blisters.
Guest:Let's check for blisters.
Marc:That old gag.
Guest:So I take off my sock and I check.
Marc:Not falling for that twice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I have this horrible, horrible blister.
Guest:So Dan takes out this toolkit.
Guest:It's like this entire toolkit of blister maintenance, whatever.
Guest:Blister maintenance.
Guest:And it's like this long, sharp object.
Guest:And he takes it out.
Guest:And with a certain amount of enjoyment, he says, like, this is really going to hurt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he takes it.
Marc:It's too easy.
Guest:And he's about to just stick it right into the back of my heel where this blister is.
Guest:But instead of sticking it into the back of the heel, he suddenly lunges it up into my throat.
Guest:And I can feel it go into it.
Guest:It literally goes into my mouth.
Guest:And then he pulls it out and he's like, just messing with you.
Guest:And laughs.
Guest:Oh my god.
Guest:Dave, you're traumatized.
Guest:I woke up in a cold sweat.
Guest:I really did.
Guest:You're a horrible human being, man.
Marc:Dan, what is that about?
Guest:What is that?
Marc:How have you climbed into this kid's head and ruined his sleep?
Guest:Again, going back to the idea that, like, yes, we planned a lot out.
Guest:We did a lot of hard work, scripting bits, writing bits, producing bits.
Guest:You know, a lot of legwork went into the show every day.
Guest:But we were totally, totally fine and thrilled with, like, improvisational shit.
Guest:Like, I remember...
Guest:I remember one time you guys were talking about, like, there was one of the Star Wars movies had just come out, like, in 2005 or something, and there were stories about how Republicans were pissed that they felt that the movie had politics in it, and that, you know, you should keep politics out of their Star Wars or whatever, and...
Guest:you know, forgetting the fact that George Lucas was like a hippie who wrote the first Star Wars in reaction to the Vietnam War.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like he, he, they were, they were angry about it and we did not have a bit planned.
Guest:There was nothing planned.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But all of a sudden we just threw on the Star Wars music and I went into the studio as Yoda and you interviewed me as Yoda.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Whoa!
Marc:Uh-oh.
Marc:Oh, you know, Chewbacca was here yesterday, and I don't believe it.
Marc:Look, it's Yoda.
Guest:What?
Marc:Look, he's walking into the room slowly.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Hey, let me help him on the chair.
Guest:Hold up.
Guest:You okay?
Guest:You all right?
Guest:You all right, man?
Guest:How are you?
Guest:Ooh, well, I am.
Guest:Well, I am.
Guest:Help you out, I can.
Guest:Now, there's been a lot of talk, Yoda, about this being a political movie.
Guest:Ooh, biased this movie is not.
Marc:But some political, some Republicans are very upset.
Guest:Oh, whack these bastards be.
Guest:Nothing but haters these bitches are.
Marc:You're saying that you don't play partisan politics and the movie doesn't either.
Guest:Well, Hillary 2008.
Guest:Thank you for stopping by, Yoda.
Guest:The bit itself is very short because we didn't have any, there's no bit planned.
Guest:It was totally improv, but we were like, oh yeah, let's fucking do something funny.
Guest:It's 6.30 in the morning.
Guest:Why not?
Marc:There was also always that feeling that nobody was really listening in a way.
Guest:yeah and you know what the hilarious thing about that is like thousands of people were listening oh for sure you know it's like we saw ourselves as total small time and maybe in the grand scheme of like rush limbaugh was getting 30 million listeners like yeah we were totally small time but thousands of people were listening to us doing this every day and like starting their day with us yeah and uh that's true and and some of them are still with us man yes and
Guest:Some of them might be subscribing to this very podcast right now.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Paying their $5 a month.
Guest:So we thank you for nearly 20 years of loyalty.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When we made the transition, even though we chose very decisively or decidedly to not do politics, a lot of them were our first sort of benefactors.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Well, because we had them on a mailing list.
Guest:And that was our model for the podcast initially.
Guest:We were basically like, let's do a thing that the super fans who have stuck with us since Morning Sedition will pay for monthly.
Guest:And it'll be like a little subscription side gig that you and I both have.
Marc:It was before those websites existed.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Well, you know, we were doing it off of the Jimmy Pardo model because that's how he did Never Not Funny.
Guest:He would put like eight minutes on iTunes and you had to have a subscription to get the rest of his show.
Guest:We didn't do that way, though.
Guest:We just had people send us money.
Guest:We very quickly realized we shouldn't do it that way because we had so many listeners.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, off those initial weeks, which was really, you know, thanks to timing and luck and the artwork and some guests and that guy at Apple who liked us.
Guest:Scott Simpson was his name.
Guest:He featured the show prominently.
Guest:And we all of a sudden we had like 30,000 in our first week, which was way more than we anticipated.
Guest:So we didn't paywall the show and that changed everything.
Marc:yeah and then yeah and then the business built along with us and around us and here we are now here we are but you know we can go dip back into morning sedition another time we'll play some more uh stuff which because there's just there's a lot of great things here that i think people when when the morning sedition went away the guy who cataloged all this stuff
Marc:You remember that guy who put it up?
Guest:That's still there, by the way.
Guest:If you go to the website Morningseditionist.com, that was where a fan from the very early days, PJ, he cataloged all the comedy, full-length shows.
Guest:It's all still there.
Guest:You can click on it, Morning Sedition Archives.
Guest:He has kept the flame alive of that show.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:So, yeah, well, I'm glad we talked about it here and we'll talk about it again.
Guest:Maybe we'll pull some more people into the mix and, you know, whatever we find in the old archives that makes us laugh, we'll give it a listen.
Marc:Okay, good.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:Good morning, geniuses.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Philosopher kings.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Working class heroes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Talk, talk, talk, talk about the issues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Morning Sedition.
Marc:Air America Radio.
Guest:I'm Mark Maron.
Guest:That's Mark Reilly.
Guest:Good, good, good morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Morning Sedition.
Guest:We're fighting, we're fighting, we're fighting for our lives here.
Marc:How's everybody out there?
Marc:Fire truck.
Marc:Am I stupid?
Marc:No.
Marc:Like they say uptown, talking more spit than a little bit.
Guest:Fire truck.
Guest:You're a heartless individual.
Guest:Hey, you guys, help me out.
Guest:Dog, dog, dog of the week.
Guest:Yahtzee.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:John Kerry took my shoe.
Guest:We gotta buy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:We gotta buy.
Marc:Morning sedition.
Marc:We gotta buy.
Marc:Morning sedition.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Let me introduce the people here.
Marc:K-Lo is on the board.
Marc:Smarty Pants Larson in the booth.
Marc:Brendan P.W.
Marc:McDonald.
Marc:Dan Pashman, son of Lewis, and Linda Pashman of New Jersey in the other room.
Marc:Morning sedition.
Marc:Coming in for landing.
Marc:Good morning.
Marc:On.
Marc:Winged.
Guest:Can I leave now?