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Stop Podcasting Yourself 233 - Jane Stanton

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:25:44 -0700

Jane Stanton returns to talk about Europe, Risky Business, and bidets.

Download episode 233 here. (right-click)

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Throwing Shade #44 - Victoria Jackson, Pussy Riot, FYF and Russian Delis

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:42:11 -0700

Bryan and Erin give up BBQ’s, hand gliding, water collecting and fun in the sun to make sure shaders get their shade on Victoria Jackson’s stance on gays, Pussy Riot, FYF (Fuck Yeah Festival) and Russian delis. Tell it to my heart.

Participate in #Share-tember (#Cher-tember) - spread the word about Throwing Shade and post photos of new recruits on our Facebook page in exchange for a photo of Bryan and Erin autographed with a terrible piece of advice.

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My Brother, My Brother and Me 118: Celebrity Dream Date

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 08:06:51 -0700

Just … just don’t eat while listening to this episode. Please?

Suggested talking points: God Loves Pogs, Good Good Washer Boy, Exclusive Sneak Peek: How I Met Your Mother Finale, Wall Decor, Dyspepsia, Justin’s Ghost Tours, Kafkaesqueread more

Jordan, Jesse, Go! Episode 239: Hobos' Getaway with Robin Thede

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 02:28:32 -0700

Robin Thede joins Jordan and Jesse for a discussion of grocery store express lanes, pranking Clint Eastwood, bachelor party planning, and scary children’s movies of the 80’s.read more

Meet Tom Allen and Holly Walsh: Team UK for this month's episode of International Waters

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:56:07 -0700

By Chris Bowman

In a continuing effort to initiate the uninitiated, we bring you a brief conversation with the UK side of this month’s installment of International Waters. Holly Walsh may be best known as the comedian who broke her elbow on a very public stage. Or possibly for her Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer nominated show Hollycopter. She’s appeared on many British panel shows including the pop music quiz show Nevermind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats. Tom Allen is a Fringe festival veteran. After six consecutive appearances, he decided to sit it out this year. He’s a regular cast member on the BBC Radio Four show Bleak Expectations. He also writes and presents the show Dictionary Corner.

There’s a disturbing trend with the comedians who have been on this show. They are all exceedingly nice. Which begs the question: “What do they know that we don’t know?” For now, I think it’s residual Olympic fever.

International Waters: Holly, you are only the second repeat guest to appear on International Waters. Please describe how it feels.

Holly Walsh: Well, I feel like the first time I learned a great deal. Also, I’ve watched a lot of the Olympics, so I’m going to use some sporting phrases. I feel like I did enough in the first to get me through to the second one. But right now, I’m going to dig deep, I’m going to look forward, and I’m just going to do the best I can.

Podthoughts by Colin Marshall: La Casa Rojas

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:52:54 -0700

Vital stats:
Format: a man speaks of many things — in Spanish
Episode duration: 5m-30m
Frequency: maybe not a going concern, but 71 episodes exist

So here’s one entirely in Spanish. If you don’t understand that language, I won’t stop you scrolling on, but if you understand even a little bit of it — or if you want to understand all of it — you might consider having a listen. On La Casa Rojas [RSS] [iTunes], the Peruvian-born, St. Paul-based Spanish teacher Luis Rojas talks about events in his life, events in the world at large, events in history, and the many vagaries of language-learning. A simple premise, to be sure, but I listen to a great many language podcasts, and at least half of them complicate themselves straight out of usefulness. This one has held to a certain purity. You want to learn Spanish? Then hey, listen to a man speak Spanish for a while.

Put the foreign linguistic element aside — not that it makes much sense to do so here — and this show would seem to follow a common but usually unfortunate podcasting form: some guy talking about stuff. But even when I began listening, my Spanish rusted to near-uselessness, the impressive friendliness of Rojas’ personality shone through. You don’t realize the rarity of this until you hear it; I get the sense that most podcasters, eager to quickly scrape together whatever audience they can, affect sour pusses and hope to gather listeners under the banner of common (if exaggerated) prejudices. The strain of this charade, I would guess, has become a leading cause of the disease known as podfade. But Rojas comes across as a genuinely friendly, open fellow, just the sort of person you hope for when you know you’ll miss some to most of the meaning of each sentence spoken. Should I go to a word like “avuncular” here? Or perhaps the closest Spanish equivalent I can find, the awfully literal “de tío”?

What’s more, Rojas’ choices of topics seem equally reflective of his personality. Some episodes verge on the academic: popular music in Latin America between 1960 and 1965 [MP3] [MP3], using the always-tricky subjunctive [MP3], the word quedar [MP3]. Others connect to to his heritage: the reign of Peru’s controversial president Alberto Fujimori [MP3], the distinctive street sounds of his homeland [MP3], the origin of the pisco sour [MP3]. And then we have the episodes that, by the standards of language-learning programs, rank as almost startlingly personal: heart trouble in the family [MP3], his ride on a Grayhound bus [MP3], what Supertramp meant to him during his adolescence in military-governed Peru [MP3]. One of Rojas’ most endearing mannerisms surfaces whenever he mentions his American wife, Joan, or as he almost invariably says, “Mi esposa — Joan.” I don’t know how well it comes across in text, but he tends to say it with that odd pause and emphasis, like he’s afraid of forgetting her name. Joan, a student of Spanish, actually turns up on the podcast now and then. As she tells it, learning the language no era tan fácil como pensaba [MP3].

But by now, you surely sense that the resemblances between La Casa Rojas and garden-variety “some guy talking about stuff” podcasts, even those in Spanish, stop at the superficial. The complexities of Rojas’ topics, the considerations inherent in compressing them into five- to thirty-minute episodes, and the necessity of hitting certain linguistic points along the way force him into what sounds like no small amount of scripting and editing. (Supertramp cannot simply be described, after all; Supertramp must be heard — in fair-use-sized clips, of course.) Even so, the most valuable things I learn about the mechanics of Spanish while listening tend to come neither directly from the subject of the day nor the parts of grammar explicitly described. The importance of music in the life of Luis Rojas, for instance, has not been lost on me, nor has his tendency to describe speaking and listening to languages in musical terms. When one day he happened to mention his experience of Spanish-speaking students learning by replicating sounds and English-speaking students learning by internalizing written words, some important undergirding element of my foreign-language education — obviously, one too important to describe with much clarity — locked in.

As with any language-learning podcast, I recommend listening to each episode of La Casa Rojas definitely not once, and not just twice, but at least thrice. Given its 71-strong archive, that practice gives you over 35 hours of Spanish-language listening to do. Confusingly, Rojas hasn’t posted a new episode since March, but hope against podfade springs eternal. But even if we already possess the complete Rojas canon, it still provides a comfortable, well-positioned step in this particular podcast-based linguistic journey. If you lack any Spanish whatsoever, you might consider beginning with something like Coffee Break Spanish, moving up to its successor Show Time Spanish, putting in those 35 hours with La Casa Rojas, and then steeling yourself for the sufficiently vast realm of podcasts made for native Spanish speakers. Watch out; those guys talk a lot faster than Luis Rojas. Sometimes they’re barely avuncular at all. Nada de tío. Completamente nada.

Comment or suggest a podcast on the Podthoughts forum thread

[Podthinker Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture [iTunes]. Contact him at colinjmarshall at gmail or follow him on Twitter @colinmarshall.]read more

International Waters Episode 7: Live in London

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:49:45 -0700

Strap-in for conspiracy theories, national delicacies and an argument over cheese as special guest, Jon Ronson, joins contestants Holly Walsh, Jordan Morris, Ron Babcock and Tom Allen at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.

With both teams on the same continent for the first time ever we learn about British “mine food”, Gentleman’s Relish and The Big Dog Theory.

We’ve got more photos on our Facebook page and if you missed out on this one, we’ll be taping live International Waters episodes at MaxFunCon East and at The San Francisco Comedy and Burrito Festival.read more

Judge John Hodgman Episode 73: Gavelbangers Ball

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:46:27 -0700

Complainant Caroline and her boyfriend Will share many interests, but there’s one thing they just can’t agree on. Will says that metal is an important genre to him, musically and personally, and that Caroline hasn’t given it a fair shake. Caroline finds the music jarring and distasteful and says she’s heard enough to say so. Who is right, and who is wrong?

Guest bailiff Monte Bailiff Belmonte of WRSI offers his assistance this week, and we are joined by a SECRET EXPERT WITNESS.

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Stop Podcasting Yourself Bonus Episode - LIVE from the Canadian Comedy Awards

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:21:58 -0700

Comedian Debra DiGiovanni joins us for a live show from Toronto’s Comedy Bar during Canadian Comedy Awards weekend. Recorded on Friday, August 24th.read more

Bullseye: Kurt Andersen, Ari Graynor, Chris Fairbanks

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:40:19 -0700

Our show is guest hosted this week by Jordan Morris. Jesse Thorn will return next week. Check out more from Jordan on the podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! or on his blog.

Music and a Movie with Keith Phipps and Marah Eakin AV Club editor Keith Phipps recommends Quadrophenia, a film based on the rock opera of the same name by The Who. Music Editor Marah Eakin recommends the single I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons. (Embed or share this segment with Keith Phipps and Marah Eakin) Kurt Andersen’s True Believers Kurt Andersen is the host of Studio 360, co-founder of the satirical Spy Magazine and a novelist. He brought his love of research and cultural criticism to bear when he penned the new novel True Believers, the story of a high profile lawyer who steps away from a nomination to the Supreme Court. True Believers follows her on a quest to piece together a mysterious episode in her childhood during the Cold War and the age of the spy novel. Andersen fondly recalls his own childhood interests in espionage, and he discusses the leap of faith required for a trained journalist to stop doing research and begin trusting the imagination. The end result is a novel which weaves together generational politics, 1960s counter-culture, and a children’s game that becomes all too real. (Embed or share this interview with Kurt Andersen) MaxFunCon 2012, photo by liezelwashere Comedian Chris Fairbanks on Being Mugged Ever had a neighborly mugging experience? Comedian and artist Chris Fairbanks knows what it’s like. He told us this story at the fourth annual Max Fun Con. (Embed or share Chris Fairbanks on Being Mugged) For a Good Time, Call… Ari Graynor Ari Graynor plays a lot of outrageous, messy roles — she was a self-destructive college student on The Sopranos, and she played a drunken best friend in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist — but her characters have heart and a kind of innocence. The same is true of her most recent role of Katie Steele, the brash-yet-vulnerable young Manhattanite who runs a phone sex line in the new movie For a Good Time, Call. The film is in select theaters nationwide this week. Ari talks to us about the 80s films that inspired her, the story’s depiction of female friendship, and the strange intimacy and appeal of phone sex. (Embed or share this interview with Ari Graynor) The Outshot: No Use for a Name Jordan shares his passion for the music of the late Tony Sly, of punk band No Use for a Name. (Embed or share The Outshot: Tony Sly and No Use for a Name) Got a favorite band you want to spread the word about? Head on over to the MaxFun forum and pick your own Outshot. Subscribe to Bullseye in iTunes or the RSS feed!read more

My Brother, My Brother and Me 117: Romneycoladas

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:25:23 -0700

Summer’s coming to a close, but we’re still riding high aboard the SS MBMBaM. The boat drinks are flowing, we’ve got a no-limit charge card at Extreme Restraints and the Republicans are one step closer to realizing our nation’s long-held dream of getting a rich dude elected president. These, friends, are the golden years. But can they last?

Suggested talking points: If You Like Romneycoladas, Griffin literally forgets the vice president’s name for like five minutes, Slammo Jammo’d, “We’ve helped literally no one,” “Game of Thrones, I finally get it.”read more

Stop Podcasting Yourself wins Canadian Comedy Award

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:48:32 -0700

This past Sunday, Stop Podcasting Yourself won the award for Best Podcast at the 2012 Canadian Comedy Awards. It’s the first time podcasting has been included in the CCAs, and we’re thrilled about it.

We want to thank everyone who voted for us and has supported the show. And thanks to those of you who sent us your congratulations, and to a lesser extent kudos. It’s also great to see that many of our past guests, including members of This is That, and Picnicface won as well.

Thanks to all who came to see us in Toronto this past weekend. It was so great to meet you, and we’ll get the recording of the live show posted in the next couple of days.

Last but not least, thanks to Bret “The Hitman” Hart for posing for a picture with us.read more

Throwing Shade #43 - Lady Products, The New Normal, K-Pop, TV Sex

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:50:59 -0700

Erin and Bryan chat it up about why certain products are just for ladies, bans on The New Normal, Kpop, 2NE1, and all the old bits Bryan’s pulling out for his new audience at Funny or Die. We come together cause opposites attract. Ya know it!

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Stop Podcasting Yourself 232 - Emmett Hall

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 00:50:50 -0700

Emmett Hall returns and tells us nothing about Bronies, then we talk about Ikea, Batman, and hecklers. Oh, also there’s a secret word in this episode and we totally nailed it.

Download episode 232 here. (right-click)

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Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Throwing Shade live at Riot LA Comedy Festival

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:55:10 -0700

Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Throwing Shade will perform live on Saturday, September 22 at 2:00pm at the Five Stars Bar in downtown Los Angeles as part of the 2012 Riot LA Alternative Comedy Festival.

For tickets and more information: http://www.riotla.com/shows/jordan-jesse-go.html read more

Jordan, Jesse, Go! Episode 238: Nightmare on Clown Street with Dave Hill

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:43:41 -0700

Dave Hill joins Jordan and Jesse for a discussion of postman pants, disconcerting vans, dry cleaning and hobo pee.read more

Judge John Hodgman Episode 72: The Nominative Case

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 12:01:35 -0700

Jordan, a lifelong comic book fan, and his friend Charles were discussing the DC comics villain Mr. Mxyzptlk and made a wager: if Jordan’s friends could trick him into saying his own name backwards, he’d owe them five dollars. Charles says the group succeeded using Jordan’s middle name — but Jordan refuses to pay up, saying the middle name doesn’t count. Who is right, and what’s in a name, anyway?

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Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Michael Jai White, Carl Jones, Rachel Dratch and Jason Brewer

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 10:54:22 -0700

Mark Frauenfelder Shares His Favorite Geeky Indulgences Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder of BoingBoing, joins us to share some geeky recommendations: the engaging online / downloadable game Kingdom Rush and David Dufty’s tale of robotics in How to Build an Android. (Embed or share Mark Frauenfelder’s recommendations) Michael Jai White and Carl Jones on Blaxploitation and Black Dynamite Gun-toting and martial arts-fighting – the blaxploitation heroes of the 1970s might have actually been (or been friends with) pimps, gangsters, and drug dealers, but the goal in the end was cleaning up the neighborhood and beating The Man. The genre inspired Carl Jones and Michael Jai White, both behind the new animated series Black Dynamite. The series is based on a 2009 cult film and blaxploitation spoof of the same name. Michael Jai White, who co-wrote and starred in the film, lends his voice to the animated Black Dynamite. Director Carl Jones (The Boondocks) was brought on to shepherd the concept from film to animation. Michael and Carl join us to discuss their favorite blaxploitation films, the troubles of Richard Pryor, and fleshing out the relationships and characters of the film for the series. Black Dynamite airs Sundays at 11:30pm on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. (Embed or share this interview Michael Jai White and Carl Jones) Jason Brewer on Johnny B. Goode Jason Brewer wanted to play guitar since he was four. Today, he’s writing music, singing and playing guitar for The Explorers Club, a band that incorporates the sounds of the 1960s-era vocal harmonies and orchestral arrangements that obsessed him in his youth. He talks to us about the song that changed his life – Johnny B. Goode, by Chuck Berry. The Explorers Club released their second album, Grand Hotel, earlier this year. (Embed or share Jason Brewer on Johnny B. Goode) Rachel Dratch on Her Best Impressions, Dating, and Becoming a Mom Rachel Dratch is a comic actress best known to audiences as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006, and from recurring roles on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Most recently, she’s written Girl Walks Into A Bar…: Comedies Calamities, Dating Disasters & A Midlife Miracle. While there are behind-the-scenes stories from her days at SNL in the book, it’s mainly the story of life after the show. With plenty of time on her hands, Dratch dove head-first into the dating pool after years of using being busy with SNL as an excuse not to date. The titular miracle was an unexpected pregnancy at age 44, having been in a long distance relationship with the father for just six months prior. Dratch joins Jesse to discuss her comedy background in Chicago, the development process of getting some of her most famous SNL characters to air, and the inherent humor of balancing midlife motherhood with a romance still in its infant stages. This interview originally aired April 17, 2012. (Embed or share this interview with Rachel Dratch) The Outshot: Bill Bryson’s At Home Jesse suggests you follow the humorist and travel writer Bill Bryson on his wanderings through the history of the homestead and domesticity (it’s not quite as dry as you think). His book is At Home: A Short History of Private Life. (Embed or share The Outshot: Bill Bryson’s At Home) Got a favorite book you want to spread the word about? Head on over to the MaxFun forum and pick your own Outshot. Subscribe to Bullseye in iTunes or the RSS feed! read more

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Lisa Kudrow, Eric Andre, and Danielle Colby

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 09:47:13 -0700

Summer TV with The AV Club What’s worth watching on TV this summer? Our TV critics Erik Adams and Claire Zulkey of the AV Club have a few suggestions (yes, other than Breaking Bad). Adams suggests Disney Channel’s Gravity Falls, which airs on Fridays. Zulkey recommends The Franchise, which airs on Showtime on Wednesdays at 10pm. (Embed or share The AV Club’s Summer TV Recommendations) Actress Lisa Kudrow on Web Therapy Lisa Kudrow broke out to TV stardom on the hugely popular sitcom Friends, portraying the clueless but street-wise Phoebe Buffay. The cast members of Friends were practically America’s Sweethearts, but Kudrow has pursued roles as less easily lovable characters in movies like Easy A and the short-lived but critically acclaimed cable series The Comeback. Most recently, Kudrow has co-created and stars in the improv-comedy series Web Therapy, about a self-centered therapist who has an unusual “modality” approach — she insists on cutting the usual 50-minute dreams and feelings session to a three-minute web chat. Web Therapy was adapted for TV by Showtime last year, and just began its second season on the network. Kudrow talks to us about her early career in science research, how the fickleness of middle-schoolers set her on the path to acting, and being mentored by none other than Jon Lovitz. (Embed or share this interview with Lisa Kudrow) Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for History/AP Images American Picking with Danielle Colby Maximum Fun Headquarters recently relocated to a beautiful, but barren, new office — and it needed a touch of character. There’s probably no better place to find it than at the huge Rose Bowl flea market in Los Angeles, but we needed a seasoned antiquer to help us out. Enter Danielle Colby, star of the History Channel’s series American Pickers, who helped us pick a doozy. Check out our AMAZING flea market bounty for yourself. (Embed or share this segment with American Picker Danielle Colby) Comedian Eric Andre Eric Andre isn’t a comedian with a household name, but that didn’t stop him from getting his own talk show. And it didn’t stop him from breaking every rule in the book when it comes to doing monologues or interviewing guests, either. The Eric Andre Show is hard to describe, but if you know that Andre isn’t averse to pouring ketchup down his own pants or borderline abusing his guests, you might start to get the idea. His extremely low-key straight man Hannibal Burress provides a counterpoint to the madness. Andre talks to us about literally deconstructing the talk show, setting up unexpected situations for guests, and more. The Eric Andre Show airs Sundays at 12:30am on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. (Embed or share this interview with Eric Andre) The Outshot: The Fania All-Stars This week, Jesse recommends that we all overcome any reluctance to let salsa music into our lives, and to begin with the Fania All-Stars. Do you have a new music love? Tell us about it in your own outshot. (Embed or share The Outshot: Fania All-Stars) Subscribe to Bullseye in iTunes or the RSS feed!read more

Throwing Shade #42 - Todd Akin, Gay Money, Sex Addiction, The Nanny

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:57:26 -0700

Buckle your Xanax ‘cause this week Bryan and Erin get all up into the drama over Todd Akin’s rape comments, an inheritence based on pretending to be straight, sex addiction and of course, Fran Drescher. Listen as Bryan tries to keep his food down while Erin discusses the most boundry pushing sexual situation she’s ever been in. Never gonna get, never gonna get it.

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