This week on The Sound of Young America, we visit with two great Jonathans -- Katz and Goldstein.
Our first talk is with Jonathan Goldstein. Goldstein is the author of the novel "Lenny Bruce is Dead," which is story of a young man, his romances, and the death of his mother. The story is told non-sequentially in brief vignettes, often no more than three or four sentences in length.
Jonathan is also a contributing editor for This American Life, and the producer of the CBC's Wiretap. The latter is a show composed entirely of telephon conversations -- some real, many semi-fictional.
We also talk this week with Jonathan Katz, comedian and creator of "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist," which is out on DVD May 9th. We talk with him about making the show, and interestingly, about his long-standing relationship with David Mamet. We also hear a segment from his semi-fictional radio show, "We're Back."
I love Cee-Lo, and have since the Goodie Mobb days. His appearances on the Dungeon Family album outshone Big Boi and Andre, and his solo albums, while uneven, had given me hope he might just have a truly great record in him.
Apparently that record is NOT Gnarly Barkley, his collaboration with producer Danger Mouse.
And why would it be? Who is Danger Mouse, anyway? Did anyone actually hear The Grey Album? It wasn't very good. It was certainly no White Albulum, I'll tell you that much right now. It was the sort of record that people who don't actually like hip-hop buy, so they can talk about how they like "some hip-hop, like Jurassic 5."
My suspicions about this new project seem to be becoming real... noz writes over at Posse on Blogway:
Non rap listeners and critics eat this garbage up because they’ve just been waiting for a project from a rapper that would prove that they are not narrow-minded, but isn’t so rappy. These people are the worst types of music listeners in the world and need to just own up to being square ass square butts (or racists) who can’t fuck with rap already. They are no doubt very impressed that a rapper was able to have such wide lense musical perspective to not only know, but to cover a Violent Femmes song, as Gnarls Barkley does. Odds are these are that people lack the perspective to realize that there is a reason that nobody remembers any Violent Femmes, except for that one song.
This upcoming week's Sound of Young America broadcast features two Jonathans I admire greatly: Jonathan Katz and Jonathan Goldstein.
Katz may be more familiar to you as Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. I talked with him about his career (more on that tommorow).
Goldstein is the producer of a great radio show on the CBC called Wiretap. He's also a longtime contributor and producer on the Public Radio International show This American Life.
What I didn't know was that they'd worked together.
Katz has long had a fascination with audio, something we touched on in the interview. He had a huge cache of recordings of himself, both today, and in childhood, with his family. Goldstein explains how he ended up on the project, and why it was amazing to work on (download):
On this Sound of Young America broadcast, it's a potpourri, a hodge-podge, a cornucopia of miscellany. Here's a rundown:
We hear a bizarre message left on Matt's voicemail by a Briton looking for someone named "Harry." Then a woman, who says Harry is "in trouble!" calls. Who is Harry?
Jordan improvises a poem with a yutz at the candy store.
Jordan shares some Bold Statements
Jesse "Runs the Numbers"
Jesse and Jordan ask local businesspeople how they plan to make their business more XXXtreme
Then a guy calls in to "pay allegiance to you guys."
Overall, we learn that The Sound of Young America used to be surprisingly ambitious.
Great Rip Taylor story from a poster on Aspecialthing.com (name withheld):
Rip Taylor just walked into my (my boss's) office for an audition and started talking to the other actors about a game show he did where people had to guess celebrities' secrets.
RIP Corbin Bronson, Bernsin, what's his name? Anyway, he collects those snow cones that you shake and make it snow in. No one could guess what my secret was.
ACTOR What was it?
RIP You have to guess.
ACTOR Is it about your... [stares at wig] um... [stares at wig] hair?
RIP No.
ACTOR About your early career? Where you grew up? Something about your, um, lifestyle?
CASTING DIRECTOR Rip, come on in.
ACTOR Before you go in, tell me what your secret is.
R. Kelly is constantly flirting with the line between New Sincerity ("Ignition Remix," "Step in the Name of Love"), and Old Irony / Bad Sincerity ("I Believe I Can Fly," "Trapped in the Closet"). According to Best Week Ever Blog (current home of our old pal Alex Blagg), he premiered a new song at a show last night at Radio City Music Hall called "The Zoo." Among the lyrics: "It's like Jurassic Park, but I'm your Sexasaurus" and "You and me hopping like two kangaroos... you got me locked in your cage of ecstasy and I don't want to be free... I'm your Tarzan and you're my Jane."
Simply amazing. The Arruh has topped the interlude on which he said "It's the Pied Piper, your musical weatherman, and it's love o'clock, baby." And all of the food/sex metaphors in Sex in the Kitchen. And to think the man is functionally illiterate.
At the end of "Feelin On Your Booty", the lights go down. When they come back up, Kells has on a hat, the Pied Piper mask, and a cape. Standing before him is a stand with sheet music. He holds a conductor's wand. The band launches into a huge, orchestral number and - you guessed it - Kells knocks out an opera remix of "Feelin On Your Booty".
I'll post some more Norm MacDonald stuff, some folks shared a real treasure trove with me, but here's a great clip of Norm upon his return to SNL. As you may or may not recall, he'd been unceremoniously dumped from the Weekend Update host chair at the request of Don Ohlmeyer, then the Big Boss at NBC. Since he never really did much in sketches, he quit shortly thereafter.
Two years later, he returned to host SNL, and this was his monologue. I remember thinking at the time that it was the greatest thing of all time. My stance has moderated only slightly.
Keith sent in this great little story from the front lines of the battle for America's hearts & minds:
Thought I'd say your show is great. I live in Minneapolis, and I thought you should know that during Minnesota Public Radio's pledge week I called them and said I'd give money if they canceled A Prairie Home Companion and put TSOYA on instead. They asked how much I'd like to donate, and I said twenty-five dollars. The poor lady explained to me that she had never heard of your show, but APHC is recorded here, and it wouldn't look good to the affiliates if the home market axed the show. "Well, can you at least make it funny?" I asked. "That's up to Mr. Keillor," she replied. So, we're doomed.
This came in last week, and now, of course, Keith can donate directly to The Sound, but his heart's undoubtedly in the right place. Here's a strategy -- your local public radio stations have contact info on their websites. Write them (or even better, call them and ask for the program director). Tell them about The Sound, how much you like it, and how happy you'd be if your local public radio station carried it. If you're a member of the station, be sure to mention that. If you can't find contact info, email me and ask, I'll find it for you. In the meantime, give your money to TSOYA.
Dan Piraro, the creator of the comic strip Bizarro, is headed up and down the left coast with his Bizarro Baloney Show.
I had the chance to see Dan perform a year or so ago at the SF Sketchfest, and it was a great show -- far surpassed my expectations of what a cartoonist could do on stage. He actually blew the two excellent comics who opened for him out of the water.
The show will be at The Marsh in San Francisco tonight and tommorow, then in Mill Valley, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Eugene, Oregon, Portland, and Seattle over the next week or so. Definately worth checking out.
Original Sound of Young America co-host (he lasted one episode before a class conflict ended his moment in the sun) Matt Dobbs calls in this report:
Super Celeb Sighting!
MC Hammer was spotted yesterday, working on his laptop in a Bay Area Starbucks. He was having an animated discussion with a friend -- he strongly prefers Mozilla Firefox for his internet browsing.
I've already done my fair share of gushing about Jimmy Pardo and his fun new podcast, but it occured to me that I have a radio show, and I could interview Jimmy, and let him speak for himself.
So I present to you a special Sound of Young America bonus interview with "The Shooter" himself, Jimmy Pardo.
Just got an approval message from iTunes. The College Years is currently being added to the iTunes directory. If you want to subscribe, just click on the logo above, or on this link. It should open The College Years in iTunes. If it doesn't work, give it a couple hours and try again -- there's some sort of propogation process that means it can take some time for it to be added to everyone's personal iTunes. Or something like that. But it should be everwhere by the end of the day.
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B) Go see me and Jordan's sketch group Prank the Dean at the High Times Comedy Festival in San Francisco, featuring Tom Rhodes, Doug Benson, Rick Overton, Rob Cantrell, Greg Proops, and many other long-term victims of the demon weed. Whether you're a comrade-at-bong, or a conscientious abstainer (like me), you will be able to appreciate their jokes.
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Strangely, Mary Lynn Rajskub has become famous for her character Chloe on "24." I have to say that I've never seen 24, but I have seen Mary Lynn and Karen Kilgariff rock the house with the Girls' Guitar Club.
Here's a short film they made in 2001, which features Nick Swardson among others.
Our first talk is with Jonathan Goldstein. Goldstein is the author of the novel "Lenny Bruce is Dead,"
which is story of a young man, his romances, and the death of his mother. The story is told non-sequentially in brief vignettes, often no more than three or four sentences in length.
We also talk this week with Jonathan Katz, comedian and creator of "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist," which is out on DVD May 9th
