December 24, 2024 • 43 mins
It's an encore presentation of our Festivus episode... with a TWIST. Jason will forever be associated with the 166th episode of Seinfeld, which featured Festivus...the holiday where families air their grievances, then demonstrate feats of strength around an unadorned, aluminum pole. For Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe, the horrors of the real-life Festivus, invented by his mad genius father, were traumatizing events. Really, no Really!
But wait, that's not all. In this updated episode we have a very special performance of a brand-new Festivus song, with lyrics by Peter and music and vocals by Sunny and the Black Pack.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Really now, really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really really hello, and welcome to really No Really with Jason,
Alexander and Peter Tilden, who want you to know that
subscribing to our show would make a perfect holiday gift.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Coincidentally enough, this episode is.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
All about the holidays and why so many families celebrate
with extremely odd and bizarre holiday traditions. Perhaps the most
famous bizarre holiday tradition is the celebration of Festivus from
the television show Seinfeld, with which I believe Jason has
some sort of passing acquaintance. The actual Festivus was created
(00:41):
by Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe's father, and today Dan speaks
about the true origin of the Festivus poll, the annual
airing of grievances and the demonstration of feats of strength.
He also reveals the many horrors of the real life celebration.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So happy holidays, and here's Jason than Peter.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
It's hard to believe that the year has passed since
our last gathering before.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
The Old Fire plaka Minora whatever anybody else, And this
is our annual holiday episode, which is our Festivus episode
because of course of Seinfeld, and we got Dan O'Keeffe
on Dan if you didn't hear it last year, Dane O'Keefe,
his family actually is the family that his.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Father created the Festivus holiday, which for Dan was not
a happy occasion.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
No, and you'll find out why in just a moment.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And he when Dan was a writer on Seinfeld, he
happened to mention it in the writer's room and that
was not a thing you do unless you want. He
was not initially thrilled that the other writers went, oh,
this is a thing, but it is his his true
life family celebration was the genesis of our Festivus.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
But not identical to what they're doing and bizarre, more
much more bizarre. Yeah, so if they showed that on yeah,
I don't think it would be as funny. When was
the first twenty years ago? Did the first episode are?
I couldn't, but people celebrated people by pauls.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I mean we did the show basically from ninety to
ninety nine, so it's about halfway through.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So maybe it's amazing how many it's amazing how many
years it took off.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Ben and Jerry's made an ice cream for it. I
mean it it is, it is huge. It's a it's
a celebrated.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And by the way, as I recall, in this episode,
we discussed that too, why it became huge, and why
people create stuff for their family, whether it's bizarre or not,
whether the foods they eat or things they choose a
holiday time, it actually creates the culture of that family.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Well, we for instance, in the Alexander family, we have
Thanksgiving and then the next day it's called the Turkey Games,
where we invite my daughter in law's family over since
they're in town anyway, and we have like a little
Olympics of silly things, and there's a there's little statues
that you win for the events, and then we eat
(03:08):
all the left effisodes.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But and that becomes your family culture. I mean, it's
more than just stilly in things. It's about getting together
and doing it. Remember when we are creating all that
kinds of stuff. So a lot of families are bizarre
family cultures. A lot of families have chosen not to
do the Christmas or Hanka thing or Kwanza because they
like Festivus. So let's get into it. And then we've
(03:29):
got an additional bonus, a little surprise at the very end.
Something brand every year, we're going to tack on something
new and important, and we've got a very huge talent
at the end of this episode who has done a
song for us. So you I think you want to
go to hang around for this, but right now, in.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
The meantime, let's look back and remember with Dan O'Keefe
our festival, the origins of festivalus go. It's holiday time
and as you know, I am associated with a particular holiday.
But what's interesting and are really that kicks it off
is you. You shared with me that your research has
(04:08):
shown that over twenty percent of people, over twenty percent
of people say that their families have bizarre.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Bizarre, unique holiday traditions, traditions, right, So.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
That led us to of course the most holiday, that
is the most famous and the most bizarre, is made
famous on my former show Seinfeld is Christmas.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
There's Honka.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
That's Festive Us, the festival for the rest of Us,
which was an actual holiday created by the father of
the man who authored the episode, and that man is,
of course, mister Dan O'Keefe's here with us today. Dan's
a producer and a writer known for a variety of
things Beavis and butt Head, Space Force, Veep, Silicon Valley
(04:49):
Drew Carrie Show, and of course, most notably our Festivus
episode on Seinfeld and I am so delighted, even though
well I haven't seen a talk do in probably twenty years.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Dan, welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Thank you, Jason. I'm flattered to me invited on And
to be fair, that was kind of close to the
festivus of it.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, people who do not know the argent, we'll find
out the argent. I did laugh when I that you
were actually invited on different times to people's houses over
the holidays who were actually observing a form of festivus
and didn't know that it was from your family.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
That has happened on a number of occasions. I am
so far unanimous in my streak of saying no thank you.
I'm sure I hope they had a lovely time, but wow, wow, yeah,
that's happened a number of times.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Wow. So the origin is not what people think right
the way we laid it out on the show.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
I guess the origins of those ideas may be from
what you and your dad to your family created. But
what can you walk us through for people that don't
know what your organic Festivus was?
Speaker 6 (05:58):
My organic Festivus was a living hell on earth that
appeared at random throughout the year at an unspecified date.
It didn't have It wasn't really December twenty thirty. It
was whenever my father felt like it. One year there
were none, one year there were two. And it arose
out of the fact that my dad was basically a
(06:20):
more feral Frank Costanza who spent thirty forty fifty years
desperately trying to turn himself into Fraser Crane. He escaped
from Jersey the Greenville ward of Jersey City, which at
the time was sort of like a you know, a Southey.
And he was the first in his family to go
to college, and I think one of the first to
finish high school, and got rid of his accident at
(06:40):
Oxford and just decided to wash the stink of Jersey
off himself with excessive amounts of education, including an obsession
with the plays of Samuel Beckett who Wow, There's a lot,
There's a lot, Wow Wow. Including and on his first
date with my mother, he lent her a copy of
the play Craps Last Tape. Now, when the play Craps
Last Tape, it's an old man listening to you're a
(07:01):
song and dance man.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
You're you're talking my language. Go ahead.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
An old man listening to tape recordings of a slightly
younger man listening to recordings of a slightly younger man.
So the original Festivus was indeed an airing of grievances,
but it was an area of grievances in which my
brothers and I were made to listen to recordings of
my father complaining the year before, while listening to recordings
of my father complaining the year before, and so on
(07:26):
and so on in a series of Russian nesting dolls.
It was occasionally exhilarating. Most often there was There was
a tremendous amount of liquor involved. I mean it was
just in my Later in my life, my dad lost
fifty five pounds by switching to light beer and started
wearing suits from the fifties that fit him again. And
(07:49):
it was like he dressed like Kramer. He was wearing
these like ancient hipster vintage jobs. It was crazy, And
it was my father drunkenly complaining into a tape recorder
about the corrosive effect of internal reader's digest politics, about
how we had disappointed him during the year about how
my mother did not keep a clean house, about how
his relatives were awful, which was actually kind of you know,
(08:11):
not always incorrect. There was a lot of strange music
that was played. He played this record containing songs of
the Irish Republican Army, but also weird the strange novelty
pop records from Germany and Italy from like the forties, fifties,
and sixties. They actually there's an Italian version of Alvin
(08:33):
and the Chipmunks. That's the most terrifying thing I've ever
heard in my life. The Chipmunks and the Irish rebels
being hanged by the British, and the strange German accordion
stuff and all over that a litany of complaints, and
then he would encourage us to complain ourselves, and then
when we complained too much, you would complain that we
were complaining too much. It was it was a combination
(08:54):
of alcoholism and borderline child endangerment that should have had
the New York States takes away and raised us in
a facility, But at the time, you know, child Protective
Services just was not not up this enough in the
New York area. So, uh, there you have it.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So wait, that's your family. You brother would cry, You
would cry, I mean it was. It was horrifying. And
also had a clock nailed in a bag to the
wall rather than a Paul right best of his.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Poll is a By the way, I should mention I
didn't author the entire episode. I wrote it along with
Jeff Schaffer and aleck Berg, who arguably wrote some of
the better stuff. But the symbol is not a pole.
That was a Shaefer joke. The real symbol of the
holiday was my father took an ancient rusted alarm clock,
put it in like a burlapsed sack, and then nailed
(09:40):
it to the wall. And I don't know why he
never told you represent He would always say the same thing,
that's not for you to know. And I don't know
what it means, and I still to this day, and
something about the evanescence of time, of life, of youth.
I don't know. I know that it was a wedding
present that he and my mom got, so maybe it's
some think about their marriage. I don't even want to know.
(10:02):
But oh there was. By the way, another symbol of
Festivus was a sign hand letter that read fascism that
my father would tape to the wall. He wouldn't nail
that to the wall. But the thing is that sign
also came out sometimes at Thanksgiving and sometimes at christ Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Wow, So I read that you said your dad was
an undiagnosed bipolar also at the time.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Was this at least so was this.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Was there joy ever? Or was this always the storm
that was brewing underneath for your dad?
Speaker 6 (10:33):
It was incredibly charismatic and brilliant. Brilliant man. I mean
the New York Times compared his book, his thousand page
unified field Theory of Anthropology, psychology and sociology. He could
compare it to Mark Starwin and Freud in their review,
although not only people in Japan read it, but for
some reason. But yeah, it was terrifying, but there were
(10:55):
it was interspersed with moments of joy. He was very funny.
He made it funny while it was happening. But for
the most part it was It was mostly like they say,
war is mostly boring, with moments of terror, but the
occasionally it's fun damn.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
And you didn't want this out there that the story
is your brother Mark right still de means accidentally.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
We came to the realization very young. If you go
to school, elementary school and say, hey, we had festivusts
this weekend. When when did you have it? People will
look at you and say excuse me, and it will
you will immediately be put on a more rigorous beating schedule.
So we had a bowet of silence that was semi
formally taken and I had literally blocked it out of
my mind. And then Mark goes and opens his yap
(11:39):
at a party that Jeff Jay for, aleck Berg, Dave Mandel,
some of the executive producers along with Jerry the final
season of the show. A party they were at and
they were immediately, excuse me, I want to hear.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
More about this.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
So then I was lured to a diner called Swingers
On on Beverly and they sort of pinned me down
in a booth. They sat, you know, around me, so
I couldn't get out out, and they said we want
to talk about Festivus and I actually hadn't thought about
it in years for a reason. I was like, oh,
how did you hear about that? I'm really sorry you
(12:10):
had to take up those brain cells with that information.
And they're like, no, no, we want to put it
on the show, and I said, no, you really really don't.
You're making a terrible mistake.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
This show is a perfect thing.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
This is the greatest common the history of television. And
you want to essentially smear feces on it. You're mad,
You're mad. Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, Dave Mandel. But you know,
as it turned out, I was dead wrong. Jerry wanted
to do it, and they were completely right. Now there
was it turns out there was a version that was
consumable by a mass audience. I thought that it would
(12:41):
lead to not good things.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
But and the stuff that was created for the for
the television version of Festivus, that was all. That was
all sort of a mutual mind mold right, the whole
the feats of strength, the airing of grievance is.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
The tereral negativity around it, the Georgia attitude toward it
is taken from reality because they doesn't want to talk
about it. What runs when his father brings it up.
But the specifics of it did change. Now, the airing
of grievances was the central tenet of the original. Yes,
but and though there was always the implicit threat of
(13:19):
violence from my father, there was not actually a wrestling
of parental wrestling thing. Nor was there a poll that
did come out of the rest the wait ratio with
an alec Berg joke. The poll itself was with Schaeffer.
I think the the twenty third to get a to
get a head start on Christmas. I think that was Dave.
(13:41):
People just filled in the blanks to put together a
more palatable version of this, you know, remake of the
Mosquito Coast that I lived.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And do you remember it? So? Do you remember? And
we want to get into what it felt like writing
in the writer's room for Signfel, etc. But do you
remember being there when they shot that episode? What? What?
What went through your head? And what you thought emotionally
watching this? What was that weak like for you?
Speaker 6 (14:06):
You know, here we are, It was like an out
of body experience. And I remember thinking something that I
hadn't thought since I left for college, which is my
father might actually physically murder me over this and so
and I couldn't tell if it was good or not,
Like it's one of the things where you're right, And
obviously that happens in shows that are not taken partially
from your childhood. But in that case, what I was
(14:30):
hoping was the following I was hoping that. I was
hoping that Festivus would be left on the editing room floor.
I thought, look, we have there's a Jerry story, a
George's story, a Cramer story, and a Laine's story. This
is a Frank story, this is a fifth story. There's
no way it'll survive the editing process. So I comforted
myself by saying, it'll.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
All be fine.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
They're just gonna snip it around the edges and then
they'll they'll come to their senses. They'll come to their senses.
And they realized, no, we don't want to do this
to the show. The show does not deserve this, America
does not deserve this. But as it turned out, somehow
they edited thirteen and a half minutes out of it.
That that's how long it was, and they need to
actually fit together in a way that made sense and
(15:11):
was watchable. And I've was surprised. And it's a testament
to the editors and to the talent of the gentleman
I mentioned, and Jerry's vision steering the show and as
always and and uh oh man, if you remember shooting
that scene the festive dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Around the table. What I remember vividly.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think there's probably I think this is available online
on bloopers, but I can't remember the reason why. But
Julia looked pretty draggled by the time she got to
the table, I think, like her hair was all matted down, and.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
It was to parallel the girl who looked good in
One Life exactly.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
And there was this kind of unsavory looking guy who
was hitting on her at the table and he said
something about you look great, and in total Julia Elaine fashion,
she goes, huh, thanks. She was like hell as much
as Julia could ever look like hel and she couldn't
(16:12):
get through it.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
She could.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
The guy's face was so great. He was one of
those great characters that they always found. And he did
it perfectly. He did it like right on the edge
of you know, you know, child rapist. And it was
she just and that and we did take after take
and then then you know, God rest them. Jerry Stiller
would get up and start going, I got a lot
(16:35):
of problems with your papa, and that we were That
was it, we were done.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
I remember a couple of things. First of all, the
guy you're talking about, he he was a he did
a him all access show in New York City, I
think out of Brooklyn, in which he reviewed pornography. He
was an actual like like, he was exactly who you
think he would be, and he played that perfectly. I
remember another thing which at the beginning, I remember, I
remember all of you breaking everybody. Yeah, but at the
(17:00):
very beginning, I think Julius said somebody to Jerry, like,
we get this in one take, I'll give you a
million dollars something like that, and needless to say, it
took eight hours.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
She personally made sure that we weren't going to get
an I think I think it took eight hours, yeah, wow,
to get the table.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
And I think that the guy that we're talking about,
the kind of you know, borderline.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Personality Colin's sleazy friend.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I think the guy who played his cohort on the
show turned out to be Tracy LED's esteemed actor author employer.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Putt surprise, So let me ask you a big question
to clear something up that's been out there forever. So
when people celebrate festivals, they try and emulate the meal,
but nobody can actually figure out there are no clear shot.
People tried to freeze frame it and whatever. So I've
read about this portrayal. They're trying to figure it out.
So what they do is they get Bopka from one episode,
(17:58):
they get bagels from their marbles. But there are reports
that there was let us with what looked to be
meal out on it on the table. What was do
you do you? Does anybody know what the meal was
in the sign phone.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Episode on the show. I'm pretty sure it was meat loaf. Yeah,
cleared it up for every there was a there was
a disagreeable, suspect looking meat loaf that was carved up
before the scene and put on everyone's plate.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
There you go, I think, yeah, because nobody can identify
for sure when they celebrate festivals at home, so they
emulate by by by grabbing from different episodes. Like I said,
the Bopka, et cetera for the meal. But you just
cleaned it up. Now people who have festiv it's meat
loaf on lettuce. Oh my god, I.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
Mean the real thing was it was whatever the whatever
we were having for dinner. It was usually you know,
it was a holiday, So my mom made like a
chicken or something.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But what was the fallout from the episode within your family?
Speaker 6 (18:50):
My mom was real afraid to tell me Dad. Uh,
Mark thought it was hilarious because he was not going
to get hit by any of the bullback. It was
all falled on me. My other brother didn't want any
part of it. Uh, And then it came out and
I had to tell my dad. At first he didn't understand,
and then he got real mad like like like yeah,
(19:10):
like we're very briefly like and he by that point
he was slowing down. There wasn't so much of the
throwing stuff mad level left, but he was very exercised.
But then he saw it and he kind of liked it.
And then people, you know, the reviews started coming. He
started and then he immediately became insufferably smug and thought
that that episode retroactively justified every poor choice he'd never
(19:34):
made his entire life. He was, Oh, he was thrilled.
He was over the moon. He was over the moon.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So you would tell people, I'm thest shut him up.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Ben and Jerry's made uh like a flavor. It was
like burnt shirt caramel and Christmas Eve type flavors. And Uh.
They sent a poster and my dad framed it and
insisted on like hanging on the wall the kitchen in
a place where it really didn't fit. So he was
he was for the last do the last decade and
(20:09):
a half of his life. For more.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Could not have been prouder. Could Speaking of the ice cream.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
So I just you know, I went online and I
went to just Amazon and typed in Festivus related things,
and here's what came up. Lots of poles, you know,
by a Festivus pole, there's a board game. There were
fireplace stockings, sweaters, mugs, treo ornaments, playing cards, t shirts,
refrigerator magnets, and the ice cream flavor.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Do you ever see anything from any of that? No?
Speaker 6 (20:46):
No, I mean no, no, I mean look, as far
as I know in the context of the show, the
copyright to that holiday is owned by Castle Rock Communications
and they're welcome to it. And as of right now,
it's an open source holiday. It's entered into the culture,
which I'm I have mixed emotions about, obviously. But if
(21:06):
Satanists want to protest against fascism in Florida by putting
up a display with beer cans and putting the word
Festivus on it in the Florida State House, which happened, hey.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Good for you to just go for it was a
phrase festivus for the rest of us. That was a
phrase that the family did use, right, And your daddy
came up with.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I have these tapes and they're actually in that filing
cabinet and they were remastered to CDs a long time ago,
and their tapes from every year, and in nineteen seventy
six that year, my dad, in the tape recording said
this is a festist for the rest of us. But
what he meant by that was for the living as
opposed to the dead, because that year my grandmother, Jeanette
(21:44):
Marie O'Connor O'Keeffe, had had a stroke in a supermarket
in Jersey City and died. We don't pass away in
my family, we die, and so that was what it meant.
And I remember that and I sort of spat it
out without remembering the context. Then by the time it's
in the script and it's actually working and we're past
the table, like, oh yeah, actually about my dead grandpa's around, well, I.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Always thought it was because.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I actually thought it was true of your family as well,
But I always thought it was Frank Costanza's. You know,
he was an atheist, you know, he didn't want to
play into any of the religiosity. So it was a
festival for the rest of us, you know who don't.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Well, the original version was it was those of us
who were alive as opposed to dead.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Did your did the family either accept or pervert any
other holiday? Was Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Okay? Was Halloween?
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Halloween?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Okay? Was?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
I mean? Thanksgiving was weird, but it was recognizably Thanksgiving.
We celebrated Christmas in a cultural way, no religiosity at all.
So the answer is no, he didn't pervert any other holidays.
But that's just wasn't the only made up holiday he had.
There were weirder ones. Oh tell, that's just wasn't the
(23:12):
only made up holiday he had. There were weirder ones.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Oh pray tell, well, this is not this to start.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Off, You know the A very merry on birthday to
you from uh Lewis Carroll.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I am familiar with it, very peripherally.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Yes, from Alice in Wonderland. Whenever my dad did something
so drunkenly, violently unacceptable or offensive or horrifying or just
generally embarrassing that my mom was about to leave him,
then whichever child was offended against would get an extra
birthday and that was called an unbirthday, and it was
sort of a little birthday, but it was still it
(23:50):
was called an un birthday.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That was weird, weird.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
It was something called the Polish Hour, and I started
to explain what the Polish hour was, because he said
it's time for the Polish shower. What this meant was
lights were again extinguished. The guy was really into candles.
I don't know if he didn't have electricity growing up
or something, But then he made my mother play Chopin's
Polonaise on the piano, which had not been tuned in
(24:14):
twenty years, and so it sounded really peculiar, kind of
like this theme to Halloween when she tried to play it.
And then he would deliver an off the cuff impromptu
monologue looking back on this moment from the perspective of
the future, like thirty years from now, remembering in the
present what was happening, but referred to the town we
lived in as the swamp, and it was just him
(24:39):
pounding huge amounts of alcoholic beverages while reminiscing about things
that either hadn't happened yet or were happening now as
if they had happened in the distant past. There was
definitely a whiff of Beckett of a crap glass tape
to this too. But he just sat in this ancient
stained yellow chair chanting this nonsense while my mom was
forced to play this a piece of piano music on
(25:02):
an untuned piano.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Even I said, you would come home and never know
what was going to happen on any given day.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Pretty much, I mean we we. Also there were classes
after class, I mean we received additional schooling in. One
of them was quantum theory, but this was the late
nineteen seventies, so they only discovered a few quarks. We
didn't have a full quark component compliment. Yet, there was
a whole room of the house filled Florida ceiling with
books about the Kennedy assassination. So this was what I
(25:31):
came home, yes, on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But damn, what's amazing is.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
You know?
Speaker 6 (25:36):
It's amazing amazing. This is something Jerry said after recounting
one of these anecdotes. I think it was explaining festivals.
It was a long beat, and then I believe it
with Jerry said, why are you alive?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, but Dane, I was going to go the other way.
The weird thing is and I know there's alcoholism by
personally bipolar disorder, but in a weird way, because you're
so articulate, you know history, you're you're you're aware a
limited a grasp of quantum that's tough but fair. You're
exposed to so much, even though it was in a
(26:06):
bizarre way, went here, you went to Harvard, you ended
up writing on major shows. So in a weird way,
your father exposed you to a lot of stuff in
a bizarre way that you were presented, but you turned
out taking all of that in some way here, he
said condescendingly, which means talking about Dan.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
No, it's there's definitely an aspect of that, absolutely sure.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
I mean, I guess to ping pong off of what
Peter is saying. And I hadn't thought to even get
into this because it's kind of a heavy question and
you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
But I can't get a.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Read on whether you feel like I mean, it's easy
for me to say I loved my dad and I
miss him and he was a big part of my life.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Did you have a relationship that you valued with your
father or was it just too hard to find it?
Speaker 6 (26:59):
I mean, it's complicated, but yeah, absolutely, I love my father.
He was that was the It would have been easy
if he had been monstrous and unlovable, but he was
incredibly charismatic and brilliant and it was talking his way
into or out of anything. So yeah, actually in the
last like particularly the last ten years of his life. Actually,
you know, arguably since the festest episode came out, we
(27:21):
were you know, as close as you can get to
someone that damage.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, yeah, wow. And the other thing that's weird is
estensibly your bizarre holiday has been twenty seven years later,
it still persists and it has become like for families
that do it, it has become part of their culture.
On our hip, we're doing a Festivus thing, it's celebratory.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
I mean, no one that I know that that you know,
fools around with Festivus is doing it as anything other
than a joy, fun unique, you know, something that.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
They look forward to, and it identifies that family as hey,
we're fine, we're quirking, we're different. And they've taken the
feats of strength and they do I read, they do weightlifting,
they do all kinds of racing. They've taken it morphed
it into their family's own and it's pure joy for people.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
It's the watching videos of it, and you're absolutely right,
it's it's joyful. And so in retrospect, not only were
Jerry and Dave and Jeff and Alec right, they they
sort of retro they sort of redeemed that unpleasant morasses
of memory because now this thing that would have been
(28:33):
something that you know, I tried to you know, uh
work through therapy, is something that now you know, literally
dozens of people around the country are having a good
time with.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
It.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Yeah, so so they certainly a lot of the poison
has been taken out of it by by it being
now something that it's just just so strange that like
a super like possibly one of the weirdest parts of
a very strange childhood is now Yeah, it's a word.
It's the word that my dad made up is now
out there.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
That's a wonderful thing. And David, you have some insight
because people are so fascinated still with Sient Fall Notts
on Netflix and it's just the next generation watches.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Well, actually, I would be I would be remiss if
I didn't say it was it was just the honor
of my life. It was every day there with a joy.
It was hard work. It was unbelievably hard work, as
you remember, particularly that season when I did not have
the benefit of working with with mister David. But uh, yeah,
it was such a pleasure to work with you on
that Jason.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Thank you brother. I right back at you and I
it was it was it was just one of those.
But I was going to ask me, what was the
writers What did it feel like. I've been in writers
rooms and it gets very competitive. People don't want to
laugh at your joke. Everybody's trying to please the showrunner
to figure out what's in there. Had I've been in
those kinds of writers rooms, and I've been in kind
of writers rooms where it's just a lot of fun,
where people are just making everybody laugh and it's just
(29:51):
a collective joy to do. What was it. What was
your experience in the writer's room? It was a very
competitive or.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
It was, yeah, but everyone took it very seriously. This
is the greatest TV comedy of all time, and we
are tasked with doing this without one of the creators,
and we better get it right because it's it's a
It would be a crime and a disgrace if we didn't. So, yeah,
(30:20):
that people, it was unbelievably fun.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
It was uh.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Making Jerry Seinfeld laugh in the room is uh you know,
like particularly one time when he almost Loqui came out
of notice, like the birth of my son was nice.
That was fun.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
But I got to say seeing Jerry laugh and that
that was the rappiest moment of my l It was
a joy. It was another joy. Now were there times
that people possibly almost came to blows, Yes, because they
disagreed about the the These were very, very talented. I
mean you had Jennifer Crittenden, who I've worked with since then.
It was a genius, and Alec and Jeff and Dave
(30:56):
who have together created and run some of the greatest
comedies of the last twenty years. And Spike Ferston. I mean,
these were all people at the absolute top of their game,
and everyone cared very much about getting it right and
not just getting it right and making it as good
as it could possibly be. So most of the time
people were laughing so hard that your voice was horsed
(31:19):
by the end of the day. But yeah, sometimes there
were very loud disagreements and Jerry would would you know,
have to tamp it down?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
And did an episode start with an idea, with an
overall idea or because it was a sitcom, we had
to have four intersecting stories, which was unique. Did you
start with with with modular Hey, that may work better
with this on this episode and moving stuff around?
Speaker 6 (31:43):
Absolutely, that sometimes did happen, But most of the time
you just went into a room with Jerry and Jeff
and Alick and Dave and you ran a whole bunch
of ideas, ideas for a capsule story that could be
a George story. I got a freelance. My first episode
was season eight on the Pothole, which was Jerry not
(32:05):
to his girlfriend's toothbrush and the toilet and then can't
tell her and she's already brushed her teeth, which actually
happened to my now wife and you when we lived
in New York on the Upper West Side, and I
had to tell her for literally years and years, I
just thought of that that was what that wasn't a
real thing, that was like a marvel. And then later
once once she was already pregnant, she's nowhere for her
to go, I said, yeah, you know, that really happened.
(32:25):
I threw your tooth. I threw the toothbrush away, and
I subbed it out when it was too late. Yeah,
you brush your teeth of the toilet water. So you'd
throw stories out of them like that and they'd approve.
And once you go out of Jerry, George and Elne
and A. Cramer proved, then you were set off to
outline it. And it was a very intricate structure of
there were big rooms for punch up because all the writers,
(32:46):
and then there were very small rooms, which is just
one person trying to put together that episode they were
going to write and getting the stories approved by the
the top people. And then there were rewrite rooms for
somewhere in the middle, and then there were post table
punch up sessions, which was again every one one. So
it was incredibly well structured, and it had to be
because you know, I remember at the beginning of production
Schaeffer said, Okay, uh, nobody's uh, nobody make any plans
(33:09):
for the weekend. And someone said what weekend? He said,
all weekends. It was a little uh. And he was
damn he was correct, because right, yes, and and that's
because the Jeff and Allen were and Dave were remarkably
talented show runners have continued to be, but the tone
was set by Jerry. Because this his work ethic continues
(33:30):
to blow me away to this day. I remember very
specifically we had a nine am rewrite on a Sunday
and I got there a little early by accident, and
he was there at eight forty five pacing because he
wanted to get the work done and brilliant obviously brilliant, funny.
You can't say enough about that. But he also doesn't
get credit for being John Starks, for just working harder
(33:53):
than any comic in the history of comics.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, being the show and had at that then learn
and do and and delivery. It is said, great to
see you. I wish you.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
This is our holiday show, so happy holidays to you
and your family.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And uh and I am.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I am truly delighted to see you. And it makes
me feel like we should just sit sometime and catch up.
But I feel that way about our whole group.
Speaker 6 (34:16):
But I love that anytime you just tell me where,
I'll even go to the valley.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I love that, WHOA said, even it's the assumption that
I did by what's going to happen? You call and said,
let's meet it in the valley. Who was just say
I was just saying that. I was just saying that
on the podcast, Dan, thank you my friends. So wasn't
(34:48):
that lovely? Wasn't that a little trip down memory lane
to find out how the holiday began? And then with
child abuse? And hell boy, I just still you look
at Dan and he's a great guy. Yeah. The fact
that he revealed that in the writer's room and now
he's got to live with every year.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
All of this thing that tortured him as a child
is now is international mind the world. Yeah, amazing. So
you've you've arranged a little treat for me as well
as the listeners. Because I was not a part of
your you were busy off doing doing theater and stuff
like that. I just thought it would be really cool.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
We have such a talented guy that we met here,
Sonny Promoton, and he works with how I'm into how
I kind of well, I hate to stay discovered you,
but you signing in the Black Pack. We were exposed
to them here where we record and blown away by
the talent.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
The voice, the musicianship, and you know, it's it's it's
one of those things, especially in this town.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
All this guy's great, all, this guy's faby and.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
We were blown away. I'm telling you how he said, yeah,
they're my house band, and I'm going, okay, howie, whatever
you need like a house What are you doing when
you need a house band? You guys started playing, and
we were like, what the hell is going on in
that little corner over there?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
There's how many is four players?
Speaker 8 (36:10):
We actually our whole band is up to like eight players,
but we change in and out. We changed formats and
different people. But when we're here, we're usually about five people.
But you know, our real band, we've we've got a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
All I can tell you is they're putting out.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Sound and a lot of the stuff you guys do
are covers of things, but you totally changed the feel
and the vibe and the groove and the certainly the
musicality of it all.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
And it feels like, since we never see them.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
Rehearse, we go, hey, play a blivola demama in seven
and g you know, and.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
So what's background? When did you start playing?
Speaker 8 (36:51):
Okay, I really I started playing piano when I was sixteen.
At one point I had such hard time, I got
really depressed and and I just kind of was wandering
around and walking around the city, and I would hear
something in my ear. I could hear just some notes
and some different noises, right, I said, Hell, why don't
you go find a piano somewhere and see if I
(37:13):
can figure something out. I don't know, and I sat
down and I started to tinker. Within fifteen minutes, I
wrote my first song and changed my life. And then
a year later I had over three hundred songs.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Did you know you had the ability to play?
Speaker 6 (37:28):
I did not know.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And was it just something that was in you? Who
taught your chorus.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Already taught me chords? Nobody did.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:35):
I looked at the piano and it just made sense
to me. I played a little bit here and there,
and I was like, oh, okay, this is relative, this
makes sense. I didn't know the term for it. I
didn't understand what it was. I would just play the
notes and the sound. I knew that the sounds worked together.
I didn't have any clue. I didn't have any theory
behind it at all, and I just started to write music.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
And I we have a.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Only some much story in that I learned music on flute,
so I had heavy braces.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
In my third grade, you had to take an instrument
we didn't have. I didn't have a piano.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
My parents refuse to let me play drums, so for me,
I couldn't put anything in or press against my mouth.
So I couldn't do anything that needed a trumpet's Armbisher right,
I couldn't put a reed instrument in my mouth because
of the dender, and so I was down to violin
(38:31):
or flute. And I was already the subject of bullying.
So I went, which one can I run with faster?
You know, to get away from these guys. So I
learned music on flute, but I wanted to learn piano.
Now the difference between you and me is I got
a basic book on music theory, which said, here's what
(38:51):
makes a major cord, here's what makes a minor cord.
And not having a piano, I made a cardboard cutout
of a keyboard.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
So we're talking Sonny and I and I go, you
know what, why don't we we have a festive this
episode coming out? Would you do a fest of a
song first? And he went, really would you do it?
And I said, I love, I would love for you
to do it. Jason was off doing fiddler. Yeah, so
you did it. I have not heard it. Jason has
not heard it. So we wanted to present it for
the first time that do you have petroones so you
(39:20):
can you know it? Okay, here we go, so if
you hear me in the control room. Here it is
the original fest of a song by Sunny and the Blackpack.
Is it all Black Pack?
Speaker 8 (39:30):
It's featuring Alex Rain, which is a guitarist and and
he's my one of my bead producers, so me and
him work together on this project. And everybody really contributed.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
But it's it's really the.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Name of the song, Peter Till I gave it to
you and said, do what you want, do what you
want with the change it your lyric, whatever you want.
So let's we'll hear we'll hear it, now hear it.
What's it call?
Speaker 8 (39:53):
By the way, it's unnamed. It's Festus right now.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I think it's just fest of Us. Is it good name?
It's jest of Us. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 7 (40:04):
Twice two nights before Christmas, and all throughout our home
relatives gather together who would rather be alone, children expecting presents,
but with credit and cash that would parents deep in debt,
(40:27):
who'd rather used it for gas. That's why there's no
Monora archere this December twenty third. No tinsel lights or
carrols to be heard. That's just a simple aluminum all
bega the fest best Tonight, the nother nomination or knockhomercare
(40:52):
holiday that ends me? The fight after spagety loof It
feeds a strength who will win? Then the hearing of grievances.
Let the insults begin to sagging by, to travel, the traffic,
(41:15):
stress the fuss, embrace the magic of the holiday.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
That's for the rest of verse festiverse. Festival festival.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
By the way, who starts poem song with twas?
Speaker 7 (41:43):
What festivals?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Can you use it for? Scramble?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Does anyone ever say, hey, honey, what last Tuesday that
we went to your parents for dinner? And what would
the negatives be?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Twasn't beautiful?
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Where do we find you?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
In the in the in the gang.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
We're on Instagram, on YouTube, on Spotify, on all streaming platforms.
You can search Sunning the Black Pack, but our handle
is Black Media Presents on most places ipic Festivus.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Everybody, happy holidays and we'll see you in the brand
of here No Really.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
As another episode if Really Really comes to a close,
Let's thank our guests, danu Keef. You can follow Dan
on x at djok Underscore e R, and you can
find us online at reallynoreally dot com. We're also on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
and threads at really No Really Podcast.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Please check out our full episodes on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Hit that subscribe button and tick that bell so you're
updated when we release new videos. If you ever Really
Know Really let us know and if we use it,
we will send you a thoughtful gift and thank you
for listening, sharing, and most importantly, subscribing to our show.
We release new episodes Really Know Really every Tuesday, so
make sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Really No Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase
Entertainment
Really now, really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really really hello, and welcome to really No Really with Jason,
Alexander and Peter Tilden, who want you to know that
subscribing to our show would make a perfect holiday gift.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Coincidentally enough, this episode is.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
All about the holidays and why so many families celebrate
with extremely odd and bizarre holiday traditions. Perhaps the most
famous bizarre holiday tradition is the celebration of Festivus from
the television show Seinfeld, with which I believe Jason has
some sort of passing acquaintance. The actual Festivus was created
(00:41):
by Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe's father, and today Dan speaks
about the true origin of the Festivus poll, the annual
airing of grievances and the demonstration of feats of strength.
He also reveals the many horrors of the real life celebration.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So happy holidays, and here's Jason than Peter.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
It's hard to believe that the year has passed since
our last gathering before.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
The Old Fire plaka Minora whatever anybody else, And this
is our annual holiday episode, which is our Festivus episode
because of course of Seinfeld, and we got Dan O'Keeffe
on Dan if you didn't hear it last year, Dane O'Keefe,
his family actually is the family that his.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Father created the Festivus holiday, which for Dan was not
a happy occasion.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
No, and you'll find out why in just a moment.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And he when Dan was a writer on Seinfeld, he
happened to mention it in the writer's room and that
was not a thing you do unless you want. He
was not initially thrilled that the other writers went, oh,
this is a thing, but it is his his true
life family celebration was the genesis of our Festivus.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
But not identical to what they're doing and bizarre, more
much more bizarre. Yeah, so if they showed that on yeah,
I don't think it would be as funny. When was
the first twenty years ago? Did the first episode are?
I couldn't, but people celebrated people by pauls.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I mean we did the show basically from ninety to
ninety nine, so it's about halfway through.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So maybe it's amazing how many it's amazing how many
years it took off.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Ben and Jerry's made an ice cream for it. I
mean it it is, it is huge. It's a it's
a celebrated.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And by the way, as I recall, in this episode,
we discussed that too, why it became huge, and why
people create stuff for their family, whether it's bizarre or not,
whether the foods they eat or things they choose a
holiday time, it actually creates the culture of that family.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Well, we for instance, in the Alexander family, we have
Thanksgiving and then the next day it's called the Turkey Games,
where we invite my daughter in law's family over since
they're in town anyway, and we have like a little
Olympics of silly things, and there's a there's little statues
that you win for the events, and then we eat
(03:08):
all the left effisodes.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But and that becomes your family culture. I mean, it's
more than just stilly in things. It's about getting together
and doing it. Remember when we are creating all that
kinds of stuff. So a lot of families are bizarre
family cultures. A lot of families have chosen not to
do the Christmas or Hanka thing or Kwanza because they
like Festivus. So let's get into it. And then we've
(03:29):
got an additional bonus, a little surprise at the very end.
Something brand every year, we're going to tack on something
new and important, and we've got a very huge talent
at the end of this episode who has done a
song for us. So you I think you want to
go to hang around for this, but right now, in.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
The meantime, let's look back and remember with Dan O'Keefe
our festival, the origins of festivalus go. It's holiday time
and as you know, I am associated with a particular holiday.
But what's interesting and are really that kicks it off
is you. You shared with me that your research has
(04:08):
shown that over twenty percent of people, over twenty percent
of people say that their families have bizarre.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Bizarre, unique holiday traditions, traditions, right, So.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
That led us to of course the most holiday, that
is the most famous and the most bizarre, is made
famous on my former show Seinfeld is Christmas.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
There's Honka.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
That's Festive Us, the festival for the rest of Us,
which was an actual holiday created by the father of
the man who authored the episode, and that man is,
of course, mister Dan O'Keefe's here with us today. Dan's
a producer and a writer known for a variety of
things Beavis and butt Head, Space Force, Veep, Silicon Valley
(04:49):
Drew Carrie Show, and of course, most notably our Festivus
episode on Seinfeld and I am so delighted, even though
well I haven't seen a talk do in probably twenty years.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Dan, welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Thank you, Jason. I'm flattered to me invited on And
to be fair, that was kind of close to the
festivus of it.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, people who do not know the argent, we'll find
out the argent. I did laugh when I that you
were actually invited on different times to people's houses over
the holidays who were actually observing a form of festivus
and didn't know that it was from your family.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
That has happened on a number of occasions. I am
so far unanimous in my streak of saying no thank you.
I'm sure I hope they had a lovely time, but wow, wow, yeah,
that's happened a number of times.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Wow. So the origin is not what people think right
the way we laid it out on the show.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
I guess the origins of those ideas may be from
what you and your dad to your family created. But
what can you walk us through for people that don't
know what your organic Festivus was?
Speaker 6 (05:58):
My organic Festivus was a living hell on earth that
appeared at random throughout the year at an unspecified date.
It didn't have It wasn't really December twenty thirty. It
was whenever my father felt like it. One year there
were none, one year there were two. And it arose
out of the fact that my dad was basically a
(06:20):
more feral Frank Costanza who spent thirty forty fifty years
desperately trying to turn himself into Fraser Crane. He escaped
from Jersey the Greenville ward of Jersey City, which at
the time was sort of like a you know, a Southey.
And he was the first in his family to go
to college, and I think one of the first to
finish high school, and got rid of his accident at
(06:40):
Oxford and just decided to wash the stink of Jersey
off himself with excessive amounts of education, including an obsession
with the plays of Samuel Beckett who Wow, There's a lot,
There's a lot, Wow Wow. Including and on his first
date with my mother, he lent her a copy of
the play Craps Last Tape. Now, when the play Craps
Last Tape, it's an old man listening to you're a
(07:01):
song and dance man.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
You're you're talking my language. Go ahead.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
An old man listening to tape recordings of a slightly
younger man listening to recordings of a slightly younger man.
So the original Festivus was indeed an airing of grievances,
but it was an area of grievances in which my
brothers and I were made to listen to recordings of
my father complaining the year before, while listening to recordings
of my father complaining the year before, and so on
(07:26):
and so on in a series of Russian nesting dolls.
It was occasionally exhilarating. Most often there was There was
a tremendous amount of liquor involved. I mean it was
just in my Later in my life, my dad lost
fifty five pounds by switching to light beer and started
wearing suits from the fifties that fit him again. And
(07:49):
it was like he dressed like Kramer. He was wearing
these like ancient hipster vintage jobs. It was crazy, And
it was my father drunkenly complaining into a tape recorder
about the corrosive effect of internal reader's digest politics, about
how we had disappointed him during the year about how
my mother did not keep a clean house, about how
his relatives were awful, which was actually kind of you know,
(08:11):
not always incorrect. There was a lot of strange music
that was played. He played this record containing songs of
the Irish Republican Army, but also weird the strange novelty
pop records from Germany and Italy from like the forties, fifties,
and sixties. They actually there's an Italian version of Alvin
(08:33):
and the Chipmunks. That's the most terrifying thing I've ever
heard in my life. The Chipmunks and the Irish rebels
being hanged by the British, and the strange German accordion
stuff and all over that a litany of complaints, and
then he would encourage us to complain ourselves, and then
when we complained too much, you would complain that we
were complaining too much. It was it was a combination
(08:54):
of alcoholism and borderline child endangerment that should have had
the New York States takes away and raised us in
a facility, But at the time, you know, child Protective
Services just was not not up this enough in the
New York area. So, uh, there you have it.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So wait, that's your family. You brother would cry, You
would cry, I mean it was. It was horrifying. And
also had a clock nailed in a bag to the
wall rather than a Paul right best of his.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Poll is a By the way, I should mention I
didn't author the entire episode. I wrote it along with
Jeff Schaffer and aleck Berg, who arguably wrote some of
the better stuff. But the symbol is not a pole.
That was a Shaefer joke. The real symbol of the
holiday was my father took an ancient rusted alarm clock,
put it in like a burlapsed sack, and then nailed
(09:40):
it to the wall. And I don't know why he
never told you represent He would always say the same thing,
that's not for you to know. And I don't know
what it means, and I still to this day, and
something about the evanescence of time, of life, of youth.
I don't know. I know that it was a wedding
present that he and my mom got, so maybe it's
some think about their marriage. I don't even want to know.
(10:02):
But oh there was. By the way, another symbol of
Festivus was a sign hand letter that read fascism that
my father would tape to the wall. He wouldn't nail
that to the wall. But the thing is that sign
also came out sometimes at Thanksgiving and sometimes at christ Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Wow, So I read that you said your dad was
an undiagnosed bipolar also at the time.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Was this at least so was this.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Was there joy ever? Or was this always the storm
that was brewing underneath for your dad?
Speaker 6 (10:33):
It was incredibly charismatic and brilliant. Brilliant man. I mean
the New York Times compared his book, his thousand page
unified field Theory of Anthropology, psychology and sociology. He could
compare it to Mark Starwin and Freud in their review,
although not only people in Japan read it, but for
some reason. But yeah, it was terrifying, but there were
(10:55):
it was interspersed with moments of joy. He was very funny.
He made it funny while it was happening. But for
the most part it was It was mostly like they say,
war is mostly boring, with moments of terror, but the
occasionally it's fun damn.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
And you didn't want this out there that the story
is your brother Mark right still de means accidentally.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
We came to the realization very young. If you go
to school, elementary school and say, hey, we had festivusts
this weekend. When when did you have it? People will
look at you and say excuse me, and it will
you will immediately be put on a more rigorous beating schedule.
So we had a bowet of silence that was semi
formally taken and I had literally blocked it out of
my mind. And then Mark goes and opens his yap
(11:39):
at a party that Jeff Jay for, aleck Berg, Dave Mandel,
some of the executive producers along with Jerry the final
season of the show. A party they were at and
they were immediately, excuse me, I want to hear.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
More about this.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
So then I was lured to a diner called Swingers
On on Beverly and they sort of pinned me down
in a booth. They sat, you know, around me, so
I couldn't get out out, and they said we want
to talk about Festivus and I actually hadn't thought about
it in years for a reason. I was like, oh,
how did you hear about that? I'm really sorry you
(12:10):
had to take up those brain cells with that information.
And they're like, no, no, we want to put it
on the show, and I said, no, you really really don't.
You're making a terrible mistake.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
This show is a perfect thing.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
This is the greatest common the history of television. And
you want to essentially smear feces on it. You're mad,
You're mad. Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, Dave Mandel. But you know,
as it turned out, I was dead wrong. Jerry wanted
to do it, and they were completely right. Now there
was it turns out there was a version that was
consumable by a mass audience. I thought that it would
(12:41):
lead to not good things.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
But and the stuff that was created for the for
the television version of Festivus, that was all. That was
all sort of a mutual mind mold right, the whole
the feats of strength, the airing of grievance is.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
The tereral negativity around it, the Georgia attitude toward it
is taken from reality because they doesn't want to talk
about it. What runs when his father brings it up.
But the specifics of it did change. Now, the airing
of grievances was the central tenet of the original. Yes,
but and though there was always the implicit threat of
(13:19):
violence from my father, there was not actually a wrestling
of parental wrestling thing. Nor was there a poll that
did come out of the rest the wait ratio with
an alec Berg joke. The poll itself was with Schaeffer.
I think the the twenty third to get a to
get a head start on Christmas. I think that was Dave.
(13:41):
People just filled in the blanks to put together a
more palatable version of this, you know, remake of the
Mosquito Coast that I lived.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And do you remember it? So? Do you remember? And
we want to get into what it felt like writing
in the writer's room for Signfel, etc. But do you
remember being there when they shot that episode? What? What?
What went through your head? And what you thought emotionally
watching this? What was that weak like for you?
Speaker 6 (14:06):
You know, here we are, It was like an out
of body experience. And I remember thinking something that I
hadn't thought since I left for college, which is my
father might actually physically murder me over this and so
and I couldn't tell if it was good or not,
Like it's one of the things where you're right, And
obviously that happens in shows that are not taken partially
from your childhood. But in that case, what I was
(14:30):
hoping was the following I was hoping that. I was
hoping that Festivus would be left on the editing room floor.
I thought, look, we have there's a Jerry story, a
George's story, a Cramer story, and a Laine's story. This
is a Frank story, this is a fifth story. There's
no way it'll survive the editing process. So I comforted
myself by saying, it'll.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
All be fine.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
They're just gonna snip it around the edges and then
they'll they'll come to their senses. They'll come to their senses.
And they realized, no, we don't want to do this
to the show. The show does not deserve this, America
does not deserve this. But as it turned out, somehow
they edited thirteen and a half minutes out of it.
That that's how long it was, and they need to
actually fit together in a way that made sense and
(15:11):
was watchable. And I've was surprised. And it's a testament
to the editors and to the talent of the gentleman
I mentioned, and Jerry's vision steering the show and as
always and and uh oh man, if you remember shooting
that scene the festive dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Around the table. What I remember vividly.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think there's probably I think this is available online
on bloopers, but I can't remember the reason why. But
Julia looked pretty draggled by the time she got to
the table, I think, like her hair was all matted down, and.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
It was to parallel the girl who looked good in
One Life exactly.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
And there was this kind of unsavory looking guy who
was hitting on her at the table and he said
something about you look great, and in total Julia Elaine fashion,
she goes, huh, thanks. She was like hell as much
as Julia could ever look like hel and she couldn't
(16:12):
get through it.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
She could.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
The guy's face was so great. He was one of
those great characters that they always found. And he did
it perfectly. He did it like right on the edge
of you know, you know, child rapist. And it was
she just and that and we did take after take
and then then you know, God rest them. Jerry Stiller
would get up and start going, I got a lot
(16:35):
of problems with your papa, and that we were That
was it, we were done.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
I remember a couple of things. First of all, the
guy you're talking about, he he was a he did
a him all access show in New York City, I
think out of Brooklyn, in which he reviewed pornography. He
was an actual like like, he was exactly who you
think he would be, and he played that perfectly. I
remember another thing which at the beginning, I remember, I
remember all of you breaking everybody. Yeah, but at the
(17:00):
very beginning, I think Julius said somebody to Jerry, like,
we get this in one take, I'll give you a
million dollars something like that, and needless to say, it
took eight hours.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
She personally made sure that we weren't going to get
an I think I think it took eight hours, yeah, wow,
to get the table.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
And I think that the guy that we're talking about,
the kind of you know, borderline.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Personality Colin's sleazy friend.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I think the guy who played his cohort on the
show turned out to be Tracy LED's esteemed actor author employer.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Putt surprise, So let me ask you a big question
to clear something up that's been out there forever. So
when people celebrate festivals, they try and emulate the meal,
but nobody can actually figure out there are no clear shot.
People tried to freeze frame it and whatever. So I've
read about this portrayal. They're trying to figure it out.
So what they do is they get Bopka from one episode,
(17:58):
they get bagels from their marbles. But there are reports
that there was let us with what looked to be
meal out on it on the table. What was do
you do you? Does anybody know what the meal was
in the sign phone.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Episode on the show. I'm pretty sure it was meat loaf. Yeah,
cleared it up for every there was a there was
a disagreeable, suspect looking meat loaf that was carved up
before the scene and put on everyone's plate.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
There you go, I think, yeah, because nobody can identify
for sure when they celebrate festivals at home, so they
emulate by by by grabbing from different episodes. Like I said,
the Bopka, et cetera for the meal. But you just
cleaned it up. Now people who have festiv it's meat
loaf on lettuce. Oh my god, I.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
Mean the real thing was it was whatever the whatever
we were having for dinner. It was usually you know,
it was a holiday, So my mom made like a
chicken or something.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But what was the fallout from the episode within your family?
Speaker 6 (18:50):
My mom was real afraid to tell me Dad. Uh,
Mark thought it was hilarious because he was not going
to get hit by any of the bullback. It was
all falled on me. My other brother didn't want any
part of it. Uh, And then it came out and
I had to tell my dad. At first he didn't understand,
and then he got real mad like like like yeah,
(19:10):
like we're very briefly like and he by that point
he was slowing down. There wasn't so much of the
throwing stuff mad level left, but he was very exercised.
But then he saw it and he kind of liked it.
And then people, you know, the reviews started coming. He
started and then he immediately became insufferably smug and thought
that that episode retroactively justified every poor choice he'd never
(19:34):
made his entire life. He was, Oh, he was thrilled.
He was over the moon. He was over the moon.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So you would tell people, I'm thest shut him up.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Ben and Jerry's made uh like a flavor. It was
like burnt shirt caramel and Christmas Eve type flavors. And Uh.
They sent a poster and my dad framed it and
insisted on like hanging on the wall the kitchen in
a place where it really didn't fit. So he was
he was for the last do the last decade and
(20:09):
a half of his life. For more.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Could not have been prouder. Could Speaking of the ice cream.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
So I just you know, I went online and I
went to just Amazon and typed in Festivus related things,
and here's what came up. Lots of poles, you know,
by a Festivus pole, there's a board game. There were
fireplace stockings, sweaters, mugs, treo ornaments, playing cards, t shirts,
refrigerator magnets, and the ice cream flavor.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Do you ever see anything from any of that? No?
Speaker 6 (20:46):
No, I mean no, no, I mean look, as far
as I know in the context of the show, the
copyright to that holiday is owned by Castle Rock Communications
and they're welcome to it. And as of right now,
it's an open source holiday. It's entered into the culture,
which I'm I have mixed emotions about, obviously. But if
(21:06):
Satanists want to protest against fascism in Florida by putting
up a display with beer cans and putting the word
Festivus on it in the Florida State House, which happened, hey.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Good for you to just go for it was a
phrase festivus for the rest of us. That was a
phrase that the family did use, right, And your daddy
came up with.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I have these tapes and they're actually in that filing
cabinet and they were remastered to CDs a long time ago,
and their tapes from every year, and in nineteen seventy
six that year, my dad, in the tape recording said
this is a festist for the rest of us. But
what he meant by that was for the living as
opposed to the dead, because that year my grandmother, Jeanette
(21:44):
Marie O'Connor O'Keeffe, had had a stroke in a supermarket
in Jersey City and died. We don't pass away in
my family, we die, and so that was what it meant.
And I remember that and I sort of spat it
out without remembering the context. Then by the time it's
in the script and it's actually working and we're past
the table, like, oh yeah, actually about my dead grandpa's around, well, I.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Always thought it was because.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I actually thought it was true of your family as well,
But I always thought it was Frank Costanza's. You know,
he was an atheist, you know, he didn't want to
play into any of the religiosity. So it was a
festival for the rest of us, you know who don't.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Well, the original version was it was those of us
who were alive as opposed to dead.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
Did your did the family either accept or pervert any
other holiday? Was Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Okay? Was Halloween?
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Halloween?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Okay? Was?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
I mean? Thanksgiving was weird, but it was recognizably Thanksgiving.
We celebrated Christmas in a cultural way, no religiosity at all.
So the answer is no, he didn't pervert any other holidays.
But that's just wasn't the only made up holiday he had.
There were weirder ones. Oh tell, that's just wasn't the
(23:12):
only made up holiday he had. There were weirder ones.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Oh pray tell, well, this is not this to start.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Off, You know the A very merry on birthday to
you from uh Lewis Carroll.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I am familiar with it, very peripherally.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Yes, from Alice in Wonderland. Whenever my dad did something
so drunkenly, violently unacceptable or offensive or horrifying or just
generally embarrassing that my mom was about to leave him,
then whichever child was offended against would get an extra
birthday and that was called an unbirthday, and it was
sort of a little birthday, but it was still it
(23:50):
was called an un birthday.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That was weird, weird.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
It was something called the Polish Hour, and I started
to explain what the Polish hour was, because he said
it's time for the Polish shower. What this meant was
lights were again extinguished. The guy was really into candles.
I don't know if he didn't have electricity growing up
or something, But then he made my mother play Chopin's
Polonaise on the piano, which had not been tuned in
(24:14):
twenty years, and so it sounded really peculiar, kind of
like this theme to Halloween when she tried to play it.
And then he would deliver an off the cuff impromptu
monologue looking back on this moment from the perspective of
the future, like thirty years from now, remembering in the
present what was happening, but referred to the town we
lived in as the swamp, and it was just him
(24:39):
pounding huge amounts of alcoholic beverages while reminiscing about things
that either hadn't happened yet or were happening now as
if they had happened in the distant past. There was
definitely a whiff of Beckett of a crap glass tape
to this too. But he just sat in this ancient
stained yellow chair chanting this nonsense while my mom was
forced to play this a piece of piano music on
(25:02):
an untuned piano.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Even I said, you would come home and never know
what was going to happen on any given day.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Pretty much, I mean we we. Also there were classes
after class, I mean we received additional schooling in. One
of them was quantum theory, but this was the late
nineteen seventies, so they only discovered a few quarks. We
didn't have a full quark component compliment. Yet, there was
a whole room of the house filled Florida ceiling with
books about the Kennedy assassination. So this was what I
(25:31):
came home, yes, on a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But damn, what's amazing is.
Speaker 7 (25:36):
You know?
Speaker 6 (25:36):
It's amazing amazing. This is something Jerry said after recounting
one of these anecdotes. I think it was explaining festivals.
It was a long beat, and then I believe it
with Jerry said, why are you alive?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, but Dane, I was going to go the other way.
The weird thing is and I know there's alcoholism by
personally bipolar disorder, but in a weird way, because you're
so articulate, you know history, you're you're you're aware a
limited a grasp of quantum that's tough but fair. You're
exposed to so much, even though it was in a
(26:06):
bizarre way, went here, you went to Harvard, you ended
up writing on major shows. So in a weird way,
your father exposed you to a lot of stuff in
a bizarre way that you were presented, but you turned
out taking all of that in some way here, he
said condescendingly, which means talking about Dan.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
No, it's there's definitely an aspect of that, absolutely sure.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
I mean, I guess to ping pong off of what
Peter is saying. And I hadn't thought to even get
into this because it's kind of a heavy question and
you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
But I can't get a.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Read on whether you feel like I mean, it's easy
for me to say I loved my dad and I
miss him and he was a big part of my life.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Did you have a relationship that you valued with your
father or was it just too hard to find it?
Speaker 6 (26:59):
I mean, it's complicated, but yeah, absolutely, I love my father.
He was that was the It would have been easy
if he had been monstrous and unlovable, but he was
incredibly charismatic and brilliant and it was talking his way
into or out of anything. So yeah, actually in the
last like particularly the last ten years of his life. Actually,
you know, arguably since the festest episode came out, we
(27:21):
were you know, as close as you can get to
someone that damage.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, yeah, wow. And the other thing that's weird is
estensibly your bizarre holiday has been twenty seven years later,
it still persists and it has become like for families
that do it, it has become part of their culture.
On our hip, we're doing a Festivus thing, it's celebratory.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
I mean, no one that I know that that you know,
fools around with Festivus is doing it as anything other
than a joy, fun unique, you know, something that.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
They look forward to, and it identifies that family as hey,
we're fine, we're quirking, we're different. And they've taken the
feats of strength and they do I read, they do weightlifting,
they do all kinds of racing. They've taken it morphed
it into their family's own and it's pure joy for people.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
It's the watching videos of it, and you're absolutely right,
it's it's joyful. And so in retrospect, not only were
Jerry and Dave and Jeff and Alec right, they they
sort of retro they sort of redeemed that unpleasant morasses
of memory because now this thing that would have been
(28:33):
something that you know, I tried to you know, uh
work through therapy, is something that now you know, literally
dozens of people around the country are having a good
time with.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
It.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Yeah, so so they certainly a lot of the poison
has been taken out of it by by it being
now something that it's just just so strange that like
a super like possibly one of the weirdest parts of
a very strange childhood is now Yeah, it's a word.
It's the word that my dad made up is now
out there.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
That's a wonderful thing. And David, you have some insight
because people are so fascinated still with Sient Fall Notts
on Netflix and it's just the next generation watches.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Well, actually, I would be I would be remiss if
I didn't say it was it was just the honor
of my life. It was every day there with a joy.
It was hard work. It was unbelievably hard work, as
you remember, particularly that season when I did not have
the benefit of working with with mister David. But uh, yeah,
it was such a pleasure to work with you on
that Jason.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Thank you brother. I right back at you and I
it was it was it was just one of those.
But I was going to ask me, what was the
writers What did it feel like. I've been in writers
rooms and it gets very competitive. People don't want to
laugh at your joke. Everybody's trying to please the showrunner
to figure out what's in there. Had I've been in
those kinds of writers rooms, and I've been in kind
of writers rooms where it's just a lot of fun,
where people are just making everybody laugh and it's just
(29:51):
a collective joy to do. What was it. What was
your experience in the writer's room? It was a very
competitive or.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
It was, yeah, but everyone took it very seriously. This
is the greatest TV comedy of all time, and we
are tasked with doing this without one of the creators,
and we better get it right because it's it's a
It would be a crime and a disgrace if we didn't. So, yeah,
(30:20):
that people, it was unbelievably fun.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
It was uh.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Making Jerry Seinfeld laugh in the room is uh you know,
like particularly one time when he almost Loqui came out
of notice, like the birth of my son was nice.
That was fun.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
But I got to say seeing Jerry laugh and that
that was the rappiest moment of my l It was
a joy. It was another joy. Now were there times
that people possibly almost came to blows, Yes, because they
disagreed about the the These were very, very talented. I
mean you had Jennifer Crittenden, who I've worked with since then.
It was a genius, and Alec and Jeff and Dave
(30:56):
who have together created and run some of the greatest
comedies of the last twenty years. And Spike Ferston. I mean,
these were all people at the absolute top of their game,
and everyone cared very much about getting it right and
not just getting it right and making it as good
as it could possibly be. So most of the time
people were laughing so hard that your voice was horsed
(31:19):
by the end of the day. But yeah, sometimes there
were very loud disagreements and Jerry would would you know,
have to tamp it down?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
And did an episode start with an idea, with an
overall idea or because it was a sitcom, we had
to have four intersecting stories, which was unique. Did you
start with with with modular Hey, that may work better
with this on this episode and moving stuff around?
Speaker 6 (31:43):
Absolutely, that sometimes did happen, But most of the time
you just went into a room with Jerry and Jeff
and Alick and Dave and you ran a whole bunch
of ideas, ideas for a capsule story that could be
a George story. I got a freelance. My first episode
was season eight on the Pothole, which was Jerry not
(32:05):
to his girlfriend's toothbrush and the toilet and then can't
tell her and she's already brushed her teeth, which actually
happened to my now wife and you when we lived
in New York on the Upper West Side, and I
had to tell her for literally years and years, I
just thought of that that was what that wasn't a
real thing, that was like a marvel. And then later
once once she was already pregnant, she's nowhere for her
to go, I said, yeah, you know, that really happened.
(32:25):
I threw your tooth. I threw the toothbrush away, and
I subbed it out when it was too late. Yeah,
you brush your teeth of the toilet water. So you'd
throw stories out of them like that and they'd approve.
And once you go out of Jerry, George and Elne
and A. Cramer proved, then you were set off to
outline it. And it was a very intricate structure of
there were big rooms for punch up because all the writers,
(32:46):
and then there were very small rooms, which is just
one person trying to put together that episode they were
going to write and getting the stories approved by the
the top people. And then there were rewrite rooms for
somewhere in the middle, and then there were post table
punch up sessions, which was again every one one. So
it was incredibly well structured, and it had to be
because you know, I remember at the beginning of production
Schaeffer said, Okay, uh, nobody's uh, nobody make any plans
(33:09):
for the weekend. And someone said what weekend? He said,
all weekends. It was a little uh. And he was
damn he was correct, because right, yes, and and that's
because the Jeff and Allen were and Dave were remarkably
talented show runners have continued to be, but the tone
was set by Jerry. Because this his work ethic continues
(33:30):
to blow me away to this day. I remember very
specifically we had a nine am rewrite on a Sunday
and I got there a little early by accident, and
he was there at eight forty five pacing because he
wanted to get the work done and brilliant obviously brilliant, funny.
You can't say enough about that. But he also doesn't
get credit for being John Starks, for just working harder
(33:53):
than any comic in the history of comics.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, being the show and had at that then learn
and do and and delivery. It is said, great to
see you. I wish you.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
This is our holiday show, so happy holidays to you
and your family.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And uh and I am.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I am truly delighted to see you. And it makes
me feel like we should just sit sometime and catch up.
But I feel that way about our whole group.
Speaker 6 (34:16):
But I love that anytime you just tell me where,
I'll even go to the valley.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I love that, WHOA said, even it's the assumption that
I did by what's going to happen? You call and said,
let's meet it in the valley. Who was just say
I was just saying that. I was just saying that
on the podcast, Dan, thank you my friends. So wasn't
(34:48):
that lovely? Wasn't that a little trip down memory lane
to find out how the holiday began? And then with
child abuse? And hell boy, I just still you look
at Dan and he's a great guy. Yeah. The fact
that he revealed that in the writer's room and now
he's got to live with every year.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
All of this thing that tortured him as a child
is now is international mind the world. Yeah, amazing. So
you've you've arranged a little treat for me as well
as the listeners. Because I was not a part of
your you were busy off doing doing theater and stuff
like that. I just thought it would be really cool.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
We have such a talented guy that we met here,
Sonny Promoton, and he works with how I'm into how
I kind of well, I hate to stay discovered you,
but you signing in the Black Pack. We were exposed
to them here where we record and blown away by
the talent.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
The voice, the musicianship, and you know, it's it's it's
one of those things, especially in this town.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
All this guy's great, all, this guy's faby and.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
We were blown away. I'm telling you how he said, yeah,
they're my house band, and I'm going, okay, howie, whatever
you need like a house What are you doing when
you need a house band? You guys started playing, and
we were like, what the hell is going on in
that little corner over there?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
There's how many is four players?
Speaker 8 (36:10):
We actually our whole band is up to like eight players,
but we change in and out. We changed formats and
different people. But when we're here, we're usually about five people.
But you know, our real band, we've we've got a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
All I can tell you is they're putting out.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Sound and a lot of the stuff you guys do
are covers of things, but you totally changed the feel
and the vibe and the groove and the certainly the
musicality of it all.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
And it feels like, since we never see them.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
Rehearse, we go, hey, play a blivola demama in seven
and g you know, and.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
So what's background? When did you start playing?
Speaker 8 (36:51):
Okay, I really I started playing piano when I was sixteen.
At one point I had such hard time, I got
really depressed and and I just kind of was wandering
around and walking around the city, and I would hear
something in my ear. I could hear just some notes
and some different noises, right, I said, Hell, why don't
you go find a piano somewhere and see if I
(37:13):
can figure something out. I don't know, and I sat
down and I started to tinker. Within fifteen minutes, I
wrote my first song and changed my life. And then
a year later I had over three hundred songs.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Did you know you had the ability to play?
Speaker 6 (37:28):
I did not know.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And was it just something that was in you? Who
taught your chorus.
Speaker 6 (37:33):
Already taught me chords? Nobody did.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:35):
I looked at the piano and it just made sense
to me. I played a little bit here and there,
and I was like, oh, okay, this is relative, this
makes sense. I didn't know the term for it. I
didn't understand what it was. I would just play the
notes and the sound. I knew that the sounds worked together.
I didn't have any clue. I didn't have any theory
behind it at all, and I just started to write music.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
And I we have a.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Only some much story in that I learned music on flute,
so I had heavy braces.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
In my third grade, you had to take an instrument
we didn't have. I didn't have a piano.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
My parents refuse to let me play drums, so for me,
I couldn't put anything in or press against my mouth.
So I couldn't do anything that needed a trumpet's Armbisher right,
I couldn't put a reed instrument in my mouth because
of the dender, and so I was down to violin
(38:31):
or flute. And I was already the subject of bullying.
So I went, which one can I run with faster?
You know, to get away from these guys. So I
learned music on flute, but I wanted to learn piano.
Now the difference between you and me is I got
a basic book on music theory, which said, here's what
(38:51):
makes a major cord, here's what makes a minor cord.
And not having a piano, I made a cardboard cutout
of a keyboard.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
So we're talking Sonny and I and I go, you
know what, why don't we we have a festive this
episode coming out? Would you do a fest of a
song first? And he went, really would you do it?
And I said, I love, I would love for you
to do it. Jason was off doing fiddler. Yeah, so
you did it. I have not heard it. Jason has
not heard it. So we wanted to present it for
the first time that do you have petroones so you
(39:20):
can you know it? Okay, here we go, so if
you hear me in the control room. Here it is
the original fest of a song by Sunny and the Blackpack.
Is it all Black Pack?
Speaker 8 (39:30):
It's featuring Alex Rain, which is a guitarist and and
he's my one of my bead producers, so me and
him work together on this project. And everybody really contributed.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
But it's it's really the.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Name of the song, Peter Till I gave it to
you and said, do what you want, do what you
want with the change it your lyric, whatever you want.
So let's we'll hear we'll hear it, now hear it.
What's it call?
Speaker 8 (39:53):
By the way, it's unnamed. It's Festus right now.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I think it's just fest of Us. Is it good name?
It's jest of Us. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 7 (40:04):
Twice two nights before Christmas, and all throughout our home
relatives gather together who would rather be alone, children expecting presents,
but with credit and cash that would parents deep in debt,
(40:27):
who'd rather used it for gas. That's why there's no
Monora archere this December twenty third. No tinsel lights or
carrols to be heard. That's just a simple aluminum all
bega the fest best Tonight, the nother nomination or knockhomercare
(40:52):
holiday that ends me? The fight after spagety loof It
feeds a strength who will win? Then the hearing of grievances.
Let the insults begin to sagging by, to travel, the traffic,
(41:15):
stress the fuss, embrace the magic of the holiday.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
That's for the rest of verse festiverse. Festival festival.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
By the way, who starts poem song with twas?
Speaker 7 (41:43):
What festivals?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Can you use it for? Scramble?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Does anyone ever say, hey, honey, what last Tuesday that
we went to your parents for dinner? And what would
the negatives be?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Twasn't beautiful?
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Where do we find you?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
In the in the in the gang.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
We're on Instagram, on YouTube, on Spotify, on all streaming platforms.
You can search Sunning the Black Pack, but our handle
is Black Media Presents on most places ipic Festivus.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Everybody, happy holidays and we'll see you in the brand
of here No Really.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
As another episode if Really Really comes to a close,
Let's thank our guests, danu Keef. You can follow Dan
on x at djok Underscore e R, and you can
find us online at reallynoreally dot com. We're also on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
and threads at really No Really Podcast.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Please check out our full episodes on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Hit that subscribe button and tick that bell so you're
updated when we release new videos. If you ever Really
Know Really let us know and if we use it,
we will send you a thoughtful gift and thank you
for listening, sharing, and most importantly, subscribing to our show.
We release new episodes Really Know Really every Tuesday, so
make sure to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Really No Really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase
Entertainment
Hosts And Creators
Peter Tilden
Jason Alexander
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