In this episode, Karol Markowicz sits down with comedy writer and podcaster Jim Treacher for a candid conversation about the art of humor and the evolving world of creative writing. Treacher shares the story behind his comedic voice, reflecting on the early blogging era, the development of his online persona, and how cultural shifts have shaped modern comedy.
The discussion dives into practical advice for aspiring writers, the challenges of staying funny in a rapidly changing landscape, and the surprising ways AI may reshape creativity and writing in the years ahead.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
My guest today is Jim Treacher. Jim is the.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Host of the podcast Que the Crickets and has a
substack at Jimtreacher dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi Jim, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thank you very much. Yes, well why not?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah? Why not?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It happened exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I can't think of any bad things that could happen.
You and I know each other online a long long time.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I was thinking about that today, and I love interviewing
people that I've known for a long time. But I
might not know there, you know, as my kids would say,
origin story. So tell me how you got into being
a comedy writer or would you self describe as a
comedy writer.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I have written comedy. I did that until recently. Well,
I started off like a lot of people blogging long
long tart of it. Yeah, me five or so years ago.
And I did that for a while, and then I
got hired by one crazy TV guy and did that
for a while, and then got hired by another crazy
TV guy, did that for a while. So now I'm podcasting.
(01:11):
I just started. Actually it was seven weeks ago today
that I started podcasting, so this is all very new
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Amazing, and I think you're you're doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So you're a little kid and you think I'm funny
I want to write comedy or how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, I was sitting in the back of the class,
trying not to get called on mostly smart. Yeah, but yeah,
I was the kid that was always I could always
think of something funny to say that would make another
kid not want to hit me, or sometimes make them
want to hit me. Sure, but yeah, humor was a
way to kind of smooth things over. And yeah, that's
(01:46):
kind of been the through line my whole life is
if you can make somebody at least smile or chuckle
a little bit, they might be a little less likely
to attack you physically or verbally or in any other way.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So I think that it's probably true. I talked about
this with Dave Barry when he was on the show.
But I think people have started to be less funny
in their writing. Like when I first got into writing,
everybody was trying to make it humorous or at least
a little bit like I mean, it wasn't full on
comedy writing, but it was you'd want to make a
(02:20):
turn of phrase that would make somebody smile while writing
about the war in Iraq.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It could be anything.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and I feel like there's been a real decline
in that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Do you see that or is that just me?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, I mean I've seen Yeah, I guess. So, I
know that it's tougher to sell it. It's tougher to
get people to pay attention if you're not, you know,
angry all the time, or or.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That might be it.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Maybe it might be. I don't know, and not to
say I'm never angry, but I do try to leave
in it a little bit with some kind of oh
yeah no.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
When I was peak angry during COVID, I tried to
make it funny so that people could kind of connect,
right Like that was even more important when I was
at my angriest.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
My kids aren't going to school.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I have to kind of make this amusing for you
to read, to you understand how serious this is, right, Yeah,
I mean, I'm also thinking of like Mark Stein. He
was so I mean, he still is a very funny writer,
but he's like, you know, he's had some very bad
things happened to him in the last decade plus and
I just think that's taking a toll. And other other
people in our orbit who used to crack jokes more
(03:27):
often don't seem to anymore.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, yeah, and I think in my case it's been
a way to, like you say, you know, when bad
things happened to you, and a lot of bad things
have happened to me. I kept working after I got
hit by a car. And if anybody doesn't a last story,
we don't need to get into that, but just to
distract myself, really and to and I figured if it
entertained anybody else, then that's a bonus. But yeah, I
(03:51):
think you're right that people have kind of lost their
sense of humor a little bit. And I don't know
if it's just who the president was at the time
that everybody hated, or who the other president was that
the other hated, or like you say, Covid.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Jage Bush was funny, George W. Bush. Actually, so is Obama.
Sometimes I find Obama not to be funny. Yeah, that great.
No Trump is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
No, yes, him, I don't take anything away from him.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
No, he's full and hilarious. But you know, Joe Biden
was not funny. But I would say Barack Obama sometimes
was funny. Yeah, Like, I don't think Barack Obama was
an amazing speaker. People always talk about how he's such
a great orator, and I didn't think that at all.
And I didn't think he said anything memorable. But I
think he had some good laugh lines. I think he
occasionally said something, and humor is very important to me.
(04:36):
It's how it's for sure, how I connect to people.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I think he probably regrets that White House Correspondence dinner
a little bit. Yea his face. That might have been
a mistake in retrospect, but yeahah, what.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Was the line like, at least some called president.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Something like that? Yeah, well that was that was on
Jimmy Kimmel. I think he did. He dropped the mic.
He was like, at least I could still call myself president.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Right yeah? Yeah. So where did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Well, I was born in New Jersey and I grew
up in Indiana, So I'm kind of half and half.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, is that a big cultural distinction between the two places.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, I learned to talk in New Jersey, New York,
upstate New York, and then we moved to Indiana when
I was a kid. So all the all the Indiana kids.
So I sounded like a Yankee.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
When I went back home to my family, my mom's
family in upstate New York, they all thought I sounded
like a hick, so right, so.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, right, amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I lived in Georgia during the Hermann Kane campaign in
two thousand and four, and all the people there had
trouble understanding me, which I never even thought I had
a New York accent.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
It sounds so New York, it's you know.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But yeah, it's interesting how you can go not even
that far away but sounds so completely different and be
not understandable.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah. I think TV has helped with that.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
But yeah, it has actually, but it's also diluted all
of our accents, Like they all sound similar now because
of widespread TV and videos and stuff like that, at.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Least English speakers, the English speakers. But that's a that's
another podcast.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
That is another podcast.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So so you did always want to be a writer.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, I want to do something. I was always reading
and writing and drawing and that kind of stuff, so
I knew I want to do something with writing. I was.
I was a book editor for for eight or nine
years before I did this actually that was that. That
was how I had the free time to start blogging
was I got laid off from that job and I
just had a bunch of free time. So I just
(06:40):
started just wiping whatever I felt like and people started
responding to it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And it was an amazing time. You could put up
a website and people would find it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And blogspot, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I used a combination of my first and last name,
Cachet my maiden name, and it was cash shade up
blogspot dot com. Then finally I bought a domain name
alarmingnews dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It was great. I love that era.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
That was the And you know when people ask me now,
like how do you get your start in writing or journalism, Like,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I started a blog, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, maybe Twitter, I don't know. But the Twitter thing is,
it's very different and it doesn't showcase your writing very much.
It only showcases equips, which again I'm into quips, so
it's not that bad.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But I don't know how kids do it these days.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Well, I think podcasting is kind of the modern equivalent
of that. That's what it feels like to me. Now. Yeah,
it reminds me of those days. Of just being able
to say whatever you wanted, right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But it's interesting because you could Yeah, I would say,
you could read like ten blogs. You can't really listen
to ten podcasts.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, And that's you know, when I started, when I
was thinking about starting a podcast, I had a lot
of people say to me like, don't bother.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's it's very saturated.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But if you have a kind of something that you
want to say, the people will come.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I mean, you know, assuming That's.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Kind of the way I feel about it right now.
It's more for me at this point than anybody else.
And now and once I get better at it, once
I and I think I'm better at now than I
was well seven weeks ago when I started. So if
I can just keep improving, that's that's that's my goal
at this point. So and talk while doing something like this,
talking talking to other people, just.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Having a conversation, having a you know, my daughter one
time was like, going to go record your podcast, talk
to your friends, make some money, all.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Right, yeah, right, you know, I remember.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
When I found out that Jim Treacher wasn't actually your name, right,
our mutual friend Natasha. First of all, I didn't understand
that it was it was supposed to be Jim Teacher.
I think I referred to you as Jim Treacher and
she's like, you know, it's not his real name, and
it's Jim Teacher, right.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Matt Laibash said the same thing. He was wanted to
call me that because of the rapper Tretch tr Ah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, but it was as because
I hate you.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, they're right, exactly down with oppuh. Yeah, it was
just a pseudonym that kind of got out of hand.
And my real name is Sean Medlock. I don't make
a secret of it. I I when I got hired
of The Daily Caller, I revealed my real name. It's
it's kind of been an open secret since then. So yeah, yeah,
I don't mind saying it, I think, And I don't
really like my pseudonym. It's I'm kind of I feel
(09:30):
kind of stuck with it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I mean, I see you as Jim Treacher, like I
find it very hard to not like, you know, I
had you in my calendar today even though I know
your real name.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I had you in as Jim Treacher.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
It's going to be this podcast is going to be
released as you know, conversation with Jim Treacher.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I don't know it. Does it not fit you? I
think it sort of fits. Well.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's kind of weird because for a long time, well
up until recently, it's been something I didn't have to
say out loud. It was like a persona interesting like
behind you know, when you're behind the keyboard and you
know keyboard. Yeah, and there was an element of that,
but it was like a different persona that you could
put on. I don't know if you've ever seen a
(10:14):
movie from about nineteen ninety called Pump Up the Volume.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I have seen it.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was gonna be like, there's no way, so I
don't I don't see any movies, but yeah, I've seen
that of course.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, he's the DJ.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You're right, and it's I think it's like hard on
hairy or hard hairy or something like that. It's just
a persona he puts on. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, it just feels like a different person when I'm
when I'm doing that. So so now I'm kind of
trying to meld the two. I guess it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, yeah, so you don't feel like you are you
are a gym?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, I don't know. I don't I don't feel like
i'm anybody sometimes. But yeah, it's just it's none of
this has been planned. None of this was I never
sat down and said, well, here's what I'm gonna do,
here's what I'm gonna become a blogger and then do this,
and it just has kind of all fallen into place.
But I think to the point of your podcast, most
(11:06):
of those kind of jobs that I've had were from
writing that I did for myself and that got noticed
by somebody with some kind of influence. That would be
my advice would be, just do what you want to
do for yourself, and then if other people vibe with it,
as the kids say, then.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What would you have done if this didn't work out?
What would the plan be have been?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Oh gosh, I don't know. I really don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Come on, give us a far out one.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
You know, I say all the time people are and
I've said this on a very episode, but you know,
a lot of the writers will just give me something
tangential but like it's funny when you're like, actually i'd
be an astronaut.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Oh well yeah, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think
that would happen. But yeah, I don't know. Well, it
would be something with something writing or editing or that's
what I did for a living before this, so probably
something editing, a book editor some type or that's what
I did for this.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
H This is gonna sound corny, but right now, really
you right? Noyeah? I mean talking of it?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, Well you sound very natural, by the way, like
we've never I don't think we've ever spoken on the
phone or anything, so I had no idea what you
sounded like. Okay, and you make yourself seem like, oh,
it's gonna be so scary. Well you know, yeah, you know,
but you but you sound like you've had maybe a
couple of conversations before.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Well sure, well, but not like this, not over the internet. Yeah,
it's just all very new to me. So I'm I'm learning,
but I feel like I'm picking it up a lot
quicker than I thought it would.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The main thing, Well, that's I've been working really hard
to try to do that because I don't know if
you if you go back and listen to my early
podcast early as in seven weeks ago, I was terrified.
I didn't know. I I hate to sound my own voice.
I'm getting used to it now because it sounds different,
you know when you when you.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Listen to it.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
So yeah, I'm just this is all just kind of
I'm just trying to get used to talking and expressing
myself that way instead of sitting down and you know,
hemming and hauling in front of a keyboard and taking
hours and hours to just say it. And I really
prefer it. Really. It's a different way of thinking, a
different way of I think our brains are wired to
do this as opposed to sitting down, yeah, trying.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To run, sitting together think piece.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, No, I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Also, I think this is amazing and you know, I'm
glad you're doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, you know, I get it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I've heard from you that this is a big step
for you. But it doesn't seem like it's this crazy
thing you're doing. It seems very natal for you.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well good, well, I hope, so I hope. So that's
that's the plan. That's the plan.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. It was a five
year out prediction and it could you about anything, country world.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Anything you'd be a guest on my show? I guess okay,
I was thinking about that when you send me that question.
I think AI is going to have something to do
with it, and it's already. It's already changing so many things.
I this podcast. Most of the steps along the way
I've I've relied on some kind of AI to do it. Really,
(14:23):
the editing software I use as AI. The the jingle
that I put up in front of the podcast is AI.
My logo is AI. All the recommendations for this microphone
I bought and this I got like sound panels up
all over my laundry room in here that yeah, I
recommended that I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I had no idea
(14:46):
how any of this stuff worked. I still kind of don't,
but uh so I'm just doing what the robot tells me,
and I think in that way, I feel like I'm
kind of trying to uh keep up with how eyes
taking jobs already. It feels like it's already happening. Yeah,
you have to race it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Do you feel optimistic about AI? Pessimistic?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I mean, I've had people come on and have both perspectives,
Like I get a lot of pessimism about AI, but yeah,
some optimism too.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I think it's going to be a mixed bag. I
think it's gonna I think it's gonna take a lot
of jobs, but it's also gonna it's gonna democratize a
lot of things we're already seeing. I don't know if
you saw the the Will Stancel Show.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, I make it a point not to find out
who Will Stancil is.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Okay, well, you don't really have to know who he
is to enjoy the cartoon.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
But a cartoon totally joking, I've heard, you know, I like,
but he is.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
One of those names that you're like, I just I
don't know. I don't know who that is. Yeah, let's
keep it that way.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, but somebody did like an entire five minute cartoon
about him with sore too. And it looks like an
adult swim show. It looks like some really Yeah, it
looks and sounds the voice acting it sounds like a
like a regular cartoon. And now people can do that
kind of stuff. Yeah, you defame there, you know, But
(16:14):
and I think a lot of talent is going to
reveal itself that way. That might not you know, people
that might not want to go to LA or New York. Sure,
I certainly don't, especially now. No, I'm sure you feel
the same way about New York.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I do.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
We're recording this the day after mum Donnie won mayoral race.
The podcast comes out a few weeks later, so oh, okay, Yeah,
it's not the it's not the greatest time for New
York right now.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
No, And I know, yeah, I know, I know why
you left, and I'm sure you're not in any where
to go back, but no, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You know, people who don't want to necessarily move to
New York or LA to pursue creative things can do
it from anywhere now.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And there's definitely something to that.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
But I am worried about, you know, everything looking the
same because AI doesn't have a lot of creativity. I
guess maybe that will advance, like I can tell when
something is AI, and that's not a good sign, because
you know, it all kind of looks very, very similar.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm trying to see it as the way that we
saw maybe the Internet, and how it had so much
possibility and so many ideas came from it, And yeah,
it got rid of. It ruined some jobs, but it
expanded the job market ultimately.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It reminds me of the advent of sound film one
hundred years ago. That put a lot of silent film
actors out of work, but it also opened up, right,
you know, a lot of opportunities for other people. So yeah,
I mean there's not a lot of people making stage
coaches anymore. Yeah, that was a big industry at one point.
It's just progress, and I don't know how you're going
to stop it. If a job can be replace, it
(17:55):
will be replaced with automation. So I don't know what's
it starts replacing writers and podcasts. So I'm screwed, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
But like we're gonna we're gonna be in trouble.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I don't know again that I feel like there will
be a time where real people and real voices and
real opinions will almost come back around. Like we we
may lose out in the short term, but there I
think that ultimately people will return to I know this
is a real person and they have real thoughts and
(18:28):
real opinions, and they're not just an AI bot talking to.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Me right right with the I don't know if you've
ever tried to talk to like Grock, the Grock app,
and you can tell when it's been programmed to like
it's hearing words that that kind of flip a switch
and it's it puts on its concern voice or it's.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I know, I haven't had to, I haven't done like
actual talking. I realize it really has like a concern voice.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, and you're like, Okay, you don't have to switch.
You don't have to. I'm not. I'm not gonna do
anything bad to myself here. I'm just telling this is Yeah,
but that all depends on the programming. Well, and the
scary thing about it is that even the people that
program these things don't understand really how they work and
why they at out the results that they do.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, they're going to be smarter than us in the
very near future.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I don't know about that. I don't know about No.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's aware, but yeah, no, not self aware. I mean
hopefully not self aware.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, although today when I was folding my laundry,
I was like, I could definitely get a robot for
this some day.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Well, there is something I don't know what's it called Neo.
It's robot.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Oh I thought the Tesla. The Elon Musk is coming
out with one.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You can get on the wait list like now for it,
and it's thirty thousand dollars, which I can't think of
anything else I.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Want other than laundry.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So I don't know if it'll be worth it quite
for that. But people are putting their names down and
they're getting ready to have a robot in their house.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah. I don't know about that. Yeah, yeah, be doing yourself,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Right something Sure, well, Jim, I have loved this conversation.
I knew you were going to do great.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I felt like it was going to be very comfortable
on no, no, I did. I've been following you for
a long time. Anybody who doesn't follow Jim Teacher check
him out at JT L O L and definitely subscribe
to his substack and his new podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Cue the Crickets. Leave us here with your best tip
from my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Work. Work every day on something that you want to do,
do the work that you have to do to make
a living, and then do something that you want to do,
just you know, twenty minutes an hour, whatever, Just do
something that you want to do and you'll get better
at it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I love it and I could do that.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, why not? Hold your should be a pressional lobby folder.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I don't want to feel for I love you. What
did I have kids for? Thank you so much. He
is Jim Treacher JT l O L on X Jim Treacher.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Dot substack dot com and check out Cue the Crickets.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Thank you so much, Jim.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Thank you m HM
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
My guest today is Jim Treacher. Jim is the.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Host of the podcast Que the Crickets and has a
substack at Jimtreacher dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi Jim, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thank you very much. Yes, well why not?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah? Why not?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It happened exactly.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I can't think of any bad things that could happen.
You and I know each other online a long long time.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I was thinking about that today, and I love interviewing
people that I've known for a long time. But I
might not know there, you know, as my kids would say,
origin story. So tell me how you got into being
a comedy writer or would you self describe as a
comedy writer.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I have written comedy. I did that until recently. Well,
I started off like a lot of people blogging long
long tart of it. Yeah, me five or so years ago.
And I did that for a while, and then I
got hired by one crazy TV guy and did that
for a while, and then got hired by another crazy
TV guy, did that for a while. So now I'm podcasting.
(01:11):
I just started. Actually it was seven weeks ago today
that I started podcasting, so this is all very new
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Amazing, and I think you're you're doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So you're a little kid and you think I'm funny
I want to write comedy or how did this happen?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, I was sitting in the back of the class,
trying not to get called on mostly smart. Yeah, but yeah,
I was the kid that was always I could always
think of something funny to say that would make another
kid not want to hit me, or sometimes make them
want to hit me. Sure, but yeah, humor was a
way to kind of smooth things over. And yeah, that's
(01:46):
kind of been the through line my whole life is
if you can make somebody at least smile or chuckle
a little bit, they might be a little less likely
to attack you physically or verbally or in any other way.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So I think that it's probably true. I talked about
this with Dave Barry when he was on the show.
But I think people have started to be less funny
in their writing. Like when I first got into writing,
everybody was trying to make it humorous or at least
a little bit like I mean, it wasn't full on
comedy writing, but it was you'd want to make a
(02:20):
turn of phrase that would make somebody smile while writing
about the war in Iraq.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It could be anything.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and I feel like there's been a real decline
in that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Do you see that or is that just me?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, I mean I've seen Yeah, I guess. So, I
know that it's tougher to sell it. It's tougher to
get people to pay attention if you're not, you know,
angry all the time, or or.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That might be it.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Maybe it might be. I don't know, and not to
say I'm never angry, but I do try to leave
in it a little bit with some kind of oh
yeah no.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
When I was peak angry during COVID, I tried to
make it funny so that people could kind of connect,
right Like that was even more important when I was
at my angriest.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
My kids aren't going to school.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I have to kind of make this amusing for you
to read, to you understand how serious this is, right, Yeah,
I mean, I'm also thinking of like Mark Stein. He
was so I mean, he still is a very funny writer,
but he's like, you know, he's had some very bad
things happened to him in the last decade plus and
I just think that's taking a toll. And other other
people in our orbit who used to crack jokes more
(03:27):
often don't seem to anymore.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, yeah, and I think in my case it's been
a way to, like you say, you know, when bad
things happened to you, and a lot of bad things
have happened to me. I kept working after I got
hit by a car. And if anybody doesn't a last story,
we don't need to get into that, but just to
distract myself, really and to and I figured if it
entertained anybody else, then that's a bonus. But yeah, I
(03:51):
think you're right that people have kind of lost their
sense of humor a little bit. And I don't know
if it's just who the president was at the time
that everybody hated, or who the other president was that
the other hated, or like you say, Covid.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Jage Bush was funny, George W. Bush. Actually, so is Obama.
Sometimes I find Obama not to be funny. Yeah, that great.
No Trump is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
No, yes, him, I don't take anything away from him.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
No, he's full and hilarious. But you know, Joe Biden
was not funny. But I would say Barack Obama sometimes
was funny. Yeah, Like, I don't think Barack Obama was
an amazing speaker. People always talk about how he's such
a great orator, and I didn't think that at all.
And I didn't think he said anything memorable. But I
think he had some good laugh lines. I think he
occasionally said something, and humor is very important to me.
(04:36):
It's how it's for sure, how I connect to people.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I think he probably regrets that White House Correspondence dinner
a little bit. Yea his face. That might have been
a mistake in retrospect, but yeahah, what.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Was the line like, at least some called president.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Something like that? Yeah, well that was that was on
Jimmy Kimmel. I think he did. He dropped the mic.
He was like, at least I could still call myself president.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Right yeah? Yeah. So where did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Well, I was born in New Jersey and I grew
up in Indiana, So I'm kind of half and half.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, is that a big cultural distinction between the two places.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, I learned to talk in New Jersey, New York,
upstate New York, and then we moved to Indiana when
I was a kid. So all the all the Indiana kids.
So I sounded like a Yankee.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
When I went back home to my family, my mom's
family in upstate New York, they all thought I sounded
like a hick, so right, so.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, right, amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I lived in Georgia during the Hermann Kane campaign in
two thousand and four, and all the people there had
trouble understanding me, which I never even thought I had
a New York accent.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
It sounds so New York, it's you know.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But yeah, it's interesting how you can go not even
that far away but sounds so completely different and be
not understandable.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah. I think TV has helped with that.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
But yeah, it has actually, but it's also diluted all
of our accents, Like they all sound similar now because
of widespread TV and videos and stuff like that, at.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Least English speakers, the English speakers. But that's a that's
another podcast.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
That is another podcast.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So so you did always want to be a writer.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, I want to do something. I was always reading
and writing and drawing and that kind of stuff, so
I knew I want to do something with writing. I was.
I was a book editor for for eight or nine
years before I did this actually that was that. That
was how I had the free time to start blogging
was I got laid off from that job and I
just had a bunch of free time. So I just
(06:40):
started just wiping whatever I felt like and people started
responding to it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And it was an amazing time. You could put up
a website and people would find it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And blogspot, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I used a combination of my first and last name,
Cachet my maiden name, and it was cash shade up
blogspot dot com. Then finally I bought a domain name
alarmingnews dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It was great. I love that era.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
That was the And you know when people ask me now,
like how do you get your start in writing or journalism, Like,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I started a blog, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, maybe Twitter, I don't know. But the Twitter thing is,
it's very different and it doesn't showcase your writing very much.
It only showcases equips, which again I'm into quips, so
it's not that bad.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
But I don't know how kids do it these days.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Well, I think podcasting is kind of the modern equivalent
of that. That's what it feels like to me. Now. Yeah,
it reminds me of those days. Of just being able
to say whatever you wanted, right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
But it's interesting because you could Yeah, I would say,
you could read like ten blogs. You can't really listen
to ten podcasts.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, And that's you know, when I started, when I
was thinking about starting a podcast, I had a lot
of people say to me like, don't bother.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's it's very saturated.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
But if you have a kind of something that you
want to say, the people will come.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I mean, you know, assuming That's.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Kind of the way I feel about it right now.
It's more for me at this point than anybody else.
And now and once I get better at it, once
I and I think I'm better at now than I
was well seven weeks ago when I started. So if
I can just keep improving, that's that's that's my goal
at this point. So and talk while doing something like this,
talking talking to other people, just.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Having a conversation, having a you know, my daughter one
time was like, going to go record your podcast, talk
to your friends, make some money, all.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Right, yeah, right, you know, I remember.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
When I found out that Jim Treacher wasn't actually your name, right,
our mutual friend Natasha. First of all, I didn't understand
that it was it was supposed to be Jim Teacher.
I think I referred to you as Jim Treacher and
she's like, you know, it's not his real name, and
it's Jim Teacher, right.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Matt Laibash said the same thing. He was wanted to
call me that because of the rapper Tretch tr Ah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, but it was as because
I hate you.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, they're right, exactly down with oppuh. Yeah, it was
just a pseudonym that kind of got out of hand.
And my real name is Sean Medlock. I don't make
a secret of it. I I when I got hired
of The Daily Caller, I revealed my real name. It's
it's kind of been an open secret since then. So yeah, yeah,
I don't mind saying it, I think, And I don't
really like my pseudonym. It's I'm kind of I feel
(09:30):
kind of stuck with it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I mean, I see you as Jim Treacher, like I
find it very hard to not like, you know, I
had you in my calendar today even though I know
your real name.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I had you in as Jim Treacher.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
It's going to be this podcast is going to be
released as you know, conversation with Jim Treacher.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I don't know it. Does it not fit you? I
think it sort of fits. Well.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's kind of weird because for a long time, well
up until recently, it's been something I didn't have to
say out loud. It was like a persona interesting like
behind you know, when you're behind the keyboard and you
know keyboard. Yeah, and there was an element of that,
but it was like a different persona that you could
put on. I don't know if you've ever seen a
(10:14):
movie from about nineteen ninety called Pump Up the Volume.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I have seen it.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was gonna be like, there's no way, so I
don't I don't see any movies, but yeah, I've seen
that of course.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, he's the DJ.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You're right, and it's I think it's like hard on
hairy or hard hairy or something like that. It's just
a persona he puts on. It's kind of like that.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, it just feels like a different person when I'm
when I'm doing that. So so now I'm kind of
trying to meld the two. I guess it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, yeah, so you don't feel like you are you
are a gym?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Well, I don't know. I don't I don't feel like
i'm anybody sometimes. But yeah, it's just it's none of
this has been planned. None of this was I never
sat down and said, well, here's what I'm gonna do,
here's what I'm gonna become a blogger and then do this,
and it just has kind of all fallen into place.
But I think to the point of your podcast, most
(11:06):
of those kind of jobs that I've had were from
writing that I did for myself and that got noticed
by somebody with some kind of influence. That would be
my advice would be, just do what you want to
do for yourself, and then if other people vibe with it,
as the kids say, then.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What would you have done if this didn't work out?
What would the plan be have been?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Oh gosh, I don't know. I really don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Come on, give us a far out one.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
You know, I say all the time people are and
I've said this on a very episode, but you know,
a lot of the writers will just give me something
tangential but like it's funny when you're like, actually i'd
be an astronaut.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Oh well yeah, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think
that would happen. But yeah, I don't know. Well, it
would be something with something writing or editing or that's
what I did for a living before this, so probably
something editing, a book editor some type or that's what
I did for this.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
H This is gonna sound corny, but right now, really
you right? Noyeah? I mean talking of it?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, Well you sound very natural, by the way, like
we've never I don't think we've ever spoken on the
phone or anything, so I had no idea what you
sounded like. Okay, and you make yourself seem like, oh,
it's gonna be so scary. Well you know, yeah, you know,
but you but you sound like you've had maybe a
couple of conversations before.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Well sure, well, but not like this, not over the internet. Yeah,
it's just all very new to me. So I'm I'm learning,
but I feel like I'm picking it up a lot
quicker than I thought it would.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
The main thing, Well, that's I've been working really hard
to try to do that because I don't know if
you if you go back and listen to my early
podcast early as in seven weeks ago, I was terrified.
I didn't know. I I hate to sound my own voice.
I'm getting used to it now because it sounds different,
you know when you when you.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Listen to it.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
So yeah, I'm just this is all just kind of
I'm just trying to get used to talking and expressing
myself that way instead of sitting down and you know,
hemming and hauling in front of a keyboard and taking
hours and hours to just say it. And I really
prefer it. Really. It's a different way of thinking, a
different way of I think our brains are wired to
do this as opposed to sitting down, yeah, trying.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To run, sitting together think piece.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yeah, No, I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Also, I think this is amazing and you know, I'm
glad you're doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, you know, I get it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I've heard from you that this is a big step
for you. But it doesn't seem like it's this crazy
thing you're doing. It seems very natal for you.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Well good, well, I hope, so I hope. So that's
that's the plan. That's the plan.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. It was a five
year out prediction and it could you about anything, country world.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Anything you'd be a guest on my show? I guess okay,
I was thinking about that when you send me that question.
I think AI is going to have something to do
with it, and it's already. It's already changing so many things.
I this podcast. Most of the steps along the way
I've I've relied on some kind of AI to do it. Really,
(14:23):
the editing software I use as AI. The the jingle
that I put up in front of the podcast is AI.
My logo is AI. All the recommendations for this microphone
I bought and this I got like sound panels up
all over my laundry room in here that yeah, I
recommended that I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I had no idea
(14:46):
how any of this stuff worked. I still kind of don't,
but uh so I'm just doing what the robot tells me,
and I think in that way, I feel like I'm
kind of trying to uh keep up with how eyes
taking jobs already. It feels like it's already happening. Yeah,
you have to race it.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Do you feel optimistic about AI? Pessimistic?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I mean, I've had people come on and have both perspectives,
Like I get a lot of pessimism about AI, but yeah,
some optimism too.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I think it's going to be a mixed bag. I
think it's gonna I think it's gonna take a lot
of jobs, but it's also gonna it's gonna democratize a
lot of things we're already seeing. I don't know if
you saw the the Will Stancel Show.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, I make it a point not to find out
who Will Stancil is.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Okay, well, you don't really have to know who he
is to enjoy the cartoon.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
But a cartoon totally joking, I've heard, you know, I like,
but he is.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
One of those names that you're like, I just I
don't know. I don't know who that is. Yeah, let's
keep it that way.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, but somebody did like an entire five minute cartoon
about him with sore too. And it looks like an
adult swim show. It looks like some really Yeah, it
looks and sounds the voice acting it sounds like a
like a regular cartoon. And now people can do that
kind of stuff. Yeah, you defame there, you know, But
(16:14):
and I think a lot of talent is going to
reveal itself that way. That might not you know, people
that might not want to go to LA or New York. Sure,
I certainly don't, especially now. No, I'm sure you feel
the same way about New York.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I do.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
We're recording this the day after mum Donnie won mayoral race.
The podcast comes out a few weeks later, so oh, okay, Yeah,
it's not the it's not the greatest time for New
York right now.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
No, And I know, yeah, I know, I know why
you left, and I'm sure you're not in any where
to go back, but no, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You know, people who don't want to necessarily move to
New York or LA to pursue creative things can do
it from anywhere now.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And there's definitely something to that.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
But I am worried about, you know, everything looking the
same because AI doesn't have a lot of creativity. I
guess maybe that will advance, like I can tell when
something is AI, and that's not a good sign, because
you know, it all kind of looks very, very similar.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm trying to see it as the way that we
saw maybe the Internet, and how it had so much
possibility and so many ideas came from it, And yeah,
it got rid of. It ruined some jobs, but it
expanded the job market ultimately.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It reminds me of the advent of sound film one
hundred years ago. That put a lot of silent film
actors out of work, but it also opened up, right,
you know, a lot of opportunities for other people. So yeah,
I mean there's not a lot of people making stage
coaches anymore. Yeah, that was a big industry at one point.
It's just progress, and I don't know how you're going
to stop it. If a job can be replace, it
(17:55):
will be replaced with automation. So I don't know what's
it starts replacing writers and podcasts. So I'm screwed, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
But like we're gonna we're gonna be in trouble.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I don't know again that I feel like there will
be a time where real people and real voices and
real opinions will almost come back around. Like we we
may lose out in the short term, but there I
think that ultimately people will return to I know this
is a real person and they have real thoughts and
(18:28):
real opinions, and they're not just an AI bot talking to.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Me right right with the I don't know if you've
ever tried to talk to like Grock, the Grock app,
and you can tell when it's been programmed to like
it's hearing words that that kind of flip a switch
and it's it puts on its concern voice or it's.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I know, I haven't had to, I haven't done like
actual talking. I realize it really has like a concern voice.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, and you're like, Okay, you don't have to switch.
You don't have to. I'm not. I'm not gonna do
anything bad to myself here. I'm just telling this is Yeah,
but that all depends on the programming. Well, and the
scary thing about it is that even the people that
program these things don't understand really how they work and
why they at out the results that they do.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, they're going to be smarter than us in the
very near future.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I don't know about that. I don't know about No.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's aware, but yeah, no, not self aware. I mean
hopefully not self aware.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, although today when I was folding my laundry,
I was like, I could definitely get a robot for
this some day.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Well, there is something I don't know what's it called Neo.
It's robot.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Oh I thought the Tesla. The Elon Musk is coming
out with one.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You can get on the wait list like now for it,
and it's thirty thousand dollars, which I can't think of
anything else I.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Want other than laundry.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So I don't know if it'll be worth it quite
for that. But people are putting their names down and
they're getting ready to have a robot in their house.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah. I don't know about that. Yeah, yeah, be doing yourself,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Right something Sure, well, Jim, I have loved this conversation.
I knew you were going to do great.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I felt like it was going to be very comfortable
on no, no, I did. I've been following you for
a long time. Anybody who doesn't follow Jim Teacher check
him out at JT L O L and definitely subscribe
to his substack and his new podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Cue the Crickets. Leave us here with your best tip
from my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Work. Work every day on something that you want to do,
do the work that you have to do to make
a living, and then do something that you want to do,
just you know, twenty minutes an hour, whatever, Just do
something that you want to do and you'll get better
at it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I love it and I could do that.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, why not? Hold your should be a pressional lobby folder.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I don't want to feel for I love you. What
did I have kids for? Thank you so much. He
is Jim Treacher JT l O L on X Jim Treacher.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Dot substack dot com and check out Cue the Crickets.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Thank you so much, Jim.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Thank you m HM
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