July 8, 2025 • 46 mins
Writer/Activist Steve Skovan talks about his work with Ralph Nader, his substack “Bits and Pieces”, his dad being a comic inspiration, the trouble with politics, Public Citizen a progressive consumer rights group, starting as a stand-up, and how a football coach changed his life without molesting him.
Bio: Steve Skrovan has worked as a stand-up comedian, actor, and TV comedy writer since the early eighties. He has written for many shows, most notably, Seinfeld, Hot in Cleveland, Til Death, Wendell and Vinnie, School of Rock, and the entire nine-year run of Everybody Loves Raymond, a show which he has also adapted internationally in Russia, Israel, and India. He is also co-director/writer/producer of An Unreasonable Man, a documentary about the career of legendary consumer advocate and third-party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, which was not only an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival but also made the “shortlist” for Academy Award consideration in the documentary category. In 2005, he co-produced the TBS environmental special “Earth to America.” In addition, Steve co-hosts the weekly radio show Ralph Nader Radio Hour, which runs on the Pacifica network and various other independent radio stations as well as being available on all podcast platforms. He is a board member of the non-partisan public interest organization Public Citizen in Washington DC.
Bio: Steve Skrovan has worked as a stand-up comedian, actor, and TV comedy writer since the early eighties. He has written for many shows, most notably, Seinfeld, Hot in Cleveland, Til Death, Wendell and Vinnie, School of Rock, and the entire nine-year run of Everybody Loves Raymond, a show which he has also adapted internationally in Russia, Israel, and India. He is also co-director/writer/producer of An Unreasonable Man, a documentary about the career of legendary consumer advocate and third-party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, which was not only an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival but also made the “shortlist” for Academy Award consideration in the documentary category. In 2005, he co-produced the TBS environmental special “Earth to America.” In addition, Steve co-hosts the weekly radio show Ralph Nader Radio Hour, which runs on the Pacifica network and various other independent radio stations as well as being available on all podcast platforms. He is a board member of the non-partisan public interest organization Public Citizen in Washington DC.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawhut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Steve Scrovan. For God's sake, Don't be Alone with
Jake Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Don't be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi, welcome to Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan. I
am so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that
people have been really enjoying the shows. Thank you for
your comments and suggestions at when you write to me
at dbawjk at gmail dot com. And thank you especially
for your letters for my guests little life, big life
(00:37):
questions that we can answer on the show. That's an
important part of the show and I really appreciate when
you do it. So feel free. What would you like
to hear two relatively intelligent people talk about relatively I'm
not promising too much. I'm just saying what would you like?
And also, I just want to remind you all subscribe.
Please subscribe to the show. Subscribe. What's the harm and subscribe.
(01:00):
You could subscribe and never listen. You could just press
the button and subscribe. That's all I need to get
to a certain number of subscribers in order for my
wife to have sex with me. And she is really
looking at those numbers and saying not enough yet. It's
been rough, so please subscribe. All right, now onto the show.
Today's show is interesting. I called my friend Steve Scrovan, writer, comedian,
(01:23):
extraordinary political activist to come here, and he's so busy
all the time. He immediately said, I can absolutely be there.
What's with that? Why was he so available? I don't know,
a little too avail if you ask me. Anyway, I'm
very excited he's here. I'm very excited to catch up
with them. I'm excited to hear about what's really going
on in the political world out there. Because he helps
(01:44):
run this thing called Public Citizen, which is a political
activist group that represents real people and what we need,
not big companies. And he also works with Rob Naber
and other thing. So you know, he's kind of a
lefty but uh but I guess so am I. So
so we see, we'll talk about that, we'll talk a
(02:06):
little bit about show business and many many other things,
and we'll be back with Steve Scrovan right after this.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I wanted to bring you in, Steve Scroven, because you
have an interesting road. You come from Steel Country, yeah,
and then and then you get to Yale. Yeah, yeah,
and then you get to sitcom right and like, yeah,
and you're kind of a you're kind of a commie.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
None of it makes sense. None of it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So so to explain yourself, Steve Scrovan, explain yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, Steele, I came from a small town outside of Cleveland, Ohio,
right in northeast Ohio, town called Sharden, about three thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Right, and you and you still live there because you're
the kind of guy who would never really live No, no, no,
I live in Los Angeles. I forgot about that. Yeah,
that's how you got here so fast.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I've spent more time in Los Angeles than I ever
spent in Ohio. Actually, now, are there.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Any differences that you can find between your town in
Ohio and.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
A few few Although it's it's funny because you know,
I'll have some friends talk about, you know, a Hollywood liberal,
you know, and I've got a whole rant about Hollywood liberal.
But this is especially one friend of mine who's from
Iowa and he came from a tiny town. Ioway said,
(03:29):
we both came from tiny towns the Midwest. I'm not
a liberal. Yeah, you're an Ohio liberal. Yeah, yes, I
released the the those are the roots. But anybody who
thinks Hollywood is liberal, first of all, it has never
been in a contract negotiation with them.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
One true, the people who populate the arts in general
probably lean more liberal than they do.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Artists who are who are the kind of the face
of it. But the town itself, the foundation of it,
even the holly, you know is I mean, if you
look at the shows that are on especially broadcast, celebratied
even even you know, streaming whatever, it's all glorifying law enforcement,
glorifying Sealed Team six, intelligence agencies. It's all that very
(04:23):
conservative sort of programming.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
To like Cops and Robbert shows is conservative.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
To glorify the the cops and the intelligence agency. We
just recently so two bad movies. One was called The
Union it was on Netflix actually, and another one was
actually the other one wasn't so bad. It was called
The Retirement Plan with Nicholas Cage and both of them.
(04:50):
The Union was about a blue collar CIA That's how
they were different. It was Mark Wahlberg and JK. Simmons
and Halle Berry and who's from Cleveland? And the Retirement
Plan was Nicholas Cage plays this guy who's an old
CIA agent. Who's just can kick everybody's ass. And the
(05:12):
assumption and what they even say in these things is
that these people behind the scenes have been saving us
all the time. And if you look into the history
of any of these intelligence agents CIA, they have done
nothing but fuck things up.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right. But I mean, that's that's not liberal, I know,
but it's entertainment. It's sort of like, Okay, the Cops
and Roberts, the good guys and bad guys is storytelling.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Right, But the narrative that is inculcated in us is
that these are inherently good institutions who are doing who
are assassinating people behind the scenes to keep us all safe.
And it has done. I mean, Eisenhower even in the
fifties when he talked about the CIA called it. He says,
you've given me a legacy of ashes. And that's the
(05:57):
CIA was only about fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
At that time. I mean, you're a Hollywood writer, Yeah,
who are the good guys?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, it's harder because you know, you know, I do
this podcast with Ralph Nader, and I'm on the board
of Public Citizen, and I get more excited about meeting
the people who've saved live literally saved lives and were
real heroes. I mean, I I have nothing yet like
the obviously in Los Angeles today our first responders are firefighters, right,
(06:27):
even the cops and that function are you know, we're heroic.
I'll give them that. But to me, the real heroic people.
And this was a revelation that I had about twenty
years ago, where these people who are unsung underneath, you know,
behind the scenes, who are keeping us safe and keeping
(06:50):
us safe through health, keeping us environment, all of these things.
But it's just not very dramatic.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
We should read my pilot the Bureaucrats. It's fantastic. It's
just one exciting thing after another.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
It should be called the advocates. It's not bureaucratic as
much as it's advocacy, and it's and and those to
me are the heroes. And the reason actually it segues
into you know, we're talking about doing this radio show
for Ralph nat of the reason I got involved with
him is because I did a documentary about him called
an Unreasonable Man.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes she did. It's very good documentary.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And yeah, thank you, and you know, got shortlisted for
OSCAR consideration and went to the Sundance Film festival and
all of that, and this is where I kind of found, Oh,
there's this whole layer of people who are just working
tireshly unsung to keep us, you know, together, as a
as a community, as a you know, just as a
(07:46):
common will. Uh. It was from that I just lost
my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
We were talking about the discovering who the Well.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The reason that started was because I was going to
do a sitcom about a because my friend Henriette Mental
had worked for Ralph in the late seventies early eighties,
and she would tell me stories. We'd be hanging out
a catch rising star in New York. That's where I
did stay catch.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You comics, set a catch, I'm going to go to catch.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I go to catch. That's what we call it. Catch
in the bar. You know, she'd telling me storry about
working for Ralph, and I knew, you know, I'm old
enough that I knew who Ralph was and everything, but
I too, I have no idea of all of heat
that he had accomplished. And even back then, this was
like fifteen years before I became a writer. I said,
you know, that'd be a good setting for a show.
(08:31):
So you flash forward fifteen years I'm on in the
middle of the run of everybody loves Raymond, and we
get a development deal a group of us, and they
asked me for an idea, and I give him an
idea and they don't like it, right, And I don't
want to tell them I don't have another idea.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Sure, that's the good idea. That's the one. Good was
the one.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I ran and happened to run into Henriette, who
hadn't seen in years, and I said, I was always kind,
I guess in the back of my mind. I said,
have you ever done anything with your Ralph experience? And
she started introducing me to people she had worked with,
and I was collecting stories, and I went as far
as getting a up on outline for a pilot about
(09:10):
a public interest office where anybody could come in and
out in some figure like a Ralph like figure, and it's.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Like Barney Miller, but boring, like okay, well it never
got the test of that, right.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
It was Actually the premise I had was about this
woman who is a socialite whose husband has just been
disappeared for financial improprieties. He's just wandering around looking now.
She needs a job and she stumbles into this office,
and a woman who's never thought about anything like this
before in her life is now going to be working
for somebody like a consumer advocate like Ralph Nader.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
It would be good if she was a win windshield heiress.
And she hates Ralph Nader because he stopped people from
flying through windshields. Yes, and therefore you know, she's she
lost all her money. She lost all the money seat belts.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Because of seat belts. Yes, and and it's you know,
and it's this love affair they have. But when I
you know, I ran it sort of by my my
Raymond colleagues, so you all know, Phil and Lou and Tucker,
and they were asking me questions I didn't know the
answer to because it was all still secondhand fight. So
I told Henriette, you know, let's go to Washington this
(10:21):
next hiatus and let me just out be able to
see the office and absorb the you know, and she'll
she set up all these meetings for me to meet
in person, all these people I just talked to on
the phone, And that's what we did. And as I'm
talking to them, I had been reading about Ralph more,
researching him more and more. Uh, the more I read
(10:44):
the more. I was amazed at all he had accomplished.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
He's he's an incredible person. And the most incredible thing
about Ralph Better is he's for real. He's not a hypocrite.
He's as straight lace. He only cares about it's the
health and safety of people and the and and stopping
carporate greed from from killing people.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it's it's what you see is what you get.
It's not an act. And I was amazed at how
much he had done. And then at this time, this
is like two thousand and three, this is the in
the wake of the two thousand election where he was
being scapegoated for you know, Al Gore losing, right, which
is now what the Democrats do every time they lose,
they find somebody to scape and he was just one
(11:29):
of the first.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Who's the scapegoat this time? Well, yes, or Biden.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
They they've had trouble scapegoating this time. Usually now it's
it's usually a third party because you like Jill Stein
or you know, they're scapegoating like black men and Latino men.
Now this this is you know.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Good call the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's what they're doing. Yeah, which is ridiculous when you
look at the numbers. But you know, he was really excoriated,
and the reason he was excoriated is because his ideas
were popular. And it's basically the Bernie Sanders program. So
I'm talking to these people in Washington and you talk
(12:09):
sitcom and inside the Beltway, it doesn't really compare.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
No, they don't do that.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But then, because I didn't been doing another reason, I
said what about a documentary? And their eyes lit up
because that they knew this story hadn't been told. And
here I was in a position, through Henriette, to have
access to all the people who knew Ralph and had
worked with him, and I put the sitcom idea in
my pocket and started working on the documentary.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And that's what we're called because it's a great documentary.
Thank you. I'm not sure that it would have been
the best of all sitcoms. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
We don't know, Yeah, and I don't know, and it
probably you know, I haven't pulled it out of my
pocket yet, so you're probably right. I just haven't been
inspired to take that up again. But that's who I
consider the heroes.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You know, Public Citizens, great group, their public advacy advocacy
group that you dragged me into kicking and screaming. But
it's times like these when Republicans have the House and
the Senate and the White House, when I'm most afraid.
And then every now and then I'll hear what they're
(13:15):
doing and go like, Oh, thank God, somebody's somebody's doing
So you're so scrow you're so well read in all
these things. Why do you hate America?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love America.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Oh it doesn't. I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'm trying to save save America from corporate read right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I wonder how much corporate greed is just simply built
into the price of the USA that it seems like
it's a lot of what happens.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's a lot of what happens that's and what's happening
now is the guard rails are going to come completely off.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Am I wrong to think that corporations were acting better
in the mid twentieth century than they were like from
the Gilded Age, the Guilded Age to now? Was there
ever a time when anybody was acting better? No?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Only only a force too. Okay, that's why you need laws.
That's where you need regulations. That we need all these
things they're trying to strip away and that's why in
spite of the terrible enforcement of these things, not where
enforcement known you know where you know, Boeing kills three
hundred and forty six people with these faulty airplanes, and
nobody goes to jail, right, you know, it's and they
(14:22):
and all these deferred prosecution agreements where they pay a
fine and that's the price of doing business.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So families can't sue. The families of the of the
victims can't sue Boeing for like incompetence.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
They can and and but do you have as much
money as Boeing has to.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I personally do delay. I'm not a victim. You weren't
a victim, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Yeah, shouldn't come after me?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
No, I would not. I would not recommend that.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Why I can't wait to get it.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
If I was the general counsel, I'd say, yeah, no code.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But I mean there are lawyers who like love class
action lawsuits and say, you know they three hundred fIF people.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and that happens occasionally. But we have this myth
of this re litigious society, and it is just that
only two percent of legitimate claims are ever followed through.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
On followed through on, meaning they ever get to trial, Yeah,
because they're settled out.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
No, no, or even even settled out, yeah, even even
brought forth. But but they want to give you this
idea that everybody's suing everybody, right, and all the suing
is between the corporations themselves and the Donald Trump's people
of the world, you know, who are rich and sue
all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Leg So, I mean, this has been this has been
the case for and nothing seems to be getting better.
What keeps you on the bandwagon, like, let's keep fixing it.
Why aren't you Why aren't you frustrated?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And well, it can be frustrating, but you know, I've
got a responsibility. Uh, And I've written about this and
the thing if I if we can promote anything on
the show for me.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
About everything I'd like to promote, but not substack. Yes,
we can't. We cannot promote the substack. Why not? I'm joking.
You can absolutely promote that son of a bitch. I know,
I knew you're headed to substack.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So yeah, well we'll get there. We'll get there. But
I've written about this, and I actually talked about it
a little bit. Is it well, first of all, yeah,
the forces arrayed against us are formidable. But I'm if
I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down
with my boots on because I want to be able
to say on my deathbed to my kids, I fought
(16:56):
as hard as I could, and there is you know history,
you can make progress, and progress is made.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I don't know, I mean, I really it's it's hard
to figure out what's going to get inspire the left
because we're also a bunch of idiots who I think
if people aren't left enough, you know, if if you
know people, people cut off their nose to spite their face.
So if there's a candidate who is here, but your
(17:26):
politics are much for the left, and you say, well,
this person's basically just the same as the other person,
I don't think that's true. I think even in even
bits and pieces, it still makes a difference.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I'm glad you meant bits and pieces because that's the
name of my substack, which we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What is the name of your substack?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Bits and pieces? But the right does that too, They
have their own purity tests too.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Where can I find this substack?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You can go to Steve Scrovan that's substack dot com. Right,
it's called Bits and Pieces, right, And what it is
is basically a every month I put out a story
or an essay that's funny, right, not humorous, Jay, It's
actually funny.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
It's funny. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And I do an audio version too, you do, I do?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Do I have ever heard the audio version? I've read
the I've read that you heard?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, you can click right at the top of the page.
This is audio voiceover boom click.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Got idiot. I've been wasting all this time reading my
precious eyes reading the words.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yes, we hearing you sitting in the car.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, And I've been doing it for a couple of years,
and uh, it's it's fantastic, it's it's uh uh. The
last one I did, I'm putting on a new one
in a few days. I do it right at the
usually around the first of the month, first week of
the month. Last one I did was about my experience
working with George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch in nineteen ninety five,
exactly thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It wasn't on any Indiana Jones project or Star Wars,
but it was for his educational foundation.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
You were very close to getting Chewbacca, like there was
a you were like two auditions away.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I was yeah, the costume, I wasn't tall enough.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right, all right? But the George Lucas educational founder.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yes, yeah, that that, Yeah, he wanted to do it.
You know you have to read it's called Skywalker. It's
in three parts, and but you know I do that.
I'll write about a lot about writing. I'll write about
some of my adventures writing episodes of television.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Am I reading?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
In any of those you are actually name checked? I
think in the Lucas one.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well you name checked me and Phil You.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
You and Phil and Larry David as a great showrunners
and leaders.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I knew that I was just I was just trying
to build myself up, can you say it?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah? But I talked about because George Lucas very tolerated
my my descents and this one story point, and uh,
you tolerated many of them.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I mean that's the creative process. The creative process isn't
gather gathering people together to just listen to me talk.
It's to get other people's input in points of view.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You'd be surprised how that, Oh, you've been in rooms
that you know, the good ones and the bad ones.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, you know. I mean the bad ones is gonna
be bad for many reasons, and the good ones is
gonna be good for many reasons. Like sometimes you can
write really terrible things and then the performers are so
good they make everything better. And sometimes the reverse is true.
And sometimes there's a showrunner there who is very consistently
cares about quality, but he's just such a jerk that
(20:29):
he makes your life and everybody else's life miserable. Well
that's a bad room too to me.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
If you get the showrunner and the star, yes, and
if either one of those people is an asshole, you're
going to have a bad time. You have a great showrunner,
terrible star, great star, terrible showrunner, you're going to be
you know, you get if you had good baths, And
I've been lucky to have that on a number of occasions,
including you know, working with you.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
That was that the shows that was a star of
or the shows that I.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Show you were only a showrunner, you were only in.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
That got that. You're right about that.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I've never been starting, whether it was Jerry trainor.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Y or Ray Romano. Yeah, the group. Yeah, he's awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Ray is fantastic. Ray raised another guy like Ralph. You
see what what you see is what you get. Yeah,
he's authentic both on and off stage.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, I like I like him a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Sorry, tell show business stories and funny essays and everything
that occurs to me.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You're a great one of the great comedy writers of
all time. I loved people may or may not know this,
that you craft a story. You love to craft a story,
and you take great pride in crafting a good story
from the beginning to end, and you're not afraid of
ripping it all down and starting again and crafting a
better story. That. Uh, that's the kind of uh you know,
(21:43):
stick touitiveness knows to the grindstone that a lot of
people don't have. Well, it's also also made my life miserable.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Also, but it's also what when you're writing in television
you get.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
I've been doing these substack pieces and I send them
to a friend of mine who is an editor, and
he kind of helps me with the grammar and syntax
and uh, you know, some sometimes meant you know, this
doesn't make sense or whatever. And he was very impressed
with how I would take some suggestions and really rework it,
(22:18):
and rework it seriously and take it farther. And it's
all comes from writing from television where you you know,
you bring in a script and it goes to the table,
and if you know three or four of your lines
survive from the table, then you've, yeah, you've, you've you know,
you can lay claim to that script. And so you're
(22:40):
constantly being rewritten and questioned and uh, it's so it
doesn't hurt anymore. So doing that for my own work
is easy.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Right, Well, then you know you're your own brutal rewriter,
own brutal Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's still you still
get to claim credit for it. So it's it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
And you were great always taking notes from like the
network at the studio because you'd nod say okay, we'll
take a look at that, and you weren't just the
playing lip service to it. You say, okay, there's they
may have had a suggestion. You go, oh my god,
that's that's a terrible solution, right, but they're looking at
this area. Maybe there's something, and then you fix your
own problem.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Often there's other ways to do it, one of which is,
you know, fixing it badly so that they see how
badly it is. Yeah, and then they say, oh, don't
do that, especially when you're looking at the executive who
pitched it and said, well, there it is in black
and white.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You like it?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
No, great, let's let's go back to the other way.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
But I always tell people the story about you on
Wendell and Vinnie, which was our show show in Nickelodeon. Uh,
when you dealt with they wanted a fire a cast member, right,
and Jay did this jiu jitsu that I've never seen
before or since.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's it's do you call it jiu jitsu? I call
it cowardice like this, like they said, replace the female star,
and I went like, okay, and then tried to find
a female star that would work as good as somebody
who had worked with Jerry trainor who's super funny and
very interesting and and and and she had her own
qualities that I thought were really good and very complimentary.
(24:08):
And I thought, okay, well, all right, let's try. Yeah,
And then we tried, and there was nobody that they
were bringing in front of us that we're even close
to the the girl they fired. And I kept calling
the girl that fired and was saying, don't take another job,
because this is this is, this is not settled, and
I have a strong feeling you could very well be
(24:29):
back very soon. And we did eventually convince the network
after they actually hired somebody who was just as saucy
and spicy as Jerry to be his match, which didn't work.
Bad chemistry.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well you know what it didn't work. Yeah, is a
Jerry is like what six two or three, right, and
you hired was like five feet tall. Yeah, and so
it looked very uh.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, didn't look didn't look great and uh but but
also just just to just the act who's who is
hired to be the replacement was almost identical in tone
to the other actress we had in this show, Nicole,
And it was sort of like, why do we have
two of these same characters being feisty together? Like that's
(25:14):
not another flavor.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Right and yeah, and well, and that's my experience is
the network or this usually the network, in order to
justify their jobs after the pilot, they have to fire
one of the actors, and it's usually the actor has
the least amount of lines and they'll say, oh, they
didn't test well, well, they had three lines. Right, you know,
(25:36):
because you can only there's only so much real estate
in the script, and so let's get rid of that person,
recast that person. And it's usually for no reason.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
We got the other one. We got our original actress back
when the network I said, we compared in the middle
of the shooting of the reshooting of the pilot, I said,
look at this scene, and look at this scene and
tell me which one is better. Yeah, And they went, Okay,
the original actress. Do you think it's possible we can
get her back as a maybe you know she was
waiting in the in the other room just to come back.
(26:07):
But you know how to be their decision.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
But if you let them go through the process, it's
and it's not that you sabotage anything. You made a
good faith effort, but you always knew this is where
it was going.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
To end up.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, it felt like that. That's that's what I mean.
There are shuran, there are people say fuck you, it's
this back, it's this cast, or I'm walking like I
am not that guy. I was not prepared to that.
I want to do it. So everybody feels heard, everybody
feels hurt. Thank you for calling that, Jiu jitsu. But
I mean you do, you do have to learn to
handle people. You handle people all the time. And in
(26:43):
your y.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Those charges were dropped. I just wiped that on the.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Record and notes from from executives, and not all notes
are bad and not all executives are bad.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
But phil, as you say, anybody can have a you know,
an opinion, have a good idea, right, you.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Know it happens all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But you always have to solve your own problems.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yes, you know. Mel Brooks tells the story that they
wanted to fire Gene Wilder off the producers and they
the financier of the movie saw the first dailies and said, ah,
this this guy is no good. You gotta fire him.
And mel said, yeah, you're right, we do okay, well done,
done done, Yeah he's fired. Yeah, and then he walked
(27:23):
away and then never fired him, just never fired him.
And then never the producer, the the the financier never
mentioned it again, like it just never happens. You gotta fire,
you must fire that guy. He just never did. Yeah,
that's weird, that's jiu jitsu. It could easily have been
like I'm not giving you any more money to finish
this movie because you didn't fire the person I told
(27:45):
you to.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Well, because if I shoot all of this now and that,
oh you know, it takes so much money out of
replace exactly. Oh did you say that? Oh yes, yes,
now remember. Oh I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
God, Oh my god. Okay, So here I'm a concern
this and scrow. Yeah. What should I be doing right
now to make our world and country better? Because all
I do is this podcast? And I don't think it's enough.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
We've already done this. Just talk to me and I
just laid it out for everybody, right, Okay, No, the
we stay engaged. I mean so many people talk about
I want to leave the country.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, what's that about?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
People are going First of all, he wants to buy
all the other countries. So you're not going to get
away from it. And this is a worldwide phenomenon, this
right wing phenomenon, and it's because of what is known
in the parlance is these neoliberal trade policies that have
enriched corporate corporate world corporations. Yeah, and left workers behind, right,
(28:47):
And so I think you whatever you're doing at the grassroots,
whatever you're doing to just stay in community with people.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, I have a CEO port Group that I give. Yeah,
so I'm helping those guys stay strong. Yeah, you stay
strong and firm in their in their beliefs. But and
then their pay pay rolls. Yeah, so you don't give
any don't give in. No, keep your fifty million dollars
a year.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, so you're you're not that Louis. You're not in
the Luigi.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
No, no, no, no, I'm not writing any messages on bullets. No, no, no, no.
By the way, bad plan. I know, bad plan. What
I guess you wanted to get caught. Yeah, he wanted
to get the message. He wanted to get the message.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
They say leftist are bad at messaging. Put them on
the bullets.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah. Yeah, but I was the CEO, I'd be taking
notice of that.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. Well it was interesting and this is not my idea.
I listened to this podcast called Counterspin, which is a
critique of the media by fairness and accars in the media,
and Janine Jackson, who's the great host of this, was
pointing out that on the right, they at first they
were calling him the CEO killer, right, and then they
started calling the Ivy League killer because he's gone to
(30:03):
Penn Right, And she said, this is a very subtle
way to change the narrative from CEO should be or
doing bad things, so getting killed too. This is a
problem with education, right, with higher education, And that's how
they're trying to frame it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Fox who is calling him the Ivy League killer.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, a lot of right wing outlets Fox, and you know, you.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Know, yeah, so I mean, I'm I'm really for.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Give you five bucks to public citizen.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, give the money to public citizen is good. I
will do that. I have done that in the past.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Because they the co presidents No, Rob Weissman, Lisa Gilbert
wrote a letter to was Trump or to the Doge.
They're asking to be on that advisory committee because there's
a certain law about how advisory committee should be made
up and and there's got to be a balance of people.
(31:02):
And they're saying, we know a lot about this kind
of regulation stuff. We have a lot of ideas about efficiency.
It's not that you can't do government efficiency, but it's
where you cut. And of course, you know, I ignored
because that's not what it's about. It's not about efficiency.
It's about giving corporations free rein to do whatever they want.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Right, And I imagine you know, when you abolish the
Department of Education, it's also about trying to keep the
people from educating themselves to get smart enough to sort
of you know, fight back.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And leave space for religious institutions to fill that gap.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Right, Yeah, don't be alone with.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Ah. That's that's it's it's unhappy times for me.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's dark. It's dark, but you gotta keep you gotta
keep fighting. I think people of our age, it's our.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Generation into your age. I am so much younger than
you are, three years younger.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Love.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I was born in ninety sixty three. Oh you are,
and so so I'm baby. I'm a baby.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yes, geez, I'm a I'm on the cuss.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We wouldn't even have been in high school together. No,
not even not even yeah you were, you were at
the very end of the boom. But our generation, yes,
we're the ones fucked stuff up. That's why you can't
stand people criticized millennials or gen zers or anything like that, because.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
No, wet, let's be honest. You call that music the
boom boom boom and the yeah yeah yeah with the
hair hair, it's like noise. It's like boys and the girls.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And sounding and the where's the melody?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
There's no melody's there's no lyrics, there's no romance. No.
But other than that, we fucked them. We fuck them royally.
They have no chance houses the Beatles they have, They
have no chance of paying for their own health care
for anything. It's really rough. It's really rough. I mean
I worry about my kid, how he's gonna survive. I mean,
(33:18):
listening he wants to be a musician. He's not gonna
survive anyway. But this makes it even worse, right, yeah,
it makes it even worse. Charlie, you will be fine.
You will if you're listening to this, you will be fine.
You'll make a lot of money. You'll be fine. You'll
be fine.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, that's that's take.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
But no, I do I worry about obviously, the gigantic
growing inequities like it used to be to have a
CEO make you know, a million dollars at one point,
while the people in the line were making minimum wage
was like already a nightmare. And now it's one hundred million.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's three hundred times more than the medium wage is.
And there's this business guru of the six season, Peter Drucker,
who wrote this book, called up the organization, and you know,
no flaming liberals said it shouldn't be any more than
twenty five percent higher than it's three hundred times because
(34:14):
all of this money's being sucked up into upper management, right,
you know, And that's why companies like Boeing General Electric,
they don't really innovate anymore. They just there to up
their quarterly stock. They buy back their own stock. Apple
(34:35):
buys back its own stock to up the stock price
so that the upper management qualifies for bonuses.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Listen, I'm living that. I mean right now, I get
minimum wage for doing this. And Ryan, who does straw
Hot Media, Yeah, gets four hundred thousand dollars an episode. Wow,
which is crazy. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
No.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
So I mean, listen, Bryan, you should dress better. So
it's not fair to me. I don't think. I mean whatever,
nothing's company. He says, I can replace you in a heartbeat.
There's you know, there's you know how many j Cogans
are in the world, A million?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And I don't know, he's right, there's only one j Cogan, right,
only one Jake Cogan.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
But that's really it is. It is a weird and
and and stressful time. And then the things that don't matter,
like like renaming the Gulf of Mexico or you know,
pretending that he's going to invade Greenland or whatever. All
that stuff is just crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dist it's all bullshit. Salesman, Yeah, and that's that's his genius.
I will give him that he is a great salesman,
and that the quality that makes him a great salesman
is utter shamelessness.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, but he's a ship merchant, you know, that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Is a shitty project product himself.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Right, He's the way, he's a terrible product. And you know,
the people buying it have terrible taste, you know. I
don't I don't understand why they're buying the Trump Bibles
and the sneakers and the coins and stuff. I don't
understand why they don't see this as the Khan strange
con that is.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But that's how desperate people are. It's it's a casino economy.
I'm gonna I'm gonna get an NFT that'll that'll be
my nest egg.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Okay, but shouldn't we be smart enough to convince them
to buy our ship? Like it's like, what is it
what is it about us.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
That we're not doing well? It's it's not about commit
it's about committing to that. It's about committing to those
principles and to those policies. You know, I think it
was Noam Chomsky who said that the key to the
control of the populace is to have two parties that
are operating in the very narrow policy spectrum, right, you know,
where certain things can't be talking. You can't talk about
(36:37):
Medicare for all. You know, see that in the media.
So it's a very narrow policy spectrum. But the stuff
that they argue about it's vehement, right, which is all
the palace intrigue, it's all the you know, corruption arguments.
It's all vuying for power.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But I mean, you know, Bernie, Bernie, Medicare for All
is on the lips of people. That's cly now more so.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Not not well, not if not in the mainstream media,
it's not you know, it's not talked about. No why
should they because you know, place like CNN, MSM. But
you look at the commercials, it's all pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
It's all really old people watching those things. That's really
what Only no young person is watching it and they're
getting they're not what getting the news from any news source,
traditional news source, to get the news from the social media,
which is now completely all use. Those guys were sitting
with Trump at the on the dais. They're controlling all that, right.
That's why I think people are buying, you know, houses
(37:39):
in France and in Spain. You know that they're they're saying,
you know, it's it's hard to fight that. It's very
hard to fight that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, but I'm not going anywhere. So if anybody wants
to rally around that, I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Uh well, Scrow, We're at the time we usually have
a question time is question how do you decide if
you have room to add people to your life?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
How do you decide to room to add people to
your life? I'm I got I have a big tent,
and I'm I'm somebody as you probably have divined, who
gets along with just about everybody. And I'm not so discriminating, right,
(38:31):
So it's.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
But that's not adding people to you, that's being kind
in a setting. Who do you decide, like I'm going
to call that person again, I'm gonna spend some time,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Oh you know what if I if I if I
think the conversation is going to be interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, yeah, so that be smart enough or interesting enough.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yes, And I don't even think smart has anything to
do with it. It just has to be, you know, interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
You don't think smart and interesting go hand in hand, or.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I should say educated. They don't have to be educated.
Smartest probably not the right right word. I have a
lot of you know, I have a number of friends
who not necessarily educated, but they're interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
This is a good question for you. How do you
find inspiration and creativity in your daily life? And what
strategies do you use to stay curious?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Well, you know what that I've always been curious.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
This is who you are. You're always interested and excited
and about all these subjects.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah. I think I find people and and and issues fascinating,
and that's why I try to do a lot of reading.
And I'm not one who's too afraid to get into
a political debate, as you may know. You know, divine
there too and kind of relish it. And you know,
(39:50):
I tell you who I don't enjoy speaking as much
too is people that I agree with. It's much less interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Luckily for you, no one likes that exists.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So your look and disagree with you? No, uh yeah,
because it's not fun to just be back and forth
going fuck yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Right you even take yeah? All right scro So now
that I'll go for viewer listener mail. Now it's time
for listener man. Dear jan guest, Uh, how do we
determine what is morally right or wrong?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
How do we determine?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
How do we determine it? Is it just again this
is from the letter, not me, of course. Is it
just from what we have been taught by society, our culture,
or is there a you know, platonic right and wrong
and that we can measure our lives against.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, I am a big proponent of the golden rule. Okay, uh,
you know, do unto others as you would have them
do unto yourself, right unto you? And I have not,
in you know, over sixty years, been able to find
a loophole in that right and so, and it is
(41:05):
also kind of the foundation of just about every religion,
major or minor that's ever been devised.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Right. Well, I'm someone who likes to be tied up
and beaten up. So if I like that for me,
I should then do it onto others.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Uh. That is, yes, that is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
That's the rule that you're saying, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Great, you like to inflict pain upon yourself.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Right, Well, yeah, I haven't inflicted on me, and so
I will inflict it on others.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah. Well that's unfortunately you are a rare bearer.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I'm just trying to find the loophole in the golden rule. Yeah,
but if not, everybody's golden rule is the same, I
would think, And there's some people. I even think that
Donald Trump is somebody who's like, I'll do what I
want because that's what everybody else is doing. You know.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, that's a different rule. Okay, that's not that's not
you know, he wants everybody anybody who talks, you know,
questions him. He thinks it's nasty, right, you know, he
wants to be treated very well. Yes, but he doesn't
do the same. So I think, you know, if there
was a principle that I would fall back on, you know,
(42:11):
in any instance, I would I would fall back on
that as any sort of moral guidance.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So now, the last little bit of our show is
called the Moment of joy, a moment of job.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I can tell you, well, certain Cleveland sports. Okay, like
the Browns, not the Browns. That brings just sad, all right.
When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship in twenty sixteen,
(42:50):
I wept mm hmm, and it was there was so
much I'm I'm choking up now. There's there's so much
to do with my childhood to that. The hometown, you know,
there's a lot tied up in that, and then the
whole Lebron James story coming back home. There's a lot,
(43:11):
you know that gave me joy. And watching the Cleveland
Cavaliers storm through the NBA this year, sitting there and
watching those guys play and the way they play and
the team work that they play with. Right now, if
anything in the moment has given me joy, it's that.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Is it the athleticism? Is it something more?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's the athleticism, It's the teamwork. It's all of those
things that I grew up as a jock appreciating, right,
And it's the but it's also the city, identity, identification,
the hometown. There's all these things that are associated with it.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
You think, like the Calves have I don't know how
to say it was absorbed the personality of the town.
Somehow they represent the best perhaps of Cleveland. Is that.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I don't know if you could say that, because you know,
every year a team is different. There's different chemistry on
a team because it's a blue collar team. It's you know, uh,
you know, I don't know about that. I mean, but
they're giving you the same thing that when you go
to a stand up show, you go to a theater,
you go to a movie, gives you. It brings takes
you to another world for a little while. You can
(44:26):
get totally involved in that world and not be not
have to deal with the chaos and the responsibilities of
what is going on around you, just for that two hours,
that three hours, whatever it.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Is, right, well, that same thing black tar heroin does
for me. So I'm great.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You can make it less for three hours.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You get the right dose. Wow, the right dose. Steve Scrovan,
thank you for being here, My pleasure, Jake Cogan. Bits
and Pieces, Bits and.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Pieces, Steve Scrovan dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Okay, go there. If you can subscribe for free, right
and if you subscribe for free, you'll get it in
your inbox every time I publish something, which is only
once a month, so I won't jam up your inbox.
And the Ralph Nader Radio show Ralph Nader Radio Hour
is on a bunch of listener support and mainly PACIFICA
stations across the country, but is also a sub stack
(45:19):
at Ralph Naderradio Hour dot com that's once a week.
And Public Citizen is a great group where you if
you donate money, they will actually make your life better
because they're concerned about taking care of the actual public.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yes, Court across all sorts of whether it's health, whether
it's economic issues, whether it's lobbying Congress, all court. They've
got the widest portfolio of any public interest group.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Well, thanks Grov for being here. Thank you, and thank
you for being here our listeners. If you have any comments,
questions and suggestions, please write to dbawjk at gmail dot com.
You supposed to subscribe or like or punch some kind
of button on your screen that says this is good.
To make other people happy and say this is good,
(46:03):
and also share it. Share the show with somebody else
if you like it, and don't be alone. Sit with
a friend. I haven't seen scrowing frages. It's fantastic to
sit with him. Don't be alone, Sit with a friend
and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Don't be alone with j J cogain
Strawhut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Steve Scrovan. For God's sake, Don't be Alone with
Jake Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Don't be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi, welcome to Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan. I
am so happy that you're here. I'm so happy that
people have been really enjoying the shows. Thank you for
your comments and suggestions at when you write to me
at dbawjk at gmail dot com. And thank you especially
for your letters for my guests little life, big life
(00:37):
questions that we can answer on the show. That's an
important part of the show and I really appreciate when
you do it. So feel free. What would you like
to hear two relatively intelligent people talk about relatively I'm
not promising too much. I'm just saying what would you like?
And also, I just want to remind you all subscribe.
Please subscribe to the show. Subscribe. What's the harm and subscribe.
(01:00):
You could subscribe and never listen. You could just press
the button and subscribe. That's all I need to get
to a certain number of subscribers in order for my
wife to have sex with me. And she is really
looking at those numbers and saying not enough yet. It's
been rough, so please subscribe. All right, now onto the show.
Today's show is interesting. I called my friend Steve Scrovan, writer, comedian,
(01:23):
extraordinary political activist to come here, and he's so busy
all the time. He immediately said, I can absolutely be there.
What's with that? Why was he so available? I don't know,
a little too avail if you ask me. Anyway, I'm
very excited he's here. I'm very excited to catch up
with them. I'm excited to hear about what's really going
on in the political world out there. Because he helps
(01:44):
run this thing called Public Citizen, which is a political
activist group that represents real people and what we need,
not big companies. And he also works with Rob Naber
and other thing. So you know, he's kind of a
lefty but uh but I guess so am I. So
so we see, we'll talk about that, we'll talk a
(02:06):
little bit about show business and many many other things,
and we'll be back with Steve Scrovan right after this.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I wanted to bring you in, Steve Scroven, because you
have an interesting road. You come from Steel Country, yeah,
and then and then you get to Yale. Yeah, yeah,
and then you get to sitcom right and like, yeah,
and you're kind of a you're kind of a commie.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
None of it makes sense. None of it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So so to explain yourself, Steve Scrovan, explain yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, Steele, I came from a small town outside of Cleveland, Ohio,
right in northeast Ohio, town called Sharden, about three thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Right, and you and you still live there because you're
the kind of guy who would never really live No, no, no,
I live in Los Angeles. I forgot about that. Yeah,
that's how you got here so fast.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I've spent more time in Los Angeles than I ever
spent in Ohio. Actually, now, are there.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Any differences that you can find between your town in
Ohio and.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
A few few Although it's it's funny because you know,
I'll have some friends talk about, you know, a Hollywood liberal,
you know, and I've got a whole rant about Hollywood liberal.
But this is especially one friend of mine who's from
Iowa and he came from a tiny town. Ioway said,
(03:29):
we both came from tiny towns the Midwest. I'm not
a liberal. Yeah, you're an Ohio liberal. Yeah, yes, I
released the the those are the roots. But anybody who
thinks Hollywood is liberal, first of all, it has never
been in a contract negotiation with them.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
One true, the people who populate the arts in general
probably lean more liberal than they do.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Artists who are who are the kind of the face
of it. But the town itself, the foundation of it,
even the holly, you know is I mean, if you
look at the shows that are on especially broadcast, celebratied
even even you know, streaming whatever, it's all glorifying law enforcement,
glorifying Sealed Team six, intelligence agencies. It's all that very
(04:23):
conservative sort of programming.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
To like Cops and Robbert shows is conservative.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
To glorify the the cops and the intelligence agency. We
just recently so two bad movies. One was called The
Union it was on Netflix actually, and another one was
actually the other one wasn't so bad. It was called
The Retirement Plan with Nicholas Cage and both of them.
(04:50):
The Union was about a blue collar CIA That's how
they were different. It was Mark Wahlberg and JK. Simmons
and Halle Berry and who's from Cleveland? And the Retirement
Plan was Nicholas Cage plays this guy who's an old
CIA agent. Who's just can kick everybody's ass. And the
(05:12):
assumption and what they even say in these things is
that these people behind the scenes have been saving us
all the time. And if you look into the history
of any of these intelligence agents CIA, they have done
nothing but fuck things up.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right. But I mean, that's that's not liberal, I know,
but it's entertainment. It's sort of like, Okay, the Cops
and Roberts, the good guys and bad guys is storytelling.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Right, But the narrative that is inculcated in us is
that these are inherently good institutions who are doing who
are assassinating people behind the scenes to keep us all safe.
And it has done. I mean, Eisenhower even in the
fifties when he talked about the CIA called it. He says,
you've given me a legacy of ashes. And that's the
(05:57):
CIA was only about fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
At that time. I mean, you're a Hollywood writer, Yeah,
who are the good guys?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, it's harder because you know, you know, I do
this podcast with Ralph Nader, and I'm on the board
of Public Citizen, and I get more excited about meeting
the people who've saved live literally saved lives and were
real heroes. I mean, I I have nothing yet like
the obviously in Los Angeles today our first responders are firefighters, right,
(06:27):
even the cops and that function are you know, we're heroic.
I'll give them that. But to me, the real heroic people.
And this was a revelation that I had about twenty
years ago, where these people who are unsung underneath, you know,
behind the scenes, who are keeping us safe and keeping
(06:50):
us safe through health, keeping us environment, all of these things.
But it's just not very dramatic.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
We should read my pilot the Bureaucrats. It's fantastic. It's
just one exciting thing after another.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
It should be called the advocates. It's not bureaucratic as
much as it's advocacy, and it's and and those to
me are the heroes. And the reason actually it segues
into you know, we're talking about doing this radio show
for Ralph nat of the reason I got involved with
him is because I did a documentary about him called
an Unreasonable Man.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes she did. It's very good documentary.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And yeah, thank you, and you know, got shortlisted for
OSCAR consideration and went to the Sundance Film festival and
all of that, and this is where I kind of found, Oh,
there's this whole layer of people who are just working
tireshly unsung to keep us, you know, together, as a
as a community, as a you know, just as a
(07:46):
common will. Uh. It was from that I just lost
my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
We were talking about the discovering who the Well.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The reason that started was because I was going to
do a sitcom about a because my friend Henriette Mental
had worked for Ralph in the late seventies early eighties,
and she would tell me stories. We'd be hanging out
a catch rising star in New York. That's where I
did stay catch.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You comics, set a catch, I'm going to go to catch.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I go to catch. That's what we call it. Catch
in the bar. You know, she'd telling me storry about
working for Ralph, and I knew, you know, I'm old
enough that I knew who Ralph was and everything, but
I too, I have no idea of all of heat
that he had accomplished. And even back then, this was
like fifteen years before I became a writer. I said,
you know, that'd be a good setting for a show.
(08:31):
So you flash forward fifteen years I'm on in the
middle of the run of everybody loves Raymond, and we
get a development deal a group of us, and they
asked me for an idea, and I give him an
idea and they don't like it, right, And I don't
want to tell them I don't have another idea.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Sure, that's the good idea. That's the one. Good was
the one.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I ran and happened to run into Henriette, who
hadn't seen in years, and I said, I was always kind,
I guess in the back of my mind. I said,
have you ever done anything with your Ralph experience? And
she started introducing me to people she had worked with,
and I was collecting stories, and I went as far
as getting a up on outline for a pilot about
(09:10):
a public interest office where anybody could come in and
out in some figure like a Ralph like figure, and it's.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Like Barney Miller, but boring, like okay, well it never
got the test of that, right.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
It was Actually the premise I had was about this
woman who is a socialite whose husband has just been
disappeared for financial improprieties. He's just wandering around looking now.
She needs a job and she stumbles into this office,
and a woman who's never thought about anything like this
before in her life is now going to be working
for somebody like a consumer advocate like Ralph Nader.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
It would be good if she was a win windshield heiress.
And she hates Ralph Nader because he stopped people from
flying through windshields. Yes, and therefore you know, she's she
lost all her money. She lost all the money seat belts.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Because of seat belts. Yes, and and it's you know,
and it's this love affair they have. But when I
you know, I ran it sort of by my my
Raymond colleagues, so you all know, Phil and Lou and Tucker,
and they were asking me questions I didn't know the
answer to because it was all still secondhand fight. So
I told Henriette, you know, let's go to Washington this
(10:21):
next hiatus and let me just out be able to
see the office and absorb the you know, and she'll
she set up all these meetings for me to meet
in person, all these people I just talked to on
the phone, And that's what we did. And as I'm
talking to them, I had been reading about Ralph more,
researching him more and more. Uh, the more I read
(10:44):
the more. I was amazed at all he had accomplished.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
He's he's an incredible person. And the most incredible thing
about Ralph Better is he's for real. He's not a hypocrite.
He's as straight lace. He only cares about it's the
health and safety of people and the and and stopping
carporate greed from from killing people.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, it's it's what you see is what you get.
It's not an act. And I was amazed at how
much he had done. And then at this time, this
is like two thousand and three, this is the in
the wake of the two thousand election where he was
being scapegoated for you know, Al Gore losing, right, which
is now what the Democrats do every time they lose,
they find somebody to scape and he was just one
(11:29):
of the first.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Who's the scapegoat this time? Well, yes, or Biden.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
They they've had trouble scapegoating this time. Usually now it's
it's usually a third party because you like Jill Stein
or you know, they're scapegoating like black men and Latino men.
Now this this is you know.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Good call the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's what they're doing. Yeah, which is ridiculous when you
look at the numbers. But you know, he was really excoriated,
and the reason he was excoriated is because his ideas
were popular. And it's basically the Bernie Sanders program. So
I'm talking to these people in Washington and you talk
(12:09):
sitcom and inside the Beltway, it doesn't really compare.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
No, they don't do that.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But then, because I didn't been doing another reason, I
said what about a documentary? And their eyes lit up
because that they knew this story hadn't been told. And
here I was in a position, through Henriette, to have
access to all the people who knew Ralph and had
worked with him, and I put the sitcom idea in
my pocket and started working on the documentary.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And that's what we're called because it's a great documentary.
Thank you. I'm not sure that it would have been
the best of all sitcoms. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
We don't know, Yeah, and I don't know, and it
probably you know, I haven't pulled it out of my
pocket yet, so you're probably right. I just haven't been
inspired to take that up again. But that's who I
consider the heroes.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You know, Public Citizens, great group, their public advacy advocacy
group that you dragged me into kicking and screaming. But
it's times like these when Republicans have the House and
the Senate and the White House, when I'm most afraid.
And then every now and then I'll hear what they're
(13:15):
doing and go like, Oh, thank God, somebody's somebody's doing
So you're so scrow you're so well read in all
these things. Why do you hate America?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love America.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Oh it doesn't. I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'm trying to save save America from corporate read right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I wonder how much corporate greed is just simply built
into the price of the USA that it seems like
it's a lot of what happens.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It's a lot of what happens that's and what's happening
now is the guard rails are going to come completely off.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Am I wrong to think that corporations were acting better
in the mid twentieth century than they were like from
the Gilded Age, the Guilded Age to now? Was there
ever a time when anybody was acting better? No?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Only only a force too. Okay, that's why you need laws.
That's where you need regulations. That we need all these
things they're trying to strip away and that's why in
spite of the terrible enforcement of these things, not where
enforcement known you know where you know, Boeing kills three
hundred and forty six people with these faulty airplanes, and
nobody goes to jail, right, you know, it's and they
(14:22):
and all these deferred prosecution agreements where they pay a
fine and that's the price of doing business.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
So families can't sue. The families of the of the
victims can't sue Boeing for like incompetence.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
They can and and but do you have as much
money as Boeing has to.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I personally do delay. I'm not a victim. You weren't
a victim, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Yeah, shouldn't come after me?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
No, I would not. I would not recommend that.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Why I can't wait to get it.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
If I was the general counsel, I'd say, yeah, no code.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
But I mean there are lawyers who like love class
action lawsuits and say, you know they three hundred fIF people.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and that happens occasionally. But we have this myth
of this re litigious society, and it is just that
only two percent of legitimate claims are ever followed through.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
On followed through on, meaning they ever get to trial, Yeah,
because they're settled out.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
No, no, or even even settled out, yeah, even even
brought forth. But but they want to give you this
idea that everybody's suing everybody, right, and all the suing
is between the corporations themselves and the Donald Trump's people
of the world, you know, who are rich and sue
all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Leg So, I mean, this has been this has been
the case for and nothing seems to be getting better.
What keeps you on the bandwagon, like, let's keep fixing it.
Why aren't you Why aren't you frustrated?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And well, it can be frustrating, but you know, I've
got a responsibility. Uh, And I've written about this and
the thing if I if we can promote anything on
the show for me.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
About everything I'd like to promote, but not substack. Yes,
we can't. We cannot promote the substack. Why not? I'm joking.
You can absolutely promote that son of a bitch. I know,
I knew you're headed to substack.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So yeah, well we'll get there. We'll get there. But
I've written about this, and I actually talked about it
a little bit. Is it well, first of all, yeah,
the forces arrayed against us are formidable. But I'm if
I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down
with my boots on because I want to be able
to say on my deathbed to my kids, I fought
(16:56):
as hard as I could, and there is you know history,
you can make progress, and progress is made.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I don't know, I mean, I really it's it's hard
to figure out what's going to get inspire the left
because we're also a bunch of idiots who I think
if people aren't left enough, you know, if if you
know people, people cut off their nose to spite their face.
So if there's a candidate who is here, but your
(17:26):
politics are much for the left, and you say, well,
this person's basically just the same as the other person,
I don't think that's true. I think even in even
bits and pieces, it still makes a difference.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I'm glad you meant bits and pieces because that's the
name of my substack, which we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
What is the name of your substack?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Bits and pieces? But the right does that too, They
have their own purity tests too.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Where can I find this substack?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You can go to Steve Scrovan that's substack dot com. Right,
it's called Bits and Pieces, right, And what it is
is basically a every month I put out a story
or an essay that's funny, right, not humorous, Jay, It's
actually funny.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
It's funny. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And I do an audio version too, you do, I do?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Do I have ever heard the audio version? I've read
the I've read that you heard?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, you can click right at the top of the page.
This is audio voiceover boom click.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Got idiot. I've been wasting all this time reading my
precious eyes reading the words.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yes, we hearing you sitting in the car.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, And I've been doing it for a couple of years,
and uh, it's it's fantastic, it's it's uh uh. The
last one I did, I'm putting on a new one
in a few days. I do it right at the
usually around the first of the month, first week of
the month. Last one I did was about my experience
working with George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch in nineteen ninety five,
exactly thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It wasn't on any Indiana Jones project or Star Wars,
but it was for his educational foundation.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
You were very close to getting Chewbacca, like there was
a you were like two auditions away.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I was yeah, the costume, I wasn't tall enough.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right, all right? But the George Lucas educational founder.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yes, yeah, that that, Yeah, he wanted to do it.
You know you have to read it's called Skywalker. It's
in three parts, and but you know I do that.
I'll write about a lot about writing. I'll write about
some of my adventures writing episodes of television.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Am I reading?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
In any of those you are actually name checked? I
think in the Lucas one.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well you name checked me and Phil You.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
You and Phil and Larry David as a great showrunners
and leaders.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I knew that I was just I was just trying
to build myself up, can you say it?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah? But I talked about because George Lucas very tolerated
my my descents and this one story point, and uh,
you tolerated many of them.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I mean that's the creative process. The creative process isn't
gather gathering people together to just listen to me talk.
It's to get other people's input in points of view.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You'd be surprised how that, Oh, you've been in rooms
that you know, the good ones and the bad ones.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, you know. I mean the bad ones is gonna
be bad for many reasons, and the good ones is
gonna be good for many reasons. Like sometimes you can
write really terrible things and then the performers are so
good they make everything better. And sometimes the reverse is true.
And sometimes there's a showrunner there who is very consistently
cares about quality, but he's just such a jerk that
(20:29):
he makes your life and everybody else's life miserable. Well
that's a bad room too to me.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
If you get the showrunner and the star, yes, and
if either one of those people is an asshole, you're
going to have a bad time. You have a great showrunner,
terrible star, great star, terrible showrunner, you're going to be
you know, you get if you had good baths, And
I've been lucky to have that on a number of occasions,
including you know, working with you.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
That was that the shows that was a star of
or the shows that I.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Show you were only a showrunner, you were only in.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
That got that. You're right about that.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I've never been starting, whether it was Jerry trainor.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Y or Ray Romano. Yeah, the group. Yeah, he's awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Ray is fantastic. Ray raised another guy like Ralph. You
see what what you see is what you get. Yeah,
he's authentic both on and off stage.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, I like I like him a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Sorry, tell show business stories and funny essays and everything
that occurs to me.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
You're a great one of the great comedy writers of
all time. I loved people may or may not know this,
that you craft a story. You love to craft a story,
and you take great pride in crafting a good story
from the beginning to end, and you're not afraid of
ripping it all down and starting again and crafting a
better story. That. Uh, that's the kind of uh you know,
(21:43):
stick touitiveness knows to the grindstone that a lot of
people don't have. Well, it's also also made my life miserable.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Also, but it's also what when you're writing in television
you get.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
I've been doing these substack pieces and I send them
to a friend of mine who is an editor, and
he kind of helps me with the grammar and syntax
and uh, you know, some sometimes meant you know, this
doesn't make sense or whatever. And he was very impressed
with how I would take some suggestions and really rework it,
(22:18):
and rework it seriously and take it farther. And it's
all comes from writing from television where you you know,
you bring in a script and it goes to the table,
and if you know three or four of your lines
survive from the table, then you've, yeah, you've, you've you know,
you can lay claim to that script. And so you're
(22:40):
constantly being rewritten and questioned and uh, it's so it
doesn't hurt anymore. So doing that for my own work
is easy.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Right, Well, then you know you're your own brutal rewriter,
own brutal Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's still you still
get to claim credit for it. So it's it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
And you were great always taking notes from like the
network at the studio because you'd nod say okay, we'll
take a look at that, and you weren't just the
playing lip service to it. You say, okay, there's they
may have had a suggestion. You go, oh my god,
that's that's a terrible solution, right, but they're looking at
this area. Maybe there's something, and then you fix your
own problem.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Often there's other ways to do it, one of which is,
you know, fixing it badly so that they see how
badly it is. Yeah, and then they say, oh, don't
do that, especially when you're looking at the executive who
pitched it and said, well, there it is in black
and white.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You like it?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
No, great, let's let's go back to the other way.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
But I always tell people the story about you on
Wendell and Vinnie, which was our show show in Nickelodeon. Uh,
when you dealt with they wanted a fire a cast member, right,
and Jay did this jiu jitsu that I've never seen
before or since.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's it's do you call it jiu jitsu? I call
it cowardice like this, like they said, replace the female star,
and I went like, okay, and then tried to find
a female star that would work as good as somebody
who had worked with Jerry trainor who's super funny and
very interesting and and and and she had her own
qualities that I thought were really good and very complimentary.
(24:08):
And I thought, okay, well, all right, let's try. Yeah,
And then we tried, and there was nobody that they
were bringing in front of us that we're even close
to the the girl they fired. And I kept calling
the girl that fired and was saying, don't take another job,
because this is this is, this is not settled, and
I have a strong feeling you could very well be
(24:29):
back very soon. And we did eventually convince the network
after they actually hired somebody who was just as saucy
and spicy as Jerry to be his match, which didn't work.
Bad chemistry.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well you know what it didn't work. Yeah, is a
Jerry is like what six two or three, right, and
you hired was like five feet tall. Yeah, and so
it looked very uh.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, didn't look didn't look great and uh but but
also just just to just the act who's who is
hired to be the replacement was almost identical in tone
to the other actress we had in this show, Nicole,
And it was sort of like, why do we have
two of these same characters being feisty together? Like that's
(25:14):
not another flavor.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Right and yeah, and well, and that's my experience is
the network or this usually the network, in order to
justify their jobs after the pilot, they have to fire
one of the actors, and it's usually the actor has
the least amount of lines and they'll say, oh, they
didn't test well, well, they had three lines. Right, you know,
(25:36):
because you can only there's only so much real estate
in the script, and so let's get rid of that person,
recast that person. And it's usually for no reason.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
We got the other one. We got our original actress back
when the network I said, we compared in the middle
of the shooting of the reshooting of the pilot, I said,
look at this scene, and look at this scene and
tell me which one is better. Yeah, And they went, Okay,
the original actress. Do you think it's possible we can
get her back as a maybe you know she was
waiting in the in the other room just to come back.
(26:07):
But you know how to be their decision.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
But if you let them go through the process, it's
and it's not that you sabotage anything. You made a
good faith effort, but you always knew this is where
it was going.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
To end up.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, it felt like that. That's that's what I mean.
There are shuran, there are people say fuck you, it's
this back, it's this cast, or I'm walking like I
am not that guy. I was not prepared to that.
I want to do it. So everybody feels heard, everybody
feels hurt. Thank you for calling that, Jiu jitsu. But
I mean you do, you do have to learn to
handle people. You handle people all the time. And in
(26:43):
your y.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Those charges were dropped. I just wiped that on the.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Record and notes from from executives, and not all notes
are bad and not all executives are bad.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
But phil, as you say, anybody can have a you know,
an opinion, have a good idea, right, you.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Know it happens all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But you always have to solve your own problems.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yes, you know. Mel Brooks tells the story that they
wanted to fire Gene Wilder off the producers and they
the financier of the movie saw the first dailies and said, ah,
this this guy is no good. You gotta fire him.
And mel said, yeah, you're right, we do okay, well done,
done done, Yeah he's fired. Yeah, and then he walked
(27:23):
away and then never fired him, just never fired him.
And then never the producer, the the the financier never
mentioned it again, like it just never happens. You gotta fire,
you must fire that guy. He just never did. Yeah,
that's weird, that's jiu jitsu. It could easily have been
like I'm not giving you any more money to finish
this movie because you didn't fire the person I told
(27:45):
you to.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Well, because if I shoot all of this now and that,
oh you know, it takes so much money out of
replace exactly. Oh did you say that? Oh yes, yes,
now remember. Oh I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
God, Oh my god. Okay, So here I'm a concern
this and scrow. Yeah. What should I be doing right
now to make our world and country better? Because all
I do is this podcast? And I don't think it's enough.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
We've already done this. Just talk to me and I
just laid it out for everybody, right, Okay, No, the
we stay engaged. I mean so many people talk about
I want to leave the country.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, what's that about?
Speaker 2 (28:24):
People are going First of all, he wants to buy
all the other countries. So you're not going to get
away from it. And this is a worldwide phenomenon, this
right wing phenomenon, and it's because of what is known
in the parlance is these neoliberal trade policies that have
enriched corporate corporate world corporations. Yeah, and left workers behind, right,
(28:47):
And so I think you whatever you're doing at the grassroots,
whatever you're doing to just stay in community with people.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, I have a CEO port Group that I give. Yeah,
so I'm helping those guys stay strong. Yeah, you stay
strong and firm in their in their beliefs. But and
then their pay pay rolls. Yeah, so you don't give
any don't give in. No, keep your fifty million dollars
a year.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, so you're you're not that Louis. You're not in
the Luigi.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
No, no, no, no, I'm not writing any messages on bullets. No, no, no, no.
By the way, bad plan. I know, bad plan. What
I guess you wanted to get caught. Yeah, he wanted
to get the message. He wanted to get the message.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
They say leftist are bad at messaging. Put them on
the bullets.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah. Yeah, but I was the CEO, I'd be taking
notice of that.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. Well it was interesting and this is not my idea.
I listened to this podcast called Counterspin, which is a
critique of the media by fairness and accars in the media,
and Janine Jackson, who's the great host of this, was
pointing out that on the right, they at first they
were calling him the CEO killer, right, and then they
started calling the Ivy League killer because he's gone to
(30:03):
Penn Right, And she said, this is a very subtle
way to change the narrative from CEO should be or
doing bad things, so getting killed too. This is a
problem with education, right, with higher education, And that's how
they're trying to frame it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Fox who is calling him the Ivy League killer.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, a lot of right wing outlets Fox, and you know, you.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Know, yeah, so I mean, I'm I'm really for.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Give you five bucks to public citizen.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, give the money to public citizen is good. I
will do that. I have done that in the past.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Because they the co presidents No, Rob Weissman, Lisa Gilbert
wrote a letter to was Trump or to the Doge.
They're asking to be on that advisory committee because there's
a certain law about how advisory committee should be made
up and and there's got to be a balance of people.
(31:02):
And they're saying, we know a lot about this kind
of regulation stuff. We have a lot of ideas about efficiency.
It's not that you can't do government efficiency, but it's
where you cut. And of course, you know, I ignored
because that's not what it's about. It's not about efficiency.
It's about giving corporations free rein to do whatever they want.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Right, And I imagine you know, when you abolish the
Department of Education, it's also about trying to keep the
people from educating themselves to get smart enough to sort
of you know, fight back.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And leave space for religious institutions to fill that gap.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Right, Yeah, don't be alone with.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Ah. That's that's it's it's unhappy times for me.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's dark. It's dark, but you gotta keep you gotta
keep fighting. I think people of our age, it's our.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Generation into your age. I am so much younger than
you are, three years younger.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Love.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I was born in ninety sixty three. Oh you are,
and so so I'm baby. I'm a baby.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yes, geez, I'm a I'm on the cuss.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We wouldn't even have been in high school together. No,
not even not even yeah you were, you were at
the very end of the boom. But our generation, yes,
we're the ones fucked stuff up. That's why you can't
stand people criticized millennials or gen zers or anything like that, because.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
No, wet, let's be honest. You call that music the
boom boom boom and the yeah yeah yeah with the
hair hair, it's like noise. It's like boys and the girls.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And sounding and the where's the melody?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
There's no melody's there's no lyrics, there's no romance. No.
But other than that, we fucked them. We fuck them royally.
They have no chance houses the Beatles they have, They
have no chance of paying for their own health care
for anything. It's really rough. It's really rough. I mean
I worry about my kid, how he's gonna survive. I mean,
(33:18):
listening he wants to be a musician. He's not gonna
survive anyway. But this makes it even worse, right, yeah,
it makes it even worse. Charlie, you will be fine.
You will if you're listening to this, you will be fine.
You'll make a lot of money. You'll be fine. You'll
be fine.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, that's that's take.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
But no, I do I worry about obviously, the gigantic
growing inequities like it used to be to have a
CEO make you know, a million dollars at one point,
while the people in the line were making minimum wage
was like already a nightmare. And now it's one hundred million.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's three hundred times more than the medium wage is.
And there's this business guru of the six season, Peter Drucker,
who wrote this book, called up the organization, and you know,
no flaming liberals said it shouldn't be any more than
twenty five percent higher than it's three hundred times because
(34:14):
all of this money's being sucked up into upper management, right,
you know, And that's why companies like Boeing General Electric,
they don't really innovate anymore. They just there to up
their quarterly stock. They buy back their own stock. Apple
(34:35):
buys back its own stock to up the stock price
so that the upper management qualifies for bonuses.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Listen, I'm living that. I mean right now, I get
minimum wage for doing this. And Ryan, who does straw
Hot Media, Yeah, gets four hundred thousand dollars an episode. Wow,
which is crazy. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
No.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
So I mean, listen, Bryan, you should dress better. So
it's not fair to me. I don't think. I mean whatever,
nothing's company. He says, I can replace you in a heartbeat.
There's you know, there's you know how many j Cogans
are in the world, A million?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And I don't know, he's right, there's only one j Cogan, right,
only one Jake Cogan.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
But that's really it is. It is a weird and
and and stressful time. And then the things that don't matter,
like like renaming the Gulf of Mexico or you know,
pretending that he's going to invade Greenland or whatever. All
that stuff is just crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dist it's all bullshit. Salesman, Yeah, and that's that's his genius.
I will give him that he is a great salesman,
and that the quality that makes him a great salesman
is utter shamelessness.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, but he's a ship merchant, you know, that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Is a shitty project product himself.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Right, He's the way, he's a terrible product. And you know,
the people buying it have terrible taste, you know. I
don't I don't understand why they're buying the Trump Bibles
and the sneakers and the coins and stuff. I don't
understand why they don't see this as the Khan strange
con that is.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But that's how desperate people are. It's it's a casino economy.
I'm gonna I'm gonna get an NFT that'll that'll be
my nest egg.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Okay, but shouldn't we be smart enough to convince them
to buy our ship? Like it's like, what is it
what is it about us.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
That we're not doing well? It's it's not about commit
it's about committing to that. It's about committing to those
principles and to those policies. You know, I think it
was Noam Chomsky who said that the key to the
control of the populace is to have two parties that
are operating in the very narrow policy spectrum, right, you know,
where certain things can't be talking. You can't talk about
(36:37):
Medicare for all. You know, see that in the media.
So it's a very narrow policy spectrum. But the stuff
that they argue about it's vehement, right, which is all
the palace intrigue, it's all the you know, corruption arguments.
It's all vuying for power.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But I mean, you know, Bernie, Bernie, Medicare for All
is on the lips of people. That's cly now more so.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Not not well, not if not in the mainstream media,
it's not you know, it's not talked about. No why
should they because you know, place like CNN, MSM. But
you look at the commercials, it's all pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
It's all really old people watching those things. That's really
what Only no young person is watching it and they're
getting they're not what getting the news from any news source,
traditional news source, to get the news from the social media,
which is now completely all use. Those guys were sitting
with Trump at the on the dais. They're controlling all that, right.
That's why I think people are buying, you know, houses
(37:39):
in France and in Spain. You know that they're they're saying,
you know, it's it's hard to fight that. It's very
hard to fight that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, but I'm not going anywhere. So if anybody wants
to rally around that, I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Uh well, Scrow, We're at the time we usually have
a question time is question how do you decide if
you have room to add people to your life?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
How do you decide to room to add people to
your life? I'm I got I have a big tent,
and I'm I'm somebody as you probably have divined, who
gets along with just about everybody. And I'm not so discriminating, right,
(38:31):
So it's.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
But that's not adding people to you, that's being kind
in a setting. Who do you decide, like I'm going
to call that person again, I'm gonna spend some time,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Oh you know what if I if I if I
think the conversation is going to be interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, yeah, so that be smart enough or interesting enough.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yes, And I don't even think smart has anything to
do with it. It just has to be, you know, interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
You don't think smart and interesting go hand in hand, or.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I should say educated. They don't have to be educated.
Smartest probably not the right right word. I have a
lot of you know, I have a number of friends
who not necessarily educated, but they're interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
This is a good question for you. How do you
find inspiration and creativity in your daily life? And what
strategies do you use to stay curious?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Well, you know what that I've always been curious.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
This is who you are. You're always interested and excited
and about all these subjects.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah. I think I find people and and and issues fascinating,
and that's why I try to do a lot of reading.
And I'm not one who's too afraid to get into
a political debate, as you may know. You know, divine
there too and kind of relish it. And you know,
(39:50):
I tell you who I don't enjoy speaking as much
too is people that I agree with. It's much less interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Luckily for you, no one likes that exists.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So your look and disagree with you? No, uh yeah,
because it's not fun to just be back and forth
going fuck yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Right you even take yeah? All right scro So now
that I'll go for viewer listener mail. Now it's time
for listener man. Dear jan guest, Uh, how do we
determine what is morally right or wrong?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
How do we determine?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
How do we determine it? Is it just again this
is from the letter, not me, of course. Is it
just from what we have been taught by society, our culture,
or is there a you know, platonic right and wrong
and that we can measure our lives against.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Well, I am a big proponent of the golden rule. Okay, uh,
you know, do unto others as you would have them
do unto yourself, right unto you? And I have not,
in you know, over sixty years, been able to find
a loophole in that right and so, and it is
(41:05):
also kind of the foundation of just about every religion,
major or minor that's ever been devised.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Right. Well, I'm someone who likes to be tied up
and beaten up. So if I like that for me,
I should then do it onto others.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Uh. That is, yes, that is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
That's the rule that you're saying, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Great, you like to inflict pain upon yourself.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Right, Well, yeah, I haven't inflicted on me, and so
I will inflict it on others.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah. Well that's unfortunately you are a rare bearer.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I'm just trying to find the loophole in the golden rule. Yeah,
but if not, everybody's golden rule is the same, I
would think, And there's some people. I even think that
Donald Trump is somebody who's like, I'll do what I
want because that's what everybody else is doing. You know.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, that's a different rule. Okay, that's not that's not
you know, he wants everybody anybody who talks, you know,
questions him. He thinks it's nasty, right, you know, he
wants to be treated very well. Yes, but he doesn't
do the same. So I think, you know, if there
was a principle that I would fall back on, you know,
(42:11):
in any instance, I would I would fall back on
that as any sort of moral guidance.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So now, the last little bit of our show is
called the Moment of joy, a moment of job.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I can tell you, well, certain Cleveland sports. Okay, like
the Browns, not the Browns. That brings just sad, all right.
When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship in twenty sixteen,
(42:50):
I wept mm hmm, and it was there was so
much I'm I'm choking up now. There's there's so much
to do with my childhood to that. The hometown, you know,
there's a lot tied up in that, and then the
whole Lebron James story coming back home. There's a lot,
(43:11):
you know that gave me joy. And watching the Cleveland
Cavaliers storm through the NBA this year, sitting there and
watching those guys play and the way they play and
the team work that they play with. Right now, if
anything in the moment has given me joy, it's that.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Is it the athleticism? Is it something more?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
It's the athleticism, It's the teamwork. It's all of those
things that I grew up as a jock appreciating, right,
And it's the but it's also the city, identity, identification,
the hometown. There's all these things that are associated with it.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
You think, like the Calves have I don't know how
to say it was absorbed the personality of the town.
Somehow they represent the best perhaps of Cleveland. Is that.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I don't know if you could say that, because you know,
every year a team is different. There's different chemistry on
a team because it's a blue collar team. It's you know, uh,
you know, I don't know about that. I mean, but
they're giving you the same thing that when you go
to a stand up show, you go to a theater,
you go to a movie, gives you. It brings takes
you to another world for a little while. You can
(44:26):
get totally involved in that world and not be not
have to deal with the chaos and the responsibilities of
what is going on around you, just for that two hours,
that three hours, whatever it.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Is, right, well, that same thing black tar heroin does
for me. So I'm great.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You can make it less for three hours.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You get the right dose. Wow, the right dose. Steve Scrovan,
thank you for being here, My pleasure, Jake Cogan. Bits
and Pieces, Bits and.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Pieces, Steve Scrovan dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Okay, go there. If you can subscribe for free, right
and if you subscribe for free, you'll get it in
your inbox every time I publish something, which is only
once a month, so I won't jam up your inbox.
And the Ralph Nader Radio show Ralph Nader Radio Hour
is on a bunch of listener support and mainly PACIFICA
stations across the country, but is also a sub stack
(45:19):
at Ralph Naderradio Hour dot com that's once a week.
And Public Citizen is a great group where you if
you donate money, they will actually make your life better
because they're concerned about taking care of the actual public.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yes, Court across all sorts of whether it's health, whether
it's economic issues, whether it's lobbying Congress, all court. They've
got the widest portfolio of any public interest group.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Well, thanks Grov for being here. Thank you, and thank
you for being here our listeners. If you have any comments,
questions and suggestions, please write to dbawjk at gmail dot com.
You supposed to subscribe or like or punch some kind
of button on your screen that says this is good.
To make other people happy and say this is good,
(46:03):
and also share it. Share the show with somebody else
if you like it, and don't be alone. Sit with
a friend. I haven't seen scrowing frages. It's fantastic to
sit with him. Don't be alone, Sit with a friend
and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Don't be alone with j J cogain
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