April 26, 2018 • 51 mins
This week Matty talks to Greg Proops from The Smartest Man In The World! They talk about his transition into podcasting, his audience changing, taking ignorance and making it a learning opportunity, and find out which person dead or alive, Greg would would want to hear a podcast from in our 3 Killer Questions round!
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Access Podcast,
the podcast about podcasts. I'm Maddie Stout, and I am
the smartest man that you know. Producers e correct. I'm
gonna say yes for the sake of my job, thank you.
But we both know that the smartest man in the
world is Greg Proops, who you have a personal connection
with because of the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yeah.
(00:24):
So when I moved to America with my family from
Sri Lanka, Whose Line Is Anyway? Was one of the
first shows that we were introduced to, and my brother
and I would watch it non stop like there was
no getting us away from the TV. And Greg Proofs,
of course, the star of that show and also the
star of this week's edition of Access Podcast. Let's check
out a little bit of his show. Let's see here.
(00:48):
According to recent estimates, women may go under twenty of
Congress and less than of all state legislatures, only six
governors or women. But they're of the population. So when
we go on and on and on, here and here,
he is the smartest man in the world, the smartest
guy I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Greg Proops.
High Greg, Hello, Maddie, you're very flattering. H Well, you
(01:09):
know it's true. You are very smart, marvelous, there's no question.
You know. Here was the thing when I did my
old radio show, we would have comedians come in and
just let them talk and and not really you know,
do stick or anything. And there were always a couple
that I thought, when I moved into podcasting, that's somebody
that should be podcasting, and you or we're always like
on the top of that list. For me, I'm so
(01:31):
glad to see that you've taken the podcasting as much
as you have. It's really changed everything, Maddie. I think
it's made me a more relevant comedian. And when I
did the first one. After I did it, my wife
Jennifer said to me, this is what you should be doing.
And I was like, huh, because I always thought stand
up was the most direct way to communicate with the audience.
(01:52):
But I think podcasting is you really reach people on
a honest, visceral level and they seem to hear what
you're saying. You know. Yeah, I mean I overuse this phrase,
but you know, podcast create empathy and I think that
somebody like you that's important and what you do it
is it's easy to be misunderstood as a comedian because
people our reactionary and they react to a phrase or
(02:15):
a word or a thought or something. With podcasting, people
really hunker down and listen and you can really communicate
with them. The highest phrase I think, Maddie is like
people write me and say I used to think about
things one way, and I listen to your show and
I've changed my thinking on that, And you think, well,
that's amazing. Because stand up doesn't change minds. Comedy is
(02:37):
not really a force for It can be a voice,
but I don't think it's you know, that giant catalyst
for social change. I'm laughing now, but you know there's
very few George Carlin's or Bill Hicks or Lily Tomlins. Well,
I think that. Um again, you know, with with comedy,
(02:58):
you you hit a city in a city a city,
and with a podcast it hits so many people. Um,
have you found a new audience do you think of
podcasting that you had with comedy? I do. I think
the people that wouldn't walk in the door of a
comedy club because they thought it was sexist and racist, Um,
will listen. I get a lot of young people who
are too young to come to a comedy club, which
(03:18):
is really amazing to communicate with teenagers. And uh, you
know people who can't drink yet they love it as
entertainment too. And also I've been to um Holland, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, England, France, Australian,
New Zealand, Finland, you know what I mean. So you
(03:41):
you can draw an audience all over the world through
the power of podcasting because it's on people's phone or
on their computer. You don't have to be on a
TV show anymore. TV is not necessary to have a presence,
you know. I think that when somebody's doing a good podcast,
a good any good radio or audio. In my in
my mind, you know what's good when people think they
(04:02):
could do it too. Well, let's say I could you
know I could do that too. And the same thing
with comedy. You know, everybody thinks that they can get
up on stage. But I think, you know, for you,
I would think that your background and especially with improv,
has really prepared you to do a podcast where you
are kind of you know, at your will to speak
(04:22):
about things. But also no, all right, you know I
need to stay on some kind of target it's true. Um.
I love the thrill of walking backwards and free falling
and improvising and with when you when you podcast, I
can start at one place and work my way around
in a huge circle, you know, and still try to
(04:43):
get towards the point of the thing. Um. Sometimes I don't.
Sometimes it takes me a whole hour to get off
one topic. But people will stay with you for that
in a podcast where they wouldn't perhaps as much in
a stand up act. That kind of want you to
hit a joke every fifteen seconds, um, And I think
that's what makes it's so exciting for me. Um. I
(05:06):
talk about politics, a lot of feminism, history, uh, raised, religion,
music books are literature blah blah blah, and there's a
more open playing field for that people. I know people
are listening and responding to that because they bring poetry
(05:26):
books to the show. You know, they bring dope and
dka to you. Of course, my my habits are forefront,
but they bring poetry books and artwork they've done, and
feminist literature and records on Vinyl Maddie, which is like,
you know, close to my heart. So you know you're
getting through to people, and that's what's happening. And I
don't ask for these things. It all happened organically, which
(05:48):
makes it a thousand times more gratifying to me than
being in a corporate meeting where people talk about what
they think people like and what they think people want
and they really don't. They've just taken a survey. One
of the things I always I have always enjoyed about you,
and always enjoyed when you would come into the studio
on the shows that I worked on, is is is
the topics that you talk about and and you know,
(06:10):
I like it when people can be funny and smart
at the same time. And I'll be honest with you,
the fact that your podcast is doing so well makes
me feel like maybe society isn't as fucked as I
think it is. I like to think so. I mean,
I wake up with it, you know, like everyone else.
There's the thirty seconds in the morning before you remember
(06:31):
what's going on and who the who's in power, and
then the depression, you know, climbs over you and abuse
your soul with a blackness that can be inescapable horror
of the volcanic racism. And you know, but anyway, yes,
I think you're right, Um, The truth is people are
interested in my One of my guys I work with
(06:53):
Matt bell Nap is on Never Not Finding with Jimmy Pardo,
and he's been at the very beginning of podcasting and
he asked me to do this with his partner Ryan mcmaniman.
And at the very beginning of this, he said to
me something that no TV person would ever say to you.
He said, people are attracted to content. Yeah, and that's
(07:14):
what makes me. And then I say to Jennifer, well,
I'm talking about jazz or I'm talking about this or
that book, and surely everybody knows this, and she said
to me, they don't. They don't know it. You need
to introduce it to them. You're curating what you talk about.
You're curating literature for them or art, because everybody doesn't
have the same experience and everybody doesn't have the same
prime of reference. And it's not a matter of ignorance
(07:37):
for stupidity, it's just, you know how it is. Some
people had a good English teacher or good parents, and
some people didn't, and so they have to kind of
I feel like I'm teaching a one oh one class.
You know, I've spent the last six years teaching at
a university. And and it's one thing I have learned
is it's it's people aren't bad because they're ignorant. And
that word gets used wrong. You know, Yeah, it's not
(07:58):
a bad thing to be. I'm ignorant. Every one's ignorant
on something, UM. And the key is to instead of
pointing your finger and wagging it at them for being ignorant,
it's to say, well, let me tell you about that.
And I think that's something you do very very well,
and I'm it. And again, it makes me so happy
that there's actually in the audience is engaged in that,
because every day I feel a little bit more like
the movie Idiocracy. UM. And and I and I worry
(08:20):
that we are we do revel in our ignorance, and
we revel in UM. We revel in in our snarky
putdowns that aren't well thought out. And I like it
when you do very thought thought, well thought out snarky
put downs. Um. What do you teach, Maddie, I actually
teach podcasting, UH and broadcasting. I started the first podcast
program UH as far as I know, in the United
(08:41):
States at the Candemy of Art University. So that's fantastic.
It really is an effective tool, you know. And just
like music, there's a there's podcasting, a million types of
ways to podcasters, a million different podcasts. Um. My only
complain about comedy podcasting is that it's inconceivably male for
(09:02):
the first ten years. And now you're starting to see um,
you know, uh, black women and and all kinds of
women getting into it, the guys we fucked and the
chegop queens, and but it took a while for them
to get traction, you know, because everything is a white
guy thing with with comedy, and then it kind of
(09:22):
gets spread around eventually. Um, but I think it's really
important to teach podcasting because, like you said, everyone thinks
they can do uh, you know, a podcast or everyone
they can do comedy and uh and and sorry, in essence,
they kind of can. Yeah, if it's if it's And
(09:47):
here's the thing I al would say to my students
is even if you get done my class, and by
the way, my mid term is a power point presentation
on finding an audience and and like you know, really
thinking about what you're doing instead of just going out
and doing it. But that when you're done with my class.
Hopefully you've learned to communicate effectively so that no matter
what you do in life, you can go into a room.
(10:08):
And again I had to overuse the word, but you
have that feeling of empathy with whoever you're talking to,
whether it's business or you know, anything else that you do.
And I think that when you do a podcast, you
you get to flex that muscle a lot. Yeah, I
think you're right. Um, empathy isn't so important. Um, Connecting
with the audience is the only thing I ever wanted
(10:30):
because I'm shallow and I don't have an inner life,
and so to be able to to be able to
reach people. And I think, like you're saying, you're in
real life. We're on the phone making caustic remarks about
other people's politics or their habits or whatever, and it's
(10:51):
a chance to not it's a chance to articulate that
more and not just take pot shots at people. You
have to develop something when you're doing a podcast has
to be I mean, you know that there's you've heard
ones where people just blather, and then you've heard ones
where people make a very salient point and or it's
about history or music, or you know they've taken a
(11:13):
topic and that's their topic, or sex and all of
all of which need to be discussed. The problem isn't that,
like you said, people are ignorant and they're stupid and
they need to be castigated for being morons. The problem
is we don't have dialogue about anything. Do you find
it hard? And I think that Jennifer fills this role
(11:34):
for you and she as I think you know anybody.
I love you in your marriage and it reminds me
so much of my wife and I were. You know,
that's my best buddy. That's that's my sounding board. Do
you feel like when you're doing the podcast from the
Fortress of Propitude that that that's you have a sounding
board to, you know, instead of having an audience in
front of you. Yeah? I do. Um. You know, she's
(11:57):
been um part of this thing since the beginning and
my partner in it, and a lot of the ways
the topics have been driven is because of her. A
lot of the news stories I read and the information
I have is because of her. So I've given her
credit since the beginning. And uh now we're starting to
do ones at home together where she talks more. She's
(12:18):
always wanted to be sort of in the background, and
that was her choice, you know, And I didn't press
her to push forward. But lately she's wanted to say more,
and so I'm happy with that evolution too. And of
course people right me and say could you put could
you turn her mic up? Yeah, you've got her on
the side there in your sideline here. And now I
feel awful because I'm always talking about people's sidelining women,
(12:41):
and and the last thing we did, I don't think
she was on Mike ut. But yeah, I think you
have to have a sounding board, um. But more importantly
than the sounding board for her, for me, she's sort
of the guiding heart and soul of this whole thing,
(13:02):
one of the things that you know you do well.
And I feel like I tell people all the time.
In a lot of ways, we should be very grateful
for Donald Trump, because it's the first time people actually
pay attention to what's happening and are interested in c
span and who's the secretary of this and who's the
secretary of that. So there is a lot of a
(13:22):
lot more dialogue about what's going on with our government.
But I feel like it's also created a place where
you can see where a lot of people aren't maybe
the best people to be talking about politics. And I
think of some comedians and some of the podcasts, and
I think in general social media where it's been maybe
you know, not working out UM for them. How you know,
(13:45):
A long way to ask a question is you know,
how do you feel about this, this this current culture
of of Donald Trump and how it affects what you do.
I think it's galvanized people in a positive way. And
I think most importantly it's forced complacent UM white people
into some sort of you know, getting woke as they say, UM.
(14:09):
The violence that he brings in his rhetoric, he's basically
a one man recruiting squad for white supremacists. Every single
UM in saying shooting that's taken place, the shooters have
all said that they listened to him, that they appreciated him,
that it was his message that they were reacting to
(14:29):
and relating with. UM. And I think it's a real
nice wake up call for people. If I wanted Hillary
more than I've wanted anything in my life, but I
do realize if she had been elected, we'd be locked
in this thing where the Republican Congress would be fighting
her tooth and nail right now, she'd probably be indicted. Yeah,
and there might be impeachment proceedings going on a year
(14:50):
and a half. And because that's how psycho they are
about it. Whereas with this we're fighting against basically fascism
every day. But now I know the names of every
single council person in my neighborhood. UM, I'm writing politicians
all the time. I'm completely galvanized. UM. I've joined fifteen
different groups. And I think a lot of people feel
that way. And to see the crushing amount of women
(15:13):
and young people that are registered to vote and running
for office is what I always focus on. Um. A
lot of liberal people will be like, oh, it's worse
than it ever was, and the whole world's coming to it.
And it's like, that's true. But there's gonna be so
many women running for office in the next two years,
and so many people of color. We're talking about a
(15:33):
black woman governor of Georgia in the in the in
the near future, which has never ever happened in the
history of the United States. There's never been a black
woman governor. And that's progress. Might always say to people,
I'm old and when I was little Nixon was president.
And when Nick was president, there was no question that
a woman or a black person was ever going to
be president, much less attorney general, much less Secretary of State.
(15:58):
So all those things have happened in my life. And
I'm not that fucking old. But you know what I mean,
things move slowly, incremental change changes. That is the course
of American politics right now. We're in a terrible time
where white supremacists and the Russians have an awful hold
on kind of the people's imagination in the media. But
I think that the vast majority of people are are
(16:19):
not bad people. I mean, you know, and and can
be motivated to get off their ass every once in
a while, uh and do something. And I think you're
seeing that. Um. I think of people I didn't know
the name of a few years ago, like Sarah Kenzie
or or Joy Read or um you know, that are
in the media now that are literally fighting for change
(16:43):
every day. And I think that's the part that gives
me hope. So that's my take on it. I mean,
he is a person, is an inkoit um demanded mess.
He doesn't have an agenda he I mean a constructed agenda.
He simply pushes buttons a racism, homophobia, transphobia, whatever. There's
(17:04):
no coherency to anything Orange forty five is doing because
he's not intelligent or well read. It was just revealed
yesterday that mc masters, who was the former National Security Advisor,
would be in the middle of giving him a briefing
and realized he wasn't observing anything he said. So we're
not talking about a normal presidency here. We're talking about
the idiocracy presidency. Like you say, accepted in the movie
(17:26):
Terry Crews was more awesome. Oh, he was much more awesome.
I would probably consider voter for Terry Crews, you know.
And I had to have to, you know, when when
everybody says this is the worst time, I I you know,
you study history, and I'm I'm a bit of a
history buff. I feel like, you know, when a look
at the sixties. Uh, there was a lot of a
lot of strife then, and I think out of both
(17:47):
situations was what you're saying is coming true, which is
it wakes people up and and hopefully now this next younger, smarter,
more you know generation will will start paying attention and
take part as it did with the sixties. Absolutely, look
look at um uh what the Parkland Uh teenagers of
(18:07):
jen That march was gigantic and the Republicans can ignore
it all they want and the n r A can
react to it all they want. But the tide turned,
the tide turned. It was it was a moment and
um with Hillary running, the tide turned there when you
saw a woman get nominated and get the most votes
(18:27):
that you don't go back on that. And women are
I think people are really motivated um in a way
they weren't before because we have that extra added incentive
of we're fighting for our very survival. But the sixties
were this bad and the seventies were this bad, and
we've had racist, white supremacist, narcissistic, sociopathic liars as presidents,
(18:51):
just never all at once. Well. I always tell people, Hey,
you think he's bad, look up Andrew Johnson. Man there
you go there, that's that's a bad president. My wife
the other day, that's how boring I am. I'm like,
if you want a white supremacist president who presided over
a mass and had a corrupt administration, it was Andrew Johnson.
Is cake taking Lee shitty? He might be the worst
(19:13):
president extra Trump. I think, I, oh, I I he's
always my he's always my go to for worst president.
I can't. Oh my god, he's just horrible. And so
people think we haven't had this kind of insane white
supremacy before, but we have many many times. Woodrow Wilson
was a screaming white supremacist and he was also an intellectual,
which is like, you know, quite a quite a gyration
(19:35):
there to be able to do both things. Um, you know, uh,
I think a lot of that this has to do,
you know, and social media has everything to do with
why we think everything is the worst now because it's
it's so in our faces. Um, And you know, how
(19:55):
have you been able to use you know, social media,
you know that kind of not only just to to
say what you think, but also is a is it
is there a former therapy at all for you? Or
or do you find it to be as kind of
does it get you worked up as it does other folks?
It gets me worked up and then I have to
take a break from it. And it's when I find
(20:16):
myself reacting to every single goddamn tweet and feeling like
I have to chime in, is when I think, you know,
it's okay to think for a while about what's going
on and not just immediately react. I never used profanity
on my Twitter, and the one or two times I
accused someone of being a Nazi openly, I got very
(20:39):
big trouble and trolled to death, and I thought, okay,
so don't do that. Um, I can't believe the people
who right fuck you you yea there because it's there forever, yeah,
and someone that's going to go back and find that
you called someone a piece of shit, And so I
try to keep the discourse high. UM. I decided early
(21:00):
on that in my acting on the podcast, I'll use
profanity freely. But on Twitter and social media, I feel
like it doesn't really do a lot for your rep um,
and you can't call everyone that you think is a
moron a moron. Um. You have to let morons be
more on. Sometimes it loses its luster if you overuse it,
(21:21):
I think. So I try to praise people, and the
only good thing about social media is like, for instance, um,
LORI kill Martin who's a friend of mine, and Alison
Rosen is a friend of mine. They both have books
out now, and so you're able to help people by
pumping their projects, you know. And I think that's that's
a really good thing about social media. When my book
(21:43):
came out, I asked all my little comedian friends, will
you retweet this? And to a person they did, And
I think that's the kind of the the fun of
social media is that it's a it's a it's a club,
it's a fraternity, if you will, where we can support
each other. I can't wait to see the support you
give my new pot of this new podcast of mine.
(22:04):
I'm so excited, Maddie. You tell me when and I will,
as they say, retweet it and I'll send it out
to I think that's the other groovy thing is like
I love doing podcasts and I don't care if they're
new or big established ones. I love doing new ones too,
because that's how they get off the ground. Baby Ria
Butcher just started one called three Strikes, three Swings, and
(22:28):
You're Out, a baseball one. I'm gonna do one named
podcast carpool in May that a guy hooked me up with, UM,
you asked me to do years and I thought, yes, UM,
because I know you and we've always had fun chatting. Uh.
I think that's how they get off the ground and
how you get any traction. You know, Well, we started
(22:51):
Stitcher and that's you know, I left. That's why I
left my morning show was to go over and help
start Stitcher. Was you know, the one guy I always
remember who would do anything and want any podcast was
Mark Marin. Mark. Mark said no to nobody when he
started that podcast. We did. I did a little podcast
out of a closet at Stitcher because you know, startup,
we had no mudget everything. And Mark came and did
(23:12):
the podcast in my closet, and and and I think
that that's and that's it's and it's one of the
things that make podcasting special is that it's not a
it's not cutthroat. It's not like you know, you know,
every morning radio guy thinks he's the coolest thing in
the world and every other morning radio guy sucks. You
don't get that attitude with podcasters. It's hey, how can
I help you with your podcast? Because it's just helping me.
(23:34):
At the same time, I agree, I've done obscure ones
in Sacrimano, Colorado, Zameto, Toronto. Yeah, I can't remember the
guy's name. He did it in his house. We all
went over, we smoked a joint and he had a dog.
He took pictures of us, and uh, I mean, I
don't know if anyone heard it. I think some people
(23:54):
hear it. Um Any any time I go to where
cats will ask me to do their podcast, I I
generally if I have a moment, I'll do it. My
new account in Philly was a big music fan. I
went over to his house and in his dining room
table we did it. And you know that that's the
other thing that's beautiful about it. This is a movable feast.
(24:15):
I have a couple of different Zoom recorders, but I've
got the little handheld Zoom one now and it's changed
my life, man, because uh, Jennifer and I went to
Mississippi last year with the Lady parts Justice Liz Winstead,
who is a great comedian who started daily show, and
she has this you know, abortion rights group that helps
(24:38):
out and goes to clinics all over the country. And
they don't just go and like do a comedy show
and self intuligent. They'll paint the place, they'll bring office furniture,
whatever it's required they ask. Then they do a comedy show.
They also do escorting and then at the end of
the comedy show. There's like an open dialogue with doctors
and volunteers. It's very cool. So I went and the
one in Mississippi is full of anti choice, crazy white
(25:01):
men with bibles and pictures of dead babies outside screaming
at a stream of poor black women who all of
whom have four or five kids and are getting an
abortion because they can't afford on another child. And I
had the recorder in my hand and they started yelling
at me the minute I got there, and then I
was able to interview them. They were glad to do
an interview because they recognized me from whose line. And
(25:23):
I kept it really low key, you know. I let
them talk and I spoke like this in a cold,
clear tone to them, and they explained their position, which
was kind of crazy, and I think that did more
than if I'd argued with them, were ranted and raved
about it. I let them talk, and everybody wrote and
was like, I can't believe this with these what these
(25:45):
white men believe, and it's like, well, that's what's going on.
They also didn't know that white men gather outside of
clinics all over the country and scream at black people
for trying to avail themselves of their constitutional rights, whereas
no one stands outside gunshops and yells at white guys day.
And so the effectiveness of having a little handheld device
(26:06):
Jesus Christ. When I was a little my first tape
recorder had two giant reels and it was weighed like pounds,
you know. And now that we can carry around these
things that are small as a phone, and you know,
it just makes broadcasting a whole nother thing. No more
physical tape. Baby, you don't have to deal with that
ship anymore. But yeah, we still say tape. Oh yeah,
(26:29):
and we still say we say recording, we say telephone.
We I think, I always say to Jennifer, everything is
really old fashioned, even though it's super new. Uh, people
still say tape things. I love that my wife makes
fun of me because I'll forget I'm from West Virginia
and then I'll say an expression and like I'll call
it the commode where I'll call her I'll call her purse,
(26:50):
her pocketbook, and she's like, she's like, what are you some?
Are you an eighty year old person here with pocketbook
and commode. I'm like, now, that's just how we talked
there all right, do you say crick and ruff as well? Oh,
crick roof and holler. Yeah, we're going to West Virginia
this year for the Lady Parks Justice League thing. That's
the date we're gonna do. We're gonna go to Charleston. Oh,
(27:12):
good luck in Charleston, and then I think we're gonna
interview the teachers because that's great just so happens in
the clinic and Charleston doesn't have a bunch of crazy
people standing outside. Um they they they've gotten off the
hook on that. So I thought we'd go and talk
to the teachers. Or it was Jennifer's ideal. Let's be honest,
because the teachers have started a tidal wave in West
Virginia and God blessed them. You know, it's spread to
(27:35):
Kansas and Oklahoma and everywhere. You know, there's uh my,
my one of my best dearest friends is a lawyer
uh in Charleston, African American lawyer, and he you know, he,
you know, he is always kind of pressuring me. He's like,
we need you, people like you to come back because
you know, we need to get voices back in the state.
Who have you know, have experience and and think a
(27:55):
little bit. And you know, when I saw that teacher strike,
I was just warmed my heart to see the people
that came out to support them. Uh, in the in
the state, because you know, my my state worries me
a lot. And I'm glad that you're going there. I
think that you'll you'll have a wonderful time. I hope
you can get to the Eastern Panhandle, that's where I'm from,
which is actually the beautiful part of the state. So
I've been a couple of times in West Virginia and
(28:16):
plive years ago with whose Line at the University in Charleston,
and they were unbelievably avid. And they also we did
a Q and A after or I guess Ryan and
Chip did. I'm I didn't take it much part of it,
but they they the students really wanted to talk, uh,
and it was it was an opportunity for them to
talk to people who make a living performing. And yeah,
(28:39):
the people ask me, why do you go everywhere and
do stuff? And it's like I feel like you're you know,
we're we're troupe doors. Uh. You know, as a performer,
you gotta I don't know, Bob Dylan. You look at
his calendar sometimes and he'll be in like Lexington, Kentucky
and Evansville, Indiana, and people will ask him why do
you go to these places? And he's like, people live there,
(29:04):
and I think it's good for you know, I grew
up in a really small town in West Virginia, pretty poor,
and um, I would go once this year to this, uh,
this church camp and it was the one place where
I meet people who were from different backgrounds, had you know,
come from different families, and we're smart and really were
into reading and education. And and um, Henry Lewis Gates Jr.
(29:24):
Is from the town that I'm from it and he
would go to the same church camp. And I've read
his book Black People, He Colored People. He talks about
that being the place where he actually got some like,
oh my gosh, there is a world outside of Kaiser,
West Virginia. And and I think that when people you know,
come into the state and do performances, you know, there's
always that kid like me who was going to see
it and go oh wow, Yeah, there's people that don't
(29:46):
think like everybody that I go to school with, this
is cool, Alright, I can I have there are other
people out there. Yes, it's and it's so important. Um,
the people who live in real America have that communication.
People do right in me and Goo, I live in
a terrible little town in Missouri or a little town
in Illinois, and I love listening to your show, and
(30:08):
you think, well, you're reaching them, and that's important, you know.
I mean, I love New York and London in San
Francisco as much as anyone else, and of course I
want to play there all the time, and I do.
But cities are starting to be like places people are
leaving because they can't afford to be there anymore. You know.
We were just in Ohio and Indiana, and the downtowns
(30:31):
are getting renewed in some of these towns that are
you know, like Toledo. Um, Toledo is not. It's depressing,
but you can see that it's coming back. And people
are forced to move to places like that now because
you can't go to Portland or Denver anymore. Portland and
Denver priced themselves right out of the market. And there's
(30:51):
that there's that wild reality going on in the United
States where there's simply not enough places to live in
enough jobs for everyone to afford. You know, when we
first lived in Arantisto, Maddie, you could live there. Yeah,
Now what is it? Four thous dollars a months the
average rent. It's ridiculous, It's crazy. I don't know how
anybody lives here who's on a normal income. I honestly don't.
(31:13):
I mean, you have to be like Facebook rich too,
and that's just that's not riot. I mean when I yeah, so,
I think that the real estate developers are the most
I used to think arms dealers were the most evil
people on earth, but I think it's real estate developers
and Luke who's president. Yeah, oh, I there's nothing more frustrating.
I mean, my wife and I were looking to buy
(31:33):
a house, and you can't buy one unless you have
cash in hand. And those folks who are buying them
with cash in hand don't live here. They don't. They're
only doing it for speculation. It's it's really frustrating. And
all these damn flippers, all these flippers that damn TV
shows made everybody think they can go out and flip
a home now, so they come and buy them and
then yeah, it's terrible. Oh I know. I mean I
(31:56):
bought a house in l A with my wife, and
they're always asking us to sell it. But what they're
gonna do with it is tear it down and build
a McMansion. And I'm not doing that. Don't do it.
I can't add to that, you know, it's there's enough
of that. Um. Yeah, I have heart of any part
of any cities, the architecture, and I don't understand people
(32:16):
who just want to knock everything down all the time.
But l A is heedless, you know, I'm a at
least it's a little bit more affordable in l A though. Yeah,
it is, it is, It still is, and there's still
cheap apartments to rent. Cheaper When I first came to
l A, Oh my god, I think we were renting
a place for I was splitting it with Sue Murphy,
(32:38):
the comedian, and like there's think five dred dollars each
a month. Twenty years ago. Hey, I got a question
from a listener, Larry. He's got three I'm gonna give
you two of him. One. Do you have a photographic memory? No,
I just have a good memory. Um, there's giant gaps
(32:59):
in my memory, and of course memories really selective. I
don't remember any of my nephews or niece's birthdays. But
I can tell you what Tai Cobb hit for every
season kind of thing. So that's amazing. Uh, that's you know,
It's like some of the sports guys that worked with
in New York that they would walk in and just
they couldn't remember what they have lunched yesterday. But I
forget about you know, the eight six Mets will tell
(33:21):
you every stat everything about him. Sure. How about the
other question as is, were you Do you really drink
vodka when you're doing a podcast? I do. I've got
a drinking problem, and I take it on the air.
I necked down several glasses during a podcast I'm doing
(33:41):
one tomorrow night here in h Holifox is where I
am now at the Halifax Comedy Festival, and they put
me in a little bar called the Carlton and I've
done it there. I've done it here a couple of
times and really good fun. Is the end of the
bloody continent out here. Um. But yes, I really drink.
I really drink, and people give me my call all
the time. I bet once once they know you like something,
(34:05):
that was the thing. I quit drinking h three years ago. Well,
I can always tell when somebody's really a friend of
mine and when they're not by the gifts that give
me a Christmas because they'll, you know, I'll get bottles
in the mail. I'm like, yeah, we haven't talked for
a while, have we? Uh right, I can't enable that ship.
It's like, well it's you know. Then I have gifts
(34:26):
for other folks. So it doesn't work out very bad,
but it's always funny. Hey. Um. I always end with
three killer questions. Three questions if you could listen to
a podcast that had anybody living or dead on it?
Whose podcast would you listen to? Oh? Gee whiz, that's
a good question. Um uh golly, all right. You kind
(34:48):
of stopped me because I have a thousand people that
I want to say. You can come up with a
couple of combinations if you want. This is one I
was really excited to ask you in particularly because I
figured you come up with something good. I would like
to hear Gentle Rivers because I wished up been adored
her as a comedian. Um living Friendly Blitz. If someone
would just interview Friendly Wits every week. Um, she's so
(35:09):
witty and so funny and so incisive and is so
liberal minded and hysterically you know, just I just adore
her UM comedy. She's mostly a writer, obviously, but she
does do interviews and she just nails the douvil out
of it. UM if it was old fashion, if we're
talking living or dead, ever, I would love to hear
(35:31):
Leonardo da Vinci's thoughts UM. I'd also love to hear
like some of the women of history that get skipped over,
like Ada Loveless who basically kind of invented the computer,
and all of the black women from Hidden Figures who
were the physicists who worked at NASA UM. It would
be very interesting to hear them talk about their experience
(35:54):
with UM astronomy and and dealing with the giant paradigm
that they were forced into and how to go with it.
I'd love to hear Abraham Lincoln speak, um, have I
given you enough? You've given me funny? I could go
on and those are great. Louis Strong I think would
(36:15):
have quite a lot to say about different things. And
you know, I mean, I think there's a bunch of
people living who don't get on podcasts, and maybe we
should interview them, like Dolor Suerta, who started United farm
Workers with Cesar Chavas. She's still alive and you've just
given me an idea. Here you go. That's that's my
(36:36):
that's the that's the that's the producer and me, Hey,
what was the right? Yeah, we mentioned you know, podcasting
is kind of the latest technology that's that's changed your
life and what you do. What's the first piece of
technology that you remember using and going this is neat,
this is going to be something, it's going to change
my life. Well, um, like I said, when I was
(36:58):
probably six or seven, like parents, game in this tape
recorder and it had giant reels and you turned, uh,
this giant lever to make it go and to rewind it,
and then you had to press the button and turn
the leaver at the same time to make a record.
And it had one of those green like I don't
know what you would call it, an a solo scope,
like you know that when you spoke the levels, we're
(37:20):
kind of a fluctuating co sign in the that's early.
I don't know if that's digital technology. I'm sure it
was a light bulb, you know. I remember thinking that
was super bitchen and also portable phonographs when that was little,
the kind you would drag over to your friend's house
and just plug it in the wall and it just played.
That was like we thought that was the living end.
(37:42):
Um and transistor radios when I was really little in
the sixties, because you could listen to the ball game
on them with one little ear piece in your ear. Yeah,
and so you could look you could hide in bed
and listen to ball games or take it anywhere and
no one would You could sneak uh listening to games.
(38:03):
And also, you know, radio was way more eclectic once
upon a time, as you recall. Um and I listened
to a dazzling variety of weird DJs from San Francisco
alone in my room. Um, guys who played comedy. John
guild Land was on Casapo, guys who did comedy like um, uh,
(38:27):
well not I'm not old enough to really for Surewood
bid him. Oh golly, I'm blanking on his name. But
there was you know. Anyways, there was eclectic shows where
I remember hearing Monty Paton for the first time on
the radio before they on TV. Um. John Gillan played
them on his comedy show. Um, and I think that's
that's what we're doing now. For people. What those people
(38:49):
did for us when we were a little the exposing
you to different things that you had no idea existed. Yeah,
I mean I always tell folks with you know, when
I was little, we didn't have TV, but we radio
and Dcor Demento. Yes, that was God. That was how
I found you know, comedy. You know that my mom
let me listen to any comedy albums. I wanted to,
(39:11):
so George Carlin and you know, when I was like
six or seven, was listening to George Carlin and those things.
But uh yeah, Dr Demento And I remember my first
radio job on an FM station was I got to
play Doctor Demento on Sunday nights at nine o'clock. And
I was like, I've made it, yes, yeah right, yeah,
it's so Dr Demano. Plus he played um, you know,
(39:31):
records from the twenties and thirties. Oh yeah, he played
like all Bob and Ray stuff and he'd play um,
oh gosh, Spike Jones and you know all that kind
of stuff. That was you know, you know, for a
you know, nobody else was playing that. Yeah, no, he
he was the one, and it was coast to coast
and it was syndicated. Um. We even I remember I
(39:52):
was in a group called fault Line and Santancisco in
the eighties and we made a Christmas rap record or
something and we sent it to him because the show
was still on. This is like eight five. We sent
him a vinyl single of it, and he wrote us
back and said, I'm not going to play it, but
it was more trenchant than most comedy records. And I
(40:12):
remember being absolutely thrilled that he called our record trenchant,
and uh, it was. Yeah. He's I think a great broadcaster. Yeah,
And I think a lot of people have different experiences
depending on what your generation is. Um. There was a
radio station in San Francisco that I made it to
the eighties called ks an Case and and they had
(40:37):
really eclectic Deejays who played rock and roll but also stranger,
you know, harder, deeper cuts. And I got an education
from them too, And they embraced punk when it came out,
whereas the hard rock stations were very resistant to it.
And then punk leads you to art and literature and style,
(40:58):
you know, a different direction than listening to Ted Nugent
or Montrose or something. All of a sudden, now you
have to deal with the intention behind a song, the
politics behind a song, the fashion behind a song. And
then of course, um, I listened to ks so Well
and Kate uh K d I A, which were the
black stations in the bar area, and that's where I
(41:21):
learned about Glutsy Collins and Rick James and Funkadelic and
Choca Con and you know what I mean. Like so
when I was at pizza delivery boy, I would drive
around sam Matal and smoke cools and listen to Kiss
so Well and they were playing everything groovy, you know.
So it was just the Bear has always been good
(41:43):
for that because the area is multicultural, and we never
even with all the problems of the Barrier House and
the racism and the lack of housing and all that jazz,
the poverty, there's always been Latin people, Asian people, black people,
white people. You know what I mean. Look at my name,
it spos to it more. And then if you lived
in an all white place like say, you know Canada, Yeah,
(42:07):
r Hanada is not really all why but you know
what I mean, No, I bring that up when I go.
I still go hunting with my dad in Pennsylvania and
uh and I'll get in conversations with guys there and
just kind of just point out that, you know, hey,
your experience is not like mine where I'm the only
white family on the block. You know, it's it's a
little bet Um. All right, one more, What was the
last podcast that you binged? Um? That's just gonna sound terrible.
(42:33):
I don't really binge podcasts that much. I listened to
some sometimes. UM. I love Jacky Cations the Dork Forest
because she gets people on to talk about stuff that's
real meaningful to them. So it can be any old thing, um,
old time movies, baseball, whatnot. Um. I listened to mine
(42:53):
back um after I do it because I want to
make it the producer and me, I want to make
it better and less repetitive and less as far as
the vodka goes. Sometimes maybe there's too much, and that's
not always a good dance you make. You want to
make sure you're making sense and ur ahead of the
audience instead of being that the drunk guy who's cornered
(43:17):
you in a kitchen. You know what, I didn't know
what that was like until I stopped drinking, and now
I'm like, oh god, that was me. I was the
drunk guy, uh in the kitchen trying to tell you
why the world needs changed, right. Yeah, I just that's
my worst fear. My two worst fears are irrelevance and
(43:39):
to be the drunk guy who's corned you in the
kitchen and it is repeating the same story. Man, that's funny. Um,
that's great. Uh well, uh run that time. But I
really appreciate you coming on, Greg. I'm glad that we
got to cash up and and and it's been too long.
And you're somebody I always I do. I think of
more often you would than you would probably know. Um,
that's kind. I've always been thought of you fondly. And
(44:02):
every time I go back and do um Sarah and Vinnie,
every time I go, and I was there through the
Sarah No Name years as well. Uh this, every time
I go back and see do Sarah and Vinny, I
think of you because sometimes you do the show now
and the producers like looking at the computer the whole time. Yeah, well,
I know what you mean. It changes, everything changes a
(44:23):
little bit. And uh uh and I think that you know,
it's good to see you in this world. I'm glad
you're podcasting, and I do think it's it adds to
our culture and in a little bit, UH makes me
hopeful that things are things aren't as bad as we
as I think they are sometimes. Thanks Pal, that's really
nice of you. Do you let me know when this
(44:44):
is going to come out and email me and I'll
definitely put it all over my Twitter and stuff like that.
You got anything you want to promote before we get
out of here, Yeah, that'd be great. Um, I've got
a podcast coming up this May second at Bar Lubic
in Los Angeles. Someone's free to attend. I'm also on
the road with the Whose Line guys, and we're going
all over the Midwest and the South starting May fourth. St.
(45:06):
Louis County City, Springfield, Atlanta, Raleigh, Oliver, Dallas And that's
at whose Live anyway, and then I'll be in New
York City on May twenty six at the at the
Bellhouse in Brooklyn. And that podcast is always wild, so
I'd love it if people would come up for that.
And um, the Greg Proops Film Club will be showing
(45:27):
three Days of The Condor on May sixteen Wednesday sixteenth
at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. And if you haven't
seen three Days of the Condor. It's a CIA paranoia
movie from the seventies where Robert Redford has awesome hair. Awesome.
Thanks Greg, we'll put all that up on our Facebook page.
Two at Access Podcasts, Hazy, Hi, Maddie. I enjoyed my
(45:54):
time with Greg Proops. It was a really good interview.
It was fun to listen back to. I like, I've
liked Greg forever. I met Greg a long time ago,
like fifteen years ago, and uh, he's one of those
people that he's so smart that when he acknowledges something
that you said is smart, you feel even smarter. And
I like to you guys had a conversation about how
(46:15):
if someone's ignorant, you don't just bash it, You kind
of try to use it as a learning opportunity. And
I like that what he said about that. Now you
know how I get through my job every day. Learn
Oh No, And hey, being smart it's a wonderful thing.
And podcasts make you smarter. So this week I wanted
to highlight podcast that makes you smarter and Z You've
(46:37):
gone out to the interwebs and looked for three to
recommend to our listeners. What he got Ye, So the
first one is Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell. Very smart. Yeah,
very smart guy, and he has this voice that you
just want to sit and listen to all the time.
And it's just um. It's a podcast where they interpreted
things from the past that cases or like different stories
(46:59):
that one might have overlooked and it's really interesting. I
love this podcast, let's hear it. He closed her nostrils
with his other hand, and since she could not get air,
she lost consciousness. When she came to, she realized that
she was in the back of a moving automobile. Okay,
I might say, he Okay, he's definitely smarter than me.
I'm not doing a list of all the people smarter
(47:21):
than me, and it's getting very long. Yeah, how are
you looking on that list? Where are you at? Oh,
I'm I'm I'm probably fifty deep at this point. And
that's just in this building alone. What have we got
for the second podcast? The second one is good Job, Brain,
Good Job, which you actually told me about and I
love it because I'm such a like trivia nerd. I
(47:41):
love trivia. And this is just a group of friends
and it's like a they call it like a bar
quiz and it's offbeat trivia and if you love facts
and learning new facts, this is a great show for you.
Check it out. This is that everybody question what authors
first three names were John Ronald Rule Martin. Yeah, those
(48:13):
guys have been at it for a while. I love
podcasts like that that uh come from a place of friendship. Yeah.
Their chemistry is great and it just flows onto the
audio the podcast. I'm just gonna keep talking. Okay, next one, alright,
when the last one is Star Talk with Neil Degrass Tyson,
(48:33):
who is probably like top three smartest people. He's pretty smart,
he is crazy smart. And he has a podcast about
astrophysics like can I say that work? Um? And he
has great guests like George Takai, Buzz Aldrin, Morgan Freeman, Um,
obviously Bill Nye the science guy. They're like bfs and
(48:54):
it's just teaching you more about the universe. And who
doesn't want to learn more about space. Let's hear it
that a rock has less God in it than life does? Okay? Okay?
And he talks about the orbits of planets and which
Newton had already figured out in his publication of Principia. Okay,
(49:16):
so I already figured that out, and so so he
is not saying that the planets are moving according to God,
because we already had those answers in this book. Every
place he involkes God is where we knew the least
about the natural world. That's a very common thing. You know,
who loves Neil de grass Tyson our our music composer,
(49:41):
Casey Franco. Yeah, he's yeah, he's like, he's he's he's
a big fanboy. I'm pretty sure he has like a
full size poster m over his bed. Yeah, I've been
to this place before. That was wonderful. Thank you, Zee
and uh. If you like to hear those podcasts, don't
forget check them out on the I Heart Radio player.
(50:02):
If you've got a podcast that you want to put
on the I Heart Radio player, I guess what. There's
a submissions page and what we're linked to that up
on our website. All you have to do so check
us out on Facebook. It's Access Podcast on Facebook. You
can also catch us on Twitter. It's Access Podcast one.
Some dumb dumb took Access podcast ten years ago and
it's never used to handle woo uh. But anyway, you
(50:24):
can follow us on social media. I also want to
thank everybody involved with the show. See you're the best.
Casey Franco composes our music, Don'ton Runberg helps out with graphics.
Also want to thank Rick Hardo, a R who does
a lot of social media promotion for us as well.
So thanks to all those guys. Thanks to Don Parker
and Katie Wilcox here in San Francisco, and our godfather
(50:45):
of podcasting, Chris Patterson. What's up Chris, Hey, let's do
a shout out to to Darren James, president of I
Heart Radio Killing it all right, everybody, thanks for listening,
and remember, if you like podcast go check one out
and share it with a friend.
Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Access Podcast,
the podcast about podcasts. I'm Maddie Stout, and I am
the smartest man that you know. Producers e correct. I'm
gonna say yes for the sake of my job, thank you.
But we both know that the smartest man in the
world is Greg Proops, who you have a personal connection
with because of the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yeah.
(00:24):
So when I moved to America with my family from
Sri Lanka, Whose Line Is Anyway? Was one of the
first shows that we were introduced to, and my brother
and I would watch it non stop like there was
no getting us away from the TV. And Greg Proofs,
of course, the star of that show and also the
star of this week's edition of Access Podcast. Let's check
out a little bit of his show. Let's see here.
(00:48):
According to recent estimates, women may go under twenty of
Congress and less than of all state legislatures, only six
governors or women. But they're of the population. So when
we go on and on and on, here and here,
he is the smartest man in the world, the smartest
guy I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Greg Proops.
High Greg, Hello, Maddie, you're very flattering. H Well, you
(01:09):
know it's true. You are very smart, marvelous, there's no question.
You know. Here was the thing when I did my
old radio show, we would have comedians come in and
just let them talk and and not really you know,
do stick or anything. And there were always a couple
that I thought, when I moved into podcasting, that's somebody
that should be podcasting, and you or we're always like
on the top of that list. For me, I'm so
(01:31):
glad to see that you've taken the podcasting as much
as you have. It's really changed everything, Maddie. I think
it's made me a more relevant comedian. And when I
did the first one. After I did it, my wife
Jennifer said to me, this is what you should be doing.
And I was like, huh, because I always thought stand
up was the most direct way to communicate with the audience.
(01:52):
But I think podcasting is you really reach people on
a honest, visceral level and they seem to hear what
you're saying. You know. Yeah, I mean I overuse this phrase,
but you know, podcast create empathy and I think that
somebody like you that's important and what you do it
is it's easy to be misunderstood as a comedian because
people our reactionary and they react to a phrase or
(02:15):
a word or a thought or something. With podcasting, people
really hunker down and listen and you can really communicate
with them. The highest phrase I think, Maddie is like
people write me and say I used to think about
things one way, and I listen to your show and
I've changed my thinking on that, And you think, well,
that's amazing. Because stand up doesn't change minds. Comedy is
(02:37):
not really a force for It can be a voice,
but I don't think it's you know, that giant catalyst
for social change. I'm laughing now, but you know there's
very few George Carlin's or Bill Hicks or Lily Tomlins. Well,
I think that. Um again, you know, with with comedy,
(02:58):
you you hit a city in a city a city,
and with a podcast it hits so many people. Um,
have you found a new audience do you think of
podcasting that you had with comedy? I do. I think
the people that wouldn't walk in the door of a
comedy club because they thought it was sexist and racist, Um,
will listen. I get a lot of young people who
are too young to come to a comedy club, which
(03:18):
is really amazing to communicate with teenagers. And uh, you
know people who can't drink yet they love it as
entertainment too. And also I've been to um Holland, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, England, France, Australian,
New Zealand, Finland, you know what I mean. So you
(03:41):
you can draw an audience all over the world through
the power of podcasting because it's on people's phone or
on their computer. You don't have to be on a
TV show anymore. TV is not necessary to have a presence,
you know. I think that when somebody's doing a good podcast,
a good any good radio or audio. In my in
my mind, you know what's good when people think they
(04:02):
could do it too. Well, let's say I could you
know I could do that too. And the same thing
with comedy. You know, everybody thinks that they can get
up on stage. But I think, you know, for you,
I would think that your background and especially with improv,
has really prepared you to do a podcast where you
are kind of you know, at your will to speak
(04:22):
about things. But also no, all right, you know I
need to stay on some kind of target it's true. Um.
I love the thrill of walking backwards and free falling
and improvising and with when you when you podcast, I
can start at one place and work my way around
in a huge circle, you know, and still try to
(04:43):
get towards the point of the thing. Um. Sometimes I don't.
Sometimes it takes me a whole hour to get off
one topic. But people will stay with you for that
in a podcast where they wouldn't perhaps as much in
a stand up act. That kind of want you to
hit a joke every fifteen seconds, um, And I think
that's what makes it's so exciting for me. Um. I
(05:06):
talk about politics, a lot of feminism, history, uh, raised, religion,
music books are literature blah blah blah, and there's a
more open playing field for that people. I know people
are listening and responding to that because they bring poetry
(05:26):
books to the show. You know, they bring dope and
dka to you. Of course, my my habits are forefront,
but they bring poetry books and artwork they've done, and
feminist literature and records on Vinyl Maddie, which is like,
you know, close to my heart. So you know you're
getting through to people, and that's what's happening. And I
don't ask for these things. It all happened organically, which
(05:48):
makes it a thousand times more gratifying to me than
being in a corporate meeting where people talk about what
they think people like and what they think people want
and they really don't. They've just taken a survey. One
of the things I always I have always enjoyed about you,
and always enjoyed when you would come into the studio
on the shows that I worked on, is is is
the topics that you talk about and and you know,
(06:10):
I like it when people can be funny and smart
at the same time. And I'll be honest with you,
the fact that your podcast is doing so well makes
me feel like maybe society isn't as fucked as I
think it is. I like to think so. I mean,
I wake up with it, you know, like everyone else.
There's the thirty seconds in the morning before you remember
(06:31):
what's going on and who the who's in power, and
then the depression, you know, climbs over you and abuse
your soul with a blackness that can be inescapable horror
of the volcanic racism. And you know, but anyway, yes,
I think you're right, Um, The truth is people are
interested in my One of my guys I work with
(06:53):
Matt bell Nap is on Never Not Finding with Jimmy Pardo,
and he's been at the very beginning of podcasting and
he asked me to do this with his partner Ryan mcmaniman.
And at the very beginning of this, he said to
me something that no TV person would ever say to you.
He said, people are attracted to content. Yeah, and that's
(07:14):
what makes me. And then I say to Jennifer, well,
I'm talking about jazz or I'm talking about this or
that book, and surely everybody knows this, and she said
to me, they don't. They don't know it. You need
to introduce it to them. You're curating what you talk about.
You're curating literature for them or art, because everybody doesn't
have the same experience and everybody doesn't have the same
prime of reference. And it's not a matter of ignorance
(07:37):
for stupidity, it's just, you know how it is. Some
people had a good English teacher or good parents, and
some people didn't, and so they have to kind of
I feel like I'm teaching a one oh one class.
You know, I've spent the last six years teaching at
a university. And and it's one thing I have learned
is it's it's people aren't bad because they're ignorant. And
that word gets used wrong. You know, Yeah, it's not
(07:58):
a bad thing to be. I'm ignorant. Every one's ignorant
on something, UM. And the key is to instead of
pointing your finger and wagging it at them for being ignorant,
it's to say, well, let me tell you about that.
And I think that's something you do very very well,
and I'm it. And again, it makes me so happy
that there's actually in the audience is engaged in that,
because every day I feel a little bit more like
the movie Idiocracy. UM. And and I and I worry
(08:20):
that we are we do revel in our ignorance, and
we revel in UM. We revel in in our snarky
putdowns that aren't well thought out. And I like it
when you do very thought thought, well thought out snarky
put downs. Um. What do you teach, Maddie, I actually
teach podcasting, UH and broadcasting. I started the first podcast
program UH as far as I know, in the United
(08:41):
States at the Candemy of Art University. So that's fantastic.
It really is an effective tool, you know. And just
like music, there's a there's podcasting, a million types of
ways to podcasters, a million different podcasts. Um. My only
complain about comedy podcasting is that it's inconceivably male for
(09:02):
the first ten years. And now you're starting to see um,
you know, uh, black women and and all kinds of
women getting into it, the guys we fucked and the
chegop queens, and but it took a while for them
to get traction, you know, because everything is a white
guy thing with with comedy, and then it kind of
(09:22):
gets spread around eventually. Um, but I think it's really
important to teach podcasting because, like you said, everyone thinks
they can do uh, you know, a podcast or everyone
they can do comedy and uh and and sorry, in essence,
they kind of can. Yeah, if it's if it's And
(09:47):
here's the thing I al would say to my students
is even if you get done my class, and by
the way, my mid term is a power point presentation
on finding an audience and and like you know, really
thinking about what you're doing instead of just going out
and doing it. But that when you're done with my class.
Hopefully you've learned to communicate effectively so that no matter
what you do in life, you can go into a room.
(10:08):
And again I had to overuse the word, but you
have that feeling of empathy with whoever you're talking to,
whether it's business or you know, anything else that you do.
And I think that when you do a podcast, you
you get to flex that muscle a lot. Yeah, I
think you're right. Um, empathy isn't so important. Um, Connecting
with the audience is the only thing I ever wanted
(10:30):
because I'm shallow and I don't have an inner life,
and so to be able to to be able to
reach people. And I think, like you're saying, you're in
real life. We're on the phone making caustic remarks about
other people's politics or their habits or whatever, and it's
(10:51):
a chance to not it's a chance to articulate that
more and not just take pot shots at people. You
have to develop something when you're doing a podcast has
to be I mean, you know that there's you've heard
ones where people just blather, and then you've heard ones
where people make a very salient point and or it's
about history or music, or you know they've taken a
(11:13):
topic and that's their topic, or sex and all of
all of which need to be discussed. The problem isn't that,
like you said, people are ignorant and they're stupid and
they need to be castigated for being morons. The problem
is we don't have dialogue about anything. Do you find
it hard? And I think that Jennifer fills this role
(11:34):
for you and she as I think you know anybody.
I love you in your marriage and it reminds me
so much of my wife and I were. You know,
that's my best buddy. That's that's my sounding board. Do
you feel like when you're doing the podcast from the
Fortress of Propitude that that that's you have a sounding
board to, you know, instead of having an audience in
front of you. Yeah? I do. Um. You know, she's
(11:57):
been um part of this thing since the beginning and
my partner in it, and a lot of the ways
the topics have been driven is because of her. A
lot of the news stories I read and the information
I have is because of her. So I've given her
credit since the beginning. And uh now we're starting to
do ones at home together where she talks more. She's
(12:18):
always wanted to be sort of in the background, and
that was her choice, you know, And I didn't press
her to push forward. But lately she's wanted to say more,
and so I'm happy with that evolution too. And of
course people right me and say could you put could
you turn her mic up? Yeah, you've got her on
the side there in your sideline here. And now I
feel awful because I'm always talking about people's sidelining women,
(12:41):
and and the last thing we did, I don't think
she was on Mike ut. But yeah, I think you
have to have a sounding board, um. But more importantly
than the sounding board for her, for me, she's sort
of the guiding heart and soul of this whole thing,
(13:02):
one of the things that you know you do well.
And I feel like I tell people all the time.
In a lot of ways, we should be very grateful
for Donald Trump, because it's the first time people actually
pay attention to what's happening and are interested in c
span and who's the secretary of this and who's the
secretary of that. So there is a lot of a
(13:22):
lot more dialogue about what's going on with our government.
But I feel like it's also created a place where
you can see where a lot of people aren't maybe
the best people to be talking about politics. And I
think of some comedians and some of the podcasts, and
I think in general social media where it's been maybe
you know, not working out UM for them. How you know,
(13:45):
A long way to ask a question is you know,
how do you feel about this, this this current culture
of of Donald Trump and how it affects what you do.
I think it's galvanized people in a positive way. And
I think most importantly it's forced complacent UM white people
into some sort of you know, getting woke as they say, UM.
(14:09):
The violence that he brings in his rhetoric, he's basically
a one man recruiting squad for white supremacists. Every single
UM in saying shooting that's taken place, the shooters have
all said that they listened to him, that they appreciated him,
that it was his message that they were reacting to
(14:29):
and relating with. UM. And I think it's a real
nice wake up call for people. If I wanted Hillary
more than I've wanted anything in my life, but I
do realize if she had been elected, we'd be locked
in this thing where the Republican Congress would be fighting
her tooth and nail right now, she'd probably be indicted. Yeah,
and there might be impeachment proceedings going on a year
(14:50):
and a half. And because that's how psycho they are
about it. Whereas with this we're fighting against basically fascism
every day. But now I know the names of every
single council person in my neighborhood. UM, I'm writing politicians
all the time. I'm completely galvanized. UM. I've joined fifteen
different groups. And I think a lot of people feel
that way. And to see the crushing amount of women
(15:13):
and young people that are registered to vote and running
for office is what I always focus on. Um. A
lot of liberal people will be like, oh, it's worse
than it ever was, and the whole world's coming to it.
And it's like, that's true. But there's gonna be so
many women running for office in the next two years,
and so many people of color. We're talking about a
(15:33):
black woman governor of Georgia in the in the in
the near future, which has never ever happened in the
history of the United States. There's never been a black
woman governor. And that's progress. Might always say to people,
I'm old and when I was little Nixon was president.
And when Nick was president, there was no question that
a woman or a black person was ever going to
be president, much less attorney general, much less Secretary of State.
(15:58):
So all those things have happened in my life. And
I'm not that fucking old. But you know what I mean,
things move slowly, incremental change changes. That is the course
of American politics right now. We're in a terrible time
where white supremacists and the Russians have an awful hold
on kind of the people's imagination in the media. But
I think that the vast majority of people are are
(16:19):
not bad people. I mean, you know, and and can
be motivated to get off their ass every once in
a while, uh and do something. And I think you're
seeing that. Um. I think of people I didn't know
the name of a few years ago, like Sarah Kenzie
or or Joy Read or um you know, that are
in the media now that are literally fighting for change
(16:43):
every day. And I think that's the part that gives
me hope. So that's my take on it. I mean,
he is a person, is an inkoit um demanded mess.
He doesn't have an agenda he I mean a constructed agenda.
He simply pushes buttons a racism, homophobia, transphobia, whatever. There's
(17:04):
no coherency to anything Orange forty five is doing because
he's not intelligent or well read. It was just revealed
yesterday that mc masters, who was the former National Security Advisor,
would be in the middle of giving him a briefing
and realized he wasn't observing anything he said. So we're
not talking about a normal presidency here. We're talking about
the idiocracy presidency. Like you say, accepted in the movie
(17:26):
Terry Crews was more awesome. Oh, he was much more awesome.
I would probably consider voter for Terry Crews, you know.
And I had to have to, you know, when when
everybody says this is the worst time, I I you know,
you study history, and I'm I'm a bit of a
history buff. I feel like, you know, when a look
at the sixties. Uh, there was a lot of a
lot of strife then, and I think out of both
(17:47):
situations was what you're saying is coming true, which is
it wakes people up and and hopefully now this next younger, smarter,
more you know generation will will start paying attention and
take part as it did with the sixties. Absolutely, look
look at um uh what the Parkland Uh teenagers of
(18:07):
jen That march was gigantic and the Republicans can ignore
it all they want and the n r A can
react to it all they want. But the tide turned,
the tide turned. It was it was a moment and
um with Hillary running, the tide turned there when you
saw a woman get nominated and get the most votes
(18:27):
that you don't go back on that. And women are
I think people are really motivated um in a way
they weren't before because we have that extra added incentive
of we're fighting for our very survival. But the sixties
were this bad and the seventies were this bad, and
we've had racist, white supremacist, narcissistic, sociopathic liars as presidents,
(18:51):
just never all at once. Well. I always tell people, Hey,
you think he's bad, look up Andrew Johnson. Man there
you go there, that's that's a bad president. My wife
the other day, that's how boring I am. I'm like,
if you want a white supremacist president who presided over
a mass and had a corrupt administration, it was Andrew Johnson.
Is cake taking Lee shitty? He might be the worst
(19:13):
president extra Trump. I think, I, oh, I I he's
always my he's always my go to for worst president.
I can't. Oh my god, he's just horrible. And so
people think we haven't had this kind of insane white
supremacy before, but we have many many times. Woodrow Wilson
was a screaming white supremacist and he was also an intellectual,
which is like, you know, quite a quite a gyration
(19:35):
there to be able to do both things. Um, you know, uh,
I think a lot of that this has to do,
you know, and social media has everything to do with
why we think everything is the worst now because it's
it's so in our faces. Um, And you know, how
(19:55):
have you been able to use you know, social media,
you know that kind of not only just to to
say what you think, but also is a is it
is there a former therapy at all for you? Or
or do you find it to be as kind of
does it get you worked up as it does other folks?
It gets me worked up and then I have to
take a break from it. And it's when I find
(20:16):
myself reacting to every single goddamn tweet and feeling like
I have to chime in, is when I think, you know,
it's okay to think for a while about what's going
on and not just immediately react. I never used profanity
on my Twitter, and the one or two times I
accused someone of being a Nazi openly, I got very
(20:39):
big trouble and trolled to death, and I thought, okay,
so don't do that. Um, I can't believe the people
who right fuck you you yea there because it's there forever, yeah,
and someone that's going to go back and find that
you called someone a piece of shit, And so I
try to keep the discourse high. UM. I decided early
(21:00):
on that in my acting on the podcast, I'll use
profanity freely. But on Twitter and social media, I feel
like it doesn't really do a lot for your rep um,
and you can't call everyone that you think is a
moron a moron. Um. You have to let morons be
more on. Sometimes it loses its luster if you overuse it,
(21:21):
I think. So I try to praise people, and the
only good thing about social media is like, for instance, um,
LORI kill Martin who's a friend of mine, and Alison
Rosen is a friend of mine. They both have books
out now, and so you're able to help people by
pumping their projects, you know. And I think that's that's
a really good thing about social media. When my book
(21:43):
came out, I asked all my little comedian friends, will
you retweet this? And to a person they did, And
I think that's the kind of the the fun of
social media is that it's a it's a it's a club,
it's a fraternity, if you will, where we can support
each other. I can't wait to see the support you
give my new pot of this new podcast of mine.
(22:04):
I'm so excited, Maddie. You tell me when and I will,
as they say, retweet it and I'll send it out
to I think that's the other groovy thing is like
I love doing podcasts and I don't care if they're
new or big established ones. I love doing new ones too,
because that's how they get off the ground. Baby Ria
Butcher just started one called three Strikes, three Swings, and
(22:28):
You're Out, a baseball one. I'm gonna do one named
podcast carpool in May that a guy hooked me up with, UM,
you asked me to do years and I thought, yes, UM,
because I know you and we've always had fun chatting. Uh.
I think that's how they get off the ground and
how you get any traction. You know, Well, we started
(22:51):
Stitcher and that's you know, I left. That's why I
left my morning show was to go over and help
start Stitcher. Was you know, the one guy I always
remember who would do anything and want any podcast was
Mark Marin. Mark. Mark said no to nobody when he
started that podcast. We did. I did a little podcast
out of a closet at Stitcher because you know, startup,
we had no mudget everything. And Mark came and did
(23:12):
the podcast in my closet, and and and I think
that that's and that's it's and it's one of the
things that make podcasting special is that it's not a
it's not cutthroat. It's not like you know, you know,
every morning radio guy thinks he's the coolest thing in
the world and every other morning radio guy sucks. You
don't get that attitude with podcasters. It's hey, how can
I help you with your podcast? Because it's just helping me.
(23:34):
At the same time, I agree, I've done obscure ones
in Sacrimano, Colorado, Zameto, Toronto. Yeah, I can't remember the
guy's name. He did it in his house. We all
went over, we smoked a joint and he had a dog.
He took pictures of us, and uh, I mean, I
don't know if anyone heard it. I think some people
(23:54):
hear it. Um Any any time I go to where
cats will ask me to do their podcast, I I
generally if I have a moment, I'll do it. My
new account in Philly was a big music fan. I
went over to his house and in his dining room
table we did it. And you know that that's the
other thing that's beautiful about it. This is a movable feast.
(24:15):
I have a couple of different Zoom recorders, but I've
got the little handheld Zoom one now and it's changed
my life, man, because uh, Jennifer and I went to
Mississippi last year with the Lady parts Justice Liz Winstead,
who is a great comedian who started daily show, and
she has this you know, abortion rights group that helps
(24:38):
out and goes to clinics all over the country. And
they don't just go and like do a comedy show
and self intuligent. They'll paint the place, they'll bring office furniture,
whatever it's required they ask. Then they do a comedy show.
They also do escorting and then at the end of
the comedy show. There's like an open dialogue with doctors
and volunteers. It's very cool. So I went and the
one in Mississippi is full of anti choice, crazy white
(25:01):
men with bibles and pictures of dead babies outside screaming
at a stream of poor black women who all of
whom have four or five kids and are getting an
abortion because they can't afford on another child. And I
had the recorder in my hand and they started yelling
at me the minute I got there, and then I
was able to interview them. They were glad to do
an interview because they recognized me from whose line. And
(25:23):
I kept it really low key, you know. I let
them talk and I spoke like this in a cold,
clear tone to them, and they explained their position, which
was kind of crazy, and I think that did more
than if I'd argued with them, were ranted and raved
about it. I let them talk, and everybody wrote and
was like, I can't believe this with these what these
(25:45):
white men believe, and it's like, well, that's what's going on.
They also didn't know that white men gather outside of
clinics all over the country and scream at black people
for trying to avail themselves of their constitutional rights, whereas
no one stands outside gunshops and yells at white guys day.
And so the effectiveness of having a little handheld device
(26:06):
Jesus Christ. When I was a little my first tape
recorder had two giant reels and it was weighed like pounds,
you know. And now that we can carry around these
things that are small as a phone, and you know,
it just makes broadcasting a whole nother thing. No more
physical tape. Baby, you don't have to deal with that
ship anymore. But yeah, we still say tape. Oh yeah,
(26:29):
and we still say we say recording, we say telephone.
We I think, I always say to Jennifer, everything is
really old fashioned, even though it's super new. Uh, people
still say tape things. I love that my wife makes
fun of me because I'll forget I'm from West Virginia
and then I'll say an expression and like I'll call
it the commode where I'll call her I'll call her purse,
(26:50):
her pocketbook, and she's like, she's like, what are you some?
Are you an eighty year old person here with pocketbook
and commode. I'm like, now, that's just how we talked
there all right, do you say crick and ruff as well? Oh,
crick roof and holler. Yeah, we're going to West Virginia
this year for the Lady Parks Justice League thing. That's
the date we're gonna do. We're gonna go to Charleston. Oh,
(27:12):
good luck in Charleston, and then I think we're gonna
interview the teachers because that's great just so happens in
the clinic and Charleston doesn't have a bunch of crazy
people standing outside. Um they they they've gotten off the
hook on that. So I thought we'd go and talk
to the teachers. Or it was Jennifer's ideal. Let's be honest,
because the teachers have started a tidal wave in West
Virginia and God blessed them. You know, it's spread to
(27:35):
Kansas and Oklahoma and everywhere. You know, there's uh my,
my one of my best dearest friends is a lawyer
uh in Charleston, African American lawyer, and he you know, he,
you know, he is always kind of pressuring me. He's like,
we need you, people like you to come back because
you know, we need to get voices back in the state.
Who have you know, have experience and and think a
(27:55):
little bit. And you know, when I saw that teacher strike,
I was just warmed my heart to see the people
that came out to support them. Uh, in the in
the state, because you know, my my state worries me
a lot. And I'm glad that you're going there. I
think that you'll you'll have a wonderful time. I hope
you can get to the Eastern Panhandle, that's where I'm from,
which is actually the beautiful part of the state. So
I've been a couple of times in West Virginia and
(28:16):
plive years ago with whose Line at the University in Charleston,
and they were unbelievably avid. And they also we did
a Q and A after or I guess Ryan and
Chip did. I'm I didn't take it much part of it,
but they they the students really wanted to talk, uh,
and it was it was an opportunity for them to
talk to people who make a living performing. And yeah,
(28:39):
the people ask me, why do you go everywhere and
do stuff? And it's like I feel like you're you know,
we're we're troupe doors. Uh. You know, as a performer,
you gotta I don't know, Bob Dylan. You look at
his calendar sometimes and he'll be in like Lexington, Kentucky
and Evansville, Indiana, and people will ask him why do
you go to these places? And he's like, people live there,
(29:04):
and I think it's good for you know, I grew
up in a really small town in West Virginia, pretty poor,
and um, I would go once this year to this, uh,
this church camp and it was the one place where
I meet people who were from different backgrounds, had you know,
come from different families, and we're smart and really were
into reading and education. And and um, Henry Lewis Gates Jr.
(29:24):
Is from the town that I'm from it and he
would go to the same church camp. And I've read
his book Black People, He Colored People. He talks about
that being the place where he actually got some like,
oh my gosh, there is a world outside of Kaiser,
West Virginia. And and I think that when people you know,
come into the state and do performances, you know, there's
always that kid like me who was going to see
it and go oh wow, Yeah, there's people that don't
(29:46):
think like everybody that I go to school with, this
is cool, Alright, I can I have there are other
people out there. Yes, it's and it's so important. Um,
the people who live in real America have that communication.
People do right in me and Goo, I live in
a terrible little town in Missouri or a little town
in Illinois, and I love listening to your show, and
(30:08):
you think, well, you're reaching them, and that's important, you know.
I mean, I love New York and London in San
Francisco as much as anyone else, and of course I
want to play there all the time, and I do.
But cities are starting to be like places people are
leaving because they can't afford to be there anymore. You know.
We were just in Ohio and Indiana, and the downtowns
(30:31):
are getting renewed in some of these towns that are
you know, like Toledo. Um, Toledo is not. It's depressing,
but you can see that it's coming back. And people
are forced to move to places like that now because
you can't go to Portland or Denver anymore. Portland and
Denver priced themselves right out of the market. And there's
(30:51):
that there's that wild reality going on in the United
States where there's simply not enough places to live in
enough jobs for everyone to afford. You know, when we
first lived in Arantisto, Maddie, you could live there. Yeah,
Now what is it? Four thous dollars a months the
average rent. It's ridiculous, It's crazy. I don't know how
anybody lives here who's on a normal income. I honestly don't.
(31:13):
I mean, you have to be like Facebook rich too,
and that's just that's not riot. I mean when I yeah, so,
I think that the real estate developers are the most
I used to think arms dealers were the most evil
people on earth, but I think it's real estate developers
and Luke who's president. Yeah, oh, I there's nothing more frustrating.
I mean, my wife and I were looking to buy
(31:33):
a house, and you can't buy one unless you have
cash in hand. And those folks who are buying them
with cash in hand don't live here. They don't. They're
only doing it for speculation. It's it's really frustrating. And
all these damn flippers, all these flippers that damn TV
shows made everybody think they can go out and flip
a home now, so they come and buy them and
then yeah, it's terrible. Oh I know. I mean I
(31:56):
bought a house in l A with my wife, and
they're always asking us to sell it. But what they're
gonna do with it is tear it down and build
a McMansion. And I'm not doing that. Don't do it.
I can't add to that, you know, it's there's enough
of that. Um. Yeah, I have heart of any part
of any cities, the architecture, and I don't understand people
(32:16):
who just want to knock everything down all the time.
But l A is heedless, you know, I'm a at
least it's a little bit more affordable in l A though. Yeah,
it is, it is, It still is, and there's still
cheap apartments to rent. Cheaper When I first came to
l A, Oh my god, I think we were renting
a place for I was splitting it with Sue Murphy,
(32:38):
the comedian, and like there's think five dred dollars each
a month. Twenty years ago. Hey, I got a question
from a listener, Larry. He's got three I'm gonna give
you two of him. One. Do you have a photographic memory? No,
I just have a good memory. Um, there's giant gaps
(32:59):
in my memory, and of course memories really selective. I
don't remember any of my nephews or niece's birthdays. But
I can tell you what Tai Cobb hit for every
season kind of thing. So that's amazing. Uh, that's you know,
It's like some of the sports guys that worked with
in New York that they would walk in and just
they couldn't remember what they have lunched yesterday. But I
forget about you know, the eight six Mets will tell
(33:21):
you every stat everything about him. Sure. How about the
other question as is, were you Do you really drink
vodka when you're doing a podcast? I do. I've got
a drinking problem, and I take it on the air.
I necked down several glasses during a podcast I'm doing
(33:41):
one tomorrow night here in h Holifox is where I
am now at the Halifax Comedy Festival, and they put
me in a little bar called the Carlton and I've
done it there. I've done it here a couple of
times and really good fun. Is the end of the
bloody continent out here. Um. But yes, I really drink.
I really drink, and people give me my call all
the time. I bet once once they know you like something,
(34:05):
that was the thing. I quit drinking h three years ago. Well,
I can always tell when somebody's really a friend of
mine and when they're not by the gifts that give
me a Christmas because they'll, you know, I'll get bottles
in the mail. I'm like, yeah, we haven't talked for
a while, have we? Uh right, I can't enable that ship.
It's like, well it's you know. Then I have gifts
(34:26):
for other folks. So it doesn't work out very bad,
but it's always funny. Hey. Um. I always end with
three killer questions. Three questions if you could listen to
a podcast that had anybody living or dead on it?
Whose podcast would you listen to? Oh? Gee whiz, that's
a good question. Um uh golly, all right. You kind
(34:48):
of stopped me because I have a thousand people that
I want to say. You can come up with a
couple of combinations if you want. This is one I
was really excited to ask you in particularly because I
figured you come up with something good. I would like
to hear Gentle Rivers because I wished up been adored
her as a comedian. Um living Friendly Blitz. If someone
would just interview Friendly Wits every week. Um, she's so
(35:09):
witty and so funny and so incisive and is so
liberal minded and hysterically you know, just I just adore
her UM comedy. She's mostly a writer, obviously, but she
does do interviews and she just nails the douvil out
of it. UM if it was old fashion, if we're
talking living or dead, ever, I would love to hear
(35:31):
Leonardo da Vinci's thoughts UM. I'd also love to hear
like some of the women of history that get skipped over,
like Ada Loveless who basically kind of invented the computer,
and all of the black women from Hidden Figures who
were the physicists who worked at NASA UM. It would
be very interesting to hear them talk about their experience
(35:54):
with UM astronomy and and dealing with the giant paradigm
that they were forced into and how to go with it.
I'd love to hear Abraham Lincoln speak, um, have I
given you enough? You've given me funny? I could go
on and those are great. Louis Strong I think would
(36:15):
have quite a lot to say about different things. And
you know, I mean, I think there's a bunch of
people living who don't get on podcasts, and maybe we
should interview them, like Dolor Suerta, who started United farm
Workers with Cesar Chavas. She's still alive and you've just
given me an idea. Here you go. That's that's my
(36:36):
that's the that's the that's the producer and me, Hey,
what was the right? Yeah, we mentioned you know, podcasting
is kind of the latest technology that's that's changed your
life and what you do. What's the first piece of
technology that you remember using and going this is neat,
this is going to be something, it's going to change
my life. Well, um, like I said, when I was
(36:58):
probably six or seven, like parents, game in this tape
recorder and it had giant reels and you turned, uh,
this giant lever to make it go and to rewind it,
and then you had to press the button and turn
the leaver at the same time to make a record.
And it had one of those green like I don't
know what you would call it, an a solo scope,
like you know that when you spoke the levels, we're
(37:20):
kind of a fluctuating co sign in the that's early.
I don't know if that's digital technology. I'm sure it
was a light bulb, you know. I remember thinking that
was super bitchen and also portable phonographs when that was little,
the kind you would drag over to your friend's house
and just plug it in the wall and it just played.
That was like we thought that was the living end.
(37:42):
Um and transistor radios when I was really little in
the sixties, because you could listen to the ball game
on them with one little ear piece in your ear. Yeah,
and so you could look you could hide in bed
and listen to ball games or take it anywhere and
no one would You could sneak uh listening to games.
(38:03):
And also, you know, radio was way more eclectic once
upon a time, as you recall. Um and I listened
to a dazzling variety of weird DJs from San Francisco
alone in my room. Um, guys who played comedy. John
guild Land was on Casapo, guys who did comedy like um, uh,
(38:27):
well not I'm not old enough to really for Surewood
bid him. Oh golly, I'm blanking on his name. But
there was you know. Anyways, there was eclectic shows where
I remember hearing Monty Paton for the first time on
the radio before they on TV. Um. John Gillan played
them on his comedy show. Um, and I think that's
that's what we're doing now. For people. What those people
(38:49):
did for us when we were a little the exposing
you to different things that you had no idea existed. Yeah,
I mean I always tell folks with you know, when
I was little, we didn't have TV, but we radio
and Dcor Demento. Yes, that was God. That was how
I found you know, comedy. You know that my mom
let me listen to any comedy albums. I wanted to,
(39:11):
so George Carlin and you know, when I was like
six or seven, was listening to George Carlin and those things.
But uh yeah, Dr Demento And I remember my first
radio job on an FM station was I got to
play Doctor Demento on Sunday nights at nine o'clock. And
I was like, I've made it, yes, yeah right, yeah,
it's so Dr Demano. Plus he played um, you know,
(39:31):
records from the twenties and thirties. Oh yeah, he played
like all Bob and Ray stuff and he'd play um,
oh gosh, Spike Jones and you know all that kind
of stuff. That was you know, you know, for a
you know, nobody else was playing that. Yeah, no, he
he was the one, and it was coast to coast
and it was syndicated. Um. We even I remember I
(39:52):
was in a group called fault Line and Santancisco in
the eighties and we made a Christmas rap record or
something and we sent it to him because the show
was still on. This is like eight five. We sent
him a vinyl single of it, and he wrote us
back and said, I'm not going to play it, but
it was more trenchant than most comedy records. And I
(40:12):
remember being absolutely thrilled that he called our record trenchant,
and uh, it was. Yeah. He's I think a great broadcaster. Yeah,
And I think a lot of people have different experiences
depending on what your generation is. Um. There was a
radio station in San Francisco that I made it to
the eighties called ks an Case and and they had
(40:37):
really eclectic Deejays who played rock and roll but also stranger,
you know, harder, deeper cuts. And I got an education
from them too, And they embraced punk when it came out,
whereas the hard rock stations were very resistant to it.
And then punk leads you to art and literature and style,
(40:58):
you know, a different direction than listening to Ted Nugent
or Montrose or something. All of a sudden, now you
have to deal with the intention behind a song, the
politics behind a song, the fashion behind a song. And
then of course, um, I listened to ks so Well
and Kate uh K d I A, which were the
black stations in the bar area, and that's where I
(41:21):
learned about Glutsy Collins and Rick James and Funkadelic and
Choca Con and you know what I mean. Like so
when I was at pizza delivery boy, I would drive
around sam Matal and smoke cools and listen to Kiss
so Well and they were playing everything groovy, you know.
So it was just the Bear has always been good
(41:43):
for that because the area is multicultural, and we never
even with all the problems of the Barrier House and
the racism and the lack of housing and all that jazz,
the poverty, there's always been Latin people, Asian people, black people,
white people. You know what I mean. Look at my name,
it spos to it more. And then if you lived
in an all white place like say, you know Canada, Yeah,
(42:07):
r Hanada is not really all why but you know
what I mean, No, I bring that up when I go.
I still go hunting with my dad in Pennsylvania and
uh and I'll get in conversations with guys there and
just kind of just point out that, you know, hey,
your experience is not like mine where I'm the only
white family on the block. You know, it's it's a
little bet Um. All right, one more, What was the
last podcast that you binged? Um? That's just gonna sound terrible.
(42:33):
I don't really binge podcasts that much. I listened to
some sometimes. UM. I love Jacky Cations the Dork Forest
because she gets people on to talk about stuff that's
real meaningful to them. So it can be any old thing, um,
old time movies, baseball, whatnot. Um. I listened to mine
(42:53):
back um after I do it because I want to
make it the producer and me, I want to make
it better and less repetitive and less as far as
the vodka goes. Sometimes maybe there's too much, and that's
not always a good dance you make. You want to
make sure you're making sense and ur ahead of the
audience instead of being that the drunk guy who's cornered
(43:17):
you in a kitchen. You know what, I didn't know
what that was like until I stopped drinking, and now
I'm like, oh god, that was me. I was the
drunk guy, uh in the kitchen trying to tell you
why the world needs changed, right. Yeah, I just that's
my worst fear. My two worst fears are irrelevance and
(43:39):
to be the drunk guy who's corned you in the
kitchen and it is repeating the same story. Man, that's funny. Um,
that's great. Uh well, uh run that time. But I
really appreciate you coming on, Greg. I'm glad that we
got to cash up and and and it's been too long.
And you're somebody I always I do. I think of
more often you would than you would probably know. Um,
that's kind. I've always been thought of you fondly. And
(44:02):
every time I go back and do um Sarah and Vinnie,
every time I go, and I was there through the
Sarah No Name years as well. Uh this, every time
I go back and see do Sarah and Vinny, I
think of you because sometimes you do the show now
and the producers like looking at the computer the whole time. Yeah, well,
I know what you mean. It changes, everything changes a
(44:23):
little bit. And uh uh and I think that you know,
it's good to see you in this world. I'm glad
you're podcasting, and I do think it's it adds to
our culture and in a little bit, UH makes me
hopeful that things are things aren't as bad as we
as I think they are sometimes. Thanks Pal, that's really
nice of you. Do you let me know when this
(44:44):
is going to come out and email me and I'll
definitely put it all over my Twitter and stuff like that.
You got anything you want to promote before we get
out of here, Yeah, that'd be great. Um, I've got
a podcast coming up this May second at Bar Lubic
in Los Angeles. Someone's free to attend. I'm also on
the road with the Whose Line guys, and we're going
all over the Midwest and the South starting May fourth. St.
(45:06):
Louis County City, Springfield, Atlanta, Raleigh, Oliver, Dallas And that's
at whose Live anyway, and then I'll be in New
York City on May twenty six at the at the
Bellhouse in Brooklyn. And that podcast is always wild, so
I'd love it if people would come up for that.
And um, the Greg Proops Film Club will be showing
(45:27):
three Days of The Condor on May sixteen Wednesday sixteenth
at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. And if you haven't
seen three Days of the Condor. It's a CIA paranoia
movie from the seventies where Robert Redford has awesome hair. Awesome.
Thanks Greg, we'll put all that up on our Facebook page.
Two at Access Podcasts, Hazy, Hi, Maddie. I enjoyed my
(45:54):
time with Greg Proops. It was a really good interview.
It was fun to listen back to. I like, I've
liked Greg forever. I met Greg a long time ago,
like fifteen years ago, and uh, he's one of those
people that he's so smart that when he acknowledges something
that you said is smart, you feel even smarter. And
I like to you guys had a conversation about how
(46:15):
if someone's ignorant, you don't just bash it, You kind
of try to use it as a learning opportunity. And
I like that what he said about that. Now you
know how I get through my job every day. Learn
Oh No, And hey, being smart it's a wonderful thing.
And podcasts make you smarter. So this week I wanted
to highlight podcast that makes you smarter and Z You've
(46:37):
gone out to the interwebs and looked for three to
recommend to our listeners. What he got Ye, So the
first one is Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell. Very smart. Yeah,
very smart guy, and he has this voice that you
just want to sit and listen to all the time.
And it's just um. It's a podcast where they interpreted
things from the past that cases or like different stories
(46:59):
that one might have overlooked and it's really interesting. I
love this podcast, let's hear it. He closed her nostrils
with his other hand, and since she could not get air,
she lost consciousness. When she came to, she realized that
she was in the back of a moving automobile. Okay,
I might say, he Okay, he's definitely smarter than me.
I'm not doing a list of all the people smarter
(47:21):
than me, and it's getting very long. Yeah, how are
you looking on that list? Where are you at? Oh,
I'm I'm I'm probably fifty deep at this point. And
that's just in this building alone. What have we got
for the second podcast? The second one is good Job, Brain,
Good Job, which you actually told me about and I
love it because I'm such a like trivia nerd. I
(47:41):
love trivia. And this is just a group of friends
and it's like a they call it like a bar
quiz and it's offbeat trivia and if you love facts
and learning new facts, this is a great show for you.
Check it out. This is that everybody question what authors
first three names were John Ronald Rule Martin. Yeah, those
(48:13):
guys have been at it for a while. I love
podcasts like that that uh come from a place of friendship. Yeah.
Their chemistry is great and it just flows onto the
audio the podcast. I'm just gonna keep talking. Okay, next one, alright,
when the last one is Star Talk with Neil Degrass Tyson,
(48:33):
who is probably like top three smartest people. He's pretty smart,
he is crazy smart. And he has a podcast about
astrophysics like can I say that work? Um? And he
has great guests like George Takai, Buzz Aldrin, Morgan Freeman, Um,
obviously Bill Nye the science guy. They're like bfs and
(48:54):
it's just teaching you more about the universe. And who
doesn't want to learn more about space. Let's hear it
that a rock has less God in it than life does? Okay? Okay?
And he talks about the orbits of planets and which
Newton had already figured out in his publication of Principia. Okay,
(49:16):
so I already figured that out, and so so he
is not saying that the planets are moving according to God,
because we already had those answers in this book. Every
place he involkes God is where we knew the least
about the natural world. That's a very common thing. You know,
who loves Neil de grass Tyson our our music composer,
(49:41):
Casey Franco. Yeah, he's yeah, he's like, he's he's he's
a big fanboy. I'm pretty sure he has like a
full size poster m over his bed. Yeah, I've been
to this place before. That was wonderful. Thank you, Zee
and uh. If you like to hear those podcasts, don't
forget check them out on the I Heart Radio player.
(50:02):
If you've got a podcast that you want to put
on the I Heart Radio player, I guess what. There's
a submissions page and what we're linked to that up
on our website. All you have to do so check
us out on Facebook. It's Access Podcast on Facebook. You
can also catch us on Twitter. It's Access Podcast one.
Some dumb dumb took Access podcast ten years ago and
it's never used to handle woo uh. But anyway, you
(50:24):
can follow us on social media. I also want to
thank everybody involved with the show. See you're the best.
Casey Franco composes our music, Don'ton Runberg helps out with graphics.
Also want to thank Rick Hardo, a R who does
a lot of social media promotion for us as well.
So thanks to all those guys. Thanks to Don Parker
and Katie Wilcox here in San Francisco, and our godfather
(50:45):
of podcasting, Chris Patterson. What's up Chris, Hey, let's do
a shout out to to Darren James, president of I
Heart Radio Killing it all right, everybody, thanks for listening,
and remember, if you like podcast go check one out
and share it with a friend.
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