Talkward w/ guest Bob Eckstein

This episode we go off the grid to a dark cabin deep in the Pennsylvania woods where a recluse has come up for air to chat about his new book baby. Cartoonist, author, and all around creative genius Bob Eckstein chats about his new book The World's Greatest Museums. Order it today! https://bit.ly/footnotesmuseum

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/talkward--2882431/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
It's time for Talk Word cringe worthytails and now your host, Leakly Humorous
editor in chief Marty Dundex. Hi, everybody, welcome to Twalkword. I
am Marty Dunnick's editor in chief ofWeek, the humous magazine, and it's
this awkward a fund little show orprofessionally fund of people come to awkward and
cringeworthy stories. I'm very excited abouttoday's guest. He is a good friend

(00:22):
of mine who's been on this podcastmany times. He is a cartoonist,
he is an author, he isa public speaker. He has done it
all. He's a rockcund tour.I think I said that right. Please
welcome back to the podcast. Itis Bob Eckstein. Bob, welcome back
to Talk Word. Thank you somuch for being here today. Come on
morning great. I'm singing, thankyou, sir. You're in your cabin

(00:45):
in the woods. I sing inan undisclosed location in Pennsylvania. Bob has
a secret layer where he does allof his painting. And you took a
break from painting to come up forair and talk to a on Talk Word
this Sunday night. And thanks tocome and tuck. You have a big

(01:06):
new book coming out that we needto tell everybody to go out and buy.
It's called I Think I have ithere. Let me put it up
on the big screen. If you'rewatching this, you can see some added
stuff. If you're listening to thison the podcast, you're gonna miss out,
but only just a little bit.But his new book that's coming out
in is it in May? Mayfourteenth is the day it comes out,

(01:29):
And right now people can actually tryto win it for free on good Reads
to give away. There's ten copiesbeing given away, so no strings attached.
You just go up there and putyour little number in the box and
start lighting candles and helpe you win. So this is called Footnotes from the
Most Fascinating Museums, Stories and MemorableMoments from people who love museums, And

(01:53):
this is you. This is kindof a follow up to a book you
did called Footnotes from the World's MostInteresting Bookstores. Is that is that the
name of that book? Yeah,that's correct. And what happened was is
during the pandemic, I started learningthat museums were struggling if people weren't going
out to see the museums. Andthe more I read about this the more

(02:15):
I saw it was a kind ofa problem. So I figured, you
know, I wanted to do areally fun project. Next. I love
artwork, and I figured to travela little bit and go to these museums
raise awareness. But also it wasreally inspirational for me as an artist,
because I mean, there's no wayI've seen this much artwork so much in
two years. It was like goingto all these different museums and they never

(02:39):
ran out. I didn't realize therewas so many museums. How many museums
did you fit into this book andhow many did you visit? They didn't
get to go in the book.Well, I didn't visit every museum that's
in the book in the last twoyears. Some places I have been the
regular visitor, so I didn't goto other I went to new ones,

(03:00):
and my stories were based on myvisits in the past or other people as
well. There was a whole teamwith people helping me with the project.
Some people went to the museums forme. Other people were workers at the
museum, like curators and directors whohelped give me the stories. But in
general I went to the museums.I went to Chicago, I went to

(03:22):
La went up New the West coast, and I went to all these different
museums the best I could. Butthere was one hundred and fifty museums initially
that I choose from, so itwasn't totally physically possible to go to everyone.
And I narrowed it down to thetop seventy five, and that was
based on like how important the museumwas, how beautiful it was, how

(03:44):
involved it was with the community,helping the community, how good the stories
were that were coming from the museum, their cooperation, and kind of just
my experience as well as a traveler, how I could recommend it, knowing
that people were going to use thebook to see where they were wanted to
go. I wanted to recommend placesI know we'd be very welcoming and really

(04:04):
be a lot of fun for visitors. And the illustrations are beautiful as always,
You're an amazing artist. But Ihave a couple of samples here we
can throw up on the screen.This is from the Getty in Los Angeles,
which is a beautiful facility, andcould we get here tour guide.

(04:26):
When I went there, they werereally nice. Like so many museums,
they kind of gave me the redcarpet treatment, and they closed the museum
for a moment and let me havelike a private tour. But a lot
of times the curator, the directoror either one would kind of be very
academic, and they would give mesort of pitch that you would give a
marketing team. And I was lookingfor stories that had more of a personal

(04:50):
angle that wasn't necessarily this polished pitch, but more of an inside thing.
And so a lot of times Iwould then go to someone else, maybe
a visitor or someone who worked ona lower level, and try to get
it inside story. That's what Isaw from the Spam Museum. I thought

(05:12):
that was a very interesting story fromthe spam Museum. I think I might
have that whe a throw up onthe screen. There is the I didn't
even know this was a I didn'tknow this was a museum in Columbus,
Ohio. But here it is.There's a spam museum, everybody. And
and the story that came from thespam Museum, you got that from from
a guy at the Hormale Foods.And that was a nice touching story from

(05:35):
the spam museum. Guys. Yeah, you know, I got a lot
of different stories from each of themuseums. I always pick up the best
ones. There's other stories for thismuseum included in the book as well.
And by the way, I'm guessingyou didn't get the book. I had
sent it to you a couple ofweeks ago, so have not. I
have not gotten the book yet becauseI've been on vacation. I am away.

(05:58):
Great, okay, great, Sopeople read as you can, as
you can tell, as you cantell from my very Golden Girls. Uh
layout in the background here if youwere watching this, Blanche and Dorothy are
making a cheesecake in the kitchen.And I've been in Florida for a vacation,
but I took a break from myvacation just to talk to Bob about

(06:19):
his book. It's nothing to bea shamed love. You do not lean
into this. It is fine toto hit into the senior community. It's
nice. It's so nice and quietand slow. There's shuffle board. There's
suddy ring. I'm sure there isthere is a but there is a shuffle
board card there. Hey, we'regoing back. I want to go back

(06:41):
because every time you bring up amuseum, there are really a lot of
interesting backstories and in the case ofthe Spam Museum, they had a room
that's just set up for the spamskit with Monty Python. And I shared
this with Michael Palin of Monty pythethought to let him know because he didn't
know that there was such a roomin the museum. And then I was

(07:04):
going to get a quote from him. We were going back and forth.
And the funny story with that isthat he didn't see it initially and I
didn't see his because our messages woundup in the spam folder. There you
go, everything, everything goes tospam. It isn't that interesting that we
have decided to call our junk mailthe spam folder? And does that get

(07:27):
Were the guys at Hormel mad atthat? Did you get to ask them
that when you were talking to themabout the Spam Museum. I did see.
You got a great quote from MichaelPalin here. Yeah, there,
Michael Pillo. He did like theOkay. I didn't include him in the
book because I felt a little bitbad that I was kind of name dropping
so much. I had so muchname you name drop. You name dropped

(07:49):
so much, Bob. You're sogood at it, though, But you
want to know something. I swearto God a stack of Bibles, I
just touched the tip of the iceberg. And I know that, and I
know that people think that I nameddrop so I a lot of my celebrity
friends. I didn't use that storyfor the book because I didn't want to
come across it was always the samepeople, and I didn't use him inside

(08:13):
the book. Oh yeah, butyou did manage. You did manage to
squeeze Steve Martin's quote in there atthe top, which is nice. Tonight.
I have to tell you that Stevemore I was in touch with him
and he loved the book, andI was I was not going to use
him there. I was going tosay, let's mention it on the Amazon
page indiscreetly, but my publisher gotwind of it and they said, no,

(08:35):
we're putting out the cover. Andthey actually didn't even ask me.
They sent me the book and hewas on the cover. Otherwise I would
not have used him because I feellike, well, one thing, it's
sort of a thing with friendship whereyou feel like, oh, well,
are your friends with me because youwant my quote? You know what I
mean. It's like an awkward thingthat now I know. That's how I

(08:56):
know that you and I are realfriends, because there's no quotes for me
that were even let near this book. No, I mean I begged and
I pleaded, and I sent youmany things, and there's nothing on there.
That's how we know. You andI am on the cat Book.
Though you did let me be.You did let me be A quote from
the cat Book I get though.That was the publisher. I asked him

(09:18):
not to put you on the book. I said, man, I mentioned
and and I don't even tell peopleI know you. I mean, as
far as I know, I tryto tell people I do not know.
Mor Yeah, I know, youswear up and down. You've never met
me in person. I'm a terribleperson. You've heard, but not that
you've seen. Bet it's fun.This book looks like a big it looks

(09:43):
like a heavy coffee table gift book. It's a hard heardback book, full
color. I should not think it'sthe same size the bookstore book, because
we try to keep the price downso it's affordable. Well, the bookstore
book, though, is long,right, The bookstore book is fun.
But this this is the same thing. And I have to tell you,
I get a little bit put offby the prices of books. I mean,

(10:05):
I know, we're all supposed tosupport books and stuff, and we
all tried to say, we allknow, you know, we're against all
these different things, all the issues. We all, you know, have
these things, and bookstores is oneof them. We all love bookstores.
But then we find out that ourfriend has a book for thirty seven dollars,
and to me, it's very offputting. And so what I've done

(10:28):
is I've tried to keep the bookto a very reasonable size. And one
of the things we had to dothen was we had to cut like seventy
five museums. Oh you know,the number was one hundred and fifty,
and so we we had it becausecould you have could you could you have

(10:50):
made the second half of the bookall the museums are like this big.
You could fit like eight museums onone page, just like they're they're like
to see the full size of themuseum, get the e book. And
I'm trying to do right by eachmuseum. I even want to slight every
one and do that. So Itry to say we're going to get you
on the next go around. Ifthere's a sequel, if the book does

(11:13):
well, and the book could dowell, even though the chances of any
book making a profit less than fiftypercent. But I'm doing everything I can
to reach that goal, and thenmaybe they would do a sequel. It's
douck with anything that has full color, and it's like on a good weight
paper to do for any anything,especially if you're going to be in bookstores,

(11:37):
just because the bookstores have to makea profit, so they get the
book at at a discount and thenthey sell it, and then you get
it and then you get paid andthen you So there's a lot of people
selling books well from one book welldoing a deep dive here, and I'm
glad we aren't. I mean,I enjoy talking about this because a lot
of people don't. And I knowyou can hold your on on this subject.

(12:00):
You're a publisher. Weekly Hearorus hasa division humorous books. They do
a lot of books. But Ido want to talk about this for a
moment, and that is there's thismisperception when you said bookstores have to handle
all this stuff. Bookstores right nowonly represent like six or seven percent of
all book sales. So that's thething. The thing is that both books

(12:24):
now don't even need to be hardcoverbecause they're selling them as an ebook,
where they're selling them as a paperback, because I mean, most of the
books right at this moment in thelast half year are actually like romance fantasy
books that has really taken off.That genre is humongous now. And books
like their non fiction hardcover well,that's a hard genre to keep up with.

(12:48):
It's hard to make a living fromthat niche. As their gift books,
the gift the people would usually gointo a bookstore. If this book
came out ten years ago, peoplewould buy the book by going to the
bookstore and say, oh, Iknow someone who might like museums. It
looks like a nice present, ButI don't want to spend much for this
person because I really don't like UncleBill. He's an ass. But this

(13:13):
book covers me and now I'm doneto see. People can't even do that
because the shopping online on Amazon andto stumble across a book like mine,
but have to require a little bitof advertising or some type of luck.
Also, a book a gift bookthat's like that high quality, full color,
like heavy, that's the kind ofbook that you want to hold and
flip through because it feels special becauseit has that weight, and it's hard

(13:37):
to get that kind of feeling whenyou're just flipping through an Amazon page,
Like you're not feeling the book.You're not seeing Like the big fancy photography
books or the art books, thosekind of books are the kind of books
that you want to kind of flipthrough and you want to explore them,
and you don't get I mean,like maybe people explore a book and then
they're like, Okay, I canget it cheaper someplace else, and then

(13:58):
they buy it online. But forthe most part, when you want to
buy a book, that's that kindlike you want to look at it and
see it and then you're like,oh, I want to buy this book.
And that's the kind of book thatyou have. And that's kind of
book that the Footnotes from the WorldCreatest Bookstores was, and the follow up
card edition of that, the postcardsthat came from that, Like there's a

(14:18):
whole This is a wonderful little nichethis footnotes from Bob. This is very
smart because you get to basically writecool books and paint cool pictures and travel
to all these neat places and that'sthe job. It is a dream job,
except for the pay is kind oflow. But you know what,
you don't go into every project sayyou're going to make a living from it.
We knew going into books it's asort of a challenge. So I'm

(14:39):
just absorbing and embracing the fact thata lot of people like the book,
a lot of satisfaction and there ismoney in other ways. I'm kind of
developing a brand people I'd be talkingabout it, and so it expands in
that way, maybe not directly withbook sales, and that's okay. But
to go when you said about thetextile experience of the book, Well,

(15:03):
when I go into these projects,the first question I asked is how can
I make the experience of buying abook unique so that you don't want to
buy just the emmy book for twodollars. I'm going to entice you to
get a physical book into your house. Yeah, And so doing that,
you know, I had one thingI did was I have the bookstore book

(15:24):
opened as a garage door, sothe cover actually opens up the other way.
It's come to a unique experience.With that already been done, what
was I going to do with thisbook? Well, we did metallic lettering,
on the cover, the's beautiful metallicthings. And the other thing I
decided to do was I was goingto take all the museums. I went

(15:48):
to take all that inspiration and dothe best work I could do and say,
you know, go all out.And I tell you, for the
last year, you know how hardI was working. I was working like
the longest. I was determined thatthis drawing, the set of drawings,
would be a much bigger improvement overanything else I did. And it didn't

(16:08):
come out the most perfect book.You know, I will be the first
to say it's not perfect, butit's the best I could do right now.
And did you I mean you cutyou cut seventy seventy museums out.
Well, the way it worked waswe would let had you already, had
you already done all the paintings,so you've done all the paintings, and

(16:29):
then you cut them. No,we did some. There are some that
were cut, but none of themwould finished. And the reason why they
weren't finished is because the picture maybewasn't coming out just right. The stories
weren't that dynamic, the stories weren'tas good as other stories. So there
were different reasons. I felt likethey didn't reach the level of the top

(16:52):
seventy five. Oh did you dothe Did you do the Museum of Sex
in New York City? No?Did that get cut? Yeah? Let
me explain why that. That's anexample of a museum that I was disenchanted
with because they I mean a granted, I know nothing on the subject.

(17:15):
The subject is they have ads inthe subway and it's like, right,
but I've never had sex myself.But the thing is is that if they
had set themselves up like a fewmuseums I cut from the book, they
were too much about the the moneyand monetizing their whole agenda. And now

(17:36):
that was the reason why they're struckout, because they just simply weren't doing
things that other museums were doing.There were museums that were doing educational programs,
they were doing outreach in the community, they were doing all these other
separate things that really they should getthe spotlight. They kind of earn the
right to get the special attention thata museum like you know, there's a

(17:59):
bunch of Vegas and there's a bunchin Los Angeles. Also like the Museum
of Sex on different subjects that didn'tmake the cut. Would you have accepted
a place like one of my favoriteplaces to go, which was the Ripley's
Believe it or Not auditoriums. Youknow, if the museum was exceptional,

(18:21):
it would have stayed in the book, along with things like Ringling Brothers Born
and Ballet Circus. These museums aregood, but the other museums are so
much better. You won't find,for instance, the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It's a fine museum, it's okay, But the museums that, again,

(18:41):
that I went to was so exceptional, and it's hard to choose.
For instance, you know, Massachusettsalone has eight hundred museums. Did you
go to the Norman Rockwell Museum.I did, and I think that I'll
be speaking there this summer there twice. For did you include them in the
book? I did include them,And the reason for that is because ultimately

(19:08):
they are very much a part ofour culture and our history, so the
kind of important for different reasons.Whereas I mean sex sex to me again,
the Museum of Sex. I hateto put it this way, but
it's sort of like a fairy taleto me. I've heard of people involved
in this activity, but yeah,Norman Rockwell really has left. It's more

(19:32):
so there might be a whole bunchof Norman Rockwells that would go better in
the Museum of Sex that we justhaven't seen yet, So you don't know
everything that Norman was up to Bob. That museum is a little church like.
It feels like you can't misbehave atthe Norman Rockwell Museum. It's it's

(19:52):
pretty stuffy. There's actually a goodamount of people watching this podcast live,
which is very nice and a newtreat for me because it literally no one
ever watches this live. But ifyou have questions for Bob and you type
them in the wherever you're watching this, I think they pop up on this
little dashboard next to me. Soif you ask, uh want me to
ask a question to Bob, youand to ask it and we can do

(20:14):
it live on the podcast that youwant to do that feel free and I
think they pop up, So nopressure. But if you have a question
for Bob, please ask a questionto Bob and thanks for listening in well
spending a Sunday night with me mycondolences. Isn't that engine that interesting?
So for the people that I mean, I guess that people that are watching

(20:37):
this lot, they know who youare. And you've done a bunch of
books. I know that you didthe History of the Snowman, which was
kind of like a big deal bookfor you, and it kind of got
your author career launched. And thenthere were some follow ups and then you
did a lot of live talks aboutthe History of the Snowman. I went
to one of those live talks atthe New York Public Library, maybe in

(21:00):
twenty eighteen. Maybe, very interesting. And you do talks all over the
place. You go and go tobook events, and you give speak you
do speaking engagements, you do alot of stuff on radio. You were
just at the Irma Bomback Festival inOhio, I believe, is that right?

(21:21):
Yeah, And it's kind of surprisingbecause you would think that there weren't
a lot of humors there and it'sbasically fans from a you know, a
long age ago, and it wouldall be senior citizens, but that's not
actually the case. The very vibrantgroup. They're really intense and they come

(21:41):
out of nowhere to you know,celebrate her work and they talk. But
it's basically workshops how to write betterand stuff. So I've been doing that
at different places. I have ahumor conference coming up, but they asked
me to speak because I've been writingpieces about how to write better and funnier,
and these have been appearing in differentmens magazines, like a Writer's Digest,

(22:02):
which has now giving me a columnto write about this, and so
it's an interesting community. It's away for me also to support what I
really like to do. I liketo speak, but I also want to
do paintings. And when I've learnedthrough different people at these workshops, they
would pull me aside and it wouldtell me that what you need to do
is you need to do it all. You know, you're not going to

(22:26):
make a living from just doing cartooning, but you'll have to do a little
bit of teaching and you'll have todo a little bit of doing some speaking
and other things to just cobble togethera career. It's very tricky, but
that's kind of the way it is. Is. It's more like it seems
everybody, like you said earlier,is a brand. So instead of as

(22:48):
being a cartoonist or a author ora painter, you have to be the
Bob, which is the name ofyour sub stack and and it kind of
it's an all encompassing everything about Bobthat there is. This is this one
thing. So you can subscribe tothe Bob on substack and that is going
to be you know, funny stories, it's going to be writing and cartooning

(23:14):
tips, it's going to be stuffto you know, buy his books or
see Bob speak at places. Andthat's kind of what you mean when when
it's about being a brain, it'snot about doing one thing. It's about
doing all these things that's all encompassingpersonality, and your personality is the company
and it needs to be a uniquevoice in a way that has to feel

(23:37):
like you're taking a lane and you'vegot like a certain sort of point of
view. But it's gotta be alittle more in that too. It's got
to be it's gotta be like thatyou're kind of covering a certain area that
there's a need for. In mycase, the Bob started because I was
teaching an n y U and itwas very expensive and I was trying to
get people into my class and theywouldn't let them in. They played paid

(24:00):
a full tuition and with a lotof money, and I got students.
I had a full class, butI know there was a lot of people
who wanted to take the class,who wanted to be writers, and there
was no way they were going topay the amount that they were charging.
So I think that this way isa very affordable way, and it's for
me. The benefit for me isI'm expanding my audience and I'm trying to

(24:23):
get people who are going to beloyal. They'll appreciate what I'm doing for
them teaching at this really discount price, and then thanks, they'll maybe buy
a book or two, and thathelps with sales. Well, you were
also legitimately, you were a teacherat major colleges, like you're at Pratt
or you're at NYU. I wentto Pratt as a student and then when

(24:48):
I graduated, they asked me tojoin the faculty, and I taught there
for like a dozen years, andthen I began teaching at School of Visual
Arts for quite some time, andthen I'd been asked to teach in different
colleges arts schools around the place.But now I'm coming back on that because
I just don't have time. ButI think, as I mentioned to you
before, you will be teaching thatSouth Korea either remotely, or I'll be

(25:14):
there in person for one semester ifthey could work out the logistics. That's
so exciting. And when you're teaching, like when you teach in South Korea,
are you teaching drawing, are youteaching a specific type of illustration?
Are you teaching just like any anykind of illustration. Well it's a weird

(25:37):
thing. It's not my choice.But there was a class that already existed
where it was about my work,and they did the class was about the
work that I do for live drawingand how I incorporate commentary with or And
I kind of disapproved of the classbecause I said to them, not because

(25:57):
I felt they were copying me,but because I was trying to encourage everyone
to have their own voice. Theyhad me as a guest speaker, and
they said, you know, thisis the work they did, and they
gave assignments of work that I alreadydone, like real jobs that I've done,
and they gave it to them sothey would just kind of like follow.
They're like, you're like, hey, we want to train all of

(26:18):
you to be better at this thanthis guy that did it already, so
now everybody try to redo it betterthan this guy. And you're like,
I don't like this course at all. Well, I don't know how much
this is common knowledge, but whenyou go to some of these other schools,
like in Asia. Some of theschools in Asia, people want to

(26:41):
not create a wave. There's alot of fear in the classroom. Everybody
wants to do what they feel theyshould be doing. They want to say
what they think people want to hear. And this is something that's it's everywhere,
of course, it's I mean youand talk about this staffadically. It's
exactly the opposite of what you do, of Bob, when when you go

(27:03):
and make little little jokes, everyone'salways like, oh, that was terrible.
Why would he say that terrible thing? And now you have to teach
them to do what's completely opposite ofwhat they're supposed to do. Yeah,
I do feel like I'm like theAndy Kindler of cartooning. Then everyone finds
me just annoying. But the thingis I did try to teach the class
to forget about what you were taughtand that you find your own voice.

(27:26):
That said, just use my workif you if you must do it this
way, where you're studying my workyou're just looking at in road terms,
not the specifics of it, becauseI try to explain to him that that's
not going to help you get work. The only way people get to work
now is to stand out for doingsomething that's unique or different, even if

(27:48):
it's not good, if it's different, it's it's plausible. And so anyway,
I'm going to be teaching the classand trying to strip away the sort
of these habits everyone has. AndI've come across this. I came across
it with my own classes, wherefirst you have to teach the kids in

(28:10):
the class that I'm open to anything, that you have to be playful in
the room so that you don't feellike you're being judged. Everyone now is
so afraid of being judged about everything. And like I was going to say
that you and we could talk aboutthis for five hours. How we see
this in the comedy circuit, notamong the top names that have reached a

(28:32):
level where they know they have thefreedom to do what they want, but
people who are not doing super wellor afraid to stand out because they're afraid
to be offensive. They're afraid tosay something that is considered incorrect and not
that I'm encouraging people to be offensive. It's just that it just that constrains
your creativity. You're afraid to exploredifferent things because you're afraid that whatever you're

(28:56):
doing is not the norm. Orthey just say things that are incorrect because
they don't have any jokes. Youknow. You see that too, people
who just want to shock or whatever. Yeah, and it comes. I
don't know if you would agree withthis, but what I have found is
that the one thing that the studentshave to learn is that everyone had to

(29:18):
work hard to get to a certainpoint. It never comes easy. So
it's important that they hear how manyrejections I got and every people got,
and how hard it was to makethat klan. It doesn't happen overnight.
So what happens what you described aboutbad jokes? To me, the kind
of fools in the category are beinglazy, Like you didn't they didn't realize

(29:40):
how much work goes into the stuffand maybe got to learn the sort of
work actic that is required to becomebetter. I see it with a lot
of people. A lot of newpeople showed me that cartoons and then they
say can you give me feedback andstuff? And then so I'll ask them
if they know such and such,and do they know of this, do
they do this? And then Ilearned that they have done any of their

(30:02):
homework. They kind of dove intoit on a recreational level without kind of
knowing that there's a basis for thisand that there's books on the subject.
Even we had on a guest onthe cartoon pad Mort Gerberg, I started
posted earlier today, it's a newpost by your website called a Case of

(30:25):
Pencils, and they discussed how tomake cartoons and things like that, and
this post was describing Mort's book,and then they asked all these people what
the book meant to them, andit's all these people in the cartooning are
are kind of well known and established, and they were all saying they've read
the book. I've mentioned that Ihave a copy in my house and I

(30:48):
have one in the car. It'slike one of those things where you would
just look to and refer to,and I have other cartoon books and it's
kind of part of your education onthat subject is that you dive into to
it the most you can and toexpect to get away with that and take
a short card I don't know ifthat's possible. Also, it's tough.
I mean, there's been so manycartoons and there's just like there's been so

(31:12):
many jokes, and then there's youknow, parallel thought and people will come
up with the same gag and allthat kind of stuff. With the Internet,
it's so hard because everyone's doing thesethings all at the same time and
the news is happening so fast thateveryone has maybe the same idea or a
similar idea for a gag, andthen they just do it and they put
it up, so then you seeso many people who maybe have the same

(31:33):
joke. Yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard to be original.
If you're going to be trying tobe topical, it's so hard to be
original. And then it's all thesepeople that just turn everything left and then
it's just evergreen absurdism. And that'salmost what I prefer now, is just
stuff that is so random and funnythat no one would have that same idea,
you know, Like some of thestuff it's just like way out there.

(31:56):
And that's kind of where I thinka lot of your card too uns
can really last because a lot ofthem are not topical and they're just like
funny, and they're they're very simpleand there's not a lot of explanation needed,
you know, like the one.A bunch of your jokes too,
And again, with the Internet andthings, people can lose credit. So
many of your jokes have been croppedand shared and cropped and shared on Facebook

(32:21):
pages and stuff where they have likemillions and millions and millions of views.
But then your name's Cat stuff likethat, Like that's got to be so
frustrating for you to have stuff that'sso popular and you're like, yeah,
I'm Bob, it's okay. Oh, you know, I do, don't
worry about it, and you're sovery chill about stuff like that. But
like the the Rubik's cube with theguru and the guy's climbing like that was

(32:46):
wasn't that shared by some like topa guru person on Facebook whatever who has
like all these followers. Yeah,and it's also been showing up like all
over in South America places like that. I know, it has millions of
millions of shares because it's it,I mean, it's a universal language gag.

(33:07):
You know. It's one of thosekind of gags where you don't need
any caption. You don't need anytranslation. It was just perfect visually.
Yeah, But you know, it'swe're now running out of jokes and the
fact that there's overlap and there's peoplewho do the same joke that's actually been
happening for the longest time. Itjust happens as a natural thing. In

(33:30):
the same way that there's this illusionthat the a good cartoonist doesn't do bad
cartoons as well. But Jerry Seinfeldsays nine out of ten of his jokes
were not good. But the thingis that he had the judgment and the
decision making to know what's his goodstuff and work on in the same way

(33:52):
that Chris Rock when he's developing hisHour special, the foundation's really not much
at first, and he holds onit and builds on it, but initially
it doesn't just come out just likegems. And so with the cartoons,
you said that you know with thetopical subjects that people will have the same
jokes. Well, there's levels ofthat same joke that could be taken to

(34:15):
another level. You have to askyourself, as a cartoonist or even a
stand up you say, how canI improve on this? How do I
push the envelope on this, andit doesn't have to be what you said
you like obscure, sort of abstractcartooning. That might be a little bit
from your part being fatigue because you'rea cartoon editor, because you have seen

(34:37):
so much, it might be refreshingfor you to see something that's so out
of the box. But that doesn'tmean it can't be just funny, and
it just can't have all those otherattributes we like in a cartoon. So
when you feel like you're doing atopical thing, let's say OJ Simpson going
on is that card Chase Barry Blitdid a cartoon in which he made the

(35:01):
core into our hurts, So he'sgoing to the funeral. He's obvious,
But if you could get there first, then all the credit to him.
But you do try to set yourselfis that the best possible solution to that?
And if not, you move onto the next thing. Knowing that
you know the cartoons that hit werejust among many other cartoons. I sent

(35:24):
you a group of cartoons today,and you're getting a couple of cartoons,
and I didn't expect you to likeequally all of them. I knew that
some might maybe make you laugh,maybe the evers missed, and that's fine.
It's it's part of the whole processof just taking as many up at
bats as possible, which I thinkwith this the the cartoonists do. All

(35:47):
the better cartoons do the same thing. There's a lot of strikeouts, and
they just keep going up to theplate. Which ones did I pick of
that batch? You picked up theone where a couple was having oh yeah,
the and the woman was wearing threeD glasses and she said, you're
still one dimensional to me. Yeah, it was breaking up. Yeah,

(36:12):
I like the glasses because you hada red and blue color. You know,
you're talking about people taking the sameidea. I've never been able to
solve this mystery. But at thesame time that Sam Gross came out with
the cartoon about the frog legs cartoonwith a with a frog is on a

(36:32):
dolly, you know, at thesame time George Corolin had that joke in
his act in Vegas. Really yeah, same time. So at the same
at the exact same time, somebodyheard from the other verson or it's just
a pure coincidence, which is possiblealways in the zeitgeist around that time that

(36:58):
people were talking about frog's leg Yes, that much, because you know,
you really rarely hear about frog's legstoday, maybe as cargo. Maybe yeah,
well I could think of is we'llalways have paris, you know,
frogs saying that to each other orsomething. But yeah, I'm not quite
sure. And I know a lotof my cartoons and stuff, I see

(37:20):
some people using ideas and every people'sideas being used. I think it's sad.
I mean, I see in theNew Yorker and other magazine some cartoons
that were used before, and Idon't know. No one seems to know
that the cartoons were published earlier.There was a cartoon in the last issue
that was done by a friend ofmine about the ten years earlier. It's

(37:46):
really Yeah, it's hard. It'stough to be an instant archive of everything
that's ever been done for the NewYorker cartoons. I mean, like maybe,
I mean, Man Cook would probablybe an instant archive, but that's
because of a lifetime. I'm prettygood at it myself. I could see
where some of the jokes come fromsomeplace else. And that's because when I

(38:08):
first got into it, it wasaround two thousand and seven, so I
got into it late. So Ihad to do alost catching up. And
so what I did was I didexactly what you think I did. I
went through that Red Book. Isthe Red Book, the Big Red Book.
I love that Big Red Book.The Big Red Book has just sat
there and I just went through thewhole book, absorbed the whole thing as

(38:30):
if I was staying for my saits. Then I copied all of the jokes
and submit, no, yeah,you don't even have to do that.
I just cut them out and justI just did that. But you know,
it's funny. You know, it'sa real education. It's like a
master class that it doesn't exist.There wasn't BacT that real classes to learn

(38:52):
how to do a New Yorker cartoon. And anyway, that's that It happens
most of the time, I'm surejust by pure accident. And you see
with comedians and they might accuse eachother of thinking that someone lifted their joke,
but I think it might just happen, either subconsciously or just random luck.

(39:15):
It's also a social media people areso much like we know things that
happen in so many different individuals' liveson a daily basis because they share it
in their stories or they post iton TikTok or whatever we are. We
are overly informed of what everyone elsein the world is doing on a given
day, to the point of,you know, at nauseum, but you

(39:35):
know, I know of all ofthe cartoonists that are putting things up.
I see everything, and I knowthat they all share, and they all
see. And people that do standup comedy or they're constantly, you know,
set up sharing their clips from theirshows online and they're sharing. That's
so people from all all parts ofthe globe who are sharing jokes at any
given day and time, there's there'sgonna be duplicate jokes. And because people

(39:59):
have the same life experiences are slightlydifferent jokes and until too attainable. You
know, it used to be someonecould have their entire career and never see
this person or never interact with thisperson, because everyone was living in their
own little circles for a long longtime. But now we're all in one
big circle. Although I never couldunderstand, for instance, how everyone in

(40:20):
the country back before the Internet wouldknow something from one coast to another coast.
Kids would have the same jokes,how did those spread? The songs
like Batman the other add rhyming songs, the ruins about Richard Gear just anything,
yeah, always thing somehow or neverwithout the aid of social media.

(40:46):
Very good boy. Yeah, weall heard about we all heard about the
Gerbil. We all heard about thekid that did the like the pop rocks
or whatever with the soda and thestomach exploded and all those urban legends.
Yeah, yeah, we all knewthem. Everybody in the areas knew them.
But maybe they called it pop inthe mid West and not today.

(41:09):
If I come across the joke thatI say, well, this person's using
my joke, I mean, youknow that was something I published or something
like that, it's more likely thatI did something that was not that good
that it has more to do withme doing something in theory that is a
lazy solution to an obvious joke.It's just simply what they call low hanging

(41:32):
fruit. And I just and Ihave to do better next time to come
up with something. You know,the best jokes and the best cartoons are
the ones that you say, noone did this before. Ye And again,
this doesn't have to be because Itook the route of obscure. It's
because I just try to keep onpursuing and exploring any possible solution until you're

(41:58):
accidentally or subconscious or something stumble upona solution. That's that is very unique.
So as for you for your processof doing cartoons, because you do
cartoons still, you are do regularbatches? And are you doing every week?
Are you doing ten new cartoons aweek? What's the what's the process

(42:20):
for you right now? Even withyour huge amount of commitments with teaching and
books and deadlines and illustration work.Well, this is what I do.
I actually don't do a batch often, but I'll do cartoons for I
have about four or five weekly regularspots that are mine that I do the

(42:44):
cartoon for for different publications, nothingas big as The New Yorker, and
I haven't been submity to the NewYorker. But other places they approached me
and asked me to do cartoons forthem, places like you know, read
is digests in some places have askedme to do something for them. So
submitting badges, they're asking me whatI got, and I showed them when

(43:08):
I got. It's nicer to beat that level where people were just like,
hey, Bob, we need acartoons, you know, send us
some cartoons. Yeah, well,I'm lucky to be at that level at
this little end of the island.But then on the other end of the
island, people are asking me toget off the island. So it goes,
it comes and goes. It's amixed bag. And the thing is

(43:28):
I had to I will share thisthat sometimes it's a little frustrating when I
submit cartoons and I'll say, I'mgiving you two the choos from and I
picked the cartoon that is the inferiorone. And it's because of that.
That's another reason I really like substack, and I really encourage others to
do the same, because it's niceto have one place in which you pick

(43:52):
which are the two cartoons? Wasthe funnier one? And what you want
to say? And I have alittle bit of chance to be on the
platform without someone whisper bring in yourrear what to say? And let's talk
about substack, because you've become areal substack person. You've been like a
what do I wanna? What doI want to call you? For substack?

(44:13):
Like the words genius. Sure,let's not go over the top,
but yeah, genius seems to work. But you've been and it's the same
as uh, you know, wehad that h James Breakwell on the cartoon
pad. Jason Schaffield's a big substackguy. People that have really embraced the
substack. And I think you doa really good job of the substact because
you you write interesting things. It'snot too long winded. It seems to

(44:37):
be helpful. You give tips forwriters, you give tips for cartooning,
you give tips for people who aredoing any of these kind of freelancing type
artistic jobs. You tell funny storiesof things that have happened to you because
it's a good place for you tohave. I mean, this almost seems
like a way to organize, likea bigger book, you know. I

(44:58):
think subsack is giving you away toorganize thoughts, and maybe other people will
be developing things from their substacks.But it's like a subsack is becoming I
mean, it's basically a tumbler andit's almost like a diary. And it's
now that you can take things andthen put it all together. So I
think people are going to be startednoticing that their substacks are actually going to
be like diaries, that they aregoing to be turning into memoirs and who

(45:20):
knows what else down the line.But it's a way to organize your little
personal life. Yeah. Yeah,it's a big moths of ball to talk
about because on one hand, there'sa lot of people doing the substack and
it becomes a little bit much.I have right now one hundred and forty
four subscriptions to newsletters. Yet there'sno way I'm gonna read these newsletters.

(45:42):
But there's a lesson in this andthat which ones do people read? Why
there certain ones take off? Andyou mentioned Jason Chaffield. Jason Chafffield.
Are really a big, big fanof Jason and he has a great substack.
But you also mentioned James Breakwell,So I went like, James Bragwell

(46:02):
has been doing it for years beforeJason, and he's actually making a living
from it. He's got like amillion followers, and he coached me and
talked me into doing it, alongwith Jane Friedman. Jane Freeman's another person
who has six hundred thousand followers.Now you hear that, and people are
gonna say, but that's the lastthing I want to hear. I have

(46:23):
fourteen followers. I do not needto hear that this summer with six hundred,
but we're mentioning the top two peoplealong with a third person who I've
met and coach coached me, andthat is Letters from an American by Heber
Richardson, and that's the single biggestsubstack in the world. So these are

(46:44):
the very very top. But talkinglike you know, the bab roof of
substacks, ninety nine percent of thepeople are going to be like us,
where we're doing it for fun.We're getting maybe a couple of dollars here
and there for pocket change, andwe're doing it for other reasons. It's
not a full time ju But Idid learn a lot of different things about
the Subsecond that like to throw sometips out really quick. One is that

(47:07):
you want to collect people recommending yoursite and then you place those blurbs on
your homepage. I just learned aboutthis. But when you have someone who
wants to sign up for you,they'll see these recommendations saying that you know
they someone else likes your newsletter andthat helps encourage them to sign up.

(47:28):
So that was one little tip.The other tip of learning is you can't
just be yourself. I know peoplesay be yourself, you really want to
do something a little more. Instead, I would say put yourself in the
shoes of a reader and ask yourselfwhat did they want or need from you?
In my case, the read Oneof the reason I started was that

(47:50):
I had students who wanted to continuemy classes. So in my newsletter,
I give tips, and I gotto say that it's not my teaching,
it's the teaching of my friends.I have friends who are really funny and
they're gracious enough to share what theyknow about humor and Marty, you know
some of the people, and theseare people who taught me how to be

(48:13):
better and better at humor writing.So I have these experts on one place
that you could find them all together. And so that's the need that's being
filled. The other thing I dois I promote other people. So that's
another thing that people enjoy because everyonewants to get their book out there.
So there's another place to that.So you have to find your way.

(48:36):
If you're listening to this and you'redoing a sub second, you want to
think of what do you think peoplewant to hear. Maybe you're an expert
on how to help people with singleparenting. Maybe you maybe you're an expert
on dogs and you can help themwith their or whatever. But just to
talk in general. Well, yeah, that's kind of like Twitter, I

(48:58):
think if you want to get thesubscribe where you want to develop a platform
where people feel like they don't wantto miss it, like oh I'm gonna
miss something out that that's going tobe valuable to me or I'm going to
enjoy Yeah. Yeah, and people, I mean, you've been you've been
growing, right, so you starteddoing this and the people keep on opening

(49:19):
and they keep on reading. Anddo you get a lot of people that
write back or is it more onesided? Do people just read what you
right? That's the story, thereason why I keep going. You see,
the biggest problem with substack is thateveryone gets this point which you have
the excitement of starting. You finallyfigure out the lingo to get everything set
up, because initially it gets alittle confusing. But now you got it

(49:40):
up. You got two or threeposts that and then all of a sudden
you realize, oh my god,I'm not famous yet. You know,
I don't get all these paid subscribers. But instead it's a small trickle,
and then that lull is what makespeople drop out. People usually get to
a point they figured it's not goingto get better. Once it picks up,

(50:02):
it really does pick up quickly.In my case, I have a
few thousand subscribers, and it's becauseI engage. That's the keyess that you're
trying to say that you're part ofthe community. It's not a one way
street where you're talking and I wantyou just to listen. So you have
comments, and you have people sayingthey have a sub stack, and you

(50:28):
help me and you recommend them,and you send people their way, and
you try to you know, pitcheon, and so you're asked if people make
comments that got me passed below.I was getting letters saying how much they
love the substack, cad I doit more frequently. They got so much
out of it, and they wouldshare stories about this and that I actually
got. I would say at leastthree or four people who told me I

(50:52):
helped them make the first sale withthe New Yorker from what they learned from
my newsletter, and so so therewas value. I realized that people were
out there listening to what I hadto say and they were enjoying it.
So it kept me going through theslow period and now I'm making money from
it. So because if you're anatural teacher, though, and you've been

(51:15):
so, this is just like anothervenue to be a teacher, Like you've
been an art teacher, instructor yourentire life in some way and now,
no, no, you know whatI've done teaching my all life. But
no, I don't consider myself natural, and I don't consider myself having that
teacher bug. What I do haveis I really appreciate people who were smart,

(51:37):
and they were all smarter than me, and I gravitate toward them and
I like to befriend them. Andwhat I do is I learned from them.
And all I'm doing is I'm aconduit. I'm just sharing what I've
learned. I did this an artclass when I was teaching art. I've
done this everywhere I went. Isreally meat stealing from another teach chair.

(52:00):
I was taught by really good teachers. I had really smart friends, and
then I would share what I learned, even even when we had lunch together.
You and me had lunch at Chinatownand we would be with Nick Downs
and other people I don't listen to, and I'm thinking, what was that?
What was that place in Toynatown thatwas so good. That super old,

(52:21):
old old place. Well there's twoplaces. There's Jaya that went out
of business after COVID, but theoldest place in Chinatown is Namboa Tea Polar
That's where we went. We wentto Namoa Tea Parlot because they didn't take
cards and they didn't make credit cards, so they only took cash. And
I write, and you were youwere buying. You were not listening to

(52:43):
me. You pick things on themenu they're not famous for. I told
you you get their agg roll Andthey came out with an egg roll that
was the size of Yogi Bear's mitt, right mat like that, we splait
it. And and also I don'teven know if you enjoyed the the port
buns, but that was like oneof their their specialties. Yeah, that

(53:04):
was wonderful. Yeah, we'll haveto go back. We'll have to go
back. So anyway, those lunchesand stuff, so I'm listening and I'm
absorbing it like a sponge or whatthey're saying. And you and me have
had lunches with like some of thebest cartoonists. If there wasn't for Sam
Grosse and Nick Downs and stuff,no, I wouldn't know what to do,
and I certainly couldn't teach about it, but you know, we had

(53:27):
a great We did a great afterwe saw Mike Grease at uh Cooper Union
maybe it was we say it wasa Cooper Union hall. Yeah, so
we saw Mike Grease. We sawMike Grease at Cooper Union do a talk
with and then Sam Grosse was withus with John Bendel, and then we
went to this like Japanese or Chineseor there was like a fusion place for

(53:52):
dinner and we ended up hanging outthere for like ever, and that was
wonderful. It was so much funas hanging out with cartoonists and adding and
going to like remember that diner thatyou used to hang out and you would
go with all of your cartoon friends. Yeah, I had some hangouts.
And you know, it's funny yousay this, but going in person is
a value to that, just thatsort of relationship in face to face.

(54:16):
Although at the beginning of my lifeI did the same thing with the wrong
people. I have to say Ihad friends who kind of I don't know,
they went their own way. Theyreally were not you know, people
would go getters. So that's whyI said, I kind of developed this
skill for saying, oh, thesepeople are the people I can learn from.

(54:38):
And this person here has a drugproblem and I have been good friends
with him, and it's going nowhere. I had a lot of friends who
were into drugs, and I andI had really bad work habits. Because
you know, I mean now,I'm totally the opposite. I wake up

(54:58):
before it gets light out and Ibegan working, and I have this drive
to do all the stuff, toget everything done. The first time you've
got a cartoon in the New Yorkerwas because Sam Gross dared you to do
it right, and then you're right. Sam Grosse took me out to the
lunch, the New Yorker lunch formy birthday. I had known him when
we were friends, but I hadnever done any cartoons really, I mean

(55:22):
mean drawing, yes, but neverI was never interested in doing a New
Yorker cartoon either. I didn't readthe magazine. But at the lunch he
introduced me to all these different peopleand it was a really good time,
and I asked to come back,and he said, well, if you're
going to come back, you mightas well start doing cartoons. That was

(55:42):
just joking about that but you know, as I would come back to that,
but he goes, no, no, because I'm daring, and he
goes, why don't you try doingthe cartoons. So I did do the
cartoons that it was harder than Ithought. That's when I dove into the
Red Book and I started thinking aboutwhat I would do. And it took
me at least two weeks before Icould come up with a batch of ten

(56:05):
cartoons. And then the cartoon editorat the time, with Bob Mancoffin,
did by the first cartoon I drew, which was the poetry Night right,
And what was that cartoon? Whatwas the gag for that? That cartoon
was something I messed around with mywriting partner. I was writing humor with
somebody and this was his birthday present. Actually, it's a magnetic cup that

(56:32):
you buy in Chinatown. It's supposedto be helpful because it's magnets, Am
I right? And the magnets Themagnets helped it go into your mouth,
yeah, something to do and changesthe properties of the water so before I
drink it gets better. So Iwill get to the cartoon story in the

(56:52):
moment. But this cup was initiallya gift to my friend len Belzer.
Len Belzer and me were back friends, and this was the second time I
tried to kill him inadvertently because Ididn't know that his pastemaker would stop if
he had brought this up to himselfto take a drink. The man that

(57:15):
would have made the pastemaker stop andkilled him. I tried to kill him
him another time because I felt sobad. I told him because he wants
a unique present from Chinatown. Sowhere you and me had lunch, around
the corner, they was selling freshDurian fruits, which is a very exotic

(57:36):
fruit, very smelly, very smelly, And if I don't mind, I'll
bring this a'll name drop. It'sbeen a while now. Michael Palin's the
person who told me all about thisfruit because he found that he was served
to him when he was traveling throughIndia. So this fruit is supposed to
be the most delicious but the smelliestfruit in the world. And they started

(57:59):
selling it in Chinatown. But it'sillegal to take it on the subway.
It's illegal to eat it anywhere,but on that spot, I snuck it
home to when and to make outfor trying to kill him with the magnetic
mug and I gave him the Dorianfruit, and we learned from warnings that

(58:21):
anybody with a heart condition should notbe eating a doryant fruit because of some
kind of thing about it could actuallyit's a very dangerous fruit to eat,
like the blowfish that we all learnedabout the Simpsons. Yeah, I didn't
know the Dorian fruit was so deadly. It could be. It depends health.
It depends on your health situation.He actually could kill you. Good

(58:46):
to know. Good, good tipup. Thanks. So what were we
talking about. We're talking about thisbook you have. So people need to
all go in again to pre orderthis book today on the Amazon or the
bookshop dot org. It's footnotes fromthe most fascinating museums. It's beautiful illustrations

(59:06):
of museums all over. Is itall over the world or is it all
over the United States? Did youlimit it geographically? I did. It's
just North America for this edition.Oh that's good. You let yourself have
a whole bunch of leeway for sequelsin other places. Right. I wanted
to do a good enough job.I would have spread myself too thinly had

(59:29):
I tried to conclude everyone. Andalso we left out some great museums in
North America. So I included Canadianand Mexican museums, and there's quite a
few in the book. Then they'revery nice, awesome, So people need
to get this now. It's footnotesfrom the most fascinating museums. Steve Martin
calls it a joyous book, storiesand memorable moments from people who love museums

(59:53):
by the one and only Bob Eckstein. Thank you so much for being on
Talk today, Bob. Yeah,let me throw in there. There are
some giveaways. You can get thebook for free if you go if you
win the Good Read to giveaway andyou just go there and look up the
title of the book. If youbuy the book, as a thank you,

(01:00:15):
I'll give you a lifetime subscription forfree to the Bob Newsletter. It's
just the honor system. You justtell me you bought the book, I'll
give you a lifetime subscription. BecauseI'm trying to make the book successful enough
that would love to include the museumsI left out. I feel bad that
there was some cut and I wouldlove to be able to do that.

(01:00:38):
Is this a great Are the museumsgoing to stock the book in their museum
stores. Yeah, I think thanksfor little to Talk already, please subscribe
visit with me talk dot com.But my publisher is very excited. They're
getting a lot of feedback from differentthings. There's like different places that are
reviewing the book, and they're sayingthat it's been really well received and that

(01:01:01):
the museums also like their advance copy. They were saying that they're very happy.
People love getting a painting of theirmuseum that they can sell a print
of theoretically in the you know,museum sore. So I think it's a
great I mean, it was avery smart topic and book subject matter to
do. They always thinking they're,Bob, You're you're good at inventing new

(01:01:25):
kind of genres of publishing. Youknow what I'm saying that I'm thinking,
I keep surrounding myself with people whoare nice. You I was gonna say
a sorry from you. I Alot of people like at the museums very
nice. And it's something that you'reworking with people who love art. So

(01:01:46):
when I was doing the collection ofthe stories, these are all people who
just they just love aren't working stuff. So it's actually, uh, my
people, it's really good wonderful.Okay, no question though, no questions.
Everybody is just mesmerized, you know, a good Yeah. I always

(01:02:08):
get the question at all these talks. So tell me what is the best
way to win the caption contests?So I'm relieved that I'll have to answer
that. What is the best wayto win the captain contest? Keep the
caption short? Yeah, shortest spotsyou have. How many times have Bob

(01:02:28):
cartoons been used for caption contests inthe New Yorker? Not many. I
would say maybe five or six,maybe five. I think the one of
the funniest setup cartoon gags that youhave is when the doctor is taking the
monkey with the symbols, and it'salways like, we found this in your

(01:02:49):
head, or we found this inyour we found this in your brain.
Yeah, that was in your brain. That wasn't a caption com But there
is something that's actually very I'm tryingto think of the word though very predicted.
It was predicting the future. Ihad done a caption contest where there's
a group of like politicians and stuff. They were all inside a jail cell

(01:03:13):
having a meeting. It might bea little bit too true. That might
be a little bit too accurate,a little bit too real life. Currently,
it's harder to spoof things when thingsget too crazy, you know.
I feel like there was a pointwhere, like, I mean, I
don't want to talk too too long, but there was a point during I

(01:03:36):
mean, there was a show calledVeep, which I'm a big fan of,
and Veep was really funny and crazy, and then politically in reality things
got crazier, I know, Yeah, and then Veep wasn't as crazy because
Veep seemed like we wish things werethat normal. Yeah, and it almost
it almost kind of hurt the show. And then the show tried to get
even crazier and it just kind ofjumped the shark. A little bit of

(01:03:59):
the lasted at the part of thefinal season because they couldn't go as crazy
as reality was already. And it'ssometimes it's funny when you try to like
make a joke, it's like,oh, this is so hilarious. It's
like, actually, that's too totallytrue, and it's like we're dealing with
that every day. You're right,you're absolutely right. Right now, the
humer might be in bringing it backand showing something that's normal. The contrast

(01:04:24):
between how crazy things are and that'swhere the humor would be, and we're
flipping the tables. No, theanatomy of a joke's and that's probably some
people can learn little tips like thatfrom reading The Bob on sub sex,
where everyone should go subscribe to TheBob and they got to go buy the
Museum book again before we go.It is Footnotes from the most Fascinating Museums,

(01:04:48):
a joyous book, says Steve Martin. Go check it out by Bob
Eckstein, available for pre order nowand you'll get it in May fifteenth.
Is that correct? Run around there? It's good be International Museum Day,
so everyone's going to celebrate International MuseumDay. There, you go follow Bob

(01:05:09):
Museum, follow Bob on the Instagramand the TikTok at at Bob Ckstein.
Is that correct? Yeah, somethinglike that, right, Just Google and
you'll find it. It's something thatit might be Bob underscore X done it.
Maybe he's beat Bob X. Itdepends. It depends on every platform,
but he's there. Don't worry aboutit. Everyone who's listening, who

(01:05:30):
are the stuck around? Thanks andMary, thanks so much, thank you,
thank you for being on talk wordsubscribe and listen at Talk Word Podcast
and we'll see you next time.Thanks for watching and listening. Bye bye.
Thanks for listening to Talk Word.Please subscribe, follow us, and

(01:05:51):
visit Weekly Humorist dot com.