The Teacher

Could we teach a class on "Radio" or is it unteachable??

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
For what would you talk about on your on your podcast,
Firm Present Minute Morning Show. Who's gonna start? You just did?
Did it? You're standing by the gold mic? Yeah, so no,
you have to introduce the topic, but you got it

(00:22):
when you start. I feel like you got to bring
the energy. Who's gonna start the podcast? A little too much? Energy? Much?
A little much. We're excited it's a Monday. Excited for Monday.
Consider it for yourself. I'm not excited at all. I
took my pills last night and I was out. Man,
I would have slept until ten today. I'm actually kind

(00:43):
of awake because we're getting some great weather here in
the Northeast, so yeah, it's cold again. My apartment was like,
damn it, I have to put a brawn. Gi Gandhi
has refuted everything you've said thus far into podcast. I
literally had to put a brawl. Think morning show, imagine

(01:04):
that would be the morning show from hell. I've worked
with morning shows that you do not want. A morning
show like host, a co host, like each other each other.
We had one of those in New York. I'm not
going to mention names, but one of them is the
sister of a very famous singer. Let's leave it at that.
But they used to do shows where I guess she
either wasn't paying attention or I didn't remember how things

(01:26):
worked in radio. So a lot of times he'd say,
the male host would say to her, hey, did you
see that movie yesterday? And you'd hear you know it's radio, right.
Nodding isn't gonna help anybody. Just to pull back the
curtain for a second. If you're if you're doing the
morning show, part of the chemistry is where one person
throws something out, you don't extinguish it and just like
totally negate, that's not right. That's the rules of improp, right,

(01:51):
and you supposed to it right. Like one time we
were on stage and uh, we were doing an improv
sketch and to the members of my improv group says, uh, oh, hey, Bill,
where'd you get that umbrella? He goes, I'm loving Umbrella's
actually very funny, right, But wanting show, you want to

(02:15):
co host to play off what you're saying and build
upon it. And this way you guys can go in
totally different you can go crazy directions. The possibilities are endless. Yes,
and are you yes, you're bringing the room down. Well
I got a question though. Okay, so those parts this
kind of stuff goes. If somebody says to you, this

(02:37):
is the story, what is your opinion? Don't you think?
And you don't think that? Aren't you supposed to disagree? Yeah,
but you shouldn't go exactly exactly. You need you need
to provide enough material that the conversation keeps going, because
I think that's what we do really well, as we
all have our own opinions, but we're all able to
articulate them and further the conversation as opposed to just

(02:59):
shutting it down. Right, So normally on this podcast, if
we have an idea, the next personal say something, and
then then this person has an opinion, and then we
might go off in a different direction. That's amazing, that's great.
I will tell you living your life like a morning
show where you embellish and give it you expound on
answers is not what you want to do in real
life because when your wife says, did you like that show?

(03:21):
Did I like it? Well? The acting just tell me
if you liked it? Like they don't want the seven
minute break? Do you guys get accused of because I
do all the time, And I swear I'm not an
embellish or about stories. Get accused of embellishing because you
work here, so I'll be telling a story. One of
your friends is like, I don't really believe that that's
how it happened. Is that really how it happened. I swear, yeah,
I get that all the kind I get that all exaggerate.
By the way, hi Elsa, we exaggerated a million percent

(03:43):
of the time in a million years. I get that
all the time. I get that that didn't happen. We're
talking about it. Called me a show killer. Well, it
started with the rule of improvisation. Scary was pulling the
curtain back and explaining how we do things in here
and how we further the conversation by saying yes. And
we never just shut down the conversation because because the

(04:06):
second I said hello this morning, just now on this podcast,
I said one thing, and then Gandi just kind of
like crash it right into the crownd morning with great
morning show. Sold on a second, if I may, with
great morning shows, you're you know it's the host says
something and then the co host, rather than extinguish it,
builds upon it. So this way. So what did Gandhi

(04:28):
extinguish in yours? Well, you said we have great weather
here in the Northeast, and I said, not so much today.
You could have said, well not today, but let's talk
about how beautiful it was this past weekend. That's rallied
what I got. I got shucked down as soon as
I disagreed with his inaccurate weather force to the immediately

(04:50):
went to, well that's a bad morning show right there.
We would make a terrible You know, we have all
this time we have to fill, like fox sake, we
got fifteen minutes with to fill. Well it started with this.
Here he goes, oh, I'm excited for a Monday, and
Gandy goes, really, I'm not. I agreed, you can take

(05:15):
that further. And that's what Scar said, Well, why are
you know, actually, Scary, you extinguished that conversation. You should
have Dandie's defense. Scary was was tasked with hosting the
show because he ran to her gold Mike and he
starts with, hey, the day of the week and the weather,
and that's all he had. So Gandhi made it something

(05:36):
by pooping on him. But that is when I took
a pause and I said I said, let's let's educate
the audience on what great radio and what wait I'm saying,
when I need to learn from the master, I go,
I go to scary job. Let's listen to his Ted talk.
I was, went, I love for you to do a
Ted talk on radio mastering radio. He was teaching good radio,

(06:00):
showing how bad radio sounds. And then we start talking
about improvisation, and then Brodie's improv group and how the
guy dropped the ball and didn't build on the topic
at hand. Okay, so this is what I missed. Here's
another there's another great story in radio. And when you
have a lot of time to fill up, just repeat
the whole thing like we just did. He speaking of
knowing how to do radio. Look, I know that we

(06:21):
our show does very well. The numbers are there, you know,
the companies making money off of us, left and right. Okay,
I get that, But I just don't consider what we
do like masterfully harnessing great radio. I just we just
come in here every day and have fun. I don't know,
what could you teach a radio class based on what
our show does. I don't know. This is so hard

(06:43):
to do. I've I know pretty much everybody here at
GANDHI you could probably and I know Brodie maybe too.
What doing this is very difficult. You make it look
so easy. No, no, we're all making it look easy.
We make it look easy because it's easy. And no,
it's not just to it's not easy for everyone, but
it's easy for us. This is very easy for I

(07:04):
think you make it easy for the people in this
room because I've worked with morning shows that they have.
They'll plan out conversations. Okay, I'll say this, and then
you say that, and then I'll react like this, and
then I'll give the cue to code with the phone.
All I'm saying is I think this is easy for
all of us in this room because we just we
understand each other's rhythm other and we kind of read
each other's mind, and that's just what we do. Point being,

(07:26):
I get a call from someone who used to work
at our radio station. It's like, I need your help.
I'm writing a book about how to do radio. And
I wrote back, I'm like, I don't I don't know
how to do radio. I'll just do what we do.
I don't consider what we do radio. It's just so happens.
We do this and they put it on the radio.
You know what I'm saying. You know, I was listening
to Howard Stern the other day, the master at this,

(07:46):
and he had Alec Baldwin, and Alec Baldwin was telling
this story about Marlon Brando, and Marlon Brandon was on
a talk show explaining how he's an actor, right, and
somebody was interviewing him and said, how does it feel
to be Marlon Brandon? One of the great at actors
forever of all tim And He's like, we're all acting.
It's like, it's not that hard. It's so easy for him.

(08:07):
He doesn't realize how important and special he is at
what he does. Well, that's what makes him great. But
that's the same thing about you and everybody in this room.
We're so good at it, we don't realize it's hard.
That's what I'm saying. I'm being honest, Like I've seen
some people that struggle with this. I think we're just
experts and having a good time. You know me, I'm

(08:28):
the last person's gonna say I'm great at doing radio
because you don't realize it though, because you're just good
at But I don't think it's something you should realize
I don't think knowing you're great at radio, or great
at tennis playing, or you shouldn't even know you're great
at I just go out there and do your best
and maybe it'll work. Gandhi, Yes, yes, your thoughts, let
me go around them. Your thoughts. I agree with you.

(08:50):
I also think that having done this for as long
as most of the people in this room have done it,
we do kind of take advantage of the chemistry that
goes on in here, and it seems easy, but it's
not easy. I think if you just throw random people
in here, I don't know that they would be able
to do it the same way. I think with a
few of us in random people, we could pull it off. Okay,
what about I'm very thankful for the group that we've

(09:10):
assembled and getting to know each other and being having
the latitude to be able to get to know each
other on the radio all these years, because it does
make it easier every day. I just had to do
something for with my father for a commercial I'm doing,
and I wanted to get his testimonial on a car
that he bought because I'm doing it for a commercial.
And as soon as the microphone went in his face.

(09:31):
He says, he started stammering, he started being a you know,
he wouldn't get to the point. He wouldn't. He was like,
what I'm doing right now? But he pretty sure to
be told at the airport he did one of those.
But I'm like, Dad, we were just talking about the car.
We were having a regular colloquial conversation with the people.

(09:52):
Change in front of Mike appears done some brody Yes,
go ahead. I was talking to some of the room
off air before. Doing good radio is difficult, but doing
accurate radio is also difficult, And I was giving the
example of a major rock celebrity passed away Friday, and
all of the rock radio stations on satellite on terrestrial

(10:13):
did tributes to him, and the Q one on four three,
which is a local station, nailed that they got it right.
But one station in the New Jersey, New York area
pronounced his name wrong every time they said his name,
and then they did a whole tribute station on satellite
about his career, but they kept playing songs on albums
he wasn't on. So good radio seems like, oh, you

(10:36):
just put on the radio, but a lot of work
goes into it. We We spent a lot of time
making sure that we're hopefully accurate and funny and poignant
and timely, and we watch all the right TV shows
and the movies, and so it's not just we don't
just walk in here willy nilly and who happened to
know everything? We stay all afternoon, all night, all morning,
or during the show looking up all the facts, all
the things. So when people text, hey, did you know

(10:58):
blah blah blah, we can go yeah, we did, thankfully.
Usually we know it because we all were. When you
are a stickler for accuracy, Hey, what's up, I'm sucked
up today? Could we teach this? Yes? Could the people
that we teach it to pull it off? Probably not?
I don't think so. Because we all have that friend
that that we all come They come up to us
and go, huh, I'll be great on the show, give

(11:20):
me some time on the show. We're like that friend
on American Idol that goes, I'm going on American Idol,
and we are like, oh, yeah, yeah, go for it.
But in the reality we know they can't pull it off.
It's true. I don't know. I think we give ourselves
way too much credit. What we do. Don't you think
that the chemistry accounts for a big part of it. Absolutely,
you can't teach that. You can't really of what we do. Yeah,

(11:42):
Daniel thoughts on how great we are are just so fantastic.
Sid I don't know. I just feel like we come
in here and have fun with our friends. That's all
it is, really. And but when you give it a
grade like, oh, you're the greatest radio, I just I
can't buy it. We're just good at what we do.
It's by accident. I wouldn't say it's by accident. I

(12:03):
think I will tell you something interrupt. I think it's
by accident. I will tell you. My husband tells me,
and I think he's pretty funny, and I think he
tells me. I could never do what you guys do.
I can never be as quick as that. I can
never be as quick as Elvis. I can. I just
sometimes I'm like, how the hell do they do this?
So I don't know, because I think like he would
be great at it, but he you know, yeah, it's
not for everybody. We've had him on before. He was great.

(12:25):
He's always great, all right. So we can sit here
and just kind of diddle each other you know what
I'm saying, like, really great. I think once you start
thinking you're great at what you do, I think that's
when you stop learning. I think that's when you close
your mind and close your heart to new opportunities. And
I just I'm not forced. I'm not forcing the fact

(12:46):
that I don't think we're great at what we do.
I'm just I really truly think that we're just in
here having fun. It just so happened, and that's just yeah,
that's a by product what we do. Blah blah blah blah.
What I like it. I think it's really important not
to think that you're the greatest at anything, because my
dad always says, if you think you're the smartest in
the room or the best in the room, you're probably
in the wrong room. So shame on you. You should. Yeah,

(13:09):
we love dad logic, love dead logic. He has a lot,
But I think that's true too, Like, if you ever
feel like you're the best at something, maybe you just
need to go investigate a little more because there might
be better out there. How boring would it be if
you thought you were the best? Well? What else is there? Then? Why?
I live another day? Exactly which I actually think is
why a lot of these celebrities sort of have breakdowns
because they feel like they're the best at anything. What
more do I have to accomplish? They get bored. It's

(13:31):
like an existential crisis. Also, you know what, in the
entertainment business, we're lucky because we signed long term contracts
and so we're here. We know that we have the
next whatever years here. When you do a film or
record an album, it's a pulse and it's done, and
it's out that you're done. It's over. So you wait
for the phone to ring. Am I going to be
called to do another one? That's frightening and it is.

(13:53):
That's why when we have these artists come in here
with their brand new albums, you can see how nervous
they are because they wonder. I put everything into this.
I saying my heart out. I worked with people, the
right people, and they're promoting it. They're spending all the
money on the marketing. It better work because if it doesn't,
I'm done. When Jason Derulo came in here to promote
cats like that, he'll be fine. He's gonna be fine.

(14:19):
He has a wonderful musical career, and he may be
doing more acting, and I bet you they released an
addition with his ball, just showing you know what. An
example to me was Cuba Gooding Jr. Remember he was
in What the heck was the movie? He was fantastic.
Everyone was like, he's going to be the next big thing.
He I thought he was going to get Left and

(14:41):
Right movies, you know what I mean? And I don't.
I feel like he fell off the face of the
earth after that. Now he hanged out in New York
City bars, right, But you know what I mean, You
never know. You never know if that phone's gonna ring again.
So let's sign new contracts and stay here for a
couple of more years. The fifteen Minute Morning Show m