http://ia600804.us.archive.org/18/items/JoshFademPartI/JoshFadem.mp3

Direct link(s):

http://ia700802.us.archive.org/3/items/JoshFademPartIi/JoshFademPartIi2.mp3

Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thebuckshotboogaloopodcast

You can follow us here:

@joshfadem

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dinner-with-the-beatles!/id492605170

Your mother will thank you.

The Button Down Mind of Dionne Warwick

I am listening to the Whitney Houston memorial on the Sirius Whitney Houston memorial channel. We have Sirius free for six months. I am not sure if we will get the subscription. We probably won’t. Clive Davis is speaking now. He sounds like a member of a secret society. He sounds like a preacher for the illuminati. He sounds frightening. He sounds like a man who secretly rules the world. I imagine he has a hand in ruling the world at some point in his life. I imagine he meets once a week in a secret room with Robert Evans and seven other old men with whiskey voices. I imagine the room looks like something from Dr. Strangelove. I imagine they order in food from Denny’s. I imagine Bob Evans usually sends his back. Clive probably rolls his eyes. It’s probably a ritualistic thing.

Now Clive is talking about Waiting to Exhale. Now he’s talking about hanging out with Whitney in a hotel bungalow. Now he’s talking about her eating a hamburger. I assume Kevin Costner is sitting confused. I assume Kevin Costner has some idea of the secret society, of Clive Davis and Bob Evans. I once heard a story about how Bob Evans kept a woman captive in his house. I know it was probably assumed she was held captive for some pseudo consensual adult activity, but I can’t help but assume he just kept her around so he could have someone listen to him complain about his breakfast.

As Clive wraps up his speech, I can’t help but wonder if he’ll choose this pivotal moment to unzip his face to reveal his true lizard person self. I can’t help but wonder if everyone will stand in unison and applaud his imminent zipper induced transformation. I imagine they will, as I know I would.

Now Dionne Warwick is slurring jokes, which is the second best way to tell a joke. I met Dionne Warwick once—at The Night of 1000 Stars. The Night of 1000 Stars was an Oscar night event at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I snuck into it with a few friends and my uncle. I met her and Vivian Leigh that night. Dionne Warwick, Vivian Leigh, and Weird Al were all there. They were just three of the thousand.

We’ve a new Dinner with the Beatles podcast up. You can listen and subscribe here:

Josh Fadem is dropping by the BuckLair for a chat and a laugh Tuesday. Mike Benner is going to drop by some time as well. This is all.

You can follow us here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-buckshot-boogaloo-podcast/id447140857

Your mother will thank you.

Jordan Morris

I just finished watching Wendy and Lucy. I was thinking about making some joke about how Wendy and Lucy would be way better if it was Wendy and Lucy and Free Meatball Sandwiches or something, but I decided against. I really liked it. It kept popping up as a thing the computer thought I would like. The computer was right.

We also interviewed Jordan Morris last night. Ryan Patterson sat in with us for the evening. I thought it would be good to have him run our version of the board. Our the board isn’t much of a board though. All said, it was fun nonetheless.

Jordan has the gift of gab. He is a true gabthronologist. It was fun waxing poetic with someone who understands that the long form interviewish thing is a marathon and a sprint. It was fun having him do his thing.

And this is cool.

iTunes:

Stitcher:

http://ia700807.us.archive.org/28/items/JordanMorris/JordanMorris.mp3

Direct link:

Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thebuckshotboogaloopodcast

You can follow us here:

Your mother will thank you.

The Process of Things and Stuff

I have the following things on my mind: Yoenis Cespedes, Otis Redding, and John Cheever. I am listening to Otis Blue and thinking about reading something from The Stories of John Cheever. I have some time to burn. I never really take true advantage of the time, the precious little time I have to burn. I really don’t have too much time now. I really should probably be reading something from the book. Thinking about reading something from the book is often almost as rewarding as actually reading. Reading takes time. I usually don’t have time. I wish I did. I do now and I’m wasting it.

Otis Blue is really good though. “Wonderful World” just finished. It makes me sad. Whenever I listen to a Sam Cooke song, I can’t help but picture the picture of him slumped over dead. It’s a pretty rough image. I wouldn’t advise looking for it, though it can easily be found. It’s a weird and tragic image. It’s extremely rough. Because it is seared into my brain, my soul skips a beat when I hear “Cupid” and “Twistin’ the Night Away.”

Sam Cooke was shot in the stomach. He wasn’t truly able to develop as a musician. He wasn’t truly able to develop as a man. Development is key, sort of. Cheever talks about this a little in the preface to his Stories collection. “A writer can be seen clumsily learning to walk, to tie his necktie, to make love, and to eat peas off a fork. He appears much alone and determined to instruct himself. Naive, provincial in my case, sometimes drunk, sometime obtuse, almost always clumsy, even a selected display of one’s early work will be a naked history of one’s struggle to receive an education in economics and love.”

I think Yoenis Cespedes interests me because of the raw talent, the amazing video displaying the raw talent, and because of the expectation. I am also interested in it as a snapshot of Billy Beane’s development. The artistry of Billy Beane may or may not be a thing in reality, but evidence of his work is quite explicit. I like to see people I admire create cool, new things. Yoenis Cespedes playing right field for the Oakland Athletics bucks a trend and breaks a perception. Yoenis Cespedes might end up being somewhat pedestrian, but this isn’t the point. The process of his acquisition is what interests me.

I guess this is just a thing about how much I enjoy looking at the process. I guess. Sort of. I really should probably get around to reading something at some point today, be it Cheever or some good analytical response to the signing of Yoenis Cespedes. I should also spend some time listening to Sam Cooke. I should also spend some time trying to examine the process, the artistry of John Cheever’s transformation into John Cheever, because, in the end, John Cheever’s greatest contribution to the world might just be the way he looked… because when he was an old man, all educated in economics and love, he looked really, really cool.

Jordan Morris is dropping by the BuckLair Wednesday to chat.

You can also follow us here:

Your mother will thank you.

The Magic Hour

I was thinking about The Magic Hour a lot the other day. I’m not sure why. I don’t remember The Magic Hour very well. I know it existed and I know I watched it at some point. I don’t remember it well by any means, but it is alive in ways that many things are not. It is a thing that I can’t seem to shake. Like all good nostalgic memories, it is rooted deep. I’m not sure I’m supposed to shake it. I’m not sure what it means, but I know it has a meaning. I know it has a reason. Its existence is seared into my brain. It lives in the memory of my perception; a perception shaped by jokes and ironic digs. It’s easy to reflect on the nature of bygone things. Clips, minute passing pieces of the show and its short-lived existence can easily be found. In an attempt to fill some meaningless pop culture gap, I decided to jump back in. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure the reason, but I began, fittingly, with the Howard Stern appearance.

After a horribly bizzarre and mildly creepy initial warning bracing the audience for Howard Stern and the possibility of fart related things, I was taken on a short dizzying journey through the streets of late-nineties, pre apocalyptic (I assume) Los Angeles. The footage jostled me through the streets of Los Angeles with the help of whips, pans, and animated basketballs. The animated basketballs, in a sense (both metaphorical and not) were my guide.

I was blasted; I was shot into the studio. Shelia E. sang and danced. She sang about Magic. “Everything is magic!” she exclaimed. I believed her partially because of the way she moved and partially because of the animated basketballs that were coming out of Magic Johnson’s hands.

After calming the audience, he skipped the monologue altogether and launched into a short, awkward introduction. “Now, normally this is The Magic Hour,” he said, “but I’ve changed it for tonight. Tonight it’s the Magic and Howard show.” Applause. This made the audience happy. He stumbled, no jokes. Howard and the Losers made their way. Howard Stern and his band came out with little introduction.

The bit was bizarre, but good in its embrace of the implied chaos surrounding the show. Magic, in allowing such a thing, threw himself into the fire. The performance was a metaphorical baptism into the world of the bizarre. Robin Quivers, like a modern day carnival barker, launched into the verbal squeal that accompanies the introduction to “Wipeout” and the band began.

Howard was at a keyboard. He directed his misfits. The key was the fart. The fart of a woman took the song to another level. It was a wild moment; it was disgusting, surreal, like something I assume once bounced around the mind of a twelve-year-old David Lynch. It was a moment I could appreciate. It was a Kaufman-esque moment of brilliantly surreal infectious late-nineties pop culture. It was a manipulative movement of perfect, gratuitous, punk rock deconstruction. It was fuh-nay.

The farting lasted for a while. There was no structure. There was no purpose. In the midst of the chaos and the room elephants, the rhetoric, the reviews, the mayhem, the HIV, the HIV related jokes, the booty parties; we were given a fart solo. The fart solo meant everything and nothing. The fart solo was the ironic version of Keith Moon’s exploding drum on The Smother’s Brothers. The fart solo was the thing that pushed the moment, pushed the perception. It was the thing that helped give credence to the universal notion that The Magic Hour is, was, and probably forever will be seen as a really horrible show. The fart solo was the nail in the coffin. Sadly, we were not ready for the fart solo. The fart solo came way too soon.

I have this picture next to my bed. I have had it next to my bed since it was taken in 1990. I remember it being taken in a hurry. Magic, the same Magic, who for a time was the host of a late night talk show, was leaving a gym in Maui. He had a men’s fantasy basketball camp. It was an executive men’s fantasy camp. It was an executive men’s fantasy camp for people with money. Fantasy camps aren’t for the poor.

I have blurry images, visions of Kurt Rambis and James Worthy. I think I remember watching Jerry West shoot. The image is seared into my brain. I am pretty sure I saw him shoot, but the weight and the myth of the moment make it hard to differentiate the memory from the perception. The picture in my head is vivid, timeless. It’s a snapshot I am glad to have lodged in the recesses, even if the truth of its existence is a tad skewed.

Our stumbling upon the executive men’s fantasy camp is a thing that I really can’t comprehend as real. It is hard to digest, but the picture still exists as a measure of the actuality of the thing. The picture exists as a measure of the time I stood next to Magic Johnson—of the time I took a moment of his time. The picture is the reason that I feel this awkward pull to defend the worth of The Magic Hour. The picture has been with me for so long that I have, for periods of time, forgotten its presence. It has become as much a part of my person as anything I have ever owned. I have a wife now. I have two children. My oldest is rapidly approaching the age I was when I took a moment of Magic Johnson’s time, when he put his arm around my shoulder and ducked into the frame.

The picture has a certain sense of honesty, of sentimentality that The Magic Hour seemed to have been missing. There is a certain tension in Magic’s face. He allows himself to become a part of a memory. It probably wasn’t the first time he ducked into someone’s memory at the request of a father with a camera and an extremely shy son. He let himself be vulnerable and awkward. He didn’t really smile, but we didn’t ask him to either.

But The Magic Hour is a hard thing to defend. I would have liked to have been able to eradicate my perception of the show by watching a few select clips, but the collective seems to have been right. I guess this is something of a defense against perception, against the collective, against the collective’s callused lack of sincerity. Maybe, in his own insanely insensitive surreal way, Howard Stern was also trying to defend the collective against the perception, against the insincere.

I suppose this is also just a lousy defense of time, a defense of an important picture that acts as a memory and a moment. Maybe this is just a defense of time in relation to the collective perception. Maybe this is just a defense of rot and decay. A defense of the the magic basketballs.

I know I thought I knew Magic Johnson would be dead in 2012; I didn’t know I’d still have the picture. It’s faded, but it’s honest and true—Magic leaning, defeated, tired, willing, acknowledging in his subconscious melancholy that the picture would mean much more than it ought. Its existence almost makes up for The Magic Hour… almost.

You can also follow us here:

Your mother will thank you.

Enthusiasts

It came so much easier back when I was writing about baseball. Then we started making podcasts and the writing dropped off, eventually disappearing altogether. The drop-off began as a trickle. I would still write about the podcast and the guest of the week. The meaningless posts about metaphorical whatnots became a whole mess of nothing. I’d like to blame the dry spell on small children, but such an assessment isn’t fair to small children.

It was also much easier to write about baseball. Writing about baseball is rich and easy. Baseball is an easy metaphorical crutch. It is incredibly rich and filled with so much meaningless meaning. It is a thing filled with memories and good times ripe for literary harvest.

Watching The Late Shift the other night helped me put things in perspective. I’m not sure how, entirely, but it made me want to write about the meaning of things whose meanings are most certainly trivial and pointless.

Patton Oswalt was on The Treatment the other day. He talked with joy about being something of an enthusiast. On some level, the buckshot is a metaphor for unfocused enthusiasm. The buckshot gives license to revel without focus, which is why, instead of retreating, I plan on trying to write a bit more, and interview a broader spectrum of people. Hopefully. Maybe.

We’ve been able to wrangle some cool dudes into the garage. I’m not sure why they’ve come, but they have. Maybe it’s because we asked. Maybe it’s because they, too, recognize the importance of the enthusiast. I’m really not too sure, but it’s been really fun.

…

One of my favorite enthusiasts interviewing one of my favorite grouchy Dodger fans. If only all of our interviews could be this amazingly awkward.

You can also follow us here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-buckshot-boogaloo-podcast/id447140857

Your mother will thank you.

The Late Shift

The past two nights I have been watching The Late Shift in ten minute chunks on YouTube. It’s an amazing watch. The whole thing plays like a weird dream. The whole thing plays like a gumbo, like a poor man’s soup, a delicious poor man’s soup. The events of the shift come together in odd, strange ways. The whole thing is confusing and poorly assembled, but there is a certain method to the madness. The method and the madness work together in good ways. I imagine the book is a good read, but there is something beautifully horrible in the assemblage of the varying parts that makes it fun and interesting. The Late Shift is like a weird monster made of gumbo and bad impressions.

Rich Little plays Johnny Carson. This is a good thing.

You can watch the whole thing here:

The Late Shift

New pods coming soon! Many! All of them quite good. I think. I hope.

June Diane Raphael

June Diane Raphael dropped by for our first full length podcast of the new year. She was great and cool. She told many a fun story. It was also nice to kind of get the beginning of the year monkey off the proverbial back. We’ve some fun dudes and dudettes lined up. Listen and tell your friends.

iTunes:

Stitcher:

http://ia700206.us.archive.org/8/items/JuneDianeRaphael/JuneDianeRaphael.mp3

Direct link:

Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thebuckshotboogaloopodcast

You can also follow us here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-buckshot-boogaloo-podcast/id447140857

Your mother will thank you.

State of the Pod!

Mike Sycz joins us for a short and sweet pod. We discuss the reason for the mini-hiatus and talk up plans for the new year. This is a re-upload. The first had some glitch. We’ve June Diane Raphael up next week. Stay tuned for good time fun!

iTunes:

Stitcher:

http://ia600806.us.archive.org/16/items/StateOfThePod_437/StateOfThePod2.mp3

Direct link:

Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thebuckshotboogaloopodcast

You can also follow us here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-buckshot-boogaloo-podcast/id447140857

@mikesycz

Your mother will thank you.

Todd Strauss-Schulson

The wonderfully affable and comically comical Todd Strauss-Schulson dropped by the BuckLair for a chat about movies and life (but mostly movies). Aside from Josh, Todd is the first movie director to set foot in the lair. He was nothing short of amazing (though the ghetto toddies may have aided in his amazingness, I still contend he would have been amazing nonetheless). That said, you should listen to this podcast and you should listen well.

iTunes:

Stitcher: