Jordan, Jesse, GO! - Ep. 190: One of the Guys with DC Pierson

Episode Date: September 5, 2011

D.C. Pierson, novelist, standup and member of Derrick Comedy joins Jesse and Jordan to talk about magazines, television shows and more.

Give a little time for the child within you, don't be afraid to be young and free. Unto the locks and throw away the keys, and take off your shoes and socks and run you. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. And I'm Jordan Morris, boy detective. And this is... Jordan, Jesse, go! Icicles, tricycles, ice cream, candy, lollipops, popsicles, licorice sticks, Solomon, friendly, go.

We're joined by D.C. Pearson. And finally, somebody takes on the insane clown posse. Okay, let's go. Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. Dusk in Los Angeles. The sunlight dappling the sky trees.

The Scientologists coming out of their cocoons to greet the night. My tailor went and I went and ordered a jacket. Congratulations on having your own tailor. A tailor here in Los Angeles. By the way, let's bring in our guest here before I get into this tailor situation. His name is D.C. Pearson. He's a celebrated novelist. He's an acclaimed writer and actor of the film Mystery Team.

He is the star of a one-man show, America's most beloved theatrical form. He recently wrote for the Video Music Awards. Oh. Is this true? Yeah. Hey, guys.

What's up? How's it going? I ran out of stuff. I didn't want to chime in until you ran out of superlatives. I wanted to see how deep it would go. I was pretty sure I saw him slightly out of focus in the background of an episode of Community. That's correct. I've also been in focus in a couple of them. Excellent.

I've had one to two lines in a couple of episodes of Community. Excellent. Wait, in the world of Community, are you a character who goes to the school? I am, in fact. My character's name is Mark. It was Mark, and I saw in the script initially, in the first episode that I was in, it was spelled M-I-L-L-O-T,

and I decided that it was pronounced Milot, or that at least my character would pronounce it Milot. Oh, okay. Not Mio. No, no. That's a bit much. Right, exactly. No, I don't think he would know to pronounce it that way.

What kind of a guy is Mark Millow? Where does he see himself in five years? Well, he's very big into extracurricular activities. What about curricular activities? He's super into curricular activities. He's extra into curricular activities. Right. And then he's super into extracurricular activities.

Do you have high hopes that your recurring, extremely minor character on Community will become a beloved fan favorite like Dino Stamatopoulos' did? Well, mine doesn't have an interesting... Physical attribute. Physical attribute, yeah. Like Starburns, of course.

But Dino is also a fixture on the writer writing staff he's like i'm not sure what kind of executive producer or something he is but he's like a big creative force on that show actually but it's great because i think it's reasonable to say also uh celebrated public madman yeah um noted eccentric. Demos Damatopoulos. Sure. Yeah. Do you ever think of maybe like rending control of the writing staff away from Demos Damatopoulos so you can create a character arc for Mark Millow where he makes out with Alison Brie? Well, I don't... Well, actually, that would be rending it. Because rending...

I believe you mean resting. W-R-E. You can rend something away. But rending is... To rend is to tear in half. You would rip it up. Yeah. So I would rend it.

Destroy the rending staff. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I would be doing, in fact. So you are correct. Yeah, exactly. You know, you try to do a lot of make-out based riffs on set where you're just, the camera's rolling and you just might grab someone's face and try to make out with them. Yeah, you see where it goes.

It's not smiled upon, but it is reacted to, certainly. It does get a reaction. Things happen after you do it. Exactly. So if that's the main goal, then that's working. I have been, because Dan Ekman, the director of Mystery Team,

and one of the members of my comedy group, Derek, is going to be directing an episode of Community coming up this season. And so he's been shadowing the directors of my comedy group, Derek, is going to be directing an episode of Community coming up this season. And so he's been shadowing the directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, on set and just kind of like learning the ropes and whatever. And he sent me a picture from set because the Community art directing or props or whatever, the art department is really, really amazing and they do really hyper-detailed stuff. And he sent me a picture of just a poster that was on a wall in a scene that's like

an advertisement for a play or something. And my character was actually in the play. Like I had a full cast list and my character's name was there. So that was pretty exciting. I'm tired of that. You're tired of hyper elaborate art? I'm tired of people sending me something that was on in the background of a sitcom. I thought that that kind of thing

ultimately was the downfall of Arrested Development. And I wish that shows would focus more of their energy and resources on having human-like characters interacting in a human-ish way. I would agree with you. A human but humor way. I would agree with you. A human but humorous way.

I agree with you in principle. I will say, though, I think since it's an entirely different department, it's not like the art department's like, oh, we forgot to write the script in all the time that we were making hyper-elaborate posters. So it's not like their effort could otherwise be going into the scripting. But that still has to be made a priority on the program. And we'll get back to my tailor in a moment. But I do agree with you in the case of Arrested Development that I think that Arrested Development basically was often much more clever than it was funny.

Yeah. And a million hipsters are screaming and they don't know why right now. And it's because someone's blaspheming their precious Arrested Development, which I will happily do. It's such a wonderful sacred cow. Hey, Arrested Development, A-. It was an excellent program. But it had its shortcomings. But Arrested Development is not the second coming of Christ,

the way people treat it. No. Especially towards the end when it barely even made sense. Yeah, and I think it was given more chances. People like to talk about it as it's the example of, oh, the show that was canceled too soon. It's like, well, no. I mean, three seasons of a show is kind of a lot. And they responded to their...

I feel like the show responded to its getting another chance by getting crazier. In a bad way. Not in a good way. Right, exactly. It'd be one thing if, like, no, they're sticking to their vision or they're sticking to their guns. It's like, no, you just decided to make it crazier. Yeah, they really doubled down on the nuttiness. Yes.

I think the, yes, the Charlize Theron-related nuttiness. My problem with that show was that you would always just, you could really see the gears grinding, especially as time went on in terms of, like, oh, there's a big finger that's in the background of this first scene and there's another thing and whatever it's like these all things all these things are going to converge at the end and after a while once you see the the behind the curtain a little bit too much it's like okay they're all going to come together at the end i know that's going to happen charlie's there and volunteers to be on your show do you have to take her because she won an oscar she just breezes in she just walks into an already they're already shooting and she just walks into a scene and the other actors know that they have to that's just

hollywood you know she did win an oscar right or did she was she nominated for an oscar for the one where she was in her yeah where she played one of the monsters from monsters inc right right it was a prequel it's a prequel it was before they it they incorporated themselves. Yes, pre-incorporation monsters. And before there was only one of them. At the end, it's her walking into a corporate lawyer's office to actually get incorporated. Right. And she's got the blood of people she's murdered on her hands. While we're on the subject of the film Monster, here's something that happened at my job recently.

Here's something that happened at my job recently. Pauly Shore was a guest on the TV show I work for is The Daily Habit on Fuel TV. And it has a portion of the show where a panel of comic people and people from CW shows watch funny Internet videos and then kind of goof on them. This is called The Daily Tosh 2.0. Yes. Sponsored by The Soup. Brought to you, yeah. It's called all television shows.

And Pauly Shore was the guest. And kind of the first thing that came up with Pauly Shore was they wanted the staff to write a little sketch for him to be in. So, you know, we wrote five different examples. They were all pretty funny, but they all hinged on assuming he would want to do the weasel voice, buddy. I was going to guess that.

They all featured that as kind of a thing that happens in all of the sketches. Can I ask a point of clarification? When you say they wanted him to be in a sketch, are you referring to executives at Fuel TV or the people who control the career of Mr. Pauly Shore? Shore Incorporated. In this case, it was Fuel TV people. Okay. They said, Pauly shore's coming on we you

know lightning in a bottle right we gotta strike while this iron's hot sketch comedy legend paulie right i know known for his versatility sure and acting um and being funny sure and humor uh so but but we so we sent all these things off and then then a day before, Pauly Shore told everyone that he no longer does the weasel voice. He does not do that anymore. Interesting. Does he perform for money anymore? He does. He has a Showtime special.

Oh. That has some sort of narrative through line. It's called Shore Thing. Right. It's called Pauly, in parentheses, Jersey Shore. That would be, that's the way he should go right but one of the characters names on that is is there a polly that polly d right and there's also his last name is shore there yeah he's back uh right in the zeitgeist yes nestled and you guys didn't you guys didn't write that no uh-uh you didn't write polly jersey shore we probably should

have it was right there i don't mean no no it's not the kind of thing I'm saying like, oh, that's gold. I'm just saying it's there. Right. It's quarter to five. Pauly Shore's not going to complain about it. Right. No. Well, if it contains the weasel voice, he will.

This is no In the Army Now. Yeah. I know In the Army Now, and this, sir, is no In the Army Now. Says Pauly Shore. This isn't even a first draft of jury duty yeah and then he's like as he's like putting his his papers together and putting them back in his briefcase as he's about to huff out of your office like anyway uh we saw and you're like what what did you say he's like nothing nothing i didn't say anything he's like we saw he can't help it is that about gnarly grindage were you saying something under your breath about gnarly grindage?

Were you? No. Were you, Pauly? Yeah. Buddy. And then he's back. So you were saying, I'm sorry. Oh, on the, and yes, I promise this will relate to the movie Monster.

So Pauly Shore just did a thing where he watches the internet videos and riffs on them. And all of his remarks are nonsense. Like, I don't even know what he's talking about. It's just crazy. And they had one of the videos, it was just kind of about this crazy redneck on the local news who chased his neighbors with a chainsaw. Sure.

And this thing also has a studio audience of extras, background players. Are they all dressed in various period costumes? They're extras of other shows. Yeah, there's some Romans. Some Boardwalk Empire guys. A few Victorian ballroom dancers. Totally.

A cop, an Indian, a construction worker. Spaceman. Spaceman. Various Spaceman. Larry Spaceman. Starburns. Starburns so they're all like between 19 and 22 and just confused looking at the time i was there they looked confused yes they're very confused they're very upset in general they don't want to be there uh and they're all dressed kind

of slutty okay men the men and the women. Okay. So Pauly Shore is talking about this video featuring the redneck guy, and he's like, you know what this guy looks like? He looks like he's from that movie Monster. And then no one laughs. He's like, guys, you know, the movie Monster. I just thought that was funny that Pauly Shore thought that was going to get this huge laugh of recognition. Yeah, Pauly Shore's like, listen, I know I don't seem super in touch.

I'm not really, like, of this era. Right. But I know that the kids love rape revenge dramas. Rape revenge dramas based on a true story from 2000. It's like, I know a thing or two about critically acclaimed middle-brow films. But it's so weird that he said it like he was pandering. Like, he said it like it was like... Twilight. Yeah, like he's saying, you know,

this guy's gonna give Team Edward a run for his money. You know, it made about as much sense as that. Yeah. And he was just surprised that it didn't get like this round of applause. That's what he should have done. He should have said, this guy's on team Eileen Wuornos. And that would have probably won the day. I'm team Christina Ricci in an arm cast.

It's weird what people think they won't do anymore or the decisions they arbitrarily make about what they will and won't do or how they're perceived as though everyone's thinking about Pauly Shore all the time. And being like, man, if he comes out and does that weasel voice, that means he's all washed up. But if he comes out and defies our expectations, then he's back. Then Pauly's back. Yeah. Like anyone even cares a little bit whether he does one of those things or the other.

Exactly. I read an interview with, I read much of an interview with Larry the Cable Guy that our friends in the AV Club did. Yes. And he has a complicated set of context in which he does or doesn't do various degrees of Larry the Cable Guy, the character. Because Larry the Cable Guy, the character, is like a down homeboy, you know? And he's dumb as a stone. Yeah. I watched a little bit of uh

i had on one of those blue collar comedy things uh while i was just kind of cleaning because he just wanted to laugh you know i know you just want to laugh and he did a big thing about how he likes taking a dump in the cripple bathroom and uh the actual the guy who plays Larry the Cable Guy is kind of like a veteran Midwestern road comic who just invented Larry the Cable Guy. It started as a funny phone call for morning zoo radio shows. Exactly. And then it became such a thing that people no longer recognize it as a character. And he's billed as Larry the Cable Guy. And he hosts this show for Discovery or something like that called...

History Channel. History Channel. There you go. Called Made in America. It'd be funny if Larry the Cable Guy hosts a show for the History Channel where he, like, toured concentration camps. But it's like in, like, Errol Morris, like, Mr. Death kind of way, where he's going there to, like, discredit the concentration camps.

Like, this is what I'm doing here. Get her done. Get her done. More like 6,000. Oh, really? That's what they're? Oh, I don't know. He's just, he's wanting to move the decimal point.

He's not saying it didn't happen. He's like, not as many. They killed Jews. Let's not go crazy, though. Yeah. And Larry the Cable Guy in this program explained that depending on the situation, he will do various amounts of Larry the Cable Guy. And you can tell by how much of an accent he's doing. So, like, he said when he wants to be, when something's crazy and he wants to be really funny, he'll really do the accent. But then sometimes when something's more like just a genuine one-on-one conversation

you know when he's in journalist mode he drops the accent that is amazing that he has this complicated and the reason is because he he has that same thing as uh as paully Shore has, as Andrew Dice Clay has, as I'm sure Paul Reubens has, which is you create this self-like character that is not you, and then it becomes famous as if it were a person, and then you are fucked. Yes. What are you going to do then?

Or the Verizon guy. Yeah. He decides, he's like, am I going to say, can you hear me now? he's like am i gonna say can you hear me now or am i gonna say can you hear me now uh yeah that that's very i feel like larry the cable guy is his own rizza like he's his own spiritual guidance like where the rizza guides the rest of the wu-tang clan sure the cable guy does that for himself he's like no no fall back young and don't lay into it right now i've been a spirit guide as a talking toilet

the talking cripple toilet. The talking cripple toilet. What's that cripple toilet? But then also he does the voice. Larry the Cable Guy voices a character in the Cars films. So he explained that when he is in a film and he is billed as Larry the Cable Guy, he is performing in double character. So he is performing. The character as Larry the Cable Guy

Would perform it Yes It is what if Larry the Cable Guy The character also have this Other set of given circumstances If I could borrow some Actor lingo You'd know about this you've been on Community

And so it's It's mind-bending, the levels that this can go to. But what are you supposed to do if you're Andrew Dice Clay? Yeah. If you're the Dice Man. Sure. God, I wish. You're 50 years old, 55 years old.

You don't have a savings. No. You didn't make so much money you don't have a savings. No. You didn't make so much money that you just have a lot of money left over. Right. Because you didn't live modestly. No. And America hates you when you're not doing Andrew Dice Clay voice. But America's not crazy about Andrew Dice Clay voice.

No. Sure. So you're in this position where if you go out and be yourself, America has no interest in that. They're like, fuck that. It's sort of like what if Vanilla Ice went out and created a new guy that he was. Nobody wants that. But if you don't do that. He tried to be a rap rock guy for a while.

Didn't he have white person dreadlocks? Vanilla Ice has gone through many, again, transformations where I think he thinks they're effective. He's like, now I'm doing this, and people are going to buy into that. Independently of the headline, Vanilla Ice tries his hand at blank thing. Now he has that show where he flips houses.

Wait, does Vanilla Ice have a show where he flips houses? He has a show where he flips houses. Wait, does Vanilla Ice have a show where he flips houses? He has a show where he flips houses. At least I think he either has a show or he has a website and I think wants to have a show about how he flips houses. But I think that's how he makes his money now. Does he rap at all? Is that part of the house flipping? Yes, he goes in, he records an album in there, and then he can say, you know, Vanilla Ice recorded an album here. And they're like, aren't you him?

He's like, no, I'm Dan Whitby. Robert Van Winkle. When you say he records an album, I mean, it's not actually an LP. It's just a single. He just goes and records Ice Ice Baby. He does it again. And then tells people that Ice Ice Baby was recorded in this house. He's not technically lying.

He's just singing it to the notes thing in his iPhone. They're like, hold on. By Vanilla Ice? And he says hold on. Buy Vanilla Ice? And he says, yes. Buy Vanilla Ice. I know him personally. Is Vanilla Ice, does he, I know he's a guest

at every gathering of the Juggalos. Does he put on the clown makeup before? Do you have to put on clown makeup? No, you don't. I mean, the Juggalos, and having read many Violent J interviews, because I feel like

this year in particular, he did a lot of like very legit press. Sure. He was on the AV club. He was in Andrew Nas interview. Yes. I read that Nas interview. That was incredible.

Yes. Incredible hip hop blog. And it was a really, really good interview. And I have, I've come to gain a lot of weird respect for violent J. Actually, I've read,

also read these interviews with violent J from the the insane clown posse and especially you know our friend my friend andrew naz is a man who's very knowledgeable about regional hardcore gangsta hip-hop of the 1980s and early 1990s right so he he can talk with anybody from any place about the weird like he could sit down with me and talk about messy marv or whatever like bay area you know uh uh rappers and he does that with violent jay and you're like you know this violent jay really knows a lot about that stuff you know like he's really something. But then I listened to this song that Violent Jay made with Jack White from, that

Insane Clown Posse made with Jack White from the White Stripes. Does that have solely to do with the fact that they're both from Detroit? I believe so. And I believe it was a Jack White initiated collaboration. Yeah, I think Jack White likes to make one-off singles.

Okay. And he knows about Insane Clown Posse because they're both from Detroit. Okay. And was able to get in touch with them because they're both from Detroit. And just was like, I think the idea was who would be like the nastiest people I could put on this thing that I know. And he doesn't know, you know, Luther Campbell. And Messy Marv is busy. Yeah.

And also he's just messy. He's not really nasty. He's just disorganized. He was busy with the bullies with fullies project. Messy Marv read Getting Things Done and now he's just Marv. Yeah. Regular Marv. Standard Marv.

But you were saying about, so then you read deeper into these Violent J things. So I read these Violent J things and he seems things, and he seems like a kind of an interest. He certainly knows his stuff. And then I listened to this song, and I've only listened to a couple of Insane Clown Posse songs in my life. And it had been a while since I'd listened to one. So I think I listened to Miracles

when it was a viral phenomenon. When I listened to this, I'm like, well, maybe Miracles is an exception and maybe they're competent, hardcore rappers. But ultimately, at the core of the Insane Clown Posse is they are genuinely bad rappers. That's the thing. They are sub-professional rappers.

And they're not even just sub-professional rappers for 2011. They would be bad rappers in 1988. They could potentially be professional rappers in 1988. But you have to go back 25 years into hip-hop's history to get to the point where they are competent rappers. Where their level of development as linguists matches the standard of the day. It says something about an artist where I can be like, yeah, I actually really respect them a lot, but only when I don't consume the art that's supposedly their primary thing. It's called the Kevin Smith factor. The Kevin Smith factor.

When I started thinking about this, I was i was thinking like so how could this be like how could these guys have this in-depth understanding of these these regional hip-hop forms from the early 1990s and this and this passion for hardcore hip-hop and then i realized you know what a guy who works at the stop and go like a 38 year old guy who works at the stop and go, like a 38-year-old guy who works at the stop and go in Detroit, also probably has an in-depth understanding and passion for the music when he was 17 years old that dumb people listen to. Like, he's just a normal 38-year-old dumb person. Yes. I can't give him extra credit just because he really remembers well the music of his childhood. I guess I give him extra credit for just having a huge chasm between his public persona and the kind of guy he actually,

it sounds like he maybe is in real life. In the sense that he's not actually an insane clown. Yes, exactly. But also, isn't there something also to be said for they've been doing this for so long, and when I read up on them, I read about their continuity. The mythology, the mythos.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess they... The Dark Carnival. Right. The Joker's cards. Sure. I guess they put out album concept, several albums. It's a trilogy or something.

Anyways, but they put out so much music, you'd think just from a Malcolm Gladwell point of view, they would at least get... That they would have gotten their 10,000 hours in by this point? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I guess I wonder, are they so bad just because they're stupid? I think they're just bad. I think they picked something to do primarily that is never going to be a strength of theirs.

Like, if I try as hard as I possibly can to get 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours of playing basketball, I'm still not going to be a good basketball player. A remotely competent even basketball player. What's amazing about what they do is they openly admit that they never wanted to be musicians. They wanted to be professional wrestlers. Yes. But they were too kind of, they lacked whatever it takes to become professional wrestlers. Yes. But they were too kind of... They lacked whatever it takes to become a professional wrestler. I mean, for one thing, some modicum of athleticism is involved.

I guess a willingness to be violent. And they must have some sort of performative flair, right? Because they're successful in their own lane. But just the idea that they that what defines a popular rapper in their context is well we couldn't become prof we didn't have what it takes to become professional wrestlers and it's not like they were just they were semi-professional like they were on the circuit working hard they couldn't make it like They didn't have what it took to become the kind of professional wrestler that just once a week goes down

to a gym with folding chairs in Daly City outside of San Francisco and hits somebody with barbed wire or whatever. I do think they must be done. Or barbed wire. Or barbed wire. The TV show The Wire's mom name is Or Barbara Wire. Or Barbara Wire. Or Barbara Waters.

The TV show The Wire's mom name is Barbara Wire. She's very nice. But it does say something. I think they must be dumb because their fallback plan from one insane kind of career goal was another entirely insane career goal. I'm going to be a rapper again in their own representation of their origin story they moved from the suburbs to the hood because they were inspired by gangsta music yep they are the person that tipper gore imagined that is they are white kids from the suburbs who moved to the inner city and adopted criminal behavior to pursue a life of crime

because they listened to too much rap music. Because that's the thing. Rap music was their third backup plan. They couldn't become professional wrestlers, so they decided to become actual, literal, hardcore gangsters. Couldn't cut it there. And then we're like,

well, what if we rapped while we wore these outfits we made? literal hardcore gangsters couldn't cut it there. And then we're like, well, what if we wrapped while we wore these outfits we made? Yeah, I guess, I guess like the, yeah, another,

another parallel to that would be kids who love marijuana so much they go out to find heroin. Yeah. They're basically like a thing that no one who is like a right thinking liberal person wants to admit exists. They're like a person who listens to some kind of media and they actually are influenced by it to the point where they start practicing actual negative behaviors they are the people people who live in the inner city and make rap music understand that it's not a literal representation of reality and that is the thing that these these guys are so dense that they they thought that's what it was

they thought it was like a good plan for them and not just as a metaphor you know not in the like jay-z sense where we're like taking this and applying it to that and it's all about the hustle and oh well this is an exciting way to tell a story about the hustle or rises and falls or the way the system keeps us down. They just thought the lesson of rap music was – Do this. Do this. I was – I watched – I went to see the movie Attack the Block recently. Great movie.

Very good movie. And this is a movie – it's a British movie. movie. It's a British movie. It is a... And it's about these kind of British... These kind of lower middle class kids who live in a housing project called The Block. And they have to kind of fight off these aliens.

And there's this line that I really, really liked when I was listening to the movie. You know, there's kind of a lot of chaos going around and everybody's blaming the kids. So it's kind of like, oh, how does the outside world see these kids when they're just trying to fight these aliens? They're just trying to fight these aliens, man. They're trying to fight the aliens.

I'm just trying to fight these aliens, man. I wake up every day trying to fight these aliens. No one says to them, like, are you guys in a gang? And they say, and one of the kids says, wake up, this isn't about gangs or drugs or rap music or violence in video games. This is about aliens attacking. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of a cool line. But then I thought, like, oh, I guess, are there Tipper Gore-like parent groups anymore that still complain about rap music and violent video games? Violent video games, absolutely.

Yeah, I would say so. I feel like I haven't even – I mean, I remember the C-SPAN things when I was a kid where they were – where there was a bunch of old C-SPAN guys looking at Mortal Kombat being played on a TV. But I'm like, does that happen anymore or is that just – is it just understood that video games and rap music are violent? I remember – I don't know enough about it to even try to parse out what the actual details were but there was a i believe a supreme court case or something close to it where they ruled that because people were trying to get it so that certain video games you had to have you had to be of a certain age to like buy them uh and i think that got like overturned or not upheld joe lieberman is concerned about it to some extent.

Oh, okay. I mean, to the extent that he always sounds like he's about to cry. Yeah. And also, I would love it if he was just a fan of video games in general and he didn't want violent video games because he wanted them to expand their palette. Joe Lieberman's like, I want more weird Japanese games where you're a flower seed being buffeted about by the winds. He's like, what about innovative play schemes? Have you played the Portal series? Innovative play schemes sounds like a protagonist in an 80s movie

who's good at computers would go work there, but it would turn out to be a crazy, evil place that he had to bring down from the inside. I also will say about Attack the Block, you did put me in mind of thinking about, I would love it if that instead of like stealing drugs to try to get by, that wasn't the predominant theme in hip-hop it was instead that fighting aliens like i just get

up every day i'm gonna fight these motherfucking aliens grinding we on the grind son yeah we got to take care of our own out here because these cops won't fight these aliens we gotta fight these aliens man i get up i get my katana sure We'll be back in just a second on Jordan Jesse Go. It's Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's Radio Sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. DC Pearson, Master of Calamity. That's great. Yep. It's right there with us,

you know? Yeah. Love it. Trying to establish consistency. So I was traveling the city of Los Angeles on a sartorial adventure with a writer and reporter from Gentleman's Quarterly magazine. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Sure. And the premise of this thing is I'm going to go to do different activities. So I visited my friend Raul, who has a custom shoe shop on La Brea here in Los Angeles called Don V.A. that I highly recommend if anyone is interested in handmade custom shoes.

And I went to my tailor. And what is this going to be for Gentleman's Quarterly? Either the magazine and the website or just the website. They don't know yet. Will it accompany some naughty pictures of someone from mad men yeah almost certainly okay um that's the main kind of thing they're kind of scraping the barrel though it's gonna get to sally draper quicker than we would necessarily like and one right yes we've already and one surprisingly good piece of feature writing and also like a

profile of j Biel. And then an interview with the comedian where the interviewer is trying to be funny and you can even read in the text that the comedian is annoyed. We were, yes. And the first, and the lead on that Jessica Biel article is, Jessica Biel polishes off her third beer.

I'm just one of the guys, she says. Ah, podcast over podcast over um you were saying i'm sorry i was so my uh my tailor is a custom the custom tailor here in los angeles and swift what taylor swift oh dear oh dear i would i just is there a non-custom tailor is there a tailor that What? Taylor Swift. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. I would... I just... Is there a non-custom tailor? Is there a tailor that you go and they go, I don't... I don't...

I don't... I don't take things... I sewed these how I wanted them to. You can take them or not. Right. So, but I have... I have a tailor who does alterations on ready-to-wear clothes. Okay.

And then I have a tailor that makes clothes. I see. Okay. And I don't make a lot of clothes for myself. It's very unusual because it's expensive. Yes. But in this case, it's relatively inexpensive. This is a Koreatown tailor.

He's been in the business a long time. And he has this, his, like a lot of like Los Angeles businessmen, his office and his public space is filled with pictures of him and celebrities. And because he's a custom tailor, and because there are relatively few of these in Los Angeles, just maybe 10 or 12, and because he sometimes does film work especially, there's a lot of pictures of him with famous people.

So, you know, he makes clothes for Ray Charles, and he makes clothes for Prince, and he makes clothes for Will Smith. Prince just brings him a pair of pants and says, cut the ass out of this. Exactly. Don Johnson, like all kinds of odd.

There was a picture of him in Albert Brooks. So I guess he must've made something for Albert Brooks. And so that's like, that's fine. Yeah. Like I don't really care, but it's fine. But we got a little tour because the guy from gq was there and the

photographer was there want to take pictures behind the scenes and everything we got a little tour of the shop and uh mr lim was telling us about you know he's been there 40 years and he bought the store in 1972 you bought the building in 1972 after he came from korea in 1968 or some shit and this is all good lovely. And I noticed that there is, there's a wall of folders that contain people's patterns. And one, and it's sort of like, it's just on bookshelves with sort of cubbies.

And one entire floor to ceiling row has a label at the top that says church of Scientology. So I started talking to Mr. Lim, and apparently all of the clothing worn by the upper echelon of the Church of Scientology, including both standard clothing and Scientology vestments, is made by Mr. Lim. So they will come to him with a drawing for what an ultra-genius space alien that uses 100% of his blood brain, or whatever it is, wants to wear, and he makes it.

Do they have crazy space robes? I think they do have secret space roads. I guess I'm imagining in my head right now the movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes, where there's that race of bald men that worships a bomb. I'm imagining those clothes. I'm imagining because I just... Oh, you know what, though? I said okay, but actually I was thinking of Driving Miss Daisy. Is that a different thing?

It is. It is a completely... I mean, it's also a film. But no, where he's wearing one of those hats with a little black brim, you know? I'm thinking, yeah, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Very different science fiction movie. But there's that scene in Driving Miss Daisy where she's like, what are you doing, you dummy? And he goes off the road, and then a crack opens up in the earth, and then they fall down.

That's in Driving Miss Daisy, right? It's a prequel to Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Right. Different film. Right. Driving Miss Daisy to Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Yes, Driving Miss Daisy. They both have powerful messages about race relations.

And bomb worship. I honestly, you know, what's actually pretty decent is Rise of the Planet of the Driving Miss Daisy. It is. I'm like, do they need to remake this? Of the traveling pants. Didn't they just remake this? I will say I was not imagining that when you were describing these space robes. I was imagining because I can't get him out of my head since he was mentioned at the beginning

of the story, and he has a very one-drop effect on any story where it just becomes about him for me. I was imagining Prince robes because Prince was mentioned well that's the thing i mean maybe he just maybe he's just a huckster and he's reselling the old prince outfit well here's your spaceman outfit and they're like we're gonna need an extra ass in this because we have two asses technically i mean the good news is that the head of the church of Scientology is 5'1 and wears pumps. Yeah. So it works out fine.

Yeah. It works out fine. Now, is that Tom Cruise or is that David Miscavige? Yeah, sure. Okay, sweet. Yeah. Fair enough. How much of her brain do you guys think Sheila E. uses?

Well, I mean, she's got a lot of Toms. You got to take that into account to go... She has now joined the Church of Scientology and she's now known as Sheila E. Meter. lot of toms. You gotta take that into account to go... She has now joined the Church of Scientology and she's now known as Sheila E. Meter. We did it! This other podcast is over. That is fascinating. So did you get...

Can you describe them? No, because it's secret. Oh, so he wouldn't let you look at them. So I don't get to look at it. But it's just in a peachy folder. You could have just swiped it. Well, it's not in a peachy folder, Jordan don't get to look at it. But it's just in a peachy folder. You could have just swiped it. Well, it's not in a peachy folder, Jordan. What's a peachy folder? I guess I was imagining a peachy folder. What's a peachy folder? When you say folder, Jordan imagines peachy folders.

Just something you would put in a... Oh, like a manil... No, not a manil envelope, but just one of those kind of... I guess I don't know what they're called. The other day, I was trying to explain to Jordan how to use the Windows file system. Okay. And I said, double-click on that folder. And he said, what folder? And I realized he didn't recognize

it because it didn't have line drawings of teenagers playing various sports on the outside. It was not Lisa Frank. It wasn't a unicorn. I was confused. Jordan is completely perplexed. I actually have a question. The other

week we actually talked about Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Okay. Because I went to see it with our friend Adam Lissagor from You Look Nice Today because in like the second, my baby was like 10 days old. And it was my like daddy's day out. Right. Was to go with Adam and see this movie. And it turns out that the whole movie is about father-son relationships going horribly awry. And so it really upset me.

And we have a similar conflict going on or situation going on in our house right now, which is this. My wife feeds the baby in the middle of the night using her boob milk. The baby is becoming super intelligent. I will say that before we go go on, that ten days into your baby being born, it's better to have a daddy's day out

than it is to have a baby's day out. A la the film Baby's Day Out, because no good can come of your newborn baby wondering a comic metropolis. And if at any point

Dunstan wants to check in... You don't let him. You say, no, thank you. Whoa, Dunstan checks in in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Where's the crossover there? Oh, I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah. Was Dunstan... At in in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Where's the crossover there? Oh, I don't know. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Was Dunstan, at what point does he look out of his hotel window? Richard Belzer is in both of those. And Caesar's running by. Yeah. The Belzer's in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Yeah, he plays the same character. He doesn't, in Law and Order.

So these all take place in the same universe. But you were saying, I'm sorry. So my wife has to get up in the middle of the night. And also, there's just a lot of time that my wife is either feeding the baby, trying to get the baby to go to sleep, um, or I'm trying to get the baby to go to sleep where you can't really do something. You can't really do an activity. I mean, there's a little bit of time where it's possible to like put the baby in a wrap and do a little bit of cleaning up or something like that.

But really, you have to constantly be moving this baby or feeding it or whatever. And so the real choice you have is to watch television. That's the only thing you can do in addition to, or to have a chat. You can maybe play Battleship. It's tough to read a book because a lot of times you have to be bouncing up and down

or rocking in a rocking chair or whatever. And so there are some good television programs, you know, and we've seen most of them. And so we're left with the rest of television programs. realized that it is spectacularly difficult to find a program that is good enough to watch, but also not upsetting if you're watching it at three o'clock in the morning and you're like a little bit groggy. Well, I will say, first of all, I was just realizing this the other night that there is a really shocking amount of like good television underground or like good like things like you know in music when someone's like oh i like this band and you could very easily if you know just a little bit about music be like oh you would like these people and these people and these people like oh i don't

really i didn't really know about them but just i think with the way that tv is structured and especially the way that we consume it now like there's so few canonical tv shows you can expect this is really really good that everyone and by, I guess I mean like white people in their mid-twenties and thirties who like went to a nice college, haven't seen. Like I was talking to somebody at a party the other night and they were like, oh, we're watching this on Netflix. What are you watching? Like what TV shows are good that we should

watch? And I was thinking, I was like, I know you're going to have seen them all. You've definitely seen Deadwood. You've definitely seen Breaking Bad. You've definitely seen The Wire. I'm at the point where I want to say, like, unless you have a real specific observation about Breaking Bad, don't just say it's

good because we know. The sun rises in the east. Yeah, exactly. The same thing with The Wire. At this point, I am tired of there being a direct line between a show being good and a show being edgy.

Absolutely. Well, I've long hated edginess. I am not bothered by swearing. Nope. I have no problem with swearing at all. I am not bothered by, like, serious themes. But I just, you know, I feel like it,

in my mind, I blame it all on The Shield. Yeah. And before The Shield, I guess, NYPD blue-showing butts. But, like, there's this thing that, you know, like, not every good television program has to be both high concept and upsetting. Mm-hmm. I also could use a TV show where the protagonist has merely a single life. Yes. I don't need them to always have a double or triple life.

Like I kind of, I see Showtime as the sort of main, you know, like place where all they looked at HBO, I think in the early 2000s and HBO was getting all this press for being super edgy and people like this is TV for adults and HBO or Showtime saw that and very much like a six-year-old being like, I'm just going to mimic how that looks, not what it's actually about. They were just like, we'll have every show will be filled with sex

and everyone's a serial killer. It's like one of those games where you fold a piece of paper into three and then three different people draw a part of an animal without looking at the other third. It's as though they create their programs that way. Like the head is just a talented actress who is a little bit too old to be getting a lot of movie work and then the middle is just some crazy shit they thought of yep and then the end is drugs

some gay guy that they know that they think is funny yes exactly and they just put those things together and they have... I remember trying to watch Nip Tuck when I was in college. Oh, God. That's the ultimate. That's the apotheosis of this. And basically, it's like when you look at these things and they're just hyper slick, like they want to be very edgy and be very disturbing to you,

but yet they take place in these beautiful magazine worlds where everything's super glossy and beautiful the way nothing is in real life. And then they still want to be emotionally affecting to you and be disturbing. And it's like, this can't be disturbing. You're just basically being like a 16-year-old goth shoving pins in your nose, meaning, isn't this fucked up? And I'm like, no, not really. That's the fleshy part of your nose. Nothing's at risk here. And so my issue is that my poor wife needs something to watch. And what happens is this. Like, we'll try and watch a program, and even an acclaimed program, like Modern Family.

We tried to watch Modern Family, and my wife has been watching it. And it has the advantage of not being faux edgy. So that's good. However, what will happen as I'm watching an episode of Modern Family is they'll do something that's so fucking retarded, that's so insultingly inane. Like, I was watching an episode of this show the other day, and I haven't watched very many of them. I watched the pilot, and loyal Jordan Jesse Go go listeners may remember that it incensed me. I thought it was both in, in,

inane and possibly racist. But, um, uh, I, I, I watched, I watched a more recent episode and it was much better than the pilot as, as most,

you know, later episodes of a sitcom are, you know, you gotta take some time to find the characters and find your rhythm and so forth and in a lot of ways it's a perfectly good show i mean it definitely had funny things in it and stuff you know like it wasn't a bad like i'm a i'm ambivalent about the premise of this is a documentary when they're not doing the premise of this is a documentary. I mean, not nuts about that. I kind of feel like you got to earn that.

I agree. But you know, there's different stuff about it. I'm not crazy about, I don't like, I don't like all dads being idiots. Not crazy about that. But what happened in this show is it's some funny stuff happened.

And then at the end, the sensible mom who's married to President Dumb Dad, she just had a monologue that was maybe 40 seconds long where she just said the moral of the show while they played a montage of people learning the moral of the show underneath her saying it.

She just said it. She didn't even say it in the context of the show. Like it wasn't even as though she said Joe learned this. And then it was just a broad general moral that she delivered in the form of a monologue. And it's not even that she said it about herself. As she said it, they ran this montage of all the different characters of the show learning their fucking lesson.

Yeah. Didn't we say that sitcoms don't have to have lessons in like 1990? Like, Jesus Christ. And look, I'm not even against... Jesse, it's Shakespearean. I'm not even... It's what it's supposed to be.

I'm not even against... You can't see it's Shakespearean. I'm not even... It's what it's supposed to be. I'm not even against things having messages. Mm-hmm. But, like... You're against the wrap-up montage. I'm against the idea that it's like the reality... It's like how in reality television shows, they just tell you what just happened, and then they tell it to you again in a different form,

and then they show you a graphic on the screen that says, this just happened. And then they recap it when they come back from commercial like are people so fucking idiotic that they cannot that they cannot infer anything that they're incapable of inferring something yes okay so i see why you didn't like i i can see why you didn't like rise the planet of the apes because or why it affected you so much is because you're not a fan of dads being idiots. And in that, there was a dad that was, you know, had Alzheimer's and there was a drug where he didn't have it anymore. He was literally demented.

Yeah. Exactly. Oh, you missed, you probably maybe went out to the bathroom during the part where they said he had Alzheimer's and you just thought, oh, who's this goofy comic relief? But I think. He can't watch himself. I think this is like drawn into sharp relief for me by the fact that I've been watching a lot of Cheers lately. And Cheers is a program where nothing is reinvented. There is no new thing on Cheers, now or then.

Even in 1984. I think beer had just come out, though, right? That's true. That's a good point. The postal service. Norm was just bursting onto the scene. There had been a real paucity of Norms. Norm was the first Norm.

Yeah. But maybe wasn't it a sitcom about a... Wasn't it important because it wasn't a family sitcom? No, because there had been Mary Tyler Moore. Well, but it also wasn't a workplace. I mean, I guess it was a workplace for some of the characters. But I think the thing that was revolutionary about it was probably, was it those like the will they, won't they, Sam and Diane kind of things?

No, I think it wasn't. When was Moonlighting? I mean, I feel like will they, won't they? I mean, but here's the thing. So nothing about Cheers is revolutionary in any way. Many of the characters are very simple. You know, Carla is simple. She hates Diane.

She's a fuck machine. She's mean to customers. She's a mean, mean fuck machine. She's always poor and pregnant, and she has a shitty ex-husband. Right? Like, that's Carla for for you right and but she at the but at the end of the day like she's got she's got a lot of heart oh she's in love with sam too you know like the the characters norm is just drinks all the time but everyone likes him anyway

like that's norm's character you know so they're they're very it's a simple program but there is there are never any moments where they just tell you something. They don't need to because they're not fucking retarded. I think that's what that is, honestly, is it's not that I don't think that they're like, our audience is dumb. We need to communicate some kind of message to them. What that is, is dumb people shorthand for good writing. It's not even them trying to prove something to what they perceive as a dumb audience.

I think it's executives or whoever it is. I've never seen Modern Family. I've been told I would like it. But I know the type of thing you're describing. And what I think that that does is because people don't believe that pure comedy is as artistically viable or good or worthy than they do of, like, some comedy with, like, a dramatic undertone where we kind of lay in what the actual message is. tone where we kind of lay into what the actual message is so i think for that reason like a show like i don't know i would say like 30 rock although 30 rocks won a ton of emmys and whatever on the whole is never there are certain people that are never going to like 30 rock as much as they do modern family because modern family they're like yeah but there is like some heart

there you know they're not just doing like their little jokes but here's whereas 30 rock is all their little jokes which are amazing you won't find a bigger advocate for heart than me. Me and heart and comedy, like, I fucking love heart. Me too, me too. That's my number. That's something I would be inclined to complain about with Arrested Development. And I'm not saying that it is that they are actually infusing heart. I'm just saying it's a lazy way to do that.

Yeah, I think what happens, the impression that I get is what happens in television is executives know that there's some stuff that is important for people to connect with a show. Right?

And then some talented people write a show. You know, they range, I would, they probably range on the scale of seven to ten in how talented they are.

Like, even the least talented people are still reasonably talented it's a hard job to get and then the really talented people are really really talented the sevens had just wanted to be wrestlers previously yeah exactly they went through a period where they thought they could be inner city drug dealers they started smoking marijuana they started their own gang they tried to start their own gang i think they successfully started their own gang but they just weren't tough enough right yeah so um and then just what happens is the executives just read something and the executives just say instead of having that thing in the thing just just say it a few times.

Just say it over and over. And even, you know, it's especially true in reality television. I mean, I'll watch, I don't watch a lot of the nonfiction television programs, but, you know, I'll watch a little bit of like an Anthony Bourdain. And even when, like, Anthony Bourdain, number one, does this all the time. Anthony Bourdain, number one, does this all the time. And number two, his idea of rebelling against it is to do it while also kind of saying, like, hey, we're doing it. Yeah. That doesn't count.

You don't get to do it. Oh, is he like, I guess you want a message. Yeah. So here's that message. And then he just launches into his broad, and nothing against Anthony Bourdain. No. He's one of the tops. Something that I've been thinking about a lot recently but more on the topic

not so much of emotional connection or like a lame monologue at the end of your sitcom but on the topic of like saying hey we're about to do this dumb cliche thing and then just doing the dumb cliche thing and thinking that that gets you off is that I feel like self-awareness and tell me if this makes any sense has reached it's like crack cocaine stage where now everyone can buy it and it's destroying our community.

Basically, self-awareness has been around long enough and has infused its way into a bunch of very clever people became very self-aware and were like, this is the way to show that I'm smart. They got in control of a lot of art and culture and whatever. So it got out there and it's been around long enough that self-awareness is involved in even control of a lot of art and culture and whatever. So it got out there and it's been around long enough that self-awareness is involved in even kind of the least of popular culture. Everything has a tinge of self-awareness to it. And now people that actually are not intellectually capable should not be handling the weapon of self-awareness are just fucking out there blazing away with it. And it doesn't work. I would love to hear an example of bad self-awareness or self-awareness for it. Oh gosh. I'm trying to think of example of bad self-awareness or self-awareness for its own sake.

Oh, gosh. I'm trying to think of – oh, I just think that every – I mean, this is a little more of an esoteric example. But I just know that like every – not every show, but like so many sketch shows that I see that people do or so many like stand-up bits or – because that's kind of what my world is right now – are tinged with like, yeah, I'm doing my typical joke. Here I am being this guy. But anyway, joke. Oh, you guys don't like that? Anyway, it was a stupid joke. So it doesn't matter. like, yeah, I'm doing my typical joke. Here I am being this guy. But anyway, joke. Oh, you guys don't like that? Anyway, it was a stupid joke, so it doesn't matter.

Or sketch shows or people's web series where it's all about like, I'm just trying to be an actor, but my show is about some dumb person trying to be an actor. And it's me commenting on that. And it's like, you don't get to play inside baseball.

You're not even in the game yet. You know what I mean? It's like, why don't you do a thing where you're acting like a person? Come back and talk to me when you're Oral Hershiser. Mr. Oral Hershiser. We'll be back in just game yet. You know what I mean? It's like, why don't you do a thing where you're acting like a person? Come back and talk to me when you're Oral Hershiser. Mr. Oral Hershiser. We'll be back in just a second

on Jordan Jessica. It's Jordan Jessica. I am Jesse Thorne, America's Radio Sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. D.C Thorne, America's Radio. Sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. DC Pearson, master of calamity. Shall we, Jordan, go to a few sponsorship messages? Why don't we?

DC, what kind of fuel economy you get in your motor vehicle? I think it probably should be better than it is because I think something might be weird with the engine. It makes a weird noise sometimes, but it should be good. Can I tell you a way to find out? Sure. Visit fueli.com. Okay. F-U-E-L-L-Y. Track your

fuel economy on there. You just, when you type it in on your phone or whatever, when you pump your gas. Oh, okay. And then you can compare your fuel economy to other people who have the same car as you, and you can figure out if you're getting shitty fuel economy because something's wrong with your car. Sweet. I like it.

Anyway, Fuelie.com, sponsor of our program. They've been sponsoring. Thank you to Fuelie for sponsoring our program for quite some time. You're welcome. Fuelie.com. That's a cartoon character. I invented him named Fuelie. You don't think he talks like this?

No, no, no. Thanks, guys. Is that a free gift from VMA writer DC Pearson? Yeah, Fuley.com. You guys can take that. This guy created Man Lady Gaga. I didn't know. I wish.

Did you write? Okay. No, let's talk about our sponsors. Yeah, go ahead. I have some VMA questions. And then to be continued, to be continued. Okay. Okay, so let's go to the Jumbotron now.

I don't know if you know this, but every week we share a few messages from our audience, just like a Jumbotron at the ballpark. What do we got here? Well, we got a personal message. This is from Jesse with a Y, the scourge of my beverage ordering world, to Evo. I'm going to say I-V-O. That's Evo, right? Ivo?

I think it's Ivo. Really? I think so. Well, I-V-Y is pronounced E-V. So I-V-O should be pronounced Evo. I-V-Y is pronounced E-V? It's not pronounced I-V? Like E-V covered walls

of Wrigley Field. Hmm. Right? I don't know, man. Poison Evie? Yeah, like Poison Evie. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

This was in one of the Planet of the Apes movies. It wouldn't be a funny name if it wasn't, you know, Evie. Right? Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Anyway. I concede.

This message is for either Ivo or Ivo. Hey, this message is for everybody out there. All the lovers. Who has a robot name. Ivo. Ivo. Ivy. Evie.

Ivar. Arvar. Ardvar. Here's the message. There is no one I'd rather be in an adoption waiting pool with. Isn't that sweet? Oh, that is sweet. They're going to adopt a little baby.

Oh, he's... Okay, the one isn't adopting the other one. Or are they both potential adoptees? Ivo isn't being adopted. I think they might be both waiting to be adopted. They might just be in a pool at an adoption center. Maybe, no, I thought yeah, maybe this is kind of a hey, may the better

orphan win kind of thing. Is it? Like, this is a... Oh! Like, hey, I know we're both orphans. Okay, so this is two, like, hello governor! Yeah. So, is there anyone I'd rather be in an adoption waiting pool with.

Hock two are just spitting me hand and greasing me air back. I know sometimes we scrap over the last bit of gruel. Now, I don't. Now, go on to the podcast listening station that our old school orphanage has so you can listen to Jordan, Jesse go. We also have a commercial message this week. It's from a program called How Can I Help San Diego? How Can I Help?

It's an educational television program based in San Diego. And it's all about businesses and nonprofit organizations enhancing the local economy, community, and environment by educating, implementing, creating, or currently using green practices and sustainable solutions. So it's about businesses in San Diego who are doing different stuff to promote green lifestyles and green business, which of course is like a huge, important, I mean, I think as much recycling and cutting up of six-pack things as we do like ultimately what it's really about is do you paint the roof of a giant corporate building a different color so that you save 10 000 air conditionings a year i think what would really help sandy i didn't know that the unit of

air conditioners was air conditioning like one air conditioning conditioned air it was it was actually invented by evo air conditioning yeah i should probably. It was actually invented by Evo Air Conditioning. Yeah, I should probably recuse myself from this ad because I have a program called How Can I Help San Diego, which is where we try to help out Carmen Sandiego to find job placement. Oh, okay. Using her skills. Or escape those kids that are always after her. Exactly. Or use her skills such as sneaking around, pulling the entire Taj Mahal behind her somehow.

But this sounds like a great service as well. Yeah, this is really cool. And you can see all of their episodes for free at Facebook. So if you go to facebook.com slash howcanihelpSD, not to be confused with NTSF SD SUV, our friend Paul Scheer's television program. This is howcanihelpSD, and you can like it on Facebook, and you can watch all of the episodes absolutely for free.

It's facebook.com slash howcanihelpSD. And if you want to get up on the Jumbotron, it's maximumfun.org slash jumbotron. If you want to sponsor Jordan Jesse Go or any of our Maximum Fun shows, you can email Teresa at maximumfun.org, and we'll talk to you more in just a second on Jordan, Jesse, go. Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan you. Love you. Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective.

DC Pearson, master of calamity. Having some fun with the great DC Pearson. Up here in the clubhouse. Laughing and loving. Should we call this the clubhouse? That seems kind of dorky. Yeah, it is. Well, it is.

We are kind of up high and I can look at the window and see trees. I have been meaning to institute a no girls allowed policy i just like i'm afraid their menstruating will attract bears that's reasonable yeah i mean you gotta fucking well you gotta take that into account you gotta make that part of the calculus if you will i'm worried that they'd tear our friendship apart because jordan and i seem like we'd be into the same kinds of girls. Oh, sure. Yeah, I know. Our friend Brian Fernandez is back on the boards delivering the good calls to us, and he has sent to us a moment of shame. Shall we, gentlemen? We shall. Hi, Jordan and Jesse. This is Jesse in San Francisco. I'm calling with a moment of shame

that I haven't thought about in years until your program reminded me of it. I was in an American Studies class, and it was like the sort where, you know, we'd have rap sessions about history, and I had a really big crush on the teacher, and I really wanted him to think I was cool. We were talking about Ben Franklin, and I wanted to be a bit of a Ben Franklin expert, so I said, oh, well, you know Ben Franklin. He was up to no good just chasing the muff around. And I realized by the class's reaction that I didn't actually know what muff meant

because I was a 16-year-old girl, and I was just quoting Dazed and Confused. Thank you very much. But, I mean, he did, right? He was chasing the muff around. She was smarter than she knew. He was a muff chaser of some renown, as I understand it. Feel like chasing Muff.

We got to learn to play that on the harpsichord. That is a pretty mortifying story. I feel like I have many instances of that. I wish one would spring to mind at this moment. But when you're a kid and you're trying to be precocious, and so you say and repeat something that you've heard from some kind of media that's maybe a little bit above your station, and it turns out you don't actually know what it means. Yeah. That occurred a lot. I never said chasing the muff around in a historical context, though.

Yeah. I remember I did a little short stint in Boy Scouts. Okay. And there was a box car. Not a box car. What's it when you make the little car? You don't sit in... Slot car?

Derby? Something car derby? Not a slot car. They're electric. Pine box. Pine box. Pine hat. Yes.

Pine hat Yes And this being the This being the This being whatever year it was Some kid made his pine box car to be shaped Like the Rocketeer And One of the older boys

Whispered to me in confidence Hey that guy's The Rocketeer it's more like the Rocket Queer And I did not know that Que queer was derogatory for gay I thought it meant strange So when he was racing the car I yelled out, he's the Rocket Queer And probably just seemed like the worst

It made my parents seem awful Were you excited about it? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was just something funny to say Anyway Well, let's listen to some momentous information and made my parents seem awful. Were you excited about it? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was just something funny to say. Yeah, right. Anyway. Well, let's listen to some momentous occasions. Hey, Jordan. Hey, Jesse.

This is Adam from Pennsylvania, and I'm calling with momentous occasion. So I just received my first blowjob, and immediately prior to this blowjob, I hooked my iPod up to my speaker system and put on Hot Tubbin' by Ashkahn. And I must say, it's a great song to receive one's first blowjob to.

No, it isn't. It's a terrible song. I mean, any song where you're getting a blowjob becomes appropriate. Right. Especially when you have that kind of teenage first blowjob power appropriate. Right. Especially when you have that kind of teenage, first blowjob power penis.

Yeah, yeah. Well, what do you mean? I agreed immediately and then realized I had no idea what you were referring to. I mean that when you don't have a lot of sexual experience and you're a gentleman and you have your junk down there, anything that happens to that by virtue of someone else doing it yeah

is off the charts it really is unreal yeah you it's not an experience you need to garnish in any way with music food uh anything perfume there's nothing that's going to improve it seriously a cocked eyebrow is enough to take care of business absolutely that uh i that does remind me though i will say of I do not still to this day have sex to music, really. I don't like it. It's not something I seek out. I cannot do it. I don't. I get too weirdly, I'm too affected by music's moods.

It doesn't put me in a mood, but it puts me in a certain mind of a mood, and it makes it feel too like we're trying to be cinematic or something. Right. I don't like it. It's just too pretentious. Sure, it does. If the music is too on the nose yeah that's funny and if it's a little bit off the nose that's also funny so it puts me in mind of two quick stories the first of which uh is more germane to this exact what this guy's saying whereby when i was receiving from my first girlfriend in like high school like

not my literal first blow job but what like it had to be one of the first at that point. Uh, and I had Weezer's the blue album on, uh, I didn't, I don't think I'd thrown it on. I think it was just the kind of thing. It's like, Oh, your parents are home. Let's put on some cover or whatever. Uh, the song, uh, say it ain't so was on. And I am the kind of guy who, if I know a song really well, we'll just sometimes just, I'm very annoying and that I will absentmindedly kind of sing along with it without really

realize I'm doing it. She is performing oral sex on me. I ejaculate. And absentmindedly, as I'm just kind of being like, oh, I just got a blowjob, literally just finished, I happen to sing along to it to the part where he goes, so be cool. And she whacked me. She's like, what are you doing? I was like, I wasn't thinking. I don't know what.

She's like, what does that mean? And I was like, I was just singing along with the thing. Were you saying that, what does that mean? And I was like, I was just singing along with the thing. Were you saying that blowjob wasn't cool? And I was like, be cool, baby, be cool. And that's why that blowjob was about divorce. But then the other quick story that it puts me in mind of is there was a girl that I dated in college who loved ABBA. She was like, I love ABBA. She told me that on her first date.

And I think it was the kind of thing that you sort of affect when you're in college to be like, I'm interesting. She's like, I just love ABBAba and i was like okay cool and then she went to muriel's wedding she remembered how admirable and cool the main character was um yeah i don't think she was very conversant in film um i said like that was a problem um and uh so yeah so she but then we go back and we're at her place and we're hooking up for one of the first times that we were actually like hooking up and she goes and puts on abba like she puts on i think like she's committed to her yeah and then she started we were like doing stuff and then she started like laughing and i was like what is the deal she's like oh it's just

the music and i was like do you put it on yeah like why are you having this reaction to this yeah exactly because it was silly having sex to the song Waterloo. But then she would laugh about it. I'm like, why are you laughing? And she would just, it was that. That, thank you. You're welcome. More of this at your one-man show.

Hey, JJ Go, this is Ryan from Eugene, Oregon, and I have a momentous occasion. I was writing back to work from picking up some stuff for my wife's birthday, which is this weekend. And as I'm riding down the alley, there is a McDonald's burger wrapper floating in the air about 10 feet away from anything. And as I'm riding, I'm looking at it, and it starts floating towards a dumpster. A big dumpster. The one taller than me, and it's flat on the top. And it's got the lid just a little bit open. And I'm

right in there praying, oh, I hope it goes in, and it does. It floats right in this crack that's no more than a foot tall. Floats right into the dumpster. Nature is recycling on its own now. Have a great day.

It's just nice to hear a young person who's inspired by the natural world. Sure. You know, it's like that feeling that you, he really has that feeling that, that they were trying to generate with like like Marty Stauffer's Wild America. You know, those two rams crashing into each other. This is his Walden. Yeah.

Hey, Jordan, Jessica, David from Milwaukee calling with a momentous occasion. I was driving in a suburb just outside of Milwaukee and pulled up to a red light in the car next to me. You know, maybe late 90s Honda with a woman in her late 40s with leathery tan skin and a black tank top was shaving her armpits at a red light in the driver's seat. That was pretty fantastic. Have a great day. I think there should be an actual rule that you can do anything inside your own car. I think there should be an actual rule that you can do anything inside your own car. Like, people kind of think they should. And on the one hand, like, one's first reaction to that is, hey, you're in public, buddy.

Don't pick your nose. But I think it would be better if there was a rule that said, yes, you can do anything and no one is allowed to call you on it. I'm in my private world. This doesn't have windows because I want to let you see in here. It has windows so I don't kill you when I'm driving around, and I can see where I'm going. You can do anything inside of this space. I mean, you can Lance Boyles. You can cook. You can do cooking.

You can check yourself for testicular cancer. I always get self-conscious about, because you'll be bopping around L.A. and you won't have time to run home, but you also won't have time to necessarily sit and eat a full meal. And so you'll get something to go, not even fast food, but maybe you go to Whole Foods and get a nice pre-made sandwich or salad or something. And instead of sometimes at a place, if they don't have a seating area or it's full or something, I'll go eat in the car. And I feel like,

but so much of what I do in LA is to try to seem not homeless. So I'm always worried I'm going to be seen by someone like, oh, he lives in there. That's where he lives. And then I don't want to be Jewel. I'm not. No,

who does? Well, you have that long hair and beard. That's true. That doesn't help the effect. You want to be Lisa Loeb. Yeah, I do want to be on many levels.

Sure. Uh, I, right now I hear all of these, and I just think because mainly we've gotten a lot of this type of call recently. I feel like I'm wondering how every call is going to involve a blowjob. When they start it, I'm like, who's getting a blowjob in this one? Anyway. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, there's worse things. That dumpster was giving a blowjob to that rapper. That put me in mind of, like, if that old trope of, like, the billionaire putting, like, a $20 bill or something or a dollar bill on, like, a fishing rod and, like, pulling it along to try to tease a poor person.

I'm, like, it puts me in mind of, like, just some person putting a, like, hamburger wrapper on a thing and just pulling along a very like you know npr listening recycle e person i'm gonna pick that up and throw it away and it's making me extra anger because it's a hamburger wrapper and i hate fast food as it is so i gotta get that sure and then it's just hilarious like it's michael pollan or something yes it's michael pollan and he's like i'm going to uh my grandma would not have had a wrapper on the hamburger on the wrapper on the hamburger i don't know at any rate yeah burger on the wrapper burger on the wrapper he wouldn't have had a rapper on the hamburger. On the rapper on the hamburger? I don't know. At any rate. Yeah. Burger on the rapper.

Burger on the rapper. He wouldn't have had a rapper who was just a failed professional wrestler. He wouldn't have had a rapper who all you could say about him is that he was messy. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jesse, go. It's Jordan, Jesse, go. I'm Jesse. Jordan Morse, boy detective. DC Pearson, master of calamity.

I enjoyed that program, Jordan. The one that we just did? Yeah. I had a lot of fun. I'm glad we stopped it when DC made that Jessica Alba remark. I'm glad that it ended there because I think we probably would have just run out of steam. You know. Right. Spun our wheels. Sure.

I had read an actual January Jones GQ profile that I think, it wasn't that exact thing, but it was that kind of thing. Yeah. Where it was just like, she's just one of the guys. And I was like, she's just drinking beer. Right. I know. Women drink beer. Sure. But that's not even what it is she's

just a pretty lady that's talking to you a dumpy guy that writes for gq i like that i've been thinking of like when you were talking about the gq writer who's interviewing a comedy person trying to be funny themselves i like imagining a schlubby male gq writer trying to be a hot woman when he's talking to jenny she's like clearly annoyed yeah you don't have to be a hot woman when he's talking to Jenny. She's like, clearly annoyed. You don't have to be a hot woman. He's trying to give her makeup tips. I think we, I think that something that we here at

Jordan Jesse Go could do for the community is call for an end to non-funny magazines trying to be funny. I agree. Or just trend pieces about comedy in general. I was like, comedy is out there. It's funny. You go find Or just trend pieces about comedy in general. Yeah. I was like, comedy is out there.

It's funny. You go find it. It's never, comedy is rarely well written about in a way that it reflects. I don't think we should try and stop having press on the industry in which we work. No, I agree. That's not what I'm arguing for.

No, no, no. I'm not, I don't know. What I'm arguing for is the part of the magazine I agree with that. No, no, no. I'm not. I don't know. What I'm arguing for is the part of the magazine that I guess what Maxim decided should be funny or FHM or something.

At some point, they decided that the kind of flip through part of the magazine, the non-feature article part of the magazine should be funny rather than just have interesting. Right. Rather than interesting. Or a picture of a hot new sandwich and so they but they didn't hire comedy personnel they hired people not from the comedy world but from the world of irreverence this is a problem in television as well. Yeah, not thinking, wanting something to be funny, but not the

first thing you do isn't hire a comedian to do it. Because, yeah, you know, I thought, you know, our buddy Rob Delaney writes a GQ thing every now and

then, and it's very funny, and when a Bob Odenkirk drops something in Vice, it's always very good. So, yeah, I think, please, make funny things in your

magazines, but you should have comedians do them. Yeah, that's a good middle ground. I, I think, please, make funny things in your magazines. But have them. Yeah, that's a good middle ground. That's the issue. I think I'm calling for an end of any press that isn't about me. Right. Okay. I'm a moratorium on all non-me press. So this is episode two of Jordan, Jesse, Go, right?

Yeah. Because I've done, there's the episode one with DC Pearson and episode two with DC Pearson. And I did get your publicist's release about how you're not homeless. I would. That is something I would put out there because I'm so self-conscious about seeming homeless all the time. There's a lot of publicity shots of you in a home, you holding deeds. Yeah, I bought, I've purchased. It's not just I'm paying rent.

I'm a home owner. Sure. I've got... I like the trope in like old cartoons, like like someone stealing the deed and then owning that. I'm holding it so I own your house. It came out of my hand. Anyway. I've got a tweet of the week for you.

We encourage people to hashtag it, JJGo on the tweeters. This one is from Nolan. Nolan, at a Nolan underscore S. She wrote, this week's JJ Go provides audio evidence that Jordan likes chunky girls. If he likes lesbians, we're a match made in heaven. Ooh. But wait, is all that it takes for a girl

or a lesbian to get with a man is that the guy is into lesbians? I don't think that's how that works, right? I think she has to be attracted to you as well. I don't know. All lesbians are just so shy. Only the boys liked me i happen to have read more than my fair share of rapper interviews and as i understand it keep those faggots away from me but lesbians bring them on right is that my mistaken in thinking i know that's

how it works right that's that's how they want it to work at any rate. Yeah. Certainly. Well, I mean, rappers always want to make out with lesbians. Yes, all the time. Yeah, that's why you see so many rappers hanging out at the Whole Foods in Berkeley. Or just like the bicycle bookshop slash co-op. Yeah.

That's why Mr. Cal did that guest spot on Ani DiFranco's last album. Yeah, sure, sure. He wanted to impress the lesbian fans of Ani DiFranco. Ani herself is a heterosexual, right? She has like a kid. She's married, maybe? Don't know. That was a good poll.

Well, Ani DiFranco's character is a lesbian, but she doesn't do that character anymore. She's retired that alter ego. Ani Dice DeFranco. Yeah, I mean, you could have good on Slater Kenny, I guess. Yeah, that would have worked. Yeah, I bet everybody likes Slater Kenny. What is the new... The new lesbian go-to? What's a

like a college experimental lesbian? What do they listen to these days? We should check in. It's too bad. Our former intern, Meryl, was over here earlier and she is younger than us. She is

into indie rock and she's a lesbian. So she could have given us a clue into the lesbian experience. Interesting. Circa, you know,

college age. And then we could take her iPod and... Yeah, well, Tegan and Sarah was when we were in college. Yeah, exactly. That is also the mistake that I now make is that I think that... Le Tig and Sarah was when we were in college. That's old, right? Yeah, exactly.

That is also the mistake that I now make is that I think that I think that my, and I think this works for every generation, but I think every generation thinks that the music

that was popular when they were in college amongst college kids is now the cool thing forever. I still think, I will still sometimes pull Dave Matthews, man, and it's probably so,

like, wildly... My friend Dinah Moe makes the like she makes those like Mad Men Yourself art and stuff and now she does this thing called Hipster Animals which is on Tumblr and she was asking me because she needed to know for a specific for Hipster Animals she's like she had tweeted

like what's a good like you know thing that a scene-ster girl in Brooklyn right now would definitely listen to I'll bet you at DC Pearson knows and then that threw me into a spiral of being like I need to know this because I've been called upon it's something that I should know and then I just came up totally short I kept going to things that were popular when I was in college but that hasn't been for four or five years now so I guess I think that like oh when I was in

college like you could still say Fish and Grateful Dead for hippie-specific. So Dave Matthews Band and Spearhead probably just stay there, too. I think Dave Matthews Band continues on, but I think that's more of a fratty thing than a hippie thing. I think there's OAR. Jack Johnson is the new Dave Matthews Band. But even he, I feel like, he must have been supplanted by now, Jack Johnson. I feel like there must be some new guy. planted by now jack johnson i feel like there must be some new guy i listened to an interview with jack johnson and he genuinely seemed like like the classiest nicest like brightest most decent fellow in the world and his music makes me want to shoot myself i have i have long said

that i feel jack johnson is jack johnson is somebody that i feel like i will have an experience like my dad had with yes where yes was really popular when he was in his 20s and he hated them and then in his like 40s and 50s he started listening to yes and he's like this is pretty good i feel like i'm gonna have that with jack johnson right now i can't stand it but i can hear i can hear the echoes of a 50 year old possibly divorced me jack johnson was doing an interview about an entire tour he was doing exclusively for charity where Wow. Where all of the money from the entire tour, like it was like a four-month tour, all went to charity. And I hated him during the entire thing, but I felt so bad about it. But in fairness, the charity was kegs for dorms. Yeah.

Nolan underscore S, send me an email, jesse at MaximumFun.org With your address And your unisex t-shirt size And we'll send you a t-shirt And also If you emailed If you emailed Paulo last week If you were one of the

First two winners of this And he didn't tell you That he was sending a shirt Email me because He quit Unexpectedly I don't know It would be fun

We If Could we maybe get Wrangle a college kid To Because Okay I feel like Here's my thing quit unexpectedly. You know what would be fun? Could we maybe get Rangel, a college kid to... Okay, I feel like here's my thing. Just as a comedy person, I don't really care about what is going on in the college. I just need to know what to say for jokes. For jokes, exactly.

Are you still looking specifically for a cool lesbian thing? I would just like to... A Le Tigre equivalent? You would like to know what the broad spectrum is. But I just want to know a lot of things. For types. Yeah, totally. So what you're saying is we need a correspondent,

like a man on the street, whose job it is to just kind of record it. This kind of guy is listening to this. I have some concern that if we throw that out there to our audience, what we will get back is that what is cool in colleges right now is watching monty python and listening to they might be giants to a certain you're saying the evergreen demographic issue yeah um anyway uh jj go at maximum fun.org our email address uh 206-984-4FUN our telephone number um i i think especially especially if you're a cool lesbian in college right now if there's any cool lesbian things that all cool lesbians are into

together which to me really just that says you're a lesbian in college because if you're a lesbian in college you're cool yeah you're pretty cool that's true all definitely all the lesbians I knew in college Were really cool Anyway Where is your Where and when is your one man show DC I wanted you to have said it With the amount of disdain that you said when I first mentioned it Okay how about this

So let's just say I want to go out to the fucking theater And see some asshole switch hats To share stories From a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Well, then you can go to In the Heights, which is touring all across this great land of ours. No. So the show is. Anna Deavere Smith does have a new show. The show is it's a storytelling show.

So it's just me and a microphone. There's no hats. There's no spotlight. There's no me being like, boom, I was just a small town girl but uh you take your dick out a couple times i do take my dick out a couple times but it's only for comic effect not for dramatic effect and then i do a monologue that wraps it all up as your dick as my dick uh but the show is called dc pearson is bad at girls it is at the ucb theater in los angeles uh which you can go to ucb theaterater.com and get tickets. Tell me more about this UCB theater. The UCB theater

is in the shows on September 18th at 9.30. And then I'm going to hopefully do it again in October, but people should go get tickets for that September one. What day of the week are we looking at? That is a Sunday night at 9.30. So Sunday, September 18th get yourself out to the UCB theater to see DC and you can get your tickets

ahead of time at ucBTheater.com. And gee whiz, I think that's everything. I'm still a little incoherent because of this baby. I've got to be honest with you. I still have a hard time keeping my train of thought straight. Give the baby the Planet of the Apes drug. Right, right, right, right, right. I should give myself the Planet of the Apes drug. right right right right i should give myself that

if it made me as handsome as lithgow oh man was he not that's what it was that's what it did right yeah well i think people as handsome i think it makes you it's what that drug does is it makes you stop overacting mercilessly and some some light piano skills yeah Yeah. A little bit. I do feel like the dementia part of that movie was essentially John Lithgow with sort of a littering Indian single tear coming out of his eye, hitting his head on a door jamb. Yeah. That's the representation of dementia. He was also the old goofy man from the movie Hook who's lost his marbles. The non-dementia scenes, Lithgow did not know the camera was on.

That's how they tricked him. When he was not demented. We'll talk to you next week on Jordan, Jesse, Cal.