Jordan, Jesse, GO! - Ep: 207: Tweet Ed. With Merrill Markoe

Episode Date: January 16, 2012

Author and comedy writing royalty Merrill Markoe joins Jordan and Jesse to offer a little advice on good tweets, the perils of house sitting & a Rick Moranis comeback.

Give a little time for the child within you, don't be afraid to be young and free. Undo 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, maggoty, edgy, priddle, dumby, priddle, Jesse, go.

Comedy writing legend Meryl Marko lets us know why our tweets don't get as many stars as we'd like them to. Let's go. It's Jordan, Jesse, go. I am Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart Jordan Morris, boy detective Ah This is my last show, Jordan And I'm fucking out of here

I am fucking out of here, Jordan Get off this ship before it sinks This thing is Well, they're still lifeboats Yeah, man, this thing is aground Off the coast of Italy I'm going to Italy Me, I'm gonna keep. I'm going to Italy.

Me, I'm going to keep playing. I'm like the band on the Titanic. I'm going to keep playing until it capsizes. Oh, man, Jordan. I'm so... My mind is gone. If you get, during the course of the roughly 75 to 90 minutes of this program, three coherent sentences out of me, count yourself lucky. But other than that, it's just going to be conspiracy theories, racial slurs. I was up all last night watching Dan Aykroyd's Q&A videos on Netflix Instant about ghosts, aliens, and UFOs.

And it started to seem pretty reasonable towards the end. What's the cause of your... Well, maybe we should introduce our guest. Let's introduce our guest, and then we'll talk about why I'm in a state of just near total collapse. Okay. I would like to say how happy I am to be here and have driven an hour and a half across town to a sinking ship where the host thinks his brain cells are dead.

Lucky me. You know her by her reputation as the nicest lady in Hollywood. She is a comedy writing legend, the author of numerous best-selling books, the latest of which is Cool,

Calm, and a third word, which is a joke. Contentious. Thank you. I reminded myself of it right before we went on air, and then all I could remember was that it wasn't cool, calm, and collected. It was a third word that was a joke about cool, calm, and collected. You know what?

At least you didn't say cool runnings. I think we could just count ourselves lucky. She's the author of the best-selling humorous memoir, Cool Runnings, about her time on the Jamaican bobsled team. humorous memoir, Cool Runnings, about her time on the Jamaican bobsled team. She was, of course, the founding head writer of the Late Night with David Letterman program and the Daytime David Letterman program, a television comedy contributor for television here in Los Angeles. She has written numerous books about her complicated relationship with her dogs. She is basically about as hallowed a comedy person as there could be.

It is a genuine honor to have Meryl Marko on the program. Thank you for coming here. Thank you very much. She drove all the way from Malibu, so it was really hard for her and we really appreciate it. Thank you very much. She drove all the way from Malibu, so it was really hard for her, and we really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm not sure how sincere I was being. I started out like I was going to be insincere, but then by the end I actually was being sincere because I was thinking about how much I do appreciate that you came to be here.

What a pain in the butt it would have been for you to pack all this stuff up if I'd insisted that you come to Malibu. Yeah. And then you'd be still on PCH because it doesn't move. Yeah. That Pacific Coast Highway is a real son of a gun. Do you call it the boo? No, I really don't. Okay.

Do you know people who call it the boo? I see it on license plates and I immediately have contempt for the people in the car. You want to run them off the road? Yeah. That's fair. Did you attend BU? Boston University? Yeah, I'm just trying to, I'm just taking a guess here.

Sure. Stab in the dark. Because the word boo came up, I just assumed. My university must connect to it. Is that not right? Meryl, best not to try and figure out the logic. I'll explain why I'm a mess. you must connect to it. Is that not... Meryl, best not to try and figure out the logic.

I'll explain why I'm a mess. It's because I am going to... Tomorrow, I'm going to be gone for... Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be gone for two, two and a half weeks shooting season two of Put This On, my web series about menswear.

We're going to New York and London and Milan. And in order to do that, I have to make in advance two and a half weeks worth of Bullseye, my public radio show. And we were just launching Bullseye. And I have a five and a half month old baby. And basically... And a crippling Skyrim addiction. That's true i've just become i've started compulsively playing this video game called skyrim ah um inside of inside of skyrim

i'm a sort of blockheaded guy uh with a resistance to magic um but i'm really good with the arcane enchanter now so it's been really rewarding for me oh that's good yeah i'm very glad to hear that um two and are theresa and uh and simon coming on this thing theresa and simon and and my dogs uh we're all gonna drive up to the bay area tomorrow and um uh theresa and the baby and the dogs are going to stay with her parents while we're gone, just because, I don't know, like, I couldn't take them with me. Sure.

There's no, like, when you're, I mean, I think we're just going to be shooting 12 hours a day, or 14 hours a day, or something. When you're going to want to visit some of Milan's famous sex parlors. Oh, of course. And they don't allow dogs. Ever since I started learning about the Renaissance in school, I've wanted to visit Milan's famous sex parlors. Sure.

But I also couldn't reasonably abandon them here. Sure. Because I think that they would have been i don't know like just i would have just come home and one of the dogs would be fat and none of the other people and animals in the house would be anywhere to be found like it would have just they would have just been that little dog would have eaten your wife and child, you're thinking? Potentially. It's a fearsome dog. You met my dog. Yeah.

She's got a lot of sass. Right. She does. She's got a lot of chutzpah. She goes for it. Your wife is just a drained shell of a human? At this point, I mean, she is literally a drained shell of a human in part because there's another human being that literally sucks life force out of her.

Wow. Literally, physically sucks life force out of her. Yeah, that's how my mother felt. Meryl, what's your policy when traveling, being a dog owner? Do you board them? Do they just leave a giant bowl of food? No, I have a woman that I pay who stays at my house. Yeah.

Who actually... I have to pay my wife to stay at my house. Gosh, you know, I feel like... Hey-o, wives! I have a very good relationship. Don't get me started on my mother-in-law. I have a very good relationship with my wife. I love her very much.

She seems wonderful. Would you say that she seems wonderful in the 11 years that you've known her yeah she seems nice i hope to get to know her at some point um i probably should have done that when i was in your wedding but i didn't have the time um uh i i feel like uh i don't know if this is across the board, but I feel like in LA, everyone I know has someone with a nicer house than them that they house sit for. I've never been asked to do this. I don't know if it just seems like because I'm irresponsible. Maybe I'm just a bad candidate for it.

But I would love to be asked to house sit for someone with a nice house. Anyway. My house is nicer than your house. Absolutely. Would you like to house sit at someone with a nice house. Anyway. My house is nicer than your house. Absolutely. Would you like to house sit at my house? I would. I mean, I would out of help. That would be weird, right?

Yeah, I would out of helpfulness, but I think because I come here once a week, regardless, it won't be the kind of vacation that I'm looking for in this house sitting situation. You're looking to get away from your normal life sure yeah that's what i want i want a little vacay maybe someone with a different like a direct tv package or something you're trying to house it for like brian grazer or something like that that would be nice in the olden days i would have you know i used to have all kinds of different people when i worked in tv i used to have all the production assistants and stuff stay at my house. And most of them did.

But that all stopped when I had a particular very strange production assistant stay at my house and one of my dogs died. Oh, dear. And from that point on, I just went with people who referred to themselves as dog professionals, dog walkers, dog tenders, people who had some occupational thing to lose by having a catastrophe. I was house-sitting in Washington, D.C. for this family, a very nice family, and they had told me that I could drive their car and, in fact, had asked me to drive their car because they were going to be gone long enough that if I didn't drive their car, you know, they'd come home to a dead battery and so forth. And I was driving it on the Beltway, the famous Beltway of Washington,

D.C. I was on the Beltway rather than inside or outside. And it was an Acura coupe. It was maybe 12 years old or 14 years old. And I was in there with my wife, then girlfriend, in the far left-hand lane. And it just stopped driving. Oh, my God. It just stopped operating. It just completely. And I went and I pushed the hazard lights. I had the presence of mind to reach out and push the hazard lights.

And I pushed the hazard lights and they turned on, you know, like they blinked once and then they blinked off and then all the lights inside the car went out. Did you get rear-ended? No, I managed to pull off with no power. I managed to pull off the road. I pulled off through four lanes of traffic with no power at all. I managed to pull off just coasted off the freeway and with no electricity and no gas power. And I pulled off to this exit and I'm like, thank God I'm off. I pull off and it is a fucking parkway.

It is a four-lane freeway through a park. It is a parkway in a park. There's no houses or buildings for miles around. So I made it off this fucking nightmare freeway onto a deserted nightmare freeway oh good that'd be nice if you pulled off the freeway right into the parking lot of a tgi fridays yeah and so i had to um i i called luckily my aunt and uncle live in washington dc and they're the kind of people that you can call when shit goes down um You know, like they're, I would say, they're the kind of people that you would say

worst quality, you know, busybody or something like that, best quality on top of their shit, you know, and that's exactly who you want to have on board. Obviously, two sides of the same coin. And they fucking came through big time. I owe them forever because i picked up that phone and said uh hey aunt deb uh it's jesse uh the car we were using doesn't work anymore and we turned off the freeway and she said where and i said the beltway freeway between washington dc and points north and they like

they we played 20 questions to figure out like where we were like what regional park we were stranded in pre-smartphone era oh this was well pre-smartphone era? Oh, this was well pre-smartphone, yeah. Luckily, it was post-cell phone, but it was pre-smartphone. And they had to ask me 40 different questions. I could see one mile marker. We had to infer from the type of whether it was coniferous or deciduous trees and the mile marker and all of this stuff. What exactly was... How were the squirrels acting?

Yeah, was it red or gray squirrels, east side or west side of Washington, D.C.? And they came and rescued me. But after that happened, after that happened, when the people that I was babysitting or house-sitting for came back. Very icy relationship. It was their car you were talking about? It was their car. Oh, wow.

It was their car. And their car was old, and it broke, and I almost died. But they thought it was poor car maintenance on your part? I don't – I think that – They thought you ran out of gas, I bet. It's not... You know, that happened to my brother last year. Ran out of gas on a freeway, rear-ended, and was in the hospital for like three months.

Holy mackerel. Jeez Louise. In the fast lane. Oh, no. In the fast lane? Yeah, broke his neck. Had a tube in his stomach for three months. Wow, that's a really funny anecdote.

Yeah, that is. And he wasn't house-sitting anyone. It was his months. Wow, that's a really funny anecdote. Yeah, it is. And he wasn't house-sitting anyone. It was his car. Oh, jeez. Yeah, I don't know what they... I don't think it was so much that they thought that I broke it. It was that they felt I must have broken it. They probably thought you ran out of gas.

Yeah, well, I mean, there was something broken in it. Something was broken. Did they never tell you what in it something was broken like did they never tell you what it was that was broken i don't think they ever told me what it was that that was broken in it but there was a thing that was broken in it it involved some kind of repair that cost a thousand dollars or something i remember them trying to decide whether they should repair it or just uh you know donate the car to the goodwill or whatever. But I feel like after that point, there was absolutely no doubt that they felt that while it wasn't technically my fault, it was spiritually my fault.

That I had somehow brought it upon their... I had brought a pox upon their home. You were probably listening to music in the car that had swearing in it. And then that put the car into such a state... Were these people your age range, or were they older? They were older. They were grown-ups.

I was 21 years old. I was 22 years old. This was a summer where I had had this... One summer in Washington, D.C., I had an internship at XM Satellite Radio in Washington, D.C., and I went and had a meeting with the person who at the time was running the internship program at National Public Radio. National Public Radio. And he told me like, oh, we have this thing called intern edition. And it's where all the interns get together and they make a show basically. And it needs an editor. And I know that you have a lot of experience and we had worked together. I'd met this guy, I'd like emailed him out of the blue and met him when he was doing a workshop in San Francisco. And he said, we're going to need an editor for that next year. And I was wondering if you would be interested. And I said, yes. And he was like, great. That sounds great. And so I was like, oh, all right. I have

an internship in Washington, D.C. at National Public Radio, where I aspire to work. And then I applied for the internship. And my wife got an internship, who was not my wife at the time, but my girlfriend. But she got an internship in Washington, D.C. And then somehow I didn't get the internship. So I ended up working at Borders. So this summer we were house-sitting, and I was working at Borders. And, yeah, it was a rough—it was a tough summer for old Jesse at age 21. Well, they might have thought and worried that you were going to sue them or something.

I mean, they weren't really liable. You maybe personalized it but didn't look at the bigger picture. I mean, they would totally be at risk if you were driving their car in it. The dad was a lawyer at the world court. That was his job. He was always going off to Geneva. world court that was his job he was always going off to geneva so you would think that if but if they were worried about his lawsuitness they would have maybe doted a little bit more instead of giving you the cold shoulder they would have been extra nice yeah or they they would have um

they would have asked me about my familiarity with international trade law in this particular specific case because they would have have been, I think, at risk. I mean, was there a car and you were driving it if there was mechanical problems with a car and you were injured? But I think they would be. But I was safe. I mean, I was doing calisthenics. I mean, I wasn't sweating it.

You're not going to cramp up in there. No, I wasn't going to cramp up. The last thing I wanted was to cramp up, Meryl. When you were working at Borders, what was the hot item? What was the Hunger Games? Purpose-driven life. Purpose-driven? Oh, okay.

I would say that 75% of the customers who came into that Borders were buying the purpose-driven life. I think that it was... It's like a religious self-help book. Yeah. A Christian self-help book. Well, I'm going to go 70% purpose-driven life 20 da vinci code okay 10 all other books okay um it was in downtown washington dc so you're getting a largely african-american clientele not exclusively by any means on the whole, less interested in a sort of faux Christian arcana, as found

in The Da Vinci Code, but more interested in living a purpose-driven life. Sure. And so, yeah. And maybe 5% was this sexy mystery novel set in Baltimore called Be More Careful. Okay. There's this whole category called hood fiction. Yeah, I'm vaguely familiar with this. Yeah, it's sort of...

Because of all the time I spend in the hood. Yeah, it's sort of like a special category that sort of descended from your iceberg slims in 1977 of, um, uh, novels with a lot of, uh, drug dealing and, uh, fucking and not a lot of copy editing,

um, uh, that, uh, people at the borders, uh, in downtown Washington, DC by a lot of,

um, but yeah, no, that, that was a really, that job was really a trip. When I went in and applied for the job, I interviewed with this really sweet guy who was to be my boss. And he said, we all really love books here. That's why we work at Borders.

And I was like, great. Like, I love books, too. You know, I love reading. And he said, and we all love different kinds of books. And I was like that's great like i love books too and he's like like and many of us collect books and i was like oh neat you know and he's like i have a book collection like this seems like where this is leading is come home and look at my collection of vintage erotica that seems like where this is going the tone that you're using he turned he turned he turned me like he turned to his shelf on his wall and he said here's my collection of james patterson first editions oh wow yeah he had a collection of james patterson first i guess that's erotic to some i guess maybe i wasn't that far off well certainly it's erotic to those who are turned on by tightly plotted thrillers.

Those plots are so tight. Okay, we'll be back in just a second with more on Jordan, Jesse Go. It's Jordan, Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. It's Jordan Jesse Goh. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. I'm Meryl Marko. I'm a writer, and I have a new book out called Cool, Calm, and Contentious. And if you would like to see Jon Stewart really love it, look up my clip on The Daily Show.

Yeah, do it. Boom. Why not? This is the woman. Listen. Jordan, I have to get serious with our audience for a second look we've had a lot of fun laughing and joking the first 20 minutes of this program okay we've had a moderate amount of pleasant it was had some fun the first 20 minutes of this show but let's get serious here for a second. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

And part of that fun was you talking about almost getting killed in a car. That's true. If that's your idea of fun. To be fair, none of us were trying that hard to have fun. Meryl Markle has a lot to give you. Sure. You have to open up your heart.

Yeah. This woman has written numerous best-selling books. Would you say that she's like Jesus in that way? Yeah, she is a lot like Jesus in that way. Where are you guys going? Both Jesus and Meryl Markle have a lot to give you if you open up your heart, and they've both written bestselling books. They have.

Jesus didn't technically... He wrote The Purpose Driven Life. He wrote The Purpose Driven Life. And parts of The Da Vinci Code. Here was a little just thought process I was having while you were describing the popular books. You were saying the two popular books were The Purpose Driven Life and The Da Vinci Code. I got The Da Vinci Code confused with the National Treasure film series starring Nicolas Cage. It's kind of a similar thing nicholas cage finds you know i think the premise of the natural of the national

treasure movie series is what if jerry bruckheimer missed out on the bidding to buy the rights to the da vinci code anyways and i was gonna say wouldn't it be funny if nicholas cage also did like a film adaptation of the purpose-driven life because he's more purpose-driven than that guy that guy is super purpose-driven you know how sometimes they'll adapt a non-fiction book and give it a narrative like um greg barron's book uh yeah she's just not that into you yeah sure yeah mean girls i think was also a non-fiction book that's a really good point so why doesn't why doesn't it just, like... Do you think we could get Werner Herzog to direct?

I think that's the key. I actually think that would be a great movie. I would love to see the purpose-driven life turned into a Nicolas Cage movie. Yeah, it's like Nicolas Cage learning how to live life as Jesus would have wanted him to, but also, like, a little bit of ass-kicking. Yeah. Like, a little bit of him, maybe, I don't know, like flipping a car or something.

Yeah, maybe outside a megachurch. I'm not sure if you can turn... If you can turn water into wine, I'm not sure that you really need to get into megakicking. Because you can just have a party for one. Everyone passes out and that's the end of that. Yeah. You know, there's not a lot of religion's one of those

things that i i usually don't like discussing right but i would love to ask nicholas cage what his religious beliefs are i bet they're crazy i would speculate this is purely idle speculation jordan but what is this program if not purely idle speculation um i would say that he probably believes in a fictional religion okay now granted there are those in our list in our listenership who are currently making snarky phone calls to our phone line saying all religions are fictional but i mean a religion that was intended specifically to be fictional like say like um the hobbit kind of stuff yeah like a hobbit thing or like something that hawkman believes in you know what i mean like you were sure the four pillars of the hawkman yeah the four pillars of the Hawkmen. Yeah, The Four Pillars of the Hawkmen. Or, yeah, just something like that. Like, not just that he believes in...

Something that was discussed on Sequest. Yeah. Like, whatever it is that, you know, Johnny Quest believes in. You know, if the Hardy Boys have... you know, if there was one of the Hardy Boys books, they find an ancient tome that contains the outlines to a religion. That religion is what Nicolas Cage practices in real life. But not so far as Santa Ria or anything, I wouldn't think. No! I think that's too real. I think that's far too real, yeah.

I think Nicolas Cage, probably whatever he practices, he wants to be one of ten guys who practices it. Yeah, and I think the other nine guys are probably being paid by Nicolas Cage to practice it with him. And fuck him. Um... And fuck him. Changing gears. I don't know.

I feel like we should really stay in this gear. Changing gears. Meryl, you are active on Twitter and I think you probably have a distinction that Jesse and I could only dream of having in our wildest

dreams is that you are Twitter friends with Alec Baldwin. I am. How's that going? It's like many of my friendships. I never see him. Did you know that Jad Abumrad is one of the—I just found this out today. Our friend Jad Abumrad, who hosts Radiolab, the wonderful public radio program Radiolab, is one of the 15 people that is currently being followed on Twitter by Rupert Murdoch.

Wow. Yeah. And of those 15 people, at least like six or seven are not people, but are institutions like our Fox News channel and newspapers that Rupert Murdoch owns and stuff like that. Well, the phrase Radiolab must have thrown him. He must have thought it was some kind of enormous, huge think tank. He must have thought it was something like a project to build a super

soldier or something like that. Something to do with a Hadrian Collider. Yeah. Something that, yes, he's like, maybe this man can help me create my black hole. That was my Rupert Murdoch impression, by the way. That was a really good Australian accent, Jordan Thank you

You should apply to be the new Crocodile Dundee Well, I mean, I'm going to use it in my SNL audition, I think Oh, good, excellent What's that character name? Australian? It's called Apocalyptic Rupert Murdoch Gotcha He just wants to create black holes Gotcha

You know, he wants to summon a dormant Leviathan. No, look, if you're going to put together an SNL audition tape, you're going to want some hot celebrity impressions. Yeah, I mean, you just want like something that they can just throw in there, like a celebrity that's always in the news. Are you really doing an audition tape for SNL? No, you know, I submit to SNL every year as a writer. I submitted once as a performer, but my impressions were so bad. I'm so bad at them. I mean, I think I'm a decent sketch comedy actor, but my impersonations and voices are just terrible.

They're so fakey fake. And I think that's not my wheelhouse. Yeah, part of the Saturday Night Live audition is that you have to do several impressions like you really have to show that you're bringing lindsey lohan to saturday night live if you want to get cast on that show right sure and i think maybe you know there would be a chance where i could be you know grandfathered in as say a chris elliott was who i can't imagine does any impressions uh well i mean he had uh he had he had a few impressions that were uh what if what if chris elliott was acting sort of like i mean there was marlon brando that was what if oh that's right he He did do that. Sort of acted like Marlon Brando. That was funny.

Anyway, oh, but on the subject of Twitter, I put – I've decided that I put maybe too much emotional stock in how many star points and retweets I'm getting. Oh, yeah. And because I'm not on Facebook, my Twitter is the first thing that comes up when I'm Googled, so I kind of maybe consider that Twitter feed my public face a little bit. How did you avoid being on Facebook? I don't know. I mean, now it's purely to be contrarian. Now I'm just the guy who's insisting that the Super Mario Brothers movie was good or something.

I think if you're not on Facebook in 2012, your choice is either you're the guy who's not on Facebook or you're the guy who signed up for Facebook in 2012. Yeah, right, exactly. I guess you're right. And now I guess there's something, a timeline that shows all of your Facebook activity. And I guess me going on that now and just showing the time I uploaded my picture, it'll be like having a small dick. Like, I'm imagining the timeline is a giant internet dick that everyone can look at, and mine will be so tiny. To be fair, you imagine most metaphorical or incorporeal things as a giant dick. Sure. Anyways.

And also, when I sort of got browbeaten one way or another into being on Facebook, I've never put a single personal piece of information on Facebook. People keep saying it's your privacy, your privacy. ever put a single personal piece of information on Facebook. People keep saying it's your privacy, your privacy. I have my real name and every other thing written about me is false and there are no, and no one seems to mind. And there are no pictures of me taken anywhere, not high school, not, you know, I mean, it's possible to just do that. I went on it to sort of have a forum for like trying to push my book. But some people can, but people can have a picture of you and then connect it to you. Yeah, you can get rid of it too. Oh, I didn't know you can get rid of it.

Yeah, you can get rid of all of it. If you go on Facebook right now, you can see a picture of me in my high school production of the Three Penny Opera. You could take that out. Wow. I don't know. I thought it was a pretty solid production. It wasn't as good as the production of Mother Courage that we were doing in repertory. But, you know, it was pretty solid high school Brecht. You know, it was pretty solid.

It was a pretty effective V effect. You know, it was pretty solid. It was a pretty effective V effect. I'd say the audience was definitely alienated. That's a funny character. High school theater asshole. He still talks like this. Yeah.

But anyway. Sondheim, man. Complicated harmonies. I don't know. Fuck it. The anyway, Sondheim, man, complicated harmonies. I don't know. Fuck it. The musical, man. That's the great American fucking art form. But I actually want to, in regards to Twitter, I wanted to, I have had a couple of, and I guess there's two things that I think I would like to do on Twitter.

I don't really like to banter. I don't really like to say what I'm doing. I want to promote something or make a little joke. Right. I think we've established that that's probably what Twitter is best for, or it's probably what I'm best doing on Twitter. I've made a few little jokes recently that have not been popular, and I maybe wanted to bring them up.

I know you're a comedy professional. Maybe we can workshop them a little bit legendary comedy professional excuse me um anyways so okay uh so i thought maybe i'd start and we could just talk about boston university she lives in the boo um anyways um so here's one jesse you and i were actually this is something we were talking about and you helped me with the phrasing of this yeah and i messed it up i messed it up well let's here's here's the tweet i ruined the i ruined this joke for you and i apologize i mean it's a it's a it was a it was a group effort we both ruined it. This was not an unsuccessful tweet.

Okay. Here it is. But it was not as successful as I wanted it to be. I think it's appalling that people hire Thai ladyboys when there's so many out-of-work ladyboys in our own backyard. This was popular-ish. I got a star from an Alex Blagg. Oh, Alex Blagg. Whose sense of humor I respect.

That's a talented comedy writer. But, you know, mostly fell on deaf ears. Well, after you wrote it, I realized it should have been right here in our own backyard. Mm, yeah. So I felt bad about that. I think maybe where it's not making my sides ache okay i don't know i'm not sure why we're talking about thai lady boys i mean it would sort of have to be

a big topic or something you know it's like you get to that right off the bat and you go think about thailand and all of a sudden i'm off like thai lady boys what is i guess yeah it's thailand guys so if female impersonators in thailand is what would you know and then by then it's like who cares what the punchline is i don't know why we're talking about that you know i guess yeah i guess i maybe the joke is set up in a way it's like, so the thing about airline food is, but instead it's the thing about Thai ladyboys is. Yeah, so it's just like there's no way to really get going with your big reaction when

you're trying to decide what the premise is. No, no, I think that's fair. Do you think we should talk about just different stuff that you've written and why it doesn't make our sides ache i mean i think let me do this one was and i wouldn't have insulted you except for no no no i know i requested it i i i need it here's the thing about here's the thing about twitter sometimes you will type a joke into it that you are so excited about this joke you're so excited about this joke and you're really couldn't be prouder of it and then sometimes you'll type in some stupid joke right and then the stupid joke even you're not even excited about it even after it gets all

the fucking star points um and i i that's that i think is the core of this issue. You know, that's totally true in life, too, just in writing in general. I've noticed that my whole life, which is the things that I most am proud of, the things that I work the hardest on. And when I'm waff-walking my dogs, I'm replaying them to myself and going, wow, that was pretty good. Nothing. That happens to me my whole life. Always, including when you perform on stage, the joke that you're saving that you go, this is going to go really well. Nothing. The day that you think that you performed really well, you get off stage and

people say nothing. The day that you think you screwed up and the stupidest thing that you ever wrote that you just put out there and you go, I should recall it. I should delete it. That's what people like. and it always works that way, and I don't know what you can learn from that. I've been thinking about it my whole life, seriously. Don't care about anything. Wait, hold on, hold on. What is an example of something that you have done,

and it doesn't have to be a joke. We're not necessarily setting you up for a joke. But what's something that you worked on that you think about and you think like, man, that was great? You know, I'm sorry that I don't have those examples because they have to do with things that, you know, you sat there and you worked on and you just felt.

That's just exactly what you were describing. I have a book full of these things. I've been keeping them in a book just so I can look at the amount of them that are piling up. And it's just the ones that I think are the cleverest, funniest, smartest jokes or nothing. Get nothing. They just disappear without a trace.

And then something that I'm embarrassed by a little bit, I think, oh, this might be upsetting. Or I shouldn't even ask. It's too stupid. Everyone probably, no one will understand what I'm talking about. Well, those are the ones that people like and the ones I really literally wasn't going to even push tweet on. Sometimes I'll post something that is not even really a joke and it'll become popular for some reason of timeliness or something. reason of timeliness or something, and it will go to the top. It will edge into my top 20 or however many they show on Favstar, which is the website where you can tell how many points your tweets got, and that will make me angry. Like yesterday...

Oh, yeah. No, I also want that Favstar best of list to be clean in terms of it's only stuff that I like. Yesterday, I watched the 49ers game, San Francisco 49ers football game. And I'm from San Francisco. I'm a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. It was an incredible football game, just the most exciting football game I've ever seen. And at the end of it, I posted something like, man, sports are really exciting.

If you've never given sports a try, you really might get a kick out of them or something like that. And just because I know that many of our audience are actively hostile to sports, and I think sports are pretty fun. So I thought it would be funny if I posted that, but not in a joke way, just in kind of a silly way. And an acquaintance of mine, Rob Nyer, who is a fantasy columnist, a fantasy baseball columnist for ESPN, formerly for ESPN, now for MLB Fan Nation, I believe.

But a very popular sports columnist retweeted it. And then it got like 200 retweets and now it's like my number six fave star and to post out all the jokes it may have even surpassed the one what that said um quote i have a great name for this feather unquote yankee doodle dandy man yeah i mean i'd hate for that to get lost to the ages. Who's going to call it macaroni? You know, I did pretty good. That's what I was sitting here unraveling that going.

You know, I did one that I really liked that was also topical that I thought was just going to be, I'm like, well, this is pretty good, but its topicality will really help it. Basically nothing. This one was virtually ignored, so I don't know what that says about topicality. I'll read it. Maybe it's just not funny. Rick Santorum is selling his signature sweater vest. In response, Newt Gingrich is releasing a line of chubby boy weekend sweatpants i i gave that a star point i think i see you on there i start pointing that because

because i like the phrase chubby boy me too i also like that could the republican uh you know that. The Republican presidential race could not be hotter. Chubby boy is a really funny phrase. It's hyphenated as well, which I think helps it. Do you know that audio wise, your voice is a very

similar vocal pitch to Patton Oswalt. I have heard that. I get that. I usually hear David Cross. Yes, that too. Basically any comedian in the world, apparently. They're good comedians. They're great. They're terrific. Basically two of the funniest people in the world. Absolutely. No, I have no problem with

that. So yeah, now all I need is their joke-making ability, and I'm good. But yeah, so that's funny, but usually I guess the common, you know, the kind of the common logic would be that that topical stuff does really well on Twitter.

Why did that one fall on deaf ears? Do people just maybe not want a topical joke from a Jordan Morris? Do they just want... Yeah, I think that might be it. Do they just want something the cat's doing? Well, I think, would you like me to give you another... Please. Yes, absolutely. Tear me down.

I consider it a privilege. I would say it's because your only joke there is Newt Gingrich is fat. He is though. That's true. Yeah, I know it is. It's just kind of too easy. No, no, you're right. I mean the phrase chubby boy is funny.

But making the point Newt Gingrich is fat is kind of... No, you're right. You're right. Maybe, yeah, it did just seem like a low-hanging fruit. Yeah. He's not really fat, though. It's more that he has a round head. Yeah, yeah.

And that he has so much else wrong with him. I mean... Right, and all of his opinions. That as well is funny. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I like... I like the idea... You know, because you do associate...

You do associate fat people with loose-fitting clothing. Anyway. Well, maybe you shouldn't have... Maybe the whole thing should have been about Newt Gingrich and the pants. He maybe should have

set it up better. Yeah. You're right. Yeah, maybe the Rick Santorum set it up better. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, maybe the Rick Santorum thing was just confusing. Yeah, starting it with that and the sweater vest, it's sort of you wanted... It seems like you should have had a second line about him and his sweater vest as opposed to just starting off on a whole other...

The topic then becomes clothes. I think you should start a second persona that's all about your biting topical wit. Right. And I'm you should start a second persona that's all about your biting topical wit right and i'm gonna start a new twitter account that's just for skyrim related humor sure because i made one skyrim joke and it fucking rocketed to the top of my thing and it was barely a joke yeah yeah no i think i mean i think that that that that uh current video game fads are great for Twitter. I'm finding anything cat-related, anything about what the cat's doing,

something funny the cat did, that, even in a situation, doesn't really have to be a joke. People seem to like it. But I guess that's just a larger symptom of the internet loves cats. Yeah, the internet does love cats. Cat videos, lol cats. Cats are all right. Tweets about cats. Cats are pretty loves cats. Yeah. The internet does love cats. Cat videos,

lol cats. Cats are alright. Tweets about cats. Cats are pretty... Cats are fun. Sure. They go around. I love them. Do jumps. Sure. Getting boxes is a good thing a cat does. Absolutely. Roll on their back, show you their tummies. Does a cat do that? Oh, yeah. Can you pet its tummy when it does that? Sure. You don't want

to get too close to its genitals, but I think that's any animal. Yeah, sure. That's when you're going to get a nip. Oh, you're going to get a nip if you get too close to its genitals? I think so. Yeah. Don't finger your cat. Okay.

That's what I'm saying. Fair enough. Yeah. Fair enough. That's the kind of insights that America turns to you. Not that topical stuff yeah not those yeah they're looking they're looking to you for biology type stuff like that sure hey guys newt giggins is bad that's why you figure your cat that rhymes that's why you're

zoologist emeritus at the pittsburgh zoo it's because of insights like that yeah but i mean i i totally i understand i i i think that there's this i think that when you write the jokes you have a wish that you could control your audience um and i especially find myself sometimes on twitter i will i will start obsessing over a joke like while i'm going for a walk and and by the time i'm done with it it will be so complicated yeah but i will have figured it out so that it's coherent and like is a joke like it will be a joke and it will have the right rhythm and structure to sustain itself. And so I will, in that sense, have solved it. But that doesn't necessarily make it that good of a joke.

Well, a lot of times Twitter can just kind of wreck a joke by removing all aspects of what would amount to timing because you can't put that amount of characters in. Oh, yeah. You have to take all the ands out and put an and sign, and then you have to take the thes out, and then it just sounds like, you know, an illegal immigrant trying to approximate a joke. Yeah, well, I mean, you have to have a writing joke.

I mean, it's a different kind of joke, too. I mean, that's the other thing is, you know, we know, I feel like there's a lot of uh a lot of comedians of our generation who will just uh have a part of their act where they just read jokes off their phone sure uh that they wrote on twitter this is the worst part of their act invariably in fact it was a part of doug benson's television show um he did that on television i haven't been out to clubs in a while people are doing that now reading their twitter jokes off a phone yeah it sounds like i would just want to

kill myself yeah oh god that sounds horrible yeah it is it is i think it's the new i i think it's the new like who does that uh well i'm not gonna start naming the names of comedians that do it i did mention that it was a segment on Doug Benson's television program. Now, I'm sure that Doug Benson – I don't think that it was probably Doug Benson's idea. I imagine there was some producer on the show that was Doug Benson's manager that said you have a million Twitter followers or whatever. We should have a segment to get you more Twitter followers where you read a joke and then the other person reads a joke from their Twitter. If you have a TV show, what difference does it make? How many – why do you want more Twitter followers?

The idea of Twitter is to get the show, isn't it? That's a great point. People are getting screwed up here with this stuff. Yeah. No, I mean I think it's just one of those things like, oh, you know, like people like Twitter these days. So mentioning it in comedy or using it in comedy is you get that automatic, you know, laugh of recognition or, you know, that delight that comes with recognizing something. So, you know, it is kind of like a cheat to getting the audience on your side, I think.

Our friend Rob Delaney recently closed a pilot deal to host a Twitter themed television program. My guess is Rob is a very talented guy. He's really good, and I think that's going to be a terrible idea. Well, my guess is that... Twitter is what it is. It's not a TV show.

My guess is that what it will end up being is... Although, I mean, to be honest, on the one hand, Twitter is what it is. It's not a TV be honest on the one hand twitter is what it is it's not a tv show on the other hand youtube videos are what they are and then also for some reason tosh.0 is the biggest hit in comedy central history sure is that what he's doing is playing youtube video he just plays youtube videos makes a little joke about them he'll do some little sketches on there do some skits and stuff.

Although, we'll say this about Rob Delaney. If you've ever seen his stand-up act, it is a very, and this is not a slam but a compliment, it is a traditional stand-up comedy act. I've never seen that, but I've read his long-form pieces, and they're good.

They're terrific, yeah. And I think if you read his things in Vice and Esquire recently, right? Oh. He was in there? Yeah, sure. Maybe it was GQ. Anyways, one of those.

Yeah, he's very, very funny, and I think... I think probably the only knock that we have on Rob Delaney is he's probably a little too handsome to be a comedian. Too handsome, yeah, absolutely. I don't like that. I don't like him raising the bar. Like, eh, you know. Come on, give me a break, Delaney.

Sure. You push me down into an echelon that I'm not comfortable being in. Yeah, like we want to be solid sevens for comedians. Yeah. That's our goal. When Rob Delaney exists, yeah, I feel like I'm getting into four or five territory, and that's not where I want to be. That's the trouble with Rob Delaney. It's not about his talent.

Sure. It's not about whether he's a funny man or a good writer. It's about him making us seem ugly. Yeah. That's ultimately the issue with the lady. Are you a stand-up dude? No, I'm not a stand-up. No.

And Jordan has done some stand-up, but probably wouldn't describe himself as a stand-up, right? Uh-uh. Yeah. Neither of us is. I'm a Dave Barry-style humorist. And I don't just say humorist. I say Dave Barry-style humorist and that's and then i don't just say it's humorist i say dave berry style humorist when jordan says that he's a dave berry style humorist he's basing that exclusively on the fact that he recently bought the dvd box set of dave's world starring harry anderson that's all

he really knows you never read dave berry being uh no're dressed. No, I have. I think, I mean. Dave Barry himself writes much funnier than that TV show did. And you know what? That TV show wasn't half bad. I don't remember. You know what? It was half bad. Okay. I was going to be complimentary to the show Dave's World, which I had not seen since it

was on television, but I remember being a pleasant enough sitcom. But how old were you? I was probably 12, yeah. Yeah, there you go. Okay, fair enough. Don't re-watch it would be my... It does not hold up. How much up-close magic was there in it?

I'll tell you, there was surprisingly little up-close magic. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. You would think that. I will say that Dave Barry, I have spent a little bit of time with IRL, as they say, in real life. And he really delivers on everything that you would hope that he would be. He's really good. And he's a really funny writer. Yeah, he's like, and he is exactly funny in like he is the when you meet him like all

you uh i mean you you you probably wouldn't have this uh you probably wouldn't have this feeling towards him merrill because you're more you're uh more his contemporary age wise but uh i think if if you're my age and you meet him and you talk to him uh and uh he makes some uh he makes some just perfectly dave berry style jokes um just in real life and he just is just like unfathomably nice to you uh when he doesn't have to be uh and then you're just like oh man i wish this guy was my dad or at at the very least, my uncle. Like, he is, like, perfect uncle material. Like, he comes over without announcing that he's going to come over, and he's like, hey, who wants to have a weenie roast?

Or something like that. Yeah, he's a really good guy. That guy's a class act, that Dave Barry. I have nothing but good things to say about Dave Barry. The amazing thing to me about him is I cannot imagine. I think the thing that, like, if you get Dave Barry's work through books, I think it's easy to think like, oh, yeah, some of these jokes are really good. Some of them are kind of a little hackneyed, and some of these just feel easy you know whatever but he he was writing a fucking daily column daily well that's the whole point yeah daily really really holy shit was he daily i think it was three times a week was it

three times a week yeah i don't even even i think he might have stepped down that's still holy shit i've had a lot of weekly columns and they just yeah like just writing a column of any kind like having uh having a perspective of any kind on anything on a week-to-week basis like i'm i have all that time you're wasting on twitter you just put into that column that's what and you'd get paid. On Bullseye right now, I have started doing an outro segment that is me recommending something. What is Bullseye? Bullseye is the new name of The Sound of Young America. And this recommendation can genuinely be anything. can genuinely be anything. I could recommend a recipe if I want to.

I can recommend, you know, morning calisthenics. Sure. You know, I can tell people that they should always take a, you know, an afternoon constitutional. Sex position. I can recommend anything within the bounds of FCC guidelines. I have recommended four-ish things, and I already dread thinking of new things to recommend for my one-and-a-half-minute to three-minute weekly column, essentially. But that's also probably exactly the same amount of words that a column would be. Dave Barry's column was really short. The ones when I wrote weekly ones, they were about 1,500 words.

I think Dave's were like maybe 500 words. That is a serious... I mean, like writing, thinking of something that you care enough about to generate that much... Well, you have to have a kind of a sense of where you can go the distance

to a middle and then a conclusion with something when you get a joke idea. Yeah. To have something that will generate comment. But every single thing doesn't have to be a joke inside of it. Lots of it can just be pointing and embellishing what you set up to begin with. There's ways you figure it out. I think it's hard enough if you're like Paul Krugman or David Brooks or something and you just have to think of a new thing that you think about Mitt Romney.

And you can just think something about whatever the last thing Mitt Romney did is. It's like, yeah, your topic isn't even given to you. Like if you're, if you're Frank Rich, you can just, you can just look at the last three things that an important political figure did and then think, which of these things can I claim has the most far reaching implications? He really worked hard. That was a long column that guy did in the Sunday New York times. Those were, I don't even know how many words that was.

That was a lot. It was most of a page sometimes, or two pages. Did you know that he's the father of Simon Rich? Brilliant comedy writer, Simon Rich? I think I did know that, yes. Yeah, now that's a power team right there. Simon Rich is basically as funny as a human being could be.

Just talked to him the other day, by the way, Simon Rich writing a movie for Pixar in San Francisco right now. Ooh, hope that wasn't secret. I don't think it was. Yeah, it's probably not. I'm sure he's proud of it. Simon Rich is a brilliant young man. Brilliant young man.

Anyway, just to summarize, Dave Barry would be a great uncle. Probably come over and have a weenie roast. People don't necessarily know what a Thai ladyboy is. Well, I knew what it was. I don't necessarily care. It's just I don't know why you were bringing it up. Sure. It would have been, I would think, a slam dunk joke if everybody was talking about Thai

ladyboys. Right. If it wasn't just spawned out of a conversation Jesse and I were having. Is no one talking about Thai ladyboys over in Malibu? That's all anybody talks about on the east side. Yeah. It is just Thai ladyboys, Thai ladyboys, Thaiai lady boys you guys are probably talking about surfing and yeah well over here it's fixed gear bikes yeah the newest gastropub right thai lady boys those three

those are the three things that you talk about i'm not even sure what a gastropub is what is it that's where you go to get a 15 hamburger oh je Oh, jeez. Yeah. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan and Jessica. It's Jordan Jesse Goh. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, board detective. I'm Meryl Marko, and I've lost track of who I am and why I'm here. You're here because all these people are going to buy your delightful new book. That's why.

These people aren't fucking idiots. No. These people know what side of the bread their butter comes from. The book side of the bread is where you get your butter. Yes. Cool, calm, and a third word, which is a joke. Convicted. Cantankerous.

Can. Carn. Can. Can. Can, can, can, cool, calm, and contentious. Contentious by Meryl Marko. The best-selling new memoir by Meryl Marko, as endorsed by no less than Jon Stewart. The Jon Stewart. One of America's most beloved funny men. Sure. I like the idea that someone can be less than Jon Stewart. The Jon Stewart! One of America's most beloved funny men.

Sure. I like the idea that someone can be less than Jon Stewart. It's Dennis Leary. He's the shitty Jon Stewart? I mean, he's... I don't know if he's... He's... I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't mean... I'm not trying to say anything mean about him.

To be fair, he's the shitty Bill Hicks. Fair, sure. Oh, I don't think that's true. Oh, really? No, I think he's really good, Jon Stewart. Oh, no, not Jon Stewart. No, no, Jon Stewart isn't the shitty Bill Hicks. Oh, I thought that's true.

No, no, no, no, Dennis Leary is. Oh. Yeah, no, Jon Stewart's not the shitty anyone. Jon Stewart's wonderful. Jon Stewart's fucking brilliant. No one has any problem with Jon Stewart. That guy's great. Dennis Leary is a confusing person.

He is because by all accounts, that television show that he made was actually quite excellent. Which one? Rescue Me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've never seen it. Yeah. Everyone says that it was actually a very excellent show.

Yeah. I guess I just remember him from Total Recall. Yeah. That's pretty much the Dennis Leary thing. And I know that's maybe the... Maybe I should have explored further dennis leary i remember him from when he did a talk show a billion years ago on mtv with this friend of mine named billy kimball you don't know who that is no they co-hosted a talk show a billion

years ago and i watched it because billy was co-hosting it with him and they were both pretty good on it it was a good show lasted It lasted, you know, a minute. Well, let's go to an MTV talk show. Let's do this. You know, I don't think MTV's giving out too many talk shows these days. No, you know, Jon Stewart had one, too. We would have to be teen moms. Oh, you know what we should do?

Let's make a music video and send it to MTV. I don't think that'll, yeah, that probably won't fly either. What's wrong with that? I mean, I'm saying I think we need to become teen girls who become pregnant. We need to become teen girls and then become pregnant. And that's going to be a process. Hey, why don't we do this instead? Let's thank our sponsors for this week's program.

First of all, MakePixelArt.com. And it's a tenant iPhone application. Hey! It's a great way to make your pixel art. Absolutely. Let's just say that you're concerned that your art has too high of resolution. That's a big concern for a lot of artists these days. They say these lines are too fine.

They're not jaggedy enough. You know? Yeah. A lot of people are worried about that kind of thing. you know yeah that's a lot of there's a lot of people are worried about that kind of thing you know i bet if you wanted to make a religious icon for nicholas cage he would probably worship something made on make pixel art dot com i agree okay uh let's look at the jumbotron um up on the jumbotron we have a message from scroll, an independent video game magazine made entirely by Ray Barnholt. Oh, hey.

Nice. Yeah. Absolutely. From that one episode of Retro Knots. That guy's great. Yeah, this guy was, he once did one of these before about episode number two. They just published episode four. It is about the weird history

of the original Xbox in Japan. You can buy it in print for $15 or in PDF for just $5. It is online at scroll.vg. Yeah, Ray is a very, very funny and clever video game writer. I think people will like this if they like clever and funny video game writing.

And the weird and wonderful history of the original Xbox in Japan some 10 years ago. If you want to get up on the Jumbotron, it's MaximumFun.org slash Jumbotron.

It's very inexpensive. I'm worried that Dennis Lurie wasn't in Total Recall. He was, right? I have never seen Total Recall. Anybody? Colin? Colin the intern. The intern. Okay, well, I'm going to... I've seen Total Recall. Anybody? Colin? Colin the intern.

The intern. Okay, well, I'm going to IMDb. I've seen Total Recall, but I don't remember anything. 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, Dennis Leary wasn't in Total Recall.

He wasn't? Did you check? I did check, yeah. I guess I was just thinking of Demolition Man. You're always thinking about Demolition Man. I usually am, yeah. I'm like, surely this is the one time where I'm not thinking of Demolition Man. Oh, wait, I was.

Joining us also, Meryl Marko. Her humorous memoir is entitled Cool, Calm, and Contentious. And it's not a memoir. It's a series of short pieces. But it's memoir-ish, right? Some of them are memoir-ish, yeah. It's like a lot of them are family-related, right? Some are.

We should explain that we were expecting your publisher to send me your book, but then they accidentally did it. I'm really sorry that you didn't tell me. I'm sorry, too. I feel bad about it now. But we do have telephone calls.

Sure. When something momentous happens, we do ask that you give us a telephone call at 206-984-4FUN and let us know about it. And we do have some telephone calls here on the computer internet to play for you. So this is a momentous occasion. I was listening to JJ Go and I saw driving along in my car and I saw a woman coming down the other side of the street on a little mobility scooter carrying a banjo wrapped in bubble wrap. And she had a little tank of oxygen behind her. So it just seemed like an amazing thing to see. It's not that amazing.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's not. Obviously, this woman has seen better days, but, you know, it's not, obviously this woman has seen better days, but you know, she's still keeping her love of music alive. She just doesn't want to damage her banjo. Yeah. And that's how she keeps the, the oxygen is how she keeps the bubble wrap full. She self inflates her own bubble wrap.

Hey, Jordan, Jesse, guest. This is Leo from Chicago. I just had a phone call with my grandmother that I just had to share. Now, she's a sweet old woman. She's a relic from another time. And she just says to me, you know, Leo, I heard that this Monday they're not going to have the schools open. And I don't think that they're going to have the banks or even deliver the mail. And it's all because of that black man.

So I just had to share that. I corrected her immediately, and she's quite the woman. So have a great one, and I will keep listening and talk to you later. And then she played him a little something on the banjo. That's right, Grandma. It's Don Cheadle Day. Wow. Yeah.

That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's that kind of racism that is hard to be mad at because it's not like she was being negative. It's not malicious. I don't agree. I think it's real easy to be mad at because it's like not like she was it's not malicious negative i don't agree i think it's real easy to be mad you know it it's amazing the more things change the more things stay the same it's it's just amazing like this week i don't know if you uh read the new york times piece where the comedy booker on the letterman show revealed and among other things that they'd only had one woman stand up on in fiscal 2011.

Oh, wow. Out of 20 – a field of 23 booked stand ups, one woman. I wouldn't have thought that would be possible just by accident you'd have three women. Yeah, sure. I mean it just seems – You almost have to be conscious. And you could say, hey, but who could be mad at them because they're a relic from another era? Except for that they're not.

They're right now and they have a show and so is that grandmother. I mean every woman – I don't know how old that grandmother might be. She might be 51, which probably seems a lot older to you than it does to me. And that guy might be 19 and he's going, oh, she's a relic from another era. and he's going, oh, she's a relic from another era. You know, it's possible. It's not really all that amusing to be an ignorant doofus is really what I guess I'm saying. And you can do it at any age.

Fair enough. No, that's true. Yeah. I don't know. It amused me, though. Sure. It did amuse me. I was amused.

All right, then. A little bit. Well, as long as you were amused. Partly because I pictured the grandma being super small. I don't know. I guess if she was really small. If it was the same woman who was on the scooter with the banjo, I think that helps it. No, then I'm worried.

I tried to do that joke, but it kind of went by and no one heard it. Oh, okay. Oh, right. No, no, you did. I was piggybacking. I'm worried. I tried to do that joke, but it kind of went by and no one heard it. Oh, right. No, no, you did. I was piggybacking. I'm sorry. Hi, Jesse. Hi, Jordan.

This is Craig from Virginia. And my girlfriend and I were just leaving a restaurant, and down the street was a GameStop. We saw a hefty gentleman outside doing the moonwalk and looking at himself in the reflection. And then he stopped, and then he continued doing the moonwalk. Thanks. Bye. Well, you had to pause for reflection. You have to take a moment to consider. You do it for a while.

You're checking out your moves. You take a second. You think, what's the impact of those moves going to be if I continue to do them what does that mean about me what does that say about me it seemed to be going well maybe he was just like 20 years late to pick up his copy of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

from Sega Genesis and he was just so excited that he remembered that it was still waiting for him at the store in michael jackson's moonwalker for the sega genesis did you make guys disappear by dancing on them is that am i remembering that correctly uh yeah yeah i mean there was so michael jackson had karate moves that were very dancey looking so he did karate karate. It shot out stars. Uh-huh. And that's how, generally how you killed bad guys.

But then also... Were they killed? Or was, or did they, were they like turned into the magic of the dance or something? I mean, well, here's the thing.

When you just karate move them, they just kind of poof in the way that video game characters poof away. Right. But then if you needed to clear the screen, you would, there was a special move where Michael Jackson would do a dance. Yeah. All of the enemies on the screen would do the dance.

And then when he went, woo, they would explode. Wow. Are you guys too young to have ever known or seen Captain Nemo when it was at the— Oh, Captain EO. EO, exactly. Frequent topic of conversation on this show. I could not have been... My grandparents...

Jordan is from Orange County. And my grandparents lived in Orange County when I was a kid. So I... And Michael Jackson was... I couldn't have loved Michael Jackson more as a small child. I mean, I was born in 1981,

so... We both got the second base for our first time while watching Captadio. Someone said on my Twitter feed, and I can't remember who attributed this to, somebody made the joke, of all the pedophiles, he's the most talented. It's true. He's taken away a lot, but he's also given us a lot sure yeah um but i uh

yeah i my probably one of my most prized possessions from age six to ten was a glow in the dark captain eo sweatshirt uh did you see captain eo oh yeah i saw captain when you in retrospect that is such a weird idea that you'd want to be super close to Michael Jackson. To the point where you could feel like you could reach out and touch him. But that was even the selling point. Yeah. Yeah, you'd sort of want, if anything, you would want a fourth wall between you and Michael Jackson. Or several of them.

Yeah, a series of fourth walls. And then some plexiglass walls. So Captain EO was replaced at Disneyland and maybe is back, is it? No, he's not back. Captain EO returned. Captain EO did return after he passed. Oh, okay. But I think it was a limited engagement.

It was replaced by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. That's what I was going to say. Was it, and I don't remember the timeline on this, was it replaced because of Michael Jackson's scandal or was it just because of Honey, I Shrunk the Kid's mania? I think he was, Michael Jackson was having a sort of a down spiral in his career at that point. I mean, it returned again, but... It had been around for, it was long in the tooth as well.

Sure, yeah. I think. I didn't know that Rick Moranis, this is not funny at all. This is actually distinctly sad. But I was on our friend Ken Plume's show the other day, and he had interviewed Rick Moranis when Rick Moranis' country album came out two or three years ago. Really? He had a country album?

A serious country album? Grammy-winning country album. Yeah, I would describe it as a semi-serious country album. I mean, the music was serious. The topic matter—the subject matter was wry in the way that country music sometimes is. It wasn't jokey, but it was a little funny. Joel. Yeah.

And I think—and I had always wondered why Rick Moranis had left show business and only appeared in a few brief bursts, and it's because his wife passed away. And so he only took jobs after his wife passed away where he would get paid as much money as possible for as short a period of work as possible. basically just take them one of those honey i shrunk the kids direct to dvd sequels that they couldn't do without him but that they would give him two million dollars for or whatever you get paid to do a direct because he was the essential element of that so you know he was taking care of his kids and yeah and so essentially he would do that and work for six weeks on that and then the work and then for two years he would just take care of his kids full-time and then that's kind of admirable yeah it's kind of amazing right shows a amazing sort of lack of egomania yeah i know right isn't that great yeah way to go rick moranis yeah yeah i feel like rick

moranis is one of those guys who you could see just popping up in you know as a the one of somebody's dad on how i met Your Mother or something like that. He's incredibly funny. Sure, totally. He's really, really good. I rewatched My Blue Heaven recently. Have you ever seen him on SCTV? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Totally funny. Yeah, and My Blue Heaven was one of those movies as a kid where I remember, like, going to see it in the theater and thinking, I'm at a grown-up movie, and, like, feeling really excited that I was watching a at a grown-up movie and like feeling really excited that i was watching a movie for grown-ups and like my mom and dad were also laughing uh it it did not strike me as a grown-up movie seeing it now um but i do remember how funny rick moranis was in it and how great anyway i'm ready for rick moranis's big comeback sure let's do this moranis he would although those kids are probably old now.

Yeah, they're grown up. The comeback train starts right here on Jordan Jesse Go, Moranis. Believe you me, it doesn't start in some holiday pantomime in Toronto, which is probably what you're up to. We will give you two million dollars to record for two hours

with us. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jessica. It's Jordan, Jesse Goh. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy detective. I'm Meryl Marko, and I have a book out called Cool, Calm, and Contentious. Buy it, won't you? They will. Oh, they will?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Our audience is readers. Yeah, these people like books. These people like fucking reading. Yeah. These people are going to, A, they're going to read the book. B, they're going to go on their Goodreads accounts and tell all their friends about how much they like the book. And then they're going to marry a library.

Those are the three things that they are going to do. The three things that they are going to do. I actually recently read, Meryl, one of the first books that you wrote, perhaps the first book that you wrote, The Late Night with David Letterman Show, the book. Yeah. Which I ran into. I was in the St. Vincent de Paul over here, and I saw your name on the spine. I thought, oh, I know Meryl Marko.

She's the best. I bought it. Holds up. Very funny, even in 2012. Yeah, it's a good, it's verbally very good. It's kind of a mess graphically. What do you mean when you say that it's a mess graphically? Well, it had a lot of blurry pictures and repeats and stuff. When we got that book deal,

we all kind of presumed that if a television show on a network gets a deal with a big book publisher, it means that pictures will be great. I mean, where have you seen a book? We've all seen a million books with pictures that were great. Right. Where have you seen one where they were horrible? Right. Never. So we just didn't think there would be a book like that that would be horrible, that something would get out of your control somehow that you didn't know to control for initially or contractually or whatever.

I still don't know exactly what piece didn't fall into place there, but it was one of the few books that really was a mess. I know when our friends, Casper Hauser wrote their first book, which was called Sky Mall, happy crap you can buy from a plane. Sadly now out of print and sells for $250 on amazon.com. Does it really?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. If anyone would pay for it. I lost mine and I was thinking of rebuying it. You're fucked, Jordan. You are fucked. Hey, maybe I'll drop the $250.

Yeah, it is one of my favorite things of all time. But when they got their deal to write that book, they were just writing content for it and got back some sample pages that their publisher had put together like some put together with their graphic designer and said and they had to be like oh okay well we're gonna hire a graphic designer and buy all our own art to make this because this is terrible and wrong so they they had to reinvest in the combo. Yeah, they just basically just had to – they just had – they said – I mean, they got –

Did they get it published the way they wanted it? Yeah, they did. Well, that never happened with this. And I was getting blamed for it. I remember Letterman was furious with me as if I – I'd never been around a book publishing company. I mean, I had no idea where to even begin. I wasn't about to take my own money from the bank and hire a photographer. I thought the book publisher does that.

I enjoyed the quality of the original art in the Goofus and Gallant parody. Yeah, that was all right. I was just laughing about – Well, that was because they could take the original and photograph them. But a lot of the pieces had to do with um what prop things that we built we used to have segments that we would give various names to but they would be called i don't know new gift items let's say or something right and so that you know we'd write the joke and then they'd build a fly feeder or whatever it was and and it and that would be part of the joke.

So we assumed, when I say we, I assumed they would get the fly feeder and take a photograph of it somehow like an art catalog. Yeah. Which is, you know, I'd gone to art school and I'd seen a million art catalogs. They don't ever look crappy. Yeah. But that's not what they did. They took pictures off the TV.

They ran the thing on a monitor. Yes. Oh, funny. And took pictures off the TV. They ran the thing on a monitor and took pictures off the monitor. Yes, I did notice that. So you could pretty much almost see the lines on the monitor. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, like you would think that they would do it the way that one of those stores, like you sold it on eBay stores, would do it. Like they just have a bin that has a bunch of lights. They would put it in the middle of the bin and click photograph on the picture. But yeah, they literally pointed a camera at a television screen.

A television monitor. I mean, I have a friend named April Winchell, who's one of the funniest women who ever lived, and she is the designer, owner, perpetrator of a site called Regretzi. Have you ever seen that? Sure, sure. And they had a book out, and it's a gorgeous book. It's all the pieces that they... It does not look like what happened, but Letterman

was a show. You know, you'd think that that would make it less likely that it would be shitty graphics. This was a noteworthy cultural phenomenon at the time. It invented Chris Elliott. Oh, hey, can I mention something about, speaking of Chris Elliott. He's a friend of mine in case you guys are going to say anything negative I'm going to fight.

I don't have it. What negative thing would anyone say about Chris Elliott? People say negative things about everybody. Oh, man. If someone had something negative to say about Chris Elliott, I would probably have to fight them. That guy's basically the greatest guy of all time. He is great.

A, funniest guy of all time. B, just super nice. Talk about people that I wish was my uncle. Okay, this is what I have to say about Chris Elliott. We are very excited that MaximumFun.org is the sponsor of two shows at SF Sketch Fest. One of them is January 20th at Cobbs in San Francisco. John Hodgman, an evening of my expertise.

It is an evening with our colleague in the MaximumFun.org network, John Hodgman of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I promise you it will be an absolute delight. There will be special guests and special extravaganza-type activities, so attend that. And then on January 21st, on the subject of Chris Elliott, we present An Afternoon with Eagleheart. Folks may remember Maria Thayer was just on our show a couple of weeks ago. She will be there along with Chris Elliott and the creators of Eagle Heart, Michael Komen and Andrew Weinberg and Jason Wolliner,

who is the director of many episodes of Eagle Heart and one of the executive producers of the show and is a member of the Human Giant. And they will, they, I just talked to Michael about it. I ran into Michael at a show I went to at the UCB the other day. And they are putting together an extravaganza for this show. They said they they are they are self-conscious about anyone paying to see them do anything. And so they want to make sure it's worth it.

I believe that was his exact quote. So they'll get over that. Go see An Afternoon with Eagleheart. There's links to both of those shows, including tickets on our website at MaximumFun.org in the right-hand bar.

Well, Meryl, it has been such a joy to have you on the program. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for inviting me. Meryl Marko's brand new book is called Cool, Calm, and Contentious. It only took you the entire show to get that third word. But congratulations. At least you've achieved something.

Thank you. She is also the author of numerous other, numerous other hilarious books, uh, that you should really check out. And, um. You can see the list of them on my website, merrillmarco.com. And you can find Merrill on Twitter as well. You know, I like Twitter. Yeah.

You can write jokes. Yeah, you can write jokes on there. And Merrill is great at writing jokes on Twitter. You should, uh, follow her at Merrill Marco, right? There's no underscore in there, right? should follow her at Merrill Marco, right? There's no underscore in there, right? No. Just at Merrill Marco. And I, as mentioned,

am headed to Europe for two weeks. And so Jordan will be hosting this program in my stead. I believe you have lined up some very special guests. I have some very special guests lined up for the next two weeks.

Yeah, some very funny people. Yeah. You don't have to say who they are. I won't. I'm going to... We'll make it a surprise. It'll be a surprise tease. We'll make it a surprise, but the show...

He doesn't know who they are, does he? It's Jesse's dogs. I'm just going to hold the dogs up to the microphone when I get here. They're just going to lick the microphone. Yeah. It'll be as long as the program usually is. Oh, my gosh. We have to pick a Tweet of the Week.

Oh, sure. Tweet of the Week. We love the tweets when they're hashtagged with hashtag JJGO. Oh, here's Meryl, this is what we do on the show. Jesse picks a tweet of the week and then I make chit chat with the guest. Do you both nominate them

all week long? Well, technically I should have already picked one, but every week I consistently forgot to have already picked one. It's a newish. And are they by you or by the people that you follow? These are by people who tweet something about the show or recommend the show to friends using the hashtag JJGo. So they just say things like, boy, you guys are great.

That's the tweet of the week. That usually makes it. Yeah. I got a tweet of the week here. This is easy. I mentioned the San Francisco 49ers game on Sunday. I got several tweets on this subject, but only one person was smart enough to tweet it publicly and hashtag it JJ Go.

It's not an official sporting event in San Francisco until Huey Lewis and the News sing the national anthem. Huey Lewis and the News sing the national anthem at all major sporting events in San Francisco. They are San Francisco's famous people. I used to live in San Francisco, I know. And then Huey Lewis comes out in one of those mobile chairs with a banjo covered with bubble wrap. That's the news

now. The news is his mobile assistant. Oh, do you have to say who it is for them to get their chair? Oh, yes, I do. That was at the clever mark. Clever remark. Clever remark. the clever mark clever remark clever remark the at the clever remark except the

it's confusing because he's got the K is capitalized and the K the and clever are capitalized but remark isn't capitalized except for the K does he spell clever with a K you'd think his name was Mark maybe, but it's not. No, he spells clever the traditional way.

Oh, good. Yeah, I know. It would be really too far over the line if he was spelling clever with it. If he was asking me to buy into that, I wouldn't be buying what he was selling. Yeah. Anyway, email intern at MaximumFun.org. Tell us your t-shirt size. We'll send you a t-shirt.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your support, everyone. Our theme music, Love You by The Free Design, courtesy of The Free Design and Light in the Attic Records. Find us online at MaximumFun.org. Discuss the show at forum.maximumfun.org and on our red-hot Facebook page, Facebook fan page. That's where Jordan doesn't go.

Yeah, I don't go there. If you want to get my attention, that is not the place to go. Anyway, but you can discuss the show there and post fun stuff. Sure, that sounds like fun. Okay, we'll be back next week on Jordan and Jessica. Bye. Hi, I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Travis McElroy.

I'm Griffin McElroy. We're three brothers. It's not a coincidence. We have a show. It's called My Brother, My Brother and Me. It's an advice show for the modern era. Sometimes we also take questions from the Yahoo answer service. Hey, guys, how many push-ups does it take to look like a werewolf?

That's a fine question, Griffin. We'll answer that one and so much more, including questions from readers about love and navigating the waters of society. Subscribe on iTunes or get it online at MaximumFun.org. We're brothers. We're experts. And we're sorry.