Jordan, Jesse, GO! - Ep. 113: Hall of Presidents
Episode Date: October 22, 2009Sarah Vowell joins Jesse and Jordan to talk about animatronic presidents, the inscrutability of David Letterman and the magic of moving. ...
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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,
Salmon, Jesse, go.
We talk about crappy furniture from Ikea, the traumas of moving, and American presidents, among other topics.
Let's go.
It's Jordan, Jesse, go.
I am Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.
I'm Jordan Morris, boy detective.
Oh, a delightful guest with us today, Jordan. A delightful guest.
Okay, full disclosure time.
We've had a lot of people on the show that I'm a fan of,
but in this case I'm legitimately worried about embarrassing myself.
Well, you peed your pants earlier and you haven't done a good job blotting it up.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think I can still recover from the pants piss,
but I don't know what kind of embarrassing behavior might be on the horizon.
So, you know, apologies up front.
What kind of stuff do you think might be on the horizon?
What are you thinking?
Let's brainstorm.
There's too much buildup.
You know, you haven't said my name, and people are probably thinking, oh, my God, they have Mr. T or something really, you know, special.
From the world of books.
Expectations have lowered immensely just from that.
Sarah Val, welcome to the show, Sarah.
Thanks, fellas.
Sarah, here's the show, Sarah. Thanks, fellas.
Here's what happens, Jordan. Sarah goes on book tour, but because she's a celebrity
book author, and we all know
Sarah Val, if there is a celebrity
book author, it's Miss Sarah Val.
Because she's a celebrity book author,
she gets to go on two book tours
per book. So she'll go on a
hardcover book tour, sure, just like
any author does. But
like only celebrities. We're talking about James Patterson. We're talking about The Purpose
Driven Life, celebrity pastor Rick Warren.
L. Ron Hubbard before he died.
And Sarah Val go on a softcover book tour as well. So her new book, The Partly Cloudy
Patriots, is in soft cover at the moment.
Paperback, they call it.
Jesse, that's like eight books ago you just said.
Well, you know, on the paperback tour, everything is slightly diminished.
So not even you should feel less special.
But for the listeners, I am just sitting in some dude's apartment,
and his co-host friend is doing laundry as we record this.
This is true.
I just moved, just for the benefit of the listener.
If things sound terrible on this week's program, my apologies.
I just moved, and some of my shit got broken in the move.
My apologies. I just moved and some of my shit got broken in the move.
And we're here in my new apartment in Los Angeles' Silver Lake District.
And Jordan called me this morning and said, hey, Jesse, what's your address?
Because this is the first time Jordan has been here.
I told him my new address and he said, is it okay if I bring, do you have laundry?
Can I bring some laundry over?
That would make my life a lot easier. I'm just trying, okay, I have a packed day. I'm not trying to make you guys feel like assholes for taking up my time. That's not what I want to do. I'm glad to
be here. I'm just saying I have a packed day and if I can have a load of wash in while we do this,
that's going to save me some time. I thought you were Mr. Fluff and Fold, Jordan. Months ago on this program, you gave a little dissertation on the merits of taking your laundry to someone else to have them do it for you.
A laundress, for example.
Yeah, I got tired of that because it was expensive.
I was going to say, it seems like one of the, having listened to this show, I guess if you can call it that.
You know, I think it's probably appropriate to put show in quotation marks now that I think about it.
It seems like one of the recurring themes is, Jordan, is your thriftiness.
Yeah, yeah.
I was impressed, actually, when you brought up the fluff and fold,
that this was something that you had decided to do with your hard-earned chicken scratch.
Yeah, and it seems to be a pattern with me.
Which, by the way, is what I call money,
apparently.
Not a hastily written
note, which is what normal people... I'm in Oklahoma in
1936. I don't even
think they called it that. I think chicken scratch,
isn't that chicken scratch just like a quickly
written note or something?
I don't know. I think it
may be also that yeah i think money
is i don't think i made that expression you're thinking of big enchiladas that's what they
called it in oklahoma in 1936 i was actually born in oklahoma and we say greenbacks okay my apologies
no no my apologies um sorry jordan here's the kind of the pattern I see,
R.E. my thriftiness.
Like, I reckon, like, it's one of those, like,
character flaws that I recognize.
Some would say miserliness.
Sure.
It's no longer a character flaw, though, you know,
since the economic downturn.
Yeah, it's a thriftiness.
It's now a virtue.
Now it's a topic for a thousand different public radio features.
Right, yeah.
Kurt Anderson wrote a whole book about why people should be more like you, Jordan.
Wow, did he?
I think he would have consulted me or something.
What was Kurt Anderson's nickname when he was on Jordan and Jessie Goat?
Dynamite?
Explodo.
Explodo.
Explodo Explodo
So you know
I recognize it as a thing that I deal with
Is you know not wanting to spend money
And then I'll find
You know I'll find an aspect of my life
Whether it is
You know going out to better restaurants
Or taking my clothes
To the fluff and fold
Or something
Buying nicer clothes
Buying fluffernutters Yeah buying fluffernutters to the fluff and fold or something. And I say to my, or, you know, buying nicer clothes.
Buying fluffernutters.
Yeah, buying fluffernutters.
And then I say to myself, okay, Jordan,
you're going to start spending money on this.
Your life is going to be better.
You're not going to notice the money's gone.
And you're on your way to becoming a better,
more well-put-together human being.
And then just in three months, I give up.
I'm like, nah, it's too expensive.
Yeah.
So anyways, I'm going to try and maintain some of these non-thrifty habits.
Is that why you got that waterbed?
Yes.
That's a big reason.
You know, and for improved fucking.
Do you really have a waterbed?
I don't have a waterbed.
I wish I did.
That'd be great.
You know, my old launderer in New York was this very funny Chinese man, and he... Is he here now, Sarah?
Can you bring him out for us?
But I'm not...
Is this part of your one-woman show?
I'm not the snazziest dresser, you know.
I mean, I prefer the color.
All of my clothes are colors bound in a bruise.
In the bruise color wheel.
Black and dark blue and, you know, I'm wearing dark gray right now, as you can see.
That's a gangrenous bruise.
And he would always, when I would drop off my laundry and dry cleaning,
he would take everything out and, you know, to tally it up.
And he would always sarcastically describe each item as he made the list, you know,
and he would say, one black sweater, one black skirt, black skirt two black shirts oh gray sweater
like oh a color you got sassafras by your launderer i have been sassafras by my launderer
i just i mean i know this is radio and listeners can't see us sarah i don't think you needed to
grab the ends of your eyes and pull them back while you did that i'm just saying i don't think you needed to grab the ends of your eyes and pull them back while you did that.
I'm just saying, I don't think it added to it.
I just got a little upset.
I will say this.
I thought the Cooley hat lended an air of verisimilitude.
I don't think, Jordan, that you needed to be playing the pentatonic scale, an air pentatonic scale.
It's just a nervous habit.
Yeah.
on a scale. It's just a nervous habit.
Yeah.
No, but you know, I while, I mean, probably
a good time to talk about this, Jesse
and I actually were moving at the same time.
Yeah, so we
basically, it was one of those situations,
Sarah, you probably know about
this with your girlfriends, Jordan and I are
a little bit psychic.
So, of course.
That's because our periods have sank up yeah so we sank up
synced up sanked synced up sunk yeah our period ships have sunk together uh anyways um uh so we
of course we called each other at exactly the same time and each got the busy tone because we were
calling each other to ask each other to help each other to move and did you help each other move no we couldn't because jordan was literally moving
jordan and i were literally moving at exactly the same times and jordan is in and out of town and uh
you know i've been in a car accident recently so it was sort of a bad situation for helping
and we don't enjoy each other's company. It's also sort of unfair since apparently Jordan doesn't
own anything, right?
Yeah.
So yeah,
and I definitely realized how
little stuff I own when moving didn't take
that long.
Maybe two afternoons
I took to move basically
everything I own.
What's the biggest thing you own, Jordan?
Oh, geez
Got a desk
I think it's probably my desk
It was the biggest, most cumbersome thing
You have that racing wheel for your Xbox
Oh, yeah, I do have that
That's got a sizable base
I had to tie that to the top of the car
Bungie cords
And so, yeah, and here's my new taking laundry to the fluff and fold that I may or may not abandon in a few months, but I hope not to.
Now, Jordan, be careful because I don't want to alienate our listeners in these tough economic times with tales of your largesse, but go ahead.
Okay.
You know, so I – this is my own place.
This is a roommate-less situation.
This is a nice one bedroom.
I have a nice little living room and a, you know, a nook for breakfast.
Sure.
And the, I've always been petrified, petrified, petrified of nesting in a place, of putting myself in a situation where I couldn't move.
Where you can tear up newspapers.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Where I can store my seeds in my cheeks.
And because I'm just, I'm always afraid that I'm, like, my incompetence is going to be brought to light, that I will be fired,
that I will be rendered unemployable
for the rest of my life.
And then I'll just have to very quickly
get my shit together
and go to my mom's house at any point.
Like, I'm always...
Hollywood is a tough mistress.
It is, absolutely.
You know, I'm sure Seth Rogen deals with similar things.
Oh, absolutely.
When Observe and Report didn't do as good as Hiddelike.
Hey, not everybody's in The Incredibles.
Yeah, exactly.
Some people are in All About Steve.
Yeah, exactly.
Are you worried there's going to be some kind of young, hip person pogrom
where there will be knocks at the door
and you're going to have to run out
the back door with only
your video games in your hands.
Yes, with only my top five
video games. I'll have to
lit out for the forest. Jordan already
has a carpet bag
packed with
his Xbox 360.
Some dollar bills.
Yeah.
A Canadian passport.
Now, when you describe your breakfast nook,
since it seems, I'm guessing,
you probably don't have any breakfast furniture, right?
Is that just where you stand
and eat yogurt out of a carton or something?
Yeah.
Do you need a kitchen table, Jordan? Because I have a kitchen table in my you know i actually do what's what's in there right
now is a card table i got from work okay um and i i i i i legit i looked at that and said to myself
like okay jordan don't have this card table here for more than two months is it a volcom card table
yeah you know is that what happened well it's a co-sponsored card table with for more than two months is it a volcom card table yeah you know is that
what happened well it's a co-sponsored card table with volcom and red bull and uh jack spicy links
whenever you do start acquiring things do you do you know like which era of the decorative
arts you might be drawn to um that's that's something i need help with Art nouveau Because Jesse seems to
He seems to skew
Sort of mid 20th century
I would say
Yeah that's fair
I personally prefer the arts and crafts movement
Oh I was
Looking at a catalog
A Bonhams and Butterfield catalog
Just the other day
Was it the Barbra Streisand auction No that sounds fantastic though I was looking at a Bonhams and Butterfield catalog just the other day, and there was a most beautiful...
Was it the Barbra Streisand auction?
No, that sounds fantastic, though.
Uh-huh.
I bet Barbra's got taste.
Well, she does have quite a museum-quality collection of Stickley.
Oh, superb.
I had my eye on this Harvey Ellis rocker.
Oh, gracious.
At this point, guys, I'm basically just saying to myself
over and over, just don't get a bunch of shit
from Ikea. That's my rule.
That's my new rule. Right now,
we moved into this apartment. I really
like this apartment. I'm very happy with it.
The only downside is there's no
storage in the bathrooms at all.
Like, they have those pedestal
sinks that everybody wants in their apartments
for some reason. And there's no under... And then they have those pedestal sinks that everybody wants in their apartments for some reason
and there's no under thing and then they have flat mirrors instead of cabinets in the above the sinks
and so there's literally we have our bathroom stuff like uh you know our everything besides
our toothbrushes in just one of those like uh six dollar plastic bins from costco sitting in our
bathroom and so we're trying to figure out what is the solution to this problem.
And my rule is I'm not bringing anything else that's been compressed
from tiny pieces of wood and covered in plastic.
That's my new rule.
Like nothing else like that.
I have some, you know, you can see some Ikea bookshelves right here.
Sure.
But no more is entering my life.
That's my new rule.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, saying this as a guy who...
I really don't feel like Jordan is quite up to that aesthetic protest yet.
Am I misinterpreting, Jordan?
No, I mean, that's...
Jordan, would you spend $6 on a bin from Costco?
Yeah, I'd probably hang around outside the Costco dumpsters
and take whatever they were throwing out.
When I moved, we hired movers.
First time in my life we hired movers.
They had me sign a piece of paper that said,
if anything made of that pressed wood stuff broke, it wasn't their fault.
Really?
That's the only, like, there was no other weird restrictions or anything.
Just their rule is, anything from Ikea, we expect it to break.
Yeah.
There's an umlaut in the name of the thing.
We are not responsible for it.
Yeah, I mean, saying this as a guy who doesn't look nice and his home has never looked nice, I recognize –
You could have just stopped at God.
Speaking as a fella, I recognize when you do walk into an apartment of someone in their mid-late 20s and they do have the all IKEA house, I recognize that that looks shitty.
And granted, I only got a bed frame semi-recently
and probably have no room to say someone else's house looks shitty.
You're really growing up.
Yeah, thank you.
I feel good about me.
But yeah, I definitely recognize that aesthetic of me and my mom
just went for an afternoon and we put this all together.
So yeah, I'm trying to avoid that.
I want to have some, maybe try some garage sailing
and antique storing.
You going to go to the Long Beach flea market with me?
Yeah, I'll totally go to the Long Beach flea market with you.
You have to get up early in the morning.
I can do that.
I approve of that.
You know, my whole family comes from Oklahoma
and all of my uncles
are the garage sale kings of
Tulsa.
Wait, there's more than one garage sale king?
Doesn't that cause unrest?
They're brothers.
That just makes it worse.
Are any of them Catholic
and some of them Protestant?
Yeah, one of them's in prison right now.
No, but my late uncle, John A.,
the nicest thing he ever said to me was,
once we were at a garage sale and I got an accordion for $20,
and he said, you paid a good price for that.
Wow.
Yeah.
Praise from Caesar.
That's sweet. That's sweet.
That's sweet.
Jordan, your new house reminds me of,
I was just going through old photographs
at my grandmother's place.
And we came upon this picture of my bedroom
when I was little at my dad's house.
My parents divorced when I was like three
or something like that.
And I was, maybe I'm six or something like that i was maybe i'm
six or something like that and it was sort of a full shot of my bedroom and the thing that struck
me when i saw it was that i literally did not have a piece of furniture in this entire shot
i unless you count a mattress as furniture there was a mattress on the ground. There was one of those
rugs that has a picture of a town on it that you can drive your little cars around.
And there were a few different piles of things, but not one shelf, cabinet, anything, nothing.
That was the lifestyle I led with my dad as a child.
It was like you eat pasta and salad.
You have no furniture at all.
So basically Jordan is like a divorced dad without the former spouse or offspring.
Exactly.
So he has all the...
On the weekends I'm going to a lot of boat shows.
The zoo.
Have you ever read Sinclair Lewis's Main Street, Jordan?
I have not.
Because, you know, maybe your whole anti-property stance is more of a kind of proto-feminist thing where, you know, there's this character.
Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Carrie, I think, is her name.
I like it.
And she, you know, lives in Gopher Prairie, which is about as exciting of a town as it sounds.
And she's petrified of domesticity.
He says that one word, home, it terrified her.
Well, Jordan, how do you feel?
I like this.
I have not read the book.
But yeah, I'm going to go with this.
I'm going to go with it's just feminism that I'm into.
I'm just into broads.
I'm into broads and their shit. So I want to help them by not buying stuff.'m going to go with this. I'm going to go with it's just feminism that I'm into. I'm just into broads. I'm into broads and their shit, so
I want to help them by not buying stuff.
Let's check in on this. When I ask you to bake me
something, how do you feel about that?
I just want to take off my clothes
and live in the woods. When I
give you socks to darn, because
they need darning, how do
you feel about that?
I just want to have sex with
the town minister. So there you go.
It's obvious that this is an ideological thing.
I would have pegged Jordan as a Gramscian.
Yeah.
You're really going to enjoy it when you move to Washington, D.C.
and hang out with the suffragettes.
Yeah, that'll be great.
Okay, we're having fun.
We got Sarah Val here.
Of course, Jordan Morris and myself.
We'll have more Jordan and Jesse go when we come back in just a second.
Jordan, Jesse Go.
I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.
Jordan Morris, boy detective.
Sarah, did you come up with a nickname?
Oh, yeah.
What am I?
Class Act?
Sarah Bell, Class Act.
Except for every time she comes.
She's now been to my apartment twice.
Both times she has relentlessly mocked me for having this American Life TV series poster on my wall.
That's true. The nice people at Showtime took the time to send it to me. The least I can do is on my wall. That's true.
The nice people at Showtime took the time to send it to me.
The least I can do is put it up.
It's framed.
I framed it.
Sorry.
That's why you also have that Californication poster.
Fine folks at Showtime.
Jordan, we just opened the Max Fun Store.
Yes, we did.
Let's talk about it.
And by we, I mean I didn't have anything to do with it.
No, you didn't.
We did try and round up a new design for a Jordan Jesse Go t-shirt.
Should we have a contest or something?
What should we do about getting a new Jordan Jesse Go?
Oh, yeah, people love that shit.
We should totally have a contest.
What's the prize for the contest?
We can pay people.
Yeah.
But we should have a a cool, we should have a cool prize too. You know, on
Pacifica Radio back in the day, I remember listening to one of their pledge drives and
the incentive gift was a recording of a speech by Aristide. In French, I'm guessing. Or in Creole,
probably. Probably in Creole, French. Yeah, so how about this?
A recording of a speech by you, Jordan, in Creole.
That's fine.
Is our prize.
Or I'll just do like a crazy New Orleans voice.
Yeah.
Welcome, y'all, to New Orleans.
Gumbo, y'all.
That was my crazy New Orleans voice.
That was actually a really good uh uh impression of
celebrity chef paul prude home yeah um so we're gonna we there's no jordan jesse go t-shirt in
the store yet but if you go to uh uh it's at topatico do you know about this topatico nope
topatico is this website it might be called tapado co like like potato with letters switched around. I know about Kotaku.
Topatico.
That's something I know about.
It's this website where a lot of our pals from the world of web comics and so on, like
Brandon Bird has a lot of stuff for sale there.
David Malky from Wonder Mark has a lot of stuff for sale there.
These kind of folks, they have their broad range of stuff for sale there. David Malky from Wonder Mark has a lot of stuff for sale there. These kind of folks, they have their broad range of stuff for sale there, and you can kind of buy
different stuff there. You can, if you buy, you know, three shirts, you get five bucks off, that
kind of thing. So they're running our whole merch operation. It's topatoco.com slash maxfun,
T-O-P-A-T-O-C-O TopatoCo.com
slash MaxFun
or there's a link on our website.
We've got t-shirts
which we printed all of them
on the nice alternative apparels
like the Jordan Jesse Go t-shirts
we made last time.
You get positive comments
from that t-shirt, right?
Women just want to touch you
when you're wearing it, right?
I mean, I don't go around
wearing the Jordan Jesse Go t-shirt.
To the gym, certainly. Yeah, no, i could touch a reasonable amount scott simpson
was telling me about how when he wears it to the gym chicks always check him out he told me about
that okay it's because it's the quality the alternative apparel quality that's because
scott simpson is so tall and lean he is he's a boyish too boyishly handsome yeah um that guy's the whole package we got hooded sweatshirts which is something people have been asking me for for a million years
and i also made max fun polo shirts so here's what it is it's like it's a it's like a secret way
to be wearing uh you know endorse your support for Maximum Fun.
You could wear it to the office.
Basically, it's a navy blue polo shirt.
It's a really nice quality polo shirt, too.
And the embroidery, instead of being like your horse with a polo player
or your Lacoste crocodile, is the little Maximum Fun rocket ship.
Rocket ship for Maximum Fun.
It's like a Skull skull and bones kind of thing.
Yeah, exactly. People love that.
Or like those Jesus fishes.
Yeah, precisely.
I thought about using a Jesus fish,
but then I thought, that's a little too on the nose.
It's just a little bit too
on the nose. And a rocket ship is really
just a Jesus fish turned on its
side. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
That can fly.
And go in space.
Right.
Which is a Jesus fish.
Jesus can't exist in space.
He can't handle the vacuum of space.
That's why he's not as good as Spider-Man.
I'm going to put this into the timeline of the show
before the thing about Jesus and Spider-Man.
Just wait, guys.
This is a tease.
Just wait.
You're going to get a great...
Something to look forward to.
And as long as we're...
Oh, you're kind of ruining the punchline.
That's true.
That's fine.
Do whatever the fuck you want.
I don't care.
As long as we're talking about shit, too,
that people can spend their money on,
you just put tickets to MaxFunCon.
Registrations for MaxFunCon are now available.
MaxFunCon.com.
Hodgman and Colton
are coming back
and we've got
Maria Bamford's coming back
because she wanted to do
like an open mic type situation.
So she's going to have
your first stand-up comedy show
with Maria Bamford
as one of the classes
that's offered.
And Maria will take all comers,
whether you have some
or no comedy experience.
You can try stand-up comedy with Maria in the audience.
And Maria is going to do some new material that she just wrote.
She's a lovely woman.
Dude, she is so awesome.
She is so amazing.
Every time I see her, I just think, man, I wish I was that good at anything.
And John Hodgman, he's my proxy Twitterer.
Oh, yeah, he does.
He Twitters on your behalf from time to time.
He's the one who broke wide open the fact that I started wearing Birkenstocks.
No, you did not start wearing Birkenstocks.
Did you continue to wear Birkenstocks?
I still have them.
That's something you didn't want to get out.
No, no, I sanction everything.
Hodgman's sort of the tmz of twitter is that
what we're learning yeah yeah he also told twitter that i didn't know what twitter was
now now you do know what it is is it just something you don't care to have in your life
what do you need a proxy i don't need any more interaction with people. I'm good.
Nice.
She's got her tea parties.
Yeah.
Also might be out of timeline.
Also might be a tease and not a callback.
Okay, so maxfuncon.com. We've got Maria, but new people this year.
We've got Mark Maron.
We've got a brilliant Al Madrigal.
Super brilliant.
Past guest on Jordan Jesseh, of course.
We've got a really awesome Clifford and Kid.
Still want me to teach that improv class?
You're going to teach an improv class?
Absolutely.
Possibly less hungover this time.
No, I'm going for more hungover.
I'm going to do a bad job.
You can take a...
Literally, Max Funcon is the only place in the world
where you can take an improv class from Jordan
where he is just super hungover.
He's not looking at the stage.
He's barely listening.
Hating life.
It's a really special experience in that sense.
And of course, our friend right here on Jordan Jesse Go,
another Jordan Jesse Go friend,
is going to be there,
a little fella you might have heard of named Andrew WK,
uh,
the king of fun.
What is he going to do?
Is he going to,
is he going to play music or is he going to,
is he going to give us an inspiring talk?
Great.
Isn't that awesome?
Oh man.
You guys are quite monarchical.
I heard the one with Nick Hornby and you called him the king of all books.
He's the king of all books.
Oh,
the king of all books.
Yeah.
Yeah. He is the king of all, I apologize. You can be the queen of all books he's the king of all books yeah yeah he is the king of i apologize you can be the queen of all books but you have to marry him
um we're just friends yeah um yeah when's the revolution you know when are you start
gonna start electing representatives in the arts you know and they yeah and they represent their art on a kind of a rotating basis and then
after they've been in charge for a few months somebody else no it's natural law god controls
the arts and he chooses its monarchs yeah divine right um so maxfuncon.com if you want to do that
but i i really like this max fun store thing operation, but the shit that you can get in this,
premium stuff.
You know that I don't fuck around, right, Jordan?
No.
You've never fucked around for a second in your life.
Not for one minute.
Now, granted, this entire show,
the premise of this show is basically fucking around.
But in terms of quality of garments...
That's a ruse.
Yes.
We're not actually.
It's all very calculated.
I thought I was here to talk up the joys of literature.
You're so mistaken.
Just because you have a new book called, it just came out in soft cover, called The Partly Cloudy Patriot.
That's like eight books ago.
That's the right one, right?
It's still in print and available in stores.
Is that the wrong one?
No, no, you're right.
Is that the wrong one? Is that not the one that just came out in paperback that just came out in
paperback it's called the wordy ship the wordy shipmates i got it wrong i read both of them
i read them both thanks mark my words i read them both i sent the wordy shipmates to uh uh my uh
teenage brother in uh at the university of cal at Santa Cruz. He loves history.
What do you think?
Has he read it yet?
I don't know if he's read it yet.
He's too busy smoking dupes.
He's probably just smoking some dupes.
Right, Santa Cruz.
You know, taking some mescaline.
Yeah.
You know, that kind of shit.
It would be a good book to read on that roller coaster.
That's true.
You can put that on the cover of the book.
Especially as the Massachusetts Bay
colonists are
floating across the
Atlantic.
You too can be
floating through the sky
alongside your barf.
On a potentially dangerous roller coaster.
I'm really having a problem. Jordan, I really should
start having a note thing in front of me
between me forgetting which book was Sarah's new book
that she's on tour for right now.
No, that's fine.
At least you remembered the old title.
Sometimes I do interviews that start,
so, I hear you're a writer.
So, Jonathan Ames.
Woman.
Last week I forgot Seth from A Yeah Dude's Last Name.
A Yeah Dude Community. Not happy about that. Not happy about that at all.
I was listening to your radio show
recently and you were talking
about a trailer park
and someone who has made
a show or a film or something set in a trailer park.
Trailer park boys. Yes.
And you called the trailer park
Amelia.
Is that not Amelia? That was a mistake it is amelia thank you but i was it was just an interesting use of the word i never thought of
a trailer park as amelia it's like you're you're just expanding my horizons you know anything can
be amelia no matter how humble yeah there's such a thing. I have a, you know, just because I live here in Silver Lake
and all my neighbors are rich white people
and I'm now a rich white person
and my wife just got her law degree and et cetera, et cetera,
doesn't mean I'm not a man of the people.
You can tell that by all these military medals I wear.
I thought that was just because you were a giant dick.
On your sweater vest.
Okay.
One more thing I want to say.
Probably a lot of people out there already know this from the Twitter or the blog,
but me and Adam from You Look Nice Today, Lonely Sandwich,
have this new video series coming out called Put This On about men's clothes,
speaking of sweater vests, which I endorse, called Put This On.
You can follow the blog at putthison.com.
And if you live in Southern California, we're having a launch party for it
on Friday, October 30th at Rising Sun Jeans in Pasadena.
And it's this amazing store with leather floors.
I'm making Gin Punch from a 1964 issue
of Gourmet Magazine.
We're going to be serving Miller High Life, hopefully
in pony bottles if I can find them.
It's the champagne of beers.
And we're going to have Mexican Coca-Cola.
So it's going to be quite a party. That's all I'm
saying. It's going to be quite a party.
Sounds good. So how about all that shit?
MaxFunCon.com for registering for
MaxFunCon. Topatic registering for MaxFunCon.
Topatico.com slash MaxFun for the MaxFun store.
And now PutThisOn.com for the new blog and everything.
And of course, Sarah Val's new book just out in paperback is called Radio On.
Radio On, Sarah Val's newest book just out in paperback.
It's called Eat, Pray, Love.
That's a good book.
Elizabeth Gilbert, thank you so much for being here.
It's been such a pleasure.
Okay, we'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jessica. Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, you quit the business you were intimidated that's why you got out you heard i was doing my thing on college radio in
santa cruz and you said i'm out of here it's true i'm done with this you just gotta make way for the
new generation yeah i'm not sticking around you know past my prime. Absolutely not. I know Dick Van Dyke. No. I don't know.
He really wore out his welcome.
Didn't he?
Touring company of the music man.
Dick Van Dyke's like,
you know what,
I'm going to make my way.
I'm going to,
ah, shit.
I was going to say something
about Jerry Van Dyke,
but then I got intimidated.
Something about Coach.
You got intimidated by,
you just,
you got intimidated
because you know that if you make fun of Jerry Van Dyke, he will come here and fuck you up.
Yeah, I know.
Audios, just imagine I made a really great coach joke.
And I added something about Dauber, too.
Jerry Van Dyke rolls crew deep, and he will take you out.
Exactly.
One to the dome piece for Jordan Morris from Jerry Van Dyke.
You know, I did work with, what's his name, Craig T. Nelson, who's a lovely person.
And he's remarkably informed about the shaker movement.
Really?
Just specifically shakers?
Because I would have taken him for a snake handler.
No, he made a documentary about the Shakers.
I remember the first time I met him, we had a long conversation about the whole burned-over district of upstate New York.
You know, me with my fondness for the Oneida community.
Him with his, you know, his thing for the Shakers.
And his tolerance for Dauber.
I don't know.
Maybe you guys are more Brook Farm people.
I kind of got the impression that when you made those,
you're talking about the Pixar movie you were in.
I got the impression that maybe you never saw the other people
you were in those movies with.
I never recorded with them concurrently,
but sometimes his you know,
he would,
his session would be ending.
His mind was starting.
Okay.
So there's, there's sort of,
um,
collegial chit chat.
It seems to me like when you're spending like $30 million or $75 million to make a movie,
it would be worth the extra dough to pay everybody enough that they all come
in at the same time and act with each other.
Am I missed?
Is like, it seems crazy to me.
Um, having never done it before, I, I wouldn't have wanted my first day, you know, to be
with Holly Hunter or something like I want to take, I want to keep my amateur hour antics,
uh, you know, confined to as few people as possible.
I can understand that.
I understand that absolutely.
That's how I feel about me and Jordan.
I just try and keep it to Jordan, you know,
because otherwise I'm going to embarrass myself. I mean, maybe I should just go back to my hotel room.
We could do this over the phone.
You keep pitching you going back.
Everything comes back to you going back to your hotel room, we could do this over the phone. You keep pitching you going back. Everything comes back to you going back to your hotel room.
You're like, wouldn't this be better if I had access to a chicken salad sandwich?
I'm sorry, not to get off the fertile subject of Craig T. Nelson
and what turn of the century religions he was into.
I always
thought he was a Mennonite, but go ahead.
I feel like
I put the kibosh on that with
Snake Handler. Okay, fine.
Okay, now to, you know, sorry.
I'm making things uncomfortable.
I didn't know Snake Handlers had special outfits
because Mennonites do. Okay.
No, no yeah that's true
you would think some like good gloves would be in order
um i would want a whole like welding suit you know uh i i kind of i kind of wanted to to to
just re re bring up the the topic of nesting.
Sarah, what is your policy on staying in one place?
My policy on staying in one place?
What do you mean staying in one place?
Do you move a lot?
Do you get uncomfortable if you are in an apartment for too long?
Oh, I used to move a lot in my 20s.
I mean, I think at some point and there were five years there in my
20s where i moved back and forth between chicago and san francisco four times you know and so i was
definitely very restless um was that just because every time it would get to be november you'd be
like whoa fuck this i'm going back to san francisco like oh i'm about to get fired in San Francisco. I should go back to
Chicago, you know, something like that. And then, yeah, I've moved a lot. The apartment I'm in now,
I've lived in for four years, and that's the longest I've lived anywhere since I moved out
of my parents' house. I'm a bit of an adolescent in that way. What were you like? Jordan, what was your childhood like?
Were you stable place-wise?
You're just asking him that now?
I don't know if you guys know each other.
Jordan, how old are you?
Jordan, your gender.
Tell me about it.
How do you pronounce your name?
Hordan?
Nope.
You said it earlier, so just go with that.
Yeah, no, actually, I was born in Beaumont, Texas.
And when I was like three, we moved to Orange County, California.
And yeah, that's where I stayed until I went to college so because my wife the beautiful Teresa Thorne
she had this
childhood where her parents
got married really young
they were like 20 or something like that
and she was born when they were like 22 or 23
or something like that
and their
financial life was in
turmoil for the first 10 or 12 years of her life.
And so they and they also like were, you know, lower middle class, middle class people in
Marin, which is super fancy. And so they were always like just barely getting by.
And they moved like once a year for her entire childhood.
And so to my wife, moving is like this totally normal thing to do,
whereas I moved once in my whole childhood basically.
And the idea of moving is just like this horrible, nightmarish trauma.
And so do you feel, are you like cool with it, Jordan?
I mean, I don't like lifting things.
That's my main thing is I don't like lifting.
But no, you know, I'm pretty invigorated by it, actually.
I'm surprised how much I like it.
I like the new place, and I like every time I find a little nook or a new rat I didn't know about.
So yeah, no, I'm feeling good.
And again, back to the thriftiness, just that having to pay that first and last again was, I'm like, oh, that's going to bother me.
But no, I feel great about it. Yeah, I feel positive.
And my new house has a functionless Egyptian-style fireplace, which I'm very excited about.
What does that mean, Egyptian-style?
It's a walled-in fireplace.
And I don't want to say coping, but the—
The surround?
Sure, yes.
The surround has some twirling snakes and some sphinx heads.
It has two sphinx heads on either side.
And one of them has the nose broken off.
Are you sure—I have a question, Jordan. Are you sure that that
is a fireplace and not some kind of tomb? Oh, yeah.
It's a concern. Are you worried at all about mummies or
other undead pharaohs? Yeah. No, I wasn't, but...
Is it completely walled off, or is there
a hole?
There's a hole that I could put an orb in.
But, I mean, until somebody finds the orb, I'm fine.
I think that's probably scattered at one of the other corners of the earth.
You know, you could insert candles in there to have a warm fireplace.
Also look into biofuel.
Okay, nice.
That means burning your shit.
You know, I'm just gonna burn your shit.
I'm just gonna call Ed Begley Jr.
See what he has to say on the subject. I think you can. Can you just reach out to
Ed Begley Jr.? Let's talk about Ed Begley Jr.
Doesn't he have a reality show now? Let's talk for a minute about Ed Begley Jr.
Number one, I've seen Ed Begley Jr. do guest appearances on several television programs lately,
in which he has just been hilarious.
He's a very winning person.
He's fantastic.
You've met Ed Begley Jr.?
I never have.
I've just seen him on the TV.
But you'd like to.
Yeah, sure.
Who wouldn't?
Right?
Yeah.
Okay, so that's number one.
Everybody, he's a, I didn't know why Ed Begley Jr. was famous.
In fact, I'm still not sure why he's famous.
Was he famous for something besides making guest appearances?
He was on one of those doctor shows in the 80s, I think.
Oh, was he on like L.A. Law or something?
I don't think he was.
Saying Elsewhere with Denzel Washington?
Oh, was that it?
I don't know.
I'm guessing. I'm guessing.
I'm guessing Doctor Shows.
So Ed Begley Jr., number one, very winning guy.
Number two, somebody was telling me, and in my memory it was you, Jordan,
but it must have been someone else,
that he has a website with a thing that says email Ed Begley Jr.
because he has a brand of like something environmental, like safe cleaning products or something like that.
And there's a thing where you can email Ed Begley Jr.
And Ed Begley Jr. will just email you back with his tips on how to live a more eco-friendly life.
That's very giving.
Hey, Ed Begley Jr. spends his nights and days not thinking about him like a typical Hollywood self-centered.
I mean, you're not from Los Angeles.
Here we call them a Morris type or a Jordan type.
Morris-esque.
Yeah.
But actually like a real person who loves to think about other people and how they can be more eco-friendly and how he can help them be more eco-friendly.
That's what I think is beautiful.
Yeah.
Ed Begley Jr.
Well, Jordan, you are living, it seems, a fairly eco-friendly life in that you do not seem overly consumptive.
No.
He is consumptive, though. He is consumptive, though.
I do have consumption.
His doctor sent him out to live here
because it's a more arid climate.
Right.
He also said I should spend a fortnight
at the seashore
to get rid of my hump.
My naturally occurring hump.
I think I heard a...
This could be incorrect.
I could just be...
This could be wrong.
I feel like on the way over here,
I heard a radio commercial
that Ed Begley Jr. has a reality show.
Really?
On something called
The Green Living Network.
Oh.
I think I might have seen this once,
and it's sort of about him and his family,
and apparently, though though he is uh quite
um you know welcoming of perhaps of people on his website with you know advice and stuff um
his family he's um a bit of a an environmental task master oh he has Dad, you're composting at my birthday party.
I think he's a bit of a stickler.
I would like to.
I'd like to be best friends with Ed Begley Jr.
There, I've said it.
Sorry, Jordan.
That's fine.
Hey, man, if I got if I got if I got ditched for Ed Begley Jr., man, that's pretty good, right? Are you two best friends off pod?
We're very good friends.
Jordan, you have some very close friends from high school that you're...
Yeah, I think the main...
I think there's a lot of...
There's just some obstacles to Jesse and I
doing more extracurricular hanging out than the podcast.
Right.
Primarily, my job is is uh is
kind of time demanding and there's kind of a lot of travel and the you know general days are pretty
late and uh i think you know in opposition to that uh jesse can't stay up past 10 o'clock
or he gets a headache yeah it's It's a pathetic life I lead.
No, yeah, so.
You and George Bush.
Really?
Remember, in the White House, he would be in bed by 10.
Good for him.
Yeah.
Good for him.
Way to go, Mr. President.
That's why he was such a great leader.
Yeah, he was well-rested.
He's always fresh.
So it's your sleeping schedule and your travel schedule.
It's what's keeping you apart.
I'm going to go back to this George Bush thing.
For one thing, think of how much more brush America would have if he hadn't been president.
The brush clearing that man did, I have not seen, seriously, I have literally not seen Barack Obama clear one group of brush.
One.
Yeah.
One murder of brush. One unit of brush.
I can't even imagine him using a chef's knife to shorten a bouquet of flowers.
The closest I can come to Sarah, frankly, is imagining him holding a hammer and sickle.
That's as close as I can get.
Frankly, Jordan.
Okay, sorry.
So I have this ridiculous schedule where despite the fact that I'm a young adult, a young urban professional, I literally go to bed every day.
10 o'clock is an exaggeration, but I literally go to bed every day at 11.
And because otherwise i get
migraines now continue jordan oh yeah i'm saying just i mean if jesse if for some reason uh you
uh you know just give your old lifestyle the heave-ho and uh you know maybe divorce theresa
right and uh and uh which i've have been thinking about, to be fair. Yeah.
I've considered, we've all considered it.
I mean, number one, she's a real so-and-so.
Mm-hmm.
Number two, she always wants me to, she's always inviting her mom over to stay.
Oh, boy.
And that, that old nag, huh?
Number three, every time my boss is coming over, she burns the casserole.
Continue.
Yeah. No, I think if Jesse had a lifestyle where he wanted to do more weekday bar hopping,
I think we would probably get in a little more face time.
Yeah.
That's an issue.
You know, I get up very early myself.
Sometimes I stay up very late, but I usually get up at somewhere,
sometimes between 5.30 and 6.30.
Wow.
And sometimes...
You got to work on your sampler.
If my friends, they want to go to a movie,
they know it can't start after 8.15
or I will fall asleep in it.
I've been doing some movie falling asleep in recently too,
and I usually do a pretty...
Yeah, I feel like I, I like kind of
like, uh, make the effort to hang out now that, you know, I, I feel bad sometimes that my job
takes up so much time. So I'll kind of put forth a little hangout effort. Um, and yeah, it is
because, uh, I enrich people's lives. Yeah. No friendship. It takes effort. Um, yeah,
I definitely, uh, I definitely took a little cat nap in surrogates recently.
This isn't a falling asleep in a movie story, but I saw The Informant recently.
Wait.
What movie did you say?
The Informant!
Oh, that one.
Gotcha. point oh that one you know it's a and um i saw it in in union square in new york and um so my
friend and i sit down and and this family comes in a mother and two children who are well under
the age of 10 and i'm wondering how the children are going to enjoy this movie about price fixing
and it turns out they didn't and you can hear hear the little girl, she was, I don't know, maybe eight,
saying to her mother, this isn't a real movie.
And then at some point, the kids just talked their mother into walking out. But the little girl, she had a scooter.
And so she didn't just walk out.
She scootered down the aisle and out the door.
That was the most
adorable movie walkout ever.
I've got a new movie going lifestyle,
Jordan. Check this out.
This is a two-part plan.
For some reason, when I
heard that sentence, I thought you were going to do some
sort of bit about having a
TV movie on the Lifetime Network.
But that was an incorrect thing to think.
I can't imagine why you wouldn't think that, Jordan.
I mean, it all felt like it was leading into me having a TV movie on the Lifetime Network.
Did you know that our friend Dan Klein from Casper Hauser had a TV movie on the Lifetime Network?
No, I didn't.
Yeah, our good friend from the comedy group Casper Hauser, Dan,
he suffered a traumatic head injury when he was in his early 20s.
I think he got hit by a car riding a bicycle or something like that.
And he used comedy to regain his brain function,
to rebuild his neural pathways or something like that.
Totally had a television movie made about him.
Wow.
So I thought laughter really is the best medicine, apparently.
If you've had four.
After chemotherapy or something.
For a traumatic.
I mean, number one, you're going with aspirin and other anti-inflammatories.
Number two, chemotherapy, of course, for cancer.
And number three, Breathe Right right strips which actually aren't
technically a medicine but are surprisingly effective you really can breathe through your
nose when you're wearing those things and then number four is yes laughter but specifically
for traumatic brain injuries so if you have some kind of brain injury your doctor comes in like
you know the bad news is you you have a brain injury the good news is
here's eddie murphy's raw like like just watch this yeah and that will that will heal heal you
like a snap of the fingers like a snap of the fingers i was about to say something before we
started talking about laughter being the best medicine oh my new movie going lifestyle right here's my new movie going lifestyle number one i've decided that i should
be willing to pay to go to a movie which has been an issue for me i hate the idea that i have to pay
11 like because it's me and my wife so i have to essentially pay 25 to go to the movies at this
point you guys aren't going Dutch?
Seems like after you've been married for a year, you start to go Dutch.
Well, she doesn't have a big income.
Although she did get a new job, so it's a little different now.
But it was tough.
So you, the public radio person, are the breadwinner?
How pathetic is that, Sarah?
It's pretty pathetic. My wife went to law school.
So she's gotten a new job collecting cans then.
Out of the garbage.
There's this amazing chapter in the Stephen Johnson book, The Ghost Map.
I enjoyed the Stephen Johnson book, The Ghost Map, but right
in the beginning there's this chapter that's about how in
Victorian London, all the different jobs people had recycling waste.
Because people would just throw everything on the street.
And so there was all these different guys.
And there's this hierarchy of different guys from the guy that collects animal shit to the guy that collects people shit to the guy that collects little pieces of metal to the guy that collects like pieces of wood
like each of these guys are called like a glimmer and like a donder and like a flamber you know what
i mean the second two i made up where are you going with this it's amazing it's just so theresa's
living in victorian l Victorian London right now.
And yeah, she actually collects biofuel for Jordan.
That's her career.
We have to use a lot of the biofuel to power the time machine,
which is kind of something we're trying to like.
It's one of the things.
Although it is good that we have the time machine on biofuel.
It is.
We converted it from diesel.
The nice thing is when you're using peanut oil, for example, it kind of smells like french fries.
And if you're using traditional biomass, it smells like feces.
But you can switch back and forth a little bit.
So I've adjusted to the idea that I can pay $25 to go to the movies.
Oh, right.
I was wondering how we got on this.
And then I was distracted trying to remember,
what is that phrase, stream of consciousness?
And then I told myself, it doesn't matter where we were.
It only matters where we're going.
Continue.
As Rakim once said, it's not where you're from, it's where you're at.
I've noticed you both are so self-absorbed said, it's not where you're from, it's where you're at. Plus, I have noticed
you both are so self-absorbed
that if it's about you,
you will always return
to that subject.
Listen,
it's not self-absorption.
I just realized
that the audience
is more interested in me
than the guests.
That's most likely true.
I'm willing to accept that.
I know.
The audience,
ultimately the audience
is here for Jordan. It's your show. I'm willing to accept that. I know. The audience, ultimately the audience is here for Jordan.
It's your show.
I'm just sitting here.
Continue.
I'm just a deep voice to keep Jordan from being an awkward monologue.
Go back to your movie thing.
Okay.
So that's number one.
But the real thing is I now have my grandfather was like a vice president or something for Fox Theaters.
And because of his 25 years of service,
he got a lifetime, like a golden ticket pass to Fox Theaters,
which is now Mann Theaters here in Los Angeles.
Was it really made out of gold?
Solid gold.
Really?
No, I think it's brass probably.
But it is metal.
It is a gold-colored metal.
And it says, free admission, Lee E. Thorne and family in recognition of 25 years of service.
Oh, and family.
I'm a member of Lee E. Thorne's family.
He was my grandfather before he passed.
Does that mean that I get to go to movies for free?
And will I ever be able to work up the guts to try it?
Do you have the thing on you?
That seems like that's the deciding factor.
You can't just say, like, hey, my grandfather has one of these things.
Excuse me.
Yeah, no, I have the thing.
I have the thing.
We'll do it.
Do you think it'll work?
But what about supporting the arts
yeah what about supporting bruce willis who took all that time to make surrogates
are you just gonna you're just gonna are you just gonna bruce willis has an expensive divorce and
an expensive new wife to support exactly do you think they'll let me in i'm really worried that
they're not gonna get like they're gonna be like what the fuck is this golden pass i sort of feel bad for the poor you know teenager working at the mall
yeah who's presented with this what i'm worried is that that person is going to get presented with it
and then they're going to get terrified yeah and then i'm going to have to browbeat them into
accepting it and then they're going to start crying and then their manager's going to come in and say,
why are you crying? You're supposed to be working.
And then they're going to get fired for letting
me in. Yeah, and then
what if that person is
laid off because fewer people are going to
the movies and paying for it?
So you're getting them
twice over. Yeah. This sounds like a good
weekend edition feature that you're working up here,
Sarah.
Well, you know how they say the federal
budget is a moral document?
Don't you feel that way about your personal
finances? That's
next with me, Scott Simon.
So I have a new...
I can't wait till Daniel Shore shows
up at 9.06 to, like, talk
about the week's news.
That's going to be great.
Do you think we'll get to meet Zuali Saikowtown?
I'm trying to picture Daniel Shore, who worked for Edward R. Murrow and covered the Kremlin in the 50s, I think.
I'm trying to picture him here in your apartment.
It's fine.
I'd just say one word about something tangentially related to Watergate
and just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
Yeah, I was on Nixon's enemies list, you know.
That's what he would say.
I'm not making fun of Dan Shore.
I set the alarm on my cell phone for Saturdays at 9.06
to listen to what he has to say.
Not because he's always totally brilliant or anything, but I just
like hearing what an old guy thinks.
You know what?
I am so on board with that.
Someone with experience. Someone who's been around.
He's super old and
still very coherent.
Completely. Perfectly coherent.
It's amazing to think like... He's a lovely
sane, elderly person
and we don't get to hear from these people enough.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I'm going to say a vow on this.
I don't understand why you're in opposition, Jordan.
Especially on television.
It's all these, you know, cute, blonde whippersnappers.
Right.
I'm sick and tired of whippersnappers, Jordan.
Like, who probably don't even know what the Kremlin is, much less hung out there.
Do you think he would like it if you called him an oldster?
Oldster?
It's cute.
Yeah, I think so.
I think he'd like it.
He's into cute shit.
I mean, if there's anything that I've learned.
It sounds like a kicky car.
He's into the Japanese concept of kawaii.
He's into the cuteness, like a Hello Kitty type situation.
Oh, sure, soft power.
Yeah. I know. Soft power. Yeah.
I know about soft power.
Do you feel like your move is giving you a new lifestyle, Jordan?
Is this a lifestyle move for you?
Is it a clean start? A fresh break?
Yeah.
A new morning?
I mean, again, going back to the fluff and fold,
I want it to be, I want this to be the start of a new improved me.
How does your new apartment, because you had a lovely apartment.
It was in a place full of-
This is like the crappiest Oprah episode ever.
On the plus side, we're just going to give away cars at the end.
So that's all anyone remembers about this episode.
That's the pull quote from this week's episode.
We're going to put that in our iTunes description.
Like the crappiest Oprah episode ever.
Sarah Vowell.
Are you being the best, Jordan, you can be?
Yeah.
Are you living your best life?
Sarah Jordan, so let's set the table here.
You had a lovely apartment.
Yes.
You would need silverware for that.
You would. Let's set the table here. You had a lovely apartment. Yes. He would need silverware for that.
I have a drawer full of old takeout plastics.
You had a lovely apartment in Hollywood in a nice apartment community
with a lady who yelled at you
when you tried to do your laundry.
Yeah, a crazy hoarder.
You were right next door to a crazy hoarder. You were right next door to a crazy hoarder.
You were right by the comedy factory.
The laugh factory, sure.
The laugh factory.
So you could see Dane Cook anytime you wanted
and John Lovitz once a week.
He dropped in.
He drops in a lot.
So you had a pretty good lifestyle.
And I think the main thing I'm upset about leaving behind is...
Trader Joe's one block away.
Yeah, walking to a Trader Joe's was great.
Back to the silverware.
Do you own any silverware that isn't plastic?
No, you know, I actually...
I did a trip to Ikea.
And with the intent of just buying kind of the little home...
We're talking toilet brush.
I bought a new grip of silverware.
Oh, so you have some silverware.
I do, yeah.
How many place settings do you have?
Ooh, place setting.
I have silverware.
I have silverware.
You know, my favorite...
I have four forks.
My favorite all-time line from the history of this American life
was this Scott Carrier story where he's talking about when he met his wife
and she came over to his house,
which sounds a lot like probably your house jordan's and uh and she she notices he only has one fork one knife
and one spoon and she says why you only have one fork one knife and one spoon he's like how many
am i supposed to have do you have more than one? She said, yeah, you know, I have quite a number in case I have friends over.
Don't you have any friends?
And he says, yeah, I have a friend, but my friend doesn't have any hands.
His friend was a dog.
Nice.
Yeah.
That's why I have so many, you know, woodland creatures as friends.
It's because, you know, I can't accommodate humans.
Also, all you eat is nuts.
Yeah, exactly.
Jesse, has Jordan entertained you at his home?
Yeah, once or twice.
But he's never cooked anything.
No.
Do you know how to cook anything, Jordan?
Yeah, you know, I think you.
You know what?
Once in college, I'm going to cut you off here, Jordan, to say once in college, I went
over to Jordan's house.
This was a shared, like a real college-y shared house that he shared with some friends from the college radio station.
And it was about dinnertime.
And I remarked, gosh, it's about dinnertime, thinking that maybe we would go to buy a burrito or something like that.
Because I never in a million years imagined that Jordan would be able to prepare food.
No offense, Jordan.
It's okay.
And Jordan said, hey, how about I fry us up some chicken?
He had some chicken.
He breaded it or crusted it with some seasonings and fried it in a fry daddy,
which is an electric deep frying appliance.
I remember the fry daddy.
I had some good times with the fry daddy.
Was it a fry daddy or a fry baby?
Oh, it was a daddy.
It was a daddy.
I was putting chickens in there.
Do you still have it?
No.
You know, the fry daddy belonged to one of the other people that uh that i lived with in college um and i
you know uh while i lived in that house i kind of jacked the fry daddy i definitely made it uh
you know my thing um but no i don't i yeah i don't i don't know if i should get another one
it's real messy it's a messy you you've fried. Yeah. You've had a daddy.
Sure.
Okay, so Jordan.
I mentioned my people are okies.
Jordan.
I know my way around fried foods.
Do you know...
What's the preferred okie thing to fry?
Okra.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Do you...
But squash, as my mother says, if it's good, it'll be better fried.
That's true.
I mean, that really is true.
Frying things is bad for you, but it really does make stuff taste better.
It really does.
It's really amazing.
Do you cut the okra into like a disc?
Is that what we're talking about?
Little pieces, and then you dip it in flour and some cornmeal with egg.
You got cornmeal for crunch.
Cornmeal's going to give you a nice crunch.
Do you entertain people, Sarah?
Sometimes, yeah.
I do.
That's going to be my new thing.
That's part of my new lifestyle.
I'm entertaining.
You're coming over for dinner, Jordan.
What's a Sarah Vowell entertainment
session like?
I'm good at breakfast, type of stuff, you know?
Sure. I make these. Like a mimosa? Um, well, um, I'm no longer a drinker. Oh, okay. Um, thanks for
reminding me. An alcohol-less mimosa. Yeah. A virgin mimosa. I make these potatoes with bacon and anise.
Oh, wow. That are a brunch specialty. Anything don't even know what... Anything anise is...
You're looking at fancy town.
I stole that recipe from a restaurant in New York
that no longer exists,
but that's one of my specialties.
Well, then it's legal.
Once the restaurant goes out of business,
it's legal to steal their recipes.
I also like various egg scrambles.
Like a good one is with manchego cheese and spinach.
Very simple. I like to cook very simple
food sure well i'm just excited that we're invited over i mean i've never expected that when we
brought you over here i also enjoy throwing tea parties oh tea parties do you make like a cucumber
sandwich well no um uh i'm allergic to gluten okay. You make a rice bread cucumber sandwich.
I've never done the crustless sandwich thing.
But in that sense, I barely cook.
It's just the success of a good afternoon party is just a presentation of a wide variety of snacks, both savory and sweet.
Okay.
And, you know, and the presentation.
both savory and sweet in the presentation.
Is it based around an activity or is it just kind of socializing?
Chit-chat.
Okay.
Jibber-jabber?
Totally.
There's jibber and jabber.
That's excellent.
I enjoy it.
The only thing I'm having this issue in my life right now, which is this.
My wife has no special interest in cooking.
She's not against it, but neither is she for it.
And she grew up in a family where nobody cooks ever.
So all she thinks of to eat is like a quesadilla or possibly like some... She has a good sense of...
Some garbage she finds while she's collecting cans.
Yeah.
She has a good sense of... Some garbage she finds while she's collecting cans. Yeah. She has a good sense of healthy food.
Most people who don't cook,
maybe they always want to eat McDonald's or something like that.
She's not like that at all, but she also doesn't cook at all.
And so I've been like, well, maybe I should learn to cook.
And I've come to kind of enjoy cooking.
And it's nice because when I cook and my wife cleans up
and I'm like, oh, I don't even have to clean up. I just have to make the thing and then eat it.
But the things that motivate me to cook something are every single one of them involves like bacon
or just like something, something from a fatty part of a pig. Yeah. It's the food of joy. Cheese,
just huge amounts of cheese. Like I'll make the shit out of
a big thing of macaroni and cheese and I'll just eat it for every meal for like three days. And at
that point it's pretty unhealthy. Yeah. That's a great story, Jesse. Nice. No, I cook a lot,
you know, because I have all these food allergies. So, yeah.
But I don't, when I'm cooking that sort of stuff, my loser food,
I don't make other people participate in that.
So you'll make a gluten-y thing for it. You know, like if I'll make pasta, it'll be pasta made out of rice and tapioca flour.
You eat a lot of spelt?
Spelt actually does have some gluten.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
I know, it's a cruel world, isn't it?
That's fucked up.
You can't even, in a world where you can't even eat spelt,
I don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat spelt, Jordan.
Without spelt, I'm lost in the wilderness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, look.
It's a biblical grain, spelt.
So being lost in the wilderness, that was actually quite witty.
Jeez, I...
Can I have you travel around with me, Sarah?
Maybe more meaningful than witty.
Can I have you travel around with me and find wit in my witless comments?
I can divine the Old Testament heft in what you're saying.
Thank you.
I've been needing some gravitas,
and the gravitas of an angry God is probably the best gravitas to have.
It's up there.
Yeah.
Sorry, Jordan, I cut you off there.
No, I actually had something.
I have, okay, I'm thinking about the best way to do this.
I have, when, I'm thinking about the best way to do this. I have, when you said biblical, something funny happened to me this weekend that involves Bible-ness.
Okay.
And it, but it also involves hand motions.
Okay.
So I know that it's maybe not the best audio story.
Okay.
It's too bad there's no video because then I could do deep and wide with the hand motions.
Oh, yeah, that would be good.
Anyway, continue.
But here's what I'm going to do. I will do the hand motions to this story and maybe you
guys can just describe what I'm doing. Okay. Okay. Something I have to do for my job is
I have to go to a thing called the Dew Tour.
Sure.
I don't know what that is.
The Dew is...
You didn't have to go to that when you were doing this American Life?
Isn't that part of your book tour?
No, I've been to some to-do's
but I've never been to...
Is Dew D-E-W?
The Dew is from Mountain Dew.
Okay.
I work for a television network that specializes in skateboarding and its affiliated ventures.
Remind me, I have a story about the Pequot War.
Okay.
I will.
I will.
Anyway, so I – the detour is this kind of big traveling, super-sponsored skateboard fiasco that goes to America's worst cities.
Dallas.
This one's happening in Orlando.
Okay.
Dallas is worse.
Yeah.
I've been on a few family trips to Dallas.
It's bad um anyways
orlando has you know animatronic presidents so yeah yeah uh and and a baby alligator farm which
i didn't get to go to okay i interrupted you sorry no no sarah's next book is america's
animatronic president um all of them um so i that would be great if like when you became president uh they just there
was a place that collected animatronics of you so that at some point there was just like you know
because didn't you got a lincoln you got a washington but where's you know where's the
animatronic jimmy carter right there is one yeah there's a i haven't been to disney world since
the new president was of course there's one there's an animatronic every single president
is animatronic that's what the hall of presidents is they're all lined up in a row this isn't a
california disney world oh i've never been to the i've never been to disneyland but at disney world
um only some of them talk l Lincoln talks, and Clinton talked.
He was still president when I went, and he had, I think, recorded his voice, especially
for his animatron.
Is that what they're called?
I believe so, yes.
Yeah.
His murder bot.
Anyway, Orlando. So, wait, wait, I just want want to clarify i want to be super clear about this
at disney world in orlando there is an area with every president robotized yeah the hall of
presidents and some of them don't speak but they all move do you really want to hear from millard
fillmore yes A robot one?
I think they all kind of move a little bit.
And I felt like the Reagan was staring right at me.
His eyes followed you.
They're unveiled after, if I recall correctly,
they're unveiled after a documentary about American history narrated by Maya Angelou that focuses,
that spends a surprising amount of time on the nullification crisis of the Jackson administration.
That'd be great.
That's Maya's special passion.
This is all in Frontierland.
You have to accommodate your stars.
You can take in your giant turkey leg that you bought outside.
But then when they get to the Civil War,
because it's Maya Angelou,
she's talking about the bitter and bloody war.
I have a friend who is friends with Maya Angelou.
They're like friends.
They hang out when they're in the same town, that kind of thing.
And she told me a really funny story about Maya Angelou
who called a phone psychic and became, this is really true,
and became convinced that the phone psychic was a real psychic
because the phone psychic knew that it was Maya Angelou.
She has quite a signature voice.
If you're going to recognize one person in america yeah since howard cosell
died it's pretty much her maybe snoop dog but that's it anyway jordan you were talking about
the deuter and the bible oh sure i was uh i also had a funny joke idea to where if all the uh pre
the presidents that happened pre-recorded voice
all had the voice of Robin Williams.
Am I being bossy? Do your other guests pretend like they're the host
of the show? Back to you, Jordan.
Honestly, we kind of need it. So thanks. You're filling a much-needed role.
Tough love. Last week on the show, one of our two guests just didn't say anything the entire time.
As I was saying about due tour.
There are some guests on a lot of shows I wish that were true of, you know.
Zing.
Yeah.
Mr. Al Roker.
She's talking about you, Roker.
This is how I watch the late night talk shows.
She's talking about you, Roker.
This is how I watch the late night talk shows.
I TiVo them or use the DVR on the other TV because I have two.
Not trying to brag or anything. If it's an actor, I fast forward.
And if the host, say David Letterman or Conan O'Brien, if they laugh, then I'll rewind and watch it.
But if the host never smiles, I keep going.
That's a good policy.
That's a really good system.
Because I already know Clint Eastwood is good to work with.
If this person isn't saying anything, everybody calls him Mr. Eastwood.
That warrants at least a smirk.
I'm going to keep going.
Life's too short.
Can you imagine what it would be like to make David Letterman laugh at something that you said?
I don't have to imagine that.
Yeah.
Wow.
Sorry.
Anyway.
Wow.
That's why you feel so confident and smugly coming in here and bossing us around.
It's pretty great.
Yeah.
I feel like once you've done that.
Sorry.
I just want to know what it's like meeting Letterman.
Like what...
Did you touch him?
Like what the first...
I saw him once.
You shake hands.
You shake hands.
Is he electrical?
No, he's a, you know, he's a kindly gentleman.
Yeah, I bet he is.
He's quite a reader.
Oh, really?
Mm-hmm.
I get that about him.
Yeah.
I get that. Anyway. Yeah. I get that.
Anyway.
Did you figure out what his secret is?
His secret?
Yeah.
No.
But that's why it's great.
The mystery.
You can't figure that out.
When I was a kid, I was a trumpet player,
and I would go to sleep every night listening to this old lewis
armstrong album because i thought if i just listened to it enough i could figure out what
he was doing you can't that's why he's great that is that really with letterman particularly he has
a je ne sais quoi yeah that that i don't think any other i I mean, I am, I also really enjoy Conan O'Brien. I think he's
one of the funniest guys in existence and his wit just, um, astonishes me. I marvel at his
conversational wit. Like he'll make a joke that I never could have anticipated in a million years.
It'll be perfectly, you know, like a dart to the center of the dartboard every time.
But I can understand that.
He's making a joke, and I get the joke.
I know that it's a joke.
Like, it makes sense, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
With Letterman, it's like someone's performing a magic trick.
Yeah, he's very inscrutable.
In a good way. Can me start talking about detour again
yeah okay let's get back to the detour sorry okay you're following the word inscrutable by can we
talk about the detour detour i just i did i don't know i just thought maybe the letterman conversation
had run out yeah there's not much to say that's the the problem with mysteries. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's more golly gee.
Okay.
So it's this giant thing, and there's what they call the sponsor village.
So there's the area where all the competition.
Capitalism.
There's the area where all the competition is taking place.
And then there's the sponsor village
where there's a lot of...
Sorry, that's so funny.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
And it's all these booths, most of them inflatable.
If it's not a party bus,
then it's an inflatable structure of some sort
them inflatable if it's not a party bus then it's an inflatable structure of some sort uh you know dedicated to to two brands like ballpark franks and and playstation and you know ballpark
franks yeah they totally are and each they do plump when you cook them to their credit
in each the kind of and kind of just to give you a sense of the mood at this thing. Each inflatable or party bus location
has its own speaker system playing its own pump-up music
and its own really obnoxious host
trying to get people to come over to their thing.
So it's just this din of awfulness.
So these people, their sound bleeds into each other?
Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know,
it's just... It's not like the pristine
sonic setup in Jesse's
apartment. Yeah. No, no.
Or what is that out the window? The 405?
Yeah.
405 plus dog.
Yeah. No, this is
like, this is Green
Day smashing against Lady Gaga
smashing against the two
you know, most obnoxious
assholes in the world
who they let have the microphone
You're basically living in a world of
action movie credit sequences
is what you're describing to me
Yeah, yeah, but
No, you're reminding me of Wordstock in Portland
which is this great literary festival but they would have at, I don't think they do it anymore, but they had it in this convention center, and there are only partitions, you know, that are like five feet high in between readings, and so apparently I'm a real yeller when I read, and I drown out Ursula Le Guin.
Oh, boy.
Oh, man, I bet there were some pissed off Ursula Le Guin. Oh, boy. Oh, man, I bet there were some pissed-off Ursula Le Guin fans.
I think so.
I probably owe her an apology from five years ago.
You came outside, and your car was covered in dragon-related bumper stickers.
But we digress.
Anyway, the sponsor village.
Sure, yeah, and my company, which is Fuel TV, has an area, and they tape some kind of little bits for a TV show in there.
So kind of the idea is that the kids get to come in and they get to be part of the studio audience and then watch themselves on TV later.
Anyways, so I am not the host of these little bits, but my job is to make sure that the kids are warmed up, that they know kind of proper television audience behavior.
Nobody's giving the camera the finger.
I think we were talking about this before, the power of the T-shirt.
Yeah, yeah.
And I definitely went into this with like, you know, I'm not going to be one of these like, all right, guys, let's hear it. Let's hear it. I'm'm not gonna be one of these like all right guys let's hear it
let's hear it i'm not gonna be one of these guys like i'm i'm i'm going to talk to them
you know like they're human beings i'm gonna be reasonable i'm not gonna but i'm like and
basically you just throw a t-shirt like i'm gonna you know i'm gonna maybe try and be a little witty
at this and you just have to have some fun with it yeah you just throw a t-shirt um that quickly
that's why I started recording,
why I started setting my alarm
to listen to Daniel Shore's
news analyses.
Mm-hmm.
Because he always
throws out t-shirts
at the end.
He threw me an NPR t-shirt once.
Oh, wow.
No, go ahead.
That's why you bring
the Sarah Vowell bod squad
with you everywhere you go
to your book readings
so they fire
the wordy shipmates
promotional t-shirt at the audience um because it's npr listeners it should be a uh promotional
north face jacket there you go um anyway so so when they need stalling or something, I have kind of just a collection of games
that I have to play with the audience.
Not have to, want to.
I have a collection of games to play with the audience.
Pictionary.
Yeah, Pictionary.
Sure.
Do you need that?
Isn't this whole show just stalling?
Scrabble in Espanol.
It seems like you're stalling just fine.
Yeah, no, you know, this is one thing for podcast listeners.
These are, for the most part, angry, pumped-up 11-year-olds.
So kind of you need a different strategy.
Anyway, so I don't know if i made this
up or not i kind of think i made it up maybe i didn't it's dumb it's not something i should take
credit for uh extreme rock scissors paper where i say okay you can do rock scissors paper but you
can also do just anything else and then i judge what wins right and uh i thought that'd be a fun
way to get them creative um uh most most of these kids are not creative or don't have any interest in being in this context.
Most of them just say gun.
Most of them just make a gun and say gun or bomb.
One kid said AIDS once, and I didn't know how to handle it.
But this one thing came up, and it was basically the funniest thing in the world.
Anyway, so we're in Orlando, and definitely the cross section of orlando is there there is a you know a collection of
you know kind of dumpy surly looking uh white kids and then uh and then there are some uh then
there's some kind of spunky african-amer kids, and it's pretty divided. They're basically both sitting on their side of the area.
There are no Seminoles.
No, there's not.
Anyway, so I...
Fuel passes out like smallpox blankets before the show,
just to clear anybody out.
Sure.
Remember when Revenge of the Nerds went to Orlando,
and what's the main nerd?
Poindexter?
It's one of maybe Revenge of the Nerds three or four I don't know and um he tries to scare the frat guys and and he says
you know he um he dresses up like you know some ridiculous caricature of an Indian and he
yells what he says is um turn my crank in Seminole.
And then when I was watching that, I was like, there is no such language as Seminole.
The Seminole speak Creek or Miccosukee.
Yeah.
You know?
I think we've all had a moment like that watching Revenge of the Nerds 4.
I feel bad for you that you can't enjoy a Revenge of the Nerds movie.
That's your deal. They just didn't.
That's your deal.
They just didn't fact check that properly.
Her only saving grace is there's no Indian related stuff in the Police Academy series.
Yeah.
Thank God you still have that.
Okay.
So you have white kids versus black kids. Yeah.
So you're fomenting a race war.
Continue.
Anyway.
So it's time for Extreme Rock, Scissor, Paper.
I call up one of the dumpy white
kids and one of the peppy black
kids and
anyways, I give them
I'm like, okay, you guys, before we
start, you guys can talk this over with your friends
and think of the best thing.
Anyway, so they do that and then I'm like,
alright, shoot!
Dumpy white Kid does this.
Remember, you guys have to say what it is.
He's crossing his arms in front of him like he was a straight-edge kid.
Doing this.
Telling you about how, or like he was in the video for the song
X Gonna Give It To You by Xzibit.
Sure.
Or he's kind of like the Rosie the Riveter, you can do it a little bit.
Yeah.
Even if the arms were crossed.
That was definitely the toad that he did it with.
Black Kid does this.
Spider-Man shooting webs.
Which is, is that also like the devil horn's middle?
That's like an upside down, yeah, like an upside down metal sign.
And also the Hawaiians call that the shaka.
Oh, okay.
What is it?
Does that mean anything? Isn't a shaka one, isn't that like this with the pinky on the thumb? shaka. Oh, okay. What is it? Does that mean anything?
Isn't a shaka one, isn't that like this with the pinky on the thumb?
Oh, it might be this.
Okay.
That's the hang loose.
Oh, okay.
Sorry.
I'm like, okay, guys, what are those?
White kid.
Christ.
Black kid.
Sigh of, just sigh of defeat.
Spider-Man.
Wow.
So then I, A, that's the most hilarious thing that's ever happened.
But B, then I am forced to judge what wins Christ or Spider-Man.
Anyways, it was tough.
It was tough.
I didn't know what to do.
You know the Spider-Man motto about responsibility?
Sure. With great power motto about responsibility? Sure.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Yeah.
That essentially comes from the Old Testament.
Yeah.
Yes.
So it's really Old Testament versus New Testament.
Right.
That's how I look at it.
I didn't see that.
And I feel like Old Testament is always going to smite New Testament.
Yeah.
There's a lot more fireballs. Old Testament sm Yeah, there's a lot more fireballs.
Old Testament smites New Testament.
A lot more fireballs than a lot more talking donkeys.
Just like water douses fire,
Old Testament smites New Testament.
Although there's that late-breaking apocalypse
at the end of the New Testament.
Oh, yeah, and the horsemen, the beasts.
Yeah, but I still feel like old testament generally trump just throw some
locusts at it when in doubt throw some locusts in that shit when uh and did you choose christ
yeah i chose christ mainly because i didn't want anybody to get mad at me i thought maybe that
might make things uncomfortable and then somebody came up to you just a spider-man excuse me jordan Spider-Man. Excuse me, Jordan. Jesse, your nerd voice is as offensive as Sarah's Chinese charactering around.
Sorry.
Sorry, guys.
I'm just saying.
You guys don't have to resort to those broad stereotypes.
I also hiked up my pants and put some white medical tape around the nose bridge of my
eyeglasses.
I didn't like it.
We'll be back in just a second with more on Jordan, Jesse, go.
Jordan, Jesse, go.
I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.
Jordan Morris, boy detective.
Sarah Vowell alongside us.
Just sitting here.
Just sitting in the corner.
And so that's her way, I would say.
That is her way.
Yeah.
Happily. As you know, if you're out there, you's her way, I would say. That is her way. Happily.
As you know, if you're out there, you can sponsor Jordan, Jesse, Go.
You don't wish you were sitting in some other corner.
No, this is the only corner I want to be in.
We'll take money from anybody.
Personal message, $100.
Business message, $150.
It's that easy.
Just give us some money.
We'll talk about your shit.
A kind listener named Jacob Howler has sponsored this week's program he has a brand new
cd out called mistaken identity he's a singer-songwriter kind of a guitar-y singer-songwriter
um uh you know playing a zither it's not a piano singer-songwriter i'm trying to draw he's not a
yeah we're not talking we're not talking about one of these billy joel randy newman type situations
um he has a new c called Mistaken Identity,
and we'll put the link up on the forum
so that you can click through and hear it.
But you can hear the whole thing on his website,
which is music.jwgh,
presumably Jacob Haller's middle initials are wg.org.
So music.jwgh.org.
We want to encourage you to check it out.
It's a new CD, Jacob Howler, Mistaken Identity.
You can listen to the whole thing.
And like I said, we'll put the link on the webpage, right?
Boom.
Do it.
Boom.
You know what?
You know what I like about this guy?
Some people might interpret this as a negative.
Yeah.
Remember when we got that money?
I was going to say, he's a
bald guy.
Bald guys are doing it for themselves these days.
Bald guys taking care of business.
I'm going to be a bald guy pretty soon. I'm getting close.
I've noticed that my
peninsula is starting to turn into
an island on top of my head.
That reminds me of
17th century maps
of California.
Sure.
Remember?
Oh, are we still back on the sponsor?
I'm sorry.
No, I mean, I'm sure he's a big fan of the 17th. But Jacob Haller, of course, a bald man, just like myself.
Everybody's just been inspired by Jason Statham.
You're like, you know what?
If Statham can bald and kick that much ass.
Jason Statham's probably the greatest
bald of all time. Oh, God. Wouldn't you say that?
Yeah. Almost certainly. I can't think of a better
bald. Yeah. Can you think of any better
bald men? I'm trying to think.
It seems like Allen
Ginsberg lost a lot of
his hair toward the end there.
Yeah. Wait, if Ginsberg fought
Statham, you know how short that would be?
That would be a really short fight.
That would be over before it began.
It would be like this.
And that would be the end of it.
Yeah.
But what if Ginsburg used the Christ sign?
Yeah.
That beats most things.
Mainly because it makes everyone uncomfortable.
Okay.
Music.
Music.jwgh.org. We'll be back in just
a second on Jordan and Jesse Go.
La, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la.
Jordan and Jesse Go.
I'm Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart.
Jordan Morris, bully detective.
Sarah Bell, saying hi.
I don't want to be labeled.
I don't want to be labeled.
No, that's fine.
You have permission to come up with a nickname.
I don't want anyone to feel obligated to come up with a nickname.
We're also being paid a visit by the Crime Stopper Chopper.
I don't know if you can hear that.
I could be Homebody on the Move.
Homebody on the Move.
Sold.
Okay, so I think we've had a lot of fun here today. Definitely.
Certainly, Sarah Val, would she have
rather been ordering room service?
Yes. Was she
willing to come here? Yes.
And we thank her
for it. And
here's what I'd like to do
to thank her. I'd like to
insist that everyone
run out to
the bookstores. Run.
Do not walk. And each listener of
Jordan Jesse Go buy
two copies.
Each one buys two copies
of the brand new paperback of her
brand new book, Assassination Vacation.
They can walk. Those books have been out a while
They can walk
They're not going to run out of them?
There's going to be a rush on them
because of the Jordan Jesse Go
They keep printing more
Sorry Sarah, I know we're ruining your whole
book tour here by
basically
we've invited you here to railroad you
No, no
I've been asked quite enough questions about the Massachusetts Bay colonists.
It's nice to field other queries about, you know, Jordan's domicile.
Yeah, you feel like that's been lacking from your book tour so far.
Yeah.
No one asks what they think Jordan should put up on his walls.
And I have a suggestion.
I have one additional suggestion.
Let's say you want to hear a lot about the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
You know what I think you should do?
What?
Go into your iTunes, information tunes right there on your personal computer.
Is that what that stands for?
That was good.
That's one of those magic moments we have every so often.
Anyway, you're at iTunes, yes?
You go into your iTunes.
You go to the San Diego America.
Sarah was on, what, six, nine months ago?
Nine months ago, maybe?
When did your...
A year.
A year ago, we talked a lot about the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Right.
We did.
Okay, good.
I thought you were saying that to me like I was lying or something.
No, no, I concur.
Okay, so you can learn a lot about the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Or you could just, while you're there, you could just buy the audio book of the book.
Oh, yes, Sarah, I've ingested all your books via
audiobook. Oh really?
Usually have very good guest
stars. That's true. I like
to put on a show.
Any good guest stars this time around?
Let's see. Yeah, I have T-Bone
Burnett reading from Moby Dick.
I have
John Slattery from Mad Men as the voice
of JFK. Wow.
That's good casting. He was good.
Good casting. Did you get to touch him?
Peter Dinklage as Roger Williams.
Oh, God. This is a very handsome
lineup so far. Catherine Keener as Anne Hutchinson.
Oh, you got Catherine Keener?
Oh, I have such a crush on Catherine Keener.
She touched my shoulder once.
Oh, geez Louise.
Wow. It felt like this.
Boing, boing.
Well, she can get kicked out of Massachusetts like nobody's business.
Oh my goodness.
Mm-hmm.
Well, if you ever need any podcasters to guest...
Yeah.
If you want to add that cachet that only a couple of podcasters can bring to an audio book.
The world of internet marginalia.
Yeah. The world of internet marginalia.
Yeah.
The world of dumb assholes. You're hired.
Thanks. Okay, MaximumFun
MaxFunCon.com
if you want to learn about MaxFunCon.
Topatico.com slash MaxFun if you want
to buy one of our sweet new polo shirts or something.
Sarah Vowell
doesn't like the internet, hates the internet.
That's not true. I'm ambivalent.
Okay. Ambivalent
towards the internet. That means I have
some positive feelings toward it.
Enthusiastic about
Creole.
Jordan, of course, is
from the great city of New Orleans.
Y'all.
Jambalaya. We'll be back next time on Jordan and Jessie Orleans. Y'all. Jambalaya.
We'll be back next time on Jordan,
Jesse go.
Bye.
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you..