Red Scare - BOGOsian Special

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

The ladies review Eric Bogosian's shock jock drama Talk Radio (1988) and one-man standup play Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (1990).

I already started recording, so they heard a sighing deeply. We decided to honor the work of our Armenian daddy, Eric Joseon, specifically talk radio. We paired it with a one-man show of his called Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. How did you find out about this thing, because it was a very good find. I'm really pleasantly surprised and impressed. When I tweeted, someone was like, you should also watch his stand-up special. You were like, no. A suggestion from the listeners.

Wow, amazing. In retrospect, I realize that deconstructing Harry is a bad idea for a bogo-bogo, because he has three minutes of screen time. Yeah, he hasn't been in a ton of movies, because he has uncut gems and talk radio, and then small parts. Apparently, Under Siege II was also recommended to us. He has a villain, Larry Cohen's side effects also didn't seem quite a right pairing, but he has a theater background.

He wrote the stage play that talk radio was based on, as well as Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, which was a one-man play that he also wrote and then performed. This guy's really into one-man plays. I know, they don't do them like they used to. No. Which one should we talk about first? This one, Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll is from, I just Googled this, it's from 1990, and then talk radio is from 88.

So let's do talk radio first. I guess, Bogosian's from Watertown, Massachusetts, which makes sense, because he has a slightly less tacky and more erudite sheen to him than Glendale Armenians, who are all rug sellers and BMW used car salesmen. He has the pomp of a new Englander, and he went to Oberlin. I don't know about that, we'll look him up. He's a liberal fag. But I watched talk radio recently and thought it would be a good one for us to discuss,

because he plays a shock jock who's maligned and besieged by haters. Yeah, it's a good movie for us to kind of access and talk through some of our own podcasting traumas and travails. So in talk radio, which is directed by Oliver Stone, Eric Bogosian plays a character named Barry Champlain, who is a radio personality, who it all basically seems like it spans like one day, for the most part, as he is doing his talk radio program that people call into, because it's about to become nationally syndicated. And Barry Champlain is kind of, I think like an exaggerated version of Bogosian himself.

It seems a little autobiographical, or in terms of the character study, it seems to draw from Bogosian's own experiences. Yeah, Bogosian's one of those guys who probably lived in New York at some point early on in his life, moved from Boston to New York or whatever, and did that thing where he walked down the bowery, twitching and shivering to pretend he was more crazy than he is to not solicit attention from people walking by, but actually brought more attention onto himself. Like that old trick. Yeah, I think it's based on him.

It's adapted from like the actual true story of this guy, Alan Berg, who was like a Denver, Colorado, Jewish, liberal, shock jock, kind of like the Howard Stern of the provinces, and he was murdered by a white supremacist group. Yeah, spoiler alert, Barry Champlain is shot to death at the end of talk radio. Yeah, I don't think the film, the play, I mean, was based as much on Alan Berg. Yeah. The film kind of synthesized that story. Yeah, it's based on like Bogosian's demons, I guess.

Yeah, his self-loathing and extreme need for an audience. Yeah, and so is sex, drugs, rock and roll for that matter, but he really is talented at accessing the kind of hypocrisy and self-loathing of like all these different types that he parodies in that special. And then he sort of, yeah, does it for himself at a distance in this kind of like talk radio format? I've never seen the play, have you? No, I read the play after watching it because I thought that it would have been more interesting.

It was more digestible that way. I like zoned out quite a bit when I was watching it, just because I think one man plays aren't really my thing, or it's a sequence of monologues. But it's a good companion to talk radio because yeah, it's about these kind of like disparate marginal voices, much like the collars into Champlain's radio show. Yeah, they're all like facets of his personality too on some level. Exactly. And Alec Baldwin, isn't it as well, he plays one of the like suits exactly to inform Barry

that he is going to be nationally syndicated and he calls his ex-wife sort of in the first act and asks her to come and see him on those broadcasts that most of the movie then takes place during. I thought it was cool that it took place in Dallas. Yeah, it's weird, yeah, well, it's weird because he's like the odd man out in Dallas. Yeah, and Dallas is also this kind of like, it feels like it's more like, it's like the San Francisco of Texas or something, it's this like tech town. And so he's in, it has the like the high rise element and at one point he receives like

a suspicious package that he then brings over to his like podcasting console, which is meant to illustrate him kind of playing with his own death drive and egging on the animosity and hatred of his listeners. He's basically asking for it. Yeah, kind of like we do every time we tweet or record. Yeah, I mean, okay, yeah, certainly it's like very interesting because yeah, he's like kind of playing like this liberal Jew or like libertarian Jew who is kind of an odd man out in Dallas, Texas.

Yeah, do you think he was, he's a liberal? He's sort of, I think he's like kind of liberal in spirit, maybe not in ideology. Like he's into kind of like free speech and kind of defense of that liberal ideal on principle, even though it brings out so much festering and teeming horror. Negativity. And he, but it's interesting because you start to see with his character how like basically people have again, a kind of what's the word I'm looking for it, like they have an overdeveloped hypertrophied sense of their own victimhood, like he has a persecution complex because he's

blind to the fact that he has chosen this location to ply his trade and he's blind to the fact that like his popularity depends on the animosity that he receives in part. But I'd say also his listeners have a, you know, the reason that he, I agree he has like a persecution complex, but then also people are drawn to his show because they feel victimized by him. And he's really, I think you're right that he has like a liberal libertarian spirit, but he's ultimately a kind of a troll. Yeah.

Well, he says, I mean, there's like that kind of definitive monologue at the end where he talks about how, yeah, I'm a hypocrite and yeah, I actually don't care about you or the world or change. I only care about money and power and status. And I've read it like, I wonder if Nick Pinkerton has ever reviewed this movie. I'm sure he, I need somebody else to like tell me what to think about this movie. But he, but basically he, this is seen as like the kind of final admission of his authentic self, but I'm unsure that he's being sincere in that scene, you know, like it's almost

like he's, he's actually buried his earnesty and sincerity. I don't know if those are actually words. He's so alienated. Yeah. Yeah. From anything that could ostensibly be true to himself. Yeah. I think like on some level he does care and is frustrated with the state of things, which

is why he does what he does, like, you know, pick at the wound and kick the horn, horn its nest day in and day out, but he like, again, like has to ignore or deflect that part of him. And in a flashback, we see him in his sort of rise to prominence from he was being like, he was a suit salesman. Yeah. He's a lowly Schmatte salesman who, uh, yeah, was rose up from his mercantile reality to become a talk show host after he fitted another radio personality for a suit and then went

on to guest on his show. Yeah. Um, I've, so I found an interview with Bogosian from 2017 from the Guardian, um, that was that talks about talk radio kind of in the context of Trump. Um, the title is shock jocks and more on presidents Eric Bogosian on how his talk radio nightmare came true and it sort of tries to use the character he plays and talk radio as this like Trumpian allegory, but this is a quote from, um, Bogosian talk radio was a very big deal in the States in the eighties, the right then tick it over, which wasn't

the case at the time. I was looking at someone who will pretty much say anything to get a rise out of his audience, which in turn increases his ratings. Look at Rush Limbaugh. He has described himself as an entertainer at the same time. He's messing with issues, which are the greatest importance to all of us. You've had a similar problem with Brexit. Someone starts tossing the football around for fun and before you know it, they've changed

policy, but I think that that is revelatory of this kind of like his idea that the talk radio used to be the domain of the left, um, that then once the right wing apprehended this powerful trolling tool, it really got out of hand. This mechanism. Yeah. But I think that reveals his kind of like boomerish misconception. Yeah. Wait, talk more about this about political speech.

Yeah. You know, like it's all good and fun when liberals are doing it, but when someone like Rush Limbaugh, like Alex Jones weaponizes the shock jock machinery, then that's when it becomes dangerous and affects policy. But in fact, I think both sides are really just as culpable. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, this is like the kind of argument that you see play out about how Trump's greatest legacy will be, um, stoking a climate of hatred and divisiveness. And it's like, well, the media is at least equally to blame, right? At least. At least. Yeah. Like you guys saw all the ratings and profits he could get and got horny for like, and have been like, you know, like, uh, feeding the Trump turd cutter ever since, um, I like,

you know, I worry for, for the souls of, of like the mainstream libtard media, like where are they? What's going to happen to them after Trump? Like what's going to happen to Rachel Maddow? I mean, I'm sure she'll find a new avenue, but I mean, I'm just kidding. She's going to stay just as rich and influential as ever, but, and I don't actually feel sorry for her. But the scene where he's at the baseball game or something with his like producer, new producer

girlfriend and all these people are coming up to him and like telling him how horrible they find, they find him, um, really reminded me of like, uh, the contemporary like Twitter pile on that we've fall victim to quite often. And I think we see, I don't know. Sometimes the way people talk about our podcasts, um, it reminds me of, or it's, it feels like people do it because they know that they, it's a way for them to get attention. Yeah. This is something that I was totally kind of naive to an innocent of, but it, yeah,

I realized because other people mentioned it that like when people, uh, kind of dunk on us or try to roast us or whatever, that they're doing it because it garners attention for them. It's not like a straightforward critique, even if it's a misguided critique. And I, that, that to me is like a very like vicious and demoralizing circle that I don't like to be kind of trapped in. Right. I'm like, I'm very at this point aware of, um, how things we do and say play into this

kind of irreducible, irretrievable network of, of like lies and speculations. I don't know, but like discourse that we're part of, that's like, uh, you know, it's really sad, like to, on some level to make, uh, your livelihood in such a ambiguous and ambivalent way. Like I'm very ambivalent. You mean are lively. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And divisive, I suppose. Yeah. For some people. Yeah. I'm like AOC in that New York Times interviewer. She's like, I think about quitting politics every day. Um, do acquaintances of yours who have experienced some form of cancellation reach out to you?

Um, I don't know. That's a good question. I guess I think, you know, all the acquaintances that I'm not asking for, yes, but sometimes even like, um, there's a girl on Instagram that I follow whose handle is like Mark Fisher quotes or something and she does this kind of like critical theory fashion thing where she posts about kind of like post K whole trend forecasting kind of theory about fashion and which I enjoy and I guess she made a tick talk that people were very up in arms about because about like the fem boy trend, I sound like a boomer, but, um, but she was facing

like a bunch of score and she, we don't, we hadn't previously talked, but she wrote to me as a lot of other like people I know or vaguely know, yeah, often reach out to me to be like, I'm being canceled. How do you, how do you deal with it? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's happened. Um, yeah, that, that actually happened twice recently, I guess, and, um, I don't know what

to tell them. I mean, I feel like really, uh, numb and dumb when it comes to giving that kind of advice because I'm just like, I mean, you can't pay attention to it, which is easier said than done because everyone is morbidly narcissistically curious to read stuff that's written about them, even if it's hateful, right? And I feel like we are desensitized to it, but even, I remember when we did the, um, that like NPR live show, it was off the heels of some like pile on that we had been the target of and I was legitimately used to upset me a lot.

Yeah. Like the negative attention did feel very psychologically pressing and I think I just became more desensitized, I guess. Yeah, it feels like a little like a UTI or something. Yeah. Like it is. It's like, yeah, like constant around the clock pressure that you feel like you have to address.

And then after a while, like I'm just, I'm part disappointed, part relieved because on one hand I'm like disappointed in myself that I like actually even succumb to it. Like I feel stupid about it, um, and like, uh, I don't know. It's so easy to like check out and then once you take the plunge, it's so easy to like not really come back, you know, but on the other, but like more on a, you know, bigger level. I think like what, what troubles me and what I've actually like literally told, uh, uh, my talk to my shrink about is like, I don't want to be a witness to people's kind of wildly

inaccurate and grotesquely intrusive, negative thoughts that have to do more with their self hatred than always, um, because it, I feel like on the narcissistically that it taints my life and like kind of permeates my marrow, but I also truly, I'm not like Barry Champlain. I truly genuinely from the bottom of my heart feel for them. And I wish I could sit down with every single one of them and like buy them a drink and hold their hand and be like, dude, it's okay. Yeah. That's sweet Anna.

No, I mean it. Because it's like, you know, sometimes, um, you know, you come across like just people's like completely, uh, like unchecked, unyoked, uh, viciousness and baseness that they've gone too far to even reel it real back in. And that they feel we somehow deserve to be the targets of or because we have a reputation as being kind of like mean girls or vicious. Yeah. So then that makes them feel, yeah, look, they can go on unchecked.

Yeah. I mean, like, look, I mean, I feel profoundly remorseful and horrified that I've in any way courted that sort of attention for, you know, for all parties involved. Um, I feel embarrassed for, you know, myself, I feel embarrassed for my personal friends who have to witness it and I feel embarrassed for like, um, uh, haters who are fans who don't know it yet, who have to like, who feel compelled to like unleash this kind of energy. But you have to be like really kind of like brutally honest and, uh, ruthless with yourself and understand that you brought this upon yourself on some level.

Yeah. It takes a little while to like come to that awareness. I would agree with that. And the advice that I always give people is that it's always so much more amplified for you than it is for other people, you know, short of like an all out kind of public shaming. Yeah. Any kind of negative attention that one garners through social media is really like a blip on the radar in the lives of everyone else.

Yeah. Nobody else cares. Um, well, that's the one thing that like when people, uh, message me asking me for advice and how to cope with their cancellation, uh, or whether to address it, I always say absolutely not like, don't do what I did because you're going to regret it because like nobody will notice or remember, you know, a week from now, let alone like a year from now. And actually in therapy and once in conversation with my dad, I think I was, I was upset about a number of things, but I was like, and they're calling me a fascist and my dad was like, why?

And I was like, oh, I was like, I can't even explain it to you because it's so convoluted and retarded. Yeah. And oftentimes I it's, it is therapeutic just because I don't address it in therapy because I realize how inconsequential it would be to even waste the time to like explain the Twitter social media infrastructure that I'm like a part of, you know, and like why people are mad. Yeah.

Often it's. Your dad's like, what is your dad think of this? I mean, he just, he's just like, well, it's, they don't like, he thought it sounds stupid. Yeah. He can't wrap his brain around it. Yeah. He has so many like real world concerns. Exactly.

But the, but in that scene at the baseball game, yeah, there's that woman who's like clearly very unwell and in her wavering voice is like, you make me want to throw my radio at the window and everyone I know and she's has this like real like visceral glee in getting to communicate to Barry, how much she dislikes him. And so while I agree with like, you know, needing to take that long hard look in the mirror and realize that you do bring aspects of this on yourself, it's also like a podcast is something people listen to electively, you know, we're not even on the radio. We're not being like broadcasted or syndicated in any way.

Like you have to, there's three, maybe four steps involved in like listening to a podcast. This is actually why I don't listen to podcasts. It's not because I'm a podcast snob or I have animosity toward other podcasters. It's just the, the steps that you take to open your phone and then open an app and then click, that's a little too much for me. But the thought of people like hate listening or something really boggles my mind. Yeah. Because it's, life is finite, baby.

You gotta figure something else out. You shouldn't, you shouldn't trip so much about what me and Anna are up to. I mean, I think that's what breaks my heart at the end of the day because I like fundamentally sympathize with all these like young, talented people who in my mind are like, talented is very generous and I, I think everybody's a little bit talented, just like everybody's a little bit retarded. We're all special snowflakes, but they're not, they're not valueless and they're not untalented, they're not useless people, but I sympathize with them.

But I also think that they're like, grossly misprioritizing and wasting their time. Sure. Because my feeling has always been like, if I can do it, so can you. Like what? Like anything, like have a podcast bar is very low. I really invite any of our haters to start a pod. To call in and tell us how much you hate us and why you want to sex murder us. Outrage is addictive.

It has been, that was the, that's why shock jocks rose to prominence in the first place. Because people collectively like to feel outraged because it's more interesting than being bored because there's such a, you know, dearth of positive things people get to feel. I think they get to attach themselves to negativity. Yeah. I mean, the whole tenor has also changed. You know, back in the day, Howard Stern had segments like, guess this Asian and like homeless, was it, it wasn't homeless Jeopardy, it was like homeless.

The other one. Bomb fights. Something, yeah. And like that, that was legitimately outrageous and exploitative and demeaning, but also like kind of funny and freeing and nobody got that worked up. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't like sentient enough to remember whether, I mean, Howard Stern was profoundly hated and divisive figure and probably still is.

And the FCC was a, is in the context of radio also plays a figure. There's things people aren't allowed to do on the radio that they're, they transgress against. Yeah. But now I think the, the ante is upped even more because everything is so politicized, ie, loaded with morality, like politics is kind of a shorthand for morality now. So like you can't even kind of trip up in that direction. But I think like, yeah, talk radio is great because it's basically a, a saga about addiction,

like mutual addiction and like, it reminds me of that way of like uncut gems. Like they're both like, I think the valuable takeaway from both of those films is that they are about addiction in the sense that nothing much really happens in the world. Like all of the action is relatively cosmetic and superficial and all of the kind of meaningful definitive, definitive action takes place in like the protagonist's head as he's like grappling with his demons. And of course, like leave it to Eric Bogosian to make a play and then another play about a man grappling with his demons because it's also such a like Armenian thing to do.

Like all Armenian American artists have this tendency, like think about it like Jack Kevorkian who literally grappled with death in his day to day life and also caught a pretty impressive jazz record and was also a really good painter. Fantastic painter, yeah. Arshil Gorky, another great abstract painter who like killed himself in his shed. Do you think there's something particular about a Armenian kind of death drive? Yeah, I think any, I mean, it's similar to the Jewish death drive. Any, any like nationality or ethnicity or whatever that's been genocided, I think has

a compulsive like desire to pick at that kind of wound and understand, like try to wrap its brain around what would make people target them. I mean, System of a Down has this where they're like really dark and like, you know, that song Sugar. No. And he's like sugar and he talks about pistol-lipping his girlfriend. Okay. Yeah, like, I don't know, this is like a very kind of Armenian thing to me.

I mean, Bogosian is very like all American in a way too. Like in his kind of read of pop culture and mass media. Well, yeah. So in the, we'll come back to sex tricks rock and roll, but in the, he wrote an introduction to the, the play version where he said, America is the land of overconsumption that loves to cry for the less fortunate of the world. America wants to be the strongest warrior and the ultimate peacemaker. America wants to live in pigish splendor and be egoically responsible.

America wants to have the highest principles, but when the popularity contest, America loves itself and loves to beat itself up. America is schizoid. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, both his play, talk radio and talk radio as a, as a genre, as a concept is very schizoid. It's chatter. Yeah.

And radio talk radio, like podcasts, appeals, I think, demographically to the kind of loneliest and most disturbed parts of the population, not exclusively, obviously, but when you think of people who are preoccupied with podcasts or who used to probably be preoccupied with radio personalities, it's because they are probably comforted by filling their minds and heads and lives with like chatter, basically. Yeah. Like external noise because it means that they don't have to focus on their own kind of inner where like you said, not much really happens.

It's just like chasing the dragon, addictive impulse, just kind of noise. This is also like what happens to like Adam Sandler's character in an uncut jumps when he's like contemplating when he's like in the office with the Kevin Garnett character and he's like contemplating making yet another bet and you're watching this from like the audience and you're so profoundly angered and frustrated and disappointed. Like just when he's like in the clear, he makes another kind of an advisable bet that ends, you know, as we know, with his total ruin and also the ruin of his family because actually Eric Bogosian's character also gets popped in that.

So he basically destroys not one, but two patriarchs in one fell swoop with his like kind of like a idiocy and poor impulse control. And I have to think that like the softies definitely saw talk radio and definitely cast Eric Bogosian as like an homage to that film because the plots are very similar. And the energy both in the like the jewelry store and the pawn shop and the radio booth like Oliver Stone very expertly directed talk radio. Because he made the a very enclosed kind of static space feel very hectic and energetic. Yeah, which is like really also like pretty impressive that this movie essentially takes

place. I mean, like, I don't know, like three quarters of this film take place in this like radio booth, like recording studio. You can see how it was a stage play easily. Yeah. With like characters sort of coming in and out. What I'm interested in is like this idea that like it's funny because Eric Bogosian such a kind of like almost underrated and mediocre actor or he's definitely think he's

underrated. I don't I'm not ascribing I'm not calling him I think he's actually quite talented and interesting. But for some reason, he occupies this place in the kind of Hollywood cosmos. It's very middling. I think he's underutilized, which is why I think he ended up writing a lot of his own material, but at the bottom, he really is an actor. Yeah, he's like an actor's actor.

And it's like, I think like with with the one man special, it really drove home for me that like, I think talent as an actor is being able to entertain yourself and occupy space by yourself. Yeah. Like in order to be a good actor, which is not to say successful or accomplished actor, you really have to be able to like stand on your own, I think. Yeah. Well, there's something to be said for acting also as like a collaborative craft.

Yeah. Where you have to what a really good actor, I think can do is is able to work with actors who are not so talented. Yeah. They still evoke like strong performances from themselves and their collaborators. Yeah. Yeah. That's true though.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because like also talk radio is like a very kind of, I don't know if it's an obscure film, but it's like a really underrated one. Yeah. Nobody really has seen this movie. I mean, some people have, but it's not like a huge blockbuster. Yeah. I don't think you've really made a big mark.

Yeah. It's like kind of a deep cut. I wonder. I mean, that's funny because I like looked up Eric Bogosian on Twitter and I was like, oh, he'd probably come on the pot if we invited him and he has like 8,000 followers and it's sad to see that like, it's simultaneously sad, but also freeing and beautiful on some level to see that the talent of each era are kind of left or lost to that era. Like now I think for people our age, he's just like the guy from uncut gems or like

the other guy from uncut gems, the one that's like the meme in the Ikea monkey tank. Yeah. Right. I mean, the uncut gems definitely like, I was familiar with him obviously, but brought him kind of into my consciousness. Well they sort of did for Eric Bogosian, what like Quentin Tarantino did for Pam Grier and like John Travolta and Bruce Willis. Totally.

But I bet Bogosian is very discerning. So I'm sure he could have been a more prolific actor and probably had offers to be, but didn't he do, he did a lot of like TV, right? He was on Billions, which I watched in its entirety, also semi-recently. Yeah. Well, he's like a stage actor or a theater actor. Yeah. But he's, yeah, he's in.

He also wrote Suburbia, which might have been a good companion piece I haven't seen, but that was a play as well that was adapted. Okay. Yeah. I think he's just very, he's very specific. And we don't have, there hasn't been a real like Jewish leading man for a while, the likes of like Elliot Gould or something. Yeah.

And he could have maybe filled that. But he gets, he gets typecast as a Jewish guy because nobody knows what to do with like an Armenian guy, which like, I totally see how that, like, I mean, my favorite role of his is in deconstructing Harry when he plays this like annoying militant scientist asshole. Yeah. And like, I've rewatched that movie recently and it like dawned on me that Larry David not so much was inspired by Woody Allen in general, as he was inspired by that movie in particular, like so many of the jokes and the setups in curb are taken directly from that movie.

And like the Eric Bogosian character who marries Woody Allen, Woody Allen's character's sister turns her into like a dour orthodox matron. That guy then gets like a second life in the Wagner episode of curb as the excuse me. Are you Jewish? Like what are you whistling guy? Totally. It's like the same like militant conservative energy, but it's funny because Bogosian gets typecast as like these Jewish guys.

So like, honestly, God bless the softies for letting him play an Armenian and not like a Sephardic Jew, because that would have been a kind of like understandable and obvious casting. Is he not Jewish and jumps? No, I think he's like the Armenian brother-in-law. Oh, he has an Armenian last name, I think. Cool. But like I'm, I'm so down the rabbit hole of like phenotypes and phrenology that I like

to look at Eric Bogosian and it's like he has that Byzantine mosaic round eye that could never be Jewish. It's like a very Armenian eye. I hear you. I'm just like, for me personally, this isn't convincing, but I see how it's convincing for other people who are not. There's lots of fake Jews in Hollywood, like Adam Driver and Tina Fey often gets cast as a Jewess.

Oh, and Jason Biggs? Even Alan Cast as a Jew, Jason Bateman, there's like a whole sitting shiver, like ensemble cast comedy that has like, but no one is Jewish and which is interesting. That really sucks for those guys. Yeah. I would hate to be typecast as like an anti-Semitic caricature if I wasn't already, it'd be personally offended. That's like when people are like, oh, Anna's on like Peter Teal's payroll.

It's like, I wish I could claim that honor. How would that even, how would he even dole out those payments? I don't understand. I don't know. What would he be paying you? Yeah. He's like not using PayPal. Is it like a per, is it a per tweet basis or every time the take, it gets hot enough.

Yeah. He like, you get royalty. He like docks my pay every time I mentioned Lash and like not Schmidt or Strauss or something. Yeah. I don't know how it would pay. I don't know how it would work. I don't, I don't think he's interested in female podcasters or women in general. Well, yeah, that's a very modern strain of kind of conspiratory thinking that is also

present in talk radio. Well, it makes me insulted not because it's not true and it's like a vicious rumor, but because I kind of wish it was true. But maybe if they keep talking about it enough, they'll manifest it for us. We'll get some teal bucks. I support the gays. Maybe if I keep talking about Lancome Juicy too, they'll finally mail me a mini backup. They'll give you the backup.

What else about talk radio? Oh, I thought while linking it to sex, drugs, rock and roll, he dedicated the play to friends of his who had died of AIDS and sort of wrote it in the midst of the AIDS crisis, which talk radio also was released. And there's that one female caller who is calls to talk about, she's talking about the AIDS crisis and like kind of the contaminated air, just made me think of COVID, just, I don't have a full voice, at least in a thing, I thought of like radio podcasts, isolation, the void that podcasts fill in people's lives and what radio used to do for people.

And then the one man show being a kind of proxy for like the front facing camera character comedians, which is kind of like a shorter format. Maybe that's why I lacked the attention span to really sit with his special. Did you watch the whole thing? Yeah, I watched the whole thing. Like in one sitting? No, I broke it up. Me too.

I had to like, I literally after every like three personalities, I had to like go check my phone. Because you're like acclimated to seeing people do do characters in like two minute long Twitter videos. Yeah. That's how we metabolize that information. I'm going to do a one woman play except just me doing Melania voice for an hour and a half. Were you shocked by the end of talk radio or did you know how it ended?

I mean, the first time I was shocked, but I think the buildup was all sort of leading to that moment. Yeah. I couldn't believe that it would happen. And there's like kind of like that ending that the end where everybody called in and talked about all of his like virtues and qualities, but it's like the catch 22. I mean, the sad catch 22 of him going a national on unlike a gross and bad precedent on like stoking animosity and hatred that also like can't be decoupled from the fact that he's

at the same time helping people and like expanding their horizons. And then there's also, I think the other interesting angle is like his relationship with women. Like this new girlfriend who he's courting, but who he's fundamentally kind of rude and indifferent toward his producer. And she says, yeah, when you, when I talked to you like a producer, you treat me like I'm your girlfriend. And when I talked to you like a girlfriend, you treat me like your wife. Yeah.

And then of course, this like long suffering, well, meaning wife who really loves him and cares about him and can't understand why and who is like with him for his, his rise. Yeah. And then is like summarily like bumped off, which is I think a very typical kind of breakdown. It's interesting because Bogosi in real life has been married to the same woman for like 40 years and they have two sons and he seems like a very faithful and loving family man, which I wouldn't expect less. He seems in general like a nice middle class boy who was like supported and empowered by

his like nice hands on conscientious parents must be nice. But yeah, so it's interesting that he has this like, I don't know that he kind of like almost like narcissistically indulges in this dark side that he thinks he has. It's cute and charming. Well, he probably, he does have a shadow self, he has clearly dark sided. Yeah. And then when he has that fight with his girlfriend, he says, I wrote it down. He says, if I'm angry, that's who I am for better or worse.

That's what got me here today. You think it's bad on the outside, just be glad you weren't born me and that's sort of like the tragedy of the Barry Champlain character is that he has to become attached to the most negative aspects of himself to get to where he was. Yeah. I mean, I think the scary thing about self-hatred and why it's hard for people to part with self-hatred, especially if it was like encoded at them from an early age by example or by parenting from their parents is that you have to come to terms with the fact that all the

things that you hate about yourself, it's not that they're not real. It's that they are real on some level. There is a kernel of truth to all the unflattering things people say about you. Your critics are always right, but that it's okay and that it doesn't matter if you're willing to be honest about it and confront them head on. Because I think there's like this very therapeutic American self-help kind of strain of thinking that's like, well, now all these things are not true about you actually, you're like a wonderful exemplary perfect person.

You don't have any ugliness or hypocrisy, but that's false. All of us do. Well, that's really the, that's why Talk Radio is such a successful film and why Barry Champlain I think is such a good character is because I imagine that for Bogosian, it's a way for him to kind of like exercise those unpleasant parts of himself in a productive way. Yeah. I think that probably what being an actor is on some level, especially like one of these old school actors who's like reared in the theater.

It is literally like, scary to exercise your demons on stage. Should we talk about and why so many actors meet tragic of that caliber meet kind of tragic ends because then they have to really attach themselves to that negativity. Yeah. They have to like thrive off of it on some level and it becomes destructive because it's like literally like a part and parcel of their livelihood. Sorry. I'm just like looking at screenshots of this new Jack Antonoff, Bruce Springsteen single

that just dropped, I haven't listened to this song. That's exciting. Yeah. It's just like them hanging out and like denim shirts has a kind of like a mold bug at a photo shoot vibe. It's like clobacharmane and like a rock chic leather jacket. I really liked it. I really like a Bogo style in that one man's special.

I love his scuffed up Reeboks and he's fucking hot. Is he a one on the binary for you? Definitely. Okay. Easily. I don't think he is for me because I can recognize like. Too incestuous. Yeah.

Like I can totally recognize the magnetic beauty of his like Afghan girl eyes. Like his very pretty eyes, that color, but it's like literally too incestuous. It's like looking into the face of your brother. Yeah. Like that Armenian like thick oily skin with the large pores that have that has that greenish olive cast. I'm just like, I feel that way about Leo DiCaprio. Yeah.

Cause he's super Russian. Yeah. He looks a little too familial to me. Yeah. Well, he's okay. My thing on Leo DiCaprio, it's like what Vincent Gallo said about him, it's like he's the prettiest girl around. If he was a woman, he would be a really hot chick, but as a man, he looks too much like

a pretty Russian girl to be hot or something. Many women would disagree with you. I think. No, I know. He's like kind of, I mean, I really love Leo DiCaprio because A, I think he's a good actor and B, he's Russian. Yeah. I mean, he's literally Russian.

His grandmother's name is like Eliana Smirnov. And C, I like that he's like a lifelong bachelor who only talks hot chicks who get younger and younger and always kind of look like him. I like that he's consistent and has a type. Same. Yeah. He's cool in my book. Yeah, we can move on to sex, drugs, rock and roll.

But so wait, but in a gun to the head scenarios, Leo, a one or a zero for you? Gun to the head. I mean, one. Okay. I'd like to, yeah, suck his dick while he has air pods on. Sign an NDA so he can hit it doggie style. He's just like eating a meal. Give me an Uberlux back home.

Sure. Yeah. He's objectively handsome. Even still. Yeah. You know, he really made me dad put dad bot on the map. Yeah. Which I enjoy.

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. I guess how he went from being a twink to like a dad bot like overnight. Totally. He's just got really fat and leathery. Okay. Transformation. We'll glow up.

Glow for the ages. Okay. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. I tried to post a video of Putin singing Blueberry Hill to like a star-studded audience featuring like Depper Dew and Goldie Hawn and like Vincent Cassell and Kevin Costner and it got taken down by Instagram because I didn't own the rights to the video. When will the censorship end? Yeah.

It reminded me of this special. Did you enjoy it? It wasn't very funny. I kind of went in. I guess I think I went into it expecting a stand-up special. I went into it like totally clenching my sphincter because I expected like Joe Rogan level stand-up. Right. And I was like, this is going to be probably pretty bad and like dopey.

And I was like really impressed. I was impressed as well. It really was a good showcase for him as an actor, I think. It wasn't funny, but it was brilliant. Yeah. And it also wasn't the horribly humorless or unfunny either, it had its moments. Did you have a favorite character? That's a good question.

I think my favorite guy was like the Italian meathead guy who was trying to get his friends to go out with him, but they all had wives. Yeah. And I think my least favorite one was like the kind of Rolling Stones based washed up British rocker because he couldn't really pull off the British accent. Yeah. I liked the one where he's like a kind of a corporate guy who's like talking on the phone.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That one was great. And he calls his mistress and he's like, he's like telling her, he's like, oh, are you working on a sculpture? You made a sculpture of a horse and wrote the word horse on it. That's fascinating. And he had like a fainting interest in his like mistress's art career.

I thought it was very nice. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was, that was really fantastic. That was probably the funniest one. And the kind of the penultimate one, the guy was lamenting not being famous and talking about how he wishes he could be normal. He's sort of doing, it's, it is very like a schizoid monologue about how he wishes

he could be normal, but he can't because he's too special. It's called dog chameleon in the play. But I think, yeah, it's interesting, especially when you look at them all as like facets of Bogosian himself. He says in the intro to it that he, an alternate title could have been conflicts of meditations on my state of mind in America in 1990, but then he went for the more provocative sex drugs rock and roll title. Yeah.

But it's probably better off with that title. And how formative the rock and roll mentality was on his, his being, on his personality. Like the rock and roll mentality, meaning like the libertarian boomer mentality or Exactly. Yeah. Like the muscle short mentality. Yeah. Yeah.

I, the other thing is like the tensions of like the toxicity and the freedom. Yeah. Like in 1990, it's, it is very like AIDS era. Yeah. In that way. Yeah. Silence equals death. Yeah.

No, it was like, there's that, yeah, there's like a level of like taking responsibility for taking responsibility because you have to, if you're going to, you know, abide by that libertarian like bootstrapping ethos, like you really have to be conscious of what you want, be vigilant, as you say. The other thing that struck me about this special was how beautifully done it was, like on a formal level in terms of like the stage design, the angles, the shots, everything was perfectly lined up. It looked great.

Like, can you imagine watching a special like that now it's like, you know, Nanette or like Chanel. It looks like shit. Just all they're always wearing some like totally gay and inappropriate outfit. Yeah. Like a shrunken blazer. Yeah. With like a bow tie or like Chappelle was wearing a jumpsuit.

Does he have a new special? He, we reviewed it. That was, I thought I meant newer than that. No. Um, Jack Antonoff should try comedy. The jumpsuit. I like Chappelle's jumpsuit. It's fine.

I mean, he looked like a gas station tenant in central Jersey, I guess it was fine. It was at least like inventive, like A plus for effort. You don't want comedians to, to glam it up too much. No, I don't mind if they glam it up, but everything is like kind of like too novelty right now. It's like shopping at Lane Bryant as a plus sized woman and your only options are like barnyard whore and like burlesque whore. Like you, if you're fat, you have to wear a corset.

It's mandated by like the Biden Harris government. You've got to accentuate the ways. Yeah. They make you wear, yeah, like a Halloween costume store outfit at all times. Um, yeah. Anyway, um, I liked the panhandler at the beginning. Yeah. It was a real sweep of American types that it's a, I mean, it's dated.

It's not a resident rewatch really, because he's dealing very specifically with, with the tensions of the time, I think. With like nineties types. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, but I like how he basically, he's really like, um, adept and deft at teasing out the hypocrisies of all these different types, like the, the kind of like panhandler line about how he's a human being and a victim of a, of a sick society and how he comes from a dysfunctional family.

I like when he says, um, my father was an alcoholic, my mother tried to control me. My sister thinks she's an actress. I also enjoyed that. Yeah. Like he, like, you know, he's good at like exposing folly and hypocrisy basically. Yeah. In a way that's like not, um, pedantic. Right.

It's not, and it doesn't feel self-indulgent, even though it is a one-man show. Yeah. That's a good point. He has a, uh, Armenian honesty, if you will, um, and then the formally, I think the meticulousness has to do with it being more of like, yeah, a stage production rather than a specific and just like a generic stand-up special, like the close-ups are kind of, uh, intentional. Yeah. They're really good.

And have to do with the, uh, the content, the, the, yeah, they were, I thought that part was really thoughtfully done, how they would like, um, zoom in on him when he was like twitching or emoting. Um, what else? That probably has to do with his, his own production, I think. Cause he wrote it. I think his wife directed it. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. It's sweet. I like collaborative unions. Um, yeah, but it's, it's weird that he has, I think like, I guess my impression of it, of him is for such a dopey and lovable guy. It's weird that he has such a kind of like dark and piercing vision of the world. Mm-hmm. Well, I think they're connected.

Uh, how so? I think that he's endearing precisely because he's, um, he's incisive enough to integrate his own personality into its contradictions. And so he speaks. Yeah. Not from a, it's not pedantic because he's also talking about himself. Yeah. He's self implicating.

Exactly. Um, yeah. And I think like my main, like feeling after watching that special, which like, you know, after a while, there's like, what, like nine different types or like 12 different times. There's a lot. There's like three per act. I think there's three acts or something like that. Um, it, you know, it felt like after a while, like initially I was like really impressed

and wowed and then it felt a little like draggy, but you know, that's also like my fault because I'm so kind of attention add old now. And I was thinking like how nice it would be to go back to that format, like to go back to certain formats or update them. I mean, I hate like when people like we should return to blah, blah, blah, because I think there is no return, but like it would be nice to update this type of format. Like play standup. Well I think the front facing camera comedian is operating in that tradition.

Yeah, but I feel like everything now has feels kind of like less meaningful and more throwaway. Like everything feels very ephemeral. Yeah. How do you, this is my question for everybody, like how do you as a one man show avoid that trap? It's very hard. Yeah. Yeah.

Even the front facing camera comedians, I don't know what else to call them. They are mostly doing kind of one character that's typically like playing on the trope of a socially awkward, everything's like awkward and lacks the kind of confidence of Bogosian special, which I think might have to do with cocaine. Do you think he was? I don't think he was maybe yacked up on stage, but I think that in the time it had a very cokey atmosphere. No?

No, it did. It did. I mean, the whole thing was very like in your face and like full of life in a way that things aren't now. I think that has to do with the zeitgeist of respective drug cultures. Yeah. That's probably true. The 80s were marked by this like energetic cocaine use.

And now things have more of the tone of SSRI social anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's another thing that makes me really sad because I think it's finally like sinking in and dawning on me how fucked we all are because of this COVID stuff. Yeah. Like if you think about like how readily, well, theater is just, it's over, stand-up

is over, like live music is over, good riddance. No. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm just being a bitch. I don't mean that. But yeah, all of that is over. It's not over.

It's not on pause, but it's over as we know it, I think, and then like, you know, you think of how like just like feebly and readily people accepted like the post 9-11 like suspension of civil liberties and like now you have, you know, it's like you have to take off your shoes every time you get on a plane and we just like accept it. Yeah. We don't put up a fuss anymore. Yeah. Um, no, I know and in, you know, there were a lot of like zoom plays happening, probably

still are a friend of mine did like the Tempest virtually, which I should have watched and didn't. Wait, how do you do that? Like everybody's in their own different like little zoom cubicle, like they're a little Brady bunch. Yeah. A box. That's how we've sort of accommodated theatrical life post pandemic and it's a very poor imitation

to me because I think a big appeal of theater going back to like the ancient Greeks is catharsis requires an element of associating deeply with, with someone and that's yeah, completely fragmented. Yeah. It's definitely well, and that's why all the kind of like histrionic hatred has reached a fever pitch to right because people can't even imagine the, the humanity on the other side of it, yeah, like others, right? Yeah.

Everyone's just sort of presenting in this very one dimensional way. Yeah. And there's like, you know, this is like a boon for politicians and corporations. There's really no need for it to stop to hear about the great reset. No, what's that? We can talk about it later. Well, in the world economic forum is like proposing a kind of consolidation of all the world economies, sort of all of the Green New Deal combat global pandemic and climate

change. And I don't have a great understanding of the actual like policy measures or what it would entail, but it's just the words, the great reset is very scary to me. It sounds like what Tony Sopranos said. This sounds very gay. This is who's who's like, who's spearheading this like the Davos set, the IMF set? Exactly. It's like Davos stuff.

Like people who buy like Randy Gerber and George Clooney's tequila. Yeah. That French bitch. What's her name? Christine, whatever. The Davos bitch. Oh. Is that Christine?

I'm Googling her. The Gillene of finance. Christine Lagardia. Yeah. But it's, yeah, it's like a Davos proposition or consolidating things on a global scale. Yeah. Where they get to like yoke all the shitty little economies will all be even more serfs than we already are.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't, I don't know that I want a global EU that sounds like a bad idea. Yeah. That's what could possibly go wrong. We should probably do some of the sounds interesting. We should probably do some research. Yeah.

Yeah. Great reset. We'll get back into it. This is one of those things that like Zizek would argue is a good idea. If we were willing to work collectively in a communist fashion, but it's actually like a really horrible idea in practice. Yeah. I heard that Amazon was getting into pharmaceuticals.

That wouldn't surprise me. Just even more horrifying. God. So you're saying I can get benzos on the internet? You can prime yourself some drugs. Yeah. Well, it's all, yeah, what all of this really brings to mind is how art is really an afterthought. Even in like, you know, New York hasn't, now they were basically entering into a second

lockdown. It's irrelevant, but in the great reopening, I feel like theaters were not even on the docket. Yeah. And as we like return to indoor dining at limited capacities and stuff, it seems like it's not a priority for the powers that be. Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is to invest in like an art culture at all.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's already, it's accelerating the trend that was already going on like the kind of like decline of, I mean, who went to theater, like old Jews? Moving theaters? Yeah. I mean, no. Like old Jews, like maybe tourists, I don't know.

We went to Samadhiya. Yeah. Yeah. That was like one of our last pre-COVID activities, right? Maybe not. I don't know. That's also like, I've completely lost any sense of when this started. Yeah.

Maybe it was in January, I forget when we went in Samadhiya, but yeah, it's, yeah, theaters already been gutted and that will be even more so. Yeah. That sucks. I mean, what happens to like theater actors? Well, they work in TV. Yeah. But also what's going on with TV?

Like there's a bunch of COVID protocols, right? Like you, I mean, I guess now they've figured out how to bypass that whole, like remember like when they were talking about the handmaid's tale, like in the early days of COVID would be shot like with like two actors maximum in a room and socially distanced. Which I was not optimistic about initially, but I sort of early COVID thought that it could be advantageous for smaller productions and like change things like chamber dramas and stuff like I thought it's possibly naively that things would, I just have to be kind of more contained and better written to have dramatic value and that remains to be seen.

I mean, I got COVID tested today for a production. So we'll see how all those protocols actually are, how they work. Yeah. And this is what I always think about like, okay, like you have this production. You have a movie coming out, I'm making my little moves and it's like, this is a shitty sinking feeling that it's on you. It's up to you to like seriously, like it's very like bogosian style and it's literally like comes down to you to kind of like mold the world as you see fit now.

Yeah. I don't want that responsibility. No. I just want to be a stupid bitch and do masks and try an outfit. Yeah. We don't want to have to redeem the dying art culture. Yeah. But I feel suffocated and stifled and like I couldn't live with myself if I just sat

on my ass and didn't try, you know. I know. I'm with you. I think we just have to stay vigilant as always and as the landscape shifts like be ready to pivot and there will be as like we have less opportunities, there will be different opportunities that present themselves as well. Yeah. New, unforeseen, more and more ghastly opportunities.

I mean, we didn't think that we would be a podcastresses. No. My next opportunity is like digging ditches at the failed vaccine center. Do you have any other thoughts? Oh yeah. I was just thinking about how beautifully Eric Bogosi and captured like the rich libtard Davos mindset when actually he was in character is my least favorite of the personalities, the British Roca and he talks about there's a line where he says I've really come to terms

with my own brilliance and then a few paces later. That's why we're doing the benefit for the Amazonian Indians and it's like that's actually like an evergreen timeless encapsulation of rich NYC libtards who post like hot young picks of Biden and Kamala on their Instagram. Anyway I'm like, is this, this is what you want to teach your kids? This is what you want your legacy to be. It's like the one hot pick of Kamala. The one where she's wearing like the blazer with the big shoulders.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. There's some nice, there's some nice picks or there was even some nice picks of Hillary. Yeah, I really love the one where her hair is kind of pushed back and she's wearing a crisp white poplin shirt with her fingers crossed or with her hands crossed over her chest and like a sweater thrown over her shoulders. She admittedly looks very chic in that photo. Definitely.

Well, I guess I wish someone would run in and shoot us in the head right now. Yeah. It's a really close-up show. Excuse me, are you, are you, are you Anna from Red Scare? Yeah, I was like, uh, nope. That's why I propose that we should get a PO box to ship our merch so that we don't get sex murdered. Yes.

Very smart. I would hate it if, you know, God forbid one of us wasn't there and one of our boyfriends happened to be in line if I were like, I personally also couldn't live with myself. You got Eli murdered. Capped by some like frenzied feminist. A couple of skaters waved at me approving them. I walk over here actually. Oh, really?

That's cute. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. I felt a girl, a girl about the Lori side. They're like, fuck you, whore. I have like headphones on. I'm like, thanks for this thing. Racist bitch.

I love you too. Anyways, see you in hell. See you in hell. We're all doing the best we can.