Succotash Chats Epi152: Talkin' Genius with Bob Garfield

Yes, it’s me – Marc Hershon – your host and ripstop nylon for Epi152 of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. This is an installment of Succotash Chats, rather than Clips, and our special guest this episode is Bob Garfield, host of not only NPR’s Peabody-award winning show On The Media, a correspondent for All Things Considered, plus a journalist and writer for such publications as The New York Times, Playboy, Atlantic, and Sports Illustrated, but he’s also hosting a new soundcast on Audible called The Genius Dialogues.

It’s a really interesting series where Bob chats with people who have received MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." (If you’re unfamiliar, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a fascinating philanthropic organization — click the link and check it out!)

Much like being able to binge watch a show on Netflix, all 12 episodes of the first season of The Genius Dialogues, is available for binge listening via either download or streaming from the Audible app. You may not recognize most of these names but the MacArthur Foundation has recognized them all as being geniuses: Chemist Phil Baran, RadioLab founder Radiolab Founder Jad Abumrad, DuoLingo creator Luis von Ahn, extreme action choreographer Elizabeth Streb, New Yorker Investigative Journalist Sarah Stillman, famed debunker The Amazing Randi, Growing Power Founder Will Allen, MIT Inventor Amy B. Smith, artist Jorge Pardo, Origami Microscope Creator Manu Prakash, physicist Carl Haber, and creator of HBO's The Wire, David Simon.

MORE STUFF

We have not one, not two but THREE of our Burst O' Durst segments with political comedian and social commentator Will Durst! (The third one is a BONUS segment and appears in the closing credits of the show.) We take a peek into the Tweetsack to check out some emails and tweets. And this epi is brought to you by Henderson's Pants newest offering, their Foggy Bottom Britches.

NEWEST OUTLET

You can now subscribe to get Succotash episodes via Facebook Messenger with Revoice! Just click on over to http://hersh.co/succo_revoice and make it happen. 

CLIP YOURSELF

If you've got a comedy podcast that you'd like us to feature, you can upload a 3-5 minute an audio clip (MP3 or WAV formats are good, but we can pretty much use anything you've got) directly to us. Click over to http://hightail.com/u/Succotash and upload it right into our Tweetsack!

OUR APPRECIATION

I, of course, have a deep appreciation for each and every pair of ears that gets filled with Succotash. But that appreciation runs even deep for those who willfully pass the Succotash along to friends, family, and co-workers. And deeper still to those who rtake the time to rate and review the show on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever they listen. But the deepest appreciation of all goes to those thoughtful folks who can afford to help me out with defraying the production costs for this show by clicking the Donate button over on SuccotashShow.com or who click the Amazon banner there or who buy themselves a mug or a t-shirt from our Succotashery.

That's going to do it for now. Coming up next will be another Succotash Clips episode, #153, and I'll see you then.

— Marc Hershon
 

Succotash Clips Epi149: Clippin' with the Best of 'Em

Yes, friend, it’s me, Marc Hershon, your host and freestanding lamppost for Epi149 of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. Just one more installment before we hit episode 150, which is likely to coincide with our 6th year of quality soundcasting.

This is an episode of Succotash Clips, coming at you the way this show started way back when, by featuring a gaggle of comedy soundcast clips. This episode we're featuring clips from Changes In Latitude, Knight & Day, That's Deep Bro, Dumb People Town, The Anti Social Show, The Nerd Blitz, The Story Worthy Podcast, Good One, and the Just In TIme podcast…sort of.

Also coming up this show we have a double dose of our Burst O' Durst, featuring political comedian and social commentator Will Durst. And the whole kit n' kaboodle is brought to you this episode by Henderson's Pressure Cooker Pants.

REVIEW REVUE

Normally I’m begging you to help us to spread the word with a 5-star rating and a short blurb about wonderful the show is and how it made you a better person. But we just got a couple of fresh ones in so I thought I’d give you a break and, instead, thank these folks and let you hear what they had to say, sort of as an example of how easy this process is.

The first one is from our old friend Sabrina Miller, host of the Changes In Latitude soundcast. Back when Succotash started in 2011, she was Charley Miller with a show called The Random Variety Show, and he told me that listening to this show was one of the things that got him into becoming a soundcaster himself. Here’s what she had to say after plunking down 5 stars: “Marc, Joe, Kenny and Bill are unsung heroes in the podcast world. If you're not listing to this podcast, then just go home. One of the things I love about this show is that every episode has something familiar (Marc, Bill and Henderson’s Pants) and then has something different (all the comedy clips) I still love this show even after it reached 100 episodes! Keep up the great work Succotash!"

We also received this short and sweet tribute from a fun comedy narrative story of a soundcast I’ve mentioned on Splitsider.com before but we’ve not yet featured here on the show called Knight & Day. The producer, Bill Franmeister, gave us 5 stars and wrote “Great podcast from top podders. Keep up the good work!"

A UPCOMING LIVE APPEARANCE

I’m producing and appearing in a live show on Saturday night, April 1st. It’s the April’s Fools Show at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, California. It’s going to be stand-up, sketch, and improv comedy, along with some spoken word performance and even some fool-based music! We have a great lineup, with Geoff Bolt, Larry “Bubbles” Brown, Al Clethen, Debi Durst, Michael Meehan, Judy Nihei, Michael O’Brien, and Dan Spencer, along with Musical Director Dave Coldren. It all starts at 8 PM and tickets are $15-25 dollars, depending on whether you want reserved seats or not. For more info and details, click on over to http://ThrockmortonTheatre.org

THE CLIPS

Changes In Latitudes
This is a few minutes from last October, Epi108, which marked Sabrina Miller’s second year with the show. This clip is where Sabrina was talking about having gone back to start listening to her own show from the beginning…

Knight & Day
I’m not sure if this show by Bill Franmeister even has it’s own homesite. You can find it on iTunes and it links to SoundCloud. And I know its on the Laughable app. The first season is only six episodes, which just wrapped in February. I’m not sure if, or when, Knight & Day will be back. (But thanks for the review, guys!)

That’s Deep Bro
Christina Pazsitsky. If her name is familiar, she’s a comedian and she’s also the wife of another comedian, Tom Segura, and together they host another soundcast called Your Mom’s House. This clip is from That’s Deep Bro Epi106, entitled “Why Do I Keep Doing Things I Hate?” To catch more of That’s Deep Bro, you can find Christina all over the place – the Laughable app, itunes, SoundCloud, GooglePlay and wherever fine soundcasts are streamed and/or downloaded.

Dumb People Town
This is one of my favorite new soundcasts. I’ve already reviewed this thing a couple of times for both Splitsider and Huffington Post. It features Jason and Randy Sklar, comedians probably best known in Soundcastland for their Sklarbro Country show. And Daniel Van Kirk, who hosts his own show Hindsight and frequently appears on Doug Loves Movies as Mark Wahlberg. In Dumb People Town, they take one of the oldest tricks in the soundcasting book – reading news articles about assorted weirdos and the situtations they get into – and just riff mercilessly about and around them. Joining them in their 7th episode was Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, who was definitely up for this kind of monkey business.

The Anti Social Show 
Now into their late teen episode, it's just high time we featured a clip from The Anti Social Show, co-hosted by our esteemed Associate Producer Tyson Saner and our Esteemed Listener Hunter Block. You can find The Anti Social Show episodes on SoundCloud.

The Nerd Blitz 
Harvested by Tyson, we have a clip from The Nerd Blitz with Doom and Fitz. If you’re a REALLY regular listener of Succotash, you might remember Fitz as being one-half of the Jump To The End soundcast, which we featured back in Epi71 in 2013. You might remember it…I didn’t. But Tyson DID, which is one of the many reason we keep him around. Their tagline is “Real Nerds Talkin’ Real Nerdy Shit” and the real nerdy shit in this clip is from their Epi20, entitled: Turkey Baster 3-Way, where they discuss The Hobbit and the other Tolkien films while playing Battleship.

The Story Worthy Podcast
One of my rules on Succotash is that we feature clips, we don’t play promos. Because any show can play another show’s promos. But we sample and listen and evaluate before we harvest our clips. (Unless you directly upload something to us at http://hightail.com/u/Succotash. Then we’ll pretty much play whatever — clip, promo, randoms note — you give us. And that holds true in this case for an old friend of the show, Christine Blackburn, co-host of the Story Worthy podcast, along with Hannis Phinney.

Good One 
We’ve got a chunk from a new soundcast that’s only been out a few weeks called Good One, in which the host, Jesse David Fox, plays a joke or bit from a comedian, then has the comedian on to deconstruct the bit — where it came from, what it’s about, how it was developed, and why. A recent episode of Good One features Jesse’s visit with Weird Al Yankovic to talk about his song "Word Crimes", a parody of Robin Thicke’s 2013 “Blurred Lines”. In this clip they get into the weeds a bit about the intricacies of doing parody right.

Beyond Yacht Rock
Let me ask you this: If you had an internet show called Yacht Rock and then wanted to expand on that premise, what might you call it. If you answer Beyond Yacht Rock, you’d be right. Subtitled Uncharted Journeys into Arbitrary Genres, it’s hosted by JD Ryznar, David B. Lyons, Hollywood Steve Huey, and Hunter Stair. This clip’s from Epi6 entitled “Divorcecore” from a little over a year ago.

Just In TIme
Tyson discovered that a recent episode of the Just In Time soundcast thanked us for clipping them a few episodes ago. So I thought I’d play it here because I love playing clips from shows wehre they mention Succotash.

A LITTLE HELP?

If you’d like to help support our humble soundcast, it’s so easy. Get over to our homesite, at http://SuccotashShow.com and, from there, you can click on the Donate button, or use our Amazon banner to do your shopping, or even purch some merch from our Succotashery. I leave it all up to you. Every little bit of money we manage to scrounge up goes to help offset the production costs and maintenance of this show.

Speaking of which, that's all she wrote when it comes to Succotash Clips, Epi149. It’s been a pleasure serving you. We hope to see you again and remember, always, to please pass the Succotash.

Goodbye.

— Marc Hershon
 

Succotash Clips Epi151: Clippin, Snippin' & Nod

Yes, it’s me. Marc Hershon. Your host and 100 percent safflower oil for Epi151 of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. We’re back with a Succotash Clips installment, featuring a bumper crop of comedy soundcast clips from around the internet.

On tap this week we’ll be featuring The Bernie Sanders Show, Casa Mirth, Center City Comedy, The Chillpak Hollywood Hour, Crash On Your Couch, Guys We F****d, Human Echoes Podcast, and Teen Creeps.
 
In addition, we have a lovely little shoutout from the boys over at The Anti Social Show, Tyson Saner and Hunter Block. As many of you know, Tyson is also THIS show’s Associate Producer – in fact, he harvested almost all the clips for this episode – so having him sing our praises is a little like the lavish praise that gets passed around the White House these days from Trump to Trump. But I’ll take it!

We also have a couple of Bursts O’ Durst from our resident political comedian Will Durst. We also have a political song later this episode performed by Not The Presidents of The USA, courtesy of Tommy Royal, late of The Royal and Doodall Show. Plus this episode is being brought to you by Henderson Pants’ new Scavenger Slax!

A LITTLE HELP?

We are now six years into this mess I call Succotash and it’s incredible how many soundcasts have not only come and gone but how many shows there are currently clogging the soundwaves. My god. If we put out three shows a week I don’t think we could keep up with all of the content being generated these days. But we’ll keep on it, playing clips from shows both new and old, to give you a taste of what’s out there. And I thank you for downloading or streaming us, however you like listening, and whatever other support you can lend is also greatly appreciated.

Money can be tight, but it doesn’t cost anything but a few minutes of your time to get up to iTunes to rate and review this show. Five stars helps out immensely in the scheme of what shows get noticed on that service. We’re also on Stitcher so you can thumbs up us there, or give us a big ol’ heart on SoundCloud… you get the idea.

If you’ve GOT some money to spare, even a little bit, we’d love your help in offsetting the costs of producing this show. There’s hosting fees, publicity costs, and gas for Studio F. We have a Donate button up on our homesite, http://SuccotashShow.com, which is the most direct way to get us some bucks. But you can also click on the Amazon banner at the top our page next time you do your online shopping and they’ll shave off a tiny bit of whatever you pay them and they’ll send it over to us in a drone. Or just buy a damn coffee mug off from our Succotashery with the show logo on it and we get a little bit from that, too.

THE SHOWS

Chillpak Hollywood Hour
YOUR friends in soundcasting, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness, the hosts and podcast royalty over at The Chillpak Hollywood Hour, are celebrating 10 damn years in this odd business. In their recent show #520 – five hundred and twenty! – they not only mentioned  me…  2) Marc Hershon mention  …but they also each reflected back on each of their favorite ten moments during their decade of doing the show. (Also, I just reviewed this particular episode in the This Week in Comedy Podcasts column for Splitsider.com.)

The Anti Social Show
A couple of episodes ago we featured a clip from The Anti Social Show, which is hosted by our own Tyson Saner along with Hunter Block. They mentioned Succotash in the wake of that playage and, heck, anytime a show mentions us as thanks for clipping them, that’s a good enough reason to clip them mentioning us, right?

The Bernie Sanders Show
Soundcasting used to be the place where just comedians went to vent their spleens, sharpen their wits, and own their thoughts without worrying about bookings, hecklers, and other slings and arrows. But now everyone’s getting into the game, including presidential also-rans. The Bernie Sanders Show has joined the fray and it’s a great platform for Bernie to be…Bernie. One of his first episodes featured him talking with guest Bill Nye, as in Bill Nye, The Science Guy.

Teen Creeps
Tyson grabbed us a chunk of Teen Creeps, a soundcast by comedians Kelly Nugent and Linsay Katai. Their focus is Young Adult fiction and in recent epi24, from back in February, they had comedy writer/performer/TV director and soundcaster Alex Fernie as their guest to help them get into The Hardy Boys.

Crash On My Couch
Arden Rose and Will Darbyshire are a couple of YouTube darlings and 20-somethings with Crash On My Couch, a soundcast about conspiracy theories, other cultures, relationships, happiness — a virtual potpourri about slogging though life as a Millennial. For instance, could you have gotten through the next 24 hours without hearing about Pixar Easter eggs? Or the conspiracy theory that all Pixar movies exist within the same Universe? Me neither.

Casa Mirth
So you’re a comedy soundcaster and you’re saying to yourself, “Hey self! How the heck do I get a clip of my show up on that Succotash thingamabob?” Well, you can do what our friends Dr. Norman Trousers and River Zambezi did and use our direct upload link. They got us an MP3 clip by going to http://hightail.com/u/Succotash and got it right to us, along with this note: “Hey Marc! Thought it was about time we sent in a clip... Just a bit from season 4 episode 1 where River Zambezi and I were discussing the possibility of having a bit of a laugh at a local electrical retailers... all the best :)"

Guys We F****d
It’s hard enough to break through the glut of shows in Soundcastland, more today than ever, so one of these days I have to have Corinne Fisher and Kystyna Hutchinson on the show just so I can ask them why they titled their anti-slut shaming show Guys We Fucked. I mean the title makes sense and all BUT most places that distribute show – like iTunes – won’t let you spell out the word f****d. So while the title is attention-getting, even with the asterisks, it makes it hard to get the word out everywhere. But Corinne and Krystyna have a lot of listeners so maybe it’s working out just fine. This clip is from an episode from the end of March entitled, You Were The Queen of Impossible Crushes, and the ladies answer some listener email.

Center City Comedy
I’ve been hanging around the San Francisco and Los Angeles comedy scenes for, well, a long time now. I don’t get to the clubs very much these days so there’s a whole wave of comedians out there I don’t really know but one thing I do remember is that there is rarely a better time to be had than when you’re hanging out with a bunch of comics, shooting the shit and busting each other’s balls OR ovaries. Some of that spirit is captured every week on the Center City Comedy soundcast, where a passel of Philly comedy comrades — Derek Gaines, H. Foley, Kevin Ryan, Andrew Schiavone, Chris Cotton, and Dave Temple — who are now part of the New York scene, get together and kick stuff, and each other, around. This snippet that Tyson grabbed us is from their Epi166, with the memorable title “The Fatso, The Drunk, and The Wardrobe”.

Human Echoes
I know I keep yammering about how many soundcasts are out there with more coming online every week, but I’m amazed we’re still finding shows that have been on for years that we’re just now getting to share. Case in point: the Human Echoes soundcast with Tony Southcotte and Alan Berg. The have more than 200 episodes under their belts, where they toss around commentary on movies, genre fiction and, as they put it, “all things weird and wonderful”. In this chunk, it’s revealed that Tony has finally gotten around to seeing Jaws for the first time. (We also learn that Alan has never seen The Godfather.) So now they finally get a chance to talk about that shark movie.

TRUMP

Here are the lyrics to Trump, as performed by Not The Presidents Of The USA:

Trump sat alone on his flabby arse
Knowing his appointment to the Whitehouse was a farce
With policies that would sound bananas
He filled his cabinet with all his pet piranhas

He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump
He's off his head
He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump
In Putin's bed

Trumps orange head ain't blessed with brains
And his policies all come across as quite insane
He'll stem the terror across the land
By keeping guns and making sure that all the muslims are banned

He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump
His hands are small
He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump
He'll build the wall

Trump'll take the healthcare you needed so much
He'll look you in the eye then grab you buy the crotch
He dreams of pissing on Russian sheets
Then getting drunk and filling twitter with moronic tweets
 

He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump
He never thinks

He's Trump, He's Trump, He's Trump

He'd bomb the chinks

Is this Trump out of his head

We think so

Is this Trump out of his head

We think so

Is this Trump out of his head

We think so

Is this Trump out of his head

That’s going to do it for epi151. Thanks for listening and supporting comedy podcasts everywhere, and don't forget to pass the Succotash!

Goodbye.