Oh wait. You have a TV? No. I don't like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. You don't need a TV. Hello and welcome to TV Guidance Counselor. I am Ken Reed. I am your TV Guidance Counselor, as always. And I want to welcome you to Wednesday, a.k.a. New TV Guidance Counselor Day. I am very excited about today's episode. This is an old old friend of mine in that I've known him for a long time, not that he is of an advanced age. My guest this week is Mr. Zach Sherwin, the artist formerly known as M.C. Mr. Napkins. He is a comedian, writer, comedy rapper, and just an interesting guy. I really, really liked talking to him. I met him in Boston years ago, which we talk about here, trying to actually pinpoint exactly when that was. I don't know if we know if we ever come to an answer. He moved out to LA a long time ago. I always try to see him when I go out there. I always like performing with him. He's got a great show at a really weird old French restaurant on sunset called Tax. I always like doing that show and I always try to do it whenever I am out there. There is quite a lot of drug talk in this episode. I'm a staunch anti-drug person, but we have some real adult talk here. I think you'll like it very much. Zach has a new record out called "RAP" appropriately. I haven't confirmed this, but I think there is a record that, a song on that record that I inspired called "generally gin RV." He better have that on there, because otherwise he's in big trouble. So please sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of "TV guidance counselor" with my guest, Zach Sherwood. Hi guys, hi Ken. It's been a while. I've come out here, Zach and I go go back a while. I'm wearing a first meet in 2006. We always like to talk about it. Yeah, we do. We should figure out when we started. I don't think we ever definitively figured it out. It has to be like 2006. Yeah, 2006 was when I started, and we probably met then, but we really started doing each other in 2007. But we should figure out when we started trying to figure out when we met each other. I think it's about 2008 that we figured that out. When we started, when we started, we started each other. It was around then. You were the first people that bugged when I started doing this thing, and it's been almost a year since I was able to actually, we were in the same city at the same place. Wow, time. Is it a year old? Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I'm touched to be one of the first people you bugged, buddy. Yeah, oh absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because weirdly, so Zach is a musical comedian, I would say, predominantly, although not exclusively, and I think I've said this to you before. I actually think our material is very similar, but with a completely different execution. Yeah, our delivery vehicle can be more different. Although, it's weird. Lately, I've been writing, I have not been having ideas for songs nearly as much as I have for stand up, and it's been really creatively exciting for me. Right, right, right. Because a lot of your songs will be about like a plush piggy, or like the stuff what growing up is like, I would do that, but as like a story. Yeah. As a song, you know. Yeah, the prank phone call one is one that always comes to mind. Oh, the Kentucky friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Also, you're smarter than me. I certainly don't think that's true. I think we have different kinds of intelligence, possibly, possibly, and also some of the same ones. But this is, I haven't thought about it in this framework yet, and I know we have to get to the thing, but we don't have to get to it. Yeah, we could do whatever we want. Maybe the reason I'm writing fewer songs nowadays and more stand up stuff is because I'm starting to talk more about what I'm like now, and the songs that I wrote, or more what I used to be like, things that happened to me. And there's also an, um, no, an artifice to the songs. Like there's a layer that you're putting between your experience and you, and you're probably over that a little bit. And early on, in what I think of as like, wave one of my raps, the premise was, who would ever write a rap about this? The topic is so unlikely. So it's changed a little bit for that too. Yeah, that's right. But early on, I had like, you know, my first song that I did all the time was fig momentometer about the absurd name for a blood pressure cuff. Right. And now I just, you know, the joke is no longer, right? That's no longer interesting. I think that the, uh, the hip hop, it's hard to find things that are in Congress with hip hop now. That's right. And also apparently, yeah, that's totally true. People write stuff about, and like rappers like Lil Wayne have made it very mainstream to incorporate all kinds of random references. Right. That's just not even a thing now. Everybody, everybody does it. It's not even, well, I don't want to go that far. I was going to say that hip hop isn't a culture into itself anymore as much as it's, it's really just been absorbed into the default. Yeah, it's just been absorbed in the mainstream culture. So it would incorporate everything. I know. Or at least it's as mainstream as the most mainstream things are. Yeah. Yeah. But if you listen to like, I mean, I don't even know who pop groups are. Taylor Swift. Yeah. Sure. She has hip hop elements in her songs. She had a, her last, you know, I knew trouble. Did you know that song? I could not name a Taylor Swift song. That one made a big splash because it was like a dubstep. Okay. There was a dubstep thread to it. I'm glad I don't know what that is. Do you, you don't, you have never heard of dubstep. I've heard people use the term dubstep, but I've never heard dubstep. I bet you have. And if I played it and said this is dubstep, you'd be like, Oh, this sounds familiar. Is it like techno regga tone? It's, it's sort of like, it's got a reggae-ish feel to it. Okay. It has big drops, like woozy bass, wall, wall, wall. It's like throbby kind of. Okay. These aren't, I'm sure people who know specific descriptors for it are screaming at the iPhone right now. No, I can tell you exactly what it is. I remember that I was a huge music fan and super into music and then I still am, but I stopped paying attention to new things around the millennium. So I just totally out of touch with whatever's happened in the last 15 years. It's a bit of a relief. It kind of is. Yeah. It kind of is. You can never keep up. No, you absolutely can't. I remember when I lived in Somerville, Mass, which is has a large Hispanic pop community. It's gonna say population and I almost said popularity. It's probably as a large Hispanic pop community as well. There was, everyone was listening to regga tone and I didn't recognize that it was the genre and not the same song. Oh, wow. Because it has all the same beat and I was like, everybody's listening to this song. Everybody. It's really crazy. That is interesting. That's like a reggae has a thing where like everybody, one record will become a hit and then it's just the thing of the it's like the idiom of the genre that everyone wraps over that rhythm. Because it's my knowledge and love of like black music is really strong up until like the mid 80s. And that's when all that stuff started getting recycled into hip-hop stuff is when I kind of checked out. Are you not an early hip-hop guy? I thought you saw the lore. Yeah, I like early hip-hop. The thing about it, I sort of like the idea of it more than the execution or a lot of stuff and I like the offshoots. So I end up liking stuff like freestyle more and the more dancey stuff, but being an old punk rock kid, the aesthetic of it where punk rock was, we know three chords, that's all we need to know. And hip-hop was, we don't even need to know those. We need to know someone who knew those three chords and we can just use that record. And that, I love that idea. Because it's sort of the next step in that stuff, which is cool. But once it started, the gangster rap stuff really turned me off and although I did like some ghetto boy stuff and I did like horror-core stuff. I met Willie D on the tour that I was on. Did you? And I've been on, yeah. How was that? Not super eventful for me. Willie D, one of the ghetto boys. He was at the show that I've been on tour with W. Kamal Bell, fantastic comedian. I've been like opening for him on this headline and tour he's doing. We did a show in Houston and Willie D was just there. Big crit a rapper was playing in the big room and we were in the smaller room and Willie D was just hanging around and he kind of like pounced on Kamal for an interview for like Willie D.TV or whatever it is. But I met him for a minute and we said hello. It was pretty uneventful. That's probably the best thing that you could have meeting a ghetto boy. Yeah. He was very personable. Yeah. Hand shaky. Well, I think what he realized that so much of the gangster rap stuff was sort of a cartoonish exaggeration. Yeah. Oh, he's people in the hell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who were just sort of exaggerating that world a bit. Yeah. That's right. Which is kind of why the biggest audience for that was white suburban teenager in the 80s because it was very exotic. Were you into the Beastie boys when they were at that apex of early hip hop and punk? No. I like some of their earlier stuff that sounds like bad brains. But I didn't like the... They loved the bad brains. Oh, yeah. That's where they got the name from. The girl, like the groupies of the bad brains people used to refer to as Beastie girls. Really? Because they were ugly, apparently. So they did that. I did not know that. They were like, we're like male groupies for bad brains where the Beastie boys. That's so funny. Yeah. Wow. So I like that's the point. I always like danceier stuff. And I love for like Luscious Jackson. Yeah. Who was on Grand Royal? Who was on Grand Royal with Ben Lee and other non- yeah. And Sibomado who are all right. So I like some of that stuff. But didn't the woman from Sibomado date Sean Lennon? Yes, I believe she did. Who was the son of a beetle who the Beastie boys sampled on Paul's Boutique? Yes. It's all the same. Yeah. That was the thing too that got less interesting for me when people were able to make like true sound collages that was, you know, seconds in notes samples that they built into truly new things. That was interesting. But when the legalities of that were prohibitive and people were like, we're just taking a hook from a song and that's our sample. I was like, this is boring now. Yeah. Because you're not, you're not making something new. Right. And it's not a cover and it's not new. So it's like, not one and not the other. As late as like when Puffy was doing it? No. Earlier than that. Yeah. So if you look at like even the Beastie boys and like early day last soul. Yeah. Where you would have a son that might have 50 different samples in it from all kinds of different songs. Yeah. And that was interesting because they were, you couldn't recognize what it was from. Right. Because it could camp something new. Right. But when Puffy's doing an entire Led Zeppelin song, taking the vocals out and basically just wrapping over it, it's not really that interesting to me. Yeah. I was just listening to, I listened to Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble, The Fresh Prince song. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, they're just wrapping over the green acres. Yeah. It's a, no. Dude, dude, dude, dude. Price is right. Yeah. No. That's, I dream of Jeannie. I dream of Jeannie. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. It's, yeah. It's, it's like, and weirdly that was the first bits of it. One of them people would isolate the breakbeats and stuff. Yeah. But just to take the hook. The other thing is I'm more forgiving of an early hip hop because I'm like, your resources were limited. You just have a turntable, you can't sample, you can't mix, you don't have, you're not cutting tapes and stuff. You're doing it live. So, okay, take the hook. But now it's, you know, late 80s and you have this access to this stuff. So do something interesting. And people stop doing interesting things to me. Interesting. But that's just me. Yeah. Yeah. I agree to disagree. Yeah. So you picked 1988, a great year of hip hop. Yeah. One TV Raps was really coming into its own. Sure. The Beastie Boys were out. Beastie Boys were out. Not gay. No. They were putting out music. No. Do you know what their first album title was supposed to be? Where day? No. It was, I'm going to use the word. Okay. Don't be a faggot was. Yeah. That sounds like an album title that they would have. Because they were big fans of the sort of offensive punk rock world with guys like Steve Albini, who was doing a band called Big Black and then did a band called Rape Man. Oh, really? Do you remember anal cunt? Yeah, from Boston. Did you know those guys? I did. Yeah. Seth, what was Seth now? He's dead. He's dead. That guy was a maniac. There was a band, so there was a band for Boston that people don't know called anal cunt. They went by the name AC. And musically were horrific. Like, I still contend that any owner says they listened to them is lying because what they would do is they would go into the studio and literally just make noise and then cut it up and put random titles on it. So like offensive titles. So they had a title. They had titles like You're a faggot and Peppy the Gay Waiter. And you live in Austin, you're gay. Like those are the names of their song titles. But live, Seth would was really violent. And if you went to that show, you stood far away from the stage because he would just come off the stage and start hitting people with metal things. And there was a lot of blood. And I was very, very violent. Wow. Yeah, I saw them at the rat several times. It was the rat. Bloody, bloody. Wow. How did he die? I don't 100% know. I think he might have had some sort of drug thing. I think he had a stroke or something at one point. I didn't know him very well, but he definitely was not a healthy guy. And I'm sure had suffered some trauma. It seems like there was a lot going on. Yeah. Yeah. But some of their titles were very funny. And sort of the the joke of that band, like I think is funny. Yeah. But uh, they seem like they wanted to provoke. Oh, it was definitely provocative stuff. You know, hey, sometimes the music doesn't live up on location. So you picked a week that's your birthday week, 1988. Yeah, the same exact age, 1980. Yeah. Oh, we're the same exact day. Yeah, you're like three days older than three days older than Zach, because when he pulled this out, I realized it's also my birthday week birthday. So let's jump right in. So Saturday night, eight o'clock. What did you go? I went with a nature documentary called Snakes, Eden's Deadly Charmers. Yes. So this was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. You just know that? Yes. Are you looking at the description? I'm looking at the description, but I knew this was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. Yeah. So it says, um, our survival, our survival anglia study of snakes, which are marvelously designed, wonderfully diverse, and whether you like it or not, extremely beautiful. Yeah. That's once again, editorializing from TV. Do you have a through line? Do you like snakes? Not particularly, but what I really like is getting high and watching nature documentaries. I don't really love pot that much. I enjoy drugs. Pot is not anywhere near my favorite drug. What's your favorite drug? I've done until recently, I would have said magic mushrooms, but uh, I've been, I've experimented with ayahuasca and have my plans to do it again. And I have plans to do it a third and fourth time. It's pretty great. So you like the psychedelics? I like psychedelics. Marijuana, I feel like some people really take to it. I'm enjoying calling it marijuana. Yes. Pot feels weird. Marijuana feels hacky. Yeah. Sometimes I say, yeah. That's fun. Yeah. Just cigarettes. So yeah, it kind of slows me down, and I enjoy having my brain pinging around as much as possible. And even when I smoke the up kind, sativa, right, I think is the strain that makes you more upbeat. It doesn't really do that for me. So, um, but I really do like watching BBC documentaries one because your focus is crazy or you just are like, I don't know. It's just a nice combination for me. Are you, uh, buying into the sort of my cap on mutual friend of ours who, uh, has also been in the show and is a recent convert to ayahuasca. Uh, he's, he's very much into the very hippie-ish, one love kind of aspect of that and the nature stuff and all that. Is that maybe why you're like the psychedelics and watching nature programs seems to make sense? Well, it's interesting. I mean, ayahuasca is very snake related. There's a lot of snake stuff going on with it. And a lot of people report seeing like divine snakes when they go in. Well, there are, uh, so as a complete skeptic and a very, um, I don't say anti-drugs person, but, um, anti-drug mythology person. Okay. Uh, the, the, my understanding of the sort of, um, vision quest type drugs is that what they essentially do is induce a false sense of death in the person. And when you're about to die, your brain releases certain chemicals. Right. And as part of these chemicals, you often see patterns and several of the patterns of our cells in nature are spirals or snake-like in nature. So that would make sense. I mean, yeah. Um, and it's also, you know, I've read that the, the Caduceus, uh, the healing symbol. Um, Caduceus ayahuasca. Yeah. We're on frat real. A bunch of dicks. Mike and I used to have a joke together that, uh, you know, it's like the stick with two snakes twined around it. And it's like the DNA he looks. I mean, that's no, you know, that's people have made that connection for a long time. His joke that we kind of co-wrote was that, uh, it's like the sound of getting hit with a stick and then a snake. Caduceus. Yeah. Um, but, uh, oh, yeah. So yeah, you know, the two twin spiraling snakes. And so, you know, like the history of the healing plant that there's some connection there. Right. Um, I do, but I mean, it's, it was very profound. And Mike says a really wise thing that I think about it, which he's probably said to you, which is that even if it's not true, quote unquote, yeah, the insights and, um, lessons that it in parts like are very applicable in a sort of like long term kind of way and also day to day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that, um, kind of what people tend to get out of those sorts of experiences is of a letting go of the small stuff kind of thing. And you would also find that people who've had near-death experiences have very similar experiences where they go, "Oh, life's too short. Uh, you know, we should treat people better. Um, why am I worried about things that don't matter?" Like ultimately, that's sort of where you're kind of getting at. I did also see, uh, imagery of like what, um, you know, kind of like the, uh, fabric of reality is. Yeah. And I know you're skeptical about that, but you should try the drugs and see what it does to your skepticism. You do not want to see me on any sort of hallucinogenic drug. I have a very thin veneer of sanity. Oh, really? Oh, yes. So then how can you be so resistant to this? You know that if you just pierce that, there's like all this other stuff going on. Because I, uh, my life is all about suppression and control. And I am the opposite of people who I feel like need, uh, drug to unleash things and constantly holding back all of things. And, um, it's, you know, I've had hallucinations without the use of drugs before. Uh, if you stay up for a week, you'll, you'll have similar experiences. Oh, yeah. That's kind of a drug sleep. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's all, it's all your brain chemistry. It's, it's, it's what triggers your brain to, to, to create this chemistry stuff. And it's not, I don't know. I, I don't really think that the insights that would give me, I think if anything, it would just make me incredibly violent. Oh, yeah. That's not good. You don't want to Seth out on anyone. No, no, absolutely not. I may start a band. But I mean, I don't, my jury is definitively out. I'm very open to the possibility that there is some, you're generally a very positive person. Uh, yeah. I mean, I, I, my jury's still out as to whether or not I'm communicating with something in myself or if it is actually you're tapping into some spirit world or something. I hope that's true consciousness and very Jungian sort of, yeah, I don't, I haven't read young enough to know if that's accurate from what I feel. But like, I don't think that there's like a God that I don't usually talk to, that I then get to talk to when I do it. But I think that there's some, some of that to it. And also like, it's more like, um, whatever, it sounds too crazy and drugy in this context. No, it's, well, yeah, TV guide has led us to a lot of people get high and watch naked nature document. I think that's a common experience you'll find. And you know, it may be, and people often watch them and are like, whoa, yeah, it's all, it's a big plan kind of thing because you tend to see patterns when you're high. Well, yeah, here's the last time I did it, I got to do it again with my girlfriend. We love it and we haven't done it in a long time. And you do it together? Yeah, we really have fun doing it together. And so we, we watched this documentary and I remember being really stoned. I don't get stoned very often. I was very high. And I was watching it and I was like, this, this science fiction is crazy. And then I had, I was so stoned that I'd forgotten what we were watching. And then I was like, wait a minute. And I said to her, this is real. And we were like, whoa. I also enjoy the concept of getting to listen to Leonard Mimo's voice at a time when he was still not just like a cultural nostalgia item. Yeah, I mean, he was also, he used to host a show called in search of, which have you ever seen that show? No, it was a bit like "Unsolved Mysteries" and would do episodes about things like "Vision Quest" and "Vision Quest" and in the afterlife and the collective unconsciousness. And that was in the 70s. And he, so he started narrating these shows and then would get sort of more quote unquote legit major gigs after that. Yeah. So, you know, it's, this was what he was doing then. He was more well known for that. I wish that dude well, you know, I'm glad he was getting these gigs. He's got a cool voice. He looks cool. I feel like he's like a, he's like a Jew who, he's from Boston. He grew up in a scaly square in Boston, which was really rough, like the basically the Times Square of Boston. Really? And he moved to Boston. He moved out of Boston to get away from all that stuff. And he's... He's so erudite and he's like a patrician. He had a very strong Boston accent for years and couldn't get roles and has a really fascinating story. No way. I recommend his autobiography. It's actually very, very good. Okay. What's it called? "I am not Spock" to get something called that. It's what it's called. "I am Spock, I am not Spock." On the new Wu Tang album, Method Man rhymes, you know, b-boy and decoy with Leonard Nimoy. That makes sense. I was nice to hear him get a shout. That makes sense. He's talking about how, you know, he was buds with Red Man. Yeah. Red Man calls himself the funk doctor spot. There is sort of a very odd connection between hip hop and sci-fi. There always has been. And I think it probably comes out of the funk stuff. He might be, well, sorry, I'm getting my hip hop trivia. I feel like he was, there was a little confusion for a while as to whether or not Red Man was funk doctor Spock or funk doctor spot. Was that confusion with Red Man himself? Yeah. He himself probably gave out more than one. He's like an unreliable narrator about that. But Method Man's so something like, you know, the funk doctor Spock and that's not Leonard Nimoy. It's weird because you don't see a lot of black people into, well, you see more of it now, but in the 80s and 90s, you would never, like, I go into a lot of comic conventions and a lot of sci-fi things. And it was white as white could be. It was not even like Italians there. It was that white. And but from the very origins of hip hop, Africa, Bambata, P-Funk, it's really out there, sci-fi stuff. Yeah. That's right. It kind of always has been. It never really went away. There's always been that element. Yeah. I mean, you could also point to stuff like the Outcast album, A-T-Lians. Lil Wayne has an album called I Am Not a Human Being. Right. It's a very weird and I wonder if part of that is related to the nature of the instrumentation of those things and the fact that hip hop exists is because of technology. It's not an acoustic. It's not an acoustic form of music. It's like seeing people do it that way. But it's inherently not. Yeah. I mean, for sure, Planet Rock, Africa, Bambata from the beginning, that stuff. I was going to say, I think a rapper, have you ever, have we talked about MF Doom or Dina stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has just, I feel like you would love him if only for the references. Like it just would be fun to hear his encyclopedic reference base matched up against yours. Yeah. I mean, the one thing people have said that to me a bunch about about a lot of the reference hip hop things. And the thing that it doesn't appeal to me about it is that it's almost like reference comics where if you're not doing anything with the reference, if you're just saying, here's the string of references, isn't that cool? I like people who are like, here's the reference, but here's my personal context of it. Can I offer you up for instance? Yes. Okay. MF Doom on a song of his called The Ho Cakes, which I would argue is one of his better known, the better known songs in his weird body of war. Okay. He says, um, I'm trying to think of all the things that rhymes with, but uh, he goes, one pack of cookies, please, Mr Hooper. Yeah. It's fun smacking rookies. He is the, and then the sample throughout the, that's throughout the whole song goes super. It's from JJ Fedsong, super. Right. Right. So he goes, one pack of cookies, please, Mr Hooper. It's fun smacking rookies. He is the super looks like a black wookie when he lets his beard grow. So I like pack of cookies smacking rookies with black wookie. Right. But also, it's nice that there's a sesame street and a Star Wars reference and a JJ Feds sample in the space of that. And I love JJ Feds. Yeah. So yeah, I like JJ Feds, but then I would get, I'm probably a little more mature now, but when I would hear a hip hop sample sampling, another hip hop song, I'd be like, just do something and interesting. You know what I mean? Like shit, because at least, at least when people were taking stuff from other genres, I could be like your, your, the context is totally right. But when they're, and I've noticed that in my few years, they're, they're sampling other hip hop songs. Oh, yeah. And then sometimes sampling samples. Yeah, they may not even know they were samples. Right. Right. Right. Right. To me is just like, yeah, it is interesting that that's happening, that hip hop's eating itself to take it back to the snake. Like the tail is, the head is eating the tail. Like, wow, I didn't even mean for it to be this, but the Nicki Minaj song, Anaconda, Yup. More snakes. Yup. It sort of makes a lot. Yeah. And you know, I just learned that she's 5'3, and there's that, you know, that iconic lyric in the song, only if she's 5'3. I wonder if that had anything to do with the decision. It's, or if it's just about big butts and being 5'3. Probably just about big butts and being 5'3. Yeah, but it's a nice, well, I mean, I wonder if the 5'3. It's obviously just about big butts, but I wonder if the 5'3 was a intentional. Sometimes things are just about big butts. It's a very frustrating fact. Everybody could do ayahuasca and you're like, what happened? It's all about big butts, man. That's what the world told me. It's all about big butts. That's it. If you know a friend who did that and came out of it that way, I bet you'd have a lot more difficult time, not being skeptical. But that's what you're trying to be. And they were like, it's big butts is everything. I'll say two things. One, the insights are two replicated, and replicable for it to be something like that. But it's got a real sense of humor, that drug. And I would not put it past it to be like, and also big butts are like it. And you're like, oh my god, I didn't even realize it. But if you look to it, like not to get too serious here, but if you look at some other things that are very replicable and very consistent, the hallucinogen wise. So yeah, the example I would use is people who believe they have had alien abductions. That is related to a very specific part of your brain that controls sleep paralysis. And when that part of the brain is not working right, it makes these people have almost identical experiences without having, and this is before that stuff was prevalent and people may have seen it somewhere else. So there's certainly, as far as collective unconscious skills, there are certainly things in people's brains that are similar because we're the same machine. Yeah. And so in that respect, yeah, it'll tap into those things, but I don't know if we're all one. And here's the bet I'm willing to take, right? Those drugs are fascinating. The insights that they give me do help me be a better person than I'm happy or being in a day-to-day kind of way. I also am willing to at least entertain because of the vividness with which I've seen some things that I might have gotten an insight into some ancient wisdom about what happens after we die. And therefore, what the mean to reverse engineer, what life should be spent like. And it's soothing and reassuring as opposed to terrifying. So I just feel like it's like Pascal's wager, but in a much more meaningful way. You know, I'm like, this is going to be great while I'm alive, and it's going to make me less afraid to die. One thing that I've thought is, if I ever do get diagnosed with like a you've got six months to live, like as soon as I can, I'm going to get myself to a... That's what Zach calls, I'm going somebody. I just got diagnosed with it, you got six months to live. As quickly as I can, I'm going to get myself to like a reputable shaman and like tricks in my wasca, but like see what to do with the information. Yeah. So like, it'll make me less afraid. And then if I die, maybe it will just be eternal nothingness, which is what I assume, what you believe. But you've got less afraid before. I've been less afraid. And if it's right, oh my god, I hope can. I hope with all my heart that the thing that I saw is real, and then I will have some instant millisecond between being me and then like being dead, where I get to be like, oh, it's right. Right. Right. I mean, but you've just described all religions there. That's kind of the basis of, well, before they get political and powers. That's right. At their core, that's what all religions do. It's supposed to keep you alleviate fear and give you hope. The only difference between I was raised Jewish and have a very positive relationship to it culturally, and the religious stuff of it has been more and less meaningful to me my whole life, but never in like doing the hallucinogenics that I've done has opened it up in a much more convincing way that makes sense to me. Right. It's like, you know, you don't know the meaning of a word until you've like experienced the reality of it. Right. And then when you use it, it has more meaning for you. So, I do cake all the time. Sorry, comedy podcast. No, no, no, but no, I get that. I definitely get that. And I think that I'm inherently wired skeptically. Some people, I think, yeah, your brain is just wired that way. It must be. Yeah. And I'm very, very, very tactile. And also, I mean, it's probably somewhat how you're born and also how you were brought up, right? Sort of. I mean, my parents were raised Catholic. They're there. I grew up in Boston, Boston Catholic, very religious. Everyone I knew went to Sunday school and got communion. And literally, I don't remember a time when I ever believe that as a little kid, I legitimately people would be like, here's the thing. And I was like, I don't think so. Don't you think you could be so negatively influenced by that experience that you would be in disbosed towards religion for the rest of your life? Not necessarily. I don't think it was like the case where someone who's like a victim of sexual abuse becomes like hypersexual or asexual. Like it was like, you know, it wasn't that because I definitely, it wasn't, it was there if I wanted to participate, but it definitely wasn't thrust on me. And it would have been easier for me, certainly, if I had been all about going to church and doing Sunday school and CCD with kids and stuff, because it was a social thing. But I definitely was just like, it doesn't make sense. But I also have, you know, a very anti-authoritarian issues and an inflated sense of justice that counteracts a lot of religious things that was, you know, a lot of that's probably hardwired. That's certainly not for my parents in either a reaction against something from them or or as an influence. I have no idea what what my dysfunction is. Well, you're too smart and have thought about this too much for me to argue these points with you. All right. Well, agree to disagree. Yeah. But fair enough. No, I don't actually disagree with anything that you're saying about yourself. I'm just saying, I wish I could force feed you in a non-traumatic way. Like, I wish somehow you could drink it because I would be so, I don't understand that you never will, but I'd be so interested to hear what you would say coming out of it. What demons I conjured? Maybe I would bring things back with me, Zach, like the movie Flatliners or Phantom or Nightmare Elm Street. Like, monsters would come back with me. I read, I read the movie novelization of Flatliners, like, eight or something. How old would I have been? It came out in '91. Okay. So 11 or 12. And there was some real sexual stuff in there. Oh, yeah. That's not in the movie. Oh. You read it too? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I get a Baldwin's character. Was there a Baldwin in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Steven Baldwin? I forget what he was like, a lethario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And brings this videotape. Right. Screw it, ladies. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And they all came back. Yeah. Because what you would get, there was, was it Troll Book Club or Scholastic that you got it from? I can't imagine. It was one as a way to adult. Well, we would get those from those, though, because the weird thing about movie novelizations is that they would have to come out when the movie came out. And to do that, you have to write it based off the script. And many, many times, the movie in the script changed a lot, or things get cut, which I realized very early on. And as we always get novelizations because there would be all kinds of stuff that got cut out of the movie in the days before DVD when you could look at deleted scenes. That's amazing. That's how you found deleted scenes. Wow. I never knew that. Yeah. It's, it's kind of fascinating now when you do that, like the novelization of Goonies. Wow. I think Kaplan had a bit about this. And I have a story about it. About the Dracula thing, right? Uh, I don't know. Good. But I, I just see this room as well. There was, there's a novelization of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Bram Stoker. It's a book. It's a legit book that they read the movie out of. They did a novelization that's based on the movie based on the movie script, not based on the book. So you can get Dracula written by Bram Stoker and dram Bram Stoker's Dracula. That was hilarious. There was a few things like that that make no sense. You should ask Kaplan for a start. That's really funny. And you should ask Mike about his story about Robocop. He, he read the book and then everybody had seen the movie and then he went to school and like jumped in on the conversation. Oh, yes. And it was a deleted scene. And everyone was like, that, what? Yeah, that's not in the movie. That's the like young Mike-ist story. Yes. That kind of story imaginable. Like read the book of Robocop. Oblivious, bullied. Yes. Trying to hold on. More Mike. So you're from eight to nine with the nature documentary, for sure. It's 88. It's Saturday night. It's the last season of Facts of Life. I'm certainly watching that because I knew it had been canceled and it's in reruns because it's summer, but I'm getting in every single last second of Facts of Life I can get at this point, especially this episode because Pippa isn't it played by Australian Sherry Kren, who I had a huge crush on. Okay. In this episode, a sponsor of a musical benefit invites Joe and Blair to visit the beauty spa where they are transformed, but not in the way they expect. This is a wacky episode. Blair gets green hair. Pippa starts a band. It's fun. And at eight thirty, I'm going with Boys Will Be Boys, which was a summer replacement series. They used to burn off unsold shows in the summer because they instead of not airing them like they would now. So you would see all these shows that you knew weren't coming back. Interesting. And Boys Will Be Boys is one of those. And this is Matthew Perry. Wow. It was in a show and it was not great, but this is Chaz played by Matthew Perry. Tells his mother. She's going to a religious retreat and then joins Booch and Eugene on a trip to Las Vegas. Booch. Booch. How do you spell that? B-O-O-C-H. Oh, Booch. Like Bach or any Bach tuner. But Booch. Booch. Booch. Wow, that. Matthew Perry is the Chaz-E-S-T guy. He's a super Chaz. He's a real Chaz. Also from Massachusetts. From Newton. Really? Yeah. So is Matthew, the other Matthew from Friends. Matthew Perry and Matthew. The one is Joey. Matt LeBlanc. Matt LeBlanc. Yeah, he's also from Masters. The Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. So nine o'clock would be honest. Nine o'clock I'm going with Eye of the Tiger. Eye of the Tiger. A movie. This is a movie. I am not familiar with this movie. It looked all right and it was on Showtime or something. Cinemax. Cinemax. It had nudity. It says it's a crime drama. It only gives it one star. Let's flip to the back of the convenient TV guide movie reviews where they have in the back of every issue of TV guide. Now, I will mention I'm much slower than I normally am because when Zach got here, I was making myself tea in the microwave because the house I'm renting does not have a kettle and don't ever do that because you will over boil the water and it will explode on you. Oh, you got a blister, man. It's a blister, but it's not the gnarliest blister I've ever seen. No, it's okay. You'll be all right, but your hands can be weird for a while. Yeah, as long as it doesn't hurt. Now there goes my hand modeling career. I will say go ahead. You're almost there. So this is Eye of the Tiger. Yeah. Did you read this description? Yeah, I did. So it does star Yafid Koto. Yeah. Who I like and I am Facebook friends with. Oh, this is Violent Strong Language. A Vietnam vet put by Gary B.C. Goes after the lawman who framed him and the bikers who killed his wife. This is like every action rape revenge cliche of the 70s in an 80s movie. Yeah, I'm assuming this is a canon group film. I don't know it, a go on in Globus to Israelis who made all the bad action movies in the 80s. Oh, really? They produced meshes in the universe, but pretty much every Chuck Norris movie as well. Yeah. Israelis and 80s. Yep. I think Beck might have rhymed that, but if not, I'm going to plant my flag. They did create much of the culture we got in the 80s was created by Israelis. Huh. I know Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was an Israeli part of me. Sivan. Yes. Um, I would just say a close second was in search of the bowhead whale, but I didn't want to do too many nature documentaries. You don't want to be high or boring. That sounds very boring. Even the description was boring. It was like a quest ensues or something. To find a bowhead whale. Yeah. I'm going with golden girls, certainly golden girls. Okay. There's no question about it and amen. That's what I'm doing. Okay. Uh, a 1973 expedition during the spring thaw is the description. They don't even talk about whales. I believe this was uh, it was on A&E and I think it was a rerun of Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau episode. Okay. I think that he's Jacques Cousteau, but it's fun sometimes. At that point, I'm going to want to switch it up and, you know, the action film feels like an exciting. That's a good way to end the night. Yeah. Yeah. By girls. I mean, you can't go wrong. Yeah. And I'm not going to want to watch more than an hour of that shit. No, no, absolutely. Yeah. That's, that's enough. Sunday night, eight o'clock. What are you going with? Okay. Uh, no, no brainer. I lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw this. Police squad. Yes. On TV. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it was very short lived. I know there's like six episodes, right? Six episodes. And it was over by this time. It started in '82, '83. Okay. There's only six episodes, but A&E, back when A&E was the Arts and Entertainment Network, used to air a lot of these short-lived series and would air a lot of great stuff like police squad and James at 15 and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, police squad is absolutely a good move on Sunday night. You just cleared up a Beastie Boys reference for me. James at 15? Yeah. They have a, they have a line where Adrock goes, I'm not James at 15 or Chachi in charge. I'm Adam, Adam, Adam, and about living large. Yeah. It's on Hey, ladies. Yeah. Well, James at 15 was filmed in Boston. It was a TV show. It's a TV show. It's a coming-of-age TV show, yes. Uh-huh. And, uh, is that Adam Horowitz? Yeah. He is Dad's from Wakefield, Mass. Right. Yeah. So, uh, he often makes Massachusetts references in Beastie Boys' song. Wow. What are some others? Uh, they reference Woodwinds of Essex, the Fried Clam Place. And what song? Um, I don't know. Wow. But there's a lot. I'm not, I'm not the biggest, but he, he, often on his parts of songs, there will be many, many references to Massachusetts things. Interesting. But I don't think he grew up there. No, apparently. But is that written like tens of plays about Wakefield? So you're watching that. I am watching, believe it or not, skateboarding. That's what I watched at 8.30. Yeah. I'm watching that from 8 to 9. And that is the 1987 National Championships taped in Anaheim. I was kind of obsessed with like surf culture, skateboarding, all that West Coast stuff that we did not have in the middle of Boston. That sounds awesome. Yeah. I wish I could watch it right now. I guess that's what we're saying. Absolutely. And also the best part of it is at nine o'clock. I don't know what you went with at nine. But they paired it on the same channel with swimsuit 87. Okay. Can I talk about my nine o'clock? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was the one where I had the toughest time. There was so much I wanted to watch. I would have watched Gary Shandling. Right. This was, it's Gary Shandling show, his Fox show. That was very, very fourth while breaking a really cool show. Yep. I ran a whites in this episode by the way. Wow. I was interested in the 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records. That would be interesting. Yeah. See some weird people doing performances. I would have checked in with Lethal Weapon just because, you know, yeah, just to see. And I also would want to watch George Foreman box. That was also happening. Although this was not his, his heyday really. This was just just before we started grilling. I mean, I'm going to say, Shandling and swimsuit 87 would have been top tier Atlantic Records and Lethal Weapon Tier 2. And I would have touched base with Foreman. But now I will also say this that there's also special on Amy called Goldie and Liza together, which is Goldie Hahn and Liza Manelli from 1980. Doing showtunes. Yeah, doing showtunes. But swimsuit. So I was eight years old. I wasn't eight years old yet. I was seven and almost eight June 26th. But swimsuit 88 would have watched in a completely non sexual way. Like I would have just been fascinated by the like beach surf culture. The exotic loved it, loved beach movies. I went and saw a movie this very year, this very week actually called the hunk. That was about a guy who makes a deal with the devil that would become like a California surf. Wow. That's very, very good movie. Loved it. Yeah. What a fascinating impulse that speaks to. Like I would give up who I am and become a hunk. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that must have been a desire that people identified with. He goes back to being the nerdy self that he was. What? I don't want to ruin the ending. I don't want to ruin the ending of hunk. Wow. Who saw that coming? Yeah. So you're watching that for the whole hour. Yeah. And that's the whole night. That's Sunday. That's Sunday. Monday night eight o'clock would be going on. Fast times at Ridgemont High is on the movie, not the series. Correct. The series I will mention. I've mentioned it many, many times on the show is one of my favorite TV shows in the 80s. Really? Better than the movie was Sean Penn. Sean Penn was not in it. The only reoccurring actors were people who played the teachers. So Mr. Hand was in it, Vincent Savelli was in it. So those were the people who came back was all recast everybody else. But behind the scenes was a lot of the same people. So Penelope Amy Heckling rather was a producer and wrote a lot of the episodes, directed a lot of the episodes, Cameron Crow wrote on it. And it was sort of like a proto freaks and geeks was really good show. Did you like what was your what is your personal and professional relationship to Taylor Negron? I really enjoyed Taylor Negron stuff. I had never met him before, which is when he died, I was surprised surprised the breadth of people that had had interactions with him. And he was in so many things that I loved when I was enjoyed his stand up. But yeah, he is in fast times. He's in all of Savage Steve Holland's movies, which I loved, which was one crazy summer, which is a very important movie for me, filmed in Massachusetts with Tony V. And he was also in Better Off Dead and all these all these movies and nothing but trouble, which was I may have been the only person who liked that movie. Dan Aykroyd's writing, directing debut. One of one. Really weird movie. All right. Yeah. How about yourself? I did Uncabaret with him. Yes. Twice. Yeah. And he was always really funny and really nice. Yeah. I didn't know him. Like, you know, we wouldn't have known. Yeah, but he was really nice. Yeah. So he is in fast times as the pizza delivery man. And I would also have been interested in whatever tales of the gold monkey was. Yes. So tales of gold monkey was yet another short-lived series that A&E is rerunning. One of those summer ones. This is summer one. But no, no, this was a re-running. Oh, it's an early 80s series. It lasted one season. And it was green lit in the wake of Indiana Jones. So their Indiana Jones was huge, if you may or may not remember. Sure. And in the wake of that, there was a lot of rip-offs from gum commercials to King Solomon's minds and just all these rip-off movies. And they green lit this thing called tales of gold monkey thinking it would be a rip-off of Indiana Jones. Because it's set in the 40s. It's about a pilot. He's got a dog with an adventurer. And it's much, much, much more like the original serials that inspired Indiana Jones. And it's very, very good. It's a very good show. It's recently sort of got some resurgence of people liking it. But it's a really cool show. I highly recommend it. Cool. Monday nights, although I love fast times at Ridgemont High, I will say that my Monday nights belonged to CBS on Monday nights, the old people network. And this night, the eight o'clock shows have been moved back an hour because they're debuting a lame, like some kind of drama that clearly didn't get picked up. So I probably would have watched the first hour of fast times at Ridgemont High, and then flipped into NBC for the Hogan family at 8.30, even though it was after Sandy Duncan had replaced Valerie Harper, which was a travesty. Okay. But nine o'clock, I'm absolutely going for a new heart. I also will just touch that I would have checked in with Mr. Ed at 8.30 on Monday. I used to like that show when I was a kid. Yeah, Nick and Knight used to air that endlessly. Yeah. Endlessly. And it was a weird show. I can't believe I liked it in retrospect. When I remember about it, I'm like, I don't like that. But I did really like it when I was a kid. It's not a smart show. It's certainly not a smart show. It's a it's a dome show, but it's fun for kids. I could see kids liking me. I think I just liked that there was a horse that talked. It's like, here's maybe here's what it was. So much grown up TV was confusing, and I didn't understand what was happening. And Ed, I felt like those jokes were very horse-based and it was easy to. Oh, yes. Yeah. There was no subtext with Ed. Yeah. Nine o'clock, I'm on new heart, and also the end of the, now this is me being honest to my experience of checking out the guide. I only saw that Richard Pryor was on like only at this time slot. So I might have watched him earlier. Yeah. And that's a special. That's what it is later specials. I'd have watched the last half hour. Not as best, but yeah. If there was nothing else on, you could probably find a stand-up special somewhere on cable. Yeah. Did you grow up with cable? No. I grew up with no TV. Not even in the house. No. No TV in the house. Not until I graduated from high school. I never owned a TV. You still don't know. Correct. So did you watch anything at friends houses? Yeah. It was like when I got to friends houses, it was like kind of a problem because all I wanted to do was watch TV. Did people treat you like a freak? I felt sometimes I would feel not in the loop of conversations that were happening. Right. And did you parents like actively? It was just my mom and she like just wasn't into TV. We had a really bitter fight once when I was like seven or eight and I was like you're making me different than everybody else and I hate it. Yeah. You're actually like in the world. We're not going to get a TV. Or I think we had one and we plugged it in but it didn't get anything. Weird. Yeah. So you must have just gone nuts and binged like when you went to college or something right now. No. I kind of just I kind of just skipped it. Like I've been I've been just on Netflix series, but like I mean not that much. Do you feel disjointed from sort of popular culture from? Yeah. I mean I saw you know like people have more Simpsons and Seinfeld references than I do, but I get it. Did you go to the movies? Yeah. Okay. Like a normal amount. Yeah. It wasn't like a I was Amish and had to be sheltered in the media or something. Did you live in a crate under a bell? Yeah. But did you like listen to the radio and you I mean because because kids I think are wired to consume as much of the world as possible. Oh yeah. Which is why you get kids who just stay up on that watching TV stay up on the radio and just just absorb that stuff. I think that's right. And I got as much music as I could get my hands on. Okay. So I listened to a lot of hip hop. Okay. Yeah. Well, how where did the hip hop come from? I was over at my friend Joel Casper's and I saw the OPP video. Okay. And I remember I was like, Oh my god. We're like, you know, that was my thing. The machetes opened me up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I was going to say almost nobody I know, especially white kids my age would have listened to hip hop if not for MTV. Because even radio, you would have had to have known the vaguely underground urban stations in your town to get on board with it. Otherwise, you're you know, it's like MC Hammer that you might have heard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I'd heard young MC, MC Hammer and vanilla ice. Right. But then when I heard naughty, I was like, oh, very different. And then so I heard that and then at the same time I was listening to the radio a lot. And I heard now that we found love by heavy D and the boys, which is a good song. And so my own it is a it's a really good song. Heavy D was a really great he was like a terrific rapper. Yeah. And so I this is crucial. I asked my uncle Alan, he asked what I wanted for Hanukkah that year. And I said I wanted the singles of OPP and now that we found love. Yeah. But instead he bought me the whole albums of each. And so not only was I able to hear all the ways that it extended in all the directions, but I also had the cassettes with the liner notes. And so I read it like, Oh, heavy D mentions naughty by nature. They know about each other. That means all these other names. You discovered a whole world. Yeah. So I would just like scrutinize those. Yeah. It's not a unique experience. I mean, nobody has this, but it was so exciting. I think the Rosetta stone nature of line is yes. Perfect. It's totally downplayed or not understood by people now because that's how you when you when you're not in New York and you're not in LA and you're growing up in a in a B town or a smaller town, that's how you hear about these things before the internet. Right. This is a thing I like. An algorithm. What are the things that they know? Yeah. It was like we were making our own Pandora's. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And you go to the store and sometimes you be disappointed. Yeah. That's right. Fair enough. I'm watching 9 30 absolutely watching Designing Women. This is the groundbreaking AIDS episode repeating. Very, very good episode. Probably the most respectful, but humorous and great handling of AIDS. Who got AIDS? A friend of theirs. He was a character in the show. He was a gay guy and died by the end of the episode. It was kind of reintroduced into the show and was dead. Did he show up in like the advanced stages of the disease? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So this is news that a friend is dying of AIDS, has Mary Jo fired up in a PTA debate over sex education, has Julia in a rage over clients, narrow viewpoint. Yeah, that's pretty very progressive. That show was great. It was really, really good. I'd never seen an episode. It's very well written and the stuff that they talked about on a national network TV show in 1988 was amazing. Wow. Amazing. That's not in a sort of cheesy, very special episode way. They often avoided that because there's a smart show. Who was in it? Delta Burke. Delta Burke was in it. It was great. It was like a more attractive Katy Perry at that time. And you have Annie Potts and it's just a really great ensemble cast. Do you know Steve AG's joke about Annie Potts? No. I'm not going to do it justice. So if you've heard the real version listeners or you are Steve listeners, apologies. It's a story about him and his friend being really stoned and they're trying to remember the name of the actress who played Janine in Ghostbusters and they can't do it. And then Steve's friend is like, fuck it. Like, whatever. I'm done thinking about this. I'm going to go make some macaroni and cheese. And he goes into the kitchen and Steve's just sitting there and his friend calls out from the other room. Do you have any pots? And Steve's like, oh my God, that's it. And then the joke is about how annoyed God must have been listening to their conversation and being like, how can I get these stoner idiots to get the answer to this? Yeah. Again, you could take drugs until you realize the secret is any pots. And that explains why you didn't want to call it pot and we're calling it marijuana. So I'm watching that absolutely. And I want to point out a 10 o'clock Morton Downey Jr. was on, which was a huge phenomenon that you missed out on. That was crazy. What was it? He was real. There's a great documentary about him, but his dad was a singer in the 50s and he could not sing. And so he was just getting Morton Downey Jr. won. More than I drew near the first. And so he discovered he was sort of a prototypical version of like Glenn Beck. He discovered that you could incite people and get huge ratings. And so he sort of developed this asshole right wing character, even though he didn't believe any of that stuff. And he would have people on and just get in their face and yell out and blow cigarette smoke in their face and be outrageous. And it was all a lie. But he became the biggest star in America for about a year because people couldn't believe this show. And then his fame started to fade. And he actually faked being assaulted in a bathroom by neo-Nazis who carved a swastika into his head that he had done himself. He did it himself. What? Oh, he went nuts. Well, not well, sort of. He carved a swastika into his forehead. He he he claimed that someone did it to him. But it was clear he did it to himself because it was backwards. And then he admitted later that he was the stump that he did to get attention. So he's a nut. Does he have a permanent swastika scar? He did. He's dead now. He died of lung cancer. But it's really fascinating documentary on a match about why I'm a junior. If you're ever bored, I highly recommend it's it's a great example of sort of the fame thing. But also, it shows you how instead of learning lessons from him, America, and especially the political entertainment system has instead just created a whole system in that image. Instead of going, don't let this happen again. They've gone only let this happen. It's very interesting. Tuesday night at a clock at 9 30 on Monday, I would have watched the first half hour of color of money. Oh, yes. The sequel to the what's the movie that that's the sequel to? It's it's Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, but it's a sequel to the hustler. The hustler. Yes, which was one of the first times that people did a sequel to a movie that was like 20 years old. Very, very weird. Oh, cool. Yeah. And it had a really bad song theme song, but was like a dad blues song. What was it? The color of money. Was Eric Clapton. Yeah. I don't love Eric Clapton. No, I'm not afraid. I don't care about it. He gets, you know, almost never sampled, you notice. Huh. For such a big artist, he has a lot of hooks and guitar riffs. You would think he would be sampled. Do you think it's because he's soulless? I think it's because he's soulless is where I'm going with it. I dated a girl who always said that she could instantly diagnose whether or not a musician had soul. I like it was a grandiose claim, but I liked it. I think most people could do that. Yeah, it's pretty easy to tell. Lenny Gravitz, no soul. But she said even the people who were like tricky, she could she had like an accomplishment. Who's the one that surprised you about that? She said, you're like, no, and then we go, oh, you're right. God, what is it? I can't, I can't. I don't know. You just don't want to burn any bridges. I understand you're afraid. You're afraid of the soulless contingent. Tuesday at a clock. I'm fascinated by whatever the Maurice Sendak hour was. The Maurice Sendak hour. So did you use to read Maurice Sendak? Yes, I love Maurice Sendak. So I am sort of into Maurice Sendak, but this is just a biography. This is an A&E again. Oh, no. This is a portrait, a 1985 portrait of the author illustrator. I guess now that I know that I still would, I wouldn't be the most bored, but I'm much, I thought it was like a whimsical, of serrated, surreal show that he was dead or something. No, no, it's just a portrait. But again, it's clear that A&E would have been your network. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little hard to handle. So that would have been interesting, but I would have gone with who's the boss, a show that I hated, but watched every week. Still don't, can't explain it. Aside from maybe it was a listen model related, I don't know. And this was a repeat of the episode where the spin-off of the model series they had about the show, where they had Leah Remini be an old friend of Samantha's. And then they spun off a show about teenage models, Holly Berry, her first role, which I love, just a couple of living dolls, because I was oddly obsessed with the world of modeling at that time. Okay. You don't like going on? I had a lot going on. And at the same time, no. Rich in her life. Rich in her life. You could call it that. So I would have watched that. 830, you're not watching anything, because you watch Amore Sendak still? Yeah, I'm still, still tuning into Sendak. I would have gone with Perfect Strangers, yet another show wasn't that into, but watched every week. I don't have, I don't have a good taste in my mouth when I harken back to that show. It's very slapsticky. I mean, it's very, but at the same time, I totally get why it really appealed to children. I mean, it's a huge slapstick, physical, big, big, big show. Would, would Belky undergo mishaps all the time? There was, that show just should have been called mishaps. Maybe more accurately, dumb foreigner mishaps. It would be like the fish out of water, ignorance would land him in some pickle or other. Well, it was usually his cousin who was a sort of Machiavellian inflated ego. His own plans would go awry. Really? His lies would fold upon themselves. He was sort of a Larry David type character. His name was Larry. His name was Larry. I didn't Larry Appleton. Cousin Larry. I didn't know that he was like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's great at being insane. What's that actress name? His name is, oh my god, I know it. Annie Potts. It's Annie Potts. Cousin Larry Appleton's name. He does a lot of stage work. Oh man, I'm blanking. I'm blanking. Okay. But I'll come up with it later. Okay. So nine o'clock would you go with? Weekend in Havana. Weekend in Havana. This is a movie on American movie classics. Okay. This is a 1941 musical because Weekend in Havana. And again, TV guy editorializing only gives it two stars, which is one star better than I have the tiger. But it says dated, but nonetheless entertaining fable about a sales girl and her vacation cruise to a colorful Cuba that never was. Weird. Doesn't sound at all good. Going to be honest. Kind of just rolled the dice on that one. Sounds weirdly anti-communist because oh, this is making Cuba look good. It was never like that. Right. Weird editor. That is a weird way to attack Cuba. Yeah. I would, we got it, say it or else these kids are going to watch this movie. They're going to become Cubans. I would have gone with moonlighting. It's a repeat this episode with Dr. Joyce brothers and Ray Charles in this episode. That sounds great. I'm sure I would have enjoyed that more. Yeah. Who is moonlighting? Bruce Willis in civil show. That's what I thought. I really like that show and I thought really shepherd was. She's stunning. She's so hot. She still is. She's one of the most beautiful women that's ever existed in my opinion and really funny and such a great, weird character. I mean, I would have totally watched that and not 30 on Tuesday. I would have watched Richard Lewis on HBO. Yes. Okay. Did you enjoy your standup? I mean, I just would really, I mean, that is what I would choose. I didn't even, but boy, that's what I would do. Yeah. You could, we could watch that now. Yeah. So Wednesday night eight o'clock. What are you going with? Do you want to guess what I went with? Yeah. You want me to guess? You think it's obvious or you think it's, I think you'll be able to hazard a guess. It's a little tough actually. Okay. So I'm thinking it might be between growing pains and highway to heaven. It's neither one of these. Neither one of these. Yeah. Degrassi? Yeah. Because I would want to see a young Drake. He was on Degrassi or junior high? Yeah. I did not know that. I watch. Wait, was there more than one Degrassi? There's, yes, there's several Degrassis. So there's the, the kids of Degrassi Street, which is what Degrassi started out as, which was a show about children who lived on the same street. Okay. Those same actors and kids were in Degrassi junior high, then Degrassi high. In the early 2000s, they relaunched it as Degrassi, which was the children of the original things. I was going to say he, how old is he? Yeah. This was 1988. He was a 26. Oh yeah. He was on Degrassi. He was a child. Yeah. He's on Degrassi, then the 2000s. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. But you just saw the word Degrassi? Yeah. This was a Canadian show that is very, it's all special episodes, but was sort of refreshing in that, and the revival wasn't like this, but the kids were certainly real kids in that they were kind of ugly or like had weird speech impediment. Like it was a show that stood out because they, you were like, these are real kids and you would see other shows of growing pains. For example, they're all good looking kids, but I love that show. But Degrassi, you're like, why have they just shot a documentary about real children? And it wasn't. It was a scripted show, but it really stood out in a way. It is very weird. So growing pains, this is the conclusion of a two-parter when Jason's vacation dreams are shattered, when Maggie gets a call home and Carol gets an unexpected visitor. So this one is when Maggie's dad dies and she has to go home to Medford Mass. What? And he was a Medford cop on the show. No way. And deal with that. Oh, heartbreaking. I like growing pains. It's a great show. Yeah. Especially in '88. It was really good series. It got bad later, but the first three seasons are good. So, what was its theme song? The theme song went, why do I have family ties? And then Manuel Lewis goes, "Long as we got each other." I'm right there. Written by Stephen Dorff. Oh, really? That's not the actor Stephen Dorff, musician Stephen Dorff. So, 30, what are you going with? Come on. Rodeo finals. Did you used to watch a lot of country Rodeo stuff? It sounds really fun. Yeah, it really does look exciting. Rodeo finals look pretty pretty good. I do want to mention that head of the class was on a show that I really enjoyed, which made me want to be smart and I'm not. But there was also the premiere, the cable premiere of the Madonna movie, Who's That Girl? Oh, wow. Which I had seen in the theater and oddly really liked. I think as a kid, I really loved Madonna, the actress. I had seen desperately seeking Susan. I went and saw Shanghai surprise. Yeah, I don't know what that was about. Man. Didn't enjoy our music that much. We really enjoyed our... I also never enjoyed our music that much. Isn't that great? There's some songs that I understand that they're good, but a lot of its people go nuts about her. They do. They really do. And there were better people in every genre she did. I'm going to keep that in mind when I really like something and someone's like, "Yeah, it's not for me." And I'm like, "Well, why can't you understand?" I'm going to be like, "This is how I feel about Madonna." This is your Madonna. And then they'll be like, "Why are you getting religious?" And then, you know, get weird. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. I'm just going to think that this is your Madonna. Nine o'clock, what are you going with? I'm going to watch Batman. So you're watching Batman. This is the 1966 Batman. Oh no, why don't I read these more carefully? Yeah. Well, it was before the movie came up. What year did the movie come out? 89. Summer, 89. It would have been the next time I start my birthday. That summer. Damn it. Yeah. Of course it wouldn't be on TV yet. That would take like three years before the technology. It didn't take quite a while for them to... Because they would still do road shows at movies. So if they'd premiere around TV tour, they'd be like, "God, what would I have?" Well, I don't know. 1966 Batman, you would not have... I mean, I guess I would be fine. Who was it? Adam was Adam West. Yeah. Okay. I would have gone with Hooperman, which was John Ritter's sort of dramedy show, where he was a police negotiator. He would like talk people off of ledges. And he had a... It took place in San Francisco. It was shot there. It's a really cool year dark show. And in this episode, Hooperman is after the thief who's robbing Stiffs in a mortuary in Susan's Dench-Sir that her new novel will make a killing. Getting a little punny there from my taste TV guy. Dench-Sir killing. Would have watched it. Have you ever had a TV guide writer, a copywriter on the show? I've tried to find who did it because there's theories, but no one's proven it. We assume they didn't watch all these shows and they were working from press releases from the studios. But we don't know how much they changed them. We don't know. And who wrote those press releases. Did you know Marley, Helping Greyser? Yeah. He used to, when he worked at Cartoon Network, he used to write the basically the TV guidelines for the shows he worked on for the guides. So he was like, "It's probably just some intern." Wow. That was as close as I got. There was someone out there who knows the intern. Someone knows. And every week I beg them to tell me. Really. Very few people who worked at TV Guy are willing to talk. It's a really anonymous monolith of a magazine. Weird. Yeah. Is there any masthead information in the front? Some things are there was a few columnists that could get violent, but for the most part, no. And you've hit them up on Twitter and stuff. You've done your due diligence here. Sure idea. Nothing. Interesting. It ignored me. Completely ignored me. Wow. It's funny when you, I have a friend who's like trying to get pregnant and it's like, you know, they're having some troubles with it. And we were talking about it and he was telling me about like what's been going on. And I was like, "Have you gotten your sperm count checked?" And then as soon as I said it, I was like, "Obviously." "Oh, way to go. I'm stunned." Yeah. But was he like, "Oh my god, I didn't think of that." No, he made fun of me as I deserved. You pulled the, uh, you go and ask at a record store if they have a CD. Like, do you have the night by nature in the like, "Have you looked under N?" You did that to him. Because he's like, "Yeah, I did. That's why I'm asking if you have it. It's not." Kamau and I did this show in Atlanta. And we drove by the venue and there's like no obvious place to park. And there's a huge line of people standing out front. And so I called and the guy, a guy answered, but it wasn't the guy. It was some menial dude. And I was like, "Hey, man, there's no place to park. And is there an artist entrance?" And he was like, "Hang on." And he puts me on hold for five minutes. And then he comes back and he's like, "Um, I can't find anyone to ask." So I would just say, "Pay to park in the parking garage and come in through the front door." Yeah. And I was like, "Dude." Let me tell you the obvious thing. I want to scream at you. Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes the easiest answer is the answer. I guess so. It turned out it wasn't the answer. There was another guy who was like, "Oh, you should have come in here and I'm sorry. Here's money for your parking." So that guy did not have information that was important. For a second there, I was scared that you had gone back to the try and get pregnant story. Turns out there was another guy and he was like, "Come in here." I can't read. Boom! Thursday. I think we're on Thursday. Yeah. Thursday night, eight o'clock. I'm now eight years old for two days. Happy birthday. Thank you, sir. When's my birthday? Your birthday is the June only has 30 days, so it'll be Friday. Friday. Okay, nice. So eight o'clock on Thursday. Okay. This is going to be amazing, Ken. This is going to have a really spectacular ending episode. Okay. Okay. Thursday, I watch "Top Secret" and I also watch "Not Necessarily the News." Okay. So "Top Secret" is a Zuckerberg Brothers movie with Val Kilmert. Todd Berry's favorite movie of all time. Really? Yes. That's why I love that movie. It's a silly movie, but it was when Val Kilmer was the best movie wise-ass. He was amazing. Yeah. You can sing. Really? He was a good dancer and he was a hilarious actor. Did you ever seen any of the sort of Elvis movies that it was parroting? Because it's a spy movie, but it's really more a parody of Elvis. No, but I got it. You get it. You kind of get the trope of that. Skeet surfing is the classic musical number that starts that off. That starts that off. And the backward scene and the guy with the magnifying glass behind the guy. Yeah, I would put by Peter Cushing who is a big hammer movie actor. Yeah. That is a really good movie and I cannot fault you for watching it. I am watching "Sledgehammer," which is similar in tone, actually, to "Top Secret." It's a very funny, silly, they call it a spoof of '40s detective movies, but it's not really. It's more of a spoof of like Dirty Harry '80s actually. Okay. Really fun show. They lasted two seasons, sadly. So I'm watching that and you're watching "Top Secret" till 9 o'clock? Yeah, I was surprised at how much there was on that I didn't want to watch. Yeah. Well, you didn't watch "The Charming's" at 8.30, which was a show I always watched. Yeah, I don't know what the Charming's is. "Charming's" was about Snow White and Prince Charming, who get enchanted and end up waking up in Burbank in 1988 and having to live a normal life. Oh my god. Two cameras that come. "The Charming." Fish. Yeah. Water. Ain't here. Ain't no water for these fish. God. And then obviously at "Charming's." I will say, I think that's a funny clever name for a TV show. It is and it was on two seasons. "The Charming's." Yeah, "The Charming's." Her name was Snow White Charming. Snow Charming, yeah. Snow Charming? Yeah. Really? That was her character's name on the show? Yeah, she got rid of the white. Her middle name was White. Yeah. Snow White. Snow. Yeah. In Burbank? In Burbank. We're basically in Burbank right now. I could drive you to the house they used for the experience. Really? Yeah. I don't think I understand how deep it goes. I drove by the Brady house the other day. It's not far from here. Yeah, it's very weird. And then, of course, cheers at 9 o'clock, which I had to watch. Oh, okay. Yeah. Would you go with at 9 o'clock again? I'm sorry. More Top Secret. Oh, just Top Secret for the whole game. Yeah, I just want to watch Top Secret. And then, 9thirty, 9th Court. One of my favorites. Oh, yeah. I like the 9th Court. Great show. Bull, Harry. Bull, Harry. Yep. Yep. Harry Anderson, former magician in the state of committee. I believe it. He's got that kind of energy, that presentation. He was homeless for a while in New Orleans, where he's from? Southern or street magic. Really fascinating guy. Friday night, 8 o'clock, final night of the week. Okay. So, I'm assuming that my mom didn't make me go to services, which happened on Friday nights. Yep. Nope. That's the sound of service on Friday night. Yep. Okay, I have three things I'm doing at 8. Would they be that late at night? And so, it's like 8 o'clock at night. It would start at like maybe 7 or something like that. So, you'd be getting home. How long does a service go? Friday nights are short. Okay. Maybe 45 minutes. Okay. So, depending how far away we are, I might be home in time. Okay. But you might go to a dinner afterwards, or like linger at the synagogue. Right. Talk to people. Can you please name something linger at the synagogue? [laughter] The only-- Can I get the disco? I'm gonna get the disco's linger at the synagogue. It's like a Jewish dance funk band. Oh, that's funny. I used to dance at synagogues frequently. We had two places for dances in my middle school, and one was a church on one side of town, and the other was a synagogue on the other side of town. And you'd go there for like a dance? I'd go to the dances in middle school, yeah. I wouldn't talk to anyone when I'd stand in the car. Talk to the janitor. Have you ever heard of the job you can have bar mitzvah dancer? No. My friend Whitney was one. You would go to a bar mitzvah, you would be good at doing line dances, and you would just-- You'd get the party started. Get the party started. Dance with shy kids. You know, that's innovative, and I am in no way shocked that it was created by the Jews. You probably would only get it in towns with bigger Jewish populations. I didn't know about it until I got to Boston, like in Springfield, Missouri. You seem like a real party stunt. Come here and do some dancing. I think I met Whitney. She was a bar mitzvah dancer. Okay, so at eight o'clock Friday, I'm watching-- I was going to make a horror joke. Oh yeah, it's good. It's good. With the W, yeah. I really like it. A horror. A horror. Yeah. It's great. Okay. So in ascending order of how interested I would have been on Friday, I'm watching TV's bloopers and practical jokes. Love it. Absolutely love it. Watch it every week. It was like America's Funniest Time videos, kind of, but just with TV. Sort of. So bloopers from your favorite shows. Yeah, they would show up-- Oh, really? --flowing up flop. And it was really fascinating because it was one of the first times you got to see, like, how-- BTS. Yeah, and people, people acting like normal people. They ran out of bloopers, kind of, eventually, so they started introducing the practical jokes, but they would be on celebrity, so it was like a proto-punked. Oh. And this particular one is Jennifer O'Neill and Meredith Baxter Burney, from Family Ties, are the victims of the practical jokes. Public service announcement bloopers from the NFL players, Eric Dickerson and Dan Marino and Will Shriners trip around the world, plus newlywed game follow-ups, which did not include in the butt. The famous newlywed bloopers. Are you familiar with that? No. Did you know the newlywed game? No. So they would have a newlyweds on. Yeah. And they would ask them, you know, what, you know, questions, and then they would have to match the questions, like they would the answers, and they would call sex Whoopi. And one of the questions was, "Where is the craziest place your husband says you've ever made Whoopi?" And she goes, "In the butt." And it was, for years, people thought it was just apocryphal, but I've seen the footage. It's real. Oh my god. That's amazing. It's a real answer. That's amazing. Yeah. In the butt. They want, like, in my car, or, like, I saw the beach. No, it's pure. It's perfect. In the butt. So that was your number one more? That's my lowest. Oh, lowest, don't they? Yeah. And then I'm also interested in Stephen King's Cat's Eye, which is a great anthology movie from '85. I believe it. I've never seen it, but I think it would be great. True to Aaron Moore. One of two Stephen King things she was in. What's the other? Firestarter. I love Stephen King. Did you read that a lot, Karona? I loved Stephen King growing up. Yeah. I read him a lot. And much more than the song. But I had to think of you as, like, a horror guy. No, I loved Stephen King. Yeah. It was around a lot. And I played him in an epic rap battle. Yes. I remember that. Years later. And she's seen it and enjoyed it. He saw it and enjoyed it, although he said that he thought that he lost, which I have to say, I am capable of saying the epic rap battles that I think that I lost, and that is one that I... Did he contact him? Exactly. No, he tweeted about it and I tweeted at him a few times, and then I was like, I'm going to be respectful. He's one of my... I love him. I've peed next to him and served him. I've served him steak. No, no. Hopefully not. Step ahead. I watched the sell with him. But the thing that I'm most interested in, because it's so 1988 to me, is watching pro karate on TV. Yes. Yes. This is in a pre UFC world. And again, yes, and which was the sports network, was interesting. I'm not a sports person, but they would show crazy stuff like skateboarding and karate and swimsuit 87. But this was, yeah, karate bounce taped in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it was sort of very pure. And I would watch those all the time as well. Yeah. It sounds super interesting. Yeah. Did you ever do martial arts? Yes. Do you crop my guy? I have a black belt in Taekwondo. Okay. I mean, the flashy martial art. But quote, so it's like the boldest italicized underlying quotes around black belt. Taekwondo is not a real self-defense martial art, but is more sport. It means the way of hand and foot. Yes, it does. It does. Like karate, do you know karate means? No. Empty hand. Because karate is empty orchestra. Ah. See? Wow. Learning Japanese with kenri. Cool. Not a clock we all have. Ready? Yes. It's going to blow your mind. Belvedere? I didn't even, this was just the choice that I made. Just this is the way your podcasts set it up for it to be. I didn't think about it. We hadn't had any conversations yet. I didn't have any intentions going in. This is your birthday. Do you know what I watched? On my birthday. On your birthday. No, I'm an Oprah, the snake god. Now, do you believe I was good? Now I will do I was good. Did you dose me and my burning cobra the snake god and the Discovery Channel? This is a 60 minute documentary about the King Cobra. Wow. It is all tied up. It is all tied up. I do want to say before I read you the cheers and cheers and we completely finished here that 2020 was the one show I was not allowed to watch. I would have watched Mr. Belver and I'd marry Dora by the way from from nine to 10. It's the only show I wasn't allowed to watch. Here's what was on that night. A profile of Bill Denby, a 37 year old Vietnam vet who had both legs amputated below the knee during the war. Today he can walk and as seen in his TV commercial can play basketball with the aid of quote the Seattle Foot, a prosthetic device that allows people to quote have spring in their step again. He's seen competing in something I didn't know was a thing, the national amputee games. Wow. Cool. I wonder if that's still a thing. I just want to say one more time that we talked in this episode about snakes eating their tails. Yes. And I began an end with snake documentaries. Totally not by any randomly picked this TV god. I did not look at it before he did not look at it and that's where we ended up. So to finish I'll read you the cheers and jeers this week. So TV god is opinionated. Okay. It's a jeer heavy week. So let's see if you agree or disagree. We start with the one and only cheer to NBC's today and ABC's Good Morning America for a refreshing change of pace. Last month today took us aboard the Oregon Express. Good morning America made a jump to Sweden. I don't care. I'm a different. I don't care. Jears to Nickelodeon's double there for daring to push beyond the limits of good taste. Standby his kids take pleasure in flipping pies into a partner's pants and sliding down a shoot coated with chocolate. I could not disagree more fervently. I am 100. I cheer Nickelodeon for that and I can't believe how like Protestant and yes like touchy these guys children the boundaries of good taste. He's sliding on a chocolate slide. Get used to it. Do you think they thought it was too evocative of buttholes sliding down the chocolate. I don't think so. It'd be funny if the next line was and all of the buttholes. In the butt. In the butt. Then we have jeers to those technicians and cameramen in stations around the country who are so misinformed and fearful about aids that they balk at covering the disease. Good. Yeah. That's a good jeer. Good jeer. What a weird combo. Like hey boo double dare for making jokes about pies and pants. Hey boo to you for not for being afraid of AIDS. Yeah. Why don't say give double jeers to the age of cameramen and leave double there alone. And finally double jeers double jeers double beers to Barbara Walters for ludicrous dare devil escapades on her interview specials on her male 11th show. She was zooming around in the back of a motorcycle clinging to spliced alone. She danced the mambo with Patrick Swayze. She helped the prowl of a cigarette boat and went zipping through the Miami harbor at high speed with Don Johnson. I think they're just jealous. Okay. What are these killer toys? Let her have some fog. Hot. Liven up TV guys. It's not like she was on the back of the motorcycle trying to escape AIDS. Yeah. Well zach, thank you for being here. Thanks, Cam. This is really fun. That was Zach Sherwin comedy rapper Zach Sherwin man comedian writer Zach Sherwin. He does a lot of things on epic rap battles and he played he played Stephen King as he mentions there. You can check him out. I'll put links to all that stuff up on tvguidescounsel.com and you should buy his album as well by two copies by one for a friend by one for I don't know just the summer and listen to it with the top down. Crews in the beaches as I know you all do. As always you can reach me at tv guidance counselor at gmail.com or at can and I can read.com. You can find us on Facebook and on Twitter at tv guidance and please if you got this through iTunes if you like the show please rate review the show. It helps us greatly get up the iTunes charts which sounds like an insult. Get up the iTunes charts and let's people hear about the show which is very nice for me. So thanks again and we'll see you next time on a brand new episode of tv guidance counselor. What I really like is getting high and watching nature documentaries. It's obviously just about big butts. How do you spell that? I would give up who I am and become a hunk.
