Category: Podcast

I had to fix something on the site here, and I couldn’t help but notice that two years and eight months ago, I said I’d be back with a new episode of THIS IS NOT A TEST. But here we are two years and eight months later, and I’ve given you nothing. What a terrible…

 Let’s bid adieu to 2020 with a heartwarming tale of sitting on a small-town jury. Did you know adieu means “to God”? So when we bid adieu to 2020, we’re really saying, “To God with 2020,” when maybe what we really mean to say is “To hell with 2020.” Which would be to bid…

 This one is about the demise of the Charles Bukowski forum, but then for some reason about halfway through I start talking about old-time independent record stores. Places like Three Acre Wood and Northern Lights in St. Paul, and Oarfolkjokeopus in Minneapolis. You might also hear me mention, if you listen real closely, the…

 It’s me again, and it’s high time we talked about names again, not to mention technical tomfoolery, what defines us, surviving a plane crash, employment discrimination, being an expert procrastinator, clanging, blabbing, guacamole, silence, otherness, parmesan cheese, the President of the Apes, diapers, conformity-by-necessity, outsiders, starting a podcasting school, palindromes, the world’s laziest way…

 Join me, won’t you, for a lively discussion about disorganized garages, Denmark, girls with a baseball bats on their shoulders, broccoli, being pregnant without a husband, fluoride, Flip Wilson, wigs, unnatural amounts of contrast, the pinnacle of beingness, umbrella acronyms, chainsaw juggling, a nice pair of shoes, kids, rejuvenation, murder games, Casper the ghost,…

 What’s in a name? Everything, apparently. Let’s talk about names. And maybe accidentally touch on Google, bread lines, band flyers, getting married and losing your identity, inventing names, self-fulfilling prophecies, a heart surgeon named Becky, serial killers, recording studios, videos, Led Zeppelin, Dynasty hairdos, Target smocks, Devo, subversion, eating on $2 a day, cages,…

 Spring brings the Western Tanager, Earth Day, The Flintstones, Vietnam, food from the future, whales, protest, unenlightenment, the tools of oppression, laws, tribes, DNA, COVID, the great Liberal machine, foxes, lizards, cocktails, misdirection, the CDC, guano, mankind, newspuppets, the solution to everything, Girl Scout cookies, the pendulum, chipmunks, pretty shoes, Questlove, Santana, the Monkees,…

 It’s springtime, so let’s talk about…COVID-19? That discussion is unavoidable, yes, but don’t forget about jackrabbits, owls, coyotes, hazmat, malaria medicine, sensitivity, self-fulfilling prophesy, mascara, gourds, bunkers, Coven, Bob Marley, Aussie twats, an abundance of caution, social distancing, paid vacations, ramen noodles, toilet paper, Instagram, water, karaoke, skin, national parks, desert tortoises, ravens, garbage,…

 Terrified of catching a cold? Don’t be, I’ve got you covered. Calm yourself by listening to my reassuring voice lulling you into an alpha wave-rich state of near catatonia by talking about hawks, burritos, cruise ships, toilet paper, Ira Glass, Portlandia, the death of half of the human race, super Tuesday, civil war, collapsed…

 Hi, remember me? I thought you might like to talk about dogs, jobs, moms, flying kites and Jolly Rogers, sleeping on pool tables, corn, Mai Tais with Buddha, white Christmas, metadata, Showtime at The Apollo, which Sex in the City character are you?, getting old, Christmas music, Van Morrison, The Wailers, fistfights, puppetheads, Joe…

 Let’s talk about air travel, airplanes, and people, and maybe also the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon, Palm Springs in the summer, LAX, a deep, hacking, ugly cough, Pringles, pretzels, vodka, pasta salad, La-Z-Boys, Mountain Dew, nuns, flowy peasant blouses, iPods, Tunis Air, half-price fajita night, tuberculosis, and the joys of a good mani/pedi.…

 Allow me to regale you with more tales of packing up and moving, the Kingdom of Nye, the end of the road, Los Angeles, the high desert, America’s Next Top Model, the 60 freeway, LAX, the Milky Way, leaf blowers, Bedouins, mountain biking, Germans, landlords, cucumber water, and how Instagram is destroying the National…

 Hi. I’ve always been honest with you, except when I’m lying, so I have to say that I recorded this episode and put it on the shelf because I didn’t think it was good enough. “Good enough” being a subjective term, of course. But as it happens, I’m packing to move (again), which means…

 This episode starts with a bang and just keeps bangin’ ’till the cows come home. LOL! LOL! We will discuss Jah Himself, hippies, Mahtomedi Minnesota, aliens, beaver, curry, secret handshakes, Toughskins, ski jackets, the birth of the puffy jacket and its early victims, living in your cousin’s basement, the leather store, the perfection of…

 Let’s talk about the earth, humanity, science and yes, maybe also work in 20 book reviews somehow: “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kiedis, “Hit So Hard” by Patty Schemel, “Gold Dust Woman” by Stephen Davis, “There’s No Bones in Ice Cream” by Sylvain Sylvain, “The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince” by Mayte Garcia, “Complicated…

 Let’s get right to it, shall we? Or rather, let’s not get right to it, let’s start this one with a poem. Then let’s talk about mixtapes, sliders, memories, smells, silence that isn’t really silence, limitations, your mother’s shoes, tweens, soccer moms, Young Adult fiction, the Sundance film festival, veal, Hindu gods, Springsteen on…

 Happy new year, here are some mixed nuts. And, since a balanced diet is important, have a little helping of 9/11, Black Lives Matter, trolling the aisles of CVS, the mathematics of grocery shopping, human history, deadly peanut allergies, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Che, Celiac disease, The New England Journal of Medicine, the most kick-ass…

 It’s raining in Los Angeles, so we may as well talk about formative years, Bangladesh, mittens, waterlogged La-Z-Boys, Blue Mountain coffee, English muffins, Bordeaux, procrastination, what it means to be human, Facebook and other modern afflictions, Alex Jones, conspiracy, shirtless weeping, the Roman Empire, truth and science, Jesus himself, Nixon himself, Woodrow Wilson, selling…

 What is it about beer, or any alcohol, really, that makes us so…I don’t know, wonderful? Okay, it doesn’t make all of us wonderful, I’ll give you that. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to drink. I certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to drink when I was a young man, but no one stopped me,…

 Join me, won’t you, on an action-packed cross country bicycle trip that I undertook a few short decades ago, in the America of the late 1980s. Weren’t those glorious times? What with the Cold War, the Reagan presidency gracefully pirouetting into the Bush presidency, Iran-Contra, Oliver North, revered statesman Dan Quayle, precious baby Jessica…

 And a one and a two and a here we go, off into the wild blue yonder of the Malibu coastline, with wine, exes, freeway traffic, sophistication, $10 couches, real money, dog catchers, Thomas Brothers maps, helicopters, Elizabeth Shue in a leather skirt, bacterial infections, hard-boiled eggs, sweat, darkness, garbage, shrubbery, pregnancy, hospitality, Cheech…

 Okay, this one is all over the place, but that has its own charm, doesn’t it? I mean, don’t you want to talk about dogs, crushing heat, megastorms, science (and the ignorance thereof), Gwyneth Paltrow, Jesus, geniuses, the home schooled, Lil Wayne, AA meetings, limp escapism, rock stars, resistance, complacency, Sam Kinison, Roseanne, Woody…

 What the hell, let’s take a chainsaw to royalty, the desert, aliens with oversized heads, crazy glue, usenet, Airstream trailers, diplomas, fat and lazy cover bands, crushing and demoralizing your enemy, pig flesh, pigskin, loving it or leaving it, Amnesty International, smokescreens and the rise of the machines. We’ll talk about 14 of those…

 Here, how about some Jade Bird, some signs of life, some Bob Dylan, some…country music? No. Some Shakespeare, Jimmy Fallon, Arrow de Wilde, cesspools, how art and culture are really life itself, Stephen Hines’ “the late season” book, undercurrents and undercutting, Jackson Pollock, Prince, 5 Hour Energy Drink, Western society, Victorian days, Leaving Las…

In which and wherein I proceed to speak on subjects as confounding and diverse as particles, time, unemployment, maximizing one’s potential, training chickens, meaning and purpose, milk trucks, the pervasive mystery of Atlassian Confluence, rhythm, mojo, management philosophies, buying and selling, Joe Strummer, Lake Woebegone and the End of the Road in Homer Alaska, Craigslist,…

 This one may sound a little weird because it’s the first episode recorded in the new studio (a.k.a. the spare bedroom of the house we just moved in to). Try to ignore the echo and instead just revel in the hilarity of bronchitis, 768 Kbps Internet, rain on cardboard boxes, hustlers and con artists,…

 Oh Canada, the San Gabriel Valley, LSD, white bread, the Oscar race (pretty sure he’s white – har har), the wonderful and marvelous (and now dead) Joe Frank, the proximity effect, Craigslist again because apparently I’m a masochist, and last but not least on this abbreviated episode for an abbreviated month: how I became…

 This episode is two days late for reasons which may reveal themselves when you listen. And who wouldn’t want to listen to a scintillating discussion about deviled ham, touring Prince’s home and recording studio Paisley Park – a cotton candy Barbie dream condo if ever there was one, landlords, looking for a new job,…

 Over the river and through the woods, to Bukowski’s house we go. This is just me talking about what it was like there, and how I wound up there. It’s a brief tale that I thought you’d like to hear. But don’t let it inspire you to go to Bukowski’s house uninvited. That wouldn’t…

Getting an email from Gene Simmons, why young boys must rock, spending fifty thousand dollars on a collection of outtakes, getting onto a cruise ship with really old rock stars, spending $250 on a collection that is basically The Beatles dicking around for 80 hours while being filmed, Ektachrome 500, the miracle of HAP (again),…

I come fully prepared to talk about supper clubs, The Hat Pack, the futility of it all, professional locksmiths, unprofessional landlords, professional “contractors,” ladders, distinctive tape measures, flashlights and sticky fingers, flying buttresses, Appalachia, apes painting window trim, you and your stereo and how great you are, whether or not it’s socially acceptable to call…

We may as well talk about modern-day lynch mobs and public shaming, that Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Twitter, getting “good PR” by piggybacking on a tragedy, censorship, Godwin’s law, Trump bulldozing people into mass graves, remembering the days of the free exchange of ideas with no governing body, Nazis having trouble finding online homes, riding…

Amble down the path with me, if you will, toward finishing the writing of books, promoting and getting reviewers to read said books, plastic, and metal, pushing birds out of nests, motors with moxie, selling window fans, oral histories, Roger Steffens and Bob Marley, faulty and fragile memories, tipping over a street vendor’s cart because…

I have the best of intentions when I record these, but sometimes things just get away from me. So I’m not sure what this one is “about,” but aside from what’s listed in the title you’ll also hear about PJ Harvey again (including never-before heard audio from an interview I did with her 10 years…