TheModernMoron podcast The Modern Moron

Ep. 121 Best 4th of July Ever; Miles Connor in Nashville
Welcome to this mid-summer episode of the Modern Moron.  I’m so excited to share the conversation I had with a young musician named Miles Connor.  He’s currently a student at Belmont University in Nashville Tennessee and was born and raised in the Dallas Texas area.  H’s e’s a bit of an old soul in that he was brought up with a lot of classic rock artists from the 60’s and 70’s.  I believe his first instrument was the guitar but his father was and is an accomplished musician and toured professionally back in the day as a drummer.  
I’ve been wanting to talk to Miles for YEARS, literally as I’ve heard over and over what an accomplished musician he was becoming and how affable and friendly his was.  Well, one of my fancy friends from my days in L.A. flew to Nashville for the 4th of July.  In fact, Julie Welch has been on this program before in one of our first episodes when we did a tribute to her parents, Ken and Mitzie Welch, who were Emmy Award winning music arrangers for the Carol Burnett show and I believe the Jack Parr show way back in the day.  Julie is also friends with a guy named Brad Paisley, who really is a household name if you ever play even a little country music in your household.  Brad performed in Nashville on the 4th of July and it was broadcast on CNN without political commentary.   Julie arranged for my guest Miles to meet her sister Gillian Welch, who has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards over the years and winning a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2021.
THEN… she took Miles to the Paisley’s home/music ranch(?) is that a thing? Where he got to not only meet Brad Paisley, but jam with him and talk music.  Brad went to the same college that Miles is currently attending.  He got to hang there the evening before the 4th with some more fancy people including SNL alum Kevin Nealon, who’s a decent banjo player himself.  A couple of other names get dropped including Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley.  Now those two names may not seem like household names but if you saw either of them you’d say, “oh, I know that guy!”  Michael is probably most recognized for his role in Christopher Guest’s “Best in Show” where he was paired with Parker Posy as a couple showing Weimaraners and they both wore braces.  See… you remember.  He also wrote and produced many episodes of the hit show Glee which ran from 2009 to 2015 and you can see him all over the place. 
Tim Bagley is also a great character actor who’s currently playing Brad Schraeder in the HBO hit “Somebody Somewhere”.  You’d also remember him on the show   “Monk” with Tony Shalub, Tim played Monk’s neighbor Harold and of course “Larry” from Will & Grace…
There I go down another rabbit hole… anyway, Both of these guys are hugely funny, Miles mentions them in his story, they are working ALL the time and are very dear to this old Moron as I knew them way back when I was in L.A. and they were… very, very young…. In case they ever hear this.  Very, very young when I first met them.
Back to Miles and an additional reason I think you’re going to love him is his knowledge of the history of rock and country.  Glen Campbell… was known for his guitar playing as well and Miles recalls what a great session player Glen Campbell was back in the day playing for music producer Phil Spector as well as playing and singing with the Beach Boys.  Brad Paisley is right up there in his guitar playing alongside Glen Campbell.  In fact, I’m including the link to a YouTube Video of some legendary guitar players having a session at the Fender Custom Shop playing the theme to Game of Thrones back when that show was insanely popular.  In that video are players like Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, Scott Ian from Anthrax, Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme and… Brad Paisley.  Now those first guys may not be number one on your Spo

Hi… I have not been taking our relationship very seriously have I.  I’m sorry… I haven’t called, haven’t written, you think I haven’t even been thinking about you probably.  Well that’s not true.  If fact this is the 4th attempt at episode number 120.  I can’t tell why I haven’t been producing, creating, whatever this is and at the same time I have a few really important-ish reasons why I haven’t but we’ll talk about that later… maybe.
My guest is my good friend Larry Dorf.  I would consider him a “super friend” isn’t that in like the league of justice with the DC comics realm.  Only we don’t use the word “realm” anymore.  Now we say “multiverse”, right?  That’s the craze for the last ten years… this obsession with the idea of a multiverse, from the 10,001 Marvel Comics movies to the animated Spider-Verse to Everything, Everywhere all at once, it’s all a multiverse.  Maybe this is why I don’t do episodes anymore… I can’t stay on topic for shit.  
Larry Dorf is a super-friend, that’s how I digressed.  Larry if you remember is a fancy (from my cubicle’d perspective) Hollywood writer, producer and actor.  He and my other superfriends who he is partnered with have created Mike Tyson Mysteries for cartoon network and hit it pretty darn big with the Netflix show, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window”  It did really well, I loved it and if you like a parody that’s not in your face schticky like Scary Movie, not that it doesn’t have a place, but this was more suspense and definitely more subtle but very funny and well acted and well written and yes I’m biased.
We recorded this episode in the first week of June 2023 and here it is mid July and I’m just now trying for my fourth time to publish an episode. The writer’s strike had already been going on for some time, in fact by the time this episode sees the light of day the actors union SAG-AFTRA  has joined the writers and we may have to call Larry all over again.
We talk about shows they are pitching or shows they were TRYING to pitch and the general process of pitching a show and how that was put on hold well before the writer’s strike began 
We briefly get off track talking about TV to fall asleep to.  That’ll really put you on the edge of your ear buds so you don’t want to miss that.  
Another thing is… I did not spend as much time editing this episode down.  Will that make a difference?  Who knows… but if you notice a difference please include it in all the virtual cards an letters that have been coming in by the thousands.  I edited like the first 15 minutes and then said stop being so precious.  It’s just the four of us listening to this anyway.  Let’s see what happens.  
We start our conversation by trying to get Larry comfortable as I know he loves to spin around in office chairs and then I have to set him straight on the difference between an office for a TV show or movie… a production office versus an office in the real world where you and I live.  I’ve worked in both and I can tell you… they ain’t the same.
CLOSE - I think there’s something going on with Larry blocking certain things out from his childhood.  Maybe we need to get his wife Sam on the podcast and dig a little deeper.  Hope you enjoyed this episode.  I’ve missed you.  I have another summer episode to publish, hopefully it will be this summer of 2023.  Stay cool, stay hydrated for God’s sake stay hydrated and thank you for listening to the Modern Moron.  

Happy Holidays from The Modern Moron recorded this day, the 25th of November, 2022.  It’s Black Friday and there’s no place I would rather NOT be than a mall, A Walmart, a Best Buy or an Amazon.  Also, I literally got back from the grocery  store and I thought I was going to have to take out a Home Equity Loan.  I just paid over $5 for a dozen eggs.  What the ever-loving- @##$%?  At what point is it going to  be …. That’ll b e a dollar…. Another dollar…. Okay, two for one.  Thanks Grandpa Joe… for all the inflation.  It’s your fault.  Your fault there’s global inflation.  Whatever country your in, it’s that political leader’s fault that there is global inflation.  If you live in Canada, Thanks Trudeau.  If you live in China, thanks JinPing.  Great Britain’s revolving door… thanks Sunak.  Or can we still blame Boris Johnson?  Thanks Bo-jo.  Or let's lay that on Liz Truss!  She was only there 50 days, it’s all her fault.  Thanks Liz.  
But let’s stay in Great Britain, because…
My guest is the Senator’s daughter who has been on this show multiple times, this time from Edinburgh, Scotland!  She is attending the University of Edinburgh getting her Master’s degree in Art History.  We talk about: 
How wonderful and nice the people of Scotland are, dispelling the U.S. notion that everyone there is groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons.   The Art History Masters degree she is achieving specifically is in accessibility, and as I said in the previous episode, we’re not talking ramps and wider doorways, but accessibility in a broader sense.  Is it accessible to all social classes, ethnicities and cultures and are they all represented in art museums?  We talk about those little plaques next to the artwork that I almost never read.  Are they accessible to all?  I bring up something used in internet web content design and development called the Hemingway app.  Hemingway’s style of writing, as  you may already know, is very concise and direct.  There’s not a lot of flowery language in it which allowed him to get to the point more quickly.  It’s very efficient.  And now… there’s an app for that.  And it’s called hemingwayapp.com .  It’s free.  You go there, paste in your composition, or write in the page and the app will analyze your writing as you go.  It will highlight areas where your sentences and paragraphs can be made more simple. We talk about her roommates in her flat… there’s 5 of em!  She brings up the term “Cultural Capitol” which is a theory created by this french guy Pierre Bordieu who was a French sociologist and public intellectual.  Seriously?  There’s an occupation called Public Intellectual?  What’s the annual salary of a Public Intellectual.  I’m a private intellectual.  I’m the most intellectual person in my bathroom at any given time. Back to Cultural Capital.  I’m going to read you a few sentences about Cultural capital and the sentences are a little too complex to be comprehended by some individuals, which lowers their Cultural capital and creates further inaccessibility.  Inaccessibility to knowledge.  Confused?  Me too.
Cultural capital is defined as the social assets of a person that can be used to increase one's chances of success in life. These assets can be either tangible, such as clothes or educational certificates, or intangible, such as knowledge or life experiences. While everyone has some form of cultural capital, those from higher social classes tend to have more of it. This is because they have greater access to resources that can help them develop their skills and talents. Additionally, they are more likely to inherit cultural capital from their families.
Cultural capital is not a static concept; it can change over time as people gain or lose access to resources. For example, someone from a lower social class who manages to get a college degree has increased their cultural capit

Welcome to NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!  I’m Bill Curtis… Today’s episode titled “Wait Wait Don't’ Tell me it’s not Wait Wait Don’t Tell but actually The Modern Moron…”  I’m still Bill Curtis and here’s your host of the Modern Moron… who is neither straight form a Hemingway Novel nor from the Sea… please welcome, The Old Man…
Thank you Bill Curtis for that lovely introduction of The Modern Moron and The Old Man dot Show.  I know what you’re asking yourself right now and the answer is yes, you can now find The Modern Moron on NPR by simply going to NPR dot ORG in your browser and then typing “The Modern Moron dot COM” into that same browser.
This is part 2 of my conversation with my LA friend Larry Dorf.  Larry is my personal version of an Albert Brooks type and I tell him so.  I have a couple of those in my life and Larry is one of them.  He’s a little… how do I say this… particular?  A little particular about how certain things are.  And somehow, to me, it’s endearing and entertaining.  I love it.  Maybe it’s the Goldylocks syndrome
In the beginning of our conversation and a little bit into it, Larry… who I may earn the nickname “Goldylocks” for this show, has a little trouble getting comfortable as we chat about his son and dealing with his comic antics in the classroom.  
We talk post pandemic virtual connecting via zoom and MicroSoft Teams if you’re at work perhaps, and the requirements for an actor auditioning for roles and how that has changed drastically.  Whereas before, if you had an audition, they would send you the part of the script they wanted you to read, commonly called “the sides”, you would memorize the lines, go into the studio or casting office and read with the casting agent, where they would record you on camera and submit that to the producers, the director and the show runner.  But now, you’re expected to be able to record yourself, at home and submit electronically.  This means you need to find someone to read the other parts, off camera, while you’re recording yourself.  The upside is that you can do as many takes as you want and send in the best take, but you also don’t have the opportunity to take direction from the casting director if they see something and would like to give you some direction.
So Larry tells me about the challenges of auditioning post pandemic, and he drops a line that starts out as something that could be a great quote that you might hear from a great author or philosopher, and to me, it’s one of those gems I can only get from my friend Larry.  But as I’m giving him a bad  time about it, I mention the great author of Moby Dick, James Melville.  Only there is no James Melville… it’s Herman Mellville.  So in the moment that I am criticizing someone in their lack of eloquence, I boldly show what an idiot I am by calling Herman Melville, James Melville.
And you know what?  I could have edited it out… I’m sorry had someone edit it out, we have a staff here at The Modern Moron.    But then it wouldn’t be the Modern Moron.  This is exactly why the show has it’s name.  
We get to the meat of this episode when Larry tells me about an audition he had recently for a show on HBO Max about the Los Angeles Lakers during the 80’s, the era that I believe was called “Showtime” but since there’s a cable channel with that name already, the show on HBO is called,  “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” about  Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabar, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Kurt Rambis,  their coach Pat Riley, and owner Dr. Jerry Buss.  One of the Executive Producers, and the writer of the first episode is Adam McKay, who has created so many great movies, we should do a whole episode on him and his partner Will Farrell.  The only problem is… I don’t get HBO.  Rats.  I’m a cable cutter and HBO is one luxury I have to live without… for now.
Larry tells

Welcome to another episode of The Modern Moron… my guest is producer, writer, actor Larry Dorf, yes, that Larry Dorf.  We have a very light early fall chat about a few subjects, namely: 
We talk a little about some of the Modern Moron’s more successful shows, one being on Phil Hendrie and his mastery of deception with his characters improvising with each other and his work on various animation projects from King of the Hill to Rick and Morty.  
I refer to a story Larry told about an audition he had where he was being asked to play NBA legend Larry Bird’s father, a story I will get to next time.  I’m sort of giving you this conversation backwards and here’s why.
Larry Brings up Adnan Syed, who has been released from prison after doing 20 years for a murder he did not commit.  His story was made famous by a podcast called “Serial” which was developed by “This American Life” that you know from NPR.  The podcast “Serial” is owned however, by The New York Times.
You already know I’m a moron, so you won’t be surprised to find that I am way late to the party on damn near everything and such is the case with the show “Only Murders In The Building”, which is a show about a podcast about a murder.  It’s on Hulu and is into production of it’s 4th season and I’m told that the show was based on the real podcast “Serial”.  I didn’t realize how much… you hear that?  That’s the theme music of the podcast “Serial” about Adnan Syed…
And this… is the theme song to the Hulu series, “Only Murders in the Building”... Jezz, they could have at leas changed the key it’s played in right?
This brings up a subject I’ve been wanting to get to for some time and it’s the concept of the Morally Dubious Podcaster.  It probably has other names, but i found an article with that phrase and I thought, “Morally Dubious?  Modern Moron”  They’re synonymous. I read an article, have an unqualified opinion about it, say it into a microphone, bam; Morally dubious podcaster.  Only I’m not a celebrity and I don’t have guests who are celebrities so, there’s only the two of you listening and it works out about the same, just on a much, much smaller scale.  Plus I’m not pretending to try and crack a cold case or find a murderer.  
So, Larry explains to me the case of Adnon Syed, and I’m oblivious as you can hear… like a typical old man, I can’t seem to get the story straight… 
Then Larry turns this into a potential gameshow along the lines of, “How much prison time would you do for a million dollars?”   This is what Hollywood people do for a living.
We join our conversation basking in the glory of the first episode Larry did with us called “The Mystery of Mike Tyson” referring to the Adult Swim Animated series “Mike Tyson Mysteries” which is still our most downloaded episode.  Until this one… 
CLOSE - And that, friends, is how a game show is created…  in South Korea.  Isn’t that a little like the show “Squidgame”?  I couldn’t stick with that show… it was too sad and dark for me.  I have enough of that crap running around in my head without watching a tv show about it.  
Now that I’ve had two seconds to think about it, I would not do any time in a prison for any amount of money.  The subculture that goes on in prison is not something I want to pretend like I could tolerate even for a minute.  I did look up some of the lovely prisons both in California and across the country.  Pelican Bay and San Quentin are both nasty, gnarly prisons and so is the downtown county jail in Los Angeles.  Other residences I would not spend a minute in for any amount of money is the ADX, also known as the SuperMax in Colorado.  One article I read on the internet-so-it’s-true… says that the structure is built in a way that inmates never see a guard or another prisoner.  I don’t know if it’s true, I don’t want to know, I just trust

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Moron dated October 10th 2022, which means we’ll be talking about events from at least two months ago.
I’m going to try something new in that I’m not spending so much time on this episode.  My guest is the Senator which is like Conan O’brien saying his guest is Andy Richter, but he brings up a couple of things with no real background or insight or explanation.  He just saw a show for 30 seconds which is more than enough to have an opinion about, whereas I take the due diligence of watching for at least 5 minutes.  We recorded on Friday and I’m publishing on Monday.
Here are a few things we cover:
Gas Prices - Especially in California where there are stricter environmental laws and also, summer and winter blends.  The Winter blend usually isn’t available until November but apparently there will be an early harvest of the gasoline trees out here and they will start in early to mid October.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved the switch from summer-blend gas to cheaper winter-blend gas. He wrote a letter to the California Air resources Board requesting the switch and here is a quote: 
“In light of the dramatic increase in gas prices that California is experiencing, we should not wait until the end of the month to start distributing or to ramp up production of our winter-blend gasoline.  Also, please keep producing the special higher octane fuel I need for my batmobile.  Thank  you.” That is from a letter from Newsom to the California Air Resources Board.
Something else to note about gas prices in California is that we have to refine our own gas due to those restrictions.  There are no pipelines running from East to West at least not west of the Rocky mountains to my extensive, extensive  knowledge.
Governor De Santis sending immigrants to Martha’s Vinyard - yes, this story is extremely old but the topic isn’t and I don’t really have a problem with it.  I still don’t care for De Santis and using unfortunate people who are looking for a better life to make a point is not okay, but I don’t see why all of the lower 48 states can’t participate in sharing the load of the influx of immigrants at our border. Boston is a sanctuary city that is two thousand miles away from the Mexican border.  After a quick and uniformed check of the immigration statistics for Boston from The Immigrant Learning Center dot-org, the top ten immigrant groups are: China, The Dominican Republic, India, Haiti, Brazil, El Salvador, Vietnam, Canada, Guatemala and Cape Verde which is a group of islands in the Atlantic.
The Senator mentions that he enjoys Skinny dipping in his pool - ew. 
For some reason he reminds us numerous times that he has a “second home” up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Remember when Pee Wee’s Playhouse used to have a secret word and when someone said it, everyone would scream?  Today’s word is a phrase and  it’s “second home”
Flavored Bourbon.  Both the type you buy and the kind you can make at home!  That’s a fun home project.  
We talk a little about Football and why one might boycott it, and also news sources.  For purposes of this show I usually site the source but if I don’t and I say I read something, it probably means I read it on the Associated Press, Reuters or the Wall Street Journal.  If I say I heard something, it was probably NPR.  
And then… here’s a great  topic for two irrelevant, pasty old white guys to talk about: Kanye West.  The Senator has gotten in the habit of bringing up a topic without doing any research and by research I mean reading the whole article or following up on some basic who, what, where stuff and then he goes off half cocked and then says, “I don’t know, I thought it was interesting, and you should look that up and blah, blah, blah.”  Well, I watched some of the interview between Kanye West and Tucker Carlson and I can tell you I’m not really interested in either