My Pod Week: Week ending 8/17/14

Mike Flinn (@realmikeflinn) isn’t just a podcast producer and engineer; he’s also an avid fan of the form. “My Pod Week” recaps and reviews the many varied comedy podcasts Flinn listened to or attended live tapings of during the previous week. Enjoy!

TRUTH and ILIZA (#1 Joe Rogan)

“I’ve done sitcoms, I’ve hosted a reality show, I’ve done movies, they all suck compared to killing when you do stand-up.” Joe Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience is consistently at the top of the iTunes podcast charts. For a guy that has accomplished so much he has a real thirst for knowledge and his guests have ranged from athletes and authors to scientists and shaymen. Joe’s podcast also seems like a great way to keep his friends in comedy close. Friends like comedian Iliza Shlesinger, winner of the sixth season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and now host of her own podcast. First topic, the soul-crushing carnival game that is Hollywood. Iliza was at an open-mic show with a friend recently and she witnessed a musical duo that had been pursuing the dream since 2006. “Not knowing how far you are away from your goals is a scary thing.” Joe points out. “Hollywood is a magnet for people that have a hole in their soul that need to fill it up with other people’s attention.” The hopeful and the misinformed from all over the world come here trying to break into show business. If they land that dream gig on Dating Naked exposure is guaranteed but so are the STDs. Joe and Iliza talked about sci-fi religions and how, according to an Osmond Brothers album jacket, Mormons get their own planets when they die. Also, aviator John Travolta’s passion project from back in the year 2000, Battlefield Earth. It was based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s novel of the same name. According to Wikipedia, Travolta was a co-producer on the film and dumped millions of his own dollars into the production. Iliza then read a news story about researchers growing vaginas in a lab. Eight years ago the organs were created using cells from the patient’s existing tissue, they were successfully implanted, and report to be fully functional in every way. Science! This revelation led to an exploration of the human animal’s reproductive needs and how they dominate our modern world. Joe and Iliza are in agreement that beauty pageants are bullshit. Especially when judged by seemingly random celebrities like Rumer Willis and Sharknado superstar Ian Ziering. “I met him, he’s a nice guy.” “I’m sure, but I’ll be fucking damned if I’m gonna let him tell me that my ass isn’t good enough and therefore can’t sit with kids that are burn victims or whatever the fuck they do.” Iliza could not have picked a better guest for this inaugural episode. This is a show that I’ll keep coming back to.

DINING with DOUG and KAREN (#38: Jackie Kashian and Judith Jones)

Doug Benson and his longtime friend, TV writer Karen Anderson are joined for chatting and chewing by chef Judith Jones and comedian Jackie Kashian. This was a lunchtime episode. They usually record later in the day after Doug does his video podcast Getting Doug with High, a show I wrote about back in June. Judith was born in Paraguay but grew up in Newcastle, Wales. She took Doug, Karen, and Jackie on a “food tour” and represented her heritage to the fullest with dishes like Chipa Guasu and Welsh Cakes. When she brought out British Toad in the Hole Doug and Karen described the dish, “It’s like a topless chicken pot pie” — “it looks a little like slugs in there.” Karen thinks Judith must have a great life eating and cooking her way around the world as one of the hosts of Globetrekker (PBS). Having chefs cook for you while you do a podcast in a comic-book store sounds pretty OK to me as well. Jackie was born with congenital hunger and it hits her three times a day. She loves chicken and prefers cooking the whole bird rather than piecemeal parts with questionable freshness and integrity. Her “Chicken of the Gods” recipe for a roasted bird is simple enough even for me to follow. Cut chicken into parts, put parts in a pan with salt, pepper, and garlic. Then add a tiny dab of butter on each skin, cook at 400 degrees for about an hour. “What you have there is a perfectly roasted chicken.” She also suggested a variation not for the gluten free population. Take a loaf of french bread or rosemary garlic bread and bake the bird on top of it. Then you have chicken soaked bread “And you fucking eat the entire loaf of bread like a crazy person.” I think Jackie just laid out my Thanksgiving gameplan. Screw turkey, it’s Chicken of the Gods over bread or nothing! Jackie has a podcast called The Dork Forest where her guests talk about the things that they dork out on most, like recent guest W. Kamau Bell who took Kashian frame by frame through the movie Rocky. Doug has a podcast for everyone but I enjoy this one especially for the fun conversation and exposure to creative cooking. I’ve been a listener of this show for so long now that I hardly even jump anymore when Doug screams at Karen “WE’RE GONNA EAT!”

Mike Flinn is a podcast producer/engineer based in West Hollywood, Calif., for All Things Comedy. The views expressed in My Pod Week are purely his own.

Mike Flinn

After a brief and unsuccessful attempt at a conventional education Mike Flinn started a band in his hometown of San Diego, CA. In 1998 he moved to the San Francisco Bay area and founded Back From Booze Hell zine. It was a collaborative effort dispensing equal doses of pop culture and prose, and made it's way into independent bookstores in the Bay Area, New York, and Los Angeles. Playing in bars and self publishing did not pay the bills. I held, I mean Flinn held many jobs during those years, most of them in warehouses. Like Bukowski without the talent. At some point Flinn walked off the job at Costco, breaking his mothers heart. Things get a little "hazy" around this time. He was an actor for a few years and then went back to songwriting and performing. Let's just skip ahead. When not playing with his iPhone or on a trip to Trader Joe's to pick up salads you'll find him watching live comedy in Los Angeles, recording podcasts, and writing.

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