The Alex and John Show?

11.29.11 - The A&J Show - Ep. 22: Evan Davis and J-L Cauvin!

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Key Take-Away Notes: It's an A&J stand-up spectacular featuring interviews and set selections from New York comics Evan Davis and J-L Cauvin. You can learn more about J-L by vising his website and following his Twitter feed (@jlcauvin). He's basically a hunk. And if Evan piques your interest, here's a video of him performing, handsomely. And just so you know: the opinions expressed in this episode (especially the strident ones) are not in any way directed against J-L, who is, in the official opinion of John, a perfectly nice guy. (Alex has never met him, but John thinks Alex would like him if he did meet him.)

Evan's segment of this episode runs from 6:15 to 28:29, and J-L's runs from 28:30 to 1:04:20. Also:

Potty Mouth Alert: I didn't censor anybody in this episode, because I figured, hey, you know what? You're all adults. You know what you're getting into.

The A&J Show - Episode 21 - Alison Agosti!

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Key Take-Away Notes: Folks, this is a big one. Twitter phenom and all-around nice gal Alison Agosti lets us into her world, and boy howdy, there is no furniture in there, and nothing in the fridge. But it's still fun! For those of you pressed for time - and I know you're all very busy people - the straight dope starts at 14:51. That's when we start grilling Alison on her life choices.

And don't forget to follow Alison on Twitter, which you probably already do, but if you don't, you should! Oh, and you can subscribe to this show and follow our scintillating Twitter feed too if you'd like, but hey, no pressure, people.

The A&J Show - Episode 20: The Big 3-0

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:54:00 +0000

Key Take-Away Notes: Episode 20 of A&J is all about what it means to turn 30, and features the insightful, reflective musings of five guests who are really, really old. Also, Alex reveals that he was, while still a child, constitutionally incapable of learning how to write. How little has changed.

The A&J Show - Ep. 19 - It's Electric

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:43:00 +0000

Key Take-Away Notes: We intended to introduce a new segment in this episode, but we just had way too much stuff to get off of our heaving chests. It's a return to the unmoored musings that made A&J the #1 podcast of 2011 according to everybody. Really, really important stuff in here. Also, the episode was (intentionally) deceptively edited to suggest that when Alex plays trivia, he plays trivia alone. This is false. He plays trivia in a group environment.

3.4.11 - The A&J Show - Episode 2.2

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:26:00 +0000

Alex and John are swept out by the tide of technical difficulties, leaving time for a fundraising announcement from public radio and the premier of a new A&J segment, Space Face with Andrew (originally recorded a few weeks ago, for you space sticklers out there).

1.6.11 - The A&J Show - Episode 2.1

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 05:35:00 +0000

Episode Guide: A&J's Show was renewed for a second season, and here's the first episode! What's the good news? It's short. That's the good news. Thanks for asking.

1.1.11 - The A&J Show - The First Annual New Year's Eve Spectacular!

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Episode Notes: May all your 2011 dreams come true. Ours sure did. Ruminations from one year ago on art, whether Avatar is art, and Evan's top-ten science fiction films of all time. (Not on the list: Bicentennial Man.) Max also explains why Star Wars is one of his favorite WWII movies, while John struggles to keep up.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The return...

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:54:00 +0000

...is imminent.

10.6.10 - The A&J Show - Ep. 1.15 - Jackie!

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:29:00 +0000

Episode notes: Guess who's back? Well, we're back with a big one. This extremely special episode of The Alex and John Show features an interview with about 67% of Jackie, a group of Washington DC's greatest improvisers. Jackie performs at the Washington Improv Theater, or "WIT" in government jargon. Even at a fraction of their normal strength, they are fantastic.

You can find much more info on WIT by clicking here, and you can learn more about Jackie by going here. Or by visiting your local library. You should actually probably just stick to the links.

Full Episode:

We need advice

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:30:00 +0000

A&J has been in a funk recently. Fortunately, the google has answers.

5.12.10 - The Alex and John Show - Episode 1.14

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Episode notes: Since the last episode was so structured, we decided to get back to our roots. This episode is nonsense. But it does feature John meditating on loss, and Alex talking about his dietary habits and reflecting on his return to stand-up comedy. Also featured is an A&J Special Report live from the Washington, DC premier of "Birdemic: Shock and Terror." It's the best episode since the last one.

Episode guide, for your convenience:

Meditation on loss: right up front
Alex returns to stand-up: 2:37 and 15:46
Dietary habits: 10:10
Birdemic: Shock and Terror: 25:09

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

British update

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:57:00 +0000

New prime minister, but country still hard to take seriously. Why? Floridation.

About last night

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:42:00 +0000

I had a dream in which I battled some kind of vampire-zombie character whose greatest fear was that it would have to pay property taxes on its house. I was armed with a spatula. I have a vivid recollection of me hitting the vampire-zombie with the spatula as it moved towards me menacingly, all while shouting, "I'll make you pay the property taxes! I'll make you pay the property taxes!"

Mental stability incarnate, folks.

- John

An important programming note

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Dear reader (readers?),

I'm writing today to announce some changes to A&J. (Don't tell Alex - I didn't inform him of the changes.) Basically, when Alex and I started this little project, we had two goals in mind: 1) produce a periodic, funny podcast, and 2) get super famous. As soon as the blog was started, however, I began compulsively putting things on it, and inviting others to do the same, which turned A&J into a blog/podcast. The problem was that while other contributors would add original material, I more often than not would simply throw up stuff that other people had done, or link to YouTube videos that were already well known - although to my great credit, I never put up the keyboard cat video, the appeal of which I fail to grasp.

It has since occurred to me that the people who make a dent in the fast-paced world of online media are the ones who a) produce a regular or semi-regular product, and b) ensure that it's original and of high-quality. I'm thinking of Homestar Runner, Glenn Greenwald, Hyperbole and a Half, and Google.

I have to admit that I have a disturbing history re: online plagiarism. My first venture into digital publishing came in high school when I started a GeoCities webpage. It consisted entirely of links to hyper-dominant websites like Yahoo! and CNN.com. I pitched it to my friends as some kind of a "web portal" that would enable visitors to streamline their online experience. It might sound absurd, but that didn't stop the venture capitalists from knocking down my door (it was 1998, after all). My site IPOed, soared, then sunk when the Wall Street Journal reported that my business model was built around the idea that if venture capitalists gave me money, I would be happier. In retrospect, this idea isn't that different from the system our economy is currently built on, but still. Not cool.

So here's what we're going to start doing at A&J: the first thing is that we're going to shift the focus back to the semi-regular podcast, which was our original intent. And secondly, to the extent that anything gets blogged about, we're going to institute a strict "no free-rider" policy, which means that 100% of our material on the site will be original stuff. Let's lower that bar a bit. 90% will be original material. Admittedly, I'm not really sure what a "regular" product looks like, let alone one of "high quality" or "originality." What these three ideas would look like smooshed together is hence entirely beyond me. But we'll try. Why else would people visit the site, after all? For charity? No, wait, that's a real question - is charity a business model?

Sincerely,
Alex and John

A&J EXCLUSIVE: Matthew Lesko Supports Socialist Obama Regime, Free Parking

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 07 May 2010 21:03:00 +0000

Washington, DC - Those of us who have the pleasure of living in our nation's capitol know that Hyper-Commie Matthew Lesko, the Government Giveaway Guru, is totally for reals. You remember Matthew Lesko, right? He's the biggest lefty since Engels, the guy who said he would show you how to get free government money - $15,000 to open up a coffee shop, or $10,000 to write a novel! (You know, that novel you've been working on.)Well, Matthew lives in the DC area, and he's often seen around town, sporting his classic question-mark jacket and driving a signature question-mark car.

Well today, A&J spotted that very vehicle, and obtained exclusive photographic evidence that Lesko supports the socialist Obama regime. And why wouldn't he? Both he and the president, Barack "Che" Obama, are all about the government cheese.

Lesko's vehicle

Damning evidence #1

Damning evidence #2

Predictably, Lesko also believes that everything should be socialized - even parking. Hence, he had pulled the classic "broken meter" trick:

Oh come on.

Yeah Matthew - we're sure you tried REAL hard.

WHEN IS THIS MADNESS GOING TO STOP??? WHERE ARE YOU ON THIS STORY, GLENN BECK AND SEAN HANNITY? WHEN IS SOMEBODY GOING TO SPEAK WITHOUT FEAR???!!!

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Just to be clear: if you actually believe that a politician who took over $77,000 from BP is a socialist just because he thinks that insurance executives shouldn't be allowed to let people die so that they can buy an eighth yacht, then Lesko will show you how to get $20,000 from the government for a reality check.

DOUBLE DISCLAIMER: Lesko appears to be staunchly against the Obama administration's fiscal agenda, which means that he could very well be against Obama too, which in turn means that he has been carjacked. Please email A&J if you have any details about Matthew Lesko's whereabouts.

Babies

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:46:00 +0000

Who said conception can't be fun?

NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH AN ACTUAL ECONOMY

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:00:00 +0000

"The machines broke down." That's what Jim Cramer said in explaining why Proctor&Gamble suddenly dropped a bunch of points, and then immediately rebounded. Later on, speculation focused on human error, a trader who accidentally entered a "b" instead of an "m" leading to the sale of billions of shares instead of millions of shares. This precipitated a massive sell-off of stocks market-wide, leading to a temporary plunge in the Dow of 900 points.

I took a micro-economics course once. My teacher taught us about marginal utility using donut holes. Turns out the volunteer who went to the front of the classroom stopped wanting to eat donut holes after about 12 or 13. The "marginal utility" of his donut hole enjoyment was decreasing with each new hole. And whoosh! We had all learned a new concept. That made sense. I get a B+ in the class.

Then I tried to take macro-economics. As he was handing back the mid-terms, my econ teacher explained that the scores had ranged between a 22 and somewhere in the 90s. I got a 46. I took the test into the men's room and went into a stall and closed the door. I looked at it again, and added up all of the point deductions. Yup. It added up to 54 points. Although I had just gotten an F- on my midterm, I was pretty sure this wasn't good. I marched on over to the deans office and traded in the F- for a "withdraw" on my transcript.

What's the point of this?

A) Economics taught me not to gorge myself on anything, because in the end, it isn't worth it.

B) I am completely inept, but even I know that back in the day, economies consisted of people trading goods and services. WE NOW LIVE IN A NATION WHERE PEOPLE CAN LOSE OR MAKE MASSIVE SUMS OF MONEY BECAUSE OF TYPOS.

What the hell is going on.

Run the numbers

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:00:00 +0000

That saucy baby in the E-Trade commercials always encourages me to "do some analytics" so that I can take charge of my investment portfolio. So today, I decided to spend a minute trying to figure out if I could ever become somebody who was either well read or well movie-watched.

How many books are published each year in the world? Well, according to UNESCO, which is staffed largely by a special United Nations team of strike-force librarians who can be deployed anywhere in the world within minutes, it's just north of 1 million books, on average, per year. Let's say I live for 50 years, and read one book per day. This is, of course, completely ludicrous because a) no way I'm making it 50 years based on my daily consumption of Ramen noodles, and b) I currently read about 1 book per year, but again, this is all about doing the analytics to make the baby happy, so let's forget all that.

So if I read one book per day for 50 years, I will have read (here comes the analytic part).....18,250 books in 50 years. During that same period, around 50 million books will have been published (assuming that current rates remain consistent, which is a big assumption what with Steve Jobs out there destroying industries with a wave of his hand like the digital Jedi he is, but anyway). Here's a visual representation of the ensuing discrepancy:

Click to enlarge. It doesn't change the ratios, unfortunately.

See that puddle on the left? That's me. Mount Everest on the right is the book industry. Not much of a fight here.

So what about movies? Well, according to this random Wiki website I found, somewhere around 5,000 movies are made each year. Once again, if I watched a movie every single day for 50 years, I would watch 18,250 movies over a time period during which 250,000 will have been produced. Here's the visual:

Effed.

This one looks a little better until you realize it's still a disaster. The only solution, as far as I can tell, is for me to see movies based exclusively on books, which would theoretically double my productivity. But even so, there's no way around it: I am destined to be a profoundly, stunningly ignorant person. I have no hope of ever consuming even a tiny fraction of the art and media produced by my fellow Spaceship Earth passengers during the course of my lifetime. And of course, this excludes all the other kinds of stuff out there: music, magazines, newspapers, television, blogs, painting, sculpture, spoken word, the trips that Bjork's boyfriend makes, those cybernetic wireless information transfers that are just around the corner. It's also purely forward-looking. Think about how many books and blogs and articles have already been written, how many movies already made. Just imagine trying to do the analytics on that.

That baby needs to chill.

Everything the British do is funny

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:03:00 +0000

So here are two political "adverts" from two of Britain's most famous comedians, John Cleese and Eddie Izzard.

First, here's Cleese in 1983 advocating for proportional representation, an idea which is so logical and elementary that it's no wonder we would never consider implementing it here in America:

And here's Izzard in 2010 endorsing the Labor Party, which is inexplicably called the "Labour Party" over there, which makes England look absurd, and which in turn explains why they never did adopt proportional representation as their voting system:

The connection between these two videos is the fact that although they are separated by nearly 23 years, both gentlemen feel compelled to acknowledge that their audience is probably going to get so board that it will go make itself a cup of tea. That's actually true - in both videos, the making of tea is suggested as the most likely activity that a disinterested public would turn to. This, in turn, is intriguing because (lest we forget) England once controlled about 25 percent of the world's territory, and yet as far as available evidence suggests, the people of that great isle literally do nothing except harrumph at the tele and drink Earl Grey.

Which leaves them with plenty of time to watch things like this:

And now for something completely different.

Alex has a new way of eating

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:32:00 +0000

"I'm laughing because crying would be sad."

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:08:00 +0000

That's what Conan said during his 60 Minutes interview. What it shows is that Conan is funny. An additional truth - and I don't really think I'm going out on a limb here - is that Conan is also a lot funnier than The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien was. I'm not going to claim that Conan's show should have been canceled. It's quite possible that he needed more time to hit his stride. But something wasn't really working. Perhaps it was the fact that some of his bawdier bits had been eliminated. Perhaps it was the pressure to play to a national audience. But the show consisted of pretty lame monologues and lackluster gags. In fact, the biggest laughs usually came from Conan spontaneously riffing on the wanting nature of his own prepared material.

Comedy is filled with situations like this, in which very funny people are put in artificial situations that make them way less funny. I would argue that it's better to be yourself in front of a small audience than to be a dull version of yourself in front of a large one. Maybe that's what is going to happen with Conan's move to TBS.

And that, by the way, is exactly why The Alex and John Show is so happy to have an audience of only seven people. If we got any bigger, we would have no choice but to sell out.

5.1 - The Alex and John Show - TAL Episode!

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Sat, 01 May 2010 21:47:00 +0000

Episode notes: A collection of favorite stories as told by our friends. This episode of The Alex and John Show is doubling as John's application to This American Life! Send Ira Glass alluring vibes.

Full Episode:

Bobby Jindal, unlike Obama, doesn't need a teleprompter

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:24:00 +0000

Not trying to make light of the situation in the Gulf that he's speaking about. I'm just saying, maybe we should all relax with the teleprompter stuff. Sometimes people need notes, is all. Deal, Republican Party? OK, deal.

The truth about cats and dogs

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:41:00 +0000

People really like de-fanging and domesticating nature, making it bend to our will and ascribe to our dumb specifications. When it comes to house pets, we expect no less. We took wolves, once a feared predator that ate our sheep and maybe even our children, and turned them into supine slobberers who think Frisbees are alive and literally answer to our beck and call. We tried to do the same thing with cats, in the hope that we could have miniature tigers and lions in our homes that would purr and cuddle with us, but still give us little chills and thrills by putting on tiny gladiatorial displays of their bestial prowess whenever they chase the laser pointer around the futon we're lazing on. But see, it didn't quite work, because the thing about cats is this: at the end of the day, they really don't care about anybody except themselves and other cats. Dogs are truly loyal, but that's just because they've had the individuality stripped out of them by thousands of years of unnatural breeding. But not cats. They're still fundamentally feral, even after we've taken away their naughty bits. Cats are killers. I don't care how long you've had your cat, or how much you think it loves you. At the end of the day, it would eat you in a heartbeat if it thought it was worth the effort. Case in point, this woman who was almost murdered by her cat (in her estimation).

My cat Pip (RIP, my man) once tried to kill me and everybody in my family in the middle of the night by turning on the gas in the kitchen. Why? God knows. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was sick of us serving him turkey giblets for dinner. Maybe he was a sociopath. He was also exceptionally cool, which is why a couple of murder one raps didn't phase him. He laughed at it, actually, cat-style. Did I mention he road a motorcycle? He did. A little one. The license plate read "EATMYFUR." This is all true.

Free speech rulez

noreply@blogger.com (The Alex and John Show) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:26:00 +0000

So here's my problem with the First Amendment to the American Constitution: it means that pretty much anybody can write a book. Here's an example: Ken Blackwell. He's a former Ohio Secretary of State who helped George W. Bush win a second term by making it harder for people who were likely to vote for John Kerry to vote for anybody.

So now, Ken goes a writes a book explaining how Obama is sucking the Precious Bodily Fluids out of our nation (i.e., subverting the Constitution and getting imperial with the presidency) because of his health care legislation. Absent in his account are the countless things that the Bush administration did to suck the Precious Bodily Fluids out of our nation - things like an explosion in the use of presidential signing statements, illegal and unconstitutional detentions, pre-emptive wars, warrantless wiretaps, the PATRIOT Act, and so forth.

This doesn't really have anything to do with partisanship. It's just a matter of integrity. If you care about opposing an undue expansion of presidential authority, there is plenty of substantive stuff to grill Obama on. But you can't a) criticize him for undermining the Constitution, and then b) ignore virtually everything Bush did to that effect, and then c) expect to be taken seriously by anybody who isn't as fundamentally un-serious as you are.

In other news, I have decided to write a book. Since, much like Ken Blackwell, I'll be doing it for the money, I've decided that the entire book will consist of nothing but a collection of donation forms stapled together. All you, the reader, will have to do is a) buy the collection of forms for $24.95 plus shipping and handling, and then b) fill them all out (each donation will also be for $24.95), and then c) mail them to me. And for all of you Kindle owners out there, if you could just deposit the money directly in my mailbox, that would be ideal. Because after all, isn't idealism what our Founding Fathers were all about?

For those who are interested, here's Ken, being a crazy pants:

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