Completely Conspicuous

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we discuss presidential candidates, the '70s and regional differences.

Show notes:

- New England is not representative of the rest of the country

- Christian's ideal place to live: DC

- The '70s were a fascinating time in the U.S.

- Hip hop and punk grew out of mid-'70s NYC

- The Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi

- Lee Atwater, bluesman

- The momentum of Trump

- Last summer, Jeb Bush was a lead pipe cinch

- Christian: Used to go to CPAC every year

- What about Hillary?

- How does a president get anything done?

- Firmly on the fence

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we discuss racism, political correctness and gentrification. You know, the lighter side of life.

Show notes:

- Political correctness on both sides of the aisle

- Literary archetypes reflect cultural fears

- The Trump Method: Repeat your point until people agree with you

- The Washington football team sticks to its guns

- Could All in the Family and Blazing Saddles come out today?

- No safe space for satire

- It's hard to talk about race these days

- Lamenting the closing of local rock clubs

- The upper crust and the townies

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we discuss the differences between the North and the South.

Show notes:

- Christian grew up in Texas

- The tension between North and South is still around

- The Cuban Connection

- Ted Cruz's attempts at humor

- Batshit crazy election season

- The Trump effect

- It's still the economy, stupid

- A brown dude in New Hampshire

- Canada welcomed a generation of immigrants in the '70s and '80s

- Sri Lankan and Samoan street gangs

- Jay: Toronto was the most diverse place I've lived

- Christian: Was ignorant of the North as a kid

- The OJ Simpson miniseries is pretty fun

- Southern stereotypes are strong up North

- A formal level of ignorance

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1983.

Show notes:

- Recorded via Skype

- Check out Brian's new podcast Input/Output

- Brian's #3

- Jonathan Richman forges his own path

- A great year for singles

- Jay's #3

- Metallica helped introduce thrash metal

- Brian's #2

- Post-Eno Talking Heads is still pretty damn good

- Jay's #2

- The Replacements start stretching out their sound

- Don't have high hopes for the GNR tour

- Whither Izzy Stradlin?

- Brian's #1

- Great debut for Violent Femmes

- Jay's #1

- Jay: First heard R.E.M. on their Letterman appearance

- Stipe was still in his shy phase

- Peter Buck's a busy guy

- A lot of beginnings in 1983

- Next up: 1999

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1983.

Show notes:

- Recorded via Skype

- Check out Brian's new podcast Input/Output

- Jay: Talking Heads, Robert Plant, Billy Idol, X, Motorhead, The Fixx, The Kinks

- Lemmy and Brian Robertson didn't get along

- "Come Dancing" is a great pop song

- Brian's #5

- First exposure to Bowie music

- Greg Dulli's great take on "Modern Love"

- Binging on Bowie

- Jay's #5

- The Police go out on top...and fighting

- The Sting and Peter Gabriel tour could be interesting...or bad

- Brian's #4

- The interesting story of Daniel Johnston

- Jay's #4

- The American breakthrough for U2

- Jay: U2 was my favorite band through some of the '80s

- Recent Paris concert was pretty good

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1983.

Show notes:

- Recorded via Skype

- Check out Brian's new podcast Input/Output

- In '83, Brian turned 1, Jay turned 16

- A lot of classic '80s singles came out in '83

- From Men at Work to Metallica

- Thriller loomed large

- Strange mix of hits on the top 100

- CDs were first sold in the U.S.

- The US Festival was a huge event

- Brian recommends the Eagles documentary

- The Strummer-Jones dynamic led to breakup of the Clash

- KISS took off the makeup

- Elton John had minor hits throughout the '80s

- Aerosmith was fading

- Brian: Stevie Ray Vaughan's debut

- Jay: Ronnie James Dio strikes out on his own while Sabbath forges on with Ian Gillan

- Brian: SST comp Blasting Concepts was a good intro to punk

- Dinosaur Jr.'s recent 30th anniversary shows

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss short attention spans.

Show notes:

- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3

- Fear of wasting time or fear of missing out?

- Phone calls are rare and annoying

- Tinder = instantaneous hookups

- Jay: Thankful to have been in the dating Dark Ages

- Guys are born stupid

- Telephone hangups used to be way more dramatic

- How often do you just hang out with a friend and talk?

- Writing letters is a lost art

- Friends who aren't on social media are lost or forgotten

- How much faster can life get?

- We still slow down occasionally

- Nothing slows you down like a baby falling asleep on you

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss short attention spans.

Show notes:

- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3

- Spending too much time in front of screens

- Much harder to get through long articles nowadays

- How many words are worth $1?

- Looking at phone is how we kill time

- Smoking made Matt more social

- A generation of socially inept people

- Binge-watching TV requires more attention

- Longer network TV seasons seem so much longer now

- The Punisher is a tough character to get right

- Hell hath no fury like a nerd upset over something stupid

- Gotta pay attention when there are subtitles

- Anime moves too fast

- Audiences can't deal with slow scenes any more

- As a writer, Matt writes shorter chapters

- Short attention span applies to music listening

- Matt: If I had an iPhone as a kid, I would never have read a book

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss short attention spans.

Show notes:

- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3

- The inevitable joke

- MP: The more novels I write, the shorter my attention span gets

- Live-tweeting TV shows takes some effort

- Trace back to quick cuts in MTV videos of the early '80s

- Wireless Internet has sped up the attention decline

- Twitter mulls expanding character limit to 10,000

- The fine art of crafting an effective tweet

- News of Bowie's death spread fast on social media

- What a way to go out, leaving a great piece of art behind

- It's hard to sustain a long career these days

- How to teach your kids about music

- Dumbo doesn't hold up

- Matt: New Star Wars is an homage to the original, but much faster

- So much more dialog in TV shows now

- HBO's In Therapy was different because much of it was just two people talking

- Elmore Leonard mastered economical writing

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of the first half of this decade (2010-14).

Show notes:

- JB's #5

- Dan Bejar's guilty pleasure

- JK's #5

- Band came out of left field

- JB's #4

- Dream pop classic

- JK's #4

- Comeback album from alt-rock legends

- JB's #3

- Cassette-only release

- JK's #3

- Prolific artist put it all together

- JB's #2

- Veteran hardcore guitar god goes folk rock

- JK's #2

- Sprawling punk rock concept album about the Civil War

- JB's #1

- An epic from a band just dropped by its label

- JK's #1

- First Matador act to hit #1 on album chart

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.