Sup Doc: A Documentary Podcast

On Episode 26 of Sup Doc Paco sits down with the hilarious comedian and podcast host (The Todd Glass Show) Todd Glass. They have a candid and funny talk about the 2008 Bill Maher documentary Religulous (available on Netflix) plus organized religion, treating people with respect, and how this documentary changed Todd.

In Religulous Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: "Jesus love you.") He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic.

Todd Glass' comedy is often satirical, sometimes irreverent but always funny. His television appearances are many and he has become a veritable fixture on Comedy Central. His podcast The Todd Glass Show is on The Nerdist podcasting network. http://twitter.com/ToddGlass

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Paco and George meet up with Hutch Harris at Lost Weekend Video where we discuss the Kathleen Hanna biography, The Punk Singer (Sini Anderson, 2013).

Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre, rose to national attention as the reluctant but never shy voice of the riot grrrl movement. She became one of the most famously outspoken feminist icons, a cultural lightning rod. Her critics wished she would just shut-up, and her fans hoped she never would. So in 2005, when Hanna stopped shouting, many wondered why. Through 20 years of archival footage* and intimate interviews with Hanna, THE PUNK SINGER takes viewers on a fascinating tour of contemporary music and offers a never-before-seen view into the life of this fearless leader.

Hutch Harris was born in New York City, raised in Silicon Valley, and has resided in Portland, Oregon for the past eighteen years. Harris founded and is the lead singer/songwriter of Portland post-pop-punk band The Thermals. In thirteen years, the band has toured fifteen countries, released six records, and is currently set to release their seventh LP "We Disappear" March 25, 2016 via Saddle Creek. In addition to his illustrious music career, Harris is a rapidly up-and-coming comic in the vibrant Portland comedy scene. He has performed stand up in Portland at Helium, Midnight Ma$$, It's Gonna Be OK, Picture This, Keep it Like A Secret and Control Yourself, in Los Angeles at Church, ASSSCAT (UCB Sunset) and Hot Tub, Too Much Fun in Denver, and Cynic Cave in San Francisco.

Kathleen storytelling at Our Hit Parade 2010

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On EP 24 Paco and George talk with filmmaker Marjorie Sturm about her documentary The Cult of JT LeRoy. We talk about JT Leroy's first two novels Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and we get into hero worship, cons, Rachel Dolezal, improvisation, filmmaking and much more.

Authorized and unauthorized, The Cult of JT Leroy received two Jury Awards for Best Feature Documentary (SF IndieFest and Oslo/Fusion International) in 2015 and played at top-tier festivals around the world. Ethically charged, controversial, and confusing, JT’s life and death sprang open a Pandora’s box of powerful questions about literature and culture, identity and celebrity, and the reality of the society we live in. Fraud? Art? Sociopathy? Complicity? The Cult of JT Leroy is a testament to this bizarre and elaborate story that has captured the attention of the world’s media and perplexes to this day.

Jeremiah "Terminator" LeRoy was a literary persona created in 1994 by American writer Laura Albert. LeRoy was supposedly born October 31, 1980 in West Virginia. His backstory was one of prostitution, drug addiction, and vagrancy in California. After his first novel Sarah was published, "LeRoy" started making public appearances. A January 2006 article in The New York Times declared that the person acting as LeRoy in public was Albert's sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop. Knoop wrote her own memoir of the experience called Girl Boy Girl. An Albert-endorsed documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig, Author: The JT LeRoy Story, premiered at Sundance 2016.

Marjorie Sturm is an award-winning filmmaker whose films span a broad perspective: narrative, documentary, and experimental. She was an interviewer, cinematographer, and Bay Area media wrangler for the 99%-Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film which premiered at Sundance in 2013. She received the Grand Festival Award at Berkeley Video and Film Festival for her short narrative "Smoke the Pipe Dream." Sturm has created social activism videos for Consumers Union and worked as a social worker with the mentally ill homeless in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Sturm studied Psychology at the University of Michigan, and received her MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University. She is the younger sibling of the graphic novelist James Sturm and the painter/photographer Ilona Sturm. Sturm lives in San Francisco with composer Ernesto Diaz-Infante and their two children.

(the list of writers recommended by Michelle Tea can be found here at The Bold Italic)

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On EP23 Paco, George, and producer Will talk with comedian/podcaster Red Scott about Making A Murderer, the Netflix doc that took America by storm! Questions will be half answered, jokes will be told, and nothing will be solved!

Exonerated after spending nearly two decades in prison for a crime he did not commit, Steven Avery filed suit against Manitowoc County, Wis., and several individuals involved with his arrest. Shortly after, however, Avery found himself behind bars again, this time accused of the murder of 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach. She was last seen on Avery's property, where she was to photograph a vehicle. Avery and nephew Brendan Dassey were tried and (spoiler alert) convicted of the crime. But that's not the end of the story. When Columbia graduate students Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos read about Avery, they felt his story would make an interesting documentary. And they were right!

Growing up in San Jose, CA, Red Scott never saw things the same way as other kids; he thought he was cool. Born in the early 80s, he established himself as a trend-setter — fat, asthmatic, and socially inept years before Asperger’s was a syndrome or obesity an epidemic. On his way to finding the stage, Red had several diversions, ranging from working as a Software Developer to delivering for Pizza Hut in South Central Los Angeles. Red combines obscure and outdated references with the crazed insistence of a mental patient.

His act encompasses everything from politics to absurdism to wordplay, all combined with deft crowd work. When not on stage, Red explores the myriad of ways an individual can be indoors and fully protected from the sun. His podcast discussing Game of Thrones, “Boars, Gore, and Swords” has twice been featured on BoingBoing. He’s performed in SF Sketchfest 2011-2013 and is a regular at The San Francisco Punch Line, The San Jose Improv, Rooster T Feathers, as well as the usual dive bars and laundromats.

You can find Red on twitter at @red_scott

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For our first SF Sketchfest live show, we had a fun panel to watch Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986) and Neil Diamond Parking Lot (1996), short documentaries by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn. They document two very different sets of music fans in Landover, Maryland a decade apart. HMPL achieved cult status from its beginnings as a cable access doc, circulating on VHS and finally receiving a DVD release in 2006. Our esteemed panel of Emily Heller, Chris Thayer, and David Gborie wax nostalgic and relive teenage embarrassments with Paco and George. We painstakingly explain ska and confront anti-semitism, fully reenacting 1986. There may be a surprise visit from the Sup Doc Parking Lot players (Mary Van Note and Nick Stargu aka DJ Real).

Thanks to all our guests, SF Sketchfest, and Pianofight for hosting.

Comedian Emily Heller has appeared on Conan, on John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show, and at New Faces at the 2012 Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. She is the creator and star of the Above Average series The Future. She served as a writer on the FOX comedy Surviving Jack and was a series regular on the TBS comedy Ground Floor.

Chris Thayer is a stand-up comic currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He began doing stand-up in San Francisco and later moved to Los Angeles. He was a digital writer for—and was featured on—The Pete Holmes Show, a social media writer for TBS & Funny or Die’s America’s Next Weatherman, and wrote for JASH and Comedy Central’s CC: Studios.

David Gborie spent his formative years in Colorado, started comedy in the Bay Area, and is a full-time comedian based in Los Angeles.

Mary Van Note is a stand-up comedienne of the weird variety. She performs at colleges, clubs and festivals across the country and she is the creator and star of the award winning Independent Film Channel web series The Mary Van Note Show: Gavin Really Wants Me. The San Francisco Bay Guardian called her a “Zine-Queen Comedian” as she regularly makes zines, crafts and mini-comics.

Nick Stargu is a musician, comedian, and writer who is best known for his musical comedy act, DJ REAL, which has been featured in the San Francisco Sketch Festival, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, the San Francisco Comedy Competition, and more. And he’s opened for Devo! DJ REAL’s show has all original songs, complete with costume changes, bad dance moves, and interactive multimedia. Nick also performs as Imaginary Radio with comedy partner, Drennon Davis. They have performed at SXSW, SF Sketchfest and the Funny or Die Oddball Festival. Nick and Mary perform together on Story Jams.

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