Talko Grande

Hey Talko-lytes. Sorry for the late post tonight. We've all been very busy and the time got away from us. In Colorado, it's close enough to Monday, and it's still Monday in California. Fuck it. We get started quick, like we do with the Friday shows which are recorded over the phones and like chicks chatting, only we're not getting laid. Well... Jeff might.

FRIDAY TELECAST 7 - SWEET JACK

Jeff's Top Pick is Eric Schmidt’s quote about Television being dead gets us started nailing the coffin. Mike says Eric Schmidt looks like if George Will was taking a really good crap. Matt points us to Eric Schmidt's HS photo taken during a meeting of Business Genius Club.

George Soros invested in JC penny and their stock went up 32% - Matt. re: the influence of major corporations on changing the world.

Mike’s calm down: Real superheroes. Holy shit. look at his hair! Phoenix Jones skewered. In Denver we have something similar, but they have really tight butt holes and they will fight you.

Matt: Every boardroom could benefit from a dude-bro. You know why? SweetJack.com. Way to go, sweet jack, you have a shitty dog barking in a shitty cheese-pop-butt song.  Make sure to hire a dude bro for your office so they can shoot down ideas like “I ate the bones” and using “sweetjack.com” as your website’s name.

Mike’s Kickstarter - TV Network: Ladies getting things in and out of their cars.  L.G.T.I.A.O.O.T.C!  Jeff says the idea has promise, but you can’t use Kickstarter to raise money for equipment for a project. Either way, Jeff supports it. Gives legit critique.

Jeff’s got a story about how his Night Farts made his wife leave the room. Unfortunate. I hope to one day make it up to her.

Next week: Dates with Kate show. She did hundreds of dates. Expert on male behavior. Douchey things guys do to blow it. We have a ton of laughs for you on this one.

We're coming at you hot off last Friday's episode, rippin' and dippin' from a vat of fried chick'n. We've got another very special episode here with our favorite recurring sketch comic, Josh Opitz, @joshopitz who calls in as an Irish Poet Laureate in the second half of the show.

TALK O'GRANDE 404 - 1/2 BLOCK BURRITO

Jumping into the Top Picks, we've also got a whole new batch of topics ranging from the increasing size of Australian women's boobs, and Creativity is linked with mental illness. Things get up in your bitch when you're thinking too hard! Be careful folks. Artists be crazy.

The ICAAN rules the internet. It's real. Here's the link.

Over at Mike's Calm Down we take on a topic that gets Matt and Jeff all riled up like alley cats with jalapeños in their asses. That's some spicy shit. It all started when Mike brought up the recent celebrity Kickstarter of Zach Braff. He's starting a new project for a movie which will be the followup to Garden State. Matt and Mike both agree that celebrities shouldn't use Kickstarter. Jeff brings the contrary view and the argument unfolds. Then Jeff's volume gets turned down and he's loudly talked over so good luck making sense of both sides of this. He's not bitter. If you do hear the points we're making, and you've got something to add, leave us a comment here, on FB, on Twitter or our email.

For a few more well written responses to this recent phenomenon, hit up this Wired article, this HuffPo blog, and lastly the BroBible who do a Funny or Die video making fun of the whole thing.

We're hot and bothered, and we continued the back and forth rant offline through email, but don't worry, we're still friends. And despite all the shit we said, Jeff wants to say congrats to Zach Braff on a successful Kickstarter. As of the time I'm writing this post, he raised 2.4mil of the 2mil he said he needed and there's 17 days left to go so good work.  Now go make that movie and Jeff will review it on the show.

Before the end of the segment we make a reference to the legal battle with The Oatmeal and an overzealous lawyer on behalf of FunnyJunk.

Next up, we shift to Matt's Know Your Enemy, which this week is going to be Know Your Frenemy because Matt dug something. He recaps his experience of going to the Cannabis Cup on 4/20.  We get to talking about the food at the Cup and Matt mentions how there were Mexican dudes with coolers selling amazing burritos. Pound and a half of bean. It make it a half block of burrito. Wait, half a block of burrito? That's not a unit of measurement, but it is now. Talko heretofore coins the term 1/2 block burrito.

But the line to this place was long. Matt describes the experience of what it was like being in line, and what it's like on the inside. As well as this new way of ingesting marijuana affectionately referred to as Hippy Crack. Which is just a horrible thing to visualize.

After we finish up stories from the cup, we head over to the trough. We met this Irish poet laureate Connor O'Connorhan at Golden Corral who agreed to come on the show so we interview him over the phone. He thinks he's on The Talk or maybe it's Late Nite with Jimmy Fallon, and keeps calling us by the names of the ladies on that show, which was weird. He tells us about the TV shows that are finally making their way to Dublin, and reads us a couple of the limerick poems which won him Ireland's highest honor.  Definitely think this guy might be a little off.

If you're listening out in LA, check out Josh as he co-hosts "Fake Culture" @ the FAKE Gallery, 4319 Melrose Ave., Hollywood CA. 9pm May 15th. $10 (with a free champagne toast!)

Hosted by Paul Kozlowski (Johnny Bravo, The Chris Rock Show, Exit 57)

and Josh Opitz (Jersey Shore, Cinematic Titanic)

FEATURING Enlightening Readings from...

Ron Lynch (Home Movies, Bob's Burgers)

Laura Silverman (Dr. Katz, millions of TV shows)

Don Black (Tom Goes to the Mayor)

AND Thought-Provoking Music by...

What's up with me? uh... nothing. Just posting a new Friday Telecast, the shows where we 3-way Skype at each other with topical subjects. This one's the first of the Skype recordings since Matt upgraded the studio gear. No more shitty phones! Wow, I'm glad that's over.

FRIDAY TELECAST 6 - RIPPING CHICKENS

This show, we start off with the absurdity of the town name of West, Texas. That's correct, there's a comma there. The name of the town is West. The state is Texas. It's ridiculous. Do not name your town after a direction, folks. God will blow up your fertilizer factory and you'll be effed in the West. Our thoughts go out to anyone hurt in the explosion, but next time check the name of your town before you move there.

Jeff gets started on a rant of his most hated commercial, the KFC "I ate the bones" campaign. Lately, everything from KFC pisses Jeff off, but this one just hit the limit. When you consider the premise of these spots, which assume people are so stupid that they'll either: A.) have no idea what they're ordering when they're at the window or counter, and B.) will eat an entire meal without considering the contents of the processed, fried, ranch-dipped, monstrosities they're shoveling in their maws. And then oh, shit... I ate the bones. No, you are an adult and you ordered chicken nuggets and ate them and you're dumb. And I hate KFC's marketing dept. You may ask, "You think you can do better?" Yes, KFC. I do think so.

Heck, anyone can. Just look at the ridiculousness of this bastardization which we once referred to as "chicken." We give you Popeye's Rip'n Chick'n, which is too damned good for vowels. In fact, it's also more appetizing by a good stretch than it's properly spelled version "Ripping Chicken." Just let your mind chew on it for a bit and consider the visceral violence of ripping chickens, and then the crunchy, appetizing, dip-ability of Rip'n Chick'n. No contest. I took one for the team, ordered a Rip'n Chick'n at my neighborhood Popeyes and photographed the results.

So, there's that... Matt takes it to the American ideal by announcing Buffalo Chikkin Paste. With dual plungers for your bleu cheese or dipping sauce accompaniment.

Mike's topic comes from something he read from twitter. An advisor for the Occupy Wall Street movement is going to start helping out the Syrian Rebels.  It's a bad idea to go to Syria, where there's a war, and try to apply the ideals of Occupy. Luckily, where the Occupy movement failed, ultimately due to the weather getting cold in New York, I hear Syria is quite warm.  So they can camp out and poop in parking lots free of worry. I wouldn't count on them getting any free sandwiches though. It's hard enough being in Syria, without having to explain what the heck a sandwich is.  Carne Ross was apparently born with that name, according to his wikipedia page.

Mike invents Bums Gone Fighting. Bums fighting the girls from Girls Gone Wild. Jeff likes a less violent version. The girls do an Extreme Makeover and manscape the bums. It's a reality show hit!

Matt's topic takes on fanaticism.  The guys go deep and analyze the idea of being obsessed with something. There's just being interested, but then there's obsession. The obsession token takes on a couple shades of gray between love and just obsession. Mike points out it can go back and forth between the two and change over time.

Mike's got an Inside Story around the 38min mark. He talks about visitation. How it works, what people go through. And eventually how he used to go to visitation events when Jose's wife would be visiting. No porn in prison? No problem. Just find out when Jose's wife is coming and invite your friends/family to come during the same time. Genius!

But when it comes to clothes, you don't want to be a square and wear the clothes they give you. You really shouldn't wear their socks or your feet will die. Fiberglass socks! Fuck that. You have to get some clothes.

3-2-1 Contact! It's Monday and your new Talko is here. Guaranteed fresh, even though we made it on April 10th. We promise it's fresh. Don't trust the crusty old burrito lady if she says that, but definitely trust us. We occasionally pass FDA approval, and are only somewhat responsible for your irritable bowel.

Matt, Jeff, and Mike have a whole new audio setup thanks all to Matt's efforts of buying new audio hardware to increase the audio quality of our show and have solved all of our audio issues!  We used to be on phones... Now we're on computers! We're in a different league now. You should be impressed.  We've moved up from 1900's technology up to 1970's technology. Look for us on Google Glass in the year 2025. Then leave us a message on our Voice Mail: (303) 335-9278 or 303-DEK-ZAPU or 303-DEL-WART

TALKO GRANDE 403 - THE SLOBcast

The show title comes into play in the third act, when all of our talking shit about Kevin Smith over the past few episodes backfires when his assistant rings us up and calls us out!  So you just sit tight my snoochie-mc-rib-boochies, and get ready for some serious Kevin Smith smack down.

Jeff gets us started with the Top Picks bringing back the tried and true topic of Bacon. It's goddamn everywhere and I'm sick of it. No more bacon on everything including other bacon. I wish bacon were just bacon once again. You have it for breakfast with your eggs, or on a burger, and that's it. Yeah, it’s good, but shut up about it. Unless you replace your bacon obsession with something we can all get behind, like tits, we're taking away your toys.

Next is actual conspiracies (definition) and this link from Slashdot whereby it was revealed in court documents how the FBI works with telecoms to help root out criminals and determine their locations. Then they raid your shit with military class equipment and shut it down! What's the point of this one? Just for Jeff to point out the difference between Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories. Basically, that's all.

Lastly, Jeff takes a stand against cigarette smokers. And not in the usual way of people telling people to stop smoking because of health concerns. His take is in reference to the smell of it all and the gang piles on for a good laugh.

Mike Frizzell's Calm Down is up next. He takes on people or things that need to calm down and this one's about luggage and beverage props in movies. Specifically, the incorrect weight of the contents of such items. Also grocery bags.

Next it's the "Guy looking for a fight." The short fellow. Short guy complex. Boss complex. Bald complex. Mike and Jeff list examples and we pick them apart for comedic meat. When the discussion turns to tall people Conan's had as guests on his shows... we get a Skype call!

It turned out to be Kevin Smith's assistant calling to tell us to stop talking shit about Mr. Smith. The caller takes us to task on all the crappy things we've been saying about Kevin lately on the show and we find out we may have gone too far.  It comes to light that Kevin Smith pays people to scour the internet looking for disparaging remarks and then has his assistant call them up and tell them to stop it... (what we call) humor ensues. Hang out 'til the end for the chilling conclusion!

Matt - Via con dios.

Jeff - Thanks for listening to Talko Grande, the Denver, CO Podcast.

Mike - Go with God.

Next Episode: Friday Telecast #6

Welcome back, it's Monday and we've got a new Friday Telecast to unleash. Despite Matt's frustrations with our audio setup, we've got a good sounding episode for you. Matt’s putting together a whole new telecasting setup based on Skype for the studio. It's going to be cool. We’re giving you listeners something to look forward to.

We’re now on Stitcher. Go get it where you want it, be it Stitcher, iTunes, or right here on the Talko Grande website.

FRIDAY TELECAST 5 - WHEN MIKE CRIES

We start out with Jeff's Top Picks on a discussion of the afterlife and heaven. Talko Grande is taking back "Heaven."  Jeff posits that if he were to go to heaven, there'd be multiple heavens to go to and he'd get to go to the cool Rock 'n Roll heaven, not the lame Sunday church-goer heaven where it's just people sitting around in God's glory and praying forever. Boring.  Basically, what we're saying is Talko Grande is now starting it's own religion full of comedians, musicians, writers and creative people who probably do drugs, and we have a separate heaven created for ourselves and our followers. You're welcome.

Next we get to one of Mike's Calm Down segments on the top of Roller Derby Girls. In the discussion, Matt cracks the shit out of Mike in reference to what those Roller Derby Babes should be wearing as uniforms and he loses it. And it was good.  Who looks more like Jeff? Nick Mangold like Matt thinks or Zach Brown Band like Jeff's 2 y/o niece thinks? You decide. Leave us a comment below.

Jeff gives us another Top Pick with the question: Are craft breweries the new cupcake shoppe? We hope not, and we discuss the implications and the way to do it right. Take notes brewmasters and local beer crafters. We have the solution: aim low.  Jeff recites the Cheers lyrics a little too lovingly. We all like Cheers.

Speaking of Connecticut style pizza... wtf... we eventually define Connecticut style pizza, also known as New-Haven style. It brings us to a discussion on the origins and different styles of pizza. Greek style, Colorado style... Gangnam style. Shout out to Dave's pizza in Minnesota. Best stuff ever. It's a nice time for a segue.

Mike brings us another Calm Down, this one about cheese. National Grilled Cheese day is April 12th. Mike says it's unnecessary. He's right. It's just like National White People Month. We don't need that. White people are always eating cheese! Then we get nerdy and discuss our various grilled cheese preparation methods.  Mike double grills! He blew my mind.  Matt comes out as a Freegan. I believe he's discussed it on the show before, but goes into a little more detail on the topic around the 44min mark. It's like he's living in the world of Walking Dead, without the Zombies. Hit up the wiki link above.  It's punch-your-grandma, good. Eat from the trash!

Matt's Know Your Enemy for the week is April Fool's Day. We lost a bit of the end on this one, so it got cut short, but we end it on a high note. Thanks for listening.

NEXT SHOW: Kevin Smith's PR Guy Checks In

And we arrive at the release of a new grande Talko, in the season of four, the episode of two.  It is this chapter of our evolving tale in which we dissect, to comic effect, the facebook. The institution, the social network, the advertising powerhouse.  Facebook: the place you go to see what we eat, who we drink with, and if you look at the time-stamp, precisely when we take our dumps.

We take a in-depth look at FB users and their practices, the head honcho (Zuckernerd, as Matt refers to him) and his grand scheme of using your data against you, and just take the whole thing apart bit by bit. And from the ashes of all we burn down, rises a comedic fetus... I mean phoenix!  We're not immune from the list of things we dislike about facebook. It's not just you, it's us too. And we hold ourselves and each other up to the light to see what kind of grossness is growing in our pink bellies that we then puke up on your FB feeds in the name of self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement and pride. I assure you these are words, and I am only somewhat familiar with their meaning, but it sounds right. Doesn't it?

TALKO GRANDE 402 - FACEPALM BOOK

The facebook takedown episode. Be careful: You may be doing it wrong.

I get us started with a timeless Talko's Top Picks about beer. The first one about the science behind the color of beer bottles, and a wired article that discusses the effects of green bottles on the flavor of beer. The second topic revolves around how heavy drinkers use the alcohol in their blood to basically overclock their brains. The chemicals created in the blood of heavy drinkers actually fuel the brain directly, giving it special, super-human powers. And that, my friends, is my justification for my bad habits. Talko Grande reminds everyone out there to drink responsibly and to call a cab or plan ahead by bringing a lame friend or any random pregnant lady as a designated driver.

In my third Top Pick, I announce to the world that I've given up liking things. Ever. I'm done. No more likes on facebook. In the weeks since we recorded this episode, I (Jeff) have liked only one thing: The el Camino Community Tavern in which my current Art show is currently hanging in Highlands Square. It was an exception I found worth breaking my rule, but other than that, I've honestly kept to it. If you'd like to join Jeff in not liking anything, ever again, please write us and let us know at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 303-335-9278 or 303-DEK-ZAPU or 303-DEL-WART. Send us a short message about why you've decided to join the not-liking cause, and we'll mention the best ones in a future episode.

We end the show with a Tweet Hug, where we read our favorite tweets from the other hosts and other awesome people we follow. If you'd like to hear more of our incredibly hilarious jokes, follow us on Twitter! @jeffjagunich @mattbfromdenver @drewmcfrizz

Next Episode: Friday Telecast #5

Coming out next Monday!

Welcome to the Friday Telecast, where we deliberately phone it in.  This is another freshly time-stamped release, recorded 3 days before being published. Wow, internet. Matt held down the heavily fortified bunker in Denver, Mike stayed on target in Austin, and Jeff was on vacation to see family in Chicago, who he rudely excused himself from to record this show in a nearby park where he sat at a picnic table in a quiet suburban gazebo in Romeoville or Bollingbrook or Naperville... who knows at this point?

Jeff finds the Chicago-land suburbs are one huge multi-leveled, cluster knuckle of cars and sub-divisions spotted with water towers, Portillo's Hot Dogs, and Panera Bread stores. Your local grocery store is the Jewel-Osco, where they sell real beer. The late-night White Castle run gave Jeff night terrors about his Reddit Cake Day, but the Revolution Brewing Anti-Hero saved the entire metropolitan region with it's lovely floral, grape-fruity, IPA flavor. As always, beer saves us all.

FRIDAY TELECAST 4 - SUBURBAN HOBO

We kick it off with Jeff's link to a science article about the magnetic fields around bees, and how they can be influenced, causing antenna to react. We get into some deep talk about human perception, what we really know about the universe around us from our own senses, and how drugs open us to them.  The conversation shifted to aliens and audiowaves traveling in space. It was good.

Bacon condoms exist ... they look like meat, smell like meat, and they come with lube that tastes like meat. We discuss this at length. Hide your pets because they’ll eat your dong.  They come in Magnums Beggin’ Strips, and bikini size Bacos.
  Woman willing to let you fuck them with bacon condom have had far worse things in their sneeze. Somehow, another Kevin Smith reference finds it's way in, but we do our best to keep the peace and segue into a discussion on hockey.

Mike wants online journalism featuring animated gifs to stop. (not Amanda Knox, it's just an example.)  
He says they're a dumbing down of society and Facebook activism is a huge waste of time, but bridges us to marriage equality.

Marriage equality is a topic we mostly all agree on. Most think it’s fine or don’t care. The swing is some people think it’s gross.
 Most sex is gross, relax. Mike likes people who protest gay marriage because they waste time that they could be using to concentrate on abortion rights.

Hawaii, DC, LA...AUSTIN? *sigh* ...  Kim Jong Un wants to kill Mike. Bring it, Francis! (click it).

NEXT SHOW: We make jokes about topics!

The Friday Telecast is back for episode 3. These are recorded with Jeff and Mike on the phone, teleconferencing the show with Matt who's in the studio.  This show was recorded out of order, before the first two episodes we released, but wasn't the first show. It gets confusing. This is the parallel universe shit we work with, in order to make sure you get regularly released shows. Later on, we ditched any sort of regular segments for the Friday Telecast shows for a more topical slant, but we kept them for this episode.  Jeff's Top Picks starts us off here with Mike's Inside Story after that, and Matt's Know Your Enemy.

FRIDAY TELECAST 3 ONE DJANGO, TWO CHAINS

All this technical stuff spawned a Star Wars conversation about the selection of J.J. Abrams as the director of the next Star Wars movie, memories of the original releases back in the 70's, and all the money that gets reaped by Lucas and now Disney for the merchandising sales. Jeff quotes that Lucas made  $200,000,000 from Star Wars merchandising last year. That's a lot of money  for something which hasn't had a new movie released for around 5 years.

Jeff brings up the connections we make from music to memories in our youth. We tend to form music epochs in our lives - the way we can bring back happy or sad memories by just hearing songs that were popular at the time we were going through good or bad events in our lives. Jeff thinks if you like any music from before you were born or even before you were the age of 10, you should thank your parents or older siblings. Nobody has actual taste in anything before this age that isn't influenced by heavy marketing dollars by major corporations.

Jeff's basic premise is: whatever years you went to highschool, even if the music was shit, you still remember it fondly. Like for him, that’s Ska and early Techno. He was mostly into alternative, grunge, and indie/college rock, some of which still has merits, but not all of it. In our college years to early 20’s people still try to keep up with new music and often find BETTER music, and stuff you’re more interested in, but it somehow has less meaning to you, personally.

In your late 20’s-early 30’s you start to care less about the new stuff and anything popular and begin to appreciate lesser-known, but maybe more musically appreciated things or music that has lasted the test of time and might be stuff you didn't find out about from a parent or friend but because it has it's own historical significance. Maybe this is just Jeff.  He wants to see if it’s like that for other people too. Leave us a comment with your thoughts.

Mike gives us his latest Inside Story segment which chronicles the baseball team he played on while doing time who were called 50/50.  He gives us an interesting perspective on what people do to land themselves in jail, the way they change on the inside, and what it means to place judgement on people who are doing their time.

Matt saw a documentary about Henry Ford and found out he was a total prick. He discusses this information with the guys and we discuss the facts and their implications. Henry Ford apparently watched his son get stomach cancer then he told him to stop being a pussy and man up about his stomach cancer. He also started the Dearborn Independent which was given away for free and contained anti-semitic views.  Mike reminds us this is a comedy show and brings home a few zingers.

We have a Self-centered edition of Tweet Hug while we pee, sitting down, reading our own tweets. Follow the hosts on twitter: @drewmcfrizz @mattbfromdenver @jeffjagunich

After that, we digress into a lot of other fun topics that Jeff didn't want to transcribe for you. Hit up the download link at the top of this post, or stream it right from our site to hear the rest. Thanks for listening!

Next Friday Telecast: Chronologically current and topical with 50% more chains.

Welcome to Season 4 of Talko Grande, The Denver Colorado Podcast.

We would like to formally welcome Mike Frizzell as a co-host of our little show, as he is now officially on the host roster. He brings with him a swath of followers from his twitter @drewmcfrizz and previous appearances on other podcasts such as TBTL. I've gotten to know him over the phone the last couple weeks and think you'll find he's addition to the crew in terms of his comedic wit, interestingly written segments, and a compliment to both Matt and myself.

TALKO GRANDE #401 - THE MIC DROP DUMP

First up is Jeff’s Talko Top Picks where we discuss the topic of injection molding instead of 3d printing and figure out how we can use them for cyborg implants. We quickly come to the realization that it would be mostly douche bags using this technology. Telescoping dicks. 

Also check out my uncle's band who play all over Minnesota and the world. They are the Singing Slovenes and they make some awesome accordion music. Buy their CDs.

Next is Die Hard 6 - after the current A Good Day to Die Hard.  Double trilogy. We segue quickly to discussing the shirt sizes of Kevin Smith and what you can take from the bible. Mike thinks the next Die Hard movie will be subtitled Dead Inside. Stallone tore a pectoral muscle? gross. Not sure if it's true. Can anyone fact check this?

And then we move on to Customer Service - Do you have good customer service? Do you? We discuss customer service as a thing that matters to folks like us in a first world, middle-class economic bracket and how much we appreciate when companies or people offer great customer service.

Mike Frizzell introduces his first “Calm Down” segment. People or things that need to calm down. This weeks show includes Survivalists, Distance runners and Concert picture posters. 

Matt's segment, Know Your Enemy, takes on people who wear pajamas in public. 

Last we pull out a Tweet Hug, where each host picks a couple tweets from the other two hosts or someone else they follow and give praise and discuss where applicable. 

And, that's the show. Hope you enjoy it. Send us a voicemail and an email and let us know if we were wrong about anything or if you have anything to add to the conversation. 303-ZAP-DEKU or [email protected].  Or leave us a comment on the blog and like us on Facebook and follow each of us on twitter.  @jeffjagunich @mattbfromdenver @drewmcfrizz We all need more followers so that the empty hole in our hearts is quickly filled with cheese cake and anonymous approval.

Hello friends, it's the "other guy," Jeff here.  I have a name too.  I'm actually the guy behind the logos, the website posts and admin, occasional editing (specifically, this episode), and my equal share of writing for the show, (looking at you Stack ...