TheModernMoron podcast

We are revisited by Stand Up comedian Christine Lederman. She will be at Comedy Works in Denver on Wednesday August 7th… so if you are within 750 miles of the Denver, Colorado area it will be worth the trip. Besides this podcast she has been listening to a True Crime Podcast called "To Live and Die in L.A." which tells the story of a young girl from Eastern Europe who comes to Hollywood to become a star. She goes missing and a journalist and a detective find out what happened. She brings it up because it reminds her of some personal stories about her own experiences while in Los Angeles and the entertainment business and she shares a couple of them. The stories pertain to men trying to take advantage of women in the same vein of the Harvey Weinstein cases, domestic abuse and sexual assault. And while they are to be taken deadly serious, Christine is also a comedian and she manages to find humor from time to time. So, please try to understand that any humor from these stories can also be viewed as a coping mechanism of sorts similar to the firefighters we've interviewed in the humor they sometimes use to cope with difficulties. True, firefighters choose their profession whereas women do not choose to be assaulted. My point is that any humor in this show is not intended to diminish the severity of any violence or misconduct by anyone.

We wrap up on the lighter side by revisiting Christine's psychic abilities and that any lack of psychic ability is somehow my fault. A review of "To Live & Die in L.A." more me too and some brief psychic abilities demonstrated on The Modern Moron...

To Live and Die in L.A. Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Moron. Today I hook up again with my old radio partner to discuss the "My Truck My Rules" Mississippi Gubernatorial candidate Robert Foster and his refusal to allow female reporter Larrison Campbell on a ride-along interview without providing an additional male in attendance. It really seems like a sign of the times however I think both individuals are thrilled with the attention each of them have received.

This leads to a discussion of the me-too movement, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Louis CK, Kevin Spacey, etc.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to owe an apology by the end of this episode and I'm sure that opology will not suffice, but that's what happens when you listen to a moron.

Then we try to end on a lighter note by discussing what we're watching in movies and TV and GOD are we behind the times (think Spiderman with Tobey McGuire and The FX show "Rescue Me") but it does offer an idea for a new Game of Thrones podcast! Yay!

But before we kick that off we have a quick chat about what else… the weather and the record temperatures experienced around the globe over the past couple of weeks.

Thanks for listening…

Rescue Me Theme Song by The Von Bondies

Game Of Thrones Theme

Without going into too much detail we find out generally what the structure was of the Senator’s marriage encounter retreat and a little bit about what the process was like as always from the perspective of a moron  and by they way this moron is a two time loser in the marriage game.

Before we get to the marriage retreat stuff there’s a quick blip about Mexico’s President Obrador… we mispronounce his name... claiming that he wants the 14 Billion dollars that El Chapo made selling drugs in the United States.

Also.. no surprise here… the Senator was an  hour late again for our appointed recording session.  When he did log on to the session I simply remained quiet so he thought I was late to the session so he proceeds to entertain himself by calling me a pussy even though I was there the whole time… I did that just for you…  here it comes… enjoy and thanks for listening.

I really do love that guy and the technical difficulties he has with his mouth.  He’s off on his backpacking trip so I’ll have another guest next week on the show… maybe it’ll be you!  

Also, I have to start remembering the business stuff… we’re available on all the usual outlets, most recently you can find us on i-Heart radio believe it or not… We have a Modern Moron Podcast page on Facebook @themodernmoronpodcast … no spaces.  And on twitter we’re just @TheModernMoron still no spaces. Why two different names? Because I’m a Moron and I can’t figure any of this shit out.  

Have a great week, weekend or day and thank you for listening.

You know my friend the Senator has a lot going on this summer… he’s on a Marriage retreat, he’s preparing for a 12 day hike around the Lake Tahoe rim trail and in that preparation he tells us about an encounter with a snake and somehow he thinks that if a poisonous snake bites you it dies.  Seriously… again, the word Moron is in the name of this show for a reason. Somehow this snake story brings up Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Remember that show? Was it on Saturday afternoons or Sunday afternoons? With Marlon Perkins sitting in the helicopter while Jim Fowler did all the goddamn work wrestling the alligators and boa constrictors.

Then we wrap up with a parenting story where the tough love has to prevail.  We hate doing it but sometimes being a parent is not a popularity contest. It’s Rattlesnakes, Wild Kingdom and Water Polo on the Modern Moron!  Thanks for listening.

Please forgive this lengthy intro as we really cover some ground in this show.  We talk about how great local neighborhood 4th of July parades are and how the Senator really brought a nice afternoon party to a screeching halt by reading the declaration of independence aloud… some nice work there…

We quickly talk about your FRA… or Full retirement age.  You can start claiming at 62 but you’ll get 25 to 30% less for the rest of your life, so you might want to wait until 67 and get the full amount.

The Senator then confesses he is going on a retreat for married couples and we all support and commend him for doing that… it’s definitely outside his comfort zone and that is where the growth lies.

And we wrap up by talking about his dad who is in his mid 80’s and the difficulties in caring for and dealing with that situation.  It’s a subject that’s perfect for our demographic as we have parents who are in need of additional care in their waning years but may not want it.  Tough subject but we’ll be talking about it today and in the future.  

Democrats, Republicans, Feminists and Sexists Unite… as we start this episode by celebrating the U.S. Women’s World Cup and their second consecutive championship and their 4th overall.  What an achievement. We also get super sexist in talking about how much prettier The U.S. team is versus their opponents. 

While the senator mentioned women’s cup champion Alex Morgan as being SMART as well … he did not mention why: she attended Cal Berkeley which is a pretty elite university academically and she graduated a semester early with a degree in political economy.  She has also partnered with Simon & Shuster publishers to author a series of middle-grade books about four teen soccer players called “The Kicks.” She is also quite savvy with the endorsements and back in 2015 she was ranked by Time magazine as the top-paid American women's soccer player.  AND last year she was in a movie called Alex & Me where she plays a fictitious version of herself.  It was on Nickelodeon and is now on dvd or probably streaming so….yeah, Alex Morgan is definitely paying the bills.

When talking about familiarity with the U.S. Men’s World Cup team this moron remembers “That guy on Seattle’s MLS Team” that I thought I knew was Clint Dempsey and he retired from soccer last year.  I remembered him from the 2010 men’s world cup team… that’s how far back I have to go to even recall a face of a Men’s U.S. World cup player. Is that a statement about the U.S. men’s team or about me as a moron?... Probably the latter.

Many years back, and I mean many years back in the late 80’s and early 90’s I worked in the radio broadcasting industry in Southern California: Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and an area known as “The Inland Empire”... it’s sort of a “shadow market” of the Los Angeles area which we didn’t particularly love.  It encompasses the San Bernardino/ Riverside areas of Southern California. It was there during the early 90’s that I was actually on a morning show for a couple-a-three years. It was a rock station that rocked a little bit harder than your average rock station.  

We played the traditional hard rock and classic rock like AC/DC, Aerosmith, Rush, Van Halen, Zeppelin, Metallica etc. and all the hair bands from the 80’s like  Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, White Snake, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister...

Specific to the early 90’s you had bands like:Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Radio Head, Alice In Chains, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots… We even played  Iron Maiden… yup.  But not in the morning.  Can you imagine waking up to Iron Maiden?

I bring up all these artists and bands to give you a flavor for the kind of rock station I worked for and the core of that audience which is pretty hard rockin’ head banging blue collar folks.  We targeted Males 18 - 34 and 25 - 49 which shouldn’t really surprise you considering once again we’re dialing it all the way back to the early 90’s.

My guest is my former morning show partner who went on to host that morning show after I got fired for my big fat mouth for 25 years.  That’s a pretty unusual achievement in radio back then as radio personalities tended to move from market to market either up the food chain or down depending on your ratings, etc. 

We talk about how radio and the way we consume music and talk radio has changed so completely since then.  I wanna say that the way we listen to music and talk radio has changed in that time as drastically as Uber and Lyft changed the transportation and taxi industry only the Uber phenomenon happened over a much shorter period of time that it seemed so much more revolutionary but the change is still pretty staggering .

We talk about the Portable People Meter or “PPM” which is device like a pager and a radio ratings system developed by Arbitron otherwise known as the Nielson Ratings… remember them?  Maybe you were a “Nielson Family” at one point. Still around.

It’s not going all the way back to the days where we gathered around the radio and stared at it while voices came out of it nor is it George Lucas’ American Graffiti, but it is going back a little way as we reminisce about radio on the Modern Moron... 

AC/DC Back In Black

Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart

Pearl Jam - Even Flow

Iron Maiden - Run To The Hills

Rush - Spirit of The Radio

we b.s. about the lack of diversity in the party that claims to embrace diversity and the leading candidate, “huggin’ Joe Biden” we also talk about the old news of Trump saying he would look at any “dirt” provided by another country on a competing candidate for president and how Trump said in front of the reporter’s corps that he was “the most transparent president in the history of the country”.  Right.  In one moment I appreciate what I call his honest answer and in the next I think he's nothing but a liar.  Talk about a moron.

We discuss briefly how the kids love Bernie Sanders and end with an ironic story of the Senator’s visit to the tomb and church of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and the story involves a pet!  

I hope you find it interesting and thank you again for listening to the Modern Moron!

One of the great things about podcasting is that I get the final say as to what goes on each episode, yay!  One of the not so great things is that I get the final say as to what goes on each episode.  If you think it’s good, then Yay for both of us. If you think it stinks then it’s on me. But what one person thinks is good another person thinks it stinks… like sound effects for example.

Or, the first ten minutes of this episode.  The Senator is back and in the first ten minutes he makes a feeble attempt at an apology, he tries to hide behind his trip to New York to visit his daughter as an excuse for not taking 45 minutes to record … from New York.  The Moron even takes a phone call while he’s supposed to be recording this episode. It turns out to be one of our firefighter guests which he refers to as a “former contestant.” What a jackass.

You may not find this entertaining.  You may say to yourself, “I don’t need to hear two old, irrelevant jackasses arguing, with one screaming and the other in denial.  If I want that crap, I can watch “The Real Housewives” or Jerry Springer or Face The Nation or Meet the Press. So if you want to hear me curse and berate the Senator for being an irresponsible flake and not owning his commitments, then let it roll.

However if you’d rather hear what two Moron’s have to say about Women’s World Cup Soccer and Title 9 which addresses sexual discrimination under educational programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

If you’d rather hear a little about backpacking the Lake Tahoe Rim Trail in California, The Pacific Crest Trail which stretches up the Sierra’s from Mexico to Canada and what the Japanese call “Forest Bathing” and what it can do for your soul and spirit...

If you’d rather hear that than me scream at the Senator forward in about 11 minutes and you should be good.  Either way, thank you for listening to this celebrity-less podcast. Ready... Shoot... Aim.

My guest is radio personality in the Boulder, Ft. Collins and Denver area and stand up comedian Christine Lederman.  We talk about her afternoon drive shift in Denver and Boulder Colorado and what a great sports town Denver is.  I get so excited about it that I refer to Colorado as a city. I have a Larry Walker story to tell from the Colorado Rockies.  She also talks about her time in the hotel industry where she used to book hotels for paranormal Ghost hunters… seriously. That’s the kind of top shelf entertainment you get on this program.  She also used to book rooms for and stay at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado which is where Steven King wrote and Stanley Kubrick shot “The Shining”.

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Moron!  I’m flying solo today and it will probably show. I talk about Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom and a welcome he might have been able to see as he flew in.  Then I cover an article in USA Today that discusses tips on getting the most out of your social security… that’s right in our wheelhouse… and I wrap up with a couple of recommendations on Netflix.  And I start out by discussing the invasiveness of Alexa, Cortana, Siri, etc. but mainly Alexa… It’s a summer time grab bag! Thanks for listening!