Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine

A fast-paced, answer-filled TVTM. No two-parter this time. Also: no quality. Well, that's not exactly true. We did good work here. Me, Question Boy (Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli) and Benny Evangelista. I mean, not as good as listening to Eddie Izzard. But we answered a lot of mail, and took a lot of calls. There was a theme running through it (anger) and we only swore five or six times and Bill Walton only popped up like eight or nine times. All told -- very reserved, possibly even informative.

Eddie Izzard flew into San Francisco last week and came to the Chronicle (and our sad little podcasting "cave") to tout his superb FX series, "The Riches". But as expected, we went on all kinds of tangents. Izzard is brilliant at letting his imagination take flight in often spectacularly funny ways but also in being serious and analytical about any number of topics. Unfortunately, much of the delay in getting this podcast assembled is that we had some massive technical glitches that neither one of us were aware of. We spent about an hour and twenty minutes talking about all kinds of things -- and I can only wish now that we had video of it, because Izzard's physical movements and facial expressions added immeasurably to the discussion. All told, we lost about half of the podcast to technical issues that couldn't be overcome. That we have 45 minutes to have fun with is a testament to Benny Evangelista sitting in a room all day trying to save it (as opposed to his normal job of trying to forget or erase what we normally do on the TVTM podcast). So thanks Benny. And, obviously, thanks to Eddie Izzard for coming in and riffing. Not unexpectedly, Izzard turned out to be one of the most fascinating and engaging people I've ever interviewed (which of course makes losing half of it so painful). One of the great losses was an extended bit on his future interest in politics that wove in France, Russia, Europe, Yemen, Germany etc. -- something he said he'd never gone into in such detail. (Oh, well.) Two of the main elements that surface here but we covered more extensively were his efforts to make the leap from comedian (and a transvestite comedian, no less) to serious dramatic actor and the master plan behind it all. Despite Izzard's wild verbal forays into the ether, he's a remarkably focused and driven person. We talked in near military terms about the precision needed to execute a dream. His intellectual curiosity and joy at discovery were really something to witness. You won't get the full experience of the interview, or maybe even all the jumping off points, but we get around to issues like spirituality, the analytical drive he took from his father, a love of cool words like "brutal" and "gutted" and "bollocks," his fear of flying, his interest in personal politics, arm-wrestling Brian Dennehy, dramatic structure, Clint Eastwood and, oh yeah, "The Riches."

So we had a lot of fun talking about the BBC discovering -- probably to its horror -- our little show that can't (or won't), your TVTM. But now we get back to actual questions. Which means Question Boy (Joe Garofoli) stumbles all over his reading of the questions and I provide almost no information. For his part, Benny is asleep. Just a reminder to newbies who stumble upon us and don't get it: If you're looking for something coherent, edited and polished, you'll have to go elsewhere. Cheers to all.

It's true. BBC Radio 5, or Five Live, as they like to call it across the pond, interviewed me about what can only be described as the awesome power of -- third person alert -- Tim Goodman's TV Talk Machine podcast. Of course, I played along and didn't tell them that our podcast was incredibly lame and that our goal at TVTM is to be as unprepared as possible and do bad impressions. Colin Murray, a BBC radio guy who has his own sports podcast called "Fighting Talk" did the interview and I touted our Question Boy, Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli, as a contributor to the TVTM greatness. Then we played a snippet of Colin's podcast and realized that he's really good and we really suck. Then we went into a tailspin of self-loathing. Once the BBC posts its story -- unless of course it cuts us out, which we're totally expecting -- we'll link to it. In the meantime, here's what you can find in our podcast after we stop weeping and whining about how great "Fighting Talk" is and how badly we suck: 1. Joe does Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" again. 2. He also sings "Career Opportunities" from the Clash and a little bit of Queen. 3.He does Angry Regis. 4. He also falls asleep a couple of times and completely butchers two or three e-mails, which Colin Murray would never do, we're sure of that. 5. Joe and I get into an ethnic battle -- Irish vs. Italian. 6. My shorty robe, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, is festooned with shamrocks, which conveniently covered my shamrocks. 7. Banjos. Bongs. Cougars. 8. I forget what 8 was for. Anyway, that's just our first one this week. We're back again on Thursday, answering (or not) more questions. Remember you, too, can join the inanity. If you'd like to sing us a song, please call our hotline and leave it. If you're a woman with an English accent, please call our hotline and just say anything. If your name is Grace Park, call my cell phone. If you're Colin Murray and you've just discovered how terrible we really are, our apologies.

Not that improving is our goal, mind you. We are much more Zen about it than that. Or lazy. Pick your religion. And this one has been up on the SFGate.com front for, what, two days? Anyway, it's our gift to the world, set sail on the breeze of indifference.

We're making Benny, who once again is "manning the knobs" here, truly suffer for implementing the split podcast. You may remember this was to cut down on The Podfather's workload -- wait, "work" load -- and edit our unwieldy (but oh so user-friendly if not actually educational) podcast from 45 minutes into two 'casts of roughly 22 minutes. Yeah, that was the idea. A kind of Tuesday/Thursday double-dip. Well, we only do what we're told, until we don't, so this week we are offering up two 35 minute podcasts. A couple more weeks of this and Benny, now as overworked as one of Ken Burns editors, will give in from exhaustion. Lots of e-mails, lots of calls this week. To join the "fun," you can call our toll-free international hotline, and risk not having your questions answered, or mocked. On the other hand, you never know when the world's angriest Regis impression will pop up (thanks in advance to Joe Garofoli, our Question Boy), or even Daniel Plainview. Enjoy.

Lots of questions, some answers, tons of yelling and swearing. Both knowledge and entertainment knock on the door -- actually the pod cave wall -- but we don't answer it. And yes, two parts. It's out of our control, but in all honesty, these two flowed a lot better than last week. Also, in all honesty -- it probably sounds too professional. We'll dumb it up more next week.

Man love alert: Colin Farrell, George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Question Boy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Oh, we also answer questions. Joe Garofoli (Question Boy and Chronicle media critic) and I come back strong after two really terrible podcasts last week. We apologize yet again for those, but we are supremely strong this week. Well, alright, we did unveil Joe's impersonation of a very angry Regis. And we did make fun of some of our most loyal e-mailers and callers. Mostly we talked about the Oscars. And man-crushes. Grrrrr. We got a great "big picture" question about switching entire premises and casts for different series. (Insert bong hits here.) And I thought it might be nice to see the cast of "The Wire" appear on "Deadwood." And despite all the negative feedback for the so-called "split" podcast, we were forced to do it again, but this time it wasn't so ramshackle and low-rent. In fact, we introduced a new special effect. And -- pay attention, this is important -- I only had to be bleeped once. Part 2 is supposed to be up on Thursday. Don't ask me. I just do the talking (for free, mind you). Also, you may not know this, but if you've sent me an e-mail that I never returned, chances are we read it on the podcast. It's like live theater. And lastly, "I drink your milkshake!"

In addition to totally screwing up the narrative beauty of our podcasts, Benny fesses up that he forgot a call from a guy in London. London! And the call came in a month ago. You know what that means? One of our seven listeners has probably given up on us. Thanks Benny. By the way, if Charley from "Maisy" can call in (we think Tallulah did the dialing), then there's no reason you can't as well. Give us a jingle.

We've decided -- well, wait, "decided" hints at actual preparation -- that the podcast should be cut in two and run on consecutive days each week. At least that was the plan for about five minutes, and then the plan was to run Part 1 on Tuesday and Part 2 on Thursday, because Benny said we should "keep them wanting more." To which Joe Garofoli, admirably playing Question Boy, and I both said, "They don't want any of it, much less more." So that was the plan. We taped on Tuesday because of the Monday President's Day holiday. But then Part 1 got put up on the shiny new SFGate.com website, which was a nice placement, but probably gave too wide of an audience a peek at our rampant stupidity and lame call-back jokes (not to mention the impressions). Then, uh, we sort of forgot to post Part 2. Until today -- Friday. See? Planning just isn't our thing. But here they are, Part 1 and Part 2. Both awful. And Benny, who is actually supposed to know something about producing, has promised next week not to wave frantically at us somewhere in the middle, telling us to wrap it up. Because that just ruined our narrative flow. And, of course, ruined our "plans." We told him to stick to "manning the knobs."