Episode 529
with Tom Scharpling, Mohanad Elsheiky, and MAITA
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello unpack some controversial music opinions; writer and radio host Tom Scharpling (The Best Show) explains how his dislike for Billy Joel began as a teenage misadventure to Madison Square Garden; comedian Mohanad Elshieky describes why navigating checkpoints is better than talking to his Uber driver; and indie rock group MAITA perform "A Beast" from their album Best Wishes.
Tom Scharpling
Radio Host
Tom Scharpling has hosted the weekly radio call-in comedy program, The Best Show with Tom Scharpling, for 18 years. He and his comedy parter Jon Wurster released a 16 disc compilation of their greatest hits, The Best of the Best Show, in 2015 to critical acclaim. He is also known as the voice of Greg Universe on the hit Cartoon Network animated series Steven Universe and as a writer-executive producer for the Emmy Award–winning show Monk. In his new book, It Never Ends, Scharpling is sharing a story he has never told before—his own harrowing coming of age. He chronicles the lengths he has gone to pull away from the brink of self-destruction, his difficult rehabilitation and how he committed himself to reinvention through the world of comedy. With this memoir, he lifts the curtain to let light in on the turmoil that still follows him, how he’s risen above his circumstances to get the most out of life, while steamrolling the chumps along the way.
Mohanad Elsheiky
Comedian
Mohanad Elshieky is “an undisputed genius of comedy,” according to The Portland Mercury. He made his national TV debut on Conan, has been featured on Comedy Central, and has toured with Pop Up Magazine. In 2018, he appeared in an episode of Epix’s Unprotected Sets and was listed as one of Thrillist’s 50 Best Undiscovered Comics. Mohanad, who is currently a digital producer on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, has a special skill for making you laugh at the seemingly unlaughable. The Libyan-born comedian combines a deceptively laid-back demeanor with his whip-smart perspective on politics and culture. and he's been featured on podcasts such as Lovett or Leave It, Pod Save The People, and Harmontown. Elshieky zeroes in on topics that seem off limits - then surprises you with how hard you’re laughing.
MAITA
Indie Rock Group
MAITA is a Portland-based indie rock band fronted by Maria Maita-Keppeler. Named Portland’s Best New Band of 2020 by Willamette Week and selected as a “Song of the Day” by KEXP, the group released their debut full-length album Best Wishes on the Kill Rock Stars label in May 2020. NPR calls the album “a clear-eyed look at growing up and holding yourself responsible for actively creating the life you want to live instead of just waiting around for it to happen.” MAITA’s sophomore album I Just Want To Be Wild For You was released earlier this year.
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It is going really well this week, I have to tell you. And not just because we are about to play around of station location identification examination, but partially because of that. Because it's one of my favorite times of the week. This is where I quiz you on a place in America where Live Wire is on the radio and you try to guess where that is. And I got to say, like, you know, baseball is entering the playoffs. People are talking about batting averages. I feel like you're batting like 900.
Elena Passarello: Is that good or bad?
Luke Burbank: That's so good. If you were a baseball player, you would be first ballot in Cooperstown Hall of Fame. All right. This place was once home to Klondike Kate, who was a famous vaudeville singer and dancer of the Gold Rush era.
Elena Passarello: Well, the Klondike is in one place, and I believe the gold rush was in another place.
Luke Burbank: You are correct about those two things. And this is sort of in neither of those places.
Elena Passarello: It's like Miami.
Luke Burbank: Okay. Let me give you another hint. This might help. And I'm just going to mention, this place is not far from where you and I live, Elena. In fact, I have been to this place, and I can tell you this next part is very true. It's known as Beer Town USA, and they have an ale trail where visitors can get a passport and then you can get it stamped by the 18 breweries that are on the ale trail.
Elena Passarello: Oh, okay. Well, that's Bend, Oregon.
Luke Burbank: That is exactly where it is.
Elena Passarello: Klondike Kate was in Bend, Oregon, huh?
Luke Burbank: That's right. Klondike, Kate and the Ale Trail. Both things that Bend, Oregon is known for. Also, KOAB Radio and KLBR are where we are on the radio in Bend. So shout out to everyone on the ale trail tuning into Live Wire. Alright. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Yes. Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right, take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire. This week, The Best Show host and writer Tom Scharpling.
Tom Scharpling: My two heroes were Al Sharpton and Garry Shandling, so I was like, Why don't we combine those two? And that's who I will become.
Elena Passarello: And comedian Mohanad Elshieky.
Mohanad Elshieky: So one of the things I used to get is, where is your accent from? Like I don't know, my mouth.
Elena Passarello: With music from MAITA and our fabulous house band I'm your announcer Elena Passarello and now the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in in Bend, Oregon and all over the country. Of course, we like to ask the Live Wire listeners a question every week. This week we've asked, what is your controversial music opinion? This is because we're going to be talking to Tom Scharpling from The Best Show, and he has got a lot of musical hot takes. So we're going to hear your listener answers to that question coming up. First, though, of course, we've got to start things with the best news we heard all week this. This right here is our little reminder at the top of the show that there is still some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news that you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: All right. You got to jump in the wayback machine with me here, Burbank to 2014. One thing that was usually 2014 was the ice bucket challenge.
Luke Burbank: Sure, of course. Yeah. Raising money for ALS. I think.
Elena Passarello: That's right. They raised $115 million through this viral video campaign where celebrities and regular folks challenged each other to dump buckets of ice over their heads after donating to ALS research and treatment development. And, you know, like that was sort of sweeping the nation and then it went the way of the pet rock. It sort of stopped happening. But it turns out that some really great stuff is starting to happen because of that $115 million. For example,according to NPR, 2.2 million of that money went to fund the development and trial of this new drug that treats ALS symptoms called AMX 0035. It slows the effects of the neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. And it just got FDA approval this week. Yeah. So, I mean, that was eight years ago, right? That ice bucket challenge was like, you know, sweeping the nation like dance marathons and pole sitting. I'm trying to think of old historical facts.
Luke Burbank: Sure. Yeah. You know, I mean, those were hundreds of years ago, but yes, those were things we were all doing.
Elena Passarello: And it turns out that the whole Ice Bucket Challenge juggernaut has funded 130 research projects all over the world, 40 treatment research plans. In 2016, it funded a gene sequencing project that led to the discovery of the ALS gene. So, you know, I have to admit that I kind of rolled my eyes when I saw all my friends dumping ice buckets over their heads. I was just like, you know, you could just donate the money. But there's something about that virality that really made just a global difference. I guess we should start dumping buckets of something all over ourselves for other reasons now to raise money for other causes.
Luke Burbank: Well, exactly. And by the way, you can still donate to various ALS research associations and folks that are helping people dealing with ALS. And you can just dump a bucket of ice over your head if you're bored, you don't even have to videotape it. The best news that I saw this week is coming all the way from Germany, a community over there in central Germany called Brevoerde. And I want to apologize to our German listeners about my pronunciation of that part of the world. But there is a farmer over there. His name is Friedrich Stapel, and a couple of weeks ago he was out looking at his herd of cows, and amidst his herd of cows was an unlikely character. A baby wild pig.
Elena Passarello: Oh, no.
Luke Burbank: Who has now been named Frieda. Have you seen this photo yet, Elena?
Elena Passarello: No. I love a baby pig.
Luke Burbank: It's like a Disney film in the making. Of course, you know, radio is a notoriously visual medium. So that's why I chose this story where the entire selling point is how cute this pig is, but it's a wild pig. So it looks almost like...I don't know which one was Timon and which one was Pumbaa. It looks like the warthog a little bit from the original animated Lion King.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. It's definitely got a big noggin.
Luke Burbank: Anyway, they think that Frieda was separated from its pack of wild boars when they were trying to cross this river in the area. And so the cows have just, like adopted Frieda and are just taking care of the pig and making sure it gets fed and are looking out for it. And what's kind of interesting is that Frederich Stapel, who's this farmer he strikes me, really is like, I don't know, like if this was Babe, he'd be like the James Cromwell character. I know I'm moving between childhood movies, but because wild pigs actually do a fair amount of damage to the landscape because they like to root around and, you know, they're pretty strong. In fact, I once took a trip to a remote island off of California with these hunters from New Zealand who were there just to eliminate the wild pig population because they were doing so much damage. So you've got Friedrich, this farmer who knows that Frieda the pig is going to grow up to basically, like tear up his whole farm. But he loves her so much that he just can't he can't help for it. He's just going to let her live there. He's putting her in the barn for the winter and feeding her. They've instructed the local hunters to not hunt Frieda. She's, like, becoming the mascot of this little corner of Germany.
Elena Passarello: So the children's movie about Frieda is coming out in how many seconds, like.
Luke Burbank: Right. I give it, like, I don't know, a week, tops. It'll be on one of the streaming services that I'm currently paying for. So the farmer with a heart of gold and the little wild pig that touched his heart. That's the best news that I heard this week.
Luke Burbank: Alright. Let's invite our first guest on over to the show. For the last 19 years, he's hosted the legendary weekly call and radio show, The Best Show. He's also an Emmy Award winner for the TV show Monk, which he was a writer on and executive producer. And now he's got a memoir out. It's titled It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories. And this chronicles his struggles, his triumphs and why he is still upset about the seat that he had at a Billy Joel concert back when he was a teenager. This is our interview with Tom Scharpling, which he recorded in front of a live audience at the Alberta Rose Theater back in 2021. Take a listen. Tom, welcome to the show.
Tom Scharpling: Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: This book is is really funny and heartfelt. It starts off with you talking about how you'd always been thinking, maybe I should write a book. But you wanted to write, like, the perfect book. And then you were in a bookstore, and you noticed that DJ Khaled, the We The Best guy, had written a book. And you thought, Ah f*ck it.
Tom Scharpling: Pretty much. Yes. That's when I kind of figured between DJ Khaled and Rob Gronkowski. Football legend.
Elena Passarello: Noted literary professional.
Tom Scharpling: It's like if he has a book, I can write a book, too.
Luke Burbank: What was the process of actually getting down to writing it, though, after all those years of kind of thinking about it? What was that like for you?
Tom Scharpling: Yeah, it was kind of like I had thought about it so much that it was weirdly easy to start because I had been thinking about it for about 15 years and I was just kind of waiting to do it. And then I started doing it and then it got really hard. I'd like drive around at night and I'd be like, I think I'm turning my life into just a joke that everybody's going to laugh at me. These are the saddest things that ever happened to me. And I'm just like, turning myself into, like, a weird punch line. And, like, I was waiting for people to be like, Yeah, I like the story when you had the breakdown, that was funny. Be like, funny? That's the worst thing that ever happened to me? Like, I thought it was funny.
Luke Burbank: Tom, you and I were both, like, radio obsessed kids. You write in the book about going to college and that there was a radio station at your college that only broadcast within the college, and that sometimes they would turn off the speaker in the cafeteria. So it meant the person was broadcasting to literally no one.
Tom Scharpling: Yeah, it was like a they call it like Carrier Current Radio, which is a polite way of saying it's you're playing on the P.A. inside the same building. And then, like, people would be upstairs deejaying and taking it so seriously. And then somebody just down in the student center would just change the station on the thing with another person not even knowing that nobody was hearing what they were doing.
Luke Burbank: Well, how did you get The Best Show then, from those inauspicious beginnings?
Tom Scharpling: Well, I started volunteering at a radio station called WFMU, which is a listener sponsored station. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Legendary New York station.
Tom Scharpling: Absolutely. Yeah. Legendary New Jersey station.
Luke Burbank: Excuse me. You say New Jersey. I say tomato. So you're at WFMU, famously in New Jersey?
Tom Scharpling: Yes. We, Jon Wurster, who is my comedy partner. But this was the start of our comedy partnership. We're just friends and we talk on the phone. He was in North Carolina. I was in New Jersey, and we would just goof around and we're like, why don't we just do this on the radio show and see what that's like? And we came up with this idea where he would call in as a critic who had written a book called Rock and Rule and was like the and basically put himself in the position of being an expert and that he was going to say which band? The book, basically, the theoretical book consisted of these bands rock these bands, what these bands rule. And it was just lists and but he talked like an authority, which is the best way to drive people nuts, because now everybody's just like, wait, this moron has a, got a book deal and literally thinks like, like he'd be like, Oh, David Bowie only rocks or rocks because there's too many changes. And it would just like the audience in the phones lit up the second we started, everybody from the audience was just ready to fight him because he was talking like an expert, which is the best way to irritate people. Act like an expert when you don't know what you're talking about. And then he said, Well, Madness invented Skull, the band Madness. And then the phones really blew up. There were people just like a lot of all of like the actually people came out of the woodwork.
Luke Burbank: There's nothing the self-appointed experts seize on more quickly than someone they hear being an expert and doing it, they think incorrectly.
Tom Scharpling: Mm hmm. Oh, my God. If you hear somebody has a book deal and you'd know more about it than they do, you want to, like, literally fight them. And these people were like, I knew a couple of the people who called in. I was like, Oh no, we're pranking you right now. You're taking this very seriously. I'm going to have to apologize to you later. And then when we put it out on a CD, I was like, I'm so sorry that I took your one moment calling a radio show and now it lives forever.
Luke Burbank: And that that became kind of legendary. Lots of people passing that CD around. I mean, that thing was kind of viral before we had that term.
Tom Scharpling: Yeah, it was. I guess. What would you call that? Was it venereal?
Luke Burbank: Yes. Wow. That sounds so much worse. This seems like a good time to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask about your antipathy towards Billy Joel in a moment. This is Live Wire Radio. We're talking to Tom Scharpling. His new memoir is It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories. Don't Go Anywhere. We'll be right back.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello and a bunch of beautiful masked people at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. We're talking to Tom Scharpling from The Best Show. He also worked on the TV show Monk. His new book is It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories. One of the hotter takes in this book is the fact that that you're not a Billy Joel fan. You lay that out in a chapter for the people out there who are getting ready to call in angrily. Sure. What would your what would you take be on why Billy Joel is not not the greatest.
Tom Scharpling: Generally his music.
Elena Passarello: Oh.
Tom Scharpling: I'd say it starts with the music that he writes and records.
Luke Burbank: Okay. All right.
Elena Passarello: Ooh.
Luke Burbank: You do sort of come around at the end of the chapter, I believe. Well, first of all, you tell a story of going to a Billy Joel concert in your youth that was kind of formative for you because it was like the sort of cool kids had an extra Billy Joel ticket or kids that you didn't have any anything socially in in common with. And you went to this Billy Joel show and your seats were so...Well, first you tried to buy a switchblade that didn't go well.
Tom Scharpling: Well, I didn't. One of these...
Luke Burbank: The cool kids.
Tom Scharpling: The cool kids, one of the cool kids we take the train from New Jersey into the city is what you call New York City when you're from New Jersey. So we take the train and get out of Penn Station and he's like, I want to go to Times Square and we're just like, whoa, that's the scariest place on earth where we were 13. What are we doing? So we go to Times Square and he's like, I want to buy a switchblade. And we're like, Who are you? Like, you're in eighth grade. What are you going to do with a switchblade? So then we he goes, We're in Times Square. And it's still it's like the end of bad Times Square. But before, like, the M&M store showed up. So wasn't there, yet.
Luke Burbank: Some would say is a new version of bad Times Square?
Tom Scharpling: Yes, exactly. But. So then some guy comes up, he sees these dumb suburban kids from a mile away and he's like, What do you guys need? And he's like, I want a switchblade. And the guy goes, All right, 30 bucks. And my friend goes like, No, it's too much. So he's like, these negotiating Tobias Which was like, you even know the market value of the switchblade. How is this possible? So he's like, All right, 20. And then he's like, You stay here. I'll be back. And then Guy takes off, comes back a few minutes later with this, like, paper bag, and he pulls my friend's pant leg up and jams it in the sock. And he's like, Give me the money, give me money. And then hands on the money and the guy runs and we're like, Well, we can't look at it right here on the street because it's a it's a weapon. So we go to a department store like Macy's or something to and then go into the bathroom. And then my friends at the urinal, my friend, this is just a jock who I wanted to fit in with and they wanted nothing to do with me. Outside of that, I would buy the fourth Billy Joel ticket off of. I must have been like the 80th person they asked. So then. He's at the urinal and the suddenly hear him go, mother. And then he storms out of the bathroom. And then there's a Mounds bar laying in the urinal. So he paid $20 for a Mounds bar. But don't go aw. He was a terrible person, a terrible young person. I'm sure he's twice as bad as an adult.
Elena Passarello: But then you got to soften the blow with a Billy Joel show.
Tom Scharpling: Oh, well, that was the reward for all the hard work. And so we go to the Billy Joel Show and this kid who just lost 20 bucks on a switchblade, he's like, I don't want to go this show. I'm gonna scalp my ticket. And he goes up to a guy is like, I'm selling my ticket, and guy looks at he's like, I don't want this is literally the worst seat at Madison Square Garden. Out of 20,000 seats. This is the worst seat. And it was because it was the last row of the upper deck, literally behind the stage, like the seats that Billy Joel, by all rights, should not be selling. But he'll sell them to you.
Luke Burbank: We're currently being taken off the air in Long Island. I believe.
Tom Scharpling: So then this kid who again is 13 at the most, 14, he's like, just goes up to the concession stand and starts buying these gigantic beers and they're just selling them to him. So he's so drunk. And he ended up spilling one of the beers on one of the other guys tour, book. Tour program. Nobody was happy that night.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Tom Scharpling about his new book, It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories. Alright, Tom, another sort of news flash in this book, something that I was unaware of is that Tom Scharpling is not your birth name.
Tom Scharpling: No, it's not.
Luke Burbank: Your original name was Thomas Juliano. And in the book, you explain the back story that involves, like cassette tapes and also Garry Shandling and Al Sharpton.
Tom Scharpling: Yeah, it was kind of a comedy when I was 18. My two heroes were Al Sharpton and Garry Shandling. So, like, why don't we combine those two Hall of Heroes for me. And that's who I will become.
Luke Burbank: I'm sure a lot of the listeners to The Best Show kind of feel like they have a bit of a sense of you and I as a listener felt I had a sense of you. And then in this book there's a lot of stuff that was new information. And one of the things you write about is something you said you had pretty much kept a secret in your life, which was that you dealt with some mental health issues in high school and you actually went through shock therapy. Well, I guess the first question is, why did you decide to include that in the book?
Tom Scharpling: Why did I decided to do it? Okay, well, seemed like a fun thing to do. Yeah, you know why they put it in? It was just one of those things. If I was going to write a book that told stories for my life, I knew I'd truly be denying, like the the hub of everything that has been run. Everything was informed by that for me. For my whole life. And just things happen and either, you know, you can bury them and hide from them. And that's what I did for most of my life. And I was just like, Well, if I'm going to do this book, I'm just going to talk about it and just own it, kind of just get it out there and then kind of unburden myself in the process also. So. I never thought I was going to get cheers over my electroconvulsive therapy.
Luke Burbank: Welcome to Portland baby.
Tom Scharpling: Yes, thank you. I feel like I'm like I'm at the ECT Awards, I'm holding that up. I did it, Billy. Jaden, go to bed. Daddy's coming home. He won the ECT.
Luke Burbank: One of the things, though, that is very fun and smart about this book is when you get into heavy stuff, you then will follow that up with, like, a story of unqualified triumph so that you can kind of, you know, keep keep things on a bit of an even keel. In the book, unqualified triumphs like pitches that you've made for like projects or videos that are not actually picked up. But they make you laugh. Like your idea for a Paul Simon video.
Tom Scharpling: Yeah, yeah. If there's a recurring theme in the book that's revealing itself to me right now, this book is pretty much just me listing who I would want to see get hurt. And I like Paul Simon, so don't beat me up afterwards. He just ... happy 80th birthday. He just had his 80th. God bless you, Paul Simon. Garfunkel, not so much. But, no. I direct music videos now and again and somebody had said, Hey, do you want to pitch ideas for Paul Simon for this new album he has coming up? And this is a while ago, as you'll see by the pitch I made, I was just like. You know that. Okay. Go video where they did like the giant Rube Goldberg thing that's really popular a year or so before. And I was just like, well, what if we do one where Paul Simon is getting ready to do one of those and he's in like a jumpsuit, and then the song starts and then like the all the crap starts falling and everything, but then like a giant oil drum rolls and knocks them over and like, seriously hurts him. And like, he doubles up for clutching his leg in agony and then lays there for a minute before the crew figures out he's really hurt, but it's all one shot. And then people come over.
Luke Burbank: The song is still playing.
Tom Scharpling: Still playing. People come over. Are you okay? He's clearly not okay. Then eventually an ambulance kind of pulls in. Some medics help him in the back, and they would just follow him in the ambulance until the song stopped. And then he the spoiler alert Paul Simon did not want to make this video.
Luke Burbank: But it does get filed under unqualified triumph in the book.
Tom Scharpling: Yes, unqualified.
Luke Burbank: Do you ever sort of sit back and take stock of kind of where you've ended up in your life? You have this successful professional career as an entertainer. You're a TV writer. You've got this popular radio show to think about kind of where you were in your life, particularly in your high school years when you were dealing with really profound depression and suicidal ideation. And just to to figure out to sit back and kind of see that you got through that and you got to this point in your life. I mean, does it ever just amaze you how it all ended up?
Tom Scharpling: Oh, absolutely. I truly can't believe I'm still alive. Honestly, it was so bad. It just seemed built into things that I was not going to make it. And I did make it. And I'm just grateful for everything. Even though there were huge challenges with all the ECT stuff like memory loss, like enormous amounts of memory loss that I've been dealing with ever since then, I'm still alive. And that's kind of I guess that's the best version of things, right?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Well, you're here on this stage.
Tom Scharpling: No.
Luke Burbank: With a bunch of your fans in the audience. That's pretty good.
Tom Scharpling: No, that was a joke. I'm truly grateful for everything and for how I got through it all.
Luke Burbank: Tom Scharpling, ladies and gentlemen, new book, It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories is available now.
Tom Scharpling: Thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: That was Tom Scharpling right here on Live Wire. His latest book, It Never Ends, a Memoir with Nice Memories, is available now. And since we last spoke to Tom, he has completed a 24 hour long episode of his radio show, The Best Show. And he had some real humdinger guests John Oliver, Conan O'Brien, Nathan Fielder. And you can catch that as an eight part podcast or just watch it straight on YouTube, all 24 hours of it. It's available now.
Luke Burbank: Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco, and as a member of the OneWorld alliance. Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska Air dot com.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. Of course, we ask the listeners a question each week. This week, because of Tom Scharpling's musical Hot Takes, we wanted to know from the Live Wire listeners, what's your controversial music opinion? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: Ooh. Okay, everybody put on your ov' gloves, because these are some hot takes. Piping hot takes, like this one from Paul, who says people should sit at concerts now.
Luke Burbank: Wow. I mean, that is a polarizing statement.
Elena Passarello: I can see why that makes sense. A, I'm old and I want to sit all the time. B, I'm short ish, so I usually can't see so great. But it feels weird to go to a live show. To imagine going to a live show and sort of reclining like. Like at the Nick Cave show at the Arlene Schnitzer, which is this fancy concert hall in Portland. We were all sitting very still with our hands in our laps. And then he just kind of like launched into the crowd, like an evangelical crow. And everybody just, like, rushed the stage and like because we he didn't want us sitting and we didn't want to sit.
Luke Burbank: I don't know if our listeners necessarily know who Nick Cave is, but evangelical Crow is the most perfect description of Nick Cave. I mean, ideally you'd be in a concert setting where there is an area that everybody who wants to stand can stand, and the folks that might want to sit can also kind of sit.
Elena Passarello: I wouldn't mind the obstruction, but when people are standing in front of you and they're holding up their cell phones, I am just not of the generation. It just totally takes me out of the experience. So Paul's dream is for everyone to sit. My dream is for only cell phone free shows.
Luke Burbank: We don't have this problem with Live Wire in the live space. No one's cell phone recording us. We got to get more dynamic. Elena.
Elena Passarello: No, that's fine.
Luke Burbank: We have to make it so. People are like, I must capture this for history with my phone. Alright. What's another controversial music opinion one of our listeners has.
Elena Passarello: I share this one with Justin, and I don't even know if it's that controversial. Justin says, I am still mad about that U2 album being put on my phone.
Luke Burbank: If I remember right, this auto downloaded on to people with like if you had an iPhone, it auto downloaded a U2 song or something.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, what a bad idea. And one of the funny repercussions of it is my 75 year old mother in law. Now, whenever she gets into her Apple, CarPlay activated Volkswagen, the beginning of that U2 album plays and she goes ugh U2, and then she shuts it off.
Luke Burbank: Just because it basically just comes up automatically, right? Because it alphabetize it that way. I had the song A Punk by Vampire Weekend, which is like a very jarring song with because it starts with an A. It used to start playing every time I would start my car for years, which was like something they do to people to try to break them and, you know, peace and love to the folks in Vampire Weekend, but I never hear that song again. It'll be fine. All right. One more controversial opinion from one of our listeners.
Elena Passarello: Okay, so this one comes from within the house of our Live Wire staff.
Luke Burbank: The call is coming from inside the house.
Elena Passarello: There are already people talking about it in the chat. While we try to record this, the newest addition to the Live Wire team, Tanvii, claims that Waka Flocka Flame is more talented than Mozart and that, my friends, is the hot take we're looking for.
Luke Burbank: My goodness. The problem is, I don't know enough about Waka or Mozart.
Elena Passarello: I have 50% knowledge. I know quite a bit about Mozart, but the only thing I know about Waka Flocka Flame was just put into the chat by Tanvi, and it's that Waka Flocka Flame had a higher ACT score than Barack Obama.
Luke Burbank: I thought Tanvi was going to say than Mozart, and I was going to say, Come on. I don't think they had the ACT yet.
Elena Passarello: No, they didn't.
Luke Burbank: Maybe we'll circle back to this topic in a future show. In between now and then, we can let the folks in the comment section kind of duke it out over the merits of Waka versus the merits of Mozart. All right. Thank you to everyone who sent in responses to our question this week. We've got another one coming up for next week's show, which we are going to reveal in just a bit. In the meantime, it's time to welcome our next guest onto the program. He made his national TV debut on Conan. He's been featured on Comedy Central and he's toured with Pop Up Magazine. He worked on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee as well, and has been featured on the podcast Love It or Leave it. Pod Save the People and this show Live Wire. Take a listen to Mohanad Elshieky, recorded back in 2021 at the Alberta Rose Theater.
Mohanad Elshieky: Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. You know, I got so lucky. I got to spend the past 18 months working from home, which was great for me because a few years ago, I used to do customer service. Anyone here does that or used to do that? Yeah, a few people. The rest of you are just the 1%. I hate customer service. It's the worst it's the worst thing you could do in life. Like working customer service is the reason I don't believe that all lives matter, you know? You know, people like when I work in customer service, like always want to guess my accent, which is great for both of us. Uh. And people here, like in Portland, would never ask you where you're from. They always like find a sneaky way to do it. So one of the things I used to get is where is your accent from? Would you like. I don't know. My mouth is just like that's how speech works, you know? But I remember I had this one guy specifically who approached me and he was like, Hey, man, I'm going to ask you something. And this is going to be like a white dude thing to ask, which, you know, always excites me. And he was like, Are you Persian? And I was like, No, I am not. And he was like. Are you sure? Like. No, you know, I wish I had your confidence. That's super amazing. And he was like, No, I'm just asking because my dad my dad is Persian. And I was like, oh, okay. Do you think I'm your dad. Have you been walking around retail stores just looking for vaguely ethnic men? Well, I mean, Father, I would never have a kid this dumb. I live in New York City now, and I spent the whole pandemic in my apartment watching so much true crime. Yeah. Like, not on TV, but, like, from my window. Well, we're back now, like, you know, taking Ubers and stuff, which is which is great. But I have like a lot of social anxiety when talking to Uber drivers. It's just I hate talking to Uber drivers. It's like nothing against them it's just me. It is the worst thing ever. And you know, you're like, hey, man there's like there are like worse things in life that could happen. And, you know, eight years ago I was driving my car back home. And when I say home, I'm originally from from Libya, specifically from the city of Benghazi, which I'm sure you've only heard good things about. And I got stopped at a checkpoint and these checkpoints were like mostly controlled by like these militias. They were like everywhere, like ISIS and stuff. I don't know if you remember them. They kind of fell off. And you know, this search my car up and down. And then one of them approached me and he was like, Hey, before you go, I'm going to ask you something. And he was like, Who do you support us or them? Oh, like, that was a that's a great question, sir. That really depends. Are you us or them? And he was like, No, we have to pick. And I was like, God, I support God. And they were like, that's super dope. Yeah, that's the whole brand here, actually. So a good job. You can go. And if you're like, What is the point of this story? Like, what is it that you're trying to tell us? The point I'm trying to make is that I'd rather deal with all of that than have my Uber driver talk to me. Yeah. I growing up, I grew up in a religious family and growing up, I had a middle school teacher who would tell us about what happens to us when we die and when we go to heaven. And one of the things he used to say is that in heaven we get rivers of honey. Yes. And I remember being like, well, that sounds exciting for a bear. You know, a few days in, I'd be like, God, this sucks. This is sticky. Like, I thought, you love me. What's up with this? Two years ago, I, I was I was I was doing I was doing comedy in, in Washington State in a city called Spokane, Washington. And, you know, I was doing comedy there. And, you know, I finished my gig and then I was going back to Portland. I got on the Greyhound bus, which, you know, I because I did that because I believe that the best art comes from torture. Got on the bus like this is the worst thing that could happen to me today. And then I look up and I see these two people wearing uniforms, walking down the aisle. And then, you know, they approached me and they asked me where I'm from. I tell them. And then they're like, Do you have a passport? And I'm like, Well, sir, this is a bus. Not sure what to tell you. And he was like, Okay, give us your papers and everything you have and let's step outside of the bus. And then I learned that these people were Border Patrol, which sucks. And then, you know, it sucks because like they asked me to step outside based on the way I looked. You know, they looked at me and they were like, this guy looks, too, handsome to be from Spokane like. You know, and then we talked outside for like 20 minutes. I gave them my papers, they looked at them, they were like, these papers look fake. They're easily falsified. And I was like, Well, these papers have been given to me by you. So maybe do a better job. I don't know, like. Seems like a you problem at this point. And then they were like, okay, buddy we are you going to let you go now but quick question. Are you from from Oregon or Washington? And I was like, I support God. And they were like, well, like, I don't know, man, this how we talk to militias. Yeah. And I think that sucks about this that this like I went back on the bus and, you know, like it was such a lonely feeling to feel like you're like, you know, different from everyone. Like everyone, like looking at you. And it feels so lonely, like and I'm saying that as someone who, like, you know, been to an Ariana Grande concert as an adult. And it was all over the news because I tweeted about it and went viral, which I shouldn't have done. But, you know, I was getting like a lot of death threats from people, which, you know, not fun. But the worst part was that not that my civil rights were violated or that I had to deal with, like death threats or any of that. It was the fact that for two weeks the whole nation knew that I can only afford greyhound busses. Really sucked for me and my brand. Think I'm going to end with this? You know, a lot of people, like during the pandemic, got super creative with their time, you know, like on TikTok Instagram and all of that, getting to like, you know, these cool stuff outside. And apparently people don't like it when you have fun. And so there was like this opinion section in The Washington Post. And by the way, I don't know if you've seen opinions lately, but extremely bad, like not a single good, good opinion. And, you know, the opinion was about like, you know, like, oh, my God, young people, like, would do anything for followers. Like, the things they do for followers are just absolutely insane. Like, anything for followers just doesn't make sense. And I was like, you know, sir, I do understand your point, but, like, it did work for Jesus. Like, the man literally died for his followers and now has, like, what, 2 billion? Good PR move, Jesus like, that's an upgrade from what he had before. Like 12, mostly his buddies. Like, good. Yes. And it's been a while since we had like, I don't know, like 20,000, 21 years. Don't quote me on this. I'm not a history buff. But we still sell his merch to this day. Like he even got a book deal out of it. What I'm trying to say is, you know, like, his father, like, created the universe, but Jesus created content, and that's what matters in this day and age. Anyway, my name is Mohanad Elshieky. That's my time. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: Mohanad Elshieky, everybody.
Luke Burbank: That was Mohanad Elshieky right here on Live Wire. You can also check him out on the I'm Sorry podcast where he and his co-hosts process public and personal controversies and decide whether to forgive, forget or cancel. I'm Luke Burbank. Right over there is Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere because we're coming back in just a moment.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. Okay. Before we get to this week's musical guest, a little preview of next week's episode of the show. We are going to have Sona Movsesian as one of our guests. She is probably best known for her, I guess you could say complicated and hilarious relationship with her boss who happens to be Conan O'Brien. She's on the podcast. Conan O'Brien needs a friend, among other places, and she's written a book about being a personal assistant called The World's Worst Assistant. We're also going to get some standup from the very funny Marcella Arguello, who's going to tell us about how she found common ground with a Donald Trump supporter regarding an airport parking shuttle. Not the place that I was expecting political divisions to be mended, but that's what happened to Marcella. Also, we're gonna get some incredible music from spiritual jazz duo Brown Calculus. Now, as far as the listener question for next week, Elena, what are we asking the listeners?
Elena Passarello: We want to know what is the worst job you've ever had?
Luke Burbank: Gosh, I mean, I had before the age of probably 20 more jobs than some people have in a lifetime. That's mostly because I'm a bad employee and I was often let go.
Elena Passarello: When you work in the theater, there's a lot of worst jobs you've ever had, both on stage and as your survival job. So we'll have a good time next week with this one.
Luke Burbank: All right. If you've got an answer to that question you want to share with us, you can submit via the Internet on Twitter and Facebook. We're at Live Wire Radio dot org. Okay. Our musical guest this week was named Portland's Best New Band of 2020 by the Willamette Week. NPR calls their album a clear eyed look at growing up and holding yourself responsible for actively creating the life you want to live. Instead of just waiting around for it to happen. Just profound. And probably the journey we should all be on, actually. This is MAITA right here on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: Hello.
MAITA: Hi.
Luke Burbank: Welcome to the show.
MAITA: Thank you. Thanks for having.
Luke Burbank: I read an interview, Maria, in the Reed alumni magazine, where I believe you graduated and you were saying that you will go to an open mic and you will listen to somebody performing an extremely cringeworthy lyric, and then you will ask yourself, what's my version of that? And then you will write it and put it in a song.
MAITA: Yeah. That's the tactic that I use sometimes. I feel bad saying that, now that I think about it.
Luke Burbank: That seems like a bad way to get to a good lyric for you. But what is is it freeing to hear someone else say it in a cringey way?
MAITA: Well, I think that sometimes you have to hear what's not true to have a visceral reaction of what the truth actually is. And it's like telling the truth and finding the truth in something is my main goal with songwriting. And when you hear something that feels kitschy or clichéd, like, you have to think like, why does this feel bad? And that's where you get to the truth. I think.
Luke Burbank: Wow, what song are we going to hear?
MAITA: The song is off our record that came out during the pandemic. It's called A Beast.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is MAITA on Live Wire.
[A Beast by MAITA plays]
Luke Burbank: That's MAITA right here on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: That was MAITA performing live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland right here on Live Wire. Their album, I Just Want To Be Wild for You is out now. Okay. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests Tom Scharpling, Mohannad Elshieky and MAITA Live Wire, as brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather Dee. Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. A. Walker Spring composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer and our house sound is by Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Christopher Zimmerman of Portland, Oregon, and Jed Foster of Auburn, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast or check out our best news podcast. Head on over to Live Wire Radio Dawg. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire team. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.
Luke Burbank: PRX.
