Episode 590
with Sam Sanders, Reggie Watts, and Sway Wild
Podcaster Sam Sanders (Vibe Check) shares his hot takes on pop culture, from the Barbie movie to his favorite nepo baby; comedian Reggie Watts makes a surprise appearance to express his take on generation differences… in a comedic spoken word poem; and indie folk duo Sway Wild perform their song "Home," which was inspired by a two-month sailing voyage. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal our listeners' favorite moment in pop culture this year.
Sam Sanders
Podcaster & Journalist
Sam Sanders is a podcast host, radio personality, and pop culture connoisseur. For years, he was the host of NPR’s award-winning radio program and podcast It’s Been a Minute. Sanders joined NPR in 2009 as a Kroc Fellow, and in his 12 years there, assumed a number of roles. Prior to hosting It’s Been a Minute, Sanders was a key member of NPR’s election unit, where he covered the intersection of culture, pop culture, and politics in the 2016 election, and embedded with the Bernie Sanders campaign for several months. He was one of the original co-hosts of NPR’s Politics Podcast, and held roles at several NPR member stations. Sanders also won the 2022 iHeart Award for Best Overall Host (male) and the Los Angeles Press Club National A&E Journalism award for Best Anchor/Host radio. Today, Sam hosts the weekly pop culture podcast Into It from Vulture and New York Magazine. He is also the co-host of Vibe Check with Saeed Jones and Zack Stafford. • Instagram • Twitter
Reggie Watts
Comedian, Actor & Musician
Reggie Watts is a one of a kind comedian, actor, beatboxer and musician. Watts calls himself a "disinformationist" and his comedy style will disorient you in the most entertaining way. His Netflix specials introduced the world to his artful style of blending music and comedy. He’s best known as the bandleader and announcer for the former TV show The Late Late Show with James Cordan. He’s also appeared on the TV show Comedy Bang! Bang. His debut book Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, And a Tale of Coming Home Again is all about growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland—and having a blast doing it. Instagram • Twitter
Sway Wild
Band
Sway Wild’s music can squeeze the heart in your chest, draw tears from your eyes, and force you to move your body, it somehow manages to do all three at once. Sway Wild is a collaboration between indie folk-rock duo Mandy Fer and Dave McGraw. Their infectious sound explores the corners of rock, pop, funk, worldbeat, and folk, but at its core is undeniably a music full of joy. The San Juan Island, WA-based duo have exceptional vocal harmonies and, coupled with Fer’s pioneering electric guitar work, have shared the stage with Iron & Wine, Lake Street Dive, and Watchhouse. Mandy also tours as the lead guitarist for Grammy-nominated Allison Russell and recently performed with Brandi Carlile and Jason Isbell. Website •Instagram •Twitter
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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 am excited to play this round of Station Location Identification Examination with you. Are you excited?
Elena Passarello: Yes, so excited.
Luke Burbank: I think part of my excitement is that I already have the answer, so this is very easy for me. This is the easiest part of the show for me. This is where I quiz Elena about a place somewhere in the country where Live Wire's on the radio. She's got to guess the place that I am talking about. Historically, this town was known as the sweet pea capital of the nation. At one time, it was responsible for exporting 75% of the nation's sweet peas.
Elena Passarello: Oh, sweet peas. That sounds very southern.
Luke Burbank: It does. And yet it's not. Actually, it's a little more northwest. This town serves as a gateway to Yellowstone National Park and the Gallatin National Forest.
Elena Passarello: Well, there are several gateways. We came in on the Montana side at the top.
Luke Burbank: You're in the right state.
Elena Passarello: Far from Bozeman, but probably a state's—no no no Bozeman. Bozeman.
Luke Burbank: That's right. Where's my bell? Ding, ding, ding. Bozeman, Montana, where we're on the radio on KMBC.FM Yellowstone Public Radio. I feel more outdoorsy already just saying that. Yellowstone Public Radio.
Elena Passarello: I'm feeling more like Kevin Costner.
Luke Burbank: Yes, that is a hit show. Let me tell you. Just ask any of your grandparents.
Elena Passarello: We call it Cowboy Game of Thrones.
Luke Burbank: All right. Are you ready to get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Well, let's do it.
Luke Burbank: Take it away, cowboy.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire. This week, podcaster and pop culture connoisseur Sam Sanders.
Sam Sanders: I can not name an unhappy woman rapper. Cardi B is having a great time. Megan Thee stallion got shot in the foot. She's still having a great time.
Elena Passarello: And comedian Reggie Watts.
Reggie Watts: And Gen Z is like so fascinated with Michael Landon, which I don't really I don't get it. But all like Michael Landon all day long.
Elena Passarello: With music from Sway Wild 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 from all over the country, including in Montana on KMBC.FM Yellowstone Public Radio. We have such a fun show in store for you this week. All kinds of surprises popping up, which I'll explain in a moment. And we did ask our Live Wire listeners a question like we always do. We asked, what has been your favorite piece of pop culture from the past year? We're going to talk pop culture with Sam Sanders. So we'll read those listener responses coming up in a moment. First, though, we got to do the best news we heard all week. This our little moment to reflect upon the fact that there is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay. I think we've started a trend Burbank, kind of unintentionally, but a couple best news is ago I told the story of that dog named Bret Michaels that got adopted by Poison's Bret Michaels. And then you told a story about a pig named Kevin Bacon that got found via a search effort that also included human Kevin Bacon. So I'm going to just like perform an American trilogy of sorts because there is a three-year-old pit bull terrier who until recently was at the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society named Elvis last month. The Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society had A Fall in Love, it should have been A Can't help Fallen in Love, adoption event where they waived their application fee in order to sort of clear the cages of the shelter. And they adopted 39 cats and 22 dogs to good homes. And there was only one dog left at the end of the event. And it was Elvis. They posted about it on social media. And there was this couple, Lauren Agron and his partner Drew, and they've been thinking about getting a dog forever. And they saw the Post. And honestly, if you saw a picture of this dog, you would adopt it even if you didn't have like even if you lived on like a motor scooter or something, you would totally—and he has a little he's kind of white and gray with this little eyepatch and the sweetest face. So they saw him. They ran and adopted him because guess what else? Have you ever heard of this kind of famous 1950s style diner in Chicago called Ed Debevic's?
Luke Burbank: Yeah, Ed Debevic's. The shtick is that the servers are rude to you.
Elena Passarello: And apparently they're all in costume, right? And the guy, Lauren, who adopted Elvis, he manages that place, but he used to be a server and he would perform dressed as a character named Elvis Parsley. An Elvis impersonator has adopted the world's cutest pitbull, whose name also happens to be Elvis Presley. Lauren says he's a misfit. And Drew and I consider ourselves the kings of misfits. He is a cuddly hunk of burnin' love. He's a loving teddy bear, and his friends and neighbors are all begging to visit the dog and help take care of him.
Luke Burbank: My best news that I saw this week also involves animals, but it involves now the recognized world champions of napping. And that would be penguins. As reported in the New York Times recently, in fact, specifically chinstrap penguins that were being studied by the Korea Polar Research Institute. They were trying to figure out like what happens when penguins are in the water versus when penguins are nesting with their young and doing things like when are these birds getting some sleep? So they hooked some of these chinstrap penguins up to electrodes, which I feel like immediately might futz with the data. Like, I don't know, I'm not sleeping great if you hook those electrodes up to me. But whatever this what we got to do to.
Elena Passarello: To their chin straps?
Luke Burbank: Right. So like they found that when these penguins were in the water, they didn't sleep at all, which kind of makes sense. But then when they would get back home and they would be like with their young and they'd be hanging out, the speed of their brains would slow down in a way that would indicate they were sleeping up to 600 times an hour. They were sometimes taking 600 micro naps in an hour.
Elena Passarello: And it counts for rest? Like they get good rest from that?
Luke Burbank: Well, this is the thing that they're trying to figure out, right? Because the thought with humans is for us to get, you know, rest, that's useful it needs to go on for a certain amount of time. There turns out a lot of animals, including penguins, that just do these like micro naps all day, probably because they're trying to, you know, not get eaten by some bird of prey swooping down on them. But there's there's an emerging body of science that says these very, very short, like 1 to 2 second naps might be sufficient. This explains so much, Elena, about my particular family structure, which is my daughter Adelaide and I. I'm going to show you something. Our whole thing is penguins. So whenever one of us sees like a little dad penguin and baby penguin out in, like an antique store, we buy it. And then I get the big one and she gets the little one. We are also world class nappers. There was also something else in this article that really blew my mind. One researcher at the University of Oxford was really asking the question, are we, as animals, designed to be awake or designed to be asleep? Like we think of ourselves as awake things that go to sleep sometimes. And this one guy was saying maybe we're asleep things. Maybe our brains are set to being asleep and we have to wake up to get food and do all these other things so that we can then go back to sleep. He said, you're basically spending your life asleep and you just wake up when it's needed. He's questioning the whole premise of sleep in both penguins and humans.
Elena Passarello: Wow. My husband is definitely someone who lives to sleep, so he might want to contact him for the study.
Luke Burbank: I'll send him a small penguin. A David sized penguin. All right. Penguins. Making me feel more seen in the world. That's the best news I heard this week. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to this week's Live Wire. He's a podcaster, radio personality and pop culture connoisseur. He was the founder and former host of NPR's It's Been a Minute radio show. And these days, he hosts the very delightful and very delightfully thought provoking podcast called Vibe Check, which he hosts with Saeed Jones and Zack Stafford. Take a listen to this. It's Sam Sanders who joined us on stage at Town Hall in Seattle. Sam, welcome to the program. We've had you on the show once before, but it was when we were still doing a lot of stuff remotely.
Sam Sanders: Yeah, I was in my garage.
Luke Burbank: I love Vibe Check so much. [Sam Sanders: Thank you.] And for people who haven't maybe heard the show yet, can you kind of describe how it unfolds, what you all do on the show?
Sam Sanders: Yeah. The nut graph is that Vibe Check, the podcast, is our group chat, the three of us, just come to life. So the chats that we would have, texting to each other se were like, Let's make it a show. The longer version of the story is that the three of us had been circling the others for years, professionally, etc. and Saeed and Zach became friends first. I met Saeed and Zach through work stuff at NPR. And then I kind of said y'all are my friends, now, I'm sorry, this is it. And then I made them get into this group chat with me that we called the Witches of Macbeth. And then one day during deep pandemic, I finished an—I finished an interview for It's Been a Minute. And I finished it. And I was in a funky mood the whole day. Not because of the interview, but I was in a funky mood the whole day. And I said, Well, Sam, what would make you happy? What do you want to do right now? And I was like, I want to talk to my friends and I want to talk to them all the time. So we did.
Luke Burbank: Wow. On the subject of of the podcast world and how these shows come together, I'm just curious sort of your thoughts on the on the state of podcasting. It's feels like it's in a very weird place considering it was supposed to be the future of how all communication happened.
Sam Sanders: If I had to offer a one sentence mission statement for survival in the podcasting industry right now, it would be: being good is not enough. A lot of the shows that we like are really good. Most of them don't make any money.
Luke Burbank: Right?
Sam Sanders: They don't. [Luke: Yeah.] I'm looking at myself too here, okay? But that doesn't mean you don't keep trying to make good stuff. [Luke: Hmm.] And it's a lesson in separating your art from your worth from the job. So that's a good thing to do. But I think that like until the money is not funny, this is just the way it's going to be and it's going to keep happening. So, like the biggest reason for this, this drastic drop off in podcast listening is advertising. Some advertisers have just stopped doing it in podcasts and taken it elsewhere. Others have said, We just want to pay a whole lot less to run ads. And so in that reality, a lot of podcasts that were financially solvent five years ago aren't solvent today. [Elena:Huh.] And the hope is that they bounce back. But why would they bounce back? Yeah, it's just the money thing. And when you think of it as just a money thing, you don't get sad. [Luke: Right. Right.] Keep making podcasts. Podcast are good. We love podcasts. The money's over there.
Luke Burbank: I have that all tattooed on this arm.
Luke Burbank: We love podcasts. Podcasts are good. This is Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank. We are talking to journalist and podcaster Sam Sanders. When we get back, Sam is going to tell us about an interview that he has been obsessed with for many years. It's an interview that I also have a pretty high level of awareness of for reasons that will become clear after this very short break. Stay with us. Well. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank, here with my friend Elena Passarello. We are listening to a conversation we recorded with the journalist and podcaster Sam Sanders live at Town Hall in Seattle, Washington. Okay. Before we get back to this interview, I have to sort of set something up. Now, we're on stage. We're talking to Sam. And unbeknownst to me, he was going to start talking about an interview that I had actually done way long ago. Like back in 2007, I interviewed this Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. It was not a good interview. In fact, it's often been cited as one of the worst interviews in the history of music journalism. And kind of out of the blue, Sam decided to get this off of his chest. So that's kind of what is about to unfold here. Strap in. This is Sam Sanders live from Seattle.
Sam Sanders: I've been obsessed for six years with an interview you did on the Bryant Park Project at NPR.
Luke Burbank: Okay. What was the interview?
Sam Sanders: Oh, you know what the interview is.
Luke Burbank: Oh is it—
Sam Sanders: 5 minutes and 19 seconds.
Luke Burbank: Was it an interview with an Icelandic band, by any chance? Sigur Ros? Yes.
Sam Sanders: How do we set this up?
Luke Burbank: We're actually out of time.
Sam Sanders: No! No! There's a good ending. There's a good ending. Okay. The Bryant Park Project is this new show that NPR wants to launch about sixteen years ago. Mm hmm. And it's meant to be kind of maybe a spicier version of Morning Edition.
Luke Burbank: I think that was what they were going for yeah.
Sam Sanders: So Luke and Rachel Martin are hosting the show. They're great. We love them. They were doing video for the show before other shows were doing it. But one of the interviews that's on video that Luke did is with this amazing Icelandic group called Sigur Ros.
Luke Burbank: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Sam Sanders: They were awful. [Elena: Oh no!] They were pissy. They were quiet. They were sarcastic. They were zombies. And I wanted to punch 'em in the throat. The whole time Luke stays committed to the bit. [Luke: Yeah. The bit being—] He doesn't stop.
Luke Burbank: The bit being I was very bad at interviewing.
Sam Sanders: No, you weren't. They were bad at being interviewed.
Luke Burbank: Let me. Let me. Let me. We're just—I'm seeing we have a little more time now. Let me let me just say that I ran into them at a music festival backstage years later. I did. And I said, I don't know if you remember me, but they were like, Were you the guy from New York? Yes. And by the way, their English is much better now. They were like, We were so sorry. We didn't know what you were doing. We were nervous. So we—
Sam Sanders: Wait. So they weren't being [expletive]?
Luke Burbank: No, No. I think it was legitimately a language barrier.
Sam Sanders: They need to know that they're not coming off that way. [Elena: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.] Last tidbit on this. Okay. I promise, every now and then, I will teach radio to undergrads or graduate students. And every now and then in class, I teach your video. [Luke: Wow.] But listen, listen. Every time I do it, they watch, we talk, etc., etc.. And the last line of the lecture is: commit to the bit. Finish. Finish. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So thank you.
Luke Burbank: You're very welcome. Journalism students of America. Okay. Something that came up that you've been talking about is just, what, a year pop culturally, this has been basically for women. [Sam Sanders: Yeah.] Obviously the Barbie movie. SZA with like 8 trillion Grammy nominations.
Sam Sanders: 9, yeah. But I wish a trillion.
Luke Burbank: She's somewhere between 9 and 8 trillion. Can you—what do you think is sort of behind that culturally? What's going on that we're seeing a lot of women really celebrated in pop culture, maybe in a way that it wasn't happening previously or not in the sustained way.
Sam Sanders: I can't tell you what was behind it, but I can tell you what I hope comes next. [Luke: Okay.] Who in here Barbenheimered? Barbenheimer? Whatever we call it Barbie and Oppenheimer who did that?
Luke Burbank: I've Barbed, I've yet to Heimer.
Sam Sanders: Here's my thing with Oppenheimer, great movie but I don't go to a Christopher Nolan film for Aaron Sorkin dialog. Okay. Okay. I still enjoy that. Okay. Anywho, when we look at the year, the biggest things in pop culture mostly came from women. Beyoncé and Taylor had the biggest tours. They also have the biggest movies. SZA has the most award nominations. The list goes on and on and on. And so I've been saying on the show for a while, like, this is the year that women ruled the pop culture. Hurray. Hurray. Hurray. I want more, you know, but I think when I say I want more, I just don't want that. After Barbie came out, there were a few op-eds trying to analyze the film's success. What did it? Oh, was it Zaslav? Was it Margot Robbie? What was it? AMC? And a lot of folks were basically saying, Well, the answer here, what needs to happen to keep this going is make more movies about toys. [Elena: Oh God] Make more movies about toys. [Luke: Excellent.] What about, and hear me out, make more movies about women? [Elena: Yeah.] What about it? Right. And while we're at it and while we're at it, chances are as good as Barbie was, as big as Barbie was, the surest shot for an Oscar this year from that movie is Ken.
Elena Passarello: Is Ken. Is Ken. Yeah, yeah.
Sam Sanders: Mattel is run by a man. [Elena: Mhm.] It's it's that should change, too. And so, like, if we know, that women excel at popular culture, why aren't they also in charge of that?
Luke Burbank: Right. Yeah. Right.
Elena Passarello: The other thing that I learned from from listening to Vibe Check is and I didn't categorize it this way, but like, the women are having such a great time. And then you're talking about, like, Drake and all these guys are writing these
Elena Passarello: This Sullen, angry.
Sam Sanders: You know, braaah
Elena Passarello: But all the women are less toward like, they're making more money than an Olympics, having parties all over the planet. [Sam Sanders: Yeah.] And celebrating, you know, toys yes, but like toys in these big, huge ways. [Sam Sanders: Yeah.] Which I think is that's such an astute point because it's not just quality. It's it's it's vibe. Yeah. There's so much great vibes out there.
Sam Sanders: I love rap. I've always loved rap. I cannot name, right now, an unhappy woman rapper. Cardi B is having a great time. [Luke: She sure is] Megan Thee Stallion got shot in the foot. She's still having a great time. [Luke: Yeah.] And you look at the dudes. Drake is damn near incel he's in a place.
Luke Burbank: He's just like in his house playing online roulette for like $8 million a spin and having his homie film it. It's a very weird existence.
Sam Sanders: Did you see the photo he did? This is not even a lie. Did you see the photo he did where after his tour where he begged women to throw bras on stage, he had a staff collect them all, put him in one of his mansion rooms, and he took a selfie in front of them. [lLuke: Wow.] Go heal yourself, Drake.
Luke Burbank: We are talking to Sam Sanders. We're at Town Hall in Seattle. And Sam, we would be remiss being here in Seattle if we did not talk to you a little bit about Vogue cover story with photos featuring one Jeffrey Bezos and his new fiancee and some truly unhinged photos. What do you what do you make of that whole situation?
Sam Sanders: I want everyone to pull out their phone right now. I give you permission.
Luke Burbank: It's the only time at a public radio taping will ask you to get your phone out.
Sam Sanders: I want you to Google Image search: Jeff Bezos Vogue. [Audience: No.] Yes. The power of Christ compels you. You must do this. [Luke: We are in a former church.] Once you get it, make any kind of noise. [Luke: That was very interactive.] You've seen it. You've seen it. How do we describe this photo? The main image Jeff Bezos roided the hell up.
Luke Burbank: Yes.
Sam Sanders: In a in a vintage SUV with a cowboy hat. And his fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, is straddling him in the driver's seat. What am I seeing with the photo? I still don't understand that. And it took me five minutes to realize it wasn't a farce. You got it up there. I see it. Wild. Jail. [Luke: Straight to jail.] Straight to jail. So we talked about the photo, then we talked about how the whole piece was just a fluff piece, which annoyed me, but whatever. But that photo god. This guy is in charge of the world.
Luke Burbank: I know. I know.
Sam Sanders: Him and Elon are in charge of the world.
Luke Burbank: I do think yeah, I think it's very complicated for Seattle because I, you know, I grew up in Seattle in the 80s. And it was it was a very different place it was very blue collar then you have these things like Amazon come here and initially there's a sense of.
Sam Sanders: I love that you call it a thing. A thing!
Luke Burbank: These businesses like Amazon in initially, I think it was exciting because, you know, this was a new industry in business and they were, you know, kind of these young upstarts. And then who could have known that it would lead to the guy trying to colonize space? [Sam Sanders: Yeah.] And sex the lady from Entertainment Tonight. It's not how any of us saw it ending. Or maybe some of you did. I sure didn't.
Sam Sanders: Every time I see or hear anything about Jeff Bezos, which is always against my will, the first words I say in that moment are: Mackenzie. You got out. You got out. Good for you. It's his ex-wife. [Luke: Yeah.] She got out.
Luke Burbank: You're in the right room for a good Mackenzie Bezos reference. Because these people all know being from Seattle. Yeah, Sam, let me just remind everybody, this is Live Wire from PRX, we are at Town Hall in Seattle this week. We are talking to the great Sam Sanders. Okay. I am when I listen to any of the stuff that you work on, but particularly Vibe Check, I'm really struck by the breadth of your pop culture knowledge, but I will admit to being somewhat lost. And since you do know so much about it, I was hoping you could give us really, Elena and I, the folks here at Town Hall and the radio listeners, a bit of a sort of a guide map for pop culture, like help us understand how to feel about some of the stuff going on in pop culture in a little exercise we're calling Pop Culture Primer. So I just wanted to run some things by you and get your professional pop culture knower Sam Sanders' opinion or reaction on these things. Would you be comfortable doing that?
Sam Sanders: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: Barbra Streisand's new memoir is 992 pages. [Sam Sanders: Of course.] Is that too long, too short or the exact right number of pages?
Sam Sanders: Barbara makes no mistake. It's the exact length it should be. No mistakes.
Elena Passarello: Did you know that the audio book is 48 hours long?
Sam Sanders: Did she read it? [Elena: Yes, she does. She reads it.] And I bet it took her 48 years to record it. Yes. Because she's a perfectionist.
Luke Burbank: Who is your favorite nepo baby? And does this audience understand the concept of nepo baby? This has become a thing lately where the Internet loves to figure out which successful artists or performers are the children of somebody who is a successful artist or performer so called nepo baby.
Sam Sanders: I don't care how crazy she gets. I don't care what she's selling. I will always want to have a drink with Gwyneth Paltrow. My kind of crazy. [Elena: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.] My kind of crazy. You know, Gwyneth Paltrow always on a night out, she's always the first person to suggest the second location. And the third. [Elena: And the third.] I love her.
Elena Passarello: And she is a nepo baby.
Luke Burbank: After the success of the movie Cocaine Bear—
Sam Sanders: I talked to the director on that one.
Luke Burbank: So you know a lot about this. What animal would you like to see battle substance use disorder next.
Sam Sanders: We had a whole list when I talked to him of other animals to try it with. [Luke: Okay.] And we were going for some kind of alliteration. But I always love a good duckbilled platypus. Why did I just say that? I've never seen one in person. So the duckbill platypus is on—
Luke Burbank: Like ketamine?
Sam Sanders: Xanax, Xanax. Life is hard.
Luke Burbank: Sure.
Sam Sanders: He, the duckbill platypus, goes through so much. Everyone's always pointing out how he's a duckbill platypus and special and werid. Give him a Xanax.
Luke Burbank: Let him exist.
Sam Sanders: Thought exercise, though. [Luke: Okay.] If it's a duckbill platypus who was on Xanax, who voices the duckbill platypus? [Luke: John C Riley.] Oh, Steve Buscemi.
Luke Burbank: Oh, that could be good too. Yeah.
Sam Sanders: Cardi B! [Elena:Yeah!] Right. Let's take a vote.
Elena Passarello: Cardi B, then the Xanax snorting duckbill platypus. It's like a Pixar dream waiting to happen.
Sam Sanders: If she weren't a rapper, she could be the biggest comic alive. Yeah, she's so funny.
Luke Burbank: Very naturally funny.
Sam Sanders: Anywho.
Luke Burbank: All right, speaking of people who are naturally funny and returning to something you previously said, Sam, would you go see the new musical, and this is a real thing. It's a real musical based on the Gwyneth Paltrow [Sam Sanders: Gasps] ski crash trial. It exists.
Sam Sanders: Shut the [expletive] up.
Luke Burbank: No, no. It it absolutely exists.
Sam Sanders: Who produced that? Who's directing it? Who's the star?
Luke Burbank: I've just seen— [Sam Sanders: Google it! Now!] somebody. Somebody, look it up. [Sam Sanders: Shut the hell up.] Yes. So that sounds like a yes, it's—
Sam Sanders: Shh, I'm working.
Elena Passarello: It's Steve Buscemi.
Luke Burbank: It's written and directed by Steve Buscemi. You're exactly right Elena.
Sam Sanders: There's it— is it A24? It's A24.
Luke Burbank: It's directed by the Safdie brothers. Yes. Yes, that's right.
Sam Sanders: Oh, my God. Well, that's this is my favorite interview of all time ever.
Luke Burbank: Thank you. Even better than Sigur Ros.
Luke Burbank: Sam Sanders everyone from Vibe Check.
Unidentified: Sam. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Sam Sanders right here on Live Wire. Make sure to check out his wonderful podcast, Vibe Check wherever you get those sorts of things. This is Live Wire as we like to do each week, we've asked our listeners a question because Sam is so steeped in pop culture, we asked our listeners, What has been your favorite piece of pop culture from the past year? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: This has been very helpful for me because I'm writing a book about a person who died in 1977. So I have been living in the past. I don't know any of these pop culture memes. So you're going to have to help explain a few of these to me.
Luke Burbank: I don't want to overpromise, but I will say for a 47-year-old person, I have more pop culture awareness than I really should. It's called low level depression and scrolling TikTok all day. So let me see what I can do.
Elena Passarello: Can you explain to me Cam's favorite pop culture moment which is Scandoval?
Luke Burbank: Oh, sure. Of course.
Elena Passarello: Okay.
Luke Burbank: That's from Vanderpump Rules. That would be the the the scandal involving a couple of the characters on Vanderpump Rules, including Tom Sandoval, who did some very questionable things depending on your kind of your sort of moral take on the world.
Elena Passarello: And what is Vanderpump Rules, Mr. Burbank?
Luke Burbank: Vanderpump Rules is about a restaurant that is owned by someone who used to be on The Real Housewives. And this person was so entertaining, Ms.Vanderpump, that that then they got a restaurant and or maybe a couple of restaurants. And now there's a whole show about the people that work at the restaurant, although mostly what they do, I think, is our characters on a reality show.
Elena Passarello: Right. It's just like they drink and make out and have scandals.
Luke Burbank: They have Scandal-Vals.
Elena Passarello: Scandalvals.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, precisely. Yeah. It's a Vanderpump Rules situation. Okay, so let's see. Next one.
Elena Passarello: Now, here's one from Sal. Sal's favorite pop culture moment is the word of the year being rizz. What is rizz?
Luke Burbank: You've got the rizz, Elena, even if you don't realize it.
Elena Passarello: So is it low level anxiety?
Luke Burbank: It is. But in you, it manifests in a very, very charismatic personality. When you have the rizz, you have that charisma. And when you're using it on people, you're rizzing them up.
Elena Passarello: Oh, okay. So it's a verb now, like I'm carizzing you.
Luke Burbank: You have that rizz Elena, and if you're really good at it, we might even call you the Rizzler/
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: That's a real thing. People like, Okay, that person has the most rizz. We're going— they're the rizzler of this get together.
Elena Passarello: Holy vocabulary, Batman.
Luke Burbank: That definitely does sound like a character that would show up on the old school, like Adam West version of Batman. Something else from pop culture this year that one of our listeners is excited about.
Elena Passarello: This one I know because I am an avowed Rihanna fan. This is from Sandra, the ASL interpreter at the Super Bowl halftime show. And it really says something that the the person who is doing the sign interpretation has so much rizz that she is stealing a little bit of Queen Riri's thunder.
Luke Burbank: I think there's enough thunder to go around and I love this development that a lot of folks who are doing you know who are interpreting with ASL at a variety of shows now, particularly when the music is really like upbeat and stuff, you know, the way that they're expressing that to the folks that are using that kind of modality, it really is like a whole extra sort of great part of the entire experience. Even if you're somebody who, you know, doesn't need to rely on ASL. Like, it just seems like it includes more people in the experience.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. And I never pass up a chance to watch one of those videos where they capture a totally compelling interpreter. Like, it's always so fun to see.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you to everyone who sent in a response to our listener question. We've got one for next week's show coming up in a moment. In the meantime, I want to tell you about our next guest. And Elena, I think you probably remember the circumstances under which we got Reggie Watts on the show. Okay. He is a one of a kind comedian, musician and performer. You might know him from his time as the bandleader and announcer for The Late Late Show with James Corden. He's got Netflix specials. He was on the TV show Comedy Bang! Bang. This is the other thing, though. Reggie is always up for a good hang, which is basically exactly what happened when you and I were getting together in Portland to do our yearly fundraiser gala Fancy Pants. And like somebody just heard that Reggie was in town and invited him over. And then Reggie just showed up and was like, Hey, y'all doing something?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I showed up in my fancy duds and he was and everyone was like, Reggie Watts is coming. And I'm like, wow.
Luke Burbank: It was, like, incredible and unexpected. So he jumped up on stage and we're just going to play this. He did some jokes about generational differences, which then kind of morphed into like a spoken word poem where the Live Wire house band just started kind of providing the backing track. It was very funny and weird, which is how I would describe Reggie Watts' work, and I say that with all love. So thank you, Reggie, for crashing our little get together and making this next piece of Live Wire that we're all going to hear. Check it out. This is Reggie Watts, recorded at Show Bar in Portland, Oregon.
Reggie Watts: Well, all right. If we got any Gen-Zer's in the in the audience. I want to, I want to talk about do some jokes for you guys because a lot of times Gen Z gets left out and, you know, Alpha's coming up behind them and they're getting a little bit more heat than than the Z's. So and Mels, you know, Mels are here, right? They're like on the up so and I'm an Xer you know which is you know arguably it's no big deal. I mean X is not really it's a small generation, you know, as we know, it's the smallest current living generation right now. And it's not a big deal. I mean, we didn't really do that much, you know, for society. We invented skateboarding and BMX saying and rap tricks and music videos and synthesis that was used in music and a lot of firsts like effects that were never invented until the, you know, the 80s and so forth, and the whole culture of high fi stereo listening, just a lot of the things that we still refer to every day that we use all the time, like Generation X invented whatever we were the first generation to use whatever properly. We got prizes and cereals. We were latchkey kids. We had multiple formats, we had records and cassettes. So that was a that was a big one. Eight track was trying to hang on, but, you know, didn't quite make it. You know, we did everything we could. We did everything we could. So we're not that it's not that special, but Gen Z On the other hand though, what's up with the Joneses? The Gen Zers? What are they doing? Okay, so here's some here's some jokes. Hey. You guys know how like mid stuff is like it's so mid like that's like mid plus if you're like plus me. But anyway, so I was like, TikToking and there was a TikTok and then I admitted I, I have to admit that I was like hyper mid. But anyways, but Joseph did like a 460 and I was like, no four 60s here. Narborough we ain't be doing that. True that you know, tap that ass. That ass how we you know how we do this, you know you what's up with Michael Landon you know, like like I'm saying and Gen Z is like so fascinated with Michael Landon, which I don't really I don't get it. But, you know, there's this there's a certain I guess there's a certain kind of it's kind of cool to just pick a random, you know, person to just fixate on and be like, No one's going to understand why, but it's all like Michael Landon all day long. Really cool. But yeah, you know, he's got a lot going on. Gen Alpha. I'm interested, I'm interested. I want to get involved and see what's going on with Alpha, you know, what's going on with Alpha right now. What Alpha is, you know, on the up Gen Z's like, Oh shit, I thought we were the cats, you know, I was like, Nah Alpha is coming up. So I wrote a poem. This is about it's about intergenerational data exchange, right? You need the wisdom of X, you know, which is like, do all the drugs. I don't care about most things. And, you know, but then you get like the millennial, like, well. You know, whatever that is. And then. Hey, you know, like, you know how millennials are. It's like, hey, hello, you know, in Gen Z. And so I so I wrote a poem about intergenerational, just the generational possibilities of, of of the future, actually. Could you guys do like a, like a little, like kind of like a just a quiet, a jazz kind of. There's like a Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A love 1960s kind of. All right, cool.
Reggie Watts: Did not you know how it was so many years ago? You was the only one. You was the newness coming up from the ground with a whole wellspring of ideas pushing against them. All this pushing against him, saying that unto you that it was not your time to be so rebellious that you pushed away all the people that was trying to help you. Now it was cigarets and booze and bongs made of apples. Yeah, sure. School. Cool stuff. Not for me. I was always trying to cut corners. AP classes, what have you. Throw that away. Because that's cool. Yeah. Sure. Mrs. McGillicuddy, she wasn't someone special. She was as someone to get mad at, but still found a way to get mad at her. And I was pretty proud of that because she was very well liked. But I learned so much, you know, being who I am. Getting older. Are the Jen's coming up. Hey, Jen. What's going on? Yo, we Mally. Mel. Who's smelly? Mel, what do we do? I don't know. Do you not change a tire? No clue. I want to join a tech company so I can play ping pong. And lay about in beanbag chairs. Because that's productivity. Baby. Web 2.5 Coming at you. Hide Vimeo. Vimeo. Vimeo. Tumblr. Tumblr. Tumblr. Yahoo. YouTube. Hype. Machine. Hype Machine. Wait a minute. There's not as many jobs. Wait a minute. I can't buy a house. I'll never be able to buy a house. I still know how to change a tire. Oh, man. Accessorize. Yes. Yes. All rise. SS All rise. SS. All right, ss. All rise. Adderall. Holy. Ritalin. Changed my life. Hey, guys. Who are you? Hey, Kenji. Oh. What's going on with you guys? Oh, no. You know, we're humans.
Reggie Watts: And we assume. We assume nothing. We are beings. And you all refer to us as the beings that we are. For we are not to be withheld or forgotten. Why am I speaking like this? I don't know.
Reggie Watts: We're all in it together. You know, we can try to say we ain't, but we is. And here's here's here's the kicker. If you ain't not part of what that is and you try to be that thing, that's not a part of it, you can't escape it. So you just got to bury it. Where are you going to bury? You can't bury it anywhere because there's no place in the hard drive to hide it. Why is that? Because the hydra drive the same amount of memory. No matter how you allocate it. And divided is still the same in my mind. The more you divide it, the more it turns to mush. And you don't know what it is anymore. Existential crisis. That's just the beginning of it.
Reggie Watts: It's fun to be a part of everybody that's doing what they're doing, you know? Reminds me of a time that. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Reggie Watts right here on Live Wire. His new memoir, Great Falls, Montana: Fast Times, Post-punk Weirdos and A Tale of Coming Home Again is out now. I'm Luke Burbank. Here with Elena Passarello, we have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to hear some music from indie folk rock duo Sway Wild. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I am Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay. Before we get to our musical guests this week, a little preview of what we're doing on next week's show. We're gonna be talking to the writer and director Laura Chinn about her really, really fascinating and funny memoir. It's called Acne talks about her life growing up in Florida. She was part of the Church of Scientology. She also had very oily skin and she had to sort of figure out how to navigate her way through the world of entertainment while dealing with that. Plus, she got some standup comedy from one of our very favorites, Mohanad Elshieky, who's going to tell us about the most embarrassing Uber ride ever, featuring him as the passenger and around things that we're going to hear some really beautiful music from Jenni Conley, who's one of the founding members of The Decemberists off of her solo album. You do not want to miss this, so definitely tune in. Plus, we're going to be looking to get your response to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We want to know what is something that took up a ton of brain space when you were a teenager that you no longer think about at all?
Luke Burbank: I've got some responses that come to mind. Maybe we'll share those next week. If you have a thought on that, something that you thought about a lot as a teenager that you just don't think about very much anymore, go ahead and hit us up on the various social media places. We are at Live Wire Radio pretty much everywhere. All right. Let's get to our musical guest this week. They spent seven years playing music out on the road. And then finally they decided to take to the sea. Dave McGraw and Mandy Fer embarked on a two month sailing voyage through the remote Anchorages of British Columbia. That trip led to an artistic epiphany of sorts. And when they returned to their San Juan Island home in Washington state, they formed a new musical project that we're going to get to hear right now. This is Sway Wild, recorded live at Town Hall in Seattle. Can you tell me a little bit about this sailing trip that you went on in British Columbia when why was it so like artistically life changing for you?
Sway Wild: Yeah, the boat trip was kind of an intentional respite from the road because when we're on the road, it's a lot of grind and interstate and making it from place to place. And we intentionally were like, Let's step away from the road and see what it's like to be a human again out in the middle of nowhere. And we're really drawn to kind of those wild places. Hence our name. So wild, it kind of inspires and illuminates our music. And Salmon Island is remote, but it wasn't remote enough for us. So and I wanted to say, too, we used to live on a horse farm in the middle of the woods in a 400 square foot cabin, Dave and I, and we didn't have internet or self-service, and we used to do this thing called listening to the radio. Oh, wow. I know. And we had an off big radio that had an antenna that was the size of a Hula-Hoop hanging on the wall as a metal Hula-Hoop. But we used to listen to this program called Live Wire. So we're really, really, really happy.
Elena Passarello: Look at that.
Luke Burbank: Well, this is synchronicity, then, and it's finally all happening. I was really hard getting a hold of you guys in the woods.
Luke Burbank: With two staffers that we haven't seen since they went to find yourself. Thank you for coming. What song are we going to hear?
Sway Wild: We're going to play a song called Home.
Luke Burbank: Okay. This is Sway Wild on Live Wire.
[Sway Wild plays song called Home]
Luke Burbank: That was Sway Wild right here on Live Wire, recorded at Town Hall in Seattle. You can check them out at Sway Wild dot com. That is going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. Big thanks to our guests Sam Sanders, Reggie Watts and Sway Wild. Plus, a special shout out this week to Sally McPherson from Broadway books. Happy Retirement, Sally.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather Dee Michelle is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer and Molly Pettit are our technical directors and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow and Ant Diaz is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the James F and Mary Nell Miller Foundation. The Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we would like to remember member Ron Egis of Salem, Oregon. For more information about Live Wire, how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire radio Dawg. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarelli and the whole Live Wire team. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
— PRX —
