Episode 540
with Paul F. Tompkins, Sarah Marshall, and Jimmie Herrod
In this special Holiday Edition of Live Wire, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share their favorite holiday traditions; comedian Paul F. Tompkins unpacks "weekend water" and passive-aggressive Christmas carolers; social critic Sarah Marshall, host of the hit podcast You're Wrong About, discusses why our misperceptions of the past are largely influenced by the news cycle; and jazz vocalist Jimmie Herrod, of Pink Martini, performs his moving piano ballad "Each Time."
Paul F. Tompkins
Comedian
Comedian, actor, and writer Paul F. Tompkins is nothing short of comedy podcast royalty. He has appeared on over two hundred episodes of Comedy Bang! Bang!, and hosts such popular shows as The Neighborhood Listen and Spontaneanation, among others. In March 2020, he and his wife, the actor Janie Haddad Tompkins, co-created the podcast Stay F. Homekins. Tompkins’ TV credits include more than two dozen appearances on HBO’s Mr. Show, and he is the voice of Mr. Peanutbutter on the hit Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman. Website • Twitter
Sarah Marshall
Social Critic
Sarah Marshall is a writer, podcaster, and media critic who wonders why we keep falling for the same old myths. Why is the maligned woman a staple of our news media? Why do we believe that serial killers are brilliant? How do we keep stumbling into all these moral panics? These are some of the questions that propel Sarah’s work as co-host of the popular modern history podcast You’re Wrong About, which has been highlighted in the New Yorker, the Guardian and Time Magazine. She loves Portland, Oregon, Philly and Las Vegas in that order, and rumor has it she is writing a book about the Satanic Panic. Website • Twitter
Jimmie Herrod
Vocalist
Jimmie Herrod is a Pacific Northwest-based artist and performer who currently resides in Portland, Oregon. He holds a Bachelors of Music degree in music composition and performance from Cornish, and a Masters of Music in Jazz Studies from Portland State University, where he has subsequently taught jazz voice. Jimmie has also worked in Seattle’s lauded musical theater scene at ArtsWest and the 5th Avenue Theater. Recent performance highlights include being a featured soloist with the Oregon Symphony’s showcase in the 2018 TedX series, working with international acts such as ODESZA, and being a Golden Buzzer recipient for the 2021 season of America’s Got Talent. Jimmie is also a regular guest vocalist with Pink Martini, touring throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. In 2018 Jimmie recorded “Exodus”, his first single with Pink Martini, as well the solo album of original works, Falling in Love and Learning to Love Myself. Website • Listen
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Luke Burbank Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank Good. The holidays are here, and it is time for I consider this a somewhat holiday related "station location identification examination".
Elena Passarello Oh.
Luke Burbank Yes, right. Okay. This is where I'm going to tell you about a place in the country we're on the radio, you got to try to guess where I am talking about. This city is home to the historic annual Grandma's Marathon, which is not actually a marathon for grandmas, but it's named after Grandma's Restaurant. It's one of the largest and best known marathons in America. It's got over 20,000 participants.
Elena Passarello Ah, I don't know. I mean, there's Grandma's all over this country. It's one of the things that makes it great. I mean, marathoning is, is it a certain time of year?
Luke Burbank It doesn't say on my list here, I'm guessing not in the winter, because I'll give you another hint. This is a place where it is very, very snowy around the holidays. In fact, thousands of people flock to this city during Christmas time to see Bentleyville, the largest walk through display of lights in America. There's also a Christmas village and the historic Glensheen Mansion, which has over 25 Christmas trees in it.
Elena Passarello I still don't know. But it is a snowy place that I love is, let's say, in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Luke Burbank Man, you're so close. I'm just winging it with this hint. But did you know Telly Savalas recorded a series of ads for this city to promote it? This is a real thing.
Elena Passarello Is it Duluth, Minnesota?
Luke Burbank It's Duluth, Minnesota. Where- Why was that the hint that worked for you. They're amazing, by the way, Telly Savalas doing ads for Duluth is something you just can't unhear once you've heard 'em, where we're on the radio on WSCN out there in Duluth. So thank you so much to all of those folks for tuning in. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello Let's do it.
Luke Burbank Take it away.
Elena Passarello From PRX. It's...
Audience LIVE WIRE
Elena Passarello This week, comedian Paul F. Tompkins.
Paul F. Tompkins I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep Love, Actually style. I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that.
Elena Passarello And podcaster Sarah Marshall.
Sarah Marshall I would always find little backdoor ways to cram a story about some kind of eighties media fiasco into a TV review.
Elena Passarello With music from Jimmie Herrod 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. Thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country. This is a special holiday edition of Live Wire. And as such, we've asked the listeners a special holiday question: What is your favorite holiday tradition? We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a few minutes. In the meantime, Elena, I'm curious, what is your favorite holiday tradition?
Elena Passarello Well, so back when I was a youngin, we would always get into the car and drive just a couple hours to my grandma's place in North Carolina and have like a noon Christmas meal. But we would, she lived in a pretty small house, so we would drive home. She made this gigantic southern, you know, like butter beans and like two kinds of meat and biscuits galore. It was like a week's worth of calories. And we ate it. And we always were like, we're never going to eat again. And so then we'd drive home and we would invariably get strangely hungry at like 7:30 p.m. and there would be nothing in the fridge, right? So I don't know how to cook. I still don't know how to cook. But the only thing that I was confident, because I was like a college student, a high school student, was making nachos. So for years, our Christmas dinner, like when we were watching It's A Wonderful Life or whatever, was Christmas nachos. And it was kind of special because it was literally the only time that I ever made food for my mother and stepfather.
Luke Burbank And was it just sort of, I mean, regular nachos like you were, you didn't bring home a bunch of leftovers and, like, integrate them into the nachos or anything?
Elena Passarello No, no, no. Now that I live with a kind of a good gourmand, we do take those kinds of nacho liberties.
Luke Burbank Adventures.
Elena Passarello But it was just like, Oh, there's a can of green chilies in the pantry and some tortilla chips and some shredded cheese. And, you know, I never go anywhere without having chips and salsa close by. But, you know, we've continued the tradition. Like I said, now I live with David, who can make a heck of a holiday meal, but we still always make space at one point during the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, whatever, to eat a plate of Christmas nachos. Like it's just not Christmas without them.
Luke Burbank The colors also work. You get the red salsa, you get the green of some chilies. I mean, it's honestly, I can't believe more people aren't making Christmas nachos, Elena.
Elena Passarello Well, maybe it'll, this will start the tradition now.
Luke Burbank All right. If you if you try some Christmas nachos this year and you enjoy them, email us, let us know how it went for you. I would say that my, one of my favorite holiday traditions is kind of related to the fact that I, I grew up in a sort of odd Christmas environment. My parents, we didn't really celebrate Christmas when I was a young kid because of the church my parents went to and stuff. But over time we started to, we had stockings and then we would put some presents in there. And then there was a sort of growing sense of of Christmas in my house. And so I remember one year when I don't even know if we had a tree yet, but I know that it was like, we were allowed to give each other presents and go buy presents and stuff like that. And this, I think it was like my first year. I'm probably like, I don't know, ten, 11 years old. My first year I'm going to Craigen's Pharmacy in Seattle and spending all my allowance to get amazing gifts. Like I got my dad a laminated sign that said "To error is human. To really screw things up, you need a computer." And it just had like a total like 1980s computer that was spewing paper out of the printer.
Elena Passarello It sounds like a Garfield joke.
Luke Burbank Totally. It was like these were the worst presents. But I remember sitting in my bedroom and listening to the radio while I was wrapping these presents, and this is Christmas Eve, and I was just so excited to get to like be part of having presents and giving presents and all that stuff. And they happened to be playing this old time version of A Christmas Carol, like an old radio production of A Christmas Carol. And like, you know, when you're a kid, sometimes you'll do something where you just, like, sit kind of crisscross applesauce in an uncomfortable fashion for no discernible reason and then make a goal for yourself. My goal was I had to wrap all the presents before I was allowed to sit in a more comfortable position. I just, I don't know why. I just remember sitting on the floor in my bedroom listening to A Christmas Carol and sitting and wrapping presents. And to this day, when it is time for me to wrap presents, it is Christmas Eve. I have found that same recording has Lionel Barrymore in it playing Mr. Scrooge. I play it, now it's from the Internet, of course, but I play that. I sit on the floor. I don't sit on a chair like a normal person. I sit on the floor and I wrap presents. To this day. I'm 46 years old.
Elena Passarello Well, you know, if you ever want to switch it up, you can also go on the Internet and look up the Yinzer Christmas Carol, which is,
Luke Burbank Like, as in from Pittsburgh?
Elena Passarello Yes. It's these two comedians that are called Greg and Donny. And they do, like instead of saying "bah, humbug," Scrooge says, "oh, bullcrap." And he's, he's like. And the boy, boy, it's like, boy, what day is it? Get out a giant eagle. Get me the biggest turkey you can find.
Luke Burbank I love, like, head down to Primanti's, get me the biggest sandwich you can find.
Elena Passarello It's very good.
Luke Burbank Say there, boy. Are the Steelers still in the playoffs?
Elena Passarello Where you been, Nebbie? With me, Mr. Ghost? I don't think so.
Luke Burbank I would absolutely listen, in fact, you know what? Maybe that can be, I can add that. I'll, I'll wrap some of the presents the night before Christmas Eve and I'll listen to the Yinzer Christmas Carol.
Elena Passarello Or just get into a cross-legged position and eat Christmas nachos.
Luke Burbank I'm not kidding you. Maybe I'm just too hungry when we tend to record the show. But Christmas nachos sound incredible to me right now. I would crawl across broken Christmas ornaments to get my hands on some Christmas nachos. That's how hungry I am. I could be like Bruce Willis in Die Hard getting to the Christmas Nachos. Anyway, we're going to read the listener responses to their favorite holiday traditions coming up. In the meantime, though, we've got to welcome our first guest on over to the show. Now, if you're looking for comedy and podcast royalty, this guy definitely qualifies. He plays Mr. Peanutbutter on BoJack Horseman. He was on HBO's Mr. Show. He's appeared on hundreds of episodes of Comedy Bang! Bang! Take a listen to our conversation with Paul F. Tompkins, recorded in front of a live audience at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon.
Paul F. Tompkins Hi! Hello!
Luke Burbank Welcome to the show, Paul.
Paul F. Tompkins Thanks for having me back, guys. It's a pleasure to see you again.
Luke Burbank It's, it's been a long time coming. We've been trying to get you back up here for like a year and a half. And you wouldn't come. And it hurt.
Paul F. Tompkins Yeah, I took a year off last year. I said I'm going to really take some time to sit and think.
Luke Burbank At the beginning of the pandemic, I know you and your wife, the actor Janie Haddad Tompkins, started doing this podcast, Stay F. Homekins.
Paul F. Tompkins Yes, that's correct.
Luke Burbank There's a lot of Haddad Tompkins-heads here. That's what that cheer was.
Paul F. Tompkins Absolutely. The Hadd-Heads? Yes.
Luke Burbank And this show's actually become really popular. It made a lot of kind of best of the year lists.
Paul F. Tompkins It's a, first of all, I wouldn't say it's become really popular. I would say we were surprised anyone listened to it. But that, by that measure, yes, it's astoundingly popular.
Luke Burbank I feel like this podcast should be in, the Stay F. Homekins podcast, should be in the Podcasting Hall of Fame for just one thing, which is popularizing a term that you and Janie engage in as you're recording the show. So the sort of conceit of the show is it's an after dinner chat, you're just kind of talking about the world and your lives and everything, and you're enjoying a little weekend water.
Paul F. Tompkins That's right.
Luke Burbank What's the story on weekend water?
Paul F. Tompkins This was a phrase that was coined by Janie's mother, who lives in South Carolina. And one of her grandchildren was making a move to pick up one of her drinks. I think this was at 4th of July and she said, oh, no, honey, don't touch that. That's, that's grandma's weekend water. And we, I never forgot it.
Luke Burbank I feel like that could really revolutionize someone's relationship with drinking. Maybe not even for the best. Because if like,
Paul F. Tompkins Definitely not for the best.
Luke Burbank If it's Tuesday, and so, are you having a drink? It's like four on Tuesday. Like, I'm just having a little weekend water. Really kind of takes the judgment off of it.
Paul F. Tompkins Then it just becomes a matter of semantics.
Luke Burbank Yes, indeed. I was wondering if hosting this podcast with your wife has been good for the relationship? Bad for the relationship? Have things remained unchanged?
Paul F. Tompkins It's been good for the relationship,I think. It was very, it was a very weird thing. We'd never done anything like that before together. We'd never done a podcast together before. So it was like, Well, this is my personal relationship with my wife. I don't know if I want to share it. And then it was fun. Like the first time we did it, it was fun. And I was like, I guess we're doing this for as long as we are stuck here inside. And then, then after things lifted, it just seemed like, let's keep doing it. But we couldn't do it with regular, the same regularity because things started to like, we started to work again and you know, but I think we're going to keep doing it once a month. It's just it's become its own thing at this point. And we have merch, so we got to sell it. Once merch enters, listen. Once merch enters a marriage, there's no turning back.
Luke Burbank I think it was the most recent episode where you were expressing a certain amount of concern for Adele. You feel like she is singing in some kind of new accent. What is your evidence?
Paul F. Tompkins Okay. We were right before we started recording, we were listening to Adele's new album, and there's this style of singing that I think, I don't know if it's pushed on young women, like they have to do this if they want to have a hit or if, like, young women are just like, Oh, that's how people sing now. So I'll just do that. But I call it the the Cajun baby singing voice because it's very like, it's sort of like a I'm sort of a child, but now I say tiny instead of turn. Like, that's not a, that's not like a singing accent you can just have. Like just sound like a little baby. Dr. John.
Luke Burbank It's all basically David Sedaris singing the Oscar Mayer theme song as Billie Holiday. "I wish I was an Oscar Mayer weiner."
Paul F. Tompkins You nailed it. That's exactly what it is.
Luke Burbank Well, but I mean, that's a thing that David Sedaris really does. I wish I could take credit for it. I'm just reporting the facts of the world.
Paul F. Tompkins Oh, and he sings it in the style of Billie Holiday.
Luke Burbank Yeah.
Paul F. Tompkins That's exactly what it is.
Luke Burbank Speaking of singing, I know that you are a fan of the Tam O'Shanter in Los Angeles, the Scottish steakhouse.
Elena Passarello Not the hat.
Paul F. Tompkins I'm also a fan of the hat.
Elena Passarello I wouldn't put it past you.
Paul F. Tompkins "I wouldn't put it past you." Wear one of those hats.
Elena Passarello Do you own one?
Paul F. Tompkins Of course I do. Of course I do.
Luke Burbank Hold on, Paul. You know what we need. Take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you about the live caroling at the Tam O'Shanter.
Paul F. Tompkins Sure. What a cliffhanger, guys.
Luke Burbank This is Live Wire. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins. Back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX, coming to you from Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Paul F. Tompkins from Threedom and BoJack Horseman and Mr. Show and so many other amazing, fun places. And the Tam O'Shanter, Los Angeles' leading Scottish Steakhouse where they feature live Christmas carolers.
Paul F. Tompkins Yeah.
Luke Burbank What's your relationship with with that form of entertainment?
Paul F. Tompkins Well. "With that form of entertainment." I think it was a thing, caroling, I think, was always a thing I was scared would show up at my door. It was the thing I was afraid I would be invited to do. Neither of those things ever happened.
Luke Burbank But you're such a good singer.
Paul F. Tompkins Well, don't. Don't say that I'm okay. I do all right. But there's something, there is-there is a weird thing. There's, like, a certain shyness that you get when you can do a thing, but you're asked to do it in a weird situation. And it's like, I like to sing, but I don't want to be on somebody's front doorstep, Love, Actually style. And I mean, I would show up and turn the cards over for sure. I would do that. If you if you want to print out the words to Good King Wenceslas on a on a series of cards, I will show up at someone's door and turn them over. This is actually not a bad idea. The more I'm thinking about it, I think it's a it's a bit of whimsy that I think people would enjoy. But so I started going to the Tam O'Shanter, which is one of the oldest restaurants in Hollywood. Walt Disney's animators used to, and I think I still do, I think the Disney animators are still have a tradition: go there to get drunk. And I think that I did not know the first time I went there with a friend of mine during the Christmas season, we were just going to meet up for a dinner and catch up that they have strolling Victorian carolers that walk throughout the restaurant and they come up to you and they ask you what song you want to hear and you have to tell them the name of a song that you want to hear and then they sing it at you.
Luke Burbank “Hello from the other side.”
Paul F. Tompkins Has to be a Christmas song, although I've never tested that out.
Elena Passarello You can change to like "hello from the yuletide?
Paul F. Tompkins Absolutely. So the first year that happened, we were like, that was weird. So the next year we were like, How do we prevent that from happening again? And so we said, All right, well, we'll devise a plan. I don't think we can make them stop. So we'll figure out where to look and so it won't be as uncomfortable. So what I did was afterwards we compare notes and I said, Where did you look? And he said, I just looked at the in the eyes of the ladies, I just did that. And I said I looked I looked sort of in the middle distance and nodded my head as if I was really into it, like it was really powerful to me. So then the thing is, we kept forgetting that this was going to happen and we had a yearly engagement. After Thanksgiving, we would go to the Tam O'Shanter and have dinner. So the next year we're prepared for it. And we say, All right, here's what we'll do. We'll tell them, Oh, you already sang the one that we wanted to hear. We just heard you sing it at this other table. Well, guess what? You could tell from the reaction. They had heard this before. It got so passive aggressive. They were all all of the four of them in this Victorian garb were like, oh, okay. All right, great. Yeah, no problem. No problem. And they're walking away. We're like, it was so beautiful. I was like, Yeah, yeah, sure. Huh. And that felt so bad. So the next year, we're like, Okay, we're just going to let it happen. And, you know, it's like, why are we bothered so much by this? So then that's the year that we're cheerful about it. We're like, Yes, we can't wait. Let's hear "O Holy Night" or whatever. Then we witness them getting into a weird fight about the key because the the guy in the end says, what key is in it? Again, the guy in the on the other end says it's in C. And so they start looking through the book and like trying to figure out what, what keys this in and the guy in the end it's like it's in C like I said. And then they finally find it in the book and they say, okay, and the guy on the one end says, Okay. And it's in C. And the guy in the end says, Like I said. And then they sang the tensest "O Holy Night" that I'd ever heard.
Luke Burbank You should invite them on your variety show that you've been doing in Los Angeles.
Paul F. Tompkins You know what? I should. I absolutely should. I should invite them out of season to get them on there.
Luke Burbank Talk about that, because you've gone back to live performing. I'm wondering, like, for the audience-is the audience subdued or are they just like excited to be somewhere? Are the performers-I mean, what's the general feel?
Paul F. Tompkins The audience is very subdued. It's not going well. And it's been it's been fantastic. My first show back was in September. And the feeling in the room for, for everybody on stage, everybody offstage, was just cathartic. Everyone was excited to be somewhere doing something that felt kind of normal. It's a big show. It's got a big band and, you know, a lot of guests and everything and a lot of songs to be learned and things like that. And I'm hoping to ride that feeling for as long as I possibly can.
Luke Burbank People can watch this on Vimeo if they're not in Los Angeles.
Paul F. Tompkins That's right, Luke.
Luke Burbank I was wondering, you're a very skilled improviser.
Paul F. Tompkins Thank you.
Luke Burbank You have all these characters. The irony is we planned that. That was not improvised.
Paul F. Tompkins That was scripted months ago.
Luke Burbank And he kind of stepped on line.
Paul F. Tompkins I did. I couldn't wait. I got excited.
Luke Burbank One job, Tompkins. Did you go to one of these improv programs like A Second City or Groundlings or something? How did you get started with this and when did you know? Oh, this is something I actually, kind of have a knack for?
Paul F. Tompkins Yeah, it was really, it was osmosis from doing podcasts, because when I started doing characters, I never had to do that before to sustain a character and a sort of conceit and like a story over the course of that long. And so from doing podcasts and doing them with other people who did that kind of character work regularly, I got to a point where I was like, I think I want to throw myself into the deep end. I think I've learned the precepts of this from being around it and seeing it done so much. And so I started-I started doing like live improv shows. Like, you know, a couple of people asked me to do it. And then I started doing a podcast where I had improvise every week, and there was a podcast called Spontaneanation. Yes, thank you. And that was like I was like, I'm just going to I'm going to make it so that I am the weakest link of every show. And if I can if I can be good as the weakest link of the show, then that's what I'm going to be. I'm going I'm going to get people I'm going to get guests on the show who are so good and so skilled at doing this, that that's how I'm going to learn how to do this.
Luke Burbank That's amazing to me because as a Spontaneanation listener, I assumed that we were sort of catching up with you in like year 15 of your hardcore improv career.
Paul F. Tompkins You sure weren't.
Luke Burbank Really?
Paul F. Tompkins Yeah.
Luke Burbank Wow, that was impressive. You also uttered maybe one of the greatest lines, I believe was on Spontaneous Nation. I don't know if this was improvised or actually part of you said I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, you've reached the end of your Benjamin Franklin quote of the month.
Luke Burbank Luke, can I tell you-
Luke Burbank I stay in my head all the time.
Paul F. Tompkins That was a scripted line from BoJack Horseman. Mr. Peanutbutter said that. Oh, no. So not only did I not come up with it myself, a cartoon dog said it.
Luke Burbank Paul F. Tompkins, everybody. That was Paul F. Tompkins, right here on this special holiday edition of Live Wire. His stand-up special, Crying and Driving, two of the most common things that I do, sometimes at the same time, is available now, as are his many, many podcasts. And one other exciting update. Elena did you know Paul is also in Weird The Al Yankovic story which came out earlier this year?
Elena Passarello Apparently it's a biography with absolutely no facts in it, which is how I like my biopics, honestly.
Luke Burbank Sounds perfect for Al Yankovic's career. 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 AlaskaAir.com. Do you ever wish that you were more in the know about upcoming Live Wire guests or advance ticket sales for our live shows? Well, you can be if you sign up for our weekly newsletter and get all of the inside Live Wire scoop delivered directly and conveniently to your inbox. Just click "keep in touch" over at LiveWireRadio.org and we will be sure to make sure you hear it all first. This is Live Wire. Of course, each week we ask our listeners a question. This is a holiday show. So we thought we'd ask the listeners, What is your favorite holiday tradition? And Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello Here's a cute one from Paige. Paige says, One of my fave traditions is eating the pomegranate that is at the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning. Did you have this, Luke, where you always had some kind of fruit in the toe of your stocking?
Luke Burbank Not as a kid. But now in adulthood, like with my daughter and stuff, we always throw a couple of those, like Mandarin oranges or something in there. I didn't know pomegranate was an option, but that seems really fun.
Elena Passarello Me either. Yeah, it sounds really good. We had tangerines, but I like the pomegranate. And then you eat it on Christmas morning, according to Paige, in order to make it special. Love it.
Luke Burbank A pro-tip on that. Get some newspaper because those pomegranates are messy work.
Elena Passarello You'll ruin your stocking. Did you know, by the way, that I use the same Christmas stocking that my mother made me when I was a baby? I still use the same one.
Luke Burbank Oh, my gosh. That is absolutely adorable. Now, what usually, what does David put in there?
Elena Passarello We only do stockings. We don't do any other presents. And you can only buy the stuff that goes in the stockings locally on a designated shopping day, usually the 23rd. So it's like weird tchotchkes, books. Sometimes he'll throw like a necklace in there, which I think is cheating because but it's just like whatever we can buy within, like an hour and a half during this designated time. So no shopping anxiety, maximum fun.
Luke Burbank What's another holiday tradition that one of our listeners loves around the holidays?
Elena Passarello This one made me laugh from Emily. Emily says, Maybe this doesn't count as a tradition because I only started doing it last year. But my roommates and I celebrate Festivus of Seinfeld fame. We have a tiny Festivus pole. We air our grievances at dinner as good naturedly as possible, and then we wrestle to compete the feats of strength. I came in last place. Well, I hope they continue the tradition. And then Emily could maybe rise in the Festivus feats of strength rankings.
Luke Burbank I mean, listen, I consider Christmas nachos a tradition for me, and I haven't even made them yet. I just learned about them. So, yeah, Emily, it can be a proud tradition that's only existed for one year.
Elena Passarello One of my favorite things about Christmas is the weird rituals that you end up doing with your longtime friends, you know, because you got the family version and then the friends things just get so fun and weird and great. And I just love that.
Luke Burbank Yes, absolutely. Festivus for the rest of us. I believe they say, okay, one more holiday tradition before we get to our next guest.
Elena Passarello Oh, well, now this is just a tried and true tradition from Olivia. Olivia's tradition is searching for a pickle in the Christmas tree.
Luke Burbank Oh, sure. I mean, who didn't grow up with that?
Elena Passarello I wonder, like, is it like, do you ever find the pickle that someone actually hide a pickle? Or do you just go on this kind of like Quixotian task of, like, looking for a pickle in the Christmas tree?
Luke Burbank And do you eat it when you find it?
Elena Passarello Eww.
Luke Burbank To what end? I'll tell you what. I love me some pickles. And I would probably, if it had only been up in the tree for a day or two, I would eat it 100%.
Elena Passarello Is it like a ornament? Everything about this is, is worthy of investigation, which is how I like my Christmas traditions. So good job, Olivia.
Luke Burbank I love that for them. All right. Thanks, Olivia. Thanks to everyone else who sent in your responses. You are listening to a special holiday episode of Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello over there. Now, the holidays for a lot of us mean sitting around the table, maybe taking a trip down memory lane with your family. And sometimes you discover that things are not always quite how you remembered them or how somebody else might have remembered them. Our next guest has a lot of thoughts on this. She is a writer, a media critic and host of the very popular modern history podcast called You're Wrong About, which reexamines news events that a lot of us misunderstood or misremember. The show has explored everything from satanic panic to if Yoko Ono really actually broke up the Beatles. Time Magazine called it one of the best podcasts of the year when it first came out, and it continues to get rave reviews and lots of downloads. Take a listen to our conversation with Sarah Marshall, which we recorded in front of a live audience at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. Sarah, welcome to the show. The the kind of premise of You're Wrong About is, is that there are all of these big news events and things that we've all heard about but are often wrong about the details of maybe who was at fault or what was really going on. I'm curious why it is you think that we get so much stuff wrong when there is so much information now to be had. We are-we can google anything and find it out and yet we're often wrong about things.
Sarah Marshall We sure are. I feel like this show had a more hard-to-sell premise two years ago because it was like it's gee, it's funny. It's almost like the more available, the correct information is, the harder it is for us to assimilate that. It's very strange, but it really happens a lot. And now it's like, uh huh. But I think after looking at as many stories as the show has and seeing how they correlate, I think a couple of the things that turn up a lot is that we tend to believe what we hear first and then the truth takes longer to come out and then makes less of an impression because we've we're like, I already have an impression. I don't need another impression. I'm fine. And that, you know, things that feel true tend to be what we believe. And then what feels true to us is based on who we are.
Luke Burbank Were you as a journalist looking at this before you had the podcast and were you sort of fascinated with that? What what were you writing about? What was your relationship with going back and trying to more or less correct how people understood history before the podcast?
Sarah Marshall At the start of making the podcast, I felt like I had this gigantic backlog of stories that outlets I was trying to pitch freelance stories to weren't really that interested in hearing about. And I'd be like Amy Fisher and they'd be like, What did she do something recently? I just feel like, No, but there's like people today that don't know the Amy Fisher story. And it's really interesting and the way the reporting on it completely missed the point at the time, and that's worth reflecting on. And so I feel like I would always find little backdoor ways to cram a story about some kind of eighties media fiasco into a TV review. And then eventually it just took over.
Luke Burbank Um. I also read that early on your interest in, in reporting on this kind of stuff was really kind of coming from a sort of a feminist approach, particularly the ways that often women are misunderstood, misdescribed, mischaracterized, and you wanted to go in and kind of correct the record on that stuff?
Sarah Marshall Yeah. And I think the way I see myself getting started on this track is as an Oregonian, growing up in the shadow of Tonya Harding and knowing that that was a story that first had brought national media to the Portland area in a way that we were like was pretty new to us at the time. And then looking back not that long after the fact and thinking, Gee, it's funny that this story that if you think about it, is really a tragedy, got to be a comedy, and then thinking about how many other stories are like that, and often the ones about young women are like that.
Luke Burbank Now, writing about that and talking about it into a microphone are kind of two different things. Did you feel immediately comfortable and natural doing it, doing the podcast version? Because this podcast was kind of an immediate hit. Like, did you feel comfortable doing it kind of right away?
Sarah Marshall I mean, it was a learning curve. I think the thing about writing is that you can get it exactly the way you want to get it before you're releasing it to the world, at least theoretically. And so I think there was something kind of emotional and precise about working in a conversational show format that first felt uncomfortable to me and I now realize is one of the great strengths of the medium. And that I really appreciate is that if I'm telling you about somebody and if I'm getting emotional about it, then that's not a flaw to my analytical approach as it would be if I were in academia still. You have to kind of give up on making it an analog for the thing you know to embrace the strengths it has.
Elena Passarello Mm hmm.
Luke Burbank We're talking to Sarah Marshall, host of the You're Wrong About podcast. One of the things that you have the benefit of doing this show is hindsight. So you can look back on a story like the O.J. trial or I mean, I grew up going to Mike Warnke shows like I saw him do standup comedy. He was this person who you spent a lot of time talking about who kind of helped create this satanic panic because he had all these wild stories of his time in Satanism, which all turned out to be made up. But you have the benefit of hindsight. Have you also now developed this muscle enough that in real time, when the news is happening, you can kind of see like, all right, these are the parts of this story that we're all going to be or maybe not all of us that are going to get misconstrued?
Sarah Marshall I feel like sometimes I have that, but I also think that the kinds of misconstruals we have now are so extreme that like anyone can do that. It's like having a superpower that lets you punch right through aluminum foil. I'm sad that that was so funny.
Luke Burbank So you can see it, but you feel like it doesn't take extreme insight to see how these things are being already sort of going off the rails informationally.
Sarah Marshall I think a lot of the time, yeah. I think we're living in a great age of misinformation. Like misinformation clearly has always been a force that organizes society. But I think now it's moving faster and there's more of it. So it's like there have always been killer bees. But what if there were, like way more killer bees moving faster all around the world? But I mean, an example that comes to mind is the tragedy at Astroworld, where people were suffocated, killed by essentially the way a human crowd moves. If there's over a certain threshold of people in a space that's too small, and if the people at the back can't tell what's happening at the front. And so the conspiracy theories that came up were blaming a specific person, saying it was a satan-a satanic sacrifice, and also arguing that people were being injected with random drugs, that people were going around injecting people.
Luke Burbank I heard that actually from the police department early on. They were pursuing it as a possibility.
Sarah Marshall Yeah, and that makes sense. And I think and also one of the consistent problems with the news is that it often reports what the police are speculating and be like, well, that's probably right. And it's like, well, it's probably not. And the idea that if after tragedy caused by human error happens, we want to point a specific finger at someone and possibly call them Satanists. That just seems very consistent over time.
Luke Burbank I don't want to be reductive, so forgive me. And I also would encourage everyone to go download You're Wrong About if you haven't already. But can we run through some topics from the show and can you kind of just give your kind of first thought from having done the shows, having done the research of what maybe people generally have wrong about it?
Sarah Marshall Yeah, I love lightning rounds. I'm very excited about this.
Luke Burbank Who doesn't? We can take as long as you want.
Sarah Marshall Okay.
Luke Burbank This doesn't have to-there's no-
Sarah Marshall It's a thunder round.
Luke Burbank Yes, exactly. How about Anna Nicole Smith? What's the misperception around her?
Sarah Marshall Yeah, I think the misperception around her and so many of these are people that I grew up watching VH1 specials about in the late nineties is that she was this gold digger who found and preyed upon this incredibly sickly old man and married him for his millions. So, okay. So in fact, they met when she was a stripper and he courted her for years and years and she finally agreed to marry him. And then, yes, he died and she fought with his heirs for his money. And he also, before her, had another stripper who she loved and loved, buying millions of dollars worth of things for. And that was kind of his pattern. And my argument there is like, what would you have done if you were her?
Luke Burbank Yes.
Luke Burbank How about Ebonics or the Ebonics controversy? What were we wrong about with that?
Sarah Marshall This one is also one I remembered from schoolyard jokes in grade school in the nineties, which is amazing to look back on. And that one basically is based on the fact that I believe one school in one district was talking about, or schools in a single district, were talking about teaching basically based on the conceit that you don't automatically correct African-American vernacular English, AAVE, that you recognize that it's a distinct grammar that makes as much sense as any other grammar and then teach using that as a tool. And that got morphed somehow into an incredible number of jokes and inflammatory media and ultimately government doings, based on the idea that all children all across America were going to be forced to abandon standard grammar.
Luke Burbank So it was the critical race theory of its time, basically?
Sarah Marshall Oh yeah. I can't tell if it's more or less obviously made up. It's just like a race to the bottom. But yeah.
Luke Burbank What about Dr. Oz?
Sarah Marshall Dr. Oz is a medical wizard and a very honest man, and he he can't come back and he doesn't know how it works. No, I mean, the basic Dr. Oz story is that he, I mean, this actually is kind of a back door to the fact that Oprah plays a supporting role in a lot of episodes of You're Wrong About because she's, you know, because it makes good TV, she's really historically helped a lot of people with wild and eventually proven to be untrue stories to have a gigantic platform and sure everyone out there can think of like three different people and, and so the Dr. Oz story is basically that he's promoting as the New Wonder Cure week after week, things with marginal to nonexistent health benefits. And it's, you know the-yeah I don't know I think I've got The Wizard of Oz on the brain because I went to Movie Madness for the first time in years and I saw The Wizard of Oz, his pants. Everyone go, everyone see the pants, that he's another Wizard of Oz.
Luke Burbank Well, speaking of which, you've also got a movie podcast with Alex Stead called You Are Good.
Sarah Marshall Yeah, Steed.
Luke Burbank Steed, called You Are Good, which is originally titled Why Are Dads? What was the original concept for the show?
Sarah Marshall The original premise was, I mean, we decided to start a movie a podcast, kind of in the early days of the pandemic. And the original theme was apocalypse friends, movies about an apocalypse that are also kind of about friendship. So like Dawn of the Dead, which is very much about friendship, as we all know. And, and then we realized that was too much of an epic downer. And we decided, okay, dads and movies, because everyone, almost everyone has some kind of a relationship to at least one of those things. And we both have idiosyncratic old dads whose, who our relationships with really shaped us as people. And so it was a we started off with what I believe to be mathematically the dadliest movie of all time, which was Jaws.
Luke Burbank Really?
Sarah Marshall Yeah.
Luke Burbank What makes it the dadliest movie?
Sarah Marshall Well, okay, here's my basic thoughts on Jaws. There's-this feels like this is a dream I've had. You've got the scary, angry, greatest generation guy model of masculinity. Robert Shaw, who was traumatized by sharks during World War II, and that was, like, traumatizing everyone around him as revenge. And then there's the young boomer guy who looks and probably acts exactly like Steven Spielberg, and he's a man of science. And then there's Brody, who's the man of the lot and who's a lovely dad to his lovely kids. And between the three of them, they're able to make a beautiful triangle of masculinity that's strong enough to defeat the shark.
Luke Burbank You've made an airtight argument as to the dadliness of that film. Sarah Marshall, everyone. Check out her podcast You're Wrong About and You Are Good. That was Sarah Marshall right here on Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We have to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere because we will be right back. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello, special holiday edition of the show. And as such, we've been asking the Live Wire listeners what is a holiday tradition that you particularly treasure? Elena has been looking at those responses. What are people saying?
Elena Passarello This is a really sweet one from Caitlin. Caitlin says, After my uncle died, my family started an annual family monetary donation book in his honor. The four of our families donate money to a cause each year, and we take turns with the book, which is how we remember what we chose, where the money goes each year and whose turn it is and things like that. So it sounds like it's this like magical book that gets passed around from family to family, and then you're more bang for your buck. All of these different families that were related to this one man, Caitlin's uncle, all kind of come together to make a really sizable donation. I just love that so much that you can read it like a story, you know, as the years go by. It's so beautiful.
Luke Burbank Yeah. What a great legacy, too. Yeah. For Caitlin's uncle, that's an amazing way to remember somebody and to do some, some real good in the spirit of how it sounds like he lived his life. Okay, one more holiday tradition before we get to our next guest.
Elena Passarello This one makes me laugh just because of the way that it's worded. This is from Lisa. And Lisa says, Every year my office does an ugly holiday sweater party and I like that. Period.
Luke Burbank And that's the holiday tradition.
Elena Passarello That's the only one, huh, Lisa, and I just like that it's like, full stop. I like the ugly holiday-I just I can imagine Lisa as that kind of wonderfully upfront colleague.
Luke Burbank Lisa's like, got the sweater picked out, like, weeks in advance, just, like, ready to go ham at the ugly sweater party. You know, everything is so kind of like cyclical. I wonder, are we cycling into a, like, a beautiful holiday sweater kind of like era at some point? Like, will we move past the ugly sweater and and go to the, like, tolerable sweater and then eventually to the to the beautiful sweater?
Elena Passarello Like what we thought was ugly in like 2015, all of a sudden becomes fashionable in 2025?
Luke Burbank Yes. Every time I think something is out of style, I see somebody wearing it, some particularly some young person wearing it. And I realize, Oh, that's back in style again.
Elena Passarello I never thought about that. But that's true. Like what? What thing is just going to be ugly no matter what the trends are? And you know what the answer is? The sweater that I'm going to be wearing to the Live Wire holiday party.
Luke Burbank Oh, really?
Elena Passarello Oh, yeah. I got a good one. There might be a battery pack involved. Let's just leave it at that.
Luke Burbank I am very excited about this. Our musical guests this week first came to our attention as the dynamite guest vocalist for Pink Martini, with whom he's performed with around the world. Also on Live Wire, not to brag. He's perhaps best known, though, now for his jaw dropping performance on the 2021 America's Got Talent season, including receiving the coveted golden buzzer. Take a listen to Jimmie Herrod performing his song Each Time in front of a live crowd at Live Wire.
Jimmie Herrod (singing) I don't mind chasing cars as long as they're not parked. I need a bit of encouragement. What am I chasing for? What am I chasing for? I don't mind chasing cars like a shooting star. The problem is they're hardly permanent. What am I shooting for? What am I shooting for? Each time that it almost reaches, each time that I almost reach for enough yet. Each time we almost meet it's like we've never met. I don't like open bars, I'd rather leave my card. I need a bit of punishment. What am I drinking for? What am I drinking for? Maybe I'll go too far chasing this new car. The power's his, the power's all his. What am I hoping for? What am I hoping for? Each time that I almost reach his, each time that I almost reach for enough yet. Each time that we meet it's like we've never left. Each time that I almost reach is, each time that I almost reach for enough yet. Each time that we meet it's like we've never met. Never met. Never met.
Jimmie Herrod Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Live Wire.
Luke Burbank That was Jimmie Herrod performing on Live Wire. His solo album of original works Falling in Love and Learning to Love Myself is available now and you can follow Jimmie on Instagram at Jimmie_Herrod. That is Jimmie with an I-E at the end. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests Paul F Tompkins, Sarah Marshall and Jimmie Herrod. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Tré Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Al Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer and our house sound is by D. 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. This week we'd like to thank member Samhita Reddy of Portland, Oregon, who also happens to be a member of Live Wire's board. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to LiveWireRadio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew, thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
