"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde
Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Sunday, December 29, 2013

Sunday Music Blogging: Looney Tunes
Posted by Jill | 12:04 PM
No, not the cartoons. But Will Ferrell + cowbell = forever funny:

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Wednesday, April 03, 2013

I can't wait
Posted by Jill | 5:53 AM
Those of us who stuck with Marc Maron during those brutal days long ago when he was getting fired from Air America three times have been hoping for something like this ever since. Yes, folks, the human version of Henri le Chat Noir (only without the French and the fur, though there will be cats) is coming to IFC in May.

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Monday, March 19, 2012

This may be the best political mashup since D.J. Ted Stevens
Posted by Jill | 5:34 AM
It's D.J. Cheesy Grit Mitt:



(via)

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Saturday, March 17, 2012

Happy St. Patrick's Day
Posted by Jill | 3:37 PM


Or, for the snarky among you:





Wow! Everyone IS Irish on St. Patrick's Day!

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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Maybe I'll see you on the funway....
Posted by Jill | 9:37 AM

Peter Bergman 1939-2012


The Firesign Theatre, Live at the Improv, 1981


It's impossible to underestimate the impact that The Firesign Theatre had on my life. I first encountered them during a period when WBAI used to run old-time radio shows on weekend evenings, except one night they were playing something that SOUNDED like an old-time serial, but there was something different about it -- something deliriously, profoundly WEIRD. It was "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger", and it was the funniest thing I had ever heard.

Comedy in the late 1960's and early 1970's was starting to undergo a transformation from the Borscht-belt suit-and-a-cigarette model that had dominated for the last decade. Weird sketch comedy was nothing new; Ernie Kovacs had pioneered it in the 1950s. But Kovacs was a visual comic, whereas the long-form sketch comedy of the Firesign Theatre was something uniquely of its age, with its weird multiple layers and hallucinogenic undertones. You didn't have to take hallucinogens to appreciate it, but you did have to be weird, and appreciation for "Firesign" became a checkbox on the cred list for membership in the Weird Boomer Adolescent society. Because Firesign kids back then weren't all druggies, but we did all have a sense that we were put here by mistake, and the kind of multiple realities that the troupe dealt with so well gave us our own sense of cool. Because you have to be able to see the world differently to appreciate something as profoundly strange and subliminally disturbing as Everything You Know Is Wrong, with its Illuminati references and conspiracymongering that pre-dates Alex Jones by decades.

The Firesign theatre not only looked backwards for inspiration, but their future visions were often so cogent that to listen to them now it's as if they were foreseeing the future. Go listen to I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus, which envisioned a computer age where people still can't find a job, and tell me that this stuff wasn't prescient.

Along with its somewhat less strange British counterpart, the Monty Python guys, The Firesign Theatre begat Saturday Night Live which begat any number of sketch comedy shows that we see today. Firesign begat the Church of the Subgenius (which no less a personage than Rachel Maddow has referenced on her show) and was so influential on the comedy of the late, great Air America radio show Morning Sedition that the show had its own version of Nick Danger called "Morning Sedition Radio Theatre". But nothing since has achieved the kind of highly disciplined and at the same time chaotic verbal viruosity that we saw from these twin pillars of literate sketch comedy.

I introduced Elayne to Firesign in the early 1980's, and with her customary focus, she want on to create a Firesign 'zine and become a kind of unofficial historian and keeper of the Firesign flame. Mr. Brilliant and I had Firesign in common when we met in 1983, and it was a sign that we both lived in the same strange kind of mindspace of what are now called Quirky Kids. And many years later, I ran across Melina, whose own grandfather was behind many of the radio serials that inspired Firesign's work. So there we are.

And this morning I found out that Peter Bergman, the voice of Lt. Bradshaw, Mudhead, and many other characters has left us from complications of leukemia at the age of 72. His final signoff from his solo venture, Radio Free Oz is in the video at the top of this post.

And another cultural icon of my childhood bites the dust. I guess I'd better get used to this.

UPDATE: Here's a lovely tribute from Richard Metzger, who quotes his friend Mike explaining what I think all Firesign freaks share:
I phrase things the way I do because of the Firesign Theatre. I look at the world the way I do because of them. There might not be anything that had a bigger formative influence on who I am today when I really think about it!”

If your automatic reflexive response to someone who asks you what you're doing is "The foxtrot. You can have the next dance", you know what he means. (And don't miss the video of actual car dealership ads the guys did in 1969 while you're there.)

More tributes from:

Skippy
Jesse Walker, at Reason, of all places
Mitchell J. Freedman
wruckusgroink at DKos
Andy Parx
Gordonskene at C&L
Tom Dupree

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Monday, January 23, 2012

OK, I was wrong. Maybe Santorum's organization isn't so bright after all.
Posted by Jill | 6:06 AM
Update: Maybe I was wrong about Santorum's organization.

Yet further proof that the late, great Morning Sedition was ahead of its time:


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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Brothers of Different Mothers
Posted by Jill | 6:57 AM
Separated at Birth? You decide.

Newt Gingrich:




Damon Wayans as "Oswald Bates" from In Living Color:

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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Tell me you've never done this.
Posted by Jill | 9:11 PM




I can't tell you how many times in my life I've been convinced I have cancer. The infected hair follicle that I was convinced meant I had leukemia. The headache that lasted 3 days that had me convinced I had a brain tumor. Ovulation pain that had me convinced I had ovarian cancer. For someone who hates to go to doctors, I've sure put up with a lot of anxiety to avoid going to them. And meanwhile, I come from a family where we're so mean the Goddess does't want us and keeps us here a long, long time. My mother has survived 18 years after lung cancer surgery. You know what the 5-year survival rate for lung cancer is? 15%. And Mom is still kicking 18 years later. And still smoking. I'm serious. Don't fuck with us, because we are made out of tough stuff.

So after obsessing about cancer my entire life, what do I do now? Work on oncology clinical trials. Don't ever let it be said that the Goddess (or Jehovah, if you like) doesn't have a snarky sense of humor.

So after watching Marc Maron on Conan at the top of this post (actually not pissing off the right, more's the pity), don't you dare tell me you've never gone through exactly what he describes. In fact, tell me about when you did.

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Thursday, April 07, 2011

I need a Maron fix
Posted by Jill | 7:55 PM
Sometimes I forget how much being able to listen to Marc Maron on the radio used to keep me sane.


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Saturday, January 15, 2011

And because sometimes we need a break from the horror of life in America in the 21st century...
Posted by Jill | 4:01 AM
If you haven't checked out WTF yet, maybe this will pique your interest:


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Thursday, January 06, 2011

Recognition that's long overdue
Posted by Jill | 8:04 PM
And to think we knew him when.

The 10 Funniest People, Videos and Things of the Coming Year

7/10

'WTF With Marc Maron'

Acid-tongued, rage-prone satirist Marc Maron has been a stand-up-circuit fixture since the Eighties, hosting Comedy Central shows and befriending guys like Judd Apatow and Conan O'Brien along the way. But his new podcast, "WTF," may be his greatest achievement yet: a series of unvarnished shit-shoots with comedians that move from laugh-geek joke anatomy to quasi-therapeutic venting (Louis C.K. wept during his epic two-part interview).


And there's more, from the New York Times:
On his show, whose title includes an exclamation that can’t be printed here, Mr. Maron, a stand-up comic by trade, has cast himself as an unlikely celebrity interviewer — one who is angry, probing, neurotic and a vulnerable recovering addict. And somehow he’s able to elicit from his guests, mostly other comedians like Sarah Silverman and Ben Stiller, the same level of vulnerability.

The interviews, usually taped in his garage in Los Angeles, often end up feeling more like therapy sessions. Take, for example, Robin Williams talking to Mr. Maron about the dark side of dealing with audiences: “I guess it’s that fear that they’ll recognize — as you know — how insecure are we really? How desperately insecure that made us do this for a living?”

Thanks to moments like these the podcast has, over the last year or so, become a cult hit and a must-listen in show business and comedy circles. The success of the show has everything to do with its perceptive, prickly host and his ability to coax surprisingly revealing things from his guests.


Thirty years from now, people will look at the late, great Morning Sedition the way some people look at Jean Shepherd's show. What most people won't realize is that one short-lived radio show is what allowed Marc Maron to cut his interviewing teeth with some policy heavy-hitters -- people like journalists Michael Ware and Borzou Daragahi, politicians like Howard Dean, policymakers like Robert Reich. Maron may no longer even remember the call letters of Air America's then-flagship station, but it's the experience he got there that laid the groundwork for him to finally find a niche. He's a really good standup comic. But he's a GREAT interview show host.

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Saturday, November 06, 2010

Blogrolling In Our Time
Posted by Jill | 12:23 PM
Say hello to Morning Remembrance, the great Jim Earl's resurrection of the Morning Sedition comedy bit of the same name. We're blogrolling Jim's creation in the -- where else? -- "In Memoriam" category.

Original clips can be found here. Look for the ones with "MR" in the file name.

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Monday, October 11, 2010

This is what happens when you privatize services
Posted by Jill | 6:32 AM
This one comes to us via Gaius Publius:



Yes, that's "House" up there with the divine Stephen Fry.

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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Still funny after all these years
Posted by Jill | 5:59 AM
Stiller and Meara take on Jersey Shore:


(h/t: Elayne)

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Friday, September 17, 2010

Everything old is new again
Posted by Jill | 7:28 AM
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Saturday, June 12, 2010

When coffee is spilled at a BP meeting
Posted by Jill | 9:45 AM
We've all attended meetings where someone knocks over a cup of coffee. Usually there's some napkins left over from a baby shower from six months ago, and the problem is solved in minutes.

Unless that meeting is full of BP executives. Then all bets are off:


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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Best. Rant. Ever.
Posted by Jill | 11:17 AM
Who cares that he doesn't write his material on The Daily Show? No one delivers a rant like Lewis Black:


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Monday, April 12, 2010

Please...don't give her any ideas
Posted by Jill | 5:06 AM
Sure, it's funny when Tina Fey does it. But how funny is it going to be when it inevitably becomes a reality?


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Friday, March 12, 2010

Massa; Tickling as Abuse
Posted by Anonymous | 10:20 PM

I hate to break my perfect silence here, but I have something to say. With all the crap flying round my life, I am happy to report that I knew little of this Massa issue that is buzzing in the background everywhere I go. But there is one thing that Ive been hearing, that has been sticking out and gnawing at me, and its making me pretty crazy: ticklefight...it was only a ticklefight.

Whatever really happened in this case that seems to have caught the attention of the main stream media, I haven't heard anyone commenting on the fact that tickling someone until they cant breathe is, in fact, abuse. Tickling children is abusive bullying and besides siblings going through phases of evenly matched tickling, its not something that people really do anymore. There is something inherently sexual in tickling, and there is a dominance issue, considering that its actually painful. I don't think that people should do this to anyone who isn't a willing participant, and to hear an adult talking about something like this is downright creepy
That's all, really....Massa is a freak and he belongs on the supermarket checkout news, not the national news!

On the other hand, as Larry O'Donnell just said on Countdown, he gave the comedians of the world a huge gift with the funniest sex scandal ever. I haven't laughed out loud like this since I don't know when. Maybe I have to start paying attention again.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sour Gropes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Reform


at least to Jon Stewart...

c/p RIPCoco

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Friday, January 29, 2010

No I will not just let it go
Posted by Jill | 7:36 PM
If you weren't one of the people who turned on the radio on March 31, 2004 at noon and had the sense of "Yes! I'm home!", you can go read something else. Because there is no way you can possibly fathom what the millions (and yes, there were millions) of people who were Air America listeners went through as they watched various permutations of management run something fresh and potentially wondrous into the ground because they couldn't see past their own noses.

Melina, who knows more about the business of radio than you and I ever will, for reasons it's up to her to reveal, wrote about the final stake in the rotting heart of Air America yesterday. But there is something else going on that has angry Air Americans, specifically Morning Seditionists, coming out of the woodwork like zombies risen from the grave.

As Melina wrote, Danny Goldberg, who is perhaps the person most responsible for wrecking the programming that Air America offered in the early days, must have been feeling pretty guilty lo these last four years (assuming he has a conscience, which is doubtful), because he posted this laughable screed over at Down with Tyranny. Now, here at B@B, we loves us some DWT, but giving space to this revisionist scumbag has to have grown of nothing but the chumminess of two music industry vets and nothing approaching reality.

95 comments later, insiders from Air America in general and Morning Sedition in particular are starting to tell their stories, and they aren't pretty. From original producer Jonathan Larsen (now a producer on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, proving beyond a doubt that living well is the best revenge) to the zany Jim Earl (of Sammy the Stem Cell, Morning Remembrance, and Rapture Watch fame), to the anonymous staffers, the people who were there are using Goldberg's Variations as a springboard to finally, after four years, tell their stories.

WWRL here in New York is showing signs of a revamped drive-time lineup that includes ex-late-AAR-er Jack Rice until 6 PM, followed by, yes, Morning Sedition's straight man, Mark Riley, from 6-8, which would be a not-half-bad lineup if the memories of Randi Rhodes, Marty Kaplan, and Sam Seder weren't still so fresh and raw.

So go read what really happened, then come back and click the audio player in the right-hand sidebar....and listen to the Best Damn Show Ever on Radio as its sounds hopefully haunt Danny Goldberg to madness. Then maybe you'll understand why, after four years, we're still angry.

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