That is weird, that is bi-Sklar

(Photo source: The Sklar Brothers)

On one of my favorite podcasts, the Sklar Brothers' Sklarbro Country from the incredibly prolific Earwolf comedy podcast production company, the sports-loving twin brothers poke fun at the batty behavior of sports celebrities and their often equally deranged fans with the same biting and wonderfully rapid-fire delivery they brought to their much-missed ESPN Classic sports clip show Cheap Seats. Randy and Jason Sklar are also huge boosters of indie bands like The Morning Benders and The Henry Clay People, so the beds and mid-show musical interludes in between the Sklarbitrations, Quick Hits, visits from Racist Vin Scully and Sklarson impressions (a.k.a. the Sklars' Johnny Carson impressions) are often indie rock tracks. An occasional hip-hop joint gets thrown into the mix because fortunately, the brothers' musical tastes aren't limited to the "flaccid, smarmy, girl-pant, bearded, fixie bike rock" that one Sklarbro Country fan amusingly complained about in the Earwolf site's comments section (he's right about the stupidity of guys wearing girl pants though).

You know how TV shows like The Sopranos, Grey's Anatomy and more recently, Breaking Bad have replaced terrestrial radio and MTV as a place to discover sounds by new artists whenever the shows utilize existing songs as either source music or "needle drops" for montages or action sequences (which led to several newspaper and music magazine articles declaring that "scripted TV is the new radio")? The beds and musical interludes on comedy podcasts are turning into another great place to unearth new sounds. Sklarbro Country was where I was first exposed to terrific tunes like The Morning Benders' "Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)" and Those Darlins' "Screws Get Loose."





When an ill track I've never heard before like Ana Tijoux's "1977" gets airplay on a series like Breaking Bad, I have to play detective and hunt for it online (that is if Alan Sepinwall doesn't ID the track on his blog, but he usually does so). Fortunately, the Sklar Brothers ID each tune for the listeners (and the guest comedians who are sometimes curious about a tune's title) as it's being played by their sound engineer, so I don't have to play detective, although I wish the brothers posted the track titles on the Earwolf site. Many Sklarbro Country listeners like myself have wondered where they could find playlist information. A few days ago, I discovered the Sklars have been posting playlist info, but on their WhoSay site (and in Twitpic form instead of as text for some bi-Sklar reason).

In addition to being a standout installment (I love the Sklars' takedown of Japan-bashing WNBA guard Cappie Poindexter, as well as special guest Kumail Nanjiani's takedown of "Crappy Henderson... what's her name?," whom he'd take more seriously "if the WNBA used regular-colored basketballs"), Sklarbro Country episode 34 is a good example of the show's inspired choices for existing songs. What other show goes from J Mascis to Warren G and the late Nate Dogg?

An old Cheap Seats segment features Chesty McWooden from Twilight

On a recent episode of Sklarbro Country with special guest Amy Poehler (whose laughter I always enjoy hearing, and she does a lot of it during this standout ep, mostly because of James Adomian's hysterical Jesse "The Body" Ventura impression), the Sklar Brothers briefly discussed with Poehler an installment of their ESPN Classic cult favorite Cheap Seats where the brothers snarked on footage of a karate demonstration by a then-unknown Taylor Lautner, a few years before they and the rest of the world became familiar with Lautner and his impression of a wooden washboard in the Twilight movies.

After listening to Randy and Jason mention that 2006 Cheap Seats segment, I had to go YouTube that segment, which I hadn't seen in a long time. Hearing the Sklar Brothers slap around a blue-haired, pre-movie set trailer tantrum-having, 11-year-old version of Lautner made my day. God, I miss Cheap Seats (even though it's finally dropping on DVD!).



The sponsor of that junior karate tournament was Paul Mitchell. Because the first thing I think when I watch martial arts is "Gee, these roundhouse kicks would look more impressive if the kid had frosted tips."

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Who, "I'm One"

Song: "I'm One" by The Who (because today is 1/11/11)
Released: 1973
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the 2000 Freaks and Geeks episode "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers."
Which moment in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" does it appear?: The wordless sequence where latchkey kid Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) comes home from school looking rather miserable after a not-so-great day, makes himself a grilled cheese (with chocolate cake on the side), flips on Dinah Shore's talk show Dinah! and laughs his ass off to a set by Dinah's guest comic Garry Shandling.

During the outstanding two-part WTF episode where he interviewed Freaks and Geeks writer/producer Judd Apatow, host Marc Maron said the "I'm One" sequence was the Freaks and Geeks moment that resonated with him the most because it relates to how "comedy was really one of the few things that made [Apatow and I] happy, that made us feel good, that took away the pain, that gave us the sense that things were going to be okay."

Apatow, who co-wrote "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," lifted the "I'm One" sequence from his own life as a child of divorced parents who found refuge in comedy and watched hours of stand-ups on talk shows after school. "I was at my fantasy world watching Michael Keaton do stand-up on The Mike Douglas Show, and I couldn't have been happier," Apatow told Maron. "I look back on it as a great time. I don't think, 'Oh, that was so sad. I was alone in my room.' I was like Bill, laughing my ass off, watching Jay Leno in 1979 on The Mike Douglas Show."

During the filming of the sequence, Apatow and "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" co-writer Bob Nickman got Starr to laugh so hard by telling him the dirtiest jokes off-camera. Both funny and poignant (it's Apatow's ultimate salute to his mentor and Larry Sanders Show boss Shandling, whom Apatow first met as a teen when he interviewed him for the high school radio show that Maron played excerpts from on WTF), the sequence is one of many reasons why viewers like myself love Freaks and Geeks, and it's enhanced by The Who's 1973 track from Quadrophenia.

Because the freaks half of the episode revolved around a Who concert, every existing song during "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" is a Who track, except for "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts (this was a few years before the CSI franchise introduced the band's songs to a new generation of viewers). No other track on the show perfectly encapsulates Bill, the geek who's most comfortable in his own skin and with his lot in life ("I'm a loser--no chance to win") and doesn't care what others think of him ("And I can see/That this is me"). His sense of humor helps take away the pain.

I'll be on the next episode of Javiland

Javier Hernandez--El Muerto comics creator, Javiland cartooning talk podcast host and Fistful of Soundtracks fan--invited me to be one of several guest webcomic creators on the phone during this Sunday's Javiland episode about webcomics at 6pm PST (Tyler James, whose Over online graphic novel I just started reading after Jav mentioned it to me, has confirmed he'll also be part of the ep). Javiland is a must-listen for anyone who's interested in creating self-published comics like Jav has done with El Muerto.

It's a great time to do Jav's show because I'm in the middle of writing and drawing another Palace arc. The targets in this arc will include right-wingers and craptastic movies, whether they're mainstream or art-house flicks (The Palace is based on the years I spent going to art-house theater screenings for local critics--art-house movies can often be as awful and hackneyed as mainstream ones, and man, I was subjected to a lot of awful ones). I'm constantly rewriting the gags. I don't want to turn into the crazy but brilliant Danny Arnold, who rewrote the gags in his scripts for Barney Miller so much that he caused afternoon tapings of the show to continue all the way into the early morning (what a nutso way to write comedy, and I bet the actors really enjoyed staying up all night at the studio).

Since the 2002 launch of my radio station (which Jav calls a podcast, but AFOS has never really been a podcast like Javiland because if it were, I'd be saddled with so many music clearance fees I'd end up standing around wearing nothing but a barrel), many of my most responsive listeners have been artists, graphic designers and cartoonists like Jav. I never thought I'd become one of them. But that's what happens when you need something to keep yourself busy when you're unemployed (or underemployed, to be exact).

So tune in to Javiland to hear me stammer and say "But, um" a lot.

A Fistful of Soundtracks glossary of terms I've used on this blog that not everyone understands

Back-announcement: A terrestrial radio term for the moment when the DJ identifies a song's title and performer.

Boutique division: The art-house movie division of a Hollywood studio, like Universal's Focus Features subsidiary or Fox Searchlight Pictures. In The Palace, a character complains about "lame releases that the studios or their boutique divisions always think will attract female moviegoers during opening weekends like TDK's."

Chune: A tune that's amazing. Pronounced "choon." Has nothing to do with the Latina nurse on ER. Her name is pronounced "choo-nee."

Diegetic: An adjective that describes any piece of music that characters in a film or TV show are performing live or blasting from a radio. Score music is non-diegetic.

Janky: An adjective from the streets that Michael Steele hasn't co-opted yet in his cringe-inducing attempts to relate to hip-hop heads like myself and recruit African Americans into the GOP. Steele is like that dad on Modern Family whose idea of hip is High School Musical.

Komiks: Comic books from the Philippines.

Ligyrophobic: Afraid of loud sounds like balloon pops. See Munn, Olivia.

Motif: A fancy way of saying "theme."

Podcast: A downloadable pre-recorded radio show, intended for playback on an iPod or an mp3 player, although it can also be played on a computer. The Fistful of Soundtracks channel has been erroneously referred to as a podcast by some bloggers. AFOS isn't downloadable, so it's not a podcast.

Terrestrial radio: 1. The opposite of Internet radio. 2. A dying medium that's caused listeners to flee, thanks to corporate control, annoying and racist morning personalities and umpteenth airings of "Freebird."

The reason why A Fistful of Soundtracks isn't in podcast form

Bryan Magan is the latest of several listeners who have asked me, "I'd like to have A Fistful of Soundtracks on my iPod, so what are the chances of turning it into a podcast?"

The chances are nil.

If A Fistful of Soundtracks were a podcast, I'd end up more broke than I already am. It costs less to run AFOS as a Live365 radio station than as a podcast, which is why I've never joined the podcastosphere, where, because of the kind of music I play, I'd have to deal with expensive music licensing fees and other legal issues.

It's illegal for podcasters to include copyrighted music on their shows, unless the label or copyright owner gives them clearance. And then comes my favorite part--the labels' hefty licensing fees. That's why a lot of podcasters who prefer to be law-abiding ones choose to do their podcasts as talk shows rather than music shows. Some of the more law-abiding podcasters who have music shows only use songs that are already cleared for podcast use, a.k.a. "podsafe."

If you want some AFOS on your iPod, use a streaming audio capture tool to record some of the stream, allowing you to be able to hear AFOS anytime, anywhere.

My voice seems to be all over the podcastosphere this week (is that even a word?)

I don't have the cash right now to travel around with the Secret Identities crew on their publicity tour in New York and more recently, L.A., so I've had to stick to plugging Secret Identities without leaving the Bay Area.

On big WOWO's podcast, which you can listen to right now on WOWO's blog or as a direct download, I discussed with podcast host Byron Wong the Secret Identities novel and the development of "Sampler," as well as the need for more Asian American scriptwriters, whether in the comics industry, TV or sketch comedy.

I revealed to Byron that right before I wrote the treatment for "Sampler," I was going to make the title character the daughter of a tailor who caters to superheroes, but then I remembered that a J. Michael Straczynski Amazing Spider-Man story introduced a similar tailor character, so to avoid turning into the Carlos Mencia of comic books, I changed the characters from tailors to dry cleaners.

I wish Byron kept the digital recorder rolling after the interview was over because we then shared some funny wisecracks about the 1998 Asian American indie movie Yellow (what's up with the lead actor's shouty acting?) and my own self-portrait, which I drew for both Secret Identities and my blog profile page (Me: "My picture probably scared away your site's readers from posting questions to me [in the comments section]. Maybe they're like, 'Who the fuck is he? Another untalented Basco brother?'" Byron: "It looks like a mugshot." Me: "Yeah, the photo I based it on had me wearing a beret, but I wanted to draw myself with a more gangster-looking hat." Byron: "Maybe I should have said you're dating a white woman. Then I would have gotten some comments.").

The same week I recorded the podcast with WOWO, I also guested on The Ben and Joel Podcast, hosted by conservative Scripps Howard columnist Ben Boychuk (a longtime fan of A Fistful of Soundtracks) and his liberal fellow columnist Joel Mathis. During their roundtable chat about the summer movie season, I talked mostly about a subject that's unrelated to Secret Identities: film and TV scores. (UPDATE: Listen to this Ben and Joel Podcast installment right now on Ben's blog or as a direct download.) At one point, Ben even asked me to briefly discuss Secret Identities, and I explained how my Secret Identities experience made me see the advantages the comics medium has over film and TV. For instance, when you create a comic, you don't have to worry about a ginormous budget like the one Fox lavished on X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Ben and I are from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but there's one thing we agree on: the awesomeness of the scores of Yoko Kanno, Michael Giacchino, Jerry Goldsmith and Basil Poledouris. Many of the scores Ben and I like are ones that are listenable outside of the movie or TV show. During the chat, I admitted that some of the scores I enjoy and have chosen for airplay on A Fistful of Soundtracks are from movies I've never even seen, like the 1999 cannibal horror flick Ravenous. It's an interesting discussion about music in movies, and I got to talk about aspects of film music and AFOS I haven't even addressed on this blog yet!

The other Jimmy Aquino

There are two Jimmy Aquinos on the blogosphere and on Web radio: me and Comic News Insider co-host Jimmy Aquino.

My hair is close-cropped. He has long hair. I live in California (and can't wait to leave it). He hails from New York. I host a film and TV score music show that attracts nobody. He hosts (with Joe Gonzalez) a comic book review podcast that attracts guests like Brian K. Vaughan, Greg Pak, Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Patton Oswalt, Rosario Dawson and more recently, Kristin Chenoweth (see above). I'm studying to be a voiceover actor. He's acted on stage for several years. I'm a total recluse. He's not. Family members have called me either "Jim," which I went by when I started out writing for newspapers, or "J.J." because my middle initial is J. His middle initial is P. Despite all those differences, it's easy to mistake him for me or vice versa because we share the same first and last names, we're both Pinoy and we dig the same geekish stuff.

We've known of each other and we might have walked past each other a few times during my first and so far only visit to the San Diego Comic-Con in 2007, but we've never met face-to-face.

That's going to change soon. We will finally meet face-to-face in the studio, on a date yet to be determined.

Mark your calendars and start coming up with some sort of elaborate escape plan because the day of my guest appearance on CNI is the day when the world will end. You see, the East Coast Jimmy is really my future self--sometime in the future, I will get sick of my middle name and change it and grow my hair out--and if the two Jimmy Aquinos meet, it will create a paradox that will tear apart the space-time continuum and destroy the universe. In other words, a shitstorm that's worse than all two seasons of A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila.

Jimmy invited me to be a guest on his fun podcast after I confirmed that in April, my first piece of comic book writing, "Sampler," will appear in Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, a graphic novel that he blogged about back when its editors were seeking story ideas. He saw his friend Heidi MacDonald's recent BEAT post--in which she linked to my blog and said she's amazed to learn that there are now two Jimmy Aquinos in the comics world--and then contacted me earlier this week about going on CNI to discuss "Sampler," Secret Identities, A Fistful of Soundtracks, our favorite comics and which network TV execs we want to put contract hits out on.

(On the latest episode of CNI, which is available here, Jimmy gives me and AFOS a nice shout-out. Joe jokes that I'm CNI Jimmy's future self, which is made funnier by the fact that I'm actually younger than Jimmy, who's celebrating his birthday during this ep. I don't know Jimmy's age, but I'm pretty sure I'm younger than him.)

My visit to CNI will be my first-ever guest appearance on a podcast or talk show (outside of a couple of occasions when I dropped by KSJS-FM's Celluloid Dreams back in my newspaper days). It will also be the first in a special series of shows in which the CNI hosts will mess with listeners' minds. The following week, Jimmy, Joe and Blair Butler will welcome to the studio both Vanessa Williams from Ugly Betty and Vanessa Williams from the Soul Food TV series and grill them about who should be Bruce Wayne's successor as Batman.