Episode 15: Non-Matt Yogurt And Other Really Clever Nicknames

matthew-bogartThis one is a biggie and worth the wait: Josh and Jesse spend a massive double-dose of a podcast talking with comics artist Matthew Bogart, about among other things his comics work including the wonderful in-progress story Oh, it’s the end of the world. But also: the comics narrative process! The importance of linework and the value (and difficulty) of doing more with less! Whether or not children taunted Matt with yogurt-based insults on the playground! Things that 9-volt batteries are like! Identifying sub-brands of colas based on color elements of label designs! And a lot more.

A significant part of that lot more being a wide-ranging discussion of the recent public bridges-burning move by one of the most talented web comics artists out there, John Campbell of (among other things) the starkly thoughtful Pictures For Sad Children, who had recently withdrawn in dramatic fashion from a Kickstarter agreement and systematically removed nearly all extant creative work — years and years of it — from the web. It’s a complicated situation, and one that’s inherently difficult to unpack from the outside, but we try and wrestle out what meaning and perspective we can from the whole mess.

You can holler at Matt on twitter @matthewbogart; if you want to support his comics work, take a look at his Patreon page.

Episode 14: High Noon on the Moon

On right after everybody’s favorite serial space western radio program, this Crapshoot sees Josh and Jesse chattering alone together about things like: how to not be a bummer when someone at the supermarket asks you how your day is; how to not be a dickhole at a rock show if you’re in one of the bands; how Christopher Walken talks; the ins and outs of sleeping in your car; and, probably, beer.

Episode 13: Jesse’s Actual Mom

Jesse’s actual factual flesh-and-blood this-is-not-Josh-making-a-joke-about-moms mom comes by for a very special episode of The Crapshoot. We talk about all kinds of things: Lakeport, CA; Jesse being such a handsome boy; Josh’s whole thing with the mom jokes; how depending on how you look at it the whole world is basically fucked; and book stores. And more!

Music this time out: three thin parodies Josh recorded while snowed in in Portland.

Episode 12: Dr. Mrs. Jesse’s Mom, Penisologist

This time out on the Crapshoot (on right after Judith’s brother’s show, What’s That Song), Josh and Jesse drink their tonics and gins and discuss: apologies! Car name demographics! Jesse’s mom being a penisologist! Segways! Josh’s obsession with the word butts! Etc!

In the process we cautiously recommend to each other the avant-garde de/reconstructive Wizard People, Dear ReaderSon of Strelka, Son of God, and Alex Trebek Has Gone Completely Insane.

Jesse also volunteers Josh to sing songs about listeners’ iTunes reviews of the podcast, which Josh agrees to do, which brings us to:

Music this episode. First up is an old song of Josh’s, Twist the Knife; during our second break, there’s four miniature songs, musical shout outs to the first four folks to review our podcast.

If you want a song, hey, review the podcast as well, Josh is up to the task.

Episode 10: Filling a gas car with diesel

Right after the Fun 4 Kidz Podcast Gaming Hour (that Sammy Sparkles always makes me smile), it’s the triumphant 2014 return of The Crapshoot. Josh and Jess enjoy a few Spaten Optimators and talk job stuff (Jesse’s end-of-year retail madness and Josh’s terrible old out-going market research call center job), the danger of promising to meet a deadline in public, Josh’s pathological affection for clothes he didn’t originally like, xmas cards, Axl Rose, Jesse being a bad person, Sugar Bush Squirrel, and putting the wrong kind of dead dinosaur in your car. AND MUCH MORE.

Episode 8: Conan Neutron Destroys Our Computer

conan-neutron Right after Let’s Talk Turkey sports radio with Bill Williams, we’ve got an at least semi-rowdy Crapshoot this week, snagging touring San Francisco rock fella Conan Neutron for a bunch of beery basement chatter about music, podcasts, failing effectively, being stuck in traffic, fucking with Karl Rove, wacky morning DJs, guest lists, and loads more.

Also the computer keeps crashing. One has to presume this is the result of Conan’s animal magnetism.

We talk about, along with everything else, Conan’s current band, Victory and Associates (further of which their most recent album, Better Luck Next Life, his previous band, Replicator; Conan’s Karl Rove googlebomb rock compilation stunt, Karl Rove: Courage and Consequence — The Unabridged Audio; and V&A’s rock-music-and-jovial-bullshitting podcast, You Can’t Stop The Signal.

Music this time around: two tracks off of V&A’s recent Better Luck Next Life, For Serious and Everything’s Amazing (Nobody’s Happy).

Episode 7: Lost In Time And Space

This week (right after the 80s sitcom nostalgiacast Whatcha Walken About, Willis), Josh and Jesse sit down sans guest to talk about, among other things: “hipster” as an aesthetic category vs. hipster as an insult, Cold Smoke Scotch Ale from Missoula, Montana, creative freedom and creative paralysis, Josh’s Ferengi Express game project, contemporary free-to-play games as an evolution of 80s arcade coin-guzzler mechanics, Deep Space Nine, the high cost of high warp, the danger of concretizing units in a poorly-fleshed-out sci-fi universe, and a harrowing personal story unfit to even describe here.

Music this time: Josh’s freshly-recorded cover of the difficult-to-attribute youtube mantra It’s Okay To Not Like Things, and an old Aural Times news-song of his called AT&T To Acquire Bellsouth.

Episode 6: Let’s Settle This Over Some Joose

joose-et-al-bw Hot on the tail of The Breaking Styrofoam Hour, this week’s Crapshoot is a special king-sized edition because we just couldn’t stop talking to XOXO conference founder Andy “waxy” Baio, possibly because he got us drunk on some really bad booze. Clever play.

We pick Andy’s brain about all kinds of stuff (it helps that he’s done all kinds of stuff, not least including helping build Kickstarter, creating the interactive fiction community/toolset PlayFic, building the now-sadly-shuttered Upcoming.org, etc, etc), including the incredibly frustrating story of the legal fallout over his wonderful commissioned chiptune Miles Davis cover project, Kind of Bloop. We also talk about XOXO (videos of the talks now up!) and his Creative Mornings talk, and we drink two different flavors of Joose (and one flavor of Sparks).

Music this time out is a couple of excerpts from the aforementioned Kind of Bloop, So What and Freddie Freeloader.