In this episode, our guest Matthew Roazen returns to talk to us about his time in Russia, and gives us a lesson in what was happening in Russia during the 1990s and early 2000s. Matthew explains the rise of the Russian Oligarchy and how it was linked to guarantees to banks via the IMF. This effected not only all the small businesses in Russia, but also foreign business and investment in Russia that the time. We hear more about how all of this affected his day to day life there, but end up talking about our understanding of the idea of corruption and how it changes depending on where you live.

Matthew Roazen, lawyer, and Russian history & linguistics expert, who lived in Russia for 16 years talks about his time in Moscow during the 1990s and 2000s. This is part one of a 2 part conversation with Matthew about what things are like in the country with the largest landmass in the world. We talk about his time managing a blues band in Moscow, the beginning of the perceived western bonanza there in the 1990s and why business was so keen on the newly “freed” Russian populace. We touch on the beginnings of the oligarchy and how Matthew saw it emerge.

This conversation would qualify for ASMR in terms of the pacing and tone, except that we discuss the movie Vice with Christian Bale. Jim talks about his impressions of it and Lionel talks about a number of books and movies he's been watching, including 'Mordecai,' and Isaac Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves.' We talk about our viewings of The Americans, comparing the espionage in it to the behind the scenes machinations of Dick Cheney in the Bush Whitehouse. We end up getting ready for the election, which, by the time you hear this, has already happened.

Lionel and Jim look back at a little more than a year of making this podcast. We remember conversations with our guests, our growing reading lists, talk about the origin of the podcast and what we want to see in 2023.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~14-Johnny-Gottadoo/

Donald Smith manages Guilford’s introductory and advanced physics laboratories, laser optics laboratory, and rooftop observatory. He joined us to talk about Chat GPT and education challenges, the search for life and the startling size of the universe, German Science Fiction currently streaming, and his reading list.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~13-Donald-Smith/

We touch on two books Jim is reading, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and The City & The City, as well as The Hunger Games, which Jim is reading to his daughters. Then we talk about the new Texas Governor’s governmental bans on TikTok and certain types of drones. From there, we move on to topics we don’t fully understand and get lots of things wrong, including Quantum Computing (Lionel may be more correct than Jim on this,) and Nuclear Fusion (Jim said it was neutrinos, but it was neutrons). Finally, we talk about Jim’s upcoming portrayal as an eccentric billionaire for Dr. Hanage’s class.

Late release due to time constraints.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~12-Superstition-Ain~rsquo~t-The-Way/

Ben is a musician and game developer who focuses his energy on creativity, positivity, and community. Ben does a weekly YouTube show called the Two Hour Music Challenge. We talk about his music work and what he's reading and watching and just generally chill out to a selection of his hundreds of tunes.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~11-Ben-Burnes/

All song samples included with permission from Ben Burnes.

Jim and Lionel return to the subject of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, discuss Riddley Walker, A Clockwork Orange, possible shortcomings of The Peripheral TV series, Andor & Rogue One, Iceland travels, and Heima, by Sigur Ros.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~10-Upside-Down/

Kurt Uenala (aka null+void & Kap10Kurt) has produced, programmed, mixed, and remixed giants like Depeche Mode, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kills, Dave Gahan, Soulsavers, Yelle, Erasure, The Ravonettes, The Kills, The Big Pink, and Moby. We talk about his gadgets (heavy nerd warning), touring with Jim, his recording process, alarms going off in the middle of the night, learning Icelandic, touring solo in Europe as an electronic artist, and many other things.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~09-Kurt-Uenala/

Bill is a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard and the co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. Jim met him while on tour with Jim’s Big Ego in London. We talk about English Football, Thanksgiving from a UK perspective, Doctor Who, Billy Butcher, Frank Herbert, Zombie Math, and the World of Warcraft disease. You might recognize his voice from his interviews on NPR in which he as appeared as an expert in virology on the topic of the COVID pandemic. I promised him we would talk about anything but epidemiology, but it crept in anyway.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~08-Bill-Hanage/

We are joined by the amazing Vance Gilbert and talk about nostrils, voting in MA and TX, Vance’s Monday Acoustic Pajama Party, his incredible songs, the songwriting scene in the Boston of the 90s, our favorite songwriters from that time, especially David Goldfinger, being on tour with a comedian and more.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~07-Vance-Gilbert/

All song clips included with permission from Vance Gilbert.

Jim starts by telling us about his favorite hot sauce. Then he talks about the extensive references page on the website, which is still in process, thanks to Johnny Gottadoo. Then they launch into a discussion of The Peripheral on Amazon Prime, and discuss the book Educated by Tara Westover, before finishing with some concerns about the inevitable demise of Affirmative Action by SCOTUS.

References here: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~06-Secret-Aardvark/

John Infantino is a writer and director, known for Regular Show, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, and Despicable Me, as well as his work on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Adventuretime, Chowder, and Camp Lazlo, to name a few. He is also Jim’s brother.

John talks with us about creating cartoons, writing the stories we watch, adaptations & mutations, shows he’s watching, and the books he is reading, including:

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Book of Strange New Things

A book his friend is writing about an Orc in Mordor

The Flashman Papers

Rendezvous with Rama

Riddley Walker

Finally, we reminisce about our trip to Italy together and end up with our admiration of Mark Hamill and Roz Ryan as voice-over actors.

References / with links for this episode: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~05-John-Infantino/

This is correct imdb page.

We look forward to having him back.

Subject: A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Guests: Julia Tenney, Sarah Elkins

This curious summary was generated by AI:

The conversation explores various themes including biking adventures, car troubles, and the legacy of Subaru. It transitions into a discussion about the book 'A Night in the Lonesome October', focusing on character dynamics, plot unfolding, and the role of animals in the story. The group delves into dream sequences and Lovecraftian references, discussing Lovecraft's influence and legacy, as well as the appeal of his mythos. The conversation concludes with reflections on writing style, literary techniques, and favorite moments from the book. In this engaging conversation, the participants delve into various themes surrounding a book that intertwines elements of Sherlock Holmes, vivisection, and Halloween traditions. They explore character motivations, favorite moments, and chilling themes, while also discussing the philosophical implications of destruction and the historical context of Thanksgiving. The dialogue flows seamlessly through these topics, providing insights into literary analysis and personal reflections on food and tradition.

References

Video

Jim and Lionel discuss streaming shows and books including the Rings of Power, the upcoming show based on William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Chef’s Table: Pizza, N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, and Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan.

• Listen to The History Happy Hour Podcast with Mike Duncan: https://historyhappyhour.com/blog/the-marquis-de-lafeyette-revnov-/
• References for this episode: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~04-Nobody~rsquo~s-In-Control/

Jim starts by sharing his weight loss hack for getting on the scale in the morning, which leads into a discussion of The War of Jenkin’s Ear, which leads into a discussion of the role of money in the creation of multicultural cities, which leads to a talk about barter, goats on drones, the library of things, torx wrenches, rat tail files, super yachts & the economy, and tries to get back to Caribbean Piracy, but doesn't quite get there.

Photo by Brenda Timmermans: https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-photo-of-white-goat-58914/

Actual historian Robert Gaudi on the War of Jenkin’s Ear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lga2xHDZvOs

References for this episode: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~03-Goats-On-Wings/

Dan Cantor, drummer, songwriter, producer of rock, folk, hip hop, and world music, visits the podcast to tell tales of recording overseas and in his studio, problems with travel and food, the power of rap music, and more.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~02-Dan-Cantor/

All song clips included with permission from Dan Cantor.

Lionel and Jim discuss the end of summer, Mark Leyner, Kate Bush and the return of the 80s, New shows, old movies, Sherlock Holmes, Wars and our sense of humanity, The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, and how to save the world with either a new religion, compassion for future generations, or AI.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~01-The-Will-of-Landru/

Lionel and Jim talk about what makes a great character in a story. What works? What appeals? Why do some fall flat? Why do some capture us? They also speak a little about their upcoming discussion of The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~27-Imperfect-people-being-uncomfortable/

Sarah Elkins has been in science fiction fandom since putting on a Doctor Who convention in the 80s. She joins the podcast this week to continue our coversation about science fiction and feminism. We discuss books by Vonda Macintyre, Ann Leckie, Octavia Butler and more.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~26-Sarah-Elkins/

Amy Robinson is our guest on the pod this week. Amy is a creator of puppets, an engineer, a mom person, a creative thinker and maker of things, and a knower of cool books and refined queries, a frequent guest on The Morning Stream. You can find her brand of puppets at peeperspuppets.com. We talk about creativity, puppets, coding, and narcolepsy.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~25-Amy-Robinson/

Thank you to Patron Sarah Elkins for suggesting the book The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood to us. We spend most of our time trying to suss out the meaning of that tremendous book by James Gleick in this episode. Discussed are entropy, encryption, memory, logic, and language. In short we manage to mangle a lot of deep thinking.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~24-We-fill-in-the-blanks/

Julia Tenney joins us again with a conversation about feminism and science fiction and what makes a science fiction story feminist. We discuss Starhawk, Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Vonda N. McIntyre, Ursula LeGuin, and decide we need more reading material to continue this conversation at a later date. Send us book recommendations from the contact form on our website.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~23-Julia-Tenney-2/

Lionel and Jim talk about Riverside.fm, our podcasting platform, Claude Shannon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon, Lionel’s new home full of stuff, Swat Teams & Active shooter drills in Boston, Jim’s short story in progress about the super volcano under Yellowstone park, Lionel’s new synthesizer, inspirational musicians and what is accessible in music, and burger chains in Texas.

And Lionel Was right, Downtown Train was on Rain Dogs.

This one has a big, red E on it. Take the kids to the bunker before hitting play. Eric Schwartz is possibly the only artist in the history of the world to get raves from Gloria Steinem and Hustler Magazine. His songs are alternately heart warming and ... something else. We sit down and talk about his work, his feelings about his craft, and what it all means. In addition to rude mentions of body parts and sexuality, this episode contains even more repulsive discussion of politics and the upcoming election, forcasting doom or salvation or neither. Enjoy.

Dar joins the pod to tell us about her experience writing What I Found In A Thousand Towns, her songwriting and creative process, her experience in Beacon New York with Roger Ailes, the remarkable Jaimie Raskin, our relationship to art, the environment, and each other, Active Citizenship, and so much more.

I could not find the live performance of The Mark Rothko song. If someone knows where it is, please send a tweet to @jiminfantino so I can post it here.

Dar's Website: https://darwilliams.com

Writing A Song That Matters (her retreat): https://darwilliamsretreat.com

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~21-Dar-Williams/

All song clips included with permission from Dar Williams.

This interview was mind blowing. Phil is creating 24 hours of music 5 minutes at a time and it's amazingly good. Lionel and I talk with him about his very detailed process and the story behind some of the songs starting at 12am and continuing until 2:59am as of the time of this podcast. That may sound confusing, but all becomes clear as we talk with Phil.

Listen to the full project here: https://adayinmusic.bandcamp.com/

From man hole covers to equal protection under the law, Lionel and Jim go to town over subjects in which they have little to no expertise. They go down the rabbit holes of International Law, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, legal personhood, the Bill of Rights, natural rights, abortion, guns, and other things they just can't help talking about.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~19-The-Huperchild-Problem/

Visit his work at https://dixonvoice.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~18-Walter-Dixon/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~17-Julia-Tenney/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~16-Everything-Will-Always-Never-Be-The-Same-Again/

• the novel Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• the novel The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
• the novels Anathem and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• John Coulthart's unusual website: johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/
• The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes
• Chris Burden's (not Eric Burden's) sculpture The Other Vietnam Memorial

David decided after graduating NYU in the late 80's that he did not want a traditional desk job. He joined the Seafarers International Union as an unlicensed deckhand. Eventually he joined the Sailors' Union of the Pacific and finally got his officer's license in 2013. He has sailed all over the world on US flagged vessels. He worked as a licensed deck officer in the Masters, Mates & Pilots union from 2103 until the COVID pandemic, as a Third Mate, on vessels stationed in South Korea and Saipan. David is an inveterate reader and collects books portraying mariners.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~14-David-Partikian/

You can view the lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q

We also talk about Lionel's college tour of the Northeast, and his experience at an actual Chris Chandler show.

Lionel and Jim talk about producing this podcast for video, which you can see in a separate post. The thumbnail did not show up but it's available from youtube - unlisted as of this posting. We also discuss transitions and productivity at work and our trip down the Empire Trail in New York State. We end up discussing two films which were first timers for Lionel and repeats for Jim: Mystery Men and In Bruges.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~11-Chris-Chandler/

Bob was a wonderful guest and we know he has many more stories to share. We hope to have him back soon.

The audio mix on this was terrible. Jim is too loud, Lionel is too quiet. After trying his best to mix this one, Jim decided to move to a more expensive Streamyard plan to get separate audio tracks to mix. Apologies, future episodes will be better.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~08-Meet-The-Pope/

Mentioned:

The Rings of Power,

William Morris,

Gary Gygax,

Coal: A Human History,

Station Eleven,

The Expanse Book series,

Uncoverage by Una Morera,

My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård,

Corrections: The town in Italy was Vernazza, and it's The Valar, not The Valor.

In this episode, Lionel & Jim discuss American Nations & Union by Colin Woodard, Distraction & Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling, Station Eleven, and Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North.

Credit to Barry Crimmins for the title of this episode.

Lionel and I were talking about all our druthers in the literary and streaming world when I got a phone call from Chris Chandler, and I invited him on the pod to just talk about whatever was happening with him. We did discuss Hurricane Helene and our friends in the Asheville area as well as Chris' tour schedule and our upcoming visit to San Antonio to honor the late Monk Wilson.

This week we are joined by playwright, rowing coach, meditation teacher, songwriter/singer and all around fascinating human being, Mark Basquill to predominantly discuss the play he co-wrote with Jay Sefton.

Unreconciled is the true story of an adolescent actor cast as Jesus in a school play directed by a parish priest. The story chronicles a survivor’s journey as he confronts his past, navigates a victims’ reparations program set up by the Catholic Church, and discovers the courage to use his voice. This 80-minute piece is a poignant and at times humorous exploration of family, place, and the meaning of reconciliation.

At the end we talk about the details of rowing overseas, and our love of music.

For music makers, a producer/engineer can be a unique sort of friend. For all of us, except Lionel in this conversation, that unique friend came with the name "Ducky Carlisle" and helped us make the best music we could make, all while having the time of our lives. Bleu McAuley, Shaun Wortis, Mike Gent, and Jim tell the tales of the studio days and nights with the late great Duck Carlisle and we play some of examples of the songs he helped us bring into the world as recordings. Thanks so much to our guests for this episode.

This week we were fortunate to have songwriter, singer, producer, creator, Jeff Tareila on the pod. Jeff has toured internationally with his band and solo, has recorded and produced "tons of records" in his words, and shared a history back in the distant past with Jim, stomping around the SoHo folk scene in New York City. He talks about the creation of his own releases as well as work he's been doing in the Virgin Islands with Dan Ackroyd, Motto, and G-Love. This was a really fun podcast to record. I hope you enjoy it.