‘funny,’ not funny – Details, episodes & analysis

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/