Speaker 1: Thank you Moe Raka for being here. Oh hold on,
Speaker 1: oh a bigger name online.
Speaker 2: Three.
Speaker 1: My husband Alex is calling, hold on? What hey?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 2: I?
Speaker 1: I'm doing the podcast with mo Rocca. Say hi to moy.
Speaker 2: Hi Alex, good to talk.
Speaker 1: Did you call when I was doing Kesha as well?
Speaker 1: It's cold, perfect time. It is all right. I love you.
Speaker 1: I'll call you back. Say bye to MOI I was
Speaker 1: a T and T a sponsor. No, not at all. Hi,
Speaker 1: it's Elvis. Thank you for listening to my podcast. This
Speaker 1: is podcast number two. Hopefully there'll be three and four
Speaker 1: and five and six. If you missed podcast one with Kesha,
Speaker 1: roll back and listen to it. We talked about spaceships,
Speaker 1: we talked about a ghosts and she played with a
Speaker 1: dead man's skull. Today's gonna be a little different. This
Speaker 1: is gonna be a little different podcast with someone I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated with, Mo Raka. I've been witnessed to Morocca since
Speaker 1: god back in the days. He was on MTV and
Speaker 1: VH one in those remember the eighties documentaries and things
Speaker 1: like that, And then I noticed Moroka on CBS Sunday Morning.
Speaker 1: He also does a lot of work with CBS Television
Speaker 1: and now he has his own podcast, his own podcast
Speaker 1: called Mobituaries, which is fascinating for some reason it maybe
Speaker 1: he'll explain in a few minutes. Growing up watching his
Speaker 1: father become so exhilarated reading obituaries in the newspaper every day,
Speaker 1: he in the beginning felt it odd, and then he
Speaker 1: discovered there's a whole story to be told about people
Speaker 1: who have left us, but their legacy lives. And he
Speaker 1: goes to find those legacies and puts it in a
Speaker 1: great Moroca storytelling way. And you're gonna hear that, I promise.
Speaker 1: He's such a sweet guy. I'm fascinated by each and
Speaker 1: everything he says. He's the smartest person I know, the
Speaker 1: host of his very own, huge award winning podcast, Mobituaries.
Speaker 1: Let's listen in to Morocca Moroka. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2: I always love to be with you.
Speaker 1: Elvis, thank you for having me our second guest on
Speaker 1: my podcast. What's the name of my podcast? We have
Speaker 1: a name, right, what's the name of it?
Speaker 2: Thinking out loud, I'm torn about being second because, on
Speaker 2: the one hand, I'm like, who was.
Speaker 1: First, Kesha?
Speaker 2: Kesha was first? Okay, and she's got a symbol in
Speaker 2: her name. I don't have that, I mean, right, because
Speaker 2: she's so Tollerci.
Speaker 1: Well, we have to add a symbol. By the end
Speaker 1: of this podcast, we'll have a symbol added to your name.
Speaker 2: She little Moroccas.
Speaker 1: Now Mo Raka has a podcast out called Mobituaries, and
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on our show before. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to get you back to go a little
Speaker 1: deeper into this.
Speaker 2: You were dying to have me back for this exactly.
Speaker 1: Growing up fascinated with obituaries, and you got that from
Speaker 1: your father, as I recall, right, tell the story.
Speaker 2: Well, my father, that was his favorite section of the newspaper.
Speaker 2: I grew up outside of Washington, d C. There were
Speaker 2: two daily newspapers when I was little, the Washingtonton Posts
Speaker 2: in the Washington Star. And he would say, oh boy,
Speaker 2: the obituaries is my favorite section. And he would say
Speaker 2: it like that because he was not gloomy at all.
Speaker 2: And I think he liked the obituaries because a well
Speaker 2: written obituary is a real ride. You can really get
Speaker 2: lost in it. It can be really exhilarating, and I
Speaker 2: think it's like a like a trailer for an Oscar
Speaker 2: winning biopic. It has that kind of sweep, you know,
Speaker 2: coming this fall, the trials, the tribulations, the ups, the downs,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: And there's something to be said for the fact that
Speaker 1: this person just passed away. So there's an energy there, yes,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of family members and friends
Speaker 1: and colleagues hopefully are grieving, so that person is still
Speaker 1: somewhat a little alive when you read that obituary.
Speaker 2: That's a great point. It's well, it's also right, it's
Speaker 2: like a first draft of that person's history, because I
Speaker 2: think that there I'm not sure that I've seen any
Speaker 2: corrections issued for obituaries, unless so're for major figures. But
Speaker 2: I do think that newspapers, even the New York Times,
Speaker 2: get a lot of things wrong in these obituaries because
Speaker 2: you're talking to overwrought, highly emotional relatives sometimes and you know,
Speaker 2: there's only so much fact checking you can do because
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff there's not, you know, public
Speaker 2: record for.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you go down the list of all of
Speaker 1: the different episodes of mobituaries and it's just a wide
Speaker 1: variety of people who were very famous, people you've never
Speaker 1: heard of, and also concepts that have died or products
Speaker 1: that faded away. In deciding how to come up with
Speaker 1: these different facets of history to put on your Mobituaries podcast,
Speaker 1: how did you decide, Okay, it should be beyond people,
Speaker 1: it has to be things as well, like what was
Speaker 1: your first your first thing that you had on mobituaries.
Speaker 2: So I think that they're two sort of main criteria,
Speaker 2: and I think you must appreciate this as well, that
Speaker 2: it has to be interesting to me, because the audience
Speaker 2: can sniff out if it's really not. They can tell
Speaker 2: if you're faking it, especially right and when it's just
Speaker 2: audio and you're just hearing, you're really focused on it,
Speaker 2: So it has to really get me in the gut.
Speaker 2: But I also think in everything there has to be
Speaker 2: an element of surprise. So I think the surprise could
Speaker 2: be that it's a seemingly silly subject like sitcom characterists
Speaker 2: that have died, but then it ends up being surprisingly
Speaker 2: not profound, but you know, a little more substantific. It's
Speaker 2: more of sort of like, oh, that's interesting that creative
Speaker 2: choice that Gary Marshall made on Happy Days to kill
Speaker 2: off the oldest brother, Chuck Cunningham. Because the fonds is
Speaker 2: becoming really popular, and they didn't need the older brother anymore,
Speaker 2: because why would Richie ask his older brother for advice
Speaker 2: on dating girls when he's got the Fonds living in
Speaker 2: the garage out back. Or surprise, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: between episodes within an episode, or you know, an episode
Speaker 2: about the death of a kind of banana which has
Speaker 2: a lot of serious stuff about it, but it's also
Speaker 2: kind of fun. I end up singing, yes, we have
Speaker 2: no bananas with Andre de Shields. But then the next episode, well,
Speaker 2: one of the next episodes was really serious about a
Speaker 2: dancer who was from the original cast of Cats who
Speaker 2: died from AIDS, and I had a very personal connection
Speaker 2: to Cats. So I think it's all about keeping people
Speaker 2: a little bit off balance, surprising them because that they
Speaker 2: know exactly what they're going to get. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, another thing to think about here is, you know,
Speaker 1: in our business, in broadcast, if do they still call
Speaker 1: it broadcast under we call it broadcast anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of broadcasting.
Speaker 1: You I'm me too. Yeah, And you go back to
Speaker 1: the There is a broadcaster genius, man Paul Harvey, right,
Speaker 1: he used to have Paul Harvey. The rest of the
Speaker 1: story where he would talk about without using names, this
Speaker 1: person who was born in Oklahoma, who dated this woman.
Speaker 1: They had to divorce each other, and he went on
Speaker 1: to this other woman and the invented doctor Pepper. His
Speaker 1: name was doctor Pepper. And that's the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: I mean, he would take you to this story. Then
Speaker 1: you're like, who is he talking about? And at the
Speaker 1: end he would like, just am you never knew there
Speaker 1: was a doctor Pepper. By the way, there was not
Speaker 1: a doctor Pepper. It wasn't I don't think.
Speaker 2: It's not not in the Waco area at all. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe there was, but.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating. Theater of the mind is what it was.
Speaker 1: And I find obituaries it totally scratches that itch for me.
Speaker 2: Well, I love that, and I'm always i mean talking
Speaker 2: about it just a scratch. I mean that's how I
Speaker 2: look at it too, sort of. You know. Sometimes it's
Speaker 2: a subject that I actually want to spend my time
Speaker 2: learning about. So I think, well, I want to do
Speaker 2: an episode on this because I know nothing about it
Speaker 2: and I've always wanted to and now it's a good
Speaker 2: time to learn. But can I just ask you about
Speaker 2: you know, when we were talking about the word broadcasting. Yes,
Speaker 2: a while to really sort of think about the word itself, that,
Speaker 2: you know, broadcasting as opposed to narrow casting because the
Speaker 2: world is so adomized now. Everything is so split up,
Speaker 2: like you know, everyone's watching something different, listening to something different.
Speaker 2: There are no water cooler conversations in the way there.
Speaker 1: Used to be.
Speaker 2: But you're a broadcaster, right, so you can't like, is it?
Speaker 2: Don't you do? You love? I know I do the
Speaker 2: creative challenge of trying to get as many people into
Speaker 2: the tent as possible.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, yeah. You know, we know that we have
Speaker 1: this massive pool to go swimming in, right, but we
Speaker 1: know that if we talk about this or that, or
Speaker 1: we forget to talk about that or this, the pool
Speaker 1: decreases because they lose interest. Right, So we find it
Speaker 1: a challenge every day to try to remain as broad
Speaker 1: as possible, and so we can scoop Actually, yeah, scoop
Speaker 1: the uh what was the word I heard it from
Speaker 1: the other day, scoop the spectrum. It is what it is.
Speaker 1: We want to get as many people who listen without
Speaker 1: offending too many people. It's a weird balance, it's.
Speaker 2: A really weird balance, but it's also a really cool
Speaker 2: creative challenge of how you keep everyone in without it
Speaker 2: just becoming bland, because then no one will be interested.
Speaker 2: You know, I have this roommate I had in college.
Speaker 2: He's super genius or in Eisenberg, he's so smart, and
Speaker 2: he went and he's an English professor now you see Irvine,
Speaker 2: And we had this conversation and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I could be teaching little seminars about super specific topics,
Speaker 2: but he loves teaching these broad based English literature courses
Speaker 2: where there are students that might be science majors, math majors,
Speaker 2: and this may be the last English course they ever take.
Speaker 2: But it's his job to keep them all in the
Speaker 2: tent and keep them all interested. It's just a different
Speaker 2: challenge than if you have an audience that comes in
Speaker 2: that already knows they're interested in exactly what you're doing. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I just love, I love the challenge of keeping as
Speaker 2: many people in as possible.
Speaker 1: Go to any high school in America and you'll see that,
Speaker 1: just like the college system, they have curriculum that is
Speaker 1: very specific, very very narrow and deep. When I went
Speaker 1: to high school, it was math, it was English, it
Speaker 1: was science. Now they break down science into fifteen different genres.
Speaker 1: You can choose which science you want to study. So
Speaker 1: I think, in my opinion, it's good to have a
Speaker 1: mixture of both.
Speaker 2: Absolutely you want to go, yes, exactly, between electives and
Speaker 2: main courses, between like cheerios, and then the super specific
Speaker 2: serial like that's in that variety pack, like the really
Speaker 2: really one that's super specific.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of cereals, he's not here. Scotty b who
Speaker 1: sits in the studio that he has a podcast called
Speaker 1: serial Killers where he and Andrew, who you met on
Speaker 1: the way up. They review new cereals, breakfast cereals, and
Speaker 1: they bring old school cereals out of the off the
Speaker 1: shelves and it's just a podcast about cereals.
Speaker 2: What's the latest hot pick?
Speaker 1: Well, no, I tasted one today. It's a cereal from
Speaker 1: Mexico called It's Churros and it taste like little churros.
Speaker 2: I love Mexican coke as in Coca Cola because it's
Speaker 2: less sweet, it's a little milder. So I hope that
Speaker 2: this Mexican chudral cereal is churro cereal.
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit hard to say that. I'm
Speaker 2: hoping that it's the American version of it. They it
Speaker 2: would there'd be way too much sugar, it would be
Speaker 2: too sweet.
Speaker 1: It wasn't too sweet. I kind of liked it. It
Speaker 1: is like I said, it is from Mexico. Yeah, imported cereal.
Speaker 1: But the point of this is deep and narrow. Is
Speaker 1: this topic on this podcast that actually has a lot
Speaker 1: of fans?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and I love that in this they
Speaker 2: should have called this episode breakfast bad certain anyway, why
Speaker 2: not cereal coming from Mexico? Sorry, I'm with you, which
Speaker 2: is not appropriate. It's so appropriate Columbian, so I can say.
Speaker 1: This is handed to me. Doctor Charles Taylor Pepper was
Speaker 1: born December eighteen thirty from Big Spring, Virginia. So there
Speaker 1: was a doctor Pepper. How he's mixed into the story
Speaker 1: and the legacy, I don't know. Maybe that should Doctor
Speaker 1: Pepper is still around, so it does not qualify for
Speaker 1: a obituary podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wonder what his specialty was this, doctor Papper?
Speaker 1: Do we know surgeon? He was a surgeon? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm a Pepper, Y're a Pepper work, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to there was another episode you had the station wagon.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yes, yeah, the station wagon is well, I
Speaker 2: would say that's that's another major factor for me. And
Speaker 2: what I decide what topic I want to do is
Speaker 2: you know, we talked about scratching an inch, a feeling
Speaker 2: in your gut. It's a kind of warmth and the
Speaker 2: station wagon, and I think I'm pretty good at identifying
Speaker 2: this a subject a person that will make people go
Speaker 2: all and feel warm like John Denver was that way.
Speaker 2: I think I think it worked in doing a mobituary
Speaker 2: about him. But the station wagon I think gets people
Speaker 2: in the same way because I think we associate it
Speaker 2: with larger families, with growing up and with the time
Speaker 2: where there were no safety precautions. None would be in
Speaker 2: the way way back, darting around like pinballs.
Speaker 1: Right, well, dad's smoking a cigarette in the front, right exactly,
Speaker 1: We're all gonna die, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and those wide turns and just being thrown. So
Speaker 2: I decide against the walls, which I loved, especially after
Speaker 2: a pizza party.
Speaker 1: Yes, we had Spunky the dog in the back of
Speaker 1: our station wagon. Did you really going through the mountains
Speaker 1: of New Mexico toward Colorado? Spunky was in the back
Speaker 1: then there was the luggage in that back square area.
Speaker 1: And then Travis mcmhanon and I were in the back
Speaker 1: seat and day front. I heard Spunky in the back
Speaker 1: of the station wagon moaning and groaning, like what what
Speaker 1: do we do? We gotta let Spunky out.
Speaker 2: Sorry, were you in the way back or were you
Speaker 2: in the back sheet?
Speaker 1: No, I was in the back seat. Then comes the
Speaker 1: luggage and Spunky was in the way back.
Speaker 2: The back seat was really boring. I'm surprised that you
Speaker 2: weren't in the way back.
Speaker 1: It's just the way it worked. And for some reason
Speaker 1: Spunky ended up in the way back. We could even
Speaker 1: touch Spunky because those were like the limousines at the time.
Speaker 1: They were, you know, fifty feet long. So anyway, Spunky
Speaker 1: was making noises. I kept saying, Dad, you gotta gotta
Speaker 1: pull over. He didn't, and Spunky exploded in the back
Speaker 1: of our station wagon. She didn't die, no, yeah, diarrhea
Speaker 1: thing and it hit the back of my head, the
Speaker 1: back of Travis McMahon said, the back of my mom's
Speaker 1: perfectly quaffed hair, in the back of my dad, and
Speaker 1: all the way up to the front of the car.
Speaker 1: That's my station wagon story. We all have one. If
Speaker 1: you're old enough, you have a station Wagon story. But
Speaker 1: to say goodbye and offer it its own obituary, I
Speaker 1: think it's excellent job.
Speaker 2: I love that people really responded to the number of
Speaker 2: the memories, the depth of people's memories, and their attachment
Speaker 2: to the station Wagon. I'm surprised it hasn't made a comeback,
Speaker 2: and under a different name it will.
Speaker 1: So I look at other characters that you've you've done,
Speaker 1: like Laura Brannigan, not a character but an artist.
Speaker 2: I loved doing Laura Brannigan a obituary for her. We're
Speaker 2: very proud of that one because well, one of the
Speaker 2: things that was interesting and frankly eerie about it is
Speaker 2: that year, I guess twenty nineteen, the Saint Louis Blues
Speaker 2: hockey team was on this kind of miraculous winning streak.
Speaker 2: They went from last in the NHL and they would
Speaker 2: end up winning the Stanley Cup for the first time
Speaker 2: in their fifty year history, going from last place to
Speaker 2: winning the whole thing after they adopted Gloria as their
Speaker 2: theme song. But the reason I wanted to do this
Speaker 2: was I loved that song growing up, like a lot
Speaker 2: of people, but I noticed in the press coverage about
Speaker 2: the Saint Louis Blues, about the hockey team, that there
Speaker 2: were fans that were asking for Laura Brannigan to show
Speaker 2: up and sing the song. They didn't realize she died,
Speaker 2: And I thought, this is an example of someone who
Speaker 2: had been a huge deal at one point and then died,
Speaker 2: and she died really young, and she just sort of
Speaker 2: faded for memory right away, I mean. And so there
Speaker 2: definitely was space to do this because people hadn't thought
Speaker 2: of her in a long time. They'd forgotten that she died,
Speaker 2: they ever knew she died, but they still loved that song.
Speaker 2: So it was a perfect kind of combination of factors there.
Speaker 1: So when you go to select your victims, when you
Speaker 1: go to select your either personalities or historical figures or items,
Speaker 1: what is the checklist you go down?
Speaker 2: So I think the checklist is it helps very much
Speaker 2: if I have a personal connection to it or a
Speaker 2: personal ane personal desire to know more so, whether it's
Speaker 2: because I have some history with the subject, or there's
Speaker 2: something that I really have always wanted to know and
Speaker 2: it grabs me on an emotional level. I think that
Speaker 2: there is some sort of element of surprise there, and
Speaker 2: I think it also helps and you can do this
Speaker 2: with any subject if there's a way to move beyond
Speaker 2: that person at different points in the episode to talk
Speaker 2: about kind of the larger issues or that person's Like
Speaker 2: with Benedict Arnold, the whole idea was he had been
Speaker 2: a hero before he was a trader, and so this
Speaker 2: was an opportunity at different points in the episode to
Speaker 2: spend a couple of moments talking about other people that
Speaker 2: were heroic before they were traders, Like Felipe Petin had
Speaker 2: been this hero in World War One in France and
Speaker 2: then he was a Nazi collaborator during World War Two.
Speaker 2: He went from being you idolized in a great here
Speaker 2: road to being a scoundrel. Peanuts have went from being
Speaker 2: a favored snack to getting kicked out of schools and
Speaker 2: off of airplanes like the actual snack. So they went
Speaker 2: sort of from hero to villain. And I'm not judging
Speaker 2: there's a good reason that people that you know, there
Speaker 2: are peanut allergies. Satan before Satan was cast out into hell,
Speaker 2: was you know, Lucifer was you know, was he was
Speaker 2: like besties with God. So anyway, so there was it was,
Speaker 2: so it was a good opportunity to kind of look
Speaker 2: at So so that's that's the fun of doing a
Speaker 2: longer form podcast.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been digging into the meat and potatoes
Speaker 1: of a person and you find yourself emotionally, emotionally stabbed? Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god? Have you ever have you ever done
Speaker 1: a obituary about someone and you actually became emotional over it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good Yeah, I hit a nerve for you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh boy. I think the Laura Anagan was that way
Speaker 2: because I think we found the producer, Alison Byrne, found
Speaker 2: a recording, a phone recording of her having a conversation
Speaker 2: with someone that had become a friend of hers who
Speaker 2: was running her fan club, I think, and and Laura
Speaker 2: basically was she was talking about the Titanic theme song
Speaker 2: and how Selene Dionne had obviously sung it to phenomenal success,
Speaker 2: and Laura was basically saying, Ah, if only I'd had
Speaker 2: a chance to sing that, and I could you know that?
Speaker 2: To me, I found that very poignant, like the idea
Speaker 2: of I just want the chance to show what I
Speaker 2: can do. And I've certainly felt like that. I think
Speaker 2: I felt like that at times so I found that
Speaker 2: very sympathetic.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you gotta be careful assuming someone's alive when
Speaker 1: they're not. I mean, if you haven't heard their name
Speaker 1: tossed around for a while, it's good to check before you.
Speaker 1: For instance, we were on our show talking about actor
Speaker 1: Avagoda Ada used to be on Barney Miller Fish and
Speaker 1: he no offense and he almost looked like he was
Speaker 1: dead when he was alive. It's just the way he looked.
Speaker 1: He's had the baggy eyes whatever.
Speaker 2: And we worked at CBS. I take no offense.
Speaker 1: Okay, whoops. So I assumed he had passed away and
Speaker 1: we were talking about, oh, he was a character fish
Speaker 1: and then Barney Miller a great, great actor, great character
Speaker 1: actor or whatever, and uh, I basically pronounced him dead
Speaker 1: on our show and we moved on. That afternoon, I
Speaker 1: went to Barnes and Noble, the one that used to
Speaker 1: be up here, Lincoln, Lincoln, cetera. He was in the
Speaker 1: he was there. He was alive. A Vagoda was alive,
Speaker 1: and we all assumed he was dead. And obviously, thank
Speaker 1: god our show wasn't. Wasn't his cup of tea? Can
Speaker 1: you imagine waking up and hearing you're dead and crazy.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think, you know, there's a story that
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's true that Alfred Nobel, the
Speaker 2: guy for whom the Nobel Prize is named, that his
Speaker 2: death was misreported, and the first line basically said Alfred
Speaker 2: Nobel the inventor. I'm gonna get this wrong, but I
Speaker 2: think it was the inventor of dynamite, because he made
Speaker 2: his fortune and explosives, and he was so appalled that
Speaker 2: that was his legacy, that he wasn't dead that he
Speaker 2: then endowed the Nobel Peace Prize and prizes because as
Speaker 2: a way of saying like, oh my gosh, like this
Speaker 2: is not what I want my life to be, kind
Speaker 2: of like an Ebenezer Scrooge type thing seeing the future
Speaker 2: and going Okay, I've got to change this.
Speaker 1: Do you ever go look, do you ever choose personalities
Speaker 1: from history that very extremely popular? Do you ever go
Speaker 1: because you found oh we just found out something about
Speaker 1: Joan Crawford that no one knows. Wait till we talk
Speaker 1: about this in an Hermo bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, I think it's important to
Speaker 2: keep people in, to throw in a couple of really
Speaker 2: big names, and it's interesting I don't do it thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to do it because we because we have
Speaker 2: we have this thing that no one knows. We didn't
Speaker 2: with John Denver, we actually didn't have something that no
Speaker 2: one knew. But I also do I'm going to sound
Speaker 2: really pretentious here, but that the son Thai musical Sunday
Speaker 2: in the Park with George there's this line, everything you do,
Speaker 2: let it come from you, then it will be new.
Speaker 2: And I really do believe that.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Say it again, everything you do, let it come from you,
Speaker 2: then it will be new. So don't go, uh, it's
Speaker 2: already been done. Somebody else did it. Well, no, you
Speaker 2: didn't do it, So if you do it, it will
Speaker 2: be different. Now I'm not saying remember that like Hollywood,
Speaker 2: lord knows. Like remember there was that year where there
Speaker 2: was like four different movies about asteroids, thing more than
Speaker 2: five about volcanoes. I'm not sure that everyone doing their
Speaker 2: own volcano movie was in fact, you know, bringing something
Speaker 2: new to it. But but I think in this kind
Speaker 2: of a medium and podcasts, where you're not working with
Speaker 2: an army of people, you know, it's a lot of work,
Speaker 2: but it's also gonna end up being more personal. And
Speaker 2: and uh so, yeah, so I don't. I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't feel the pressure that, Okay, we can't do this
Speaker 2: person because this person is so well known, and the
Speaker 2: only way to do it is if we have you know,
Speaker 2: some you know, hidden tape that reveals that they had
Speaker 2: a secret life. I don't think that's true. But I
Speaker 2: think the more you get into it, you'll you'll find
Speaker 2: something you know. And I do think it's important to
Speaker 2: have some big games.
Speaker 1: So if I rolled through a New York Times this
Speaker 1: Sunday to the obituary column or they some of them
Speaker 1: are just short blurbs. They just have name, address, phone
Speaker 1: number or whatever. I mean, just like the bare minimum.
Speaker 1: And some of them are actually written. I mean, they
Speaker 1: have editorial staff that will write.
Speaker 2: They have great writer.
Speaker 1: Do you read New York Times obituaries every week?
Speaker 2: I don't read them as religiously as I probably should.
Speaker 2: So I'll scroll through sometimes and then I'll select a
Speaker 2: few to read. I should read them more, probably, And
Speaker 2: I do know that the writers there, I know a
Speaker 2: few of them that they have a surprising amount of
Speaker 2: leeway because I mean, there's so many people dying all
Speaker 2: the time that they can't do full out articles for
Speaker 2: each one, and so the writers can go to the
Speaker 2: editor and say, you know, this person died, and it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be this person died yesterday. It can
Speaker 2: be this person died a month ago, and I really
Speaker 2: want to do something on one of my friends who's
Speaker 2: a writer over there. His first obituary was on the
Speaker 2: actor who played doctor Bombay on Bewitched.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, do you remember his name?
Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of the actor. But this
Speaker 2: writer said, you know, I want to do this, and
Speaker 2: it was published, like I think, like more than a
Speaker 2: month after that actor died, you know, which is fine,
Speaker 2: But so listen, it's a very popular section. It used
Speaker 2: to be fun intended a real graveyard. I mean, like
Speaker 2: you did not want to be an obituary writer. It's
Speaker 2: where you were put out to pasture. Now a lot
Speaker 2: of journalists, print journalists, you know, really want to work
Speaker 2: on that section because it's like you're working for every
Speaker 2: section in the newspaper. You're working for business, you're working
Speaker 2: for sports, you're working for entertainment. Because it depends on
Speaker 2: who dies.
Speaker 1: And of course it goes back obviously I'm making assumptions here.
Speaker 1: It goes back to your love of history.
Speaker 2: It totally does because it's also I think I think
Speaker 2: you know Don Hewitt, who created sixty Minutes. I can't
Speaker 2: remember the exact quote, but I think he said, every
Speaker 2: story has to be about someone. You don't do a
Speaker 2: story about a topic. Now do as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: Tod do the station Wagon. But I look at the
Speaker 2: station Wagon as a character, almost like as a person.
Speaker 2: So an obituary is traditionally about a person, and so
Speaker 2: it's a great history lesson on that person and all
Speaker 2: the things that are attached to it.
Speaker 1: I think, do you enjoy interviewing people?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do. There are times in the middle of
Speaker 2: an interview I'm going right to the negative where I
Speaker 2: kind of go where I think and I hope you
Speaker 2: don't feel I know, I hope you don't feel that
Speaker 2: way right now. But there are times in interviews where
Speaker 2: I think, my god, this is work. I think I
Speaker 2: do think that.
Speaker 1: But then you just got to like blame them. It's
Speaker 1: not your fault. You're brilliant, and exactly remind them of that.
Speaker 1: I make sure to always do that. But but it
Speaker 1: is worth it.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of my favorite pieces I've done and
Speaker 2: I'm not being quite here. I really can't think of
Speaker 2: specific examples they have turned out well, and I thought,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, that's that's pretty surprise. Seeing piece in
Speaker 2: the middle of that interview, I wanted to just just
Speaker 2: drown myself. I mean, it was so tough. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, it's great if you really connect with somebody, right.
Speaker 1: If you have a personal interest in what they're all about.
Speaker 1: And this is why, this is why I love your interviews, mo.
Speaker 1: I always feel the best interviewers are the ones who
Speaker 1: inject themselves into the interview. And if you said something
Speaker 1: it reminds me of a story about when I was
Speaker 1: a kid with a station wagon, I feel like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a conversation here. Rather than me just asking questions,
Speaker 1: you give me a yes, no answers. You inject yourself
Speaker 1: into interviews with a very very very brilliant wit about you,
Speaker 1: and you definitely always come across as seeming genuinely interested
Speaker 1: in what they're saying. And there's a beauty to that.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's something you study or learn, it's
Speaker 1: something you just have or you don't.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I think that one
Speaker 2: of the things that has served me well that I
Speaker 2: sort of figured out along the way, and that you
Speaker 2: certainly know is is I think the power of sort
Speaker 2: of disarming someone. So you know that, especially with actors
Speaker 2: when they entertainers, when they come into an interview and
Speaker 2: they either had the story ready to go, or the
Speaker 2: pitch ready to go, or the persona ready to go.
Speaker 2: Just pricking it a little bit. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: taking the piss out of somebody that's not other people
Speaker 2: are really great at that. That's not my style, but
Speaker 2: just kind of disarming them a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean like when the actress Eva Marie Saint, who's
Speaker 2: in two of the greatest movies ever made, on the
Speaker 2: Waterfront and north By Northwest, somebody had said, oh, she's
Speaker 2: not a great interview. I hate even saying that because
Speaker 2: she's such a great woman and I still want to
Speaker 2: do her. And I noticed that she was born on
Speaker 2: July fourth, and I thought, oh, that's kind of fun.
Speaker 2: And so the first thing I said to her is
Speaker 2: what was it like having a July fourth birthday growing up?
Speaker 2: And then she was so surprised and that and she
Speaker 2: went and she lit up, and she said, it was wonderful.
Speaker 2: When I was a little girl, my father told me
Speaker 2: that the fireworks were for me, and she immediately we
Speaker 2: were off to the races. Like she she wasn't she
Speaker 2: wasn't thinking, Okay, I'm gonna have to trot out the
Speaker 2: Hitchcock story for north By Northwest, the Brando story for
Speaker 2: on the Waterfront, and so it was just this is
Speaker 2: going to be loose and we're just having a conversation.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, which leads me to this.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm speaking in paragraphs, which I don't like
Speaker 2: when I'm in conversations with somebody. So I just want
Speaker 2: to I want to sort of tell you right now that.
Speaker 1: I was making in paragraphs. You know.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was with a friend the other day. There were
Speaker 2: a group of us and I like this person, this
Speaker 2: theirfle but I was like, this person's really irritating me.
Speaker 2: And then the other friend later said, oh, it's it's
Speaker 2: because he doesn't understand how to have a conversation where
Speaker 2: it's like one line, one line, one line, one line.
Speaker 2: He only knows how to speak in paragraphs. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was what was driving me crazy. But we're in
Speaker 2: an interview here. So paragraphs are okay.
Speaker 1: Well, I could see how you know, there are different
Speaker 1: types of conversations. One is like a tennis match where
Speaker 1: you rally your ball, my bile, you're all libel. But
Speaker 1: it's okay to have a beginning, of middle and an
Speaker 1: end to a thought. I think it's a story. You
Speaker 1: are a storyteller, and that's that's part of your curse.
Speaker 2: Yes, but perhaps and look if we were at a
Speaker 2: coffee right now and I was telling you a story,
Speaker 2: or you were telling me a story hopefully as well,
Speaker 2: then we could be speaking in paragraphs.
Speaker 1: But what if.
Speaker 2: Every time I asked you something and then you answered,
Speaker 2: or I answered, You asked me something, I answered, and
Speaker 2: there was a story attached to it, with a name
Speaker 2: and an anecdote. I mean, you'd want to kill yourself.
Speaker 2: Not at all are people who do that? And it's
Speaker 2: really annoying, like, oh, this coffee is great, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: this coffee is good. When I was in Costa Rica
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine, I had coffee and it was
Speaker 2: a rappic God that was a really really interesting blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, And then you just want to say, why
Speaker 2: did I even mention the coffee.
Speaker 1: Well, so do you think that's a do you think
Speaker 1: that's a fault? I mean a faulty, a fault.
Speaker 2: And I hate to come here and be criticizing people anonymously.
Speaker 1: I just give me a list of names of people
Speaker 1: who do this. Go to out them right now out there.
Speaker 1: I want to give their phone numbers so that you
Speaker 1: can text them and say stop speaking in paragraphs and
Speaker 1: having an entire history and anecdote, you know, attached to everything.
Speaker 2: It is eight thirty in the morning, we're having coffee,
Speaker 2: just catching up.
Speaker 1: But I'll give you a good example of where there's
Speaker 1: before I forget because I'm brain dead. Moving from the
Speaker 1: BlackBerry to the iPhone. On the BlackBerry, which had the
Speaker 1: quirity keyboard and you can actually feel the button pushing down,
Speaker 1: I would write paragraphs. When I got the iPhone, it
Speaker 1: was lol, it was interesting. So I easier.
Speaker 2: It's easier to take.
Speaker 1: I know, but I missed that BlackBerry feeling. I miss
Speaker 1: being able to emote, I miss being able to.
Speaker 2: Expand. Okay, that's fine. I mean I just remember when
Speaker 2: I first moved to New York and I was auditioning
Speaker 2: for musical theater and there was a vocal coach, and
Speaker 2: she was really sought after. She was very very good
Speaker 2: named Annie Lebau, and I had to come up with
Speaker 2: I was auditioning for character roles, like wacky second banana roles.
Speaker 2: And I started singing from a song, a song from
Speaker 2: that Bud Frump from How to Succeed in Business with
Speaker 2: that really trying saying, and I was doing it super charactery,
Speaker 2: really laying it on thick. And she stopped playing the
Speaker 2: piano and she whipped her head around towards me, and
Speaker 2: she said, be easy to take, and it's bad into
Speaker 2: my memory.
Speaker 1: That's the best advice ever.
Speaker 2: And she said, easy to take. People will get it.
Speaker 2: They're gonna get it. You don't have to cram it
Speaker 2: down their throats anyway. I'm just thinking about that.
Speaker 1: No, it's like we need to give people a little
Speaker 1: more credit.
Speaker 2: Yes, the audience will get it. Like like I'm playing
Speaker 2: a nerd. Well, okay, we get it. You're a nerd.
Speaker 2: You have a nerd essence. I'm talking about myself right here.
Speaker 2: Don't need to like like really like like just lay
Speaker 2: it on thick. And so I don't know, I mean
Speaker 2: I think like and this anyway, I guess. I guess
Speaker 2: in the podcast, I'm trying. Maybe it's an age thing also,
Speaker 2: just trying to it's hard work and all that, but
Speaker 2: like letting the audience come to you.
Speaker 1: See. For instance, you and I are from but we're
Speaker 1: about the same age. I'm a little older probably, Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So when you mentioned doctor Bombay on Bewitch, I'm thinking automatically, Okay,
Speaker 1: who in our audience has no frigging clue who that
Speaker 1: is calling doctor Bombay? How old are you? There's someone
Speaker 1: here in the studio thirty three, thirty three do you
Speaker 1: know who doctor Bombay is? From Bewitch? They don't get it.
Speaker 1: It's okay, doctor Bombay.
Speaker 2: And it was a really it actually was. It was
Speaker 2: a really minor character. And I, frankly, I don't really remember.
Speaker 2: And I watched it all the time. I remember, I
Speaker 2: watched it and reruns all the time. I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I remember. And Dora and I used to confuse, and
Speaker 2: Dora with Clara I would get confused. Yeah, and Clara
Speaker 2: and Clara I confuse And uh, and what's his name?
Speaker 2: Who we all love? Who apparently was an impossible person
Speaker 2: to deal with? Derwood Dagwood, No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Paul Land, Yeah, yeah, did you read his biography? You
Speaker 2: got to read that?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Was it a memoir or is it it was?
Speaker 1: I think it was more biographical because it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was definitely they're telling the to you on pauland
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny.
Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting people like Paul and Lynn
Speaker 2: and Charles Nelson Riley and I've read his two Yeah,
Speaker 2: Charles Nelson Riley. Well, Charles Nelson Riley, I think was
Speaker 2: had a much more. I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 2: pauland it was his his end was very, very sad,
Speaker 2: but you know, I think Charles Nelson Riley managed to
Speaker 2: and they both had great careers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well ended that. But I have to go back
Speaker 1: to a well, I have to go back to follow
Speaker 1: up on a question I asked you earlier. I asked
Speaker 1: you about interviews. Yeah, do you enjoy doing interviews? My
Speaker 1: point is in obituaries, you're basically interviewing someone who's dead.
Speaker 1: I think part of it, I feel like you're getting
Speaker 1: you go out and get the answers that you feel
Speaker 1: they would give you if you were speaking with them.
Speaker 2: You know, I had not thought of that and I
Speaker 2: really will take that as a great compliment, and I
Speaker 2: really appreciate it because I'd never thought of that, but
Speaker 2: giving them a chance to tell their story, and you know,
Speaker 2: I've only thought about it in very tangential ways, Like
Speaker 2: I did think, without sounding too pleased with myself, that
Speaker 2: boy John Denver would like this. I think he'd be
Speaker 2: And it wasn't. We didn't canonize him. We didn't canonize him.
Speaker 2: We talked about his own frustration with not being taken seriously,
Speaker 2: his great disappointment, like his devastation at not being asked
Speaker 2: to be part of We Are the World when he
Speaker 2: had been, you know, a celebrity who was one of
Speaker 2: the first to really put world hunger kind of on
Speaker 2: the map, as as you know, the first celebrity to
Speaker 2: do that and then was only a few years later,
Speaker 2: was considered too out of it to passe to be
Speaker 2: asked to be part of this song that had forty
Speaker 2: different singers. They could have made space for him, so
Speaker 2: all that we included, but I do think that he
Speaker 2: would say thank you for for you know, sticking up
Speaker 2: for me, or at least telling my story.
Speaker 1: I love it. Podcasts. There's billions of them. The one
Speaker 1: I insist you listen to his obituaries. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you for all you give us, because it goes way
Speaker 1: beyond mobituaries. Thank you for being here, Morocca, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I'm honored to have you here.
Speaker 1: My second podcast with Melrocco. That was fabulous. Make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to Thinking
Speaker 1: out Loud. By the way, who came up with that name?
Speaker 1: Is that the name of my book? What's my idea
Speaker 1: to call it? Thinking out Loud? But I'm taking credit
Speaker 1: for it. Until next time, Thank you for listening, Feel
Speaker 1: free on your own think out Loud. Thinking out Loud
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Elvis Duran. The podcast is produced
Speaker 1: and edited by Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Andrew mcglsi
Speaker 1: and Katrina Norvel. Special thanks to David Katz, Michael Kindheart,
Speaker 1: and Caitlin Madore. Thinking out Loud is part of the
Speaker 1: Elvis Duran podcast network on iHeartRadio. For more, rate review
Speaker 1: and subscribe to our show and if you liked this episode,
Speaker 1: tell your friends. Until next time, I'm Elvis Durant.