The Last Exit Show

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Episode 99: Ripped Up History. Oct 21, 2015

Show notes

I talk about the hunt for, and subsequent interview with, the guy who found that new photo of Billy the Kid.Also, I talk about embarrassing music, and the Kmart muzak tapes I wrote that piece about. It's a long one. That's penance for my absence.Recent Articles:On Kmart Muzak.On Doomsday Hucksters.On Billy The Kid.

Episode 98: Things That Don't Happen. Sep 20, 2015

Show notes

A story about an event that did not take place that devolves into a lot of midnight grimness about things not done. Don't listen to this during the day, kids.There's some stuff in there about Donald Trump toward the end, and Apple computers, and modernity, and stuff about boats I suppose. I'm going to try to do an episode with a guest next time.As always, this show operates on minimum wage. Donate to the PayPal, thelastexitshow@gmail.com, if you're rich and love to sustain illusions.Some articles I wrote in the last week or two:A review of Darlene Love's new album.A look at the GOP debate that did not involve watching it.A dystopian thing about Facebook.A piece for Vice.Another piece for Vice.A prose piece about fire.

Episode 97: Where Was I? Sep 05, 2015

Show notes

The show returns after almost three months in the wilderness. Lots of informative discussion about every lousy search term that has ever gotten any Google traction, from Kanye West to whatever the other ones are.As always, I'm broke. If you like the show, the best way to help it is to throw money at it. It'd definitely make me try to do the show more. I have a PayPal: thelastexitshow@gmail.com. I promise to spend most of it on [ADD WHIMSICAL JOKE HERE THAT LOWERS THE STAKES OF ASKING FOR MONEY].P.S. I'm looking for a good way to take Skype guests that doesn't involve other people sending me audio which I then have to stitch in manually. That's too much of a time suck. Please email me through the usual channels if there's a good way to do that on Windows.

Episode 96: Dreams. Jun 10, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: Kaleb meets a celebrity.Show: Some talk about the Entourage article that blew up the internet for five seconds, some ramblin' stories, and some talk about David Letterman and B.B. King.

Episode 95: Vanity. May 23, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: Kaleb and James team up to commit the perfect murder. Features a cameo from somebody on Twitter who I won't name, strictly to be discreet for the time being.Show: Kaleb talks about the boy's latest vices, L.A., the middle of nowhere, and existential collapse. Also, a dramatic reading of his very real and very funny Big Bang Theory spec, which CBS still refuses to acknowledge. You can read the whole thing over here.

Episode 94: Road Stories. May 10, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: James plays a stuffy professor and Kaleb plays an impossibly wise student with a seemingly limitless supply of truth and virtue.Show: Kaleb goes on an 8 hour drive and tells all the road stories he can remember. He also tells a sad story about Donald Trump and the reduced expectations that come with age.

Episode 93: Slipshod Salvation. Apr 26, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: Big Jim Murphy makes his triumphant return to the scripted portion of the program in a scene where Kaleb hops a train. He's running from somebody. But who, right? Who's he running from? That's the suspense that drives the scene, see.Show: No matter how self-loathing I may get in my moments of darkness, I am figuring out how to keep it funny as a one-man act, and I aim to get there one of these days. But in the meantime I'll settle for being a cut-rate picaresque leading man.I talk about drought. About the central valley and the whole working-class California thing. I talk about William Shatner somehow. I talk about rambling off to an assortment of small towns. I talk about Mark Twain and Bret Harte - the dead guy, not the wrestler - and Rip Van Winkle and all this other old stuff, because I'm being suffocated by my books. Someday my books will kill me.

Episode 92: The Fog. Apr 11, 2015

Show notes

Big Jim Murphy is no longer co-hosting. It's just ol' Kaleb and you good people for the forseeable future. Maybe the weather will change and Big Jim will come back. Maybe he'll even be replaced by somebody in a few months. Who knows. But for now we're going to figure out how to make this work as a solo show.Jim will still be here for every episode, hopefully, as a sketch partner. We'll write a whole mess of sketches and bank two or three months worth pretty soon. It wasn't a falling out or anything that caused this, you know - just a scheduling problem that no longer seemed correctable.Anyway, I guess I can quit doing that fake third person thing where I pretend I'm an anonymous editor. Here's what I did this week.I wrote and read a short story. It was a rough draft but I had to replace the slot where a sketch would normally go and didn't have a whole bunch of time to do it. I'll try to avoid doing those again. I don't know how short stories work as a literary form. I just like telling rambling pseudo-campfire stories.I explain how I'll try and make the show evolve as a one-man operation. Guest host possibilities etc.I also talk a lot, a lot, about diners and Buddy Guy. But it's not what I'm talking about, you know, it's how I'm talking about it. Personality and narrative cohesion and tone and melody and all this. It doesn't matter that these topics are irrelevant. Relevance doesn't matter. Don't you understand? That's what I've been trying to do for years. I've been trying to say that the news cycle doesn't matter; that we're allowed to talk about old and boring things; that we shouldn't have to try and engineer social capital through manipulation of the ~thought marketplace~ and Google rankings.Damn it. I'm sorry I wrote all that. It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm waiting to get my brother up for his shift and I can sure type, it just doesn't come out lucid. Time to pack it in. Y'all take care now.

Episode 91: Pals. Apr 02, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: Kaleb and James are crooked prison guards.Show: Kaleb rambles around through Bakersfield and the most nowhere parts of Los Angeles County he can find. This leads to a confrontation at a motel. We talk about the rights of photographers, resolving conflict with the potential of violence, The Twilight Zone, Tripadvisor, and old timey apocalyptic rhetoric from presidents.James reads a commercial for the first time ever. It's worth it. Trust us.

Episode 90: Trouble. Mar 13, 2015

Show notes

Sketch: D.B. Cooper is finally found by his all-time biggest fan, the intrepid documentarian Big Jim Murphy.Show: Kaleb mourns again. They talk about William Faulkner's Absalom Absalom. Lots of comedy, lots of jokes, lots of interpersonal warfare for your listening pleasure.

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