Back In Business

It's time to get struck. This is the Electric Secrets variety podcast.

Marty:

Wonder of wonders, we are back. Ah, hello everybody. This is Marty Merman.

If you're wondering who the hell's this guy you might remember, I had a podcast before

called Marty at the Albatross.

If you want, you can soon find all the episodes of Marty at the Albatross on YouTube. So look for MonsterVox Productions.

Thank you to Mr. Scott Smith, the CEO of MonsterVox for allowing us to do another

podcast with his company.

Well, here's what happened.

Used to be Marty at the Albatross. We had about six episodes of this podcast. And then one night, one night I just couldn't sleep. And I came to the club and I said, you know, I think I'm going to record an episode by myself because I was having a lot of trouble with recording being my age and not knowing a whole lot about technology, you know. And maybe I could do this myself.

Maybe people would be interested in hearing my voice by itself without all the bells and whistles and the musical stuff and the sketches. And so I just soaked the internet rather unsuccessfully or maybe successfully, I don't know. And it was just me surfing the internet and talking about it. And we ended up with this episode called Marty Don't Surf. So it's sort of the unofficial seventh episode of Marty at the Albatross.

And I finished recording the episode that night. And unfortunately, I left the club without putting my cigar out. And cigars can be a little sparky sometimes. And there was a napkin dispenser on the table right beside the ashtray and the whole club burnt down. Just burnt burnt down to the bad bones, black bones, and wet smoky, stinky stuff.

So hey, things happen.

So that's why I'm here.

That's why I'm here now.

I'm out, not, not, excuse me, not in the Albatross room, which was the name of my club. We are now in what is called the Albatross Cafe, which I do not own. But the owners have graciously allowed me to stay here and do my podcast from this corner, where I'm looking out the big window onto the streets of Schleboygen, New Jersey, where I live.

And I'll tell you, this cafe, it's a corporate shill's wet dream is what it is. Everything's clean and symmetrical at right angles and the floor's a level and made out of hardwood that's brand new, but it's made to look like it's 100 years old, you know, those things.

And got chalkboards everywhere with colored chalk, which does not do good for my lungs. But excuse me, but I'm here. And I've got coffee and a flask with some whiskey that maybe I put in the coffee.

Maybe not. I don't know.

But not sure what the rules are here, but nobody seems to pay me any mind. So here we are at the Albatross Cafe. And what we're going to be doing with this particular podcast.

Well, I'm here. Marty, my man.

Hello, my mother, my beloved mother, the beautiful Esther Mermann. She is here as well.

And her best friend, Agnes, everybody loves Agnes. You'll love Agnes. We all love Agnes. Agnes is back. I don't know how the hell she's still here, but you know, she's a trooper.

She must have some sort of Highlander blood in her because she she will not die. She will not pass into oblivion. Spite and her spirit alone will keep her amongst us.

And sadly, we lost Grandpa Pete.

Unfortunately, in a couple of years since I talked to you last in the Marty at the Albatross podcast, we had Grandpa Pete and we lost Grandpa Pete and he's gone. And it really hit the family hard and you meant a lot to us. And especially to me.

So wherever you are, Grandpa Pete, we love you. And I know you wouldn't have wanted me to give up. So I'm not giving up, even though I'm here smelling the chemicalized air from the HVAC and it makes my coffee taste funny. But hey, what the hell are you going to do?

Esther:

Hello, this is Esther Mermann, Marty's mother. We would like to thank our sponsors for this episode, the Crisis Existential Podcast. And Bogeys Yoga Studio and Driving Range. Now, I don't know if Marty told you this yet, but the Albatross Cafe is part of the Electric Secrets variety podcast.

I keep my “Electric Secret” in the bottom drawer next to my stack of men's health magazines. 

Marty:

For God's sake, Ma! Back to the show.

So here we are. What we're going to do is we've organized this in a little bit of a different way than we did the old podcast. We don't have a lot of the bells and the whistles, like I said, anymore, but you know, we're going to do the best we can at entertaining you and making you laugh and doing some stuff.

I'm going to have some segments where I surf the internet. You know how entertaining that is because I'm totally not good at it. We're going to call that segment “Marty Don't Surf.” So I get to be reminded since that was the episode where I burnt down the club. This was my mother's title. I get to be reminded of burning down my club every time I do that segment.

So thanks, Ma! 

You got “People Watching.” That's another bit that I'm going to do. We got a big window here at the cafe. I'm going to be watching people, especially people I know.

There's a lot of colorful characters here in Schleboigen. And they all pass by the main drag here and maybe I can point out a few of them. Point a few out for you and tell you about them. And we can laugh ourselves silly at their character-ness and their unique qualities, I guess.

I'm going to do some “Chats with AI.”

AI is the big thing now. If you haven't heard, I'm going to look up some stuff on AI and tell you about it. Just stuff I would like to learn? It's trying to broaden my horizons as a person. What better way to do that than with robots that are going to take everybody's jobs?

And “Stuff To Do.” That'll be the other segment that I'll do periodically. “Stuff To Do.” Things in the life of Marty Merman. That's me that you may not have known that I have to do. Things that I have to take care of every day. Medication, things like that. Doctors appointments. So we've got lots of stuff coming in my particular segments.

Now my mother, Esther Merman, her segments for the season, she's going to do “Profiles in History.” She's been doing a lot of research and finding a lot of interesting people from history and she's going to be talking about those people. She'll be doing “Influencer Reviews.” So she'll be on social media checking out all the influences and reviewing the influences.

So it's a little bit of a switch. Usually, it's the influences doing the reviewing, but we're going to review the influences and mother's going to critique, I guess, what kind of job they're doing and what kind of influence they're having on people who are very impressionable. “Ask Esther Anything.” This was a favorite segment from the Marty at the Albatross podcast when we had that thing going. So ask Esther, anything is coming back pretty self-explanatory, that segment. And we're going to do a new segment called “Esther's Excursions.”

So she's going to be doing remotes from everywhere in Schleboigen and around Schleboigen and maybe a little bit further around Jersey, some stuff like that. She did some stuff like that in the last podcast. I don't think we had a title for it, but now it's called “Esther's Excursions.”

And then Agnes. Agnes's segments. God knows how these are going to go. “Agnes Explains The Inexplicable.” That's the name of a segment that she's going to do. I'll let you make up whatever conclusions you want.

“Shopping with Agnes” That's pretty straightforward. We're going to follow Agnes out when she's shopping at different places around Schleboigen.

“Agnes's Album Review.” This actually excites me. I didn't know Agnes was a music lover, so she's going to be doing album reviews. I don't think there will be album reviews of recent music, possibly classic stuff. That will be Agnes doing that. And her other segment, which will appear periodically this season, “Guided Meditation with Agnes.” She does meditation on her own so she can sleep two hours a night. And she'll be taking you through various meditation. So maybe you can sleep as fitfully as she.

All right, that's the Albatross Cafe. That's the way it's going to work. So I guess we're going to take a break and we'll be right back with my mother, the beautiful Esther Marman and her segment.

This week on Crisis Existential, is it a podcast? Is it not a podcast? If it is a podcast, will it provide meaningful content? If not a podcast, what then is the content? And if we decipher said content as being meaningful, is it meaningful per se or meaningful by proxy? If meaningful by proxy, taking the last part first, who then is said proxy of the aforementioned meaning? And how would we identify him or her or both or? This week on Crisis Existential, whose meaning inhabits the content of this podcast yet to be determined? And if indeed meaning exists, does it belong to this person of whom we are speaking, to the person speaking the content or to the content itself? Or are we indeed speaking of a person? Is the factor to which the meaning belongs? A who? A what? Or something else? The who factor and the why factor, would any meaning remain? Can content exist without meaning? Can meaning exist without content? The answers to these questions and special guest Snoop Dogg, all this week on Crisis Crisis Crisis Existential?

Marty:

Okay, so what we're gonna do is that. We're gonna skip my segment for this week since I was babbling on and on and on. But yeah, so we're gonna go straight into my mother's segment here. Okay, thank you, E.V. 

Esther:

Hello everybody, I've got my stuff here. It's so nice to be back with you. It's been so long. I'm very excited for the new podcast at this beautiful new venue. You know what you did, Marty.

Okay, so. So we're calling this segment the Pentagram Profiles.

And I'm gonna be profiling what, what, what, what. It's the five-pointed star and we're doing five profiles for each segment for a theme. 

Marty:

Why didn't you call it a pentagon, a pentathlon, a pentameter, a pentahedron?

Esther:

Because it was taken, they were taken. The theme is the star and the five points are five points.

What? Don't go at. Don't go after my don't go after my word choice, Marty.

My focus for this profile theme is gonna be the “The Top Five Tyrannical Douchebags In History.” 

Marty:

Well, Stalin's gotta be one of them. Of course, Stalin is one of them. Are you gonna let me do my segment?

Marty:

All right, fine fine. Do your pentagon's thing. I'm gonna go get a bagel.

Esther:

Okay, let me find my notes here. “The Top Five Tyrannical Douchebags In History.” Number five, everybody's cousin Genghis Khan, emperor of Mongolia. He pillaged and boned and stuffed his way across Europe and Asia, spreading his seed like Philadelphia cream cheese.

Marty:

Yeah, God.

Esther:

Now some of these you might not have heard of. I didn't hear this guy tyrannical bag. Number four, emperor, Gaius Julius Caesar, Augustus, Glube, Germanicus, better known as Coligula. He did many unspeakable things, which you can see on his my fans. He liked to execute people. You know, whenever the mood struck him, he even made his horse a console and demanded that everybody worship him as a god. I think the horse's name was Gaius Equus Jupiter Maximus Flicker trigger Mr. Ed Heio Silva's seabiscuit. Yippee-ki-yay, Coligula. Well done.

Number three, pole pot. The dictator of Columbia, Cambodia. Cambodia, not Colombia. Not only did this guy kill lots of people, he was crafty. One of the key things about him that nobody knows is that he could shape shift himself into a pole or into a pot. Rarely was he seen in human form. That seems it seems horrifying. Can you imagine he could have shape shifted into a tiger or a serpent? This scary anyway. He was going for the shocker. All right, all right, all right, all right.

What's number two? Joseph Stalin. Would you like to tell us about him, Marty, since you obviously are itching in your husky pants to talk about him? Your dutiful mother did all the research. What would you like to offer, Marty? His name meant man of steel. He purged his political enemies and collectivized agriculture. Having a widespread famine. 

Marty:

Touche.

And he had a high voice in a stupid mustache. That's right. 

Esther: 

Did you know his mustache was a fake? 

Marty:

I think that's a myth, Ma. 

Esther:

It says here it was made from a bear's t-t. 

Marty:

Okay, when did you start talking like a drill sergeant? Did I miss something?

Esther:

My new meds are spectacular.

All right, all right. What's the last one? What's the last one? Finally, everybody. The number one tyrannical douchebag in history. Ming the Merciless. Ming the Merciless was the ruler of the kingdom of Mango. He had a big bald head that looked like the best at spawn of a volleyball and a cantaloupe and the most racist mustache you could think of. He wore these flashy wizard robes that must have been made out of a disco ball. He also could control the weather. And he almost destroyed the whole life. But Joe Nameth commandeed a big rocket ship with a pointy thing on the front and skew it old Ming like Spockley Tapus. 

Marty:

Okay, mom's got to come down. We're going to take a break.

Ad:

It ain't yoga till it's bogeys, yoga studio and driving range. Enjoy 18 holes on our state of the art golf simulator and 12 hours of tantric yoga in our stinky sticky studio where we know every pose in the book. Bridge pose, camel pose, warrior one, warrior two, warrior three, upward facing dog, lord of the dance pose, reverse plank, lotus pose, cow pose, child's pose, corpse pose, extended triangle, plank pose, thunderbolt pose, cow pose, dolphin pose, three-legged dog, poser pose, forward trusting monkey, the reverse bacteria, the overpopulation pose, seated but standing in a squat pose, the six-legged goat, the out-of-print Kamasutra pose, the backward-facing crocodile with the face of a lady elephant pose, we know them all. 

Yala, this is Mardi's cousin, Jerry, a.k.a. Bogeys of bogeys yoga studio and driving range. All summer, enjoy 5% off all pre-made smoothies and kony dogs. And contrary to public rumor, our yogis do not require you to drink your own urine. Bogeys yoga studio and driving range from a downward dog to a dogleg left. This ain't no bogus yoga.

Marty:

All right, we're back. We're back at the Albatross Cafe. This is part of the Electric Secrets podcast and I am your host, Marty Murman. Thank you, Ma, for that informative, bad mushroom trip of a segment. And now it's time for everybody's favorite ageless lunatic, very own Agnes.

Agnes is going to, she's gonna, she explains Agnes, this is called, what this is called is “Agnes Explains the Inexplicable.” That's what the segment is called. “Agnes Explains The Inexplicable.” So we got a recording here. Agnes refuses to go outside unless she's shopping. And I hope she goes shopping outside because that would make the remote thing for her shopping thing a little moot. So here we go with Agnes is explaining the inexplicable, take it away Agnes and I press play.

Agnes:

Bonjour, this is Agnes. Today on “Agnes Explains The Inexplicable.” I am going to, there are many things that are inexplicable on television, especially on streaming networks. You can find lots of inexplicable things. Why streaming is so popular is an inexplicable thing. The format is substandard and you always have skipping and freezing and all kinds of stuff. But we're not going to go into that. What we're going to go into is the inexplicable things I found on the streaming media. And that is cricket, the sport of cricket. I've been watching it and it is completely inexplicable. So I am going to attempt to explain the rules of cricket to you now in 30 seconds. Okay, or in three minutes or whatever I have, you give me a stopwatch. Here I go. The rules of cricket. So you got two teams of guys that are either really brown or really white and they have 11 players on each team and they throw these balls at each other. They throw the balls and the guys throw into balls, throw it to these guys, and helmets and masks. And they each hold in a two-by-four that's been cut in half and the handle has been put on it. And they try to hit the balls around the circle which is called the ground or the pitch. I don't know why they call the throwing part. I don't know why they don't call the throwing part the pitch. They call it a ball and they're balling the ball and it's really a small ball. So it's not a bowling ball. So that's why I'm confused. But they ball this ball on the pitch. They don't have innings. They have overs and they don't have outs. So no innings and no outs. And they play 20 overs bowling balls on the pitch. Are you following me? Are you taking notes? Okay. There's these things that are called stumps that form what's called a wicket. A wicket at each end of the pitch and it's got two bales resting on top. This is all just wood. They call it a bale but it's just a stick of wood and it's placed on top. There's other sticks of wood so that they can fall off pretty easily and somebody touches them or if a ball hits them they can fall off. And the team that's bowling on the pitch again when I say the bowling that means they're pitching. They're pitching the ball and it helps to take a get it past the guy with the two-by-four and hit the little pieces of wood that are stuck in the ground. And if they do that, that's called a wicket. And when they score a wicket, they celebrate. They jump up and down. They hug each other and the person with the two-by-four walks dejectedly because he has done completely out of the game. It's not like baseball where he could come up as many times as he's needed. He's done out of the game. Now the other guy with the two-by-four. There are two guys with two-by-fours and a little square with the wicket snips to him. And whatever one of them hits the ball out far enough or within the empty spaces between the people who are fielding in and out there. I mentioned there are people fielding, fielding people out in the pitch in the circular pitch. There are people that are trying to stop the ball or catch the ball. And if you catch the ball, that's a wicket too. Here's how you score runs. You hit it where they ain't. And then two guys, two guys run at the same time and they can go back and forth a bunch of times and get however many runs it takes before the ball comes back in. If they hit the ball out to the boundaries of the pitch, it's four points. And if they hit it completely out of the pitch, it's a touchdown. They don't have extra points when they kick the ball through the wickets. Thank God. But it's six points if they hit it out of the pitch. So what happens is they do this all frickin' day. They try to hit the ball with the half two by fours and they bow on the pitch and they get the wickets and then they have tea for some reason. And they do this all day. Just one team gets to do it all day, all day long. And then the next day, the other team gets to do it all day long with tea. And they try to score, I guess, more runs from behind. And then there's this thing where people lose by wickets. And I don't know what the hell that is, but that's cricket.

That's cricket for you. Yeah, it's boring as hell. Bye. 

Marty:

Alright, thank you Agnes. That's it. Informative and terrifying. Thank you so much for listening to this first episode of the Albatross Cafe. I am Marty Marmann, I am your host. I hope you enjoyed yourself today. I hope you had a laugh. If you enjoyed the Electric Secrets podcast of which this segment is a part, please follow us, subscribe to us, do what you gotta do, get notifications on your phone so that you know when the next episodes are available. 

We got more to come, lots more to come at the Albatross Cafe. Thank you on behalf of Ma and Agnes of course, and we'll see you next time. Cheers.