paying dues.

Episode 013: Sam Seder

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:06:53 -0400

The Majority Report host joins us to talk mostly about all of his failed network pilots, and it’s more than enough to fill up an entire hour.

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Episode 012: Rob Crow

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:42:00 -0400

Pinback’s Rob Crow talks fast food, homelessness, and how punk rock changed his life.

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Episode 011: Julia Wertz

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:57:44 -0400

It’s been a while, friends — some might say too long, though who are we to put words in your mouth? Paying Dues is back from hiatus to bring you an interview with our pal, cartoonist Julia Wertz, who joins us to talk tending bar, vacuuming and not vacuuming for a Buddhist, and getting sprayed in the face with hobo blood.

Episode 010: Jen Kirkman

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:48:09 -0400

The very funny Jen Kirkman joins us for a very serious episode. We discuss workplace banter, giving up on the dream, and the job that was like The Devil Wears Prada, without the redemption.

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Episode 009: Al Jaffee

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:40:00 -0500

The genius cartoonist behind Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and the Mad fold-in joins us to discuss the early days of Marvel Comics, working for the military, and his true feelings about Lady Gaga.

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Episode 008: Bob Nastanovich

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:02:40 -0500

The great Bob Nastonovich of Pavement/Silver Jews fame joins us to discuss bus driving in Manhattan, washing dishes, and why Off Track Betting parlors are the creepiest place on earth.

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Episode 007:Luke Burbank

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 23:23:00 -0500

TBTL host Luke Burbank joins us to discuss a failed plumbing career, the mystery of frozen yogurt, and how a severed thumb in a bowl of Wendy’s chili led to a fruitful career at National Public Radio.

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Bonus Episode: That Little Johnny Wurster Kid

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:14:29 -0500

Jon Wurster explains how he made his way into one of the Dead Milkmen’s greatest songs.

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Episode 006: Graham Clark and Dave Shumka

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:11:00 -0500

The Stop Podcasting Yourself hosts join us to discuss pooping on boats, working behind the scenes on softcore gay porn, poison gas factories, and going to the suburb to do donuts.

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Episode 005: Sean Nelson

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:22:58 -0400

Sean Nelson has had his fair share of jobs–and continues to do so. Actor, writer, singer, burger flipper, Nelson is best known first his work as the lead singer of 90s indie-poppers, Harvey Danger. Nelson joins us to talk McDonald’s, not going to law school, and fear and loathing in the record industry.

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Episode 004: Jon Wurster

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:24:00 -0400

Jon Wurster is the drummer of Superchunk and pretty much every other band you like. He’s also one half of The Best Show on WFMU’s resident comedy duo Scharpling & Wurster. Before he did all of those awesome things, he was a working schlub, just like you and me!

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iTunes!

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:25:47 -0400

iTunes!

Paying Dues Episode 003: Dale Peck

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:13:00 -0400

Shift author Dale Peck joins us to talk about ghost dogs, farming for pig feces, and his role in the birth of Pizza Hut.

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Paying Dues Episode 002: Timmy Williams

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:22:59 -0400

You know and love Timmy Williams as a member of the television sketch comedy troupe, The Whitest Kids U Know. Timmy talks telemarketing, 9/11, and weird Canadian crosswalk signs.

Paying Dues Episode 001: Joe Garden [Pilot]

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:18:29 -0400

Joe Garden is real trooper. The Onion Features Editor puts up some of the worst podcast sound quality of all time to help inaugurate the first-ever Paying Dues. We discuss dishwashing, corn de-tasseling, and why no one will sit next to Joe in the cafeteria.

paying dues.

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:23:00 -0400

Hi friends,

Welcome to Paying Dues, a wonderful (no, really) new podcast about the things people had to go through to get where they are.

We’ll be interviewing luminaries of sorts from the worlds of comedy, music, comic books, letters, and more about bad jobs, terrible roommates, and all of the other stuff they’d most likely just assume forget about.

Come laugh, cry, and generally feel better about your station in life with co-hosts Brian Heater (@bheater) and Alex Scordelis (@alexscordelis).

The amazing piece of art you see at the top of this post was created Susie Cagle. She makes comic books that you can look at here.

always pack an orange.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:44:02 -0400

It’s a bit strange to say, I suppose, but looking back on my life up to this point, it seems that my goals have grown all the more outlandish as I’ve grown older. Logically, I think, the opposite should more often be the case. After all, I’m of that age when it’s no longer fully possible to effectively ignore the weight of the world steadily crushing down upon me. I’m of that age when I’m required to think about things with like tax returns and Roth IRAs and sub-prime lending—even if I’m not entirely sure about what any of these things actually mean.

As a youth, aged four or five, my life’s goals were of the modest variety. I had no desire to be an astronaut or a pro ball player, or even a reasonably well-paid fireman. At four or five, high off having watched Popeye for the eight millionth time, much to the chagrin of my patient but tired mother, I’d have liked nothing more than to have been a moderately successful, one-eyed sailor. Hell, I’m likely giving the man a bit too much credit here, regarding the man’s nautical skills. There’s nothing in the record so far as I can recall to suggest that he achieved any manner of success in his chosen field, moderate or otherwise.

At Centerville junior high school, things took a turn for the more ambitious—but just slightly. Asked what I wanted to do with my life in a survey handed out by the yearbook class, I answered, simply, “a scientist.” I’m not sure what ultimately killed the sailor man dreams. Perhaps it was the advent of the more current youth phenomenon, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or, just as likely, the fact that, at one point, my mother opted to stop feeding my habit, no longer drawing homemade anchor tattoos on my forearms in ballpoint pen. Either way, it was probably for the best. I no doubt would have been the first crew member on that ship to succumb to scurvy.

Looking back, there was nothing particularly ambitious in the “a scientist” response. The bar to simply become “a scientist,” I think, is fairly low. This isn’t, of course, meant to discount the historical achievement of scientists as a whole—hell, the last thing you need is a another lecture on the accomplishments of say, a George Washington Carver or a Louis Pasteur. It’s just, I suppose, sort of a generic desire, on that, if I remember correctly, I slaved over a disproportionate amount to settle upon.

I decided, a few years later that what I really wanted to become was a rock star or Jack Kerouac. Same difference, I suppose. Ultimately, I opted for alcohol poisoning over accidental overdose—what the decision really came down to, however, was the fact that one of the two choices required at least a novice understanding of a music instrument.

Staring down the business end of 30, I still occasionally entertain the possibility of a career change. Not because I’m unhappy with where I am in my life, but rather to embrace the distinct possibility of spectacular failure before it becomes too, too late to then devote myself to a more modest undertaking. After all, has anyone who has ever dove head first into epic fuckupery without facing too severe consequences ever ultimately regretted it?

It’s probably too late now for me to seriously to devote my life to even the most generic and broad of scientific pursuits. And the rock star thing—as much as it pains me to admit aloud, that’s more or less off the table, unless I find my way into a modesty lucrative novelty niche—or ride the inevitable wave of Hold Steady nostalgia in a decade or so.

I guess there’s something comforting in knowing that I was always have my original, shortly-lived love of the sea to fall back on. And Popeye, well, he did all right. Right? As far as I know, he may have been the most unforgivably incompetent sailorman to set out for a career on the seven seas, and he had a bum eye and grotesquely deformed forearms—a genetic birth defect that must have been a downright night mare whilst navigating the birth canal. But he did all right in the end. He got the girl and got the kid and achieved some level of notoriety (I have a commemorative postage stamp to prove the latter).

Maybe the moral here is, don’t ever stop reaching for the stars, because you’ve always got a career as a longshoreman to fall back. Just make sure that you pack plenty of oranges. Scurvy is a bitch.

—Brian H.