I'm back from the capacious Chatsworth studios of Shokus Internet Radio where today I did not guest on Stu's Show. No, the big surprise we had planned was that I hosted the show and its usual guest, Stu Shostak, was in the guest chair, so to speak. This was the last live broadcast of the show on that network so it seemed appropriate to put Stu there and quiz him about the station and also about his career in the entertainment industry. I thought it went rather well.
I need to double-emphasize one point: Stu's Show is not ending. It's the station that is ending. Stu's Show is moving to a new home at www.stusshow.com. There it will resume on September 21 with a great (I'm sure) program — a reunion of three now-grown kids who appeared on the old Dennis the Menace TV show, including Dennis himself — Jay North. For some reason, no matter how Stu explains this in one syllable words on his show and on the 'net, people write him and say, "Sorry to hear Stu's Show is ending." In the immortal words of first Jimmy Finlayson and now Homer Simpson: "Doh!"
www.stusshow.com is already up and running and it is there that you can download — for a paltry 99 cents — any of the nearly 250 episodes of Stu's Show that have been done over the last five years. Before this day is out, you'll even be able to to download the one we did this afternoon. There are many shows there that feature me but skip over those for now. Try the episodes where Stu interviewed Stan Freberg, Monty Hall, Rose Marie, Bonnie Franklin & Pat Harrington, Gary Owens, Dr. Demento, Alan Young, William Schallert, Marty Ingels & Shirley Jones, Kaye Ballard, Adrienne Barbeau, Chuck McCann, Betsy Palmer, Peter Marshall and the list goes on and on. I especially recommend the conversation he had with Shelley Berman. If you're interested in the craft of stand-up comedy, you need to hear that one especially.
There is really no money in Internet Radio. Not yet, anyway…and Stu has not even covered expenses the last five years operating his station. These shows run two hours (a few run longer) and 99 cents is a small price to pay. Go download a couple and see if you don't enjoy them. That revenue will make more such shows possible.
A couple of dining notes. Before the show today, Stu and his lovely friend Jeanine and I lunched at a Five Guys that has recently opened in Simi Valley. Stu agreed with me that the burgers are great and the fries are even better. Jeanine had a veggie sandwich and said she enjoyed it a lot.
On the way home, I had a real disappointment. I stopped at the famous Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ, which once upon a time was my favorite place to eat smoked, sauced meat. My love affair with the place started when the noted writer Harlan Ellison took me there in the late seventies. The romance went onto rocky ground my last visit there when I had a meal that was unworthy of the Good Doctor.
But hey, any restaurant can have a bad day so I resolved to give 'em another chance and popped in for a post-show takeout order. The beans were still great, the potato salad was good, the bread was fine…and all but about four bites of the brisket is now outside being eaten (and without a lot of enthusiasm, I might add) by the feral cats I feed out there. Such a sad comedown for the kind of place I used to take friends just to see their faces when they bit into a rib. Sigh and double-sigh.