The Spoon

Rob is absent this week, so you may thrill to the sounds of panic masquerading as comedy, as Chris and Thom gear up to generate a show's worth of entertainment in the absence of their beloved Overhost. Many a topic of conversation meets with our duo's aggressive ambivalence, including but not limited to: birthday celebrations, online communications, pirates, muppets, break-ups of all shapes and si...

Rob would like to apologize for his being under the weather, making him slightly less effervescent and topic-laden than usual. Thom would like to apologize for mangling the lyrics to the Boondocks Theme, thus hurling the show into karmic vapor lock. Chris would like to apologize for the other two maroons getting in the way of his comedic golden-godhood. But nobody, and we mean nobody, would like t...

It's a mistake to think you can solve all major problems with pop culture, but the men of The Spoon give it a bloody good try, using their love of movies as a lens (so to speak) through which to view issues personal, professional, and political. If your life is a bit like a rainy Saturday afternoon right now, think of this episode as a Thriller Theater double feature with a pack of Red Vines on th...

The times, they are a' fractious, but the men of The Spoon are here to soothe your woes with tales of their own suckitude and misery. Chris is in a post-breakup haze, Rob is lamenting his legacy, Thom is in permanent techno-fail mode, and we're all strangely ambivalent about the reaction to that guy getting killed yesterday, but there is ample comedic catharsis under our banner for all who seek it...

Quinton Flynn returns to the show to fill Chris's big floppy clown shoes as Guest Underhost for the week, and does not disappoint. With tales of Robbie's semi-sordid past combined with his own recent foray into the world of the paranormal, he leads the show into a spiral of madness which results in torrents of upset girlfriend calls, rampant throwing of friends under buses, and perhaps most heinou...

Writer Dan Epstein stops by for an all-too-brief discussion of the freak flag glory that was 70s baseball, Robbie laments that the wrong people keep dying, Thom shares a tale of bus-bound Hollywoodism, Cousin Frankie (who we've always known about!) calls in with suggestions for a Regis replacement, and Chris wins the show with a paradigm-shattering SAL for the ages. Of course, none of this will ma...

The occasion of Robert's 47th birthday prompts the men of The Spoon to reflect on the meaning of life, the futility of death, and the importance of using time travel to retroactively change one's fashion choices. Also, the show is deluged with phone calls for the birthday boy from friends, well-wishers, and a surprising number of celebrity impressionists. Aflac! Music by The Knack, Material Issue,...

In psychoanalysis, it's called "transference" -- the unconscious redirection of feelings from one subject to another. Such a phenomenon has gripped The Spoon in spades this week, as the Honey Badger meme awakens Thom's mammalian loyalties, Chris gets some extra venom out of his system with a scathing, Deustch-y SAL, and Robbie takes out his general frustrations with the world and its gas prices on...

It may be true that "nothing lasts, nothing is complete, and nothing is perfect," but after six weeks apart, the dramaturgical triad of Rob, Chris, and Thom are back in the same room together and all seems right with the world again... at least for the next 50 minutes or so. In addition to an extended meditation on the existential empowerment of everyone's favorite 1920's cartoon sailor, our fair...

The world is off-kilter. You can feel it in the air, and hear it on The Spoon. Robbie returns to find that comic fodder is in shorter supply than when he left, which leads into some serious discussion on earthquake preparedness, led by special guest #1 Jenni Rosen. Thom's head is more jello-encased than usual as he juggles his regular duties in addition to laying out a manifesto for The Geek Agend...

The Sheening of America continues unabated! Chris and Thom are reduced to helpless, hypnotized, somewhat snarky bystanders as Charlie's awesomeosity continues to roll out over the land like a big rolling thing, and not even the ebullient presence of special guest Dave Shalansky can stop the coming Winpocalypse! Other topics (yes, there are a few) include the sad, Bixby-esque retirement of Phil Col...

Chris takes over hosting duties while Robbie is overseas, Thom returns from his Deseret sojourn, and friend of the show Dave Shalansky arrives to inject his keen insight and conversational rocket sauce to a post-mortem of Oscar night, what might end up as a pre-post-mortem of Charlie Sheen, and an attempt at putting all of the show's communications-related ducks in a row (which plays out a little...

With their minister of information away on special assignment, Robbie and Chris are left to grapple with matters technological on their own. Multiple forms of hilarity ensue. As for matters conversational, our dynamic duo are assisted by guests Johnny Dam of Porn Star Pundits and Good Green Witch Rhonda DeFelice whose collective presence supercharges the show to terrific effect -- partly because o...

The twists and turns on this week's conversational motor way are acutely sharp, some verging on hairpin, and we recommend that all proper safety measures be taken. Some of the briefly visited rest stops along the way include: The best Super Bowl commercials (one of which never aired, the other premiered days earlier-- go figure), social networking for better theological clarity, the growing (and w...

Quoth the textbox: "Finally, some ovaries on the show!" And not a moment too soon. Just as Robbie, Chris, and Thom are drifting into a conversational tailspin that threatens to cause serious whiplash to both themselves and the listeners, friend of the show (and girlfriend of the host) Jenni Rosen stops by to inject some much-needed linear thought into the proceedings. Her treatise on the lameness...

Sport is business. Business is war. War is fashion. Fashion is community. Community is music. Music is sport. On and on, 'till the break of dawn. Don't worry, it will all make sense in context. The important thing is that Robbie, Chris, and Thom manage to weave nearly half a show on the subject of sports and sports fandom, despite -- or perhaps because of -- their abject lack of knowledge and expe...

This week's show is a bit like a pinball game, with the conversation bouncing about at odd angles, running down sometimes unexpected corridors, and banging against the proper surfaces to score a few points, all the while generating a pleasing combination of shiny and loud. The Twenty-Aught-Eleven Grammy nominees set off some grumbling about the music industry's increasingly desperate and misaimed...

Joey Cola and Arthur Alexander from New York's legendary Sorrows drop by to bathe the show in effortless cool, shaking our fair trio out of a malaise born of sleep-dep and growing mistrust of the coming year. With tales to tell both cautionary and inspirational, J&A detail their efforts in taking control of their music and obtaining that rarest of atttributes: an un-sodomized legacy. Other topics...

In the first new installment of 2011, the boys hit the ground running with all guns blazing, full of piss and vinegar, and other cliché metaphors as well! After an opening exchange of pleasantries and congratulations on Robbie's commitment to arrive on time despite obstacles both psychological and auto vehicular, talk turns to a recent essay by Patton Oswalt on the current state of so-called geek...

On this, their final broadcast of 2010, the men of The Spoon take stock of the show's journey from inception to "almost a thing," and speculate as to what adventures the future may bring. SAL focuses on the bizarre series of spilled dominoes that is the life of one Phil Spector. Speaking of weirdness, returning guest Joe Oesterle drops by for more tales of the oddities found in Hollywood, Las Vega...

What, exactly, is a legacy? Where does it come from? What is it for? How can it be sodomized, and why should anyone care? Inspired by the anniversary of John Lennon's death, the men of The Spoon whip out their word scalpels and dissect one of the more important aspects of this show's ethos: the right -- nay, the duty -- to be honest and unmerciful, even if it means killing one's gods. (Metaphorica...

The events of this installment unfold like a classically groomed mullet: business in the front, party in the back! In the first half, our fair trio consider changing the name of the show to "The Tip," even as they attempt to circumnavigate the technological, economic, and political iceberg that is the Net Neutrality debate. With that nod toward the show's original mission statement under their col...

Don't be fooled. You may think this episode is merely a string of anecdotes about Thanksgiving 2010, or an exploration of satisfying curse-word euphemisms, or even a slice of performance art lampooning the pitfalls of VOIP technology. You could easily be distracted by the mystery of the Poop-tato, or Bret Favre's legacy getting sodomized within an inch of its existence. But these are all smokescre...

Napoleon had a standard battle plan, in two parts: A) Show up, and B) See what happens. In this episode, the men of The Spoon employ the talk radio equivalent of this approach, and the results are...predictably unpredictable. Held together by a loose thread on the joys and concerns of the impending holiday season, Robbie, Chris, and Thom sluice through a truly bounteous selection of topics which i...

In the first half of this evening's program, Robbie brings to the table his views on the dangers of financial excess, a topic of timeless resonance and near limitless potential for thoughtful discourse...which is promptly dashed upon the rocks of the show's usual nitwittery. In the second half, the Sky Mall catalog is strip-mined for utterly impractical (yet entirely awesome) Christmas gift ideas....