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Go Fact Yourself
Ep. 168.75: A #MaxFunDrive Bonus! The Making of GFY
00:20:31
Happy #MaxFunDrive! J. Keith sits down with show cocreator and director Jim Newman to discuss what goes into booking great guests for Go Fact Yourself – plus an update on our live shows and gifts YOU can get when you support GFY in the the #MaxFunDrive.
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A
Foreign hey everybody, it's J. Keith. Thanks so much for listening to this special Max Fun Drive mini episode of Go Fact Yourself featuring behind the scenes looks at how we put this show together. We're going to be focusing on our incredible episode that we did with guest Ann Margret. That's coming up a bit later on. We're also going to go over all of the cool things that you can get if you support us during the Max Fund Drive, which I think ends on Friday the 28th. That's so soon. But of course you can go to maximumfun.org join and make sure that you select Go Fact Yourself as a podcast that you listen to. First up though, wanted to give you an update on some of our live audience shows. If you're in the LA area, we would love for you to be there. Coming up this Saturday, March 29th at the center for Inquiry, we've got guest Tim Russ from Star Voyager and comedian and podcaster Amber Nelson. Thank you. Then on Saturday, April 5th at the Crawford, guest Amy Hill and Alec Mappa with a special substitute for Helen. She's got a gig, apparently. We've got Jackie Tone. We had such a great time with her last year on the show. Then on April 19th back at the Crawford with Tom Papa and Rosalind Chow. All of the latest info and tickets, of course are always@gofactorpod.com now then, of course, it is the Max Fund Drive that one time of the year when we get to say thank you so much for supporting our show and you get to support our show, which is the whole reason that we can do Go Factor self. We have gotten on a few NPR stations since our last Max Fund Drive and some of you folks might imagine that, oh my gosh, they're so big time now. NPR pays all their bills. None of that could be further from the truth. A lot of the shows that are picking us up are on a trial basis, meaning no money is going to us. And also being on some of these NPR stations means a lot more work for us. Believe me, we are not able to make this show by any means without the support that we get from the Max Fund Drive. So please help support us. Help make the show that you love possible. Please go to maximumfun.org join now. There is some really cool stuff that you can get and I want to summarize all that up right now. At every level of membership that's as little as $5 a month, you get access to hundreds of hours of bonus content or boko from every show that has ever been on Max Fun, including exclusive episodes of GoFact yourself that you won't hear anywhere else. And at $10 a month and above, you get to ch choose a Max Fun podcast pin and well, we hope you choose the one for our show where you can tell everyone that you are a real know it all. Then there are some even more gifts at levels going up from there. From $20 a month, $50 a month, we'll take it. And all of that gets you some more great Max Fun swag. But for our show, no matter what level you support us, if you're new, upgrading or boosting your membership, and boosting only costs another dollar a month, you get to be eligible to join our listener tournament where we play a bunch of fun games that results in two people being chosen to appear as guests on a full episode of GoFact Yourself. It's one of the most fun things we do each year and we would love if you would consider doing that. Now we do have a goal of 500 new upgrading or boosting members and if we reach that goal, we will pick some people from the first 250 people to join and some people from the second 250 people people to join and we will pit them against each other in a live on Zoom trivia game with me hosting courtesy of our friends at the Big Quiz Thing. We've mentioned the Big Quiz Thing on our past shows. It's a wonderful company that does live trivia events. I've done them live in person. I've done them live on Zoom for some of our listeners. It's a lot of fun. Check them out@bigquizthing.com now if we surpass that goal of 500 new upgrading or boosting members, we're going to announce another cool reward for all of you guys coming up now. We also are adding a new incentive. This year we're going to be live streaming some select shows for only you people. Selected members of our Max Fund supporters. We have never live streamed a live stage show before and it's something we're really excited to do exclusively as a perk for some of our MaxFun Drive supporters. It'll be the only way that you can see the show completely unedited unless you happen to be in our audience. Also new for this year, if you're able to prepay your membership at any level, we will send you an autographed baseball card that, well, I designed somehow that features Helen Hong and me and we will both autograph it and send it to your home. Just a little incentive for you to prepay your membership, which really helps us plan our budget for the next year. All of this for as little as $5 a month. And by the way, that $5 a month cost has not changed since our first Max Fund drive seven years ago. Can you think of anything else that has been as inflation proof as a MaxFund Drive membership? Really, it's such a great deal. And we really hope that you will join us@maximumfun.org join. But you know, most of all, in addition to those wonderful perks, the real perk that you get is to have a great feeling for a full year knowing that you, yes, you, are helping to put content that you love into the world. You are making our show possible. It is so true. Full stop. No Max Fund supporters, no more. Go fact yourself. Now, ideally, everyone who listens to GoFact yourself should be supporting us, and that means you. But we know that can't be the case. In fact, you'd be surprised how small the percentage of our monthly listeners translates to contributors. And that's okay. Not everyone can do it. I get it. But it does mean that just one or two more new members can really make a difference to us. We're one of the smaller shows on Maximum Fun. You've probably heard some of the other shows talk about their incredible goals, where they reach 1000 or 2000 or 5000 or more supporters. And that's wonderful. We love that they're that successful. We are much more modest. So again, another couple people joining, boosting or upgrading really makes a difference. And if you want to support us but can't afford to right now, you can sign up to receive a gift membership from a generous anonymous Max Fundster. That's all@maximumfun.org join. All right, that's the pitch for now. Now I want to introduce my partner in GoFact yourself, the guy who created it with me, who writes it with me, who produces it with me, calls himself the director of the show. Hey, everybody, it's Jim Newman. Hi, Jim.
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Hello.
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Well, Jim, we're gonna talk about what goes into making the show. And I think just to give people a live update as it's happening now, we are recording this on Wednesday evening, and we're still looking for an expert for this Saturday show.
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B
Yes, we are.
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A
Yeah. And in fact, we just booked our first Expert, what, about 10 minutes ago?
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Yes, about 10 minutes ago. I wish I could say this is unusual.
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It does happen a lot. But, you know, we're happy to do the work, obviously, because we love the show, but it is a lot of work, and not just for us. We've got our co producer and editor, Julian Burrell. There's an entire team at MaxFun that helps make this into a podcast. To be honest, Jim and I really know about how to produce a show. We don't know anything about producing a podcast, but thankfully, the people at MaxFun do. And that's what your support goes to. That is to pay them.
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B
Yes. Because we can talk as much as we want and we can invite guests over to the house, but unless someone sets up the mics, someone records it, someone edits it, you're not going to hear it.
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Yeah, and that's mostly Julian, let's be honest. It is. All right, so, Jim, let's talk a little bit more for the people who might be interested in knowing about what goes into making a show. And I think we'll use an example of a show that we produced in December where we had Ann Margret as a guest against Mayor Antonio Villaragosa. So a lot of people I had not heard of for a long time when they saw that we had Ann Margret, suddenly were emailing and texting me saying, how the hell did you get Ann Margret? Or is that the real Ann Margret? How did that happen? So, Jim, how did it happen?
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How did it happen? Well, we have to go back to episode 157 where we had Taran Killamon from Saturday Night Live. One of his topics that he chose for himself was the films of Frank Capra. So I'm like, I'm a huge fan of Frank Capra. This is going to be great. We just need to find someone who worked with Frank Capra. Well, Frank Capra's last movie was close to 70 years ago, so most everyone who worked with him is no longer with us. And we earlier had Carolyn Grimes on the show on episode 101. You may remember her as Zuzu from It's a Wonderful Life. So she's still around, but we'd already had her on the show, so I'm like, who else could we get? Frank Capra's last movie, A Pocket Full of Miracles, happened to be Ann Margret's first movie. She plays a teenage girl in the movie. So I contacted Ann Margret's people.
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And how do you find Ann Margret's people?
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Through IMDb Pro? By asking friends, by asking former guests that we've had.
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That's.
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You know, there is no Path we have not used.
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Yeah. And by the way, it's not just you for Rolodex, you take the Ann Margret rep card out of it, you call them, you get them on the horn right away. No, no, you.
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You find a contact, you call, the number is disconnected.
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You.
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That's not necessarily what happened in this case, but this is a frequent thing that we go through.
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Yeah.
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So I was able to contact her people. She was not available for that night with Taran Killam. And so I said, well, thanks, and if she ever wants to come and play our game, she's always welcome. And they wrote back and said, we think she does want to play the game. And my reaction was the same as everyone else's who said, you got Ann Margret. So we set up a date to record her on the show. She chose The Raiders, the NFL's Raiders, as one of her topics.
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And I should just say, just because months before she said she would do the show, that's not a guarantee that she actually will do it. We had plenty of people, including this very week, who say they're going to do the show and then realize, oh, wait a minute, I actually have to answer trivia questions. This isn't for me. Right.
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But she showed up, and it was months later because she wasn't available that weekend for Taron Killam and she had other commitments. But we finally got her.
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Yep, we finally got her. It was real.
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So the NFL's Raiders, what seems to happen frequently with us is that we'll find a topic that we want to do, and then we find out that everyone that we would want as an expert in that topic is at a convention in Florida for that topic. And in this case, it was not in Florida. It was in Las Vegas, because the Raiders have just moved to Las Vegas. And that weekend they were having this huge event where all these veterans were showing up. So we were just striking out, trying to find someone to appear on the show.
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Now, if I can interrupt for a second, like, how far down the list of calls and emails before you were able to get even someone to say, oh, I may be able to do this? Or even to get. A lot of times it's a struggle even to get a no. Like our second favorite response. I always joke when booking is a quick no yes, because at least we know that they got the email and that they have responded and that we can cross that person off our list and move on. But a lot of times we don't, and we're just sort of putting it out into the abyss. So it's no exaggeration to say it often takes hundreds of emails and calls to put together one show. Is that fair?
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I think that's fair, yes. I send out a ton of emails. I leave voicemails, I send texts, and I frequently feel like I'm just shouting into the wind.
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And you're someone who loves making cold calls to agents and their reps, aren't you, Jim? That comes naturally to you.
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It's soul killing.
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But we do it because we love you, our listeners.
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It has to happen or the show doesn't happen.
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It has to happen. That's right.
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So I'm finding no Raiders at all. There are a couple of Raiders who seem to be local, who seem to be not going to Vegas. One of them is a fellow named Steve Wright, who played on the offensive line, and he lives in Malibu. So I put in some calls to him, and I put in some calls to Greg Townshend, who you eventually heard on the show. Steve Wright got back fairly quickly. And he's a fascinating guy because, you know, he played many years in the NFL. He had a distinguished career. But as an offensive lineman, you're just blocking people. You're not. There are very few spectacular plays that happen with an offensive lineman, but he's a very smart guy. And when the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, they realized that the start of the football season in September is the hottest time of year in LA. So he invented the sideline. Mr. To keep the players cool while they're sitting on the sidelines, and went on to have a company that made these for Vegas casinos and restaurants.
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And that was not his only invention, was it Dubai?
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No. He also invented a toilet that you sit on backwards.
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Yep.
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He's a really, really fascinating guy.
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So he was booked for the show.
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He was booked for the show. He said, yes, we were thrilled. And I said, do you mind if any of your teammates join? Because we still had some invitations out.
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By the way, these dings you're hearing are hopefully people texting us back to say, yes, any. Any news to report, Jim.
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They. It is not.
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It is not. All right, not interested.
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I wish it were something we can keep it in. This is our life.
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This is what we do.
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Every ping we get is like, I hope that's something.
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Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to focus on anything more than a minute or two because we really have to check our phones constantly like a teenager. Okay, so then you called Townsend.
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Well, I had thought that. I called Townsend, left a message sent Some emails to addresses that I thought might be him and was striking out and striking out and striking out. And I kept being annoyed by the fact that his son, who was also a USC star like his dad in football, his name kept popping up because it's like, I don't want the son, I want the father. And the son was coaching at a school here in la, the name of which I cannot remember.
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I will look it up while we talk.
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Okay, so he's coaching at this school. So I'm finally like, well, maybe the son's name is constantly popping up for a reason.
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Oak Christian.
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Yes. Oaks Christian School in the San Fernando valley here in LA. It's a huge sports school. So Greg Townsend Jr. Is a football coach there. So on a Friday afternoon, and we're recording the show on Sunday, probably, I call the school very close to closing time and explain that I'm trying to get in touch with Greg Townsend's father. And they're like, okay, we'll take a message. We'll get it to him. And they are on top of their game. They got it to him. I got a call back with. In about an hour, which is very rare.
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Yeah, a lot of. A lot of times the message goes right into the garbage can or is written in invisible ink.
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When you need a response, call a Christian school. So Greg Townshend was in. So we had two guests, and it was going to be fantastic.
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Then that's Friday night.
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That's Friday night. Then some fires break out in Malibu, which is where Steve Wright lives. These weren't the big fires that happened in January, but there was a fire that threatened Malibu and a bunch of people were evacuated at the very last second, including Steve Wright. And he was evacuated wearing shorts and flip flops and a tank top, I think, and sent to a hotel. So he. He had nothing. He had pulled out. I said we'd take him in a tank top. But I understood why he did not want to leave the house that might be burning down. And he had other things on his mind. Yes, he did. He was out, but we still had Greg Townsend. And Greg Townsend has turned out to be one of my. The favorite experts that we've had on the show because he loved Ann Margret. He showed up with a football helmet for her to sign. He let her wear his super bowl ring. He sang the rap song that they recorded in 1986.
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That's right. Silver and Black Attack.
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Yes.
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And I believe when we asked him if there's anything he wanted to plug, he said his church, his Church. His church. How do you know? I love that guy.
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Yeah, he was just a fantastic expert. But that's how it happens. You're calling a school at the last minute and it works out and then someone drops out and you still have a great guest.
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Yeah. So on Friday, we went from zero guests to two guests to the next day, one guest. And thank God that he stuck around with us. But we've had people drop out with less notice. And when we didn't have a backup guest, I can think of only one show where someone just plain didn't show up without any warning at all from anyone at all. And fortunately, it was another show where we had a second guest and we never heard from them before the show, after we had confirmed them, or ever since after. So we've been incredibly lucky.
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We had another one who I guess we had a little bit of warning. And by a little bit, I mean about 10 minutes before the show started.
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That's right. Yeah.
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And we were able to eventually record their segment over Zoom.
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We can say who that was. It was Mandy Gonzalez.
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A Broadway star.
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A Broadway star. And we had that booked for our show with Bria Grant and Jarrett Hill that actually is available in our bonus content feed right now. But yeah, that was the only time where about. Yeah, ten minutes before we got on stage, we got an email, not even a text or a phone call from her rep saying, oh, she's not gonna make it, sorry.
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And so you can listen to this in your bonus content and you will hear when we get to her segment, it switches from being in front of a live audience to just being over Zoom. We scheduled the Zoom and she missed that too. So we had to reschedule the. Reschedule.
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Yeah. So fortunately that one worked out ultimately. But all this to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of stress and we love doing it, but it's pretty much a more than full time job. There aren't office hours that we have.
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You'd think you pick up the phone, call someone and they go, oh, it's showbiz calling.
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Right?
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How can I be on this show? And that is not how it works.
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Yeah. And we've been very fortunate. It's funny, when we had Tony Baszel on our last live show when I was talking with her about the show and she said, now, does this pay or are we doing this because we love show business? And I said, we love show business.
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We do, apparently.
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Yes. Yes. So, hey, if we can get enough contributors to the Max Fund drive, we would love to pay our guests, but all of them do it gratis.
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Or pay someone to do what I do.
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Yeah, exactly. Oh man. If we could get a guest booker, just imagine the years of life we would add.
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Yes, but a guest booker isn't going to call the Christian School at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon.
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You might be right. So listen. All of this to say it's a lot of work. We love doing it. And this is just the part that Jim and I do and only part of what we do. We're also researching and writing the questions. We're also getting everything listened to and cut down for the radio show. Julian does the actual cutting, but we have to listen now to an extra episode a week to try to get that stuff ready. There's a lot of stuff and we're a very small operation. And so even just a little bit extra, any two or three more people a month that we can add supporting our show if you're able to upgrade to another level or even boost for another couple bucks a month, it really goes a long way. And there's so much more that we'd love to do with the show as we move into the future and things that we have been able to do because of you, our Max Fund supporters, we've been able to supply plane tickets. We will definitely come there to heal the childhood monkey's wound.
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Exactly.
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That Jim suffered. All right, that's all we have for this special mini episode. Please, please. Thank you so much and please do support us. Go to maximumfun.org select gofactor self as a podcast you listen to. It makes a difference. You. You make a difference to me. Thanks so much and we'll see you soon.
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Bye. Maximum Fun.
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A worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.
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Enough for us to get.
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And if you're in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which is the town that Jim was in.