Oh shit, Madge is a hoax

We listened to the latest Yeast Radio podcast, and laughed until we realized it was all an act. Madge is not at all what he or she appears to be. I looked over at Adam and asked how he felt about this. ‘Not good.’ Then he asked how I felt, and I said I had repped Madge as being something other than what she or he was. An act. We both agreed we should do an instant podcast to explain and raise questions.

It’s Tim Bird the Birdman ever.
That’s how he talked. He actually talked like if you were like running into him in the elevator or something No, he said hi. I’m Adam Curry.
No, of course I’m Tim Bird the Birdman.
Well, yes, if you introduced him to someone he would say hi, I’m Tim Bird the Birdman.
He would actually do that. What a puss. Anyway, we’re recording now. Yeah, that was a little bit of sort of like Ad hoc impromptu behind the scenes banter. Behind the scenes, behind the scenes, we ’re going to see Loumster.
What it’s like to be and Chris is in the background ordering up our dinner. Is that loud enough now? Is that a good volume? Yeah, you’ll be able to make it out. So this is what a podcast is like. Basically what you do is you plop down a bunch of, now Chris is going out of the room. He heard me say that, I guess. And he’s probably feeling a little self-conscious , but he was actually helping me demo an important concept, which is that a podcast is real life.
And if you listen to my art podcast today where I talked about God and art and all these heavy concepts, you realize that, well, whatever. This is just one person’s idea about how this stuff works. But I didn’t write a script, and I didn’t ask anybody else for their opinion, and I didn’t bring a friend in to play a role or whatever.
It wasn’t a skit, right? So anyway, so you want to pick it up from there? Okay, so we’re sitting here, well, we’re having a, actually we were geeking out a bit. Well , yeah, the internet, the internet kind of crapped out, and then I ran over to my machine because Chris is going to get dinner.
I ran over to my machine because my machine is routing internet through the Wi-Fi to Dave’s machine.
You mean like internet, don’t you? Yeah, I’m going to crank it up.
Yeah, that’s much better. And so whenever I go to my computer to, well, basically I’m checking audio. weblogs. com a lot.
If you ever ask Dave, how do you do this, Adam? Because I’m always on audio. weblogs. com.
How do you do this, Adam? Yeah, we always want to know how do you listen to all this stuff? How do you listen to all this stuff? Well, Dave, I’m glad you asked.
I go to audio. weblogs. com and that’s where I’m constantly checking stuff out.
Excellent.
So I went there, in fact, it may not well have changed actually.
I went to audio. weblogs. com and number three on the last 100 podcasts I saw, Yeast Radio.
So I said with excitement, " Whoa, there’s a new Yeast Radio !" And what was cool about it is that we’re kind of like waiting for people to show up here.
We really have anything to do.
I was thinking about putting the TV on and I said, “Out loud , this is better than CNN. " I don’t know exactly what I meant.
Because it was exciting.
It was exciting.
It was exciting that there will be a new Madge Weinstein.
So now may be a good time to say that the first time I heard Madge Weinstein as an excerpt on the Daily Source Code, it was a visual image of a short, stocky, transsexual guy with like a beard.
It was a very vivid image and it was kind of like a little on the shocking side, maybe even a little gross but funny as hell.
Just totally hilarious.
And almost everything that I’ve heard from Madge Weinstein has been that way.
Except, so today I thought Mad ge was a real person.
The first glimpse of the possibility that Madge is not a real person came in a comment thread on your site earlier today, where somebody said that Madge is Richard Bluestine.
And so I went looking on Google to see what I could find out about Richard Bluestine.
And not a whole lot and it wasn ’t clear to me.
In fact, it didn’t seem very likely to me that Madge was Richard Bluestine.
So anyway, that’s a little bit of background.
So you queued it up, or no, I queued it up.
I downloaded the MP3 and the speakers.
Because the speakers were on my machine.
And the beginning of it was hilarious.
I mean, in stitches, she says at one point, “Well, we shouldn ’t spoil it. " No, but almost– There was one line that is just really– Yeah, yeah, we don’t spoil it.
But the minute you heard this, you knew it was not real.
I knew that immediately. Did you catch that? Yeah, and sometimes other people have done this.
Like Dawn and Drew have a character that shows up from time to time.
The Professor.
The Professor is really funny.
And I always wondered who was the Professor.
Yeah, yeah, I know him. Yeah.
Who is the Professor? He’s their friend.
He’s going to hate me. I forgot his name.
Well, maybe– He’s the guy with the blown out earlobes.
I don’t know who he is. He’s funny.
He’s a great guy.
And I play along and I called up Dawn and Drew and left them a voicemail and said, “I haven’t actually asked a question for the Professor, but he’s funny. " I play along with it because whatever.
But it’s borderline podcast material to do that.
It’s kind of like you’re getting–it’s like a comedy review or something like that, or stage production or fiction.
But that’s what MAG was doing today.
It was scripted, okay? You said it was clearly script ed.
I agreed with you after you said that.
And it left us both with the feeling like we needed to clear the air on this a little bit.
That MAG isn’t what we thought she was, right? Well, so he–well, okay, I’ll give you my feel.
So the minute I heard this, I’m like, “Oh my God, this is scripted,” which gave me a whole bunch of clues.
And the first thing that went through my mind is, “Well, how much is scripted?” And I clearly wasn’t really talking to MAG Weinstein, ready, balding, 50-year-old, transsexual or transgender Jewish guy, being with a beard.
To make matters even worse, now we’ve seen a picture or something.
We actually have a picture.
He’s not in the 50s.
No, he’s not.
He’s got it.
And so it’s an act.
Something like this happened to me when I was a kid.
I had a pen pal who lived in Scotland.
And, you know, after a while, it kind of got old, right? But I kept doing it, you know? And I got a letter from the pen pal, and this was the last letter.
And it said, “Sometimes my mother writes these letters for me. " Oh, God.
Yeah.
And of course, it was the mother writing that.
Oh, God! I’m a witty guy.
So, you know, that took… I mean, obviously, I’m not going to continue that.
I mean, I was… Not directly with that person.
Right.
And that’s kind of how this feels, is that we thought, you know, because really, there is a place for a 50-year-old transse xual to tell us what they think of the world.
And I don’t want the feeling that this is being something… that this is a script written by a comedian who would like to just want to entertain us.
This is kind of like what came up in the American Splendor.
You were saying about how… What was that guy’s name? Toby Radle.
Right.
And how they made him sound… This was so interesting.
They made him sound like this … He talked so deliberately.
I mean, the original Nude.
I love what Castle Bear Nude is .
Right.
So, he was actually on a podcast, right? Right, right, right.
And then the next day, there was a comment in your thing about the one where you talked about it in our Consprenos, and he said, “This is so amazing,” because that guy’s actually in… I’m on a podcast, so I listened to it.
But he couldn’t figure out which one he was.
He sounded like… Whoever he was sounded like a perfectly normal person.
So, what did they do? How did they get him to sound that way? They made him sound that way.
Yeah, but that… It’s… Okay, here’s my problem.
I don’t… Okay, there’s one thing to know that… And of course, the suspicion was always there.
There’s one thing to know that Madge Weinstein isn’t the picture that I paint in my mind of who Madge Wein stein is.
It’s another thing.
Whatever your fucking name is, however you want to talk, and I don’t have a problem with someone putting on a different voice or whatever.
You may want to be anonymous to your environment.
It doesn’t matter.
But what I heard Madge Wein stein saying about politics and about life and art, I love that.
And whoever is behind that is my Madge Weinstein.
Assuming it’s real.
Assuming that isn’t like a Republican… I don’t think that was scripted .
I think that stuff… It can’t be scripted.
That came from the heart.
If it didn’t, then… Well, we need to hear from whoever it is that Madge Wein stein is, you know, as to whether or not… How we should interpret that other stuff.
And I’m willing to give her another chance.
I’m willing to try losing again .
But first, I got to know… I got to start seeing something like… I want to hear an honest… You know, I want to hear some honesty.
Direct statement of how we are intended to interpret this podcast.
And then I’m going to make my decision as to whether or not this is something I want to continue to participate in.
You mean podcasting altogether? No! No.
I’m not talking about podcast ing.
No! I didn’t know.
It’s so funny because these issues, very issues, are going to be discussed at a conference of Harvard on January 21st.
And I’m preparing for this.
I’m writing about it on the scripting news right now.
It’s like, okay, how do you establish credibility as a blog ger? Okay.
And, you know, it’s like, there are some basics.
You need to tell me who you are and what… Tell me the facts about yourself that are relevant to what you write about.
Okay? Okay.
And so that way, I can get a chance to, you know… The idea is this is supposed to smoke out your conflicts of interest.
And you’re not supposed to, like, work too hard to figure out which things are relevant.
Just tell me who you are.
And I’m going to talk about ways over time to do more of that so that people who become regular readers of your site get a better and better idea of how they’re meant to interpret, how they should interpret what you’ve written.
The other thing is never deliberately, never knowingly say something that isn’t true.
Well, Matt wrote both of those rules today.
You know, the things about her therapist and, you know, this pretends that this was somehow some real therapy session.
Yeah, both.
Of course, we knew that it wasn ’t so that there wasn’t a whole lot of damage, right? But certainly, I need now to know which parts of what she’s doing are real, right? Yeah, because it’s the ranting and raiding about the problems in America, which I think is from the real nudge.
It has value if it’s real.
Yeah.
Let’s put it that way.
Yeah.
And I don’t mind the voice and the persona.
That doesn’t bother me.
I like the voice.
Yeah.
And I like the language and I love all that.
I want to go back to the fantasy.
I want my image to, I want my suspension of disbelief.
I don’t like where I was taken tonight.
And so I analyzed this and the way I see this is that there’s this actor or performance artist.
His name is Richard Bluesting.
Was that it? Bluesting, yeah.
He’s been doing probably stuff like the podcast today and not being very successful with it, or not mainstream, or not explosively, hasn’t really tapped into a vein.
He’s like the Lucidius Bitties, I think.
He’s an act.
The Lucidius Bitties, though, we never had any doubt.
They don’t walk down the street singing other songs.
You know, right? I do.
But you know what I’m saying? There’s no doubt we know that somebody who is, besides those songs are not podcasts.
Let me continue on my thought.
So all of a sudden, and I don’t know if this is what Richard Bl uesting or Madge Weinstein whoever has been doing, but when I heard the first Madge Weinstein yeast radio, it was not this.
It was something else.
It was fresh.
It sounded to me like someone who was generally concerned, and the whole package really appealed to me.
And this is what it felt like to me.
It felt to me like, okay, I’m a hit now, because yeah, Madge Weinstein was a hit in my book.
Like, boom, rocket.
You know, I love this.
This is fucking great.
We’re talking about it.
They mentioned her on the Gil more Gang.
On the Gilmore Gang.
I mean, you’ve made it, man.
If you’re mentioned on the Gil more Gang, you’re fucking in.
What else is there? The merchandise and rides, baby .
Sure.
You can get on the tonight show .
That’s like, you know, the Gil more Gangs.
You know, total request live is next, honey.
But here’s the… So it felt to me like, all right, now I’ve done all this, and now I’m going to go back and use this newfound celebrity to do my art, which… Or to boost my career or whatever.
Or to boost my career or whatever.
Yeah, you get this thing going and I’ve been trying to get started.
Which is just not going to work , because it wasn’t that funny.
It wasn’t funny at all.
No.
The first few lines were funny.
The first few lines were funny.
So I tell you, that probably wasn’t scripted.
It was hilarious.
The beginning probably wasn’t scripted.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
It’s probably Adlin.
No.
I don’t… Who cares? The fact is that we were laughing.
Yeah, right.
The old match, before we knew that we were about to be taken to a dishonest place.
Yeah.
And now if I listen to it again , I would be laughing at it after I know how the story ends .
How this particular story ends.
So this would be really interesting.
It would be for Madge to do what we’re doing right now.
Because like Adam, I asked Adam , “Okay, now what do you want to do?” I mean, you have really talked a lot about… Talked about Madge, you’ve talked to other folks.
And so, you know, and then Adam said, “Yeah, I got a problem. " And then he waited a pause a second and said, “Now what do you want to do?” And, “Yeah, I have the same thing. " Because, you know, I’ve talked about this character and I’ve wrote in the show notes for trade secrets, last trade secrets, you know, it’s a Madge, Madge, Madge, Mad ge world.
I mean, I love getting swept up in a cultural sort of interesting… You know, I’m willing to help somebody become a star if I can , you know, to the extent that I can do that as long.
But I’m not willing to do it if I don’t know what it is that I ’m helping.
If it’s just helping somebody become a guest on… On The Tonight Show.
Or Saturday Night Live or whatever.
You know, at that point I just start going, “Yeah, that’s not really what I’m doing. " So here’s the real violation.
I thought I was actually talking to the real person on the telephone.
No kidding, right? And you were… they were talking to you and you were a real person, right? I wasn’t being mean.
You were who you were.
You were like sort of, you know , you were all giggly and everything, but that was how you felt at that time.
Yeah, right.
Well, I was also stoned.
It was, you know… Of course.
Yeah, I’m honest.
I was hammered.
I thought I got to hammer up for the Madge.
All right.
Bo-Goo.
Have we… Bo-Goo.
Maybe you should explain to the folks at home what that means.
Well, is there anything else we need to talk about? Maybe we can like… Just make this short.
Make it short.
Make it short.
Short.
So I don’t want to discourage anything or anyone, but that just totally did not fucking work for me.
Okay.
And it blew… it blew… it t ainted for me.
Hey, wait a minute.
Let’s just leave it there.
The balls in your court, Madge.
Yeah.
We’d love to hear from you.
We’d love to be outrageous.
We’d love you to talk more politics.
Yeah.
And the East is great, but fuck this shit about your fake pseudo-therapist because we don ’t believe that for a second.
That wasn’t your therapist.
Right.
So fuck you.
Just like leave it there.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, everybody.
Just to make it to you because we’re partners in this day.
Yeah.
Fuck you, Madge.
Okay.
Yeah, we’ve set our peace.
Okay, there you go.
See you later.