Remember Renting Video Games? (with Michael Benjamin Lerner of Telekinesis)

How Did We Get Weird with Vanessa Bayer and Jonah Bayer

All Things Comedy

Society & Culture, Comedy Interviews, Comedy

4.9 • 680 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on the podcast we are joined by our old friend Michael Benjamin Lerner of Telekinesis! Michael talks about meeting Jonah and Vanessa at SNL through Fred Armisen, what it was like for Michael to play drums on the Portlandia tour and his secrets to making the perfect cup of espresso. Michael also discusses working at record stores, going to school at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and having Paul McCartney hand him his diploma and getting a major label record deal offer based on his MySpace page. We also get into today's topic of renting video games, which has all the more resonance for Michael because his father is Mike West, the voice of Fox McCloud from the legendary Nintendo game, Star Fox! Better yet, Michael actually voiced a Nintendo game as a child that has only been released in Japan for all you Telekinesis superfans. As if all this wasn't enough, we also play a game of LEGIT MOAN OR UNNECESSARY GROAN where we debate important issues such as paying for infomercials on cable, taking off work on national holidays and the dilemma of having too many phone books. You can and should check out all five Telekinesis albums on Merge Records now!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother Jonah.
0:06.7	We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood and nostalgia and how it shaped us into the people we are today.
0:12.1	Who can't wait to get telekinetic with today's guest.
0:15.9	Welcome to How Did We Get Weird. did we get weird?
0:35.6	So, I feel like we're both very excited for our guest today. and you have kind of a funny story about how you met him.
0:38.6	Yeah, we were just talking about this before we started.
0:41.9	Our guest today, we met at an S&L after party, so you were involved, obviously.
0:46.6	Yes.
0:47.4	Because that's why I was there.
0:49.9	Cool.
0:50.7	Our guest was a guest of Fred Armisen's, and I was just thinking, you know, Fred used to bring all these, like, cool bands and musicians and comedians kind of like to the parties afterward.
1:02.1	Like I would.
1:03.2	Like you would, too.
1:05.5	And so, yeah, I remember.
1:07.4	Well, I felt like you would also bring just like me and Gwen. I guess you could say
1:12.2	cool musician and comedian. Okay. Fair. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Uh, but yeah, I remember Fred being
1:19.1	like, oh, you guys should meet my, our guest. I don't know why. I'm like, act like no one's going to know
1:23.0	who it is. Sometimes we try and like hide our guest even though it says clearly on the description who it is and stuff.
1:30.4	So anyway, Fred was like, oh, you know, you guys should meet Michael.
1:31.0	He's a musician.
1:32.6	He's, you know, he's on Merge Records.
1:39.2	And so I think we hung out and got along and then never saw each other again until now.
	...

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