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Hey, welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.
Let's do this.
Let's kick off a new week on a Tuesday and act like it's a Wednesday.
Monday can take a long walk off a short period.
We're skipping Monday all together.
Although we had fun, we had a nice episode last night with all the comedians.
yes.
That was good stuff.
But it is Tuesday night.
Hope you had a great weekend.
Great to have you here with me on nightlight tonight.
Conrad Krieger riding shotgun as usual.
Hope everybody had a great and safe holiday weekend and ate too much and laughed a lot and got outside a little bit as it was a little bit warmer.
Yesterday was nice, but a good weekend.
Overall, I had a, we said goodbye to a family friend this weekend.
So it was filled with family and great memories and fun and
Just a really under the circumstances a lovely lovely time and More not more importantly, but not to be outdone I've talked about my game soccer golf.
Yeah, right.
Yeah Got a whole new nine holes nice.
So we've got a full 18 now We've got a water hole.
We got a hole down by the bay down by Green Bay, which is treacherous You got to have a water hole, right?
You have to know what kind of golf it is
So we finally got that.
I don't know why we didn't do that earlier.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
The whole family was home and said goodbye to a friend, played some soccer golf, went outside and watched a very special movie I'm excited to talk about in just a few minutes.
How was your weekend, buddy?
which was
It was cool.
They had low like huts outside that you can like rent and like you can put on whatever you want on the TV.
Oh, nice.
And they have pizza there, some pretty good beer.
And then after that, we kind of just went around town.
But we went golfing then the next day.
And my buddy's not that good of a golfer.
So it's fun for you.
There is nothing funnier than watching a comedian on stage chewing it or a golfer who sucks and having a terrible.
Why?
I don't know what it is, but that just makes me laugh.
And I'm OK.
I laugh at my when I used to be on stage.
I used to laugh at myself, too.
And I'm like, you are really eating it up here.
But golf, for some reason, it's a frustrating sport to begin with.
But.
all the times I've golfed, it seemed like there's one, mostly it was me, but it seems like oftentimes there were people that just really wrecking the course and I don't know why that cracks me
because then
and enjoying the weather.
Ideally.
But it's the windmill hole always messes me up.
Do you have one at the soccer golf?
No, we should though.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
We should do that Yeah, great weekend.
It was a lot of fun, but it's great to be back here.
It's nice that I like to have some structure to my day I don't do well with no structure.
I tend to do less than more when I don't have structure, but
There was so much going on in our little community.
It was just fun to walk outside and see what was up and see what people were up to.
So I got a lot of steps in too, which is good.
So I hope all of you had a great day as well.
And if you want the rules to soccer golf, folks, don't hesitate to reach out.
It is a fine competitive leisurely game.
The phone lines are open.
Let us know how your weekend was.
855-752-4842.
855-755 Civic.
If you're listening on the radio, folks,
or the app or the stream, give us a like or a follow if you're so inclined.
Always nice to be liked or followed.
Actually, nobody likes to be followed by police officer, a stalker, whatever.
But on social media, it's just fine and it's encouraged.
So there you go.
Knock yourself out.
We have a... Let's see, what should we do here?
Let's do the question of the night, Conrad.
Let's bang this out so we can get this out there to the fine people who are listening to Nightlight on a Tuesday.
Here's our question of the night.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
Questions.
Oh, here we go.
What is your favorite movie, TV, or Broadway musical?
There might be some crossover there.
But let us know.
What is your favorite movie, TV, or Broadway musical?
That is tonight's question of the night here at Nightlight, 855-752-4842, 855-75 Civic.
As I just mentioned, you can listen on the app, or you can watch the radio at X, YouTube, or Facebook.
We'd love to have you any way you can be here, just be here, and be part of the fun.
So that is our question of the night.
I'm gonna go... Have you had time to think about this?
Do you have one?
You're not making that
What does that mean?
There's like a couple show numbers in it or something?
Does that count?
Dude, I know you've seen an actual musical, not just like...
come
think
I don't even know what to go with because my favorite Broadway musical, actual in the theater musical, is Les Mis.
Hands down, far and away.
Love every second of the show.
I've seen it four times live.
Just absolutely a beautiful piece of art.
Les Mis, live.
Didn't care for the movie as much, obviously, with Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway, I think, was in it.
She was good, but just the...
They can't hold a candle to the actual live stage show.
It's an absolute spectacle.
So that's my Broadway musical.
I would have to say movies might be grease or a little shop of horrors, maybe fame.
I'm struggling here because I think I have too many.
I also like a recent musical that came out in the theaters called Sing Street.
That is a great show, contemporary music, fun group of
Peep Kids in Ireland that formed this band.
Great song called Drive It Like You Stole It.
Highly recommend Sing Street.
I've also talked about Once on this show.
Another great movie musical.
They might have turned that into a live show too.
And then of course, I even have a TV musical.
I have been into the show Glee lately.
Have we talked about this?
You ever seen Glee?
It like the music is good.
They do anywhere from show tunes to pop tunes and the.
Everybody on the show is really talented when it comes to singing, but I have to say the TV show and I've only seen one season and I've seen a couple episodes of other seasons is really funny.
Jane Lynch is the cheerleading coach who bullies the Glee Club and bullies the football coach and the principal.
I mean, she's just so funny.
I highly recommend Glee.
I know it's old.
Most of you have probably seen it.
If it's something you were going to watch, I'm behind.
But I watched Season 1 a couple of years ago, and I've kind of been slowly looking at other episodes.
Now that my daughter's home for the summer, we've been watching that.
Really funny show.
So there you go.
I'm going to say Les Mis, Grease, and Glee are my Broadway, movie, and TV.
But you don't have to give.
You just give one, folks.
If you've got something to share, go ahead and do it.
We'll read your text on the radio.
Always more fun when you guys participate.
That is our nightlight question of the night.
All right, so I have to get this out of the way.
I've been talking a lot about this movie for the last few weeks.
And I was very excited that Mission Impossible finally opened and it did not disappoint.
It was really good.
It was long.
It was about two hours and 50 minutes, but the first, I would say the first half hour almost was a recap of what had happened with the rabbit's foot and stuff from Ghost Protocol and the first one.
Really good.
Some people might not like that.
I didn't mind it.
I was anxious to get to the new material.
And it wasn't like it was highlights, but they did work it in kind of cleverly, I thought.
But I really liked it.
And then the show took off, the movie took off after about 30 minutes into it.
They ran the opening credits were like 30 minutes into the movie.
But it was a fun sequence.
They played the fun music.
It was like just, and then it took off and it just did not.
There was a great scene.
Tom Cruise, of course, is going to do his stunts.
He had a great underwater scene.
If those of you who saw Mission Impossible 7 remember the sub going down that was sunk by the entity or the AI?
And he went down there because he had to get a hard drive to stop the entity from taking over the world.
It was just great.
And then it was a scene where he was on a plane, a little prop plane, flipping around, flying around, punching out the pilot.
While he's chasing Gabriel the guy who is trying to get control of the entity so lots of fun.
It just It was great and there was one there was a death.
I'm not gonna say who it was I'm not gonna spoil it But one of the cast members if you go on social media, you probably already know but it was just a lot of fun start to finish great film I'm not convinced.
It's the last one based on what I'm hearing but it is crushing at the box office and
But it's not crushing nearly as much as Lilo in Stitch.
183 million bucks in the four-day weekend.
And Mission Impossible took in 77.5.
Huge, I mean, for an action film like that, that's a huge haul too.
The two of them crushed Barbenheimer, the two films together, and that's kind of a new strategy by Hollywood, putting out two films.
You're not really getting the same audience, so it's probably not hurting anybody, but it's
I mean, they're saying the box office could make $4.2 billion this summer.
A total rebound from where it was at for COVID.
I would love to know what those numbers are.
But it appears to be back.
So that's exciting.
You told me something about Lilo and Stitch or some backlash without getting too spoilery.
This is the live action yeah, yeah from the animated okay,
okay,
really
yeah
I will see it.
I wasn't gonna rush out.
It was finally a nice weekend.
I was sort of conflicted, even going to see a three hour movie on a gorgeous day, but I just had to, I had to check it out.
We have a text from, when was that?
Bud text, here we go.
Oh, this is from today.
So he's listening to the Comedian show.
At 4.30, yeah.
Right, so last night, we put a best of episode together.
Because I took the day off and I had all my interviews with friends of mine Bill left We put his Steve Cochran.
All right, anyway, we had Bill left Mike Mercury who else did we have in that show Conrad?
Jim Pardo Jimmy Pardo who ripped on my shirt hilariously.
It's worth a listen But bud listen to that show in bud is in the 608 and he drives around between 4 and 6 a.m.
And listens to nightlight, which I think as well.
He says hey Pete and Conrad
Another outstanding show so far, not showing up is the key, I believe.
I'll take it, bud.
Anyway, I'm loving the interview with Bill Leff.
I love his show, NWGN with Wendy.
Is Steve Cochran going to be next?
Love your show, bud, from Jamesville.
Steve Cochran and I are going back and forth, so he will be on soon, bud.
Bud also says, I'm not telling it enough to listen to two programs simultaneously.
the
Yeah, don't beat yourself up, bud.
You're a fine human being.
And a wonderful listener.
Thank you for the text.
We will read your texts in regard to our question of the night when we come back.
And I will tell you about our awesome guest tonight.
We've got two robbs on the show.
How do you like that, folks?
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
It is great to have you with me on this Tuesday, which is really like a Monday, but feels more like a Wednesday, because we have a short week.
And I hope you guys had a great weekend.
Lots of summer fun coming up.
Every weekend moving forward should feel like a long weekend, because it's summer.
So we've got a really fun show tonight, ladies and gentlemen.
I understand we have a volume issue.
We are working on that.
Conrad has his tools out.
He is diligently working to try to restore.
whatever it is we're dealing with right now.
So we will get that handled as soon as possible.
Thank you for your patience.
And we will read your texts when people can actually hear them.
So great show tonight, ladies and gentlemen.
We have two Rob's on the same show.
That's probably happened in radio history because Rob is a fairly popular name.
But we've got two great guys on tonight, both named Rob.
And neither one of them is Rob Thomas.
How do you like that?
So my first guest tonight at 635 will be Rob Paravonian.
Rob is a comedian and musical artist.
He is just hilarious.
He's got a lot to report on.
We'll play some of a couple of Rob's hilarious tunes.
We've played Rob's song about, he wrote a Friends song parody years ago.
And we played that last time he was on and we replayed that a few weeks ago when we were doing a question of the night that involved everybody's favorite TV theme show song.
So we played Rob's friends song, very funny.
Rob's hilarious.
He'll be here at 635 to make us laugh and maybe make us sing along.
We'll see how it goes.
And then at 720, driving all the way up from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I know you've heard of it, folks.
Very exciting to welcome my friend Rob Martin who will be here at 720.
Rob was an actor in the film The Godfather of Green Bay.
He has never been on this show.
We found him in Milwaukee and we cast him as the heavy in The Godfather of Green Bay and he crushed it.
And if you've seen the film and see how good Rob is, you'll probably go, why haven't I seen that guy in anything else?
Well, he had a lot of other things going on.
He teaches martial arts.
I think he was a DJ for a while.
And he's a very busy guy.
And he also has a phenomenal singing voice.
And he founded the band, the Dock Siders.
Yacht Rock Band.
But he also had an injury that took him out of that life for a while.
He's fully healed now, as I understand it.
And he will come on tonight to talk about movie gangsters.
We'll talk about that with Rob Martin at 720.
He will be in studio.
He made the journey from Milwaukee just to see his old pal P.D.
here in the studio.
So I can't wait to see Rob.
That'll be fun.
We have gotten some... How we doing on the sound issue Conrad?
Are we still have some sound issues?
just... Okay.
Did you bump something?
Should we play a clip and hold off on the text?
I mean, if people, I don't want to make people sit through low volume, that would be really annoying.
Yeah, sure.
We got a couple clips.
What do we have?
We got Foxy.
We're talking about movie gangsters tonight.
Let's talk, let's play one of my favorite movie gangsters.
It's Foxy Brown, played by Pam Grier.
She is fantastic.
And this is a film from, I want to say 1974, where she goes in and she's asking for a neighborhood council's help.
or approval and getting even with people who brought harm to her brother, Pam Greer.
All right, we've talked about your request and we're not sure whether we want to help you or not.
We're a neighborhood committee and this is sort of out of our neighborhood, you know what I mean?
Maybe the time has come to grow a bit, brother.
What is it you really want?
Justice.
For whom, your brother?
Why not?
It could be your brother too.
or your sister or your children.
I want justice for all of them.
And I want justice for all the other people whose lives are bought and sold so that a few big shots can climb up on their backs and laugh at the law and laugh at human decency.
And most of all, I want justice for a good man.
This man had love in his heart.
And he died because he went out of his neighborhood to try to do what he thought was right.
Sister, I think what you're asking for is revenge.
You just take care of the justice, and I'll handle the revenge myself.
That was weird because I remember seeing that film like 30 years ago and there was a little hiccup in Pam Grier's delivery on that last line.
And they still used it.
And I remember the first time I saw it thinking, oh man, they left some goof or they missed it.
No, they didn't.
That obviously was a conscious effort to leave that in there.
Because sometimes people do that.
They misspeak.
But I don't know, I haven't seen the whole movie in quite a while.
But.
Foxy Brown one of my favorite gangsters and then I've got some other favorites the usual we'll talk about all those with Rob Martin when he's here at 720 and Rob Martin is one of my favorite movie gangsters because he was so good he played a retainer wearing hitman in my film the Godfather of Green Bay and It just was was great in it.
So Rob will be here at in studio at 720.
Hopefully we will have these issues worked out by that folks hang with us
And we will read your texts when you can hear them.
I don't want to let anybody's great material go to waste here.
So we will read all of that coming up soon.
Our question of the night in case you want to get something in and I will read it when we can hear is what is your favorite movie, TV or Broadway musical?
Mine, Les Mis is my favorite Broadway musical.
Greece is my favorite movie musical.
And I'm going to go Glee for TV, TV musical.
And mostly because I think it's really funny.
The writing is very funny.
Music's good, writing's great.
So all right, coming up at 6.35, right after the news, my pal Rob Paravonian will be here on the stream.
We'll talk to Rob about some new material he's putting out and maybe give you a listen to some of his songs.
He's very funny and a great comedian.
And then Rob Martin, Rob number two.
There's two Rob's on the same show, folks.
This is Pandemonium.
And I can't wait to talk to both of them.
This is Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media.
radio
network.
Is that simple?
There you go.
Yeah.
I thought you took a powder there.
I was like wondering, I know your work.
Conrad's got the tools out, folks.
We're trying to figure this out, but thanks for sticking with us.
Rob Martin will be here at 720.
He was one of the stars of the Godfather of Green Bay that we found in Milwaukee.
And I'm very excited to talk to Rob.
And we've got another Rob.
I'm not saying we're making total radio history, but there's a chance that this hasn't been done before.
Two Rob's on the same show.
What do you think, Conrad?
You need a serious attitude adjustment.
I'm just saying right now.
All right, folks.
Our question of the night, we will get to the text.
Hopefully, when we get the sound issue figured out, we'll read your text then.
But it is, what is your favorite movie, TV, or Broadway musical?
Let me know your answer.
We will read your text on the radio.
Right now, it is my pleasure to bring to the show.
Back to Nightlight.
He's been here before.
But we've been anxious to get him back on the show.
Comedian, Rob Paravonian, Rob, how are you?
Your volume is great.
And so I hope, people can hear us.
I think it's just a little low, so we're getting that figured out.
But let's pretend I never even said that, Rob.
You just be you.
And it's funny because I reached out to you earlier and I said, hey, what are some of your credits I can put in your intro?
And then I didn't even use them.
So I'll take this time right now to say you've heard Rob on Dr. Demento or Comedy Central, or maybe you saw him opening for George Carlin.
I can't wait to talk about that, Rob.
That is a good one.
So how you been, buddy?
What?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Good timing for once on my part.
Where did you grow up again, Rob?
Was it Oregon or just in Illinois?
Waukegan.
Yes.
Oh wow.
Hey Rob.
I'm sorry to do this to you.
But I don't want you to say something that people can't hear.
Can we move you to the phone just because of our issues tonight?
Would that be okay?
Post your number, please, in the chat.
Would that be all right, Conrad?
Is he safe if he does that?
Okay, then we'll give you a call.
Okay, perfect.
And we'll give Rob a call because I would hate for... So, okay.
Perfect.
All right, we're gonna get Rob back on the phone I didn't want him to tell a funny story without you guys actually being to hear able to hear it.
So we'll get that figured out and That's weird.
I'm glad Rob Martin Drove up he's gonna be in studio.
So that's gonna be good, but we'll get right we'll get this figured out counter.
It's giving Rob a call as we speak ladies and gentlemen The very funny Rob Paribony and I met Rob at the improv in Chicago years ago when we were both stand-ups
And he has since gone on to do great things.
He has had his own comedy special.
He's been on Comedy Central, Dr. Demento.
And as I mentioned, he's open for George Carlin.
So we will get to all of that as soon as we get Rob back.
In the meantime, if you haven't seen Mission Impossible, it's a recommend, folks.
I highly recommend it.
And definitely check it out.
If you have kids, Lilo and Stitch, they're both reviewing incredibly well.
So we've got to have going for us.
Lidl on Stitch is getting like a, well, it's getting a 70, but a 93% audience.
Mission Impossible is getting an 80 and 89% audience.
My guess with the audience, I feel like it should be 100%, but I think that long intro before the credits where they kind of recap everything, maybe everyone's not too keen on that, especially if you're a huge fan and you already know all the stories, but I personally liked it because
Sometimes with these franchises, whether it's like Star Wars or Mission Impossible or Fast and the Furious, everything kind of blends together.
And I can't remember who did what or what character was in what movie.
So I actually like the recap.
All right, we're going to read some texts anyway, just because I don't want to run out of time or something.
So Conrad, keep me posted.
Lisa Hale, in regard to our question, what is your favorite movie musical?
TV musical or Broadway musical Lisa says rent or Hamilton depending on my mood TV musical Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 episode 7 once more with feeling Wow, that is specific Appreciate that Lisa.
She says Broadway musical six.
Yes.
I'm that extra I don't even know what that is I love when like
Textures have more knowledge than I do because it's fun to learn stuff yourself too.
That's a great text.
Thank you Oh, my buddy Dave Hendrick checking in says the blues brothers.
Yes Kind of forgot about that one that would have been on my list too.
Thank you Dave Mike on the stream or on social media.
I'm sorry says filler on the roof What does it mean this filler on the roof who fiddles every night and fiddles every new great one Mike keep those texts coming folks.
Those are our social media texts will get to the
stream, text, and the phone text shortly.
I understand we have Rob Paravonian back.
Rob, thank you for sticking with us, buddy.
Hey, what's happening?
How is this?
Is it working?
It sounds great.
It sounds fantastic.
Oh,
wonderful.
And now everybody listening has your phone number.
All right, so... Oh, no!
Kidding.
Rob, folks, leave Rob alone.
He's a celebrity in, what is it, Central America?
Rob, you can't even go to the bathroom there without being
fine.
You know, a couple of those.
A couple of countries in there.
So all right, so tell us, you had a big video special release about a year ago.
How is that doing?
And are you happy with it?
Tell us about it.
I'm very happy with it.
I, of course, would love more views, all the views, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
It was based on a solo show I did that was full of comedy songs that were inspired by US history and US culture.
So it was a little bit, it was very much like Schoolhouse Rock Needs the Daily Show.
And so instead of doing like a live comedy special, I did like...
music videos and then sort of daily show type stand-up segments with over-the-shoulder graphics, you know, sort of like, you know, daily show this week, tonight's kind of thing.
And I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
And so it's starting to, you know, people have, people have found it.
I think more people will find it as like the different subjects become more popular.
There's stuff about the satanic panic in the 80s.
There was stuff about the invisible hand of the marketplace for economics.
People it was a little bit nerdy, but you know very much me
That's awesome Where can people see it if they want to go watch it?
Where would they check it out?
Um, it's on YouTube the easiest way to find it is just my website rob p rocks dot com Our obp ROCKS dot com all one word because my last name is paravonian So I don't want to make anybody spell that do
you say a
paravonian?
I've been saying paravonian for years
I said both for a long time, and I finally just settled on one because sometimes people get mad at me for not.
Caring which way it was pronounced, but it was because my dad, my dad said both growing up.
He was born here.
His first generation, his parents came over from Armenia.
So, um, and I caught him once and I asked him, I'm like, whenever you talk to Armenian people on the phone, you say Paravonian.
Whenever you talk to like Americans or the rest of the Americans, you say Paravonian.
And he's like, you know, I never noticed that.
And I think it
was
just like an assimilation thing that he did.
So I just decided I would try for the closest one to the, you know, official pronunciation, but I grew up saying both myself.
So.
Okay.
I like Paravonian.
That sounds like a little more, uh,
As a guy who has nothing exotic about him, Rob, I've got fair skin.
Shwaba is my last name.
There is nothing sexy about me.
You've got Paravoni.
That sounds really cool, actually.
I'm
serious.
You know, well, in the 90s, when I was starting in comedy, I was on the fence about whether or not I was going to use a stage name or not, just because, you know.
But I'm glad if I was in my dad's generation of like the 1950s, I definitely would have had to come up.
with the stage name.
And I did pick out my 1950 stage name would have been Bobby Verona would have been a star.
I would have been playing Vegas every weekend.
Bobby Verona.
I love that.
Come on.
That's, that's a guy who plays like the Sands casino for like six
months.
That's a guy who brings it and you could easily pass for Italian.
I think
I'm ambiguously
ethnic.
That's a good place to be.
Um, let's talk about, you have, you sent me a couple songs.
Can you tell, tell us about them?
And then we'll, we'll, we'll play them.
I'd love for people to hear them.
Okay, yeah, there's one called Driving With Grandpa that was on my most recent live album.
That's gotten played on XM Radio a bit, and that's a really fun one to do live.
That's very family-friendly, inspired by, actually inspired by my stepdad, but I decided to make it a little more accessible.
But it's a Beach Boy style song about driving, and I sort of explained it in the setup in the clip of why I chose that genre.
Um, you know, when I was growing up, I always loved the oldie station.
So, uh, it's very much a true to life.
You know, it's, it's, it's a style of song.
I was excited to write.
That's awesome.
All right.
Conrad, what should we, or tell us about baby in a bar.
What, what kind of time are we looking at here?
Conrad, do we have, uh, We got about, uh, three minutes.
So we got, can we fit one of these in or should we wait till after the break?
We should wait
till after.
Okay.
Perfect.
So tell us about baby in a bar, Rob.
Okay.
Well, that is, I live here in Brooklyn and it's a, it's a
I live in a neighborhood that the professional parents have moved to.
It used to be you got married, you had kids, and you moved out to the suburbs.
Those were the rules, you know?
But now, lately, everyone's moved to my neighborhood.
So my neighborhood's got very much sort of just professional, like you would call, I used to call them yuppie parents, and the bars in the neighborhood, they often just come in with the baby with them.
It just became, it became such a thing that I had to write a song about it.
And I think it connects it.
I know people, uh, West coast and Chicago and Milwaukee have responded to it too.
So I think it's something that is not, it's not unique to New York.
So you're, you're getting squeezed out or you got to find a way, you got to adopt a kid or something to feel at home in your neighborhood.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got to adopt the kid and get a big, uh, you know, minivan or crossover.
Everyone's driving car crossovers.
All right, we will play Rob's song.
We'll get to both of them, but after the break we'll play, maybe we'll start driving with grandpa, because I'm a huge Beach Boys fan.
So Rob, you're a straight, I think I've seen you perform without your guitar.
You're a very funny stand-up comedian.
You're also a very talented musician.
When you were growing up, who were your influences?
Did you have musical act influences or was it mostly primarily stand-ups?
Oh, definitely.
Well, I like I like the variety performers, you know, like the 70s.
There were all those like variety shows, you know, like Sonny and Cher and I love Carol Burnett.
So like comedy wise.
And then, you know, Steve Martin came at a time when I was just starting to like love absurd type comedy.
And, you know, the fact that he played banjo and did some music and had his big hit with King Tut.
You know, I was a huge fan of his and then, you know, around 12 years old, I found the Dr. Demento show where it was just, you know, Weird Al and all the comedy music and weird novelty music.
So those were big influences on me coming up.
I was like mixing the two.
And what about...
Well, actually, we'll get to this after the break, too.
All right, we're going to do a very short break.
We're going to come back and let you hear some of Rob's hilarious songs.
It's great to have him here.
Rob Paravonian is my guest tonight on Nightlight.
It's his second time here.
And hopefully, there'll be many more if I don't rub Rob the wrong way.
That didn't sound right either.
All right, we're coming right back, folks.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba, more with Rob Paravonian coming up
next.
You bring up a little guy on my... I'm gonna take a little guy...
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Kinda like a Monday, feels like a Wednesday.
It's a day without a home, folks, so we gotta live it up here and light it up.
So I'm glad you're with me tonight.
Thank you, Textures, for letting us know about the sound issues we had.
Much appreciated, and apologies for that, but stick with us, we'll get this figured out.
Rob Martin will be here at 720.
Rob was in the movie, The Godfather of Green Bay, that I made many, many years ago, and we found him in Milwaukee, and he was fantastic.
And I think I want to say Rob was one of the first practitioners of Yacht Rock here in Wisconsin.
That is a whole other story, but he had a very popular band and we'll talk to Rob about that too at 720.
Right now...
We are having a blast with my other pal Rob, who joins us over the stream and the phone.
He is sticking with us tonight as well.
Rob Parvonian is here on Nightlight for the second time.
Rob.
Yeah,
the
leadoff Rob.
Yeah,
the leadoff Rob.
And that's a great place to be.
I mean, I know it was just a matter of time.
Hey, let me ask you this.
You're in New York.
You grew up in Waukegan.
I met you in Chicago.
You were working clubs.
Was it a good move to New York?
That's where every stand up, not every stand up goes, but that is like the mecca of stand up comedy.
How is that?
Do you like living there as a comedian?
I do.
Yeah, I moved here.
If you remember this, there was a summer in Chicago when both the improv and the funny firm closed the same summer.
I think that was 95.
Oh yeah.
And yeah, so I figured it was, and I was starting to do the rows, starting to do colleges.
Yeah, so I was, people were moving to either New York or LA, and I had gone to college in LA.
And I was only like three or four years out of college at that point.
And so I didn't want to go right back to LA.
I wanted to try New York for a year or two.
And so now I've been here, you know, going on 30 years.
So for
me, it was the
right move.
I really enjoyed the performance scene that I got into here.
There was a lot of cool sort of new vaudeville type stuff.
They called, you know, they started calling it alternative comedy, but like there were shows where there'd be like sketch and characters and monologues and stand ups and music.
And so my music fit in really well in that
scene.
So for me.
Yeah, it really was a good move.
And then I just like the city vibe.
I like living in Chicago.
I like the bigger cities.
And having gone to college in LA, it's a nice place.
It just wasn't quite my vibe.
I like getting around on the trains or the buses.
I like riding my bike around town, that kind of stuff.
So for me, even though I'm not as active in the comedy scene here in the city as much,
It's still home now.
It was the right move, yeah.
Yeah,
30 years, man, that's great.
Do you have to go into Manhattan for most of your local shows or are there spots in Brooklyn?
I know Brooklyn is like the new Manhattan almost.
It seems like, you know.
Yeah, not like when I first moved here, was definitely going into Manhattan for most of my shows.
But yeah, the last 15 years or so, there's so many more performance venues.
in Brooklyn, like specific dedicated comedy rooms, improv rooms, and then a lot of bars that have like a music room in the back that'll do like a once a week comedy show, you know, a lot of that going around.
So, yeah, I don't have to go into Manhattan nearly as much as I did those first several years.
That's awesome.
All right, so Rob is here.
Let's hear, maybe we'll do baby.
Is that the shorter of the two songs Conrad, baby?
No.
Driving with grandpa.
All right, let's do driving.
Yeah, the Beach Boys style one is
the shorter one.
Love
this
one.
All right, this is Rob Parvoni and is my guest.
He is a New York based stand-up comic and here is one of his songs.
I know you're going to love it, Driving with Grandpa.
When I was a kid, I really liked oldies.
I loved, you know, 50s and 60s music.
When I was eight, nine, 10 years old, I loved the Beach Boys.
Yeah, but the Beach Boys songs are all about California and surfing and driving and girls.
I grew up in the Midwest.
I grew up in Illinois.
I was 10 years old.
I didn't know anything about California or surfing or cars or girls.
So I wanted to try to write a Beach Boys-type song about something I might have been able to relate to when I was 10 years old.
So here's what I came up with.
The law hasn't got new glasses in years, wop, wop, waluwop.
Now driving with him is one of my greatest fears, wop, wop, waluwop.
He's yelling at the other drivers like he's insane.
I'm in the backseat, praying and praying, because I'm the only one who knows we're in the wrong lane.
Driving with grandpa gives me hard palpitations.
Driving with grandpa, it's all moving violations.
Driving with grandpa, I want to make it home tonight.
A ride with grandpa always fills me with stress, wop, wop, waloo.
Because he stops traffic to yell at the GPS, wop, wop, waloo.
The right directions, it won't show.
We ask three people, nobody knows, because the place we're going closed eight years ago.
Ride with grandpa.
Ride with grandpa.
Ride with grandpa.
Pull over, pull over.
Thank you, officer.
I'm blinking Morse code to you so you can rescue me.
Brad, do you like that?
That's hilarious.
I like, you do your own do-wop-wop do.
That to me is like.
You know, you gotta cover a lot of different parts when you're a solo performer.
What's a...
In terms of audiences, America is very polarized right now, Rob.
Are we comedically polarized?
Like, are there parts of the country or certain clubs you don't want to work because you don't want to dig yourself out of a hole or start from below zero or whatever?
I
feel like a little bit.
I think it's mostly like, I tried it when I'm in a place where I know there's going to be people on all sides of the political spectrum.
I try to...
choose my material, you know, choose the material that I would maybe like do on a cruise ship that's more accessible to everybody, more neutral.
The thing that's tricky, I think that gets more and more tricky every year is like, I think fewer things feel neutral, you know, some subjects can set somebody off like I, I think
Years ago, I had a bit about the Super Bowl and I think it was maybe around 2020 when, you know, kneeling in sports was a big controversial thing.
So I just I thought I was going to be able to talk about football and that was something everyone could relate to.
But that year, it happened to be something that,
you know,
made half the crowd angry, you know.
So I do feel
it's
a lot trickier just for people to go and have a good time.
But it's it's not as bad as it.
I don't know.
I feel I feel it's not as bad as.
I fear that it is, but it's still, it's harder than it was.
Yeah.
All right, Rob Parvoni is here, folks.
We're going to break for intermission here and do a little bit of news, keep you informed, and we'll be back and we're going to hear his song, Baby in a Bar, and talk about other stuff too.
It'll be fun.
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