Election fever.  With all the news, who can avoid it?  Not a news ticker scrolls by without a mention of Biden's age, Trump's trials and RFK's betrayals.   We're not immune to it.  So when a scheduled guest went AWOL, we figured we'd talk about the first thing that came to mind.  Suffice it to say that MAGA conservatives aren't the only ones who hang out in echo chambers.

Join us in a discussion with Diane Bouis, director of MedTech Innovator, the world’s largest life science startup accelerator program.

Not that we have a vested interest, but we’d suggest that Joe Biden make a go at it with a blue baseball cap sporting the acronym MIGA.  You know, “make innovation great again!”  Speaking of innovation, today’s guest is John Daniels, a tinkerer turned entrepreneur who is daring fate by joining the Innovation Blab in a discussion of his latest venture.  It’s developing a rapid diagnostic kit to test for Covid and whatever else ails mankind. With a bit of luck, he’ll launch the product before Kari Lake returns to Arizona politics following a two-year break.

Welcome to Innovation Blab, a new series of podcasts (…keep fingers crossed…) offering the B-side to Failure - the Podcast. Yes, Mark will be back, and we hope to put up both Innovation and Failure posts in the coming days (months, more likely), but as they say about the alleged clandestine romantic relationship surrounding appointment of the special prosecutor in the Georgia election interference cases, we shall see.

Can’t say that much has been made of the B-side of late.  Baby boomers are probably the last to have given it much thought, but in its heyday, the B-side was pretty much the tomalley of 45 RPM, 7-inch vinyl records.  (Don’t know tomalley?  Ask a lobster.)  Aficionados looked forward to it.  Everybody else, not so much.

The B-side could grow on you, though.  Take Elvis’s “Hound Dog,” the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus,” the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”  The list goes on.  So does the beat.

To the armchair intellectual, the A-side and the B-side are like yin and yang.  There’s no need to drag Eastern philosophy into an LA marketing gimmick, though.  Two sides of the same coin is more like it.  The only philosophy here is KISS:  keep it simple stupid.

Speaking of innovation and failure (were we?), maybe they’re like yin and yang.  We asked ChatGPT, and we got a qualified “sort of.”  It felt a little like the prize every kid gets at soccer, win or lose.  Yes, the AI said, innovation and failure can be complementary forces, but no, they are not interconnected and interdependent opposites.  Just to check that, we asked the electric savant the same of Donald Trump and the news media.  We pretty much got the same answer.  Consistency doesn’t prove correctness, but it’s a start.

So what does any of that have to do with today’s podcast?  Have a listen and judge for yourself.  Our guest is Stefan Koehler, director of therapeutics licensing at the University of Michigan.  We didn’t ask him about yin and yang, nor about failure — though, he did give some insights into licensing that would make Jim Harbaugh proud.  (Sorry, Stefan, wrong department, but you catch our drift).

It's not often the team from Failure - the Podcast gets serious.

Sure, there was the time Mark stole an air mask from Jet Blue and hooked it to a canister of helium. He was impersonating Marjorie Taylor Green for our "Fly Me to the Moon" episode, but forgot to put oxygen in the mix. Thankfully, the EMTs had a spare pig's brain on board for the transplant.

And, how about when Mic hired Rudy Giuliani to defend "the team" in Joe Rogan's trademark infringement suit.

It's times like these you realize that some things are serious. Mark turning blue while impersonating Greene. Serious. Handing over your defense to Rudy. Serious (mistake). Just ask Donald.

Speaking of Donald, the porcine frontal cortex (Mark's, not Donald's) drifts to yellow raining down on the sheets in Moscow. And, from there, to yellow and blue flags flapping in a nuclear breeze. Now, we are at serious. Ukraine serious. Even the segue there from humor (or, in our case, faux humor) seems a crime. Though, to put things in perspective, Zelensky made the transition and proved a true hero.

Which, the reader will be relieved to learn, brings us to the topic of today's podcast. Zelensky? Not directly. More like Putin in Ukraine. A bull in a china shop, but add enmity and cluster bombs. Not a pretty thing.

So, how did we get here? Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in a conversation with Daniel Barenboym, a Boston-area entrepreneur with roots in Eastern Europe, and Sam Bendett, an expert on the Russian military with the Washington D.C.-based think tanks CNA and CNAS.

You gotta listen.  Not to this podcast, of course.  Not to that voice in your head.  Nor, to the crazies.   And, certainly, not to QAnon.  (Remember, him  .... them ... it?  There's another pronoun debate for you.  Wonder how Texas -- or is it Florida? -- would come out on that one.)  Sales.  You gotta listen if you are in Sales.  And, after all, who isn't?

It reminds us of a job candidate we spoke to the other day.  She wanted to go into podcasting.  That's no field, we protested.  Even with Joe Rogan, the Doughboys, the Tiny Meat Gang (hmmm..... our favorite MAGA-ist's hands have gone meme and spawned allusions), the average income of the average podcaster is below water for sure, we told her.   She persisted.  

Why podcasting, we asked?  The answer, much like this episode, was underwhelming.  The lifestyle, she said.  She liked the lifestyle ... or, at least, her idea of the lifestyle of a podcaster.  Breadlines, we asked?  Had she factored that in?  No, of course not.  We suggested an internship.  Rogan's probly (yes, it's a word, not a typo) not an option, but we suggested she volunteer for any of the millions of other podcasters out there.  Who wouldn't want to offload some of the thankless burden of a regular podcast onto some idiot ... er, enthusiastic volunteer ... who thought they could make a career out of it.

But, you have to have a story, we told her.  Producers are flooded with requests from would-be podcast interns.  Yep, we lied. You'll need to distinguish yourself from all of the others.  Explain-away your past (like, that Ph.D. in applied mathematics) and wax eloquent about your future (there's always time to record an interview in the bread lines), we said.  But, it's got to be a story that makes sense.  One that resonates with your would-be boss.   Remember, they too had dreams, before the other 1,999,999 podcasters jumped into the fray.

And that brings us back, inexplicably, to today's episode:  You Gotta Listen.  (It's not you, by the way:  we're equally confused.  Alas, time is short and good copy writers are hard to find.)  Join the team (or, at least half of it) from Failure - the Podcast in a discussion of why you gotta listen, with Cal Reichwein.  He's a former star with the Lafayette Cougars mens basketball team and, now, an emerging star on the Hubspot sales team.  (Oh, by the way, for those of you who miss our co-host Mark, he makes cameos at 04'00", 20'02" and 41'17").

“Back in 5….” What does that mean? Our kids say it on the way out the door, when beef tongue is the evening fare. Do they mean minutes? Never seems that way.

We get it. Not everyone likes beef. It’s a little like this podcast, though, we suspect beef may have more adherents than Failure - the Podcast. Tongue? That’s a different question, at least if you’re talking bovine.

But (as always) we digress. Failure - the Podcast will be “back in 5 …,” as they say.

Not that we’ve been slacking. No, indeed. It’s just that another bright and shiny object caught our eye and, well, you know how that goes.

Are you curious? What could possibly be brighter and shinier than a new episode of Failure - the Podcast? If you don’t mind a shameless plug, we direct you to the 5-Minute Update podcast at https://apple.co/3jLsXQ0.

No, it doesn’t offer Mark’s wit, dulcet tones and (thankfully) occasional cough, but Dave does a commendable job of covering. More importantly, it’s substantive. Yes, substantive. That’s probably not a word you’d expect to see here. In fact, the team from Failure - the Podcast was hesitant to even mention it, lest our audience realize that there’s an alternative to this drivel, not to mention Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and, well, the list goes on.

So take a listen. You might learn something. And, while that won’t balance out the intellect-deficit of even one episode of Failure - the Podcast, you might feel better about yourself for a moment or two.

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No, it's not the ice cream. It's the podcast. This one, and you can be sure it's in bad taste. But, hey, don't be too disappointed. Before reality sunk in, we did offer you the briefest glimmer of hope. That's more than a certain congressperson from Georgia has done for you.

What is today's podcast, other than the usual meaningless banter? There is that, of course. But, there is more, too. Coffee. Yep, you guessed it, and what a genius you are! The coffee business, to be more precise. And, because we failed, yet again, in finding a guest who didn't, it's about a coffee business that's prospering. Go figure.

How much do you know about coffee — we mean really know? The Team from Failure - The Podcast has been imbibing for nearly 100 years, collectively. (Get your mind out of the gutter. We mean coffee.) And, that's only two of us. Add, Mic and ... well, you'd need to go to scientific notation. So, we thought we knew a thing or two about coffee. Just like many of you think you know a thing or two about wine, beer, or you name it. But, how much do you really know, other than where to buy them and what salesperson has you wrapped around his/her finger?

So we brought in a coffee pro. We would say he was a pro from Dover, but unless you saw M*A*S*H, the movie (starring Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland), you really wouldn't get it. But we did bring in a pro. He was the seventh hire at one of the region's largest full-service coffee distributors. And what a success story he was. He rose from janitor to CEO in a matter of years. Many of them. And, in reality, he didn't quite come in as a janitor nor did he exit as a CEO, but you get the point.

Anyway, you want to learn about coffee? Listen to this podcast. Erik Modahl, coffee curator and founder of BeanTrust Coffeebar, has something to say, even if it means talking over the knuckleheads that are Failure — the Podcast.

Sounds promising: fun with numbers. If not the mathematicians and physicists, certainly the accountants might get something from this podcast. And, if not them, the actuaries will have a field day. Think about it: a podcast even an actuary could love. Stultifying.

Well, not so fast. If you’ve not learned anything from the last four years, it’s that labels can be deceiving. Take “Super Happy Fun America,” a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that, from the looks of it, should be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Dig a little deeper, and it’s clear that this group is about anything but fun. Super happy? We doubt it, not with the post-insurrection arrests.

But, it’s not just the far right that is loose with labels. In fact, the team from Failure - the Podcast would hazard to guess that those of all political persuasions are guilty as charged. (Ya’ think?! Hey, give us a break, here. We’re just trying to meet our word quota on this blurb). Hell, even this podcast has been known to stretch the truth from time to time — and we are as about apolitical as it gets. Ha!

So, fun with numbers. Not so much. But you can’t fault us for trying. After all, our guest was with one of the Big Four accounting firms. Admittedly, he was working as a lawyer, not an accountant. And, whether he actually saw a single number during his tenure is left for the imagination. Certainly, the team from Failure - the Podcast didn’t ask him. That would have taken advance preparation, and you know how we eschew that. Moreover, who would have thought months ago, when we recorded this, that we’d ultimately call it “fun with numbers”? Surely, you expect too much of us.

Our guest? Why, it’s none other than Tony DaSilva. Lawyer to the stars … or, at least, the accountants. And, what an absolute wit. He lulled the team from Failure - the Podcast into believing that they were asking good questions, and that he was answering them. In fact, it was the same drivel as the last 71 episodes. You know the old saying: same stuff, different day. Well, we promise you only the latter. And, speaking of stepping in it, please don’t forget to wipe your shoes on Matt Goetz … er, the mat … before you leave.

It took a little doing, but the team from Failure - the Podcast think they found the first use of that magical phrase "testing, testing one, two, three.....". No, it wasn't in 2010, when Biden dropped the F-bomb on an open mic while introducing then-President Obama's eponymous health care bill. Nor, was it when Sleepy Joe muttered "God save the queen" at the close of the 115th Congress in 2017, after announcing that The Donald had won the electoral college. Had Joe prefaced these utterances with "testing, testing one, two, three," we might be more sure they weren't gaffes and that he isn't the Democrat re-incarnation of Jerry Ford.

We took our search to Google Books, hoping to find something through its Library Project. You remember that, don't you? All the fanfare over scanning the world's books onto the Internet so that they could be searched from your browser. No such luck: the copyright laws prevailed. Good thing for that. Which brings us to Google n-grams, a handy tool that searches millions of books (perhaps, collected during the ill-fated Library Project?) for words and phrases, and returns their frequency by year. Search for "pandemic," for example, and you get spikes at 1920, 2008 (remember the "swine flu"), and ... well ... let's just assume 2020, once the books are written on this one.

So, how about "testing, testing one, two, three ...," when did that phrase come about? Best the team from Failure - the Podcast can tell, it was the mid-1940's. World War II, and all that. Sounds about right, doesn't it? You can just imagine a John Wayne character at the mic as he readies to rally the troops for yet another epic battle. (Don't know John Wayne? Think Ronald Regan minus the political years, but with a whole lot more luck at the box office).

Which brings us back to testing. COVID-19, that is. Black gold. Texas tea. (Cue the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme). It's not behind us. Testing, that is. (The hillbillies? Like the 1960s, they _are_ behind us). Sure, the vaccine will help. A whole lot, we hope. But the need for testing? Well, let's just say that serial entrepreneur Sanjay Manandhar has it right when he says "24 hours to get COVID-19 test results? There's got to be a better way!" Who's Sanjay? Have a listen to today's episode of Failure - the Podcast, and find out.

Yup, the team from Failure – the Podcast has been busy, too. End of year, and all that.

When we weren’t worrying about systemic election fraud, it was that “undemocratic coup“ that the New York Post was railing about. But, with vaccine distribution started, the pandemic relief bill signed and the defense bill ... well … we’ll just see…, it’s time to move forward.

We might’ve been busy, but that doesn’t mean that rednose from the north, the old guy and his minions, or even Harry (yeah, you remember him: Jon Lovitz, in SNL’s X-mas special, circa 1989), couldn’t get their jobs done. And, what a gift indeed: Episode #70 of Failure – the Podcast.

In case you really need more proof that civilization is coming to an end — wasn’t our modern-day Nero fiddling on the golf course this past weekend, enough? — have a listen. The witty repartee with Karen Temple, startup guru from U of T (Toronto, that is), is a sure-fire cure to any New Year’s Day hangover. Enjoy!