Live From The 405 Podcast · Luke Allen, Stand Up Comic & Comedy Writer

Live From The 405, Episode 530

·1 hr 57 min·5 clips

A Billy Joel documentary changed how Luke hears songs he used to hate.

1. Live From The 405 Podcast, Episode 530 follows Luke Allen recording from Cheektowaga, New York, after his microphone battery failed and delayed the show by 90 minutes. 2. Luke Allen is the host, and he matters here because the entire episode is built around his Buffalo trip, movie opinions, and family outings. 3. The episode is for hearing Luke move from technical mishaps to movie complaints, then into a Billy Joel documentary that changed how he hears songs he used to hate. 4. Luke says he drove to Guitar Center, checked XLR cables, and found that an AA battery in his Audio-Technica microphone had died after six months. 5. He says the battery failure caused the mic to slowly lose quality instead of cutting out all at once, which he compares to “some 80s Walkman tech shit.” 6. He complains that he is “always sick” when he comes back to Buffalo and says urgent care diagnosed him with bronchitis. 7. He says the doctor gave him “a battery of meds” and that he could already feel a difference a few hours later. 8. Luke argues that Christmas movies have disappeared from theatrical release, and he points to the Jack Black and Paul Rudd Anaconda remake as a bad recent example. 9. He says the trailer looked terrible, Rotten Tomatoes landed around 40 percent, and the film “crashed and burned” at the box office. 10. He also says studios now cut trailers for movies that are at least nine months away, including a Maggie Gyllenhaal Frankenstein project and a John Madden film for Amazon Prime. 11. Luke says James Cameron’s Avatar films have become a sign of “civilization crumble” because audiences still pay to see them. 12. He says Avatar 3: Fire and Ash did the least well of the trilogy but still earned enough to keep the series alive. 13. He brings up Heat 2 and says the rumor is that Leonardo DiCaprio will play Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna in the flashbacks. 14. Luke argues that DiCaprio does not look like Pacino and says the casting would be distracting because DiCaprio is already a major star. 15. He says he used to dislike DiCaprio in most roles, but One Battle After Another made him reconsider because the performance fit a quirky character better than a leading-man part. 16. Luke and his family go to an axe-throwing venue near his mother’s house, and he says the paperwork took about 25 minutes before he entered the cage. 17. He describes the activity as “100% analog,” with painted rings on wood targets and dry-erase scoring, and says it felt like “early seventies fun.” 18. He then describes Drive Shack as a three-story driving range where his first shot went about 180 feet and later shots went 180 to 200 yards. 19. Luke says a Billy Joel HBO documentary made him appreciate songs he used to hate because it showed the emotional history behind them. 20. Anyone who likes movie talk, family stories, or Billy Joel will have plenty here, while listeners wanting a tightly edited segment may skip it.

As heard by us

A scrappy solo monologue built around a dead microphone battery and a long run of complaints.

This episode is a messy solo monologue, and that is most of the point. It moves fast through a dead microphone battery, repeated level checks, a run to Guitar Center, and then a long gripe about Billy Joel and Trump.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a chaotic monologue that starts with dead mic batteries and ends in a furious political rant.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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