Pundit Interview
This interview with the pundit from November 2005 courtesy of the folks at fellowshipofreason.com does a pretty good job of going over the battered history of the Mad Pundit project:
Five Questions with Eric Von Haessler
Regular Guy, Mad Pundit
Interview by Dan Barber
Eric Von Haessler is the 41-year-old soft-spoken half of the popular morning radio show The Regular Guys, which airs weekday mornings on Atlanta's 96 Rock. Eric had a tumultuous upbringing, moving from city to city but he claims Rochester, NY as his hometown. He began what he calls his angry phase at age 12, when his gypsy-hearted father abandoned the family. Eric dropped out of high school and worked in the restaurant business for a while.
His life changed when he stumbled into a comedy club, meeting Larry Wachs (the other half of The Regular Guys). Eric credits Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which he read at the age of 29, for helping him develop productive habits. "Im glad I kicked the anger," he jokes. "Now Im just neurotic."
Eric is married to his first love, and has two boys. His latest project is The Mad Pundit (which is both a radio show and a web log), which allows him to explore his political and social views - including his non-theistic beliefs - in a more personal way. Visit MadPundit.com, or listen every Saturday at 1pm on WGST 640 AM (which is also available live on the internet at WGST.com).
Q: Success is not an accident, so I would like to know what books, movies, or people have inspired you to (as you say in your bio) "think on your own terms." How did that lead to your success?
Eric: I discovered my older brother's albums when I was 10 years old. Because I liked the album cover I sat and listened to Sgt. Pepper's from end to end. Music has been the most important entertainment for me since. I listen to music constantly. I like too many artists to name but The Beatles, R.E.M., Peter Gabriel, Big Star, Talking Heads, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan are a few - and Dylan's Blonde on Blonde is my favorite album.
Ayn Rand, while wrong about many things, has influenced me tremendously with the things that she was right about. To clarify, I think she was right on the bedrock issues of philosophy and the mind, but turned goofy in her ongoing critique of everything in existence. Her opinion, for example, that movies are art but photography isnt is plainly absurd.
My favorite author is Dostoyevsky because I somehow resemble every character in every story he's ever written. My favorite book is his best work: The Brothers Karamazov.
Q: Youve been very successful with The Regular Guys. How does the additional Mad Pundit "project" serve you in this stage of your life? How did you arrive at the idea? Does it serve a particular personal mission?
Eric: Financial success isnt necessarily tied to the things you're most interested in, or the things you're most interested in doing. This is probably true for most people, no matter their job, and it's no different for me. The Regular Guys is a great gig in many ways but its a set thing. The show has a particular attitude and culture that are cemented and will never change - which is good for the show because it remains consistent to the listener, but it doesnt work all that well for me personally because I really like to work on new and different things. In a perfect world I would work on a project by project basis, throwing myself into something for a few months until it's complete, then moving on to the next project. But it's not a perfect world, and so far the marketplace has only seen fit to reward me for the work I do in the rock morning-show format.
To ease the frustration I negotiated a weekly show on sister station WGST-AM into my 96 Rock contract. This means that you can hear the closest thing to a ratings-proof show if you tune into The Mad Pundit Show on Saturdays at 1pm.
The idea for the WGST show grew out of the website, and the idea for the website was to have a place where I could explore some of the more abstract comedy ideas and political thoughts that were rolling around my mind at the time. I began working with Greg Russ, who started as a Regular Guys intern and had since mutated into Dekker on another sister station called The Buzz, and we liked writing together so I began to conceive of the website as a place to present our comedy material and my political commentary in one place. Then I brought in Autumn Pritts, another former intern, to help us get it all done and the three of us took on the project with a passion.
Everything went pretty well until The Regular Guys were tossed off the air [in March 2004, for allegedly violating FCC obscenity regulations, after a mishandled gag playing backward porn] just a month after [The Mad Pundit] went online and the promotional lights pretty much went out. We kept [the Mad Pundit website] alive and kicking for a good long time, then it slowly became a mess when I returned to 96 Rock [in April 2005] and Dekker landed a gig at 99X. But at least we have the little Saturday radio show, and we're actually about to re-ignite the website in a few weeks.
Q: Your latest article is entitled "The Morality of Looting". What are your thoughts about morality - what is it exactly? And why is it (or is it not) a valuable concept?
Eric: Im nothing more than a dime-store philosopher but I think morality is the choice to do things as you know them to be right. The problem is that different types of people are raised to believe different things about what is wrong and what is right. So morality has no value if it isn't grounded in a sound philosophy. But it has to be a sound philosophy sought out by the individual and not just a handed-down set of inter-generational moral values that one parrots for life.
Q: You have positioned yourself to be an opinion leader here in the South, and you have also been quite open about your atheism. How has that admission affected your progress in achieving your personal goals? Has it helped, or hindered?
Eric: I don't even know if I'm an actual atheist. All I know is that I don't believe any story about the origins of creation or the destiny of man that I've ever been told by any scripture I've ever been exposed to. I dont feel qualified to say what is or isn't going to happen when we die, but I suspect it's a lot like before we were born: pure nothing. But I could be wrong.
Being out of the closet about my strong non-belief has helped me immeasurably personally by allowing me to be comfortable with myself and my public image. I'm sure it has hurt my PR on some level but I've never been confronted by a lunatic - and that's all I would worry about from those folks. It's okay for people to hate me, so long as they stay away from me.
Q: What are your thoughts on the future of modern religion? Where do you think we go from here?
Eric: I don't have a very good understanding of modern religion. It really does strike me as anachronistic at this point. It's the mathematicians and scientists that have led us into the modern age, not the shamanistic types. It's all voodoo to me. I have a personal preference toward Toa-ism because it is a philosophy of living and doesn't predict the afterlife. Modern religion has had to make way and moderate their teachings continually since they lost the power to persecute the Einsteins of the world.
Five Questions with Eric Von Haessler
Regular Guy, Mad Pundit
Interview by Dan Barber
Eric Von Haessler is the 41-year-old soft-spoken half of the popular morning radio show The Regular Guys, which airs weekday mornings on Atlanta's 96 Rock. Eric had a tumultuous upbringing, moving from city to city but he claims Rochester, NY as his hometown. He began what he calls his angry phase at age 12, when his gypsy-hearted father abandoned the family. Eric dropped out of high school and worked in the restaurant business for a while.
His life changed when he stumbled into a comedy club, meeting Larry Wachs (the other half of The Regular Guys). Eric credits Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which he read at the age of 29, for helping him develop productive habits. "Im glad I kicked the anger," he jokes. "Now Im just neurotic."
Eric is married to his first love, and has two boys. His latest project is The Mad Pundit (which is both a radio show and a web log), which allows him to explore his political and social views - including his non-theistic beliefs - in a more personal way. Visit MadPundit.com, or listen every Saturday at 1pm on WGST 640 AM (which is also available live on the internet at WGST.com).
Q: Success is not an accident, so I would like to know what books, movies, or people have inspired you to (as you say in your bio) "think on your own terms." How did that lead to your success?
Eric: I discovered my older brother's albums when I was 10 years old. Because I liked the album cover I sat and listened to Sgt. Pepper's from end to end. Music has been the most important entertainment for me since. I listen to music constantly. I like too many artists to name but The Beatles, R.E.M., Peter Gabriel, Big Star, Talking Heads, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan are a few - and Dylan's Blonde on Blonde is my favorite album.
Ayn Rand, while wrong about many things, has influenced me tremendously with the things that she was right about. To clarify, I think she was right on the bedrock issues of philosophy and the mind, but turned goofy in her ongoing critique of everything in existence. Her opinion, for example, that movies are art but photography isnt is plainly absurd.
My favorite author is Dostoyevsky because I somehow resemble every character in every story he's ever written. My favorite book is his best work: The Brothers Karamazov.
Q: Youve been very successful with The Regular Guys. How does the additional Mad Pundit "project" serve you in this stage of your life? How did you arrive at the idea? Does it serve a particular personal mission?
Eric: Financial success isnt necessarily tied to the things you're most interested in, or the things you're most interested in doing. This is probably true for most people, no matter their job, and it's no different for me. The Regular Guys is a great gig in many ways but its a set thing. The show has a particular attitude and culture that are cemented and will never change - which is good for the show because it remains consistent to the listener, but it doesnt work all that well for me personally because I really like to work on new and different things. In a perfect world I would work on a project by project basis, throwing myself into something for a few months until it's complete, then moving on to the next project. But it's not a perfect world, and so far the marketplace has only seen fit to reward me for the work I do in the rock morning-show format.
To ease the frustration I negotiated a weekly show on sister station WGST-AM into my 96 Rock contract. This means that you can hear the closest thing to a ratings-proof show if you tune into The Mad Pundit Show on Saturdays at 1pm.
The idea for the WGST show grew out of the website, and the idea for the website was to have a place where I could explore some of the more abstract comedy ideas and political thoughts that were rolling around my mind at the time. I began working with Greg Russ, who started as a Regular Guys intern and had since mutated into Dekker on another sister station called The Buzz, and we liked writing together so I began to conceive of the website as a place to present our comedy material and my political commentary in one place. Then I brought in Autumn Pritts, another former intern, to help us get it all done and the three of us took on the project with a passion.
Everything went pretty well until The Regular Guys were tossed off the air [in March 2004, for allegedly violating FCC obscenity regulations, after a mishandled gag playing backward porn] just a month after [The Mad Pundit] went online and the promotional lights pretty much went out. We kept [the Mad Pundit website] alive and kicking for a good long time, then it slowly became a mess when I returned to 96 Rock [in April 2005] and Dekker landed a gig at 99X. But at least we have the little Saturday radio show, and we're actually about to re-ignite the website in a few weeks.
Q: Your latest article is entitled "The Morality of Looting". What are your thoughts about morality - what is it exactly? And why is it (or is it not) a valuable concept?
Eric: Im nothing more than a dime-store philosopher but I think morality is the choice to do things as you know them to be right. The problem is that different types of people are raised to believe different things about what is wrong and what is right. So morality has no value if it isn't grounded in a sound philosophy. But it has to be a sound philosophy sought out by the individual and not just a handed-down set of inter-generational moral values that one parrots for life.
Q: You have positioned yourself to be an opinion leader here in the South, and you have also been quite open about your atheism. How has that admission affected your progress in achieving your personal goals? Has it helped, or hindered?
Eric: I don't even know if I'm an actual atheist. All I know is that I don't believe any story about the origins of creation or the destiny of man that I've ever been told by any scripture I've ever been exposed to. I dont feel qualified to say what is or isn't going to happen when we die, but I suspect it's a lot like before we were born: pure nothing. But I could be wrong.
Being out of the closet about my strong non-belief has helped me immeasurably personally by allowing me to be comfortable with myself and my public image. I'm sure it has hurt my PR on some level but I've never been confronted by a lunatic - and that's all I would worry about from those folks. It's okay for people to hate me, so long as they stay away from me.
Q: What are your thoughts on the future of modern religion? Where do you think we go from here?
Eric: I don't have a very good understanding of modern religion. It really does strike me as anachronistic at this point. It's the mathematicians and scientists that have led us into the modern age, not the shamanistic types. It's all voodoo to me. I have a personal preference toward Toa-ism because it is a philosophy of living and doesn't predict the afterlife. Modern religion has had to make way and moderate their teachings continually since they lost the power to persecute the Einsteins of the world.
posted by ericvon at 2:42 PM
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