If you knew a guy who had planned a break-in, held his hand over a flame for a period of time that should sear skin, he’s probably the last guy in the world you’d want to piss off. Bob Cesca was an intern for the Don and Mike Show and worked on the other side of the glass from G. Gordon Liddy, who had his own radio show. Liddy was infamous with a type of parlor trick. He’d hold his hand over a flame for probably 30 seconds before it got to be too much for him.
“When asked what the trick was with the flame, Liddy emotionlessly replied, ‘The ‘trick is not minding.’
Bob Cesca hosts The Bob Cesca Show on the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network.
As an intern at WJFK-FM in 1993, Cesca explained one early morning he was busy getting Buzz Burbank’s news ready to go for the morning show. Liddy did his on the opposite side of the glass
“Even though I disagreed with him on everything, Liddy was a historical figure, the architect of the Watergate break-in. It was still G. Gordon Liddy.”
Cesca was 6’4 and wiry. Liddy had taken to calling Cesca ‘High Pockets.’ “He’d say, ‘Oh, High Pockets is laughing at something over there.”
Buzz Burbank proudly displayed an autographed photo of David Letterman. Liddy came into the studio one day out of the blue, and asked Cesca to take it down. He suggested it was distracting to him.
“I told him the photo wasn’t mine and I could not take it down without Mike’s permission. He made a noise that sounded like a penguin, and waddled away.
He said Letterman’s picture was a smiling idiot.
Cesca told Buzz, Don, and Mike about the photo incident, and that began a feud between the shows.
“To torture Liddy, we came up with an idea for a prank. We made dozens of copies of the photo at different sizes. We cut out the heads and put them all over the building. On walls, in the bathroom, on a Ficus tree. We even put one on the inside of the elevator door at eye level.”
While the prank was fun, Cesca said he pretty much feared for his life from that point on.
“If he came into the urinal while I was there, I think I would have been too scared to pee. I heard he carried a knife.”
Cesca is an extremely creative guy. He came up with the hilarious Alex Jones Puppet Show. He spent 12 years in cartoon animation, doing character voices, and radio bits. Some have been used on Stephanie Miller’s show. Some of the bits he uses on his own show.
“Doing voices has always been part of what I do,” Cesca said. “Somehow, without a whole lot of effort, I was able to conjure Alex Jones’ voice. I don’t think I could have done it when I smoked. Since I quit smoking, it has come a lot easier. Too easy. It’s kind of scary as I find myself walking around my house doing Alex Jones’ voice.”
There are lines that broadcasters cross that listeners might object to. When Cesca started criticizing Alex Jones on his show he got a tidal wave of complaints.
“I’ve been grappling with those types of questions for years,” Cesca said. “Not just my own instincts but the preferences of my audience. People asked me, ‘Bob, why don’t you ignore that person?’ Or, ‘Bob, why do you amplify a guy like Alex Jones?’”
Cesca said it’s his job to debunk what people like Jones say. Cesca believes it’s his duty to ridicule them when the situation warrants. He said blatantly incorrect stories come with a side-effect.
“I’m not amplifying their voices, they already are who they are,” Cesca explained. “To paraphrase John Oliver when people give him heat when he talks about Tucker Carlson–Alex Jones is already famous (or infamous) and nothing he says is going to make him more famous or disliked. At least not with a liberal audience. With Alex Jones, I’m going to ridicule the f—out of this guy. Arming my audience with everything I can. That’s my job.”
Cesca likes to prepare his audience for the real threat of Alex Jones and his ilk. When he was first on Stephanie Miller’s show, he said there was a guy named Dan Bidondi, possibly the dumbest person he’d ever met in politics.
“George Santos is a member of MENSA compared to this guy,” Cesca explained. “We were relentless on him. He said horrendous things. We had him on the show in 2015 where he said he wanted to pack up a truck with C4 and drive into an abortion clinic. That’s the very real threat he represented.”
Cesca is a regular contributor to The Stephanie Miller Show, and writer for The Banter newsletter. Cesca’s show combines funny liberal political talk from podcasters knee-deep in the trenches of the American political debate.
Born in D.C. in 1971, Cesca said he and his family always enjoyed political discourse.
“As far as right-wing talk show hosts go, a lot of them are ex-morning drive guys, pretty much across the board.”
Cesca said a lot of the current Republican news talkers made the transition from FM morning radio to AM conservative talk as a career move that didn’t reflect their values. Some probably figured this was where the money was going since personality-driven radio on FM was dying.
“To make the move in formats many of them adopted the persona of right-wing screechers. When people are not coming from an honest place, that bothers me. They must think that is where the easiest paycheck is for them to stay in the game.”
Cesca said his show is talk radio format with a couple of commercials breaks.
“We play independent music out of breaks for around 40 seconds. In return, I plug their music on the music download sites. At the end of the month, I’ll do a countdown playlist of all the songs I’d played for that month. Indie music has become a staple of my show.”
Cesca said he wouldn’t exist at his current level without the support of Stephanie Miller and income earned through Patreon, a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service.
“It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income,” Cesca explained. “Because of Patreon, I was able to build a regular income. I’m certainly not wealthy, but I’ve been able to build up a strong subscriber base. I estimate about 1,400 paying subscribers.”
Cesca also explained it’s a great way to stay in touch with subscribers through email blasts. The new format has allowed him to get constructive feedback from listeners.
“We are able to create new connections you couldn’t have before.”
When Cesca worked in cartoons and voicing he said it was always a big challenge to get paid for work already performed. Always a fight chasing after money. Patreon does the ‘dirty work’ for you.
“Without Patreon, you’re always chasing people for revenue, trying to collect from advertisers,” Cesca said. “You never knew if the checks were coming in, always trying to stay alive a little longer. With Patreon I can focus on content and product.”
His parents worked for the federal government.
“Politics wasn’t necessarily something we talked about at the dinner table,” he said. “It was more because of the proximity to D.C. that inspired me to study politics. It could be very addictive. When I was in high school modern punditry was in its infancy with the McLaughlin Group, and Morton Downey Jr.
“I think I knew since I was 10 years-old that I wanted to be on radio. I wasn’t convinced I could do it and my voice hadn’t changed. I hoped it would. I’d watched WKRP in Cincinnati and wanted to do what Johnny Fever was doing.”
His influences include Don Geronimo, who currently hosts the morning show at Big100 in D.C., and he was into the funny guys like David Letterman, Howard Stern, and Saturday Night Live. Cesca attended Kutztown University where he served as editor and chief at The Keystone campus newspaper and hosted the daily morning show at the campus radio station.
When he graduated from Kutztown he went to Reading, PA to work at WEEU, an AM station. After that, it was a gig in Allentown at B104. The program director felt Cesca’s name was ‘too ethnic’ sounding for their demographic.
“He asked me if I had any ideas for a name, but I had nothing,” Cesca said.
The PD said since Cesca was tall, how about Stretch Cunningham? Cesca said he nodded with a straight face because he needed health insurance.
When he first appeared on Stephanie Miller’s show Cesca said they’d talk about stuff he’d written. He would inject his personality into the cast and crew of her show.
“We’d talk about something I tweeted. I wrote for Salon at the time, now I write for Banter, so we talk about that stuff. There is a strong rapport between the two with a lot of things in common. Stephanie is a great broadcaster. I feel liberal talk radio could be more successful than it is. If more talk shows took on Stephanie Miller’s humor and entertainment, we might see more.”
Cesca said what he and Stephanie have most in common is the way they construct their individual shows.
“We both come from a morning radio background, which is rare in liberal podcasting.”
He said Stephanie Miller not only has a sizable audience, she has the most loyal audience Cesca has ever seen. When she tells her audience to do something, they do.
“Before going on her show I had a decent sized audience,” Cesca explained. “Once I was endorsed by Stephanie it was a huge boost to my show. I’d say a seventy-five percent increase. Absolutely invaluable. I don’t know if I’d have had the same longevity as I’ve had without her.”
Both are sort of old school. Miller does a lot of sound effects, drop ins. The two will freely exchange the funniest ones.
“She might ask me for something I’ve used. We have an ongoing content exchange.”
Why can’t we get more shows like Cesca’s and Miller’s?
“I think it’s because of a number of things,” Cesca began. “Not a lot of syndicators will take on our kind of show. You don’t find a lot of funny liberals on the radio. Air America took a shot at it with Marc Maron and Al Franken.”
On terrestrial radio, Cesca said he thinks it was a concern that being flippant about serious issues would turn off a liberal audience.
Regarding his on-air persona, Cesca has taken a nuanced approach.
“I’m not always a rah-rah, go team guy. I approach everything on a case by case basis. I mix news with silly bits.”
How important is it to include humor in a show?
“I think it’s a little more important to Stephanie than it is to me,” Cesca explained. “First, she’s funnier than I am. Our personalities tend to drive the more comedic aspect of content. I think it’s extraordinarily important. I have to do my show within my own form, my own jokes, reflections of my personality. Doing what comes naturally to me.”
