Joe Raiola has spent 46 years turning a grief-stricken gathering after John Lennon's death into a benefit concert that funds free creative-arts programs for public school kids and cancer patients. He talks with Sean Martin about that work, his 33 years shaping American satire as an editor at MAD Magazine, and why he still believes music and comedy can get people to give a damn.
Joe Raiola is President and Artistic Director of Theatre Within, the nonprofit behind the Annual John Lennon Tribute, which he has produced since shortly after Lennon's death in December 1980. What began as an informal community gathering of poets, storytellers, and musicians grieving a neighbor has grown into one of New York City's most significant annual benefit concerts, and the only ongoing John Lennon tribute in North America or Europe officially sanctioned by Yoko Ono. This year's 46th edition takes place November 21 at Town Hall, honoring Cyndi Lauper.
The tribute funds Theatre Within's core mission: bringing free programs in creative expression and mindfulness to two communities in need. The John Lennon Real Love Project brings Lennon's music and life story into public elementary and middle schools, where each class writes and records its own verse of "Real Love" over Lennon's original piano track, building a version of the song that belongs entirely to that school. A parallel program serves the cancer community with songwriting workshops for children, teens, and adults, alongside creative writing, visual arts, photography, and meditation programs, including the MAD Art Workshop, led by longtime MAD art director Sam Viviano.
Raiola also spent 33 years as an editor at MAD Magazine, work that shaped a generation of satirists, including Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, both of whom Raiola says drew on the magazine's influence before either had a show of their own. He speaks candidly about what was lost when the magazine's ownership relocated production to California in 2017 with an entirely new staff, folding the relaunch after roughly sixteen months, and about why he still believes in the tactile, patient experience of a physical magazine or a vinyl record in a culture that increasingly wants everything instantly.
The conversation also touches on where AI-generated performance fits into all of this, including an uncannily convincing AI vocalist Raiola has been following. But the heart of the conversation is Raiola's answer to the question he says sits behind everything Theatre Within does: what was John Lennon's essential message, if not to give a damn?
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine, Studio C60, and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast & Music Evolves Podcast | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com/
Joe Raiola, President and Artistic Director of Theatre Within, longtime editor of MAD Magazine, and producer of the Annual John Lennon Tribute | Website: https://www.joeraiola.com
Theatre Within | https://www.theatrewithin.org
The Annual John Lennon Tribute | https://www.lennontribute.org
Joe Raiola | https://www.joeraiola.com
Music Evolves Podcast | https://www.seanmartin.com/podcasts#musicevolves
Music Evolves: Sonic Frontiers Newsletter | https://re4.ms/sfn
joe raiola, theatre within, john lennon tribute, mad magazine, real love project, cyndi lauper, songwriting workshops, cancer community programs, satire, comedy, sean martin, music evolves, music podcast, music and technology podcast
Giving a Damn: Joe Raiola on 46 Years of John Lennon, MAD Magazine, and Music That Heals | A Music Evolves Conversation with Joe Raiola, President and Artistic Director of Theatre Within
[00:00:40]Joe Raiola: Why do you wanna talk to me exactly? What did you...
[00:01:32]Sean Martin: So you're, I mean, you're the perfect person in my opinion. How music... what changes, this, and helps us. And, of course, I have some thoughts on technology replacing the human element of things, which...
[00:01:50]Joe Raiola: Yeah,
[00:01:51]Sean Martin: we'll pick on some of that. Yeah. But,
[00:01:53]Joe Raiola: do you wanna talk Eddie, Eddie, Eddie Dalton,
[00:01:57]Sean Martin: Talk about whatever you want.
[00:01:58]Joe Raiola: You know, Eddie Dalton is...
[00:02:00]Sean Martin: I dunno,
[00:02:03]Joe Raiola: Eddie Dalton is a, um. I think he had like 10 top...
[00:02:08]Sean Martin: Should we start
[00:02:09]Joe Raiola: Any? Anytime you want.
[00:02:10]Sean Martin: Let's, let's start. We're rolling.
[00:02:11]Joe Raiola: We're rolling. Okay.
[00:02:13]Sean Martin: All right, here we go.
[00:02:13]Joe Raiola: So you don't know who Eddie Dalton is?
[00:02:15]Sean Martin: I dunno who Eddie Dalton is.
[00:02:16]Joe Raiola: Eddie Dalton is a phenomenon, a music phenomenon. You had something like 10 singles in the top 100. I think his album was in the top five.
[00:02:27]Sean Martin: Okay.
[00:02:28]Joe Raiola: Recently a sensation. Phenomenal R&B vocalist.
[00:02:38]Sean Martin: I probably know his work, if not his name. I'm horrible with names, by the way.
[00:02:42]Joe Raiola: He's an AI.
[00:02:44]Sean Martin: Ah, there you go.
[00:02:45]Joe Raiola: He's an AI.
[00:02:46]Sean Martin: Could be her name, its name. There you go.
[00:02:49]Joe Raiola: So he sounds something like Otis Redding and James Brown, and Ben E. King, except he doesn't sound like them, he sounds something like them. And the tip off that Eddie Dalton is not human: he appears to be around, I don't know, his late sixties, or maybe 70. Well, how many people burst onto the scene at that age? Who bursts onto the scene at 65?
[00:03:19]Sean Martin: I'm getting there.
[00:03:21]Joe Raiola: That's the tip off that he's fake.
[00:03:24]Sean Martin: Right?
[00:03:26]Joe Raiola: There are a number of problems with Eddie Dalton. One is, most people probably don't know he's fake, but that's not the least of the problems with Eddie Dalton. I mean, for me, the big problem with Eddie Dalton is that he's good.
[00:03:45]Sean Martin: Hmm?
[00:03:46]Joe Raiola: He's good.
[00:03:47]Sean Martin: He's good too. Too good, maybe.
[00:03:50]Joe Raiola: He's too good. And people may not care. How important is it to us, anyway, that the music we listen to is made by a human being? Is that really important?
[00:04:04]Sean Martin: I dunno. I don't know. We're gonna talk about that. But you're a real human, Mr. Joe.
[00:04:10]Joe Raiola: I am. There's no AI version of me yet.
[00:04:15]Sean Martin: That's good. Stay tuned. Alright, well, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here in person. I've seen you a few times as an MC of some of the benefits that you put on, and yeah, I love what you're doing. You have your hands in all kinds of fun things. Some — I've known you, you tip me off to a new one today. You're involved with, um, and very much up my alley, how art in general, music even more specifically, can help shape how a human feels and functions in a world on their own and as part of society. And that's even more important, I think, when somebody's going through, or has gone through, a troubling time. And you do a lot of work with folks who have cancer, have lost a relative due to cancer, and you leverage music. And I learned wrestling
[00:05:18]Joe Raiola: and,
[00:05:18]Sean Martin: and drawing, and all kinds of fun things to do that. So I'll put that there. You also have a wonderful career with MAD that you were part of, MAD Magazine. So we'll touch on that a little bit as well. But maybe just in your own words, a few things folks should know about you, and yeah, just to kind of set the stage for who you are, what we're gonna talk about today.
[00:05:50]Joe Raiola: Well, I've spent my life in comedy and music. I was at MAD — I was an editor at MAD for 33 years, as I like to say. Jesus died at 33, and so did my career at MAD. But yeah, I was at MAD as an editor from 1985 to 2017, till the magazine packed up and moved west, and that ill-fated move. And I've been producing the annual John Lennon tribute since 1981, and I do the math — this is the 46th year of that now. And that's something that's grown over time into a fairly significant New York City annual event. And it's a charity concert. It's a benefit for the not-for-profit I run, which is called Theatre Within.
[00:06:54]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:06:55]Joe Raiola: And we, in a nutshell, bring programs in the creative arts and mindfulness, which we like to say, to two communities in need. And we're focused pretty much these days on two communities: the cancer community and public elementary schools.
[00:07:17]Joe Raiola: Those are the two communities that we serve with our programs, and the Lennon tribute and other concerts that I produce through Theatre Within raise funds to help make those programs possible. So that's kind of a nutshell.
[00:07:35]Sean Martin: Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's a good summary. So where do we start? Let's start with the John Lennon tribute. That's the longest running — well, we'll touch on MAD at the end — but clearly John Lennon's music, tried and true, a lot of people love it. A good portion of it is rooted in movements: creating an environment or a feeling that gets people to think, and grab onto a belief they have, and take action, hopefully, based on that. How has — because 46 years —
[00:08:20]Joe Raiola: Yeah.
[00:08:21]Sean Martin: How has the music — the society, has changed, people in society even. I went last year, old to young people in the audience at this tribute, I hope to go again this year. How has the audience changed in terms of their reception to John's music? Because you get to see from the stage — you're up there, you get to see the audience and hear how they respond to the music that's played. So how has that changed?
[00:08:55]Joe Raiola: You know, it's a long, expansive time — 46 years since John died. And the early tributes, which weren't full-blown concerts — in those early days it was really produced by the Theatre Within workshop. It was a community event. It was a gathering of poets and storytellers and some musicians, and those early tributes were kind of grief sessions.
[00:09:22]Sean Martin: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:23]Joe Raiola: It was just so sad.
[00:09:26]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:09:27]Joe Raiola: John's death and how it impacted us. The theater was a community in those days — we were the experimental theater group on 72nd Street, just down the block from the Dakota. So John and Yoko were neighbors, so we had that connection with them beyond their celebrity.
[00:09:50]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:09:51]Joe Raiola: And we just took John's death really badly, and, as I say, those early events were very sad, but things change over time. There's a timeless quality to all great music and all great songs, and — the powerful thing, arguably, in some respects the unfortunate thing, is that Lennon's music is still so resonant. If you've been to the tribute, you know this: we don't serve up nostalgia. That's not what the evening is about. It's about bringing John and his music into the present.
[00:10:51]Sean Martin: True.
[00:10:51]Joe Raiola: And in terms of how audiences respond to it, I think to a degree it depends on your age. If you grew up with the Beatles and Lennon — a couple years ago we had Graham Nash and Judy Collins, and Art Garfunkel showed up as a surprise guest, and they sang “Imagine” together. There were people crying.
[00:11:09]Sean Martin: I was gonna say, that would drive me to tears for sure.
[00:11:12]Joe Raiola: There are people crying in that. Now, it's hard to articulate why — seeing their heroes together, singing this song, touches a deep chord. The Lennon tribute — one of the reasons I've been doing it for so long is because I'm always somewhat amazed myself at what happens in that room. It's kind of like a musical seance,
[00:11:48]Sean Martin: right?
[00:11:48]Joe Raiola: If there's — do you have any doubt that the spirit lives, showing up at the annual John Lennon tribute?
[00:11:58]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:11:58]Joe Raiola: I think what happens at that event is somewhat unique. Everyone walks into that room with a relationship with this Lennon guy. A lot of us, again, especially those who grew up with the Beatles, miss him.
[00:12:27]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:12:28]Joe Raiola: They want to feel their connection.
[00:12:34]Sean Martin: Mm.
[00:12:34]Joe Raiola: It's tender. This music lives in their hearts. Their memories of Lennon live in their hearts. And it's a powerful thing.
[00:12:46]Sean Martin: It's —
[00:12:46]Joe Raiola: — to hear all this music and how it hits us now.
[00:12:56]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:12:56]Joe Raiola: And it is damn powerful.
[00:12:58]Sean Martin: And speaking of that — now, I know you mentioned some legends that come and sing, but you also bring new artists onto the scene who, regardless of how long they've been doing it, bring their own taste and flare to it as well. Maybe touch on that — how you bring different folks together for this.
[00:13:23]Joe Raiola: Yeah, I mean, I am very fortunate — Theatre Within is very fortunate — that we have really developed, over the years, a community of artists in New York who love what we do and support what we do. Joan Osborne comes to mind. I think she's performed in many of the Lennon tributes — she first did it in 2009, and she was recently in our Bob Dylan,
[00:14:01]Sean Martin: uh,
[00:14:02]Joe Raiola: Paul Simon, our 85th birthday celebration, which took place in June at Symphony Space — Joan was part of that. And we really do try to mix it up. There was one year — I forget which — we actually had artists in the lineup in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and seventies, just to show the diversity in the generations. It doesn't always come together that way. Older artists' fan bases have more money — there are some exceptions to that rule. So I think we lean a little bit toward older artists, but we're always on the lookout to bring new people in. One of the things that's always tickled me — we had Anais Mitchell in the tribute in 2005. This is before Hadestown, before she became, you know, before all those Tony Awards. And she was pretty young — she must have been in her twenties when she did the tribute, and went on to have this fantastic career. There are a couple other examples of that, but that's probably my favorite one. So that's always good — to try to get new people in who can approach Lennon and his music from a totally different generational perspective.
[00:16:00]Sean Martin: Yeah. So I'm gonna go to the other side of it, 'cause it's a fundraiser that helps to do some things, but maybe we can touch on this next point as part of that as well. Just your thoughts on — those songs were written by John, and I think generally songwriters tap into deep feelings they have, sometimes dark feelings, and the environment around them, to come up with the lyrics and the songs. You touched on a little of this with the Dalton thing — how do you feel music created with AI can connect with people? Because you said, does it matter if it's real or not?
[00:16:51]Joe Raiola: Well, I mean —
[00:16:52]Sean Martin: your thoughts on —
[00:16:52]Joe Raiola: I mean, it goes well beyond music, of course. The question is — there are certain things, obviously, when you talk about AI, that we care about, and certain things we don't. For example, do you care that an AI wrote your insurance policy? Probably never thought of it, not a big deal. Do we care that an AI made our meal? Do we care that an AI is doing our comedy? Where does it matter
[00:17:40]Sean Martin: Right,
[00:17:40]Joe Raiola: that we're getting something from a human? It's coming for us — we know it's coming for us. I'm just reading this — Elton John is working on a hologram show.
[00:18:08]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:18:09]Joe Raiola: And —
[00:18:10]Sean Martin: so he's fully embracing it —
[00:18:12]Joe Raiola: he knows his time is short.
[00:18:16]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:18:17]Joe Raiola: So if he doesn't work on a hologram show, someone else is gonna work on “Goodbye Yellow Brick” hologram. Someone else is gonna do it.
[00:18:24]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:18:25]Joe Raiola: You know — there was the Emerson, Lake & Palmer show. I don't know if it's still touring — I think the only one left is Palmer; Emerson and Lake are gone. So Palmer is touring with an Emerson, Lake & Palmer show, with Emerson and Lake on screens behind him. I thought they should have called the show not “Emerson or Lake,” but “Palmer.” The Rolling Stones have a new video in which they look like they're 30 — consciously, that's the choice they made — and they're singing the new song. That's the image, that's what they want to do. It's all coming — Humphrey Bogart's gonna be making movies again.
[00:19:31]Sean Martin: Hmm.
[00:19:32]Joe Raiola: I imagine.
[00:19:33]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:19:34]Joe Raiola: The Beatles will tour again. Do we care? Would you be interested — in the comedy world, a number of years ago, someone put out a George Carlin standup special that the Carlin family weren't happy about — Kelly, George's daughter, moved to shut it down. Now, that's one thing,
[00:20:07]Sean Martin: right?
[00:20:07]Joe Raiola: But what if —
[00:20:09]Sean Martin: yeah, what if —
[00:20:09]Joe Raiola: what if the Carlin family wants to do something?
[00:20:12]Sean Martin: right?
[00:20:12]Joe Raiola: It's all going to be possible. I think we just haven't figured this out yet, because my human response is — Leonard Cohen's dead, he's not making any more music. But what if the Leonard Cohen AI —
[00:20:38]Sean Martin: right?
[00:20:38]Joe Raiola: — who's listened to the entire catalog of Leonard Cohen, and read every Leonard Cohen book and every poem, and read everything anyone's ever said about Leonard Cohen, knows Leonard Cohen better than Leonard Cohen did when he was alive — comes out with a new Leonard Cohen album, and it sounds like Leonard Cohen, and it looks like Leonard Cohen, and it's good. Do we care? I don't know that we've figured out the answer to that yet.
[00:21:15]Sean Martin: Yeah, and you brought up the hologram, which totally switched my thinking on this, because in audible form, I don't think I care — I think I prefer to know there was some struggle, some back and forth, and maybe even exposing that in an interview, to say, “this is what I was feeling, this is why it came out this way, and it wasn't perfect the first time, and I rewrote it.” And —
[00:21:50]Joe Raiola: yeah.
[00:21:51]Sean Martin: I think that whole picture is important to me. AI may do that, but it does it in a fraction of the time, and you don't get to see it, in my opinion — and then it's there, might be good, might not be. Right — it starts to lose it. What's the rest of the experience? Is there someone on stage? You mentioned the videos and the holograms — I don't know if it'll have the same feeling. And I think you're the only tribute with Yoko's official support, and I'm wondering — would she want to do one that's all AI? I don't know.
[00:22:43]Joe Raiola: I can't answer that. My understanding is that the Beatles have embraced a lot of new technology — certainly
[00:22:56]Sean Martin: ah, true.
[00:22:56]Joe Raiola: — certainly with the song “Now and Then,” which was the third of three songs Yoko had given the Beatles to complete, of John's. They famously abandoned it — Harrison famously said it was rubbish. But the reason they abandoned it is because they couldn't separate John's vocal from the piano track, and the vocal wasn't of the best quality. Well, with AI technology,
[00:23:35]Sean Martin: right.
[00:23:36]Joe Raiola: they were able to do that. They were able to clean up the vocal, and now it's still Lennon's voice, and it sounds like the Beatles. That's an example of it being embraced.
[00:24:02]Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:24:02]Joe Raiola: And Peter Jackson's done all this stuff — the video for that shows Lennon and Harrison in it, with Ringo and Paul as they are now. I thought that was a little weird — I didn't like the video so much, honestly.
[00:24:21]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:24:21]Joe Raiola: We're in the process of figuring this out. If the hologram was convincing, maybe you'd be fine with it.
[00:24:35]Sean Martin: Yeah,
[00:24:35]Joe Raiola: you might — what is a movie? You go to a movie, and you don't sit there thinking, “this whole thing is fake.” You'd destroy the movie experience if you thought these are just projections on a screen — there's not really a severed horse in that bed scene in The Godfather. It's all fake. If you had that attitude, you couldn't enjoy it. You have to suspend belief to enjoy a book, a song, any of it. The question is, what is a bridge too far? I don't know. The funny thing about Eddie Dalton — one of his songs, I think it's called “Another Day Older,” I forget the name — it's about growing old gracefully.
[00:25:34]Sean Martin: Okay.
[00:25:34]Joe Raiola: So here's this AI singing convincingly about growing old gracefully.
[00:25:43]Sean Martin: Hmm, crazy.
[00:25:46]Joe Raiola: It's a peculiar world we're living in now.
[00:25:52]Sean Martin: So let's talk about — the foundation, Theatre Within, or —
[00:26:02]Joe Raiola: Theatre Within is the not-for-profit
[00:26:06]Sean Martin: right,
[00:26:07]Joe Raiola: behind the annual John Lennon tribute.
[00:26:09]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:26:11]Joe Raiola: So —
[00:26:11]Sean Martin: — which the tribute is a fundraiser for the classroom stuff specifically.
[00:26:17]Joe Raiola: The tribute is a fundraiser for Theatre Within, and all the programs that we do.
[00:26:23]Sean Martin: Okay.
[00:26:23]Joe Raiola: That includes the classroom programs for public schools. The public school program is really — it's one program we do — fittingly called the John Lennon Real Love Project.
[00:26:40]Joe Raiola: And we're actually bringing John's music and life story into elementary schools, some middle schools now — we've been to 35 schools. And the kids get a video — a lot of them, especially now, knew nothing of Lennon or the Beatles. They get a Lennon documentary, they learn about John's life and music and his death as well. And then our teaching artists come into the school, and there's kind of a rap session with these kids in each class — we typically do four classes in each school — and we talk to the kids about love, how it manifests in the school, or how it's not manifesting in the school. And we introduce this song, “Real Love,” and each class writes a verse,
[00:27:46]Sean Martin: right?
[00:27:47]Joe Raiola: They write their own verse, working with a teaching artist, to the song, and then they rehearse it. And then, right in the classroom, we set up our little studio, and they sing it — they sing the verse they wrote, then they sing the chorus, over John's original piano track. So they're singing with John playing, and singing on the chorus with John,
[00:28:14]Sean Martin: right?
[00:28:15]Joe Raiola: — and four different classes repeat that. So we've built the song, with each class contributing a verse, and each class singing on the chorus. And when we're done, we've got essentially a new version of “Real Love,” written by the students of that school.
[00:28:37]Sean Martin: So cool.
[00:28:37]Joe Raiola: And then we make a video of the whole thing and post it on the Lennon tribute YouTube page, and then the school can show it at a graduation or an assembly, or whatever they want to do with it — put it on their website. It's theirs. So that's one of the programs Theatre Within provides that the Lennon tribute helps make possible. For the cancer community, there's a version of the John Lennon Real Love Project too, but that takes the form of a songwriting workshop. We've done that for children, teens and adults — we have an adult program going now where we do about 30 workshops a year with participants, and they're using Lennon as inspiration to write their own songs.
[00:29:25]Sean Martin: Right, so it's not a redo of “Real Love” — it's their own.
[00:29:30]Joe Raiola: Right. Yeah. And that's one of the many programs we have for the cancer community. We do programs in creative writing, visual arts — because of my history at MAD, we do something called the MAD Art Workshop, led by longtime MAD art director Sam Viviano, who was the MAD art director for two decades. We do photography workshops. We do a whole bunch of programs in the creative arts, and some meditation programs, for the cancer community. And sometimes someone will say to me, “what does John Lennon have to do with cancer?” And it's really — what was Lennon's essential message anyway? I think it was to give a damn.
[00:30:12]Sean Martin: Right, give a damn.
[00:30:14]Joe Raiola: To give a damn and —
[00:30:19]Sean Martin: I'll sit back.
[00:30:20]Joe Raiola: — and to manifest love and kindness. Those weren't John's highest values — I mean, he fell short of them, we all do. But if you were to sum up John's work and his life to me, it was — he spent his life searching for love, and losing it, and searching for it, and reflecting on it, and writing about it. And Theatre Within is deeply inspired by him. We're in the business of manifesting love and kindness, and bringing programs in the creative arts to communities in need. It seems pretty Lennon-worthy to me.
[00:31:05]Sean Martin: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So we have a few minutes left — I want to broaden this. You mentioned the MAD stuff, the projects you're working on with that, as part of Theatre Within. Let's harken back to magazine times — my perspective is, get people to laugh, satire, comedy, but also poking at things, again, to get people to think,
[00:31:38]Joe Raiola: yeah,
[00:31:40]Sean Martin: and targeting a younger generation, typically — we talked about this before — parents like it or not, and the view of success was if the parent didn't like it, necessarily. So I guess the question is: how do you view the MAD Magazine era, and the way you approached society and got people to think? Do we have any of that left? Obviously the magazine isn't there, but do we have that sense of satire and comedy, and not being afraid, but also being responsible? I'm packing a lot in there. Your thoughts, in general, on where we stand?
[00:32:27]Joe Raiola: I mean, obviously there's still comedy and satire, and there's still really good comedy and satire out there. I think The Daily Show is still sharp,
[00:32:40]Sean Martin: mm-hmm,
[00:32:41]Joe Raiola: and still meaningful. Jon Stewart — I think it's fair to say he was a big MAD fan, and could talk about how MAD influenced him, long before I was involved with MAD. And Stephen Colbert, famously, a big MAD fan as well. So to whatever extent the magazine helped shape their sensibilities, it's still there. There's still plenty of good comedy out there — Bill Maher is great, Louis C.K., despite his personal travails, is still great. There are many great stand-ups out there. South Park is still sharp. So yeah, there's still healthy satire out there, and MAD's influence — even though MAD, existing now, pretty much only has a reprint magazine — that legendary run from 1952 to 2017 totally transformed American satire and humor. At its best, MAD was utterly unique and fearless, and both stupid and brilliant.
[00:34:25]Sean Martin: And sharp.
[00:34:27]Joe Raiola: Exactly, at the same time.
[00:34:27]Sean Martin: Yeah. Your thoughts on the medium, because obviously sitting with a physical magazine is special, in my opinion.
[00:34:43]Joe Raiola: Yeah.
[00:34:45]Sean Martin: And then —
[00:34:45]Joe Raiola: I mean, I think the whole idea of a magazine, or a book for that matter — I was noticing, on the subway over here, I was looking around, no one was reading a book, no one was reading
[00:35:01]Sean Martin: a book on the subway anymore.
[00:35:02]Joe Raiola: Everyone's got their phone. Yeah — I did think there was a path forward for the magazine, kind of like vinyl — no one needs vinyl,
[00:35:15]Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:35:18]Joe Raiola: but vinyl's kind of a thing,
[00:35:20]Sean Martin: mm-hmm,
[00:35:22]Joe Raiola: even among younger generations — like, “hey, I got this piece of plastic,” and they realize, oh, there's something cool about owning the album, it's mine. And that experience of putting it on a turntable — for younger people, it's not nostalgic. It's nostalgic for a 60- or 70-year-old, but for a 30-year-old doing it, it's not nostalgic. They like it,
[00:35:53]Sean Martin: right?
[00:35:53]Joe Raiola: So I thought, well, maybe there's a forward path for magazines like that, or reading like that — I don't need this, but I like it. I like the feel of it in my hands, I like opening it, I like seeing the art on a page rather than on a screen. And perhaps MAD could have cultivated an audience like that. But the ending of our run was so botched by corporate that it just destroyed any chance, I think, of MAD
[00:36:33]Sean Martin: mm-hmm,
[00:36:34]Joe Raiola: having any further cultural relevancy. It was culturally relevant as long as it was — I don't mean to blow our own horn, but because of the team we had built, and how we kept MAD sharp, and how we kept it politically sharp,
[00:36:51]Sean Martin: mm-hmm,
[00:36:52]Joe Raiola: in 2017, Rolling Stone called MAD the mess magazine of political satire in the country. Maybe there was some picking at the time, I don't want to —
[00:37:02]Sean Martin: take it.
[00:37:03]Joe Raiola: The political satire in MAD was great. And when they moved the magazine out to California with a new staff, they pretty much put the dagger in — they ended all that, and ended up with something that pretty much died after a 16-month experiment. So it was unfortunate, but that's the way it turned out. There's no taking — the idea that you could have taken MAD west with a whole new staff, without anyone who had ever written for the magazine before — was just —
[00:37:43]Sean Martin: and kept it like it was.
[00:37:44]Joe Raiola: There's no better example of corporate hubris than that. It was disastrous.
[00:37:51]Sean Martin: So the other thing, I think, besides physically holding — and I'll wrap in the tribute as well, which is an annual thing, I wait for that — I'm waiting for that experience, waiting for the next MAD Magazine to come out, waiting for the next album to come out, and getting it, going and experiencing it. The delivery now is immediate for a lot of things.
[00:38:21]Joe Raiola: Yeah.
[00:38:22]Sean Martin: Do you think that has an impact on how we absorb things, how we think of things, how we respond to things?
[00:38:31]Joe Raiola: Absolutely.
[00:38:32]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:38:32]Joe Raiola: We are a very impatient culture.
[00:38:37]Sean Martin: Hmm.
[00:38:38]Joe Raiola: Slow wifi — it'll kill me, right? I gotta wait eight seconds for a website to load. Amazon delivery, three minutes —
[00:38:52]Sean Martin: I know, it's supposed to be here 10 minutes ago, right?
[00:38:54]Joe Raiola: Why do I have to wait 48 hours for this? Nobody wants to wait for anything.
[00:39:00]Sean Martin: Right?
[00:39:01]Joe Raiola: Even the idea of putting out a TV show one week at a time — ten episodes, all at once, there they are, binge. We don't want to wait.
[00:39:14]Sean Martin: Right?
[00:39:16]Joe Raiola: We want it all now. The idea of anticipation — this wonderful anticipation — no, no, no, no, no. There's no model in that anymore. That's out the window.
[00:39:38]Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:39:38]Joe Raiola: We're an instant gratification culture.
[00:39:41]Sean Martin: Yep.
[00:39:43]Joe Raiola: We wanna sign up now, we want the benefits now, we hate being put on hold — that's the hell realm.
[00:39:58]Sean Martin: Right.
[00:39:59]Joe Raiola: We're in suspended animation, listening to Enya, while we're waiting to talk to our AI — waiting to talk to anybody. It's an odd world we live in, because it's an age of communication, and yet it's difficult to reach anyone important,
[00:40:25]Sean Martin: right?
[00:40:26]Joe Raiola: In any kind of business, you can't reach an insurance person, you can't reach your doctor, your podiatrist. But call a funeral home — you'll know if they take your call very quickly. The funeral home, they pick up —
[00:40:42]Sean Martin: they haven't automated that yet.
[00:40:43]Joe Raiola: You call the funeral home at midnight — if you leave a message, someone's calling you back by 12:01. “What kind of casket do you need? We'll send it right over.” But there aren't many businesses like that anymore.
[00:40:56]Sean Martin: Joe, so good to meet you and chat with you — you're very inspiring, all that you're doing, and I love that you have a good attitude and have fun with things. And I'm going to patiently wait for the next annual tribute. When is it?
[00:41:19]Joe Raiola: This year is the 46th Annual John Lennon Tribute, with Cyndi Lauper as our honoree, who will be performing. It'll take place at Town Hall on November 21st. Tickets aren't on sale yet, but you can go to lennontribute.org for updates.
[00:41:37]Sean Martin: Yeah, and I will certainly see you there, and follow all that you're doing with Theatre Within — all the good work you're doing there. I'm gonna encourage folks to check out theatrewithin.org as well.
[00:41:48]Joe Raiola: theatrewithin.org, where you can make a donation in support of our
[00:41:51]Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:41:52]Joe Raiola: good work. And lennontribute.org — you can also become a member of Friends of the Annual John Lennon Tribute and get presale access to tickets before they go on sale to the general public. So that's a good place to support Theatre Within and everything we're doing.
[00:42:06]Sean Martin: I'll see you at City Winery.
[00:42:08]Joe Raiola: Yeah — set up for that plug. On September 27th, our next show will be a celebration of Carole King and Joni Mitchell — we'll be presenting Carole's “Tapestry” and Joni's “Ladies of the Canyon” in their entirety,
[00:42:26]Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:42:26]Joe Raiola: from start to finish. Tickets for that are on sale at City Winery.
[00:42:31]Sean Martin: Minus two, 'cause I already have mine.
[00:42:32]Joe Raiola: Cool.
[00:42:33]Sean Martin: Look at that. So Joe, you're amazing. Appreciate you.
[00:42:37]Joe Raiola: Thanks for having me.
[00:42:37]Sean Martin: Thanks for all you've done. Thanks for MAD and all that good stuff as well.
[00:42:42]Joe Raiola: Thanks, Sean.
[00:42:42]Sean Martin: And I think I'm gonna ask my audience to not scroll past this, but pause for a moment and think, and anticipate what might come next — and maybe you do something different after hearing Joe's inspirational story and all the stuff he's working on. So thanks everybody for joining me for this Music Evolves.