We also talk with and hear the music of Nico Muhly, who composed a song suite to accompany Kalman's book. Muhly, only 24 (same as me!), has already worked with artists from Bjork to Philip Glass. You can download our full interview with him (we only feature two brief clips in the show) here.
George Pelecanos is a wonderful writer of mysteries set in Washington DC. His writing reflects a side of DC that's rarely seen in the popular media -- the side that earned it the nickname "Chocolate City." He recently edited a book of short stories about every part of the District, called "D.C. Noir." He's also a writer and producer on the brilliant HBO series "The Wire," and we talk about writing what is essentially a novel for the screen.
There's a nice article in the New York Times today about the great Bob Newhart, who's performing tonight in Brooklyn. For some reason, they went to Bernie Mac for a quote... he delivered a great one:
"A lot of people define courage as being out front and in your face," Mr. Mac said, "but Bob didn't come out of his picture frame for anybody. That bland style, that plaid jacket, with the hair combed to one side over the bald spot — that was Bob. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because it takes courage to be yourself, and he showed everybody that."
I just finished up an interview with writer George Pelecanos, and I have to say I'm *very* excited about tommorow's show. The theme's going to be Elements of Style...
Last week, I had a really fascinating conversation with Maira Kalman, who created an illustrated version of the classic writer's guide "The Elements of Style." When I heard about the book, I was intruiged, and when I saw it, I was sold a bajillion times over. One of the really amazing things about the original Elements of Style is how surprising and funny it is. One of the most wonderful things in writing is extreme pithiness, and EB White had that in spades. Kalman's illustrations bring that to life in amazing ways... the one above is for the entry, "Illusion: see allusion." She had wonderful things to say about it.
Later on today, I'm talking with Nico Muhly, who wrote a song cycle about the book. He's my age (24), and has already worked with John Adams and Bjork. We'll see if there's room for that in the show, otherwise it's going up on the web here. They were nice enough to let me use Nico's music in the show. Here's a beautiful artwork/interview about his work with Bjork.
And as I mentioned earlier, I also got to talk to George Pelecanos. He's a brilliant crime novelist, and a writer/producer for HBO's The Wire, which I'm pretty sure is the best show on television. He just edited a new compilation of stories called "DC Noir," and he's working on The Wire now. I talked to him about both of them. After the interview, I allowed myself a moment to gush... I told him how many copies of his books I'd sold to people when I worked at Borders at 18th & L in DC.
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If you live in LA, prepare for a confluence of comedy forces of such awesome power that even having heard many of them on our show before will not protect you.
The highlights were "Morris Brown" (paying tribute to the college who's marching band is featured on the song), containing an inescapable "My heart is like a marching band..." hook by Purple Ribbon R&B wunderkind Scar, and a woozy, "Whole World"-style banger mixing live drums and loops with juke-joint instrumentation. Both were being considered as lead-off singles to the soundtrack...but then Andre decided he wanted to rap again, and it's back to the lab. ANDRE 3000 IS RAPPING AGAIN. STAY TUNED.
My e-friend Steve Eley hosts a podcast called "Escape Pod," which features readings of science fiction stories. Steve's a real leader in the podcasting community, and he does a great job with the show, which is, last I checked, significantly more popular than The Sound.
I offered to read a story for him, and he provided me with a real doozy. "Craphound" is a story by Boing-Boing blogger (and renowned SF writer) Cory Doctorow about an alien with a flea market fetish, and his fraught relationship with a junk dealer. It touches on themes of authenticity, nostalgia, and cross-cultural communication. It's also very funny. I had a great time reading it.
Ever since my (10-year-old) brother Brendan played the first song his band ever recorded on The Sound of Young America, people have been asking me about his band, Total Annihilation. Brendan (aka Eddy Demon) sings lead vocals and plays guitar. An awesome guy called Pete (Pietro D'Amato), who recently turned 13, plays drums, and our family friend Damon (D. Harmoniak), who's a grown-up, plays bass. They play punk rock music, with lyrics influenced by General Awesomeness and Metal.
Total Annihilation is on MySpace, and their first CD is available in stores... or more accurately, a store. If you visit Aquarius Records in San Francisco, you can buy their debut EP, which features original songs like "Rock & Roll on a Friday," which features the awesome lyric printed above. You can hear it on the MySpace. If you don't live in San Francisco, call Aquarius at 415.647.2272 and order it over the phone... they totally do mail order. Each CD comes in an amazing hand-colored package with a special art card for each song. My dad think it costs $10, but he can't remember.
They're also looking for gigs in the Bay Area, in venues that allow kids to perform. Warning: they play very, very, very loud.
This weekend on public radio stations across America, the wonderful This American Life will be re-running their program which features the nearly-as-wonderful Improv Everywhere.
IE's motto is "We Cause Scenes." They organize events which are a cross between theater, comedy, and situationism... like installing a bathroom attendant in a McDonalds, faking a rooftop U2 concert, or offering boat tours of a public fountain.
The show airs this weekend on your local station, but if you're impatient, you can listen to the show now.
...but when I call his name, he responds with a very violent, guttural growl; RHAAAAHGH!!!!!!! which immediately tells my brain to tell my body to run back down the stairs, quickly. I look behind me at the bottom of the stairs to see him coming fast behind me holding an 8-inch butcher's knife...
On the right, you can see a list of podcasts that I listen to. I also listen to a lot of KQED-FM and KPOO-FM here in San Francisco. KQED is the local giant NPR affiliate, KPOO is a community station that plays music... mostly "urban" music. I got my first MP3 player a couple months ago, a Rio Carbon, and I really enjoy it. I've been downloading MP3s since the pre-Napster days.
XXL magazine, the occaisionally good hip-hop rag, has been blogging of late, and they let go a doozy today, an exclusive interview with Rakim. It's pretty interesting, with more on the way. Rakim is one of the only 80s rappers whose style still sounds fresh, though it no longer sounds revolutionary, perhaps because almost every rapper since the early 90s has copped it. This week's show featured two of his classic tracks, "I Ain't No Joke" (an early classic) and "Casualties of War," a classic from the early 90s.
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Kids' Show... Kids Show... Change The Channel For Kids
There's a great piece in Salon about Wonder Showzen, the brilliant and bizarre puppets-and-children show on MTV2. Season two will apparently feature the "Beat Kids" child reporters encouraging people at ground zero to share their 9/11 memories... while wearing Groucho masks.
I was coming out of my gym here in Toronto today and downstairs outside the Whole Foods market there's a guy with his French pug talking dog talk with someone. Super cute dog so I go in for a little owner-authorized pet.
The owner? One Jason Bateman.
I introduced myself (he's a super nice guy BTW and his hair is mesmerizing) and we get talking about the site and the show.
Here are the things I remember (and he gave full blessing to post the info as he loves the site and you guys but he's too shy and too cute to post on the boards):
- Mitch loves you guys and it was nice to see people getting the show and enjoying the show especially at times when network directives were "make the show 30% dumber"
- Showtime has picked up the show for 2 years at 12 episodes a year (maybe it was 13) with a third year option
- The ball is in Mitch's court and Jason said Mitch will be making that decision within the next 24-48 hours though I don't know if that means we'll know about it at that time or not
At least things seem to be coming to a head. My fingers are certainly crossed.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Paris was best known as "The Black Panther of Hip-Hop," a college-educated West Coast version of Public Enemy's Chuck D. He kickstarted some serious controversy when he tried to release an album called "Bush Killa," with a picture of him hiding in the bushes (get it?) of the White House lawn with a big f'ing gun.
In the mid-90s, he retired from the rap game and became (what else?) a capitalist. He made some bank as a stockbroker and real estate investor, then returned to hip-hop with "Sonic Jihad" a couple years ago. That album was really spectacular, with Paris' G-Funk meets Bomb Squad production, heavy on hooks, melody, and big big bass, and his booming voice doing the Chuck D thing with some thought-provoking revolutionary lyrics.
Now personally, I don't think that the President should be killed, or that he planned 9/11 (both of which are among the more... uh... exciting ideas he presents on that album), but I do think that a lot of what Paris was bringing to light in that record was vitally important. And while the inflammatory cover (which featured a jet headed for the White House) may have obscured the music, the music was exceptionally good.
Paris has been working with Public Enemy, Kam, and dead prez on a new record for the label he runs, Guerrilla Funk, called Hard Truth Soldiers. An interesting review below.
Here's a question: to what extent do you feel The Sound of Young America should host artists with strong political messages? I'm not really interested in banning politically-active artists from the show or anything, I'm just worried particularly when they're talking about explicitly political projects. I've generally avoided this in the past, partly because I worry about the inherent bias of my cultural situation and personal political views. I'd love to hear thoughts.
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Looks like Molly Shannon and Mike White are teaming up...
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It's dog days ahead for Molly Shannon.
The former "Saturday Night Live" player is in final negotiations to star in the comedy "Year of the Dog," which marks the directorial debut of actor/writer Mike White ("School of Rock," "The Good Girl").
Shannon will play Peggy, a happy-go-lucky secretary who lives alone with her beloved dog Pencil. But when Pencil unexpectedly dies, Peggy embarks on a journey of transformation. The project has no scheduled start date yet. It is set up at Paramount's specialty arm.
White wrote the screenplay for "Dog" with Shannon in mind. The two met on the short-lived Fox TV series "Cracking Up," which Shannon starred in and White created.
Shannon is in West Virginia shooting "Evan Almighty," where she is playing a real estate agent opposite Steve Carell. She appears in Sofia Coppola's "Marie-Antoinette," which will premiere at Cannes in May.
White's only misstep in a sterling career so far was Cracking Up, which was quite the stinker. That said, Shannon shares White's tone... hilarious, but disquieting. I have high hopes for this thing.
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The comic essayist Fran Leibowitz has been promising to come out with a new book for the past 20 years or so. In the meantime, we have to make do with her infrequent appearances and once-in-a-blue-moon magazine pieces. It's unfortunate, because she's one of the funniest writers of the past fifty years or so. She refined her bohemian-but-tough New York intellectual Jew model to a sharp point, and rode it to great, well-earned success in the late 70s and early 80s. Her books are very funny even today.
She'll be on City Arts & Lectures this week, a rebroadcast of a live stage presentation. It airs (and streams) on KQED-FM in San Francisco at 8PM pacific, and I believe on the variety of other stations that carry CA&L, including KWWS in Walla Walla and KUSP in Santa Cruz. Well worth seeking out.
Greg Daniels is the Executive Producer of The Office on NBC, which is the funniest show on television right now, and in my book, the best sitcom since Seinfeld (really? yeah, I'm pretty sure). There's a very interesting chat with him up on the Washington Post's website.
Greg Daniels: It was hard to adapt this show because the British series is so perfectly executed and tailored to Ricky G, who also co-wrote and co-directed it. The pilot was close to the British series because I adapted it before casting the American actors, and after casting I didn't want to open the whole process up to network notes. Once we got past the pilot though, we came up with new stories and wrote the first six. Then we shot the first six, and after that I edited the first six. It was after they were completed that we learned the most about what was working and how to tailor things more to Steve. By the time the second season started, we had also been blessed by Ricky and Stephen Merchant and the critics and the lovers of the English show, so some of the pressure was off and we could start to play around a little more.
Tim Heidecker of Tim & Eric was stabbed twice, apparently while trying to help a woman in his apartment complex deal with her drug-crazed son. By all reports, he will be just fine. He writes in his blog:
Thanks to everyone who sent nice things or said nice things on the message board. I am being well tended to by my lady and my mom. I tell ya, it was by far the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I'll give a more detailed post about the events in days to come. love to you. Timbo.
Tim & Eric have been really good to us at The Sound of Young America, helping us out whenever they could. Amazing to think that comedy heroes are real life heroes, too.
I invited artist Marc Horowitz onto The Sound of Young America a few years ago, after I read an article about one of his projects in the San Francisco Chronicle. He had rented a burro, and was traveling around San Francisco, offering to help people with their chores. It was wonderful.
More recently, he's gotten some excellent notices for a piece which involved running a quarter mile of extension cord out his window and into a park, where he made coffee for anyone who wanted some, and another in which he traveled the nation, having dinner at people's houses.
Marc's website is ineedtostopsoon.com, and he's blogging his different projects there. He has some intruiging new ideas, including a short film montage of people in the moment that comes between giving the cashier your credit card, and that card's approval.
What I like about Marc is his commitment to thinking of cool things, then doing them. There's not enough of that in the world.
Kelly was nice enought to send me this picture she painted from the intro segment of the Python video.
Although it was the Monty Python podcast that inspired me, I was listening to the podcast about the future as I painted. I guess I was thinking in the future everything green would become red. I think I might title it something like "The Grass Isn't Always Greener...."
Thanks, Kelly!
If you have any artwork inspired by the show, send it in!
More evidence that the future of media is tied to things people like, not things people will tolerate.
"The network had made its peace with 'King' wrapping up," says 20th Century Fox TV prexy Gary Newman.
Then the call came: Fox execs had gone through an 11th-hour change of heart and wanted "King" back after all...
"When you're lucky enough to create a franchise that resonates with audiences, you have to do everything you can to preserve them -- and support their longevity," Newman says.
. Her illustrations are both literal and figural (no pun intended). She talks with us about how a book about words can lend itself to images.
." He's also a writer and producer on the brilliant HBO series "The Wire," and we talk about writing what is essentially a novel for the screen.
