This week, it’s 460 years since the birth of Shakespeare, and since we are living in what can only be termed apocalyptic times, it might be fitting to take a look at the most apocalyptic of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear. Let’s call this episode of my continuing series,“Shakespeare Without Tears,” King Lear: Apocalypse Now.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my commentary as broadcast today on WBAI-FM and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Asian-American photographer Corky Lee used to carry a business card with him which read, “Corky Lee the undisputed, unofficial Asian-American photographer laureate.” And undisputed, was right: his fifty plus years of documenting Asian-American life in photographs, and his knack for being in the right place at the right time, made him a cultural hero to millions of Asian Americans, particularly in New York City.
A recent film documentary about Corky Lee, called Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story is now in release, and I was happy to have as our guest on Arts Express radio, the director of Photographic Justice, Jennifer Takaki.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jennifer Takaki as heard on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast today on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
In which I talk about Douglas Rushkoff’s brilliant but frustrating book about how tech is leading us to a dehumanized society.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my commentary as heard on the Arts Express radio program today, broadcast on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
My guest, Doug Kari, author of The Berman Murders, looks back at a double murder from more than 35 years ago and takes the reader through an international labyrinth of deceit and crime that leads to the killer—who, by the way, has never been prosecuted for those murders. I was happy to be talking with journalist and lawyer Doug Kari, author of The Berman Murders.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to listen to the interview as heard today on the Arts Express radio program, broadcast on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Hey, it’s National Noodle Month! Who knew? Anyway you can listen to my review of A Short History of Spaghetti With Tomato Sauce, as heard today on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation, by clicking on the triangle or mp3 link above.
One thing that Hollywood and Wall Street have in common is that their core businesses are based on illusions, money and lies. My guest has been intimately involved with both worlds and has recently written a page-turning memoir called RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. I was happy to talk with author Robert Kerbeck.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
We’ve featured the work of the revolutionary fiction writer Manuel Tiago on Arts Express several times with dramatic readings from some of his short stories. Those stories are a part of an eight book cycle about the 40 year fight against the Portuguese fascists from the 1930s to the 70s. That series has recently come to completion with the publication of the last book to be translated into English, titled Until Tomorrow, Comrades. I was happy to speak with Eric Gordon, the translator of the series.
Click on the gray triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Wherein we review Jim Feast’s mash-up historical murder mystery novel that features Karl and Eleanor Marx, in league with a 16 year old Sherlock Holmes!
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the review as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program today, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
This is part two of my interview with Judith Tick, musicologist and author of the new biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald. In this part, we talk about Ella’s relationship with her producer Norman Granz, the songbooks, and her later years.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
You can hear part one here:
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, Part One
I was happy to speak with Judith Tick, famed musicologist and professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, and also author of the new biography of Ella Fitzgerald, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to part one of our interview, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And here is part two of the interview:
If there’s anything that defines today’s political era, it is the amount of pure BS that is spouted and accepted every day. One of my favorite writers who cuts through all that is Australian based Caitlin Johnstone. With a sharp eye and a sharp tongue and a sharp pen she states the obvious, but forbidden, that the emperor has no clothes.
Here are two poems of hers written within the last year that I particularly like. The first is called “In Times Like These” which is self-explanatory, and the second is called “Thank You for Your Service,” written on the occasion of the death of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of the two poems, as broadcast yesterday on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation,
A few weeks ago, I was happy to read a short story on the air titled “Thy Kingdom Come” by Luke O’Neil from his new collection of short fictions called A Creature Wanting Form. If you heard the reading, then you know that Luke O’ Neil is a powerful writer who takes journalistic impulses and turns them into sharp accounts of the present and near future world. I was happy to have Luke on the show as our guest.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview with Luke O’Neil, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Great Balls of Fire and other exultations of exclamatory joy! Hoo-roo and hoo-rah! We made it by the skin of our teeth through one more year of daily posts. I hope they’ve provided some sort of diversion and interest for you. As is my custom, on anniversary day, I post what I feel were my favorite audio pieces of the year. I’ll try to keep the list short this time, a baker’s dozen, so that you can get a chance to sample the ones you missed or re-visit posts that you enjoyed.
Hey Guys, Watch This: Nellie McKay
Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
John Sayles’s New Novel: Jamie MacGillivray
“Shakespeare Without Tears”: Hamlet and the All-Seeing Surveillance State
Julian Assange In His Own Words
From Approximately Coast To Coast…
The Theater of Three Card Monte
Our End-Of-Year Arts Express Thank You Poem
2nd Chance: Sex, Violence and Bulletproof Vests
I’m grateful to Stephanie Schubert, Operations Coordinator of the Pacifica Network, for conducting and publishing this interview she did with me about the recent Arts Express production of To The Lighthouse. At the end of the article, you’ll find a link to our podcast page, if you’d like to hear the production.
Forget about Oppenheimer. The year 1982 saw the release of one of the darkest, most horrific and yes, funniest documentaries ever made. I’m talking about film The Atomic Café which was a head-spinning stew of actual atomic age propaganda of the 1940s fifties and beyond, crafted from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and advertisements. The film exposed the vast propaganda machine that the US state uses to deceive and market its insane atomic policies. Now it’s in re-release, and I think more relevant than ever, and I was very happy to be speaking today with one of the original directors of The Atomic Café, Jayne Loader.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear Part One of my interview with Jayne Loader as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio show heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Part Two is here:
To The Lighthouse was a novel I had been intrigued with since my twenties. When I heard that it had just gone out of copyright, I thought it would be fun to write a radio adaptation and to direct and edit it.
I started writing this adaptation back in January of this year, rehearsed it and recorded it in April and May with a fine company of actors, and then edited it in June and July. I’m happy to say we’ve finally completed it.
Here’s the logline:
In this adaptation, prepared especially for radio, Virginia Woolf’s ground-breaking stream of consciousness novel, To The Lighthouse, is brought to life.
In a sort of ghost story that plays with time, memory, and recollection, a young boy, over a period of ten years, tries to journey to the lighthouse, a stormy boat ride away from his family’s summer vacation home. The life of his nurturing mother, hemmed in by social and family strictures, is contrasted with that of her artist friend who lives in artistic freedom, but alone.
Included is a brief three minute introduction to give the context of the novel and the era in which Virginia Woolf was writing.
Our cast, in order of appearance:
James Ramsay…..Byron O’Hanlon
Mrs Ramsay….Mary Murphy
Mr. Ramsay…Jack Shalom
Charles Tansley….Joe Levine
Andrew Ramsay….KeShaun Luckie
Lily Briscoe….Lucy McMichael
William Bankes….Marty Levine
Cam Ramsay….Sarah Taylor
Prue Ramsay….Vivienne Shalom
Minta Doyle….Emma Mueller
Paul Rayley….David Lepelstat
As you may know, not only are film and tv writers out on strike, but now film and tv actors have joined them. I recently spoke to actor/comedian Jay Potter, who is on the board of the New York local of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ film and television union, to get more clarity about what is happening. In that conversation, fresh from a day on the picket line, Jay spoke about some of the key issues and the wider implications of the current exploitative Wall Street/Hollywood mode of film and series production.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jay as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Veronica White was a local artist and activist who was full of surprises. In a new short film documentary called Veronica White: A Life in the Key of the Community, her many facets are explored. I was happy to speak with Director Chuck Moss and Executive Producer Julius Hollingsworth about the film.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the conversation as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
The Unit, a TV series which aired about fifteen years ago, while not my particular cup of tea, was widely recognized as one of the best written series on television. That was in no small part because playwright and screenwriter David Mamet was the creator of the show. A little while after the series was cancelled in its fourth year, a leaked memo from Mamet to the writing staff emerged. In it, Mamet gave some of the best and most succinct writing advice that can be given for writers of a screenplay. Here’s David Mamet’s memo to the writing staff of The Unit.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of that memo, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio show, heard on WBAI FM NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Yes, it’s yet another episode of our ersatz Bob & Ray comedy segment with yours truly and Rick Tuman. In this new episode, we hear from the CEO of the Neighborly Rent-a Robot Company and also from a master of the denizens of the deep, the Shark Whisperer.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the segment as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
We’ve been putting together a fundraising show for WBAI, Arts Express’s parent radio station, so that’s what we’ve been up to in the last few weeks. We dived deep into the Arts Express archives and put together a fantastic flash drive with some classic interviews done by host Prairie Miller as a donation premium. In order to pitch it, we ran a show last night that contained some excerpts from some of those interviews, which you may enjoy listening to. The show contains pieces of interviews with Queen Latifah, RFK Jr., The Rolling Stones, Isabel Allende, and Mike Africa Jr. Click on the triangle or mp3 link above, in order to hear the program as broadcast last night on WBAI FM NYC.
It’s quite wonderful how powerful and evocative our sense of hearing can be. Worlds can be conjured up and recalled from just a subtle sound. It may seem contradictory, but my guest on Arts Express this week was the creator of a new film all about sound, 32 Sounds, Sam Green. We had lot of fun discussing that favorite topic of ours.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Sam Green as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program as heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
“Welcome to the Silver Age of Radio. We’re sorry to say we’ve reached the end of our run of Gunsmoke episodes starring William Conrad, Zazu Pitts, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, after airing a grand total of 32,647 episodes. But have no fear, we’ve dug down deep into our dusty archives and have come up with episode two of the Jack & Rick Bob & Ray homage, first broadcast way back on April 19th 2023 on the Arts Express radio network. So, without more ado, it’s Jack & Rick…”
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear our second Bob & Ray homage as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation
Filmmaker, actor, and writer John Sayles captured my imagination ever since his first film, Return of the Secaucus 7. Soon, other great films followed: Brother From Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out, Amigo, and so many others. But of course, John Sayles is not only a filmmaker, but also the author of short stories and novels including Union Dues, Amigo, and Yellow Earth. Now he’s come out with a new novel called Jamie Magillivray: The Renegade’s Journey. I was very happy to speak with John Sayles on the Arts Express radio program.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my interview with John Sayles as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Imagine please: A working class uprising. The lower classes are starving. They demand the right to eat. They want access to the great stores of grain that have been won in the recent war, confiscated from the enemy, but withheld from the peasants. And so begins the most class-conscious play that Shakespeare ever wrote, called Coriolanus.
Click on the triangle above or mp3 link to hear our commentary on Coriolanus, as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation
