Tag Archives: radio

Speechless

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“We have just had our elections, and I’m not even going to speak one way or the other about the results. It was an awful choice, if you want to even call it a choice. But I think no matter what point of view you had about the candidates, the one thing that could not be escaped was the absolutely idiotic and moronic level of discourse. To anyone who loves words and rhetoric and language it seemed that the very concept of speech had been broken and bent out of all proportion. Now, by an interesting coincidence, in this year, which happens to be the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, across my desk came a book published by Seven Stories Press called the Fidel Castro Reader. And what it is, is a large 500 plus page book of Fidel Castro’s speeches translated into English, which is a great boon to me, since I’m not a fluent reader of Spanish. I had to laugh when I thought about the prospect of a 500 page book on the speeches of Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden, or God, help us Donald Trump…”

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the rest of the segment as broadcast last night on the Arts Express radio program over WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

“Jikininki”

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Our radio drama of a Japanese ghost story for Halloween by Lafcadio Hearn.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the story as broadcast on Arts Express yesterday on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

CIA: Drugs R Us!

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If you are a conspiracy fan and a music fan, then have I got a film documentary for you. It’s called CIA: Drugs are Us and it’s kind of a greatest hits of some of the most evil and deranged programs that have been set into motion by the CIA over the years...

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my entire review as heard on Arts Express broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Jack & Rick Ride Yet Even Again

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After nearly a year off, back from hiatus–which is ten miles east of Dallas–The Jack & Rick Worldwide Network and hamburger stand is happy to announce the return of Jack & Rick’s Radio Shack! Thanks to Rick Tuman!

Click the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the satirical segment, as broadcast on Arts Express on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

A Painter of Revolutionaries

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Carlito Rovira with his portrait of Puerto Rican revolutionary Lolita Lebrón

What makes a person become an artist? Are they born or are they made? And what is the purpose of art? Our guest yesterday has very definite views about these and other questions, and I was happy to be talking with a man whose portraits are filled with meaning, artist, revolutionary and member of the Young Lords, Carlos “Carlito” Rovira.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview with Carlito, as broadcast on Arts Express radio yesterday on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

And you can find Part 2 here:

A Revolutionary Artist: Part 2

Three By Caitlin Johnstone

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If you feel like us, that our concerns in this election cycle have been stuffed into the washer and hung up to dry, and that the elections are a senseless distraction, take heart. Mary Murphy and myself have come to the rescue. We perform three short pieces by the great Caitlin Johnstone, and they’re the the last segments you’ll ever need to hear again about the the so-called elections. Halleluljah.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the segment as broadcast on Arts Express this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

The Case For Open Borders

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One of the most volatile issues facing the US electorate this year concerns so-called open borders. Despite whatever rhetoric may be coming from the two major US political parties, their basic positions are the same—they see open borders as a threat to the country. But is any of the fearmongering true? My guest on Arts Express is a journalist and translator who writes for the Arizona Luminaria, John Washington. He has written a compelling new book called The Case for Open Borders.

Click on the grey triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with John Washington as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Julian Assange In His Own Words

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It was just announced that Julian Assange has been granted a plea deal that will allow him to plead guilty to one charge and be freed from Belmarsh prison and come home to Australia.

Given the massive terrible propaganda assault against Assange by the US government, a government caught committing war crimes in video footage that Wikileaks had released, and the government’s attempt to smear, silence, and murder Assange, it’s more important than ever to really understand what Assange was doing and the important message he had.

In lieu of this very important news, I am re-posting a piece I put together a little less than two years ago consisting of passages from Assange’s speeches and writings, read by a cast of WBAI and Arts Express friends. Click on the title below to hear the piece.

Julian Assange In His Own Words

Finding The Money Part 2

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Our conversation about how the US economy really works, with Stephanie Kelton and Maren Poitras of the documentary Finding The Money, continues.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Part One can be heard by clicking here

Finding The Money

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What if everything you thought you knew about the way the US economy works was wrong? I mean everything: the national debt, the role of taxes, even what money is. Now a new documentary Finding The Money challenges the story that we’ve all heard about how the national debt is out of control. The film flips the narrative on its head, challenging the arguments of those who say we can’t afford social spending. I was happy to have on Arts Express filmmaker Maren Poitras, and also one of the major subjects of Finding the Money, economist and former advisor to Bernie Sanders, Stephanie Kelton.

Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear part one of the interview as broadcast last night on the Arts Express program heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Part Two is here:

Finding The Money Part 2

Taking Venice: The US And The Cold War Culture War

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At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government was determined to showcase US culture to the world as proof of capitalism’s superiority as an economic system. And so in 1964, the US government embarked on a daring plan to make artist Robert Rauschenberg the winner of the Grand Prize at The Venice Art Biennale, the world’s most influential art exhibition. A new film documentary, Taking Venice, gives us an inside look at how the Biennale was manipulated, and more than that, a look at the enigma that was Robert Rauschenberg.

I was happy to interview the director of Taking Venice, and an art critic in her own right, Amei Wallach. Click on the small triangle above or the mp3 link to hear the interview as broadcast on Pacifica affiliate stations across the nation.

King Lear: Apocalypse Now

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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.

Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story

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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.

Team Human

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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.

The Berman Murders

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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.

A Short History Of Spaghetti With Tomato Sauce

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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.

Ru$e: Lying The American Dream From Hollywood To Wall Street

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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.

Until Tomorrow, Comrades

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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.

Karl Marx, Private Eye

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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.

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: Part Two

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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

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, Part One

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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:

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: Part Two

Two Poems by Caitlin Johnstone

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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 Creature Wanting Form: Luke O’Neil

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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.

Don’t Look Back But It’s Our 9th Anniversary!

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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.

Thy Kingdom Come

Hey Guys, Watch This: Nellie McKay

The Underground Empire

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

John Sayles’s New Novel: Jamie MacGillivray

Coriolanus: Class War

“Shakespeare Without Tears”: Hamlet and the All-Seeing Surveillance State

Julian Assange In His Own Words

From Approximately Coast To Coast…

The Quiet Epidemic

The Theater of Three Card Monte

Our End-Of-Year Arts Express Thank You Poem

2nd Chance: Sex, Violence and Bulletproof Vests

To The Lighthouse Interview

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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.

Jack Shalom Discusses To the Lighthouse, the Latest Radio Play from Arts Express