Bob Andelman Interviews

George Gray is having way too much fun on his HGTV show, “What’s With That House?” The show, now in its second season, is kind of a goof on the proliferation of shelter TV shows, where viewers are taken into fabulous homes and mansions and led around by announcers in hushed, respectful tones. There’s no respect in Gray’s tone -- and rightfully so. If you haven’t seen the show, I absolutely insist you pause this interview and set your DVR, Tivo, or VCR to record the show. You won’t be sorry. Back now? Okay. If Gray seems familiar, it means you probably saw him in ESPN’s sports fantasy reality series “I’d Do Anything” or the syndicated version of “The Weakest Link.”

(Originally broadcast March 2, 2007) Published every other week since 1989, Radio Ink is perhaps best known for its annual “40 Most Powerful People in Radio” issue. It’s the radio industry version of the Forbes 400. I have known publisher Eric Rhoads for almost eighteen years, since I wrote for the predecessor to Radio Ink, the Pulse of Radio. Eric’s publications are devoted to the business of radio.

(Originally Broadcast March 22, 2007.) I have enjoyed the illustrations of Drew Friedman for many, many years. He has going for him what many artists can only dream of – a distinctive style and, if you will, a voice that sets his work apart. Depending upon your age and interests, you’ve no doubt seen Friedman’s work somewhere, including the National Lampoon, Spy, and the New York Observer. When Drew draws a satirical picture, it always screams with attitude. There is no subtlety involved.

(Originally Broadcast April 6, 2007.) Eric Deggans is easily one of the smartest journalists I know. Okay, okay, I know some of you connect “smart” and “journalist” and chuckle the way other people combine “military” and “intelligence.” But trust me, Eric is really bright. He has his own way of looking at any topic and bringing aspects of it to light. Currently the television and media critic for the St. Petersburg Times—and author of a media savvy blog called “The Feed"—Eric is filling a job the newspaper created specifically for him. Before serving as media critic, he sat on the newspaper’s editorial board and wrote bylined opinion columns specializing in race issues, pop culture, media, and national affairs. From 1997 to 2004, he worked as TV critic for the Times, crafting reviews, news stories, and long-range trend pieces on the state of the media industry, both locally and nationally. Eric is also the president of the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists. And, if you search his name on myspace.com, you’ll find he also worked in the 1980s as a professional drummer touring and performing with Motown’s The Voyage Band throughout the Midwest and in Osaka, Japan. He continues to perform in the Tampa Bay area with local bands and recording artists as a drummer, bassist, and vocalist. You may also recognize Eric as a recurring panelist on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

Nikita Khrushchev’s 1959 tour of the United States more closely resembled a traveling circus than an exercise in international diplomacy. From New York to San Francisco, he cracked corny jokes, threw tantrums, got stuck in an elevator, and was handed a live turkey by the secretary of agriculture. He found himself in a home economics class in Iowa; he went to a supermarket and a riot broke out; and he was greeted upon his arrival to Hollywood by dancing girls. There is no other way than comically to tell the visit of Khrushchev to the U.S. It is a true fish out of water story—a strange man in a strange land. Published for the 50th anniversary of this trip, K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America’s Most Unlikely Tourist (June 2009, PublicAffairs) humorously chronicles the bizarre stops of the Soviet leader through New York, DC, Pittsburgh, Iowa, and California at the height of the Cold War. Khrushchev is a wonderfully operatic, larger-than-life character but K Blows Top isn’t only about him. It’s about the Cold War and America in the fifties and about the myriad absurdities of communism, capitalism, politics, diplomacy, the media, and the all-too-human follies of flawed men who possess the power to incinerate civilization. Author Peter Carlson is a former feature writer and columnist for The Washington Post, where he wrote the weekly column “The Magazine Reader.”

(Originally broadcast May 24, 2007.) The confounding thing about seeing your friends become successful is that while you’re obviously happy for the good things that come their way, a tinge of jealousy and envy is not unusual, and that certainly captures my feelings about today’s guest. Most of you won’t know this man by name, but when you hear his credits, I think you’ll agree with me that he’s accomplished an awful lot, and you will probably understand why I greet him with a touch of envy, at the very least. Kit Boss was a gangly young kid when I met him more than twenty years ago in the Clearwater Bureau of the . He arrived as this year’s intern, joining the staff for a time in search of real-life newspaper experience. Kit was an instant hit with the staff, funny, self-effacing, and extremely talented at capturing life’s special moments in a way that the best journalists do. When he later joined the Seattle Times Kit met several men and women who wrote for TV and started thinking, “Hey, maybe I could do that.” His first job was writing for “Bill Nye, the Science Guy,” and he won a couple of Emmys for it. Next was a big one, getting a story credit on “Seinfeld.” That led to “King of the Hill,” then in its third season. He rose to executive producer on that show. When “King” was briefly cancelled, Kit moved on to HBO’s sitcom “Lucky Louie,” starring comedian Louis C. K. Then he was asked to adapt the British series, “Creature Comforts,” for CBS.

(Originally broadcast December 7, 2007.) Judge David Young is unlike any other TV judge you’ve likely seen before. In a video marketplace with courts of every color and gender and with their focuses ranging from petty crimes and divorce to Texas justice, the Judge David Young show has a gimmick that’s no gimmick. Mr. Media interviews Cristina Perez, host of “Cristina’s Court”

(Originally broadcast September 14, 2007.) In the Shadow of the Moon, the new documentary directed by David Sington, captures all the emotion and enthusiasm about space travel that once transfixed the American public and seems strangely absent from today’s world of technology. I was eight years old when the Eagle landed on the Moon in July 1969. I haven’t been the same since. I anticipated a lifetime ahead of flying around the neighborhood with jet packs, manned missions to Mars, and all kinds of things that, before that July day, were science fiction and after, well, they seemed just around the corner. Now I’m approaching my 47th birthday, and none of my expectations of a space age came to pass. None. Zero. Zip. Watching In the Shadow of the Moon, I remembered that lost feeling. It’s a wonderful experience, which is why I looked forward to talking with director David Sington.

(Originally broadcast June 28, 2007.) Today’s media newsmaker interview is a little different. I don’t expect many people will know either my guest, David Bankston, or the company he represents, Neighborhood America. It’s very likely, though, that you may have already encountered a Neighborhood America program and not even realized it. The Naples, Florida, based company does enterprise-social networks for CBS, Fox, the Scripps Network, and HDTV, among others, and David Bankston is the co-founder and chief technology officer for Neighborhood America, a leading provider of solutions for online engagement and interaction via all forms of content. Specializing in software integration and technical innovation, David has devoted much of his career to creating next-generation technologies specifically designed to solve real-world business problems. Under his leadership, Neighborhood America’s solutions have been successfully adopted nationwide by various organizations, and media companies are turning to Neighborhood America in order to harness the power of the Web to effectively engage audiences. Prior to Neighborhood America, David’s technology career included fifteen years at Lexis/Nexis, where he was responsible for many innovations that are still in use today.

(Originally broadcast November 4, 2007.) David Andelman and I have been connected via the internet for the last few years. I frequently receive emails from people who remember me from CBS News or The New York Times, who want to reconnect via Facebook or network through LinkedIn. Unfortunately, I never worked for CBS News or The New York Times. And on his end, I suspect David Andelman receives late-night emails intended for me from overdue bill collectors and people who want him to teach them how to become sports agents, based on a story I wrote for Gallery magazine in 1994. We have both, I believe, handled the mistaken identity issue with good humor, eventually referring to each other as “cousin.” Today, I even introduced David to my daughter as “Uncle” David. David is a veteran foreign affairs correspondent whose assignments took him to more than fifty countries, as Paris correspondent for CBS News and as the Southeast Asia and Eastern European bureau chief for The New York Times. He also spent time at the New York Daily NewsA Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and The Price We Pay Today, as well as two earlier works, The Peacemakers and The Fourth World War.

(Originally broadcast February 2, 2007) For anyone still mourning the departure of "The Far Side" and "Calvin and Hobbes" from your local newspaper’s comics page, cheer up! There is a weird new kid on the street, and he’ll make you forget about your favorite strips from the last century. "LIO" is the creation of Mark Tatulli, and he’s a fresh brand of weird and wonderful now appearing in more than 250 newspapers, with more adding the strip daily. If “Far Side” creator Gary Larson and "Calvin" creator Bill Watterson had mated, LIO is the character they would have produced. Tatulli’s brainchild, LIO, and that’s spelled L-I-O, is a young boy who combines elements of mad scientist, comic strips, science fiction, and the Adams family, and get this, LIO never speaks. New Jersey native Mark Tatulli is an internationally syndicated cartoonist, an accomplished filmmaker, and an animator. He has won three Emmy awards for his work in television, and, since this interview was originally broadcast, has received the Rueben Award from the National Cartoonists Society for Best Newspaper Comic Strip for Lio.

Hank Rosenfeld spent seven years interviewing the late Golden Age comedy screenwriter Irving Brecher for their book, The Wicked Wit of the West. Who was Irving Brecher? For starters, he was the last Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screenwriter from the “Golden Age” of the 1940s. He convinced Judy Garland to star in Meet Me in St. Louis, wrote Bye Bye Birdie, and gave Jackie Gleason his first TV series and a new set of teeth. The "Wicked Wit of the West" (as Groucho Marx dubbed him) tells juicy tales about Hollywood legends John Wayne, L.B. Mayer, Jack Benny, George Burns, Ann-Margret, Ernie Kovacs, Cleo the basset hound, and of course, Groucho, Harpo and Chico. When journalist Rosenfeld met Brecher, he had a million questions. What was it like to be the only man ever to write two Marx Brothers movies by himself? To be the last of the great MGM roundtable of screenwriters? To be the famous unknown who wrote vaudeville and radio shows for Milton Berle, punched up The Wizard of Oz, and created "The Life of Riley"-- on radio, in the movies, and as the very first television sitcom! Rosenfeld was on staff at Spy magazine and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Post, Premiere, PAPER, and the Shambhala Sun. He is currently a storyteller on NPR's "All Things Considered," "Marketplace," "Weekend America" and "Off-Ramp."

Hailing from both Northern and Southern California (depending on who he is trying to impress), James P. Connolly is a stand up comedian and radio/TV host known for his playful, confident style and unique sense of humor. He attended Harvard University on a Marine Corps ROTC Scholarship, which left him feeling “wicked smart,” but possessing the skills to hurt people who are “actually” smart. While serving in Desert Storm, he was ordered to write jokes for a Colonel. Understanding this to be a lawful and punishable command; James erred on the side of funny. Eventually making his way to Hollywood, he performed at the Comedy Store, the Improv, the Ice House Comedy Club and other major comedy venues. Soon he popped up on television, commercials, and in small films. James hosted VH1’s “Movie Obsessions” and more recently “Live From Here” on XM Radio for National Lampoon. He is recognized across the country as one of the most played comedians on the Sirius XM Comedy Channels and is a frequent guest on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom Radio Show. James has also made multiple trips overseas to entertain the troops. His latest CD is The Master Plan . James also wants you to know you he has a very manly voice.

Howard Cruse’s comic strips and humorous illustrations have appeared in Playboy, The Village Voice, Artforum International, Harpoon, Heavy Metal, The Advocate, Starlog and many other national magazines. In 1983, Cruse introduced his comic strip “Wendel” to the pages of The Advocate, the national gay newsmagazine, where it appeared regularly until 1989. Five books have been published compiling Cruse’s own comic strips and stories from underground comic books and elsewhere: Wendel; Dancin’ Nekkid With The Angels; Wendel on the Rebound; Early Barefootz; and Wendel All Together. Cruse’s critically acclaimed 1995 graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby won Eisner and Harvey Awards as well as a United Kingdom Comic Art Award and a British Comics Creators Guild Award. Cruse's seventh book, The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth, was a collaboration with Jeanne E. Shaffer. For two years during the early seventies Cruse drew a daily newspaper comic strip, Tops & Button, for the Birmingham Post-Herald, while earning his living as art director (and improvisational puppeteer) for a Birmingham television station. In 1972, he began gaining a national readership with Barefootz stories drawn for underground comic books published by Kitchen Sink Comics. His latest book is From Headrack to Claude: Collected Gay Comix by Howard Cruse.

Jane Friedman is publisher and editorial director of the Writer's Digest community at F+W Media in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she oversees all facets of the Writer's Digest brand, including Writer's Digest magazine, Writer’s Digest Books, annual market guides, online education, events, and competitions. Writer's Digest is the #1 resource and community for writers, and for nearly 90 years has published the best-selling annual reference guide, Writer’s Market. Friedman’s blog, “There Are No Rules,” discusses how writers can succeed in an era of change in the writing and publishing industry.