Arts Express Radio

** "Once again, Charlie Brown, you've been had..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon midterms epilogue - fascism, populism, and telling the people what they want to hear. And what it all has to do with Wall Street, the minimum wage and Medicare for all, footballs, Democrats, Republicans and the left - and 'Trump a sick and twisted man who to me, is the best representative of the US empire...'

** "Right now the headlines, you don't even have to rewrite them - those headlines rewrite themselves as Debbie Downer-isms!..."

Rachel Dratch Talks Loves Company, Debbie Downer, Hexed, SNL - and Debbie Downer's perpetually gloomy but still resonant as ever, reflections on this current no laughing matter world. Plus that shape shifting satirical actress in her latest film, not exactly a sequel or remake of Stephen King's Misery - titled Love'sCompany.

And in which Dratch is sort of the Kathy Bates designated deranged, psychopathic nurse as Antoinette Funk, imprisoning the object of her celebrity fan obsession. Likewise, just completing her performance in The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, Dratch delves into her upcoming Hexed witch, and how SNL has changed her life...

** "Musk's darkened account on election night - data centers in space, and Musk's possibly malfunctioning space lasers..."

In Case You Missed It - The Arts Express Roundup of the week's most absurd and head shaking news...Referencing Stephen Miller and disembodied snail canals, Hegseth, low testosterone, meat eaters, and sex hormone binding globulins - and 'freezers at six US military bases mysterious malfunction...'

** "These are your lone nuts, the wackos, the criminals, the terrorists, the long haired weirdos in the greasy raincoats in the subway at midnight. America where we produce monsters who appear as anyone - keep the poor in the gutter and still continue to live out their lives in peace in America..."

The Five Minute Marxist - an extended heartland voices excursion with Minnesota rebel wordsmith, Mike Palecek...

** "A scathing and starkly intelligent look at Silicon Valley, its ethos, and the tech billionaires that are now running - not only our tech and entertainment but are deeply entwined with the government and the Pentagon, with personal surveillance and with the war industry..."

Bro On The Global Television Beat - What To Watch Or Not: Arts Express Paris Correspndent Professor Dennis Broe on Cupertino, AI And The New Limits Of Network TV Critique. A legal satire 'pitting the Silicon Valley Goliaths presumably against whistleblowers and the working class...'

** "This is classic political suicide - smells like a butt whipping to me..."

Pacifica Host Garand Nixon on what these US elections are really all about - a villains and victories socio-political autopsy. With connections to oligarchs, Epstein, wars, George Carlin, Israel, false flags, the Tea Party, MAGA, the Koch brothers - and 'a few scraps of bacon for the masses...'

** "That was the reason I wanted to do it - because the characters are so big and baroque, and fascinating to play..."

Jessica Lange Talks Long Day's Journey Into Night, American Horror Story, and her Frances Farmer and Joan Crawford...The veteran actress whose work spans these two centuries, in a conversation about her portrayal in Long Day's Journey Into Night of the barely disguised, prescription drug addicted tortured mother of late iconic playwright, Eugene O'Neill, and Ed Harris as O'Neill's father.

Along with Lange's many manifestations on screen and stage across the decades, of women real and imagined. Whether imprisoned in gilded cages, despot Margaret Thatcher, or those politically and emotionally destroyed like Hollywood blacklisted star Frances Farmer.

** "We are all exhausted and we are getting to the end of this. And either they are going to smash our noses flat in the mud, the blood and the beer once and for all - or this is the real revolution..."

The Five Minute Marxist - and then some... A heartland voices excursion into the work of rebel wordsmith, Mike Palecek. Banned in Canada, surviving five terms in jails and prisons for protesting against the US military - and a daring bid to break through the closed doors of power on Capitol Hill, as an Iowa Congressional candidate back in 2000. And Palecek's work distributed by CWG Press, 'a small publisher with big ideas...'

** "As an example how this age of plunder is coming back to haunt the old continent, the current rebellion did not start in France..."

Bro On The Global Cultural Beat: The Civil War In France - Causes And Consequence. Arts Express Paris Correspondent Professor Dennis Broe previews this coming week's 'combined call of five leading French unions for a general strike...as militant firefighters battle police water cannons with their own fire truck hoses.'

While, 'essentially three reasons the entire country and indeed the continent (massive protests also in Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Albania, and now Germany and Switzerland) is rising up...'

The Halloween Edition Of Arts Express This Week - Scary Times, From Paris To No Kings...

** "Remove the regime" - 'wait a minute...'

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon and The Homeless Left on winners and losers of the week, and what's right and wrong with the demand-free demos on the streets and at the movies. And, is the strange fascination with busted billionaires on screen a possible case of 'Ponzi porn'...

** "I'm like, I have imposter syndrome, and I'm sure I'm gonna ruin that movie. So when I get through it successfully, it' like wow - I guess I fooled them one more time..."

On fascism, food, identity crisis syndrome, and Halloween scary in the real world: A Conversation With Doug Jones. The famed actor, contortionist and mime artist specializing in non-human creatures on screen, is our guest on the show - talking about the re-release on the 20th anniversary of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro's gothic classic with political bite, Pan's Labyrinth.

And with Doug's simultaneous challenging depiction in the film, of both good and evil apparitions. The Pale Man symbolizing fascism, the brutality of dictator Franco's regime in post-civil war Spain - while also Pan/The Faun, in opposition to fascism. Jones likewise reflects on the legacy that seems to have passed down to him from late screen legend Lon Chaney as the 'man of many faces' and why...

** "On a stormy night in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was venturing to his lodgings at a late hour - but I should first tell you something about this young German..."

Arts Express Playhouse: The Adventure Of The German Student. A gothic tale of Wolfgang Gottfried in Paris - a lonely, visionary student prone to dark philosophical musings...'late one stormy night where the guillotine stands, he finds a young woman in black cowering on the steps of the scaffold...'

** "Murdoch's Wall Street Journal lead headline blared that 'Rioting Sweeps Country' - then returned to commercial oblivion right next to it with 'How Coke Beat Pepsi To Supply Beverages at KFC'..."

Bro On The Global Cultural Beat. Arts Express Paris Correspondent Professor Dennis Broe on location where it's all happening, at the French mass uprisings in progress.

And 'characterizing these demonstrations as a pure eruption of violence as the last resort of a government and a media which has lost control of the narrative' - while a looming mass strike in November is set to confront 'the vast redistribution of wealth upwards...'

** "We're getting close to the election - and Trump's getting rejected like a Cub Scout in a singles bar..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon on winners and losers, gas and food, Russia and the Republicans - from the diesel crisis to mass crisis in Europe. And, 'Donald Trump who couldn't tell the truth if you waterboarded him.'

Meanwhile, 'I'm trying to eat, brother, that's all I'm trying to do is eat - so let's just make sure that old Garland can eat by making his gas at the station cheap enough so he can afford food...'

** "I had a successful career as an actor in Brazil, and in NY I was invited to meet all these rich people. And it was such a contrast to everything that was going on in the world - and I just needed to write about it, because this has nothing to do with the streets, this ain't real..."

The Immigration Crisis And A Tale Two Elections - Bernardo Barreto Talks Invisible Borders, Fascism In Brazil. And his latest film, Invisible Borders, a political thriller about ICE terrorism, immigration, incarceration - and an undocumented waitress vanishing from the NYC streets without a trace. Written, starring and produced by someone who has lived what he's talking about.

The Brazilian actor, our guest on the show, likewise has plenty to say about the upcoming Presidential election in Brazil this Sunday - and what the critical struggle to defeat fascism in that election is all about...

** "This is an ode to journalism as it might be - should be. Dedicated to those first persons who sat upright in bed at 2:35am and said - 'you know who you are...'

The Five Minute Marxist: A new episode literary excursion by Minneapolis writer and novelist Mike Palecek, banned in Canada, surviving five terms in jails and prisons for protesting against the US military - and a daring bid to break through the closed doors of power on Capitol Hill, as an Iowa Congressional candidate back in 2000. And Palecek's work distributed by CWG Press, 'a small publisher with big ideas...'

** "Steinbeck's critique of American values and the American character - and their molding by a rabid capitalism..."

Bro On The Global Cultural Beat: East Of Eden - Paradise No More...Arts Express Paris Correspondent Professor Dennis Broe on the dramatic series that 'begins and ends with two wars, the Civil War and WWI, and with a Native American genocide in the middle of them - reminding us that the great events in American history often happen around that history's pattern of bloodshed.'

And Steinbeck's vision in the adapted novel, of Americans as "a violent people...descended from the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers and brawlers..."

Plus...Trump TV - the revolution will not be televised...

** "It's like you're in a restaurant, and you can have the blue waiter or the red waiter - but the food is cooked in the same kitchen..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon joins UK politician George Galloway, a prior Pacifica host as well, in exploring fact from fiction unscramblingof the upcoming controversial US midterm electionsjust a few weeks away. And what any of this may have to do with donors, diesel prices, the US press for sale - and are the Democrats merely 'not Donald Trump'...

** "We would talk about how our phones were being tapped, it was just weird stuff on the set going on and we all had each others' backs. We all knew what we were making was something great - and I still think aboutit every day..."

Terrestrial, Judas And The Black Messiah, Coming 2 America, And His Mark Clark And Eddie Murphy - A Conversation With Jermaine Fowler. The actor and standup comedian talks about portraying Black Panther Mark Clark in Judas And The Back Messiah, who along with Panther leader Fred Hampton and other Panthers, were assassinated by the Chicago police in the middle of the night back in 1969, while they slept in their beds. And what being part of that film and that history, has meant to him to this day.

Fowler also discusses his latest film, the sci-fi noir Terrestrial, in which he struggles as a low wage worker and aspiring writer and filmmaker to 'get his work seen and voice heard.' Not unlike the real world, in which the working class is shut out of the film world, even from portraying their own class in movies. Fowler also revisits both playing and co-starring with Eddie Murphy in two different productions.

** "They are both literally life changing events, and who better than Cory Doctorow to unpack them. So let's begin..."

Writers Corner: On 'the merger between media giants Paramount and Warner Bros, and the seemingly strange call by the CEO of Anthropic AI, for government regulation of AI. Stay tuned, and all will be revealed...

** "Disparity between the actual protests and how they are being covered, also returns to the way the original French Revolution was experienced in the bourgeois media..."

The New French Revolution - and instead the NY Times gleefully running a burning trash can...Arts Express Paris Correspondent Professor Dennis Broe on location where it's all happening, at the French mass uprisings in progress.

Referencing A Tale Of Two Cities, Proudhon, Musk, students swarming the Bastille, police riot guns maiming protesters, class inequity in the schools - and the Mali-French mayor of St. Denis showing up on the picket line, courageously shielding students with his body from police violence...

** "It seems like every week, the false flags abound - false flag incoming!"

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon with false flag alerts for this week - sorting it all out with The Homeless Left on board. And connections to a mystery drone hanging out at a German airport, Israeli media's 17 different versions on what happened on that Flydubai plane, a condo building collapse in Miami, the US departure from Iraq, the enemy of the day, a Pacifica host frequently treated as though an Osama bin Laden protege, - and waiting for the plumber Hollywood movie about it all...

** "What we can't understand seems to be growing exponentially by the day, these forces controlling our lives more and more - yet we seem powerless over it..."

Andrew McCarthy Talks Orion, His Henry Miller and RFK, Wednesday, Orange Is The New Black, Claude Chabrol's Dr. M...The original Brat Pack actor in a conversation about his weird and unsettling latest character, the Interrogator, in the surreal, hyper-paranoid science fiction thriller Orion. As he hounds a crashed astronaut with amnesia, memories that may hold crucial information predicting the end of the world.

And what any of this may or may not have to do with the film's South African Afrikaner director - and the career corporate intelligence operative specializing in Russian and Middle Eastern security, turned Orion screenwriter...

McCarthy likewise shares memories of portraying RFK, and the late literary legend Henry Miller in the Claude Charbrol directed Quiet Days In Clichy, based on Miller's autobiographical erotic novel - along with his Assassin in Chabrol's apocalyptic Berlin thriller Dr. M, inspired by Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse. Also, what was it about Orange Is The New Black that led him to direct 15 episodes of the critically acclaimed female incarceration satirical series.

And, an original excerpted vintage reading on the show by Henry Miller - in which he revisits the little known other side of his creative work, a passion for art.

Plus...Flydubai, the no laughing matter comical Palestinian perspective...

** "This is a perfect storm - There's so many things that are going on right now, I don't know where to begin..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon Goes Shopping - and what it has to do with the price of diesel, tomatoes, toilet paper, tractors, sidewalks, the midterms, the war on Iran, the new financial capitalism where you make money while asleep - and top secret empty grocery shelves in Ukraine...

** "It was like amazing for me to be able to learn the history of that relationship with Muhammad Ali. So for me it was just a great experience, and I just feel very fortunate that I got to have that experience - and now be part of that history and that legacy..."

Lawrence Gilliard Jr. Talks Resentment, One Night In Miami, Law & Order, Gangs Of New York...The African American actor revisits that dramatized historic meeting back in 1964 of Malcolm, Mohammad Ali and music legend Sam Cooke, and his portrayal in the Regina King directed film of Ali's trainer Drew Bundini Brown.

Currently up for new episodes of Law & Order, the actor discusses as well about his latest movie, Resentment - as a Wall Street player with some mysterious motive in mind. As he offers to finance the movie of an old high school friend, a broke and broken failed filmmaker.

Gillard likewise has thoughts to share about his role in the Martin Scorsese screen classic, Gangs Of New York as Jimmy Spoils, the only black member of the real life Dead Rabbits Irish gang back then. And his upcoming Danny DeVito directed film, St. Sebastian, a mystery shrouded post-apocalyptic nuclear war thriller going down in Russia.

** "A testament to wit, intelligence and work ethic, perseverance and commitment to the end of empire. So let's begin..."

Arts Express Playhouse: 'Uncovering the real danger of AI is that it is run by evil war mongers...opposing the empire under which we live is the only path to dignity, the river of blood which feeds our way of life is always the loudest thing in the room...All it takes is one crack in the lie we've been sold...' Stay tuned and all will be revealed...

Plus...Trump, Xi, a dangerous dinner and testosterone...

** "While we're dancing around on hot coals over what Trump says, that somehow Trump was going to share billions with the working class - he's a fake blue collar billionaire, the guy that pretends to stand with you..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon On The Art Of Deciphering Donald Trump...Referencing the 25th Amendment, flock cameras, The Day After Tomorrow with a bottle of scotch, The Idiocracy, Rush Limbaugh, Musk and Twitter, basketballs - and shaking hands with The Invisible Man...

** "He believes in the chain of command, that you've got to carry out the mission - but his superiors probably haven't got not only his best interests at heart, but the American people..."

Scott Adkins Talks One Last Shot, facing off against Keanu Reeves in John Wick, and how he began in China 'with all the greats of Hong Kong cinema...' The British actor is our guest on the show, in a conversation about his move from martial arts to movies, and his latest film One Last Shot, actually a tale of two villains - a rebel soldier who may be suffering from PTSD, and a suspect US military. Along with how his working class roots in a family of butchers informs who he is today, dramatically and otherwise.

** "The Most Dangerous Woman In Washington. She feeds the beast - another way to say it is that the beast is well fed..."

Ask A Shrink: Continuing the art of deciphering Donald Trump, a mental health maven dives into the mystery surrounding who she is, why and how - and 'what does she feed the beast.' Stay tuned, and all will be revealed...

** "We're always losing to people in pajamas and flip flops. You know what they have - people, thousands and thousands of people..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon on the art of figuring out US war defeats on repeat. And what it all has to do with US military strategy, no health care, and schools going straight to hell; bipartisan presidential dementia; Iran, Vietnam, Ukraine, Iraq twice - and Hakeem Jeffries meeting with Trump financial bagman Kushner...

** "It makes me very sad, and especially as a German, we have such a long history of war - and I really hope that we as a species are able to stop all that, and live in peace together..."

Mathis Landwehr Talks Lion Fist, V For Vendetta, Immigration Game, The Death Of Sherlock Holmes - and what it's like for his young generation experiencing nothing but endless war their entire lifetime...

The German actor in a conversation about his journey from martial arts to socially conscious movies. And V For Vendetta, his first US film, the dystopian political classic about 'the overthrow of a tyrannical government, inspired by The Matrix creators as well, of 'their opposition to fascism, police states and social inequality in the 1980s under British Prime Minister Thatcher...'

And following up with his portrayal of young Edgar Allan Poe's military cadet comrade in the gothic tale, Raven's Hollow, Mathis likewise delves into his latest film, Lion Fist. An unusual tale about a down and out Rust Belt worker just out of prison, entering a duel under the guidance of an Asian martial arts elder - not for glory, but to pay medical bills...

** "We will sneakily be bypassing Donald Trump's Canadian tariffs by smuggling in a short story about spies - written by a mystery classic Canadian author and humorist..."

Arts Express Playhouse: My Revelations As A Spy. 'Where we live, nowhere, where we are, everywhere - frequently we don't know ourselves where we are.' Stay tuned, and all will be revealed...

Plus...Trump bribery at the ballot box...

** "The United States can't admit it's been defeated, because it is admitting they no longer rule the world - those days are over, brother..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon on the US stumbling back into war against Iran - as the wheels come off the cart at the Department Of War. And what all of this has to do with the midterms, chicken feathers versus turkey feathers, Trump staging political release parties as if for a movie that's never coming out, all about supporting the narrative that has nothing to do with the real world - and 'a horrifically emotionally broken man who couldn't be a manager at McDonalds, don't put him around sharp objects - that's Pete Hegseth...'

** "That's why I'm an actor - to try and take on complicated people, and tell those complicated stories about humans..."

Jason Isaacs Talks The Salt Path, Victorian Psycho, His Cary Grant, And The Toronto Film Festival...The White Lotus, West Wing and Armageddon actor in a conversation about his latest among no less than 250 films - the dramatic true story of The Salt Path, based on the real life struggle to survive as Moth Winn and his wife Raynor, played by Gillian Anderson, rural farmers who lose everything wander homeless across the English wilderness.

And the British actor, who has portrayed Peter The Great, Cary Grant, Mephisto, Dracula, Captain Hook and Satan twice, delves as well into his upcoming dark psychological comedic period thriller, Victorian Psycho. In which he inhabits Mister Pounds, described as 'the enigmatic and mercurial owner of a remote estate, hiring an eccentric governess with violent psychopathic tendencies.' Isaacs is on the line from London, and on his way to the Toronto Film Festival for the premiere of another film co-starring with Anderson, The Julia Set.

Plus...Arts Express Special Edition - surreal political excursions into The Trump Twilight Zone...