Conversation ex Nihilo

Mark Farrell is the former show runner for Corner Gas, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and others. He also wrote for The Red Green Show and costarred on Billy's favorite show The Newsroom. He joins the conversation today to talk about his early days doing standup in Canada, meeting and working with the legendary Ken Finkleman, life in The Newsroom, the glamour and glitz of Canadian TV and cancer.     

Cage/ Rage is a podcast by a true Nicolas Cage fan for Nicolas Cage fans. It is hosted by Darryl Edge of Leeds, U.K. Darryl watches all of Cage's films in an effort to attain true Cage nirvana. Besides the great actor, Billy and Darryl talk about: Pro wrestling, North England vs. South England, mental health, fame, and clown college. Don't take any of those things for granted. 

Billy talks about his unrelenting, yet hard to describe aversion to marrying a Nicole. Andrew encourages listeners to vote for their favorite, fattest grizzly bear. Both Billy and Andrew speculate on what dinner with the Trump-Kushners would be like and then there is talk of tech (big surprise.)

No intro music today. No BS just Andrew plugged in. There were some technical difficulties in editing the audio clip but the quality is good. The conversation is good. America is good. 
Best,
Billy

Billy briefly explains what spooked him last time. It was this article. After that Billy has a wonderful talk with author and historian Helen Rappaport. Helen joins Billy via Zoom from England to talk to him about her trilogy about the Romanovs, she debunks some of the myths surrounding the survival of the daughters, as well as her book Caught In the Revolution about life in St. Petersburg between February and October of 1917. They also discuss Putin's plastic surgery, Lenin's sex life and a few other juicy bits of history.
www.helenrappaport.com

 

Kenn Bisio is a photojournalist and an educator. He speaks to Billy about his background, his profession and his career as a professor at Metro State University. Kenn shares anecdotes about shooting pictures for some of the most well known and respected news publications in the U.S. as well as shooting pictures of some of the most well known, if not always respected, people in the U.S.

John Seabrook is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His most recent book The Song Machine does to the pop music industry what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for the meat packing industry. It tells the reader how their favorite product is really made.

Many of the top pop songs of the last 30 years or so were written by the same small group of people. Mostly men, and mostly Scandinavian. It's truly a fascinating tale of how the soundtracks of our lives have been very deliberately crafted by algorithms and mathematical precision (hooks every seven seconds etc.) 

John talks to Billy about his experiences writing the book, ABBA's influence on The Sex Pistols, Telehealth, ISIS and their interest in pop music, stepping into the minds of song creators and much more.

Read more of John's work at:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/29/the-promise-and-the-peril-of-virtual-health-care

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/16/dressing-for-the-surveillance-age        

The conversation goes Canadian today (forgive the sound quality) when we talk to author David Berry. David is a culture critic, journalist and strategist based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His book On Nostalgia was published by Coach House Books in 2020. Billy and David discuss the book, Talking Heads (the band not the heads,) Canadian humor, a little bit of culture, a little bit of fondness for UCB and a little bit about a bit more. Hope you enjoy and check out his book. You can purchase it at the linked web site above, Amazon or other purveyors of fine cultural critiques. This episode is brought to you by your local Denny's men's room a place of discovery and discreet physical contact even in these most uncertain and frightening of times.   

Major Danny Sjursen is the author of Patriotic Dissent and Ghost Riders of Baghdad. Along with Chris Henrikson and Keagan Miller he hosts the podcast Fortress on a Hill. He is a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a former history teacher at West Point. He joins Billy via Zoom to talk about his own history a bit. They also discuss Oliver Stone, Stalin, Staten Island and their mutual uneasy relationship with power.  

Greg Bloom founded Image Magazine in 2000. It was a victim of the Great Recession of 2008 but while it lasted it was the night life bible of the mile high city. Billy worked for Image as a staff writer and photographer for two years and those two years clearly made an impact, for he tracked down his old boss and persuaded him to talk of old times. There's history, a tad of reminiscing and some advice and hope for the future. This episode is brought to you by steak sauce.
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