‘funny,’ not funny

We start with Hewitt retelling his favorite joke as told by his friend Jan Luby. Jim actually snorts. We resume the interview from part 1, and Hewitt talks about his reaction to his listening of Utopia Revisited. Hewitt then shares a story of his part in the origin of Jim’s band name Jim’s Big Ego. As punishment, Jim plays another clip from Hewitt’s album, The Only Drowning Goldfish: I Will Crumble. Jim makes a pitch for Hewitt to release his songs to the world ‘for the love of humanity.’ Hewitt tells the story of how he left the Boston area and his personal and creative journey since then. He talks about coming back from chemotherapy and how he found joy in making music again after his recovery. Lionel draws parallels between Hewitt’s story and that of Phil Broikos who visited us during season one of our podcast. We talk about the role of religion in both Phil, and Hewitt’s creative journeys. Lionel reflects on his friend who has scored a number of songs and doesn’t know what he can do with his music, reflecting on our conversation with Dave Herlihy as well. Jim pushes back against defeatism in the face of the flood of free music out there.Hewitt talks about working with Jim Steinman before he passed. We talk about the effect of MTV on music and how lots of recording artists wouldn’t have been as successful without it. We also talk about the elongation of hits in the public eye because videos stayed popular longer than songs on the radio. Jim mentions a quote from Seth Godin: “people like us like things like this,” and the tribal aspect of letting viewers decide what they like. Hewitt talks about wanting to be surprised by music, which was more possible when bands put out a new record every year, rather than riding out an album for multiple years on MTV. Lionel talks about a time when Jim told him that monetizing music was dead and how he didn't believe it then, but does now.Hewitt talks about wanting to support the artist Matt Pond, and how he wished people would be patrons of music. Naturally, Patreon comes up. Lionel wishes there was a way to support artists with micro-donations on YouTube. Hewitt points out that there is a feature in live chats that works like this. He mentions Philip McKnight and his channel Know Your Gear, and how he has support buttons in his live chats.Jim breaks in to play clips from Hewitt’s songs but is derailed by Lionel asking about the naming convention used in the tracks he sent us. Hewitt explains that the secondary titles indicate the number of mixes. Jim plays clips from Evelyn, Howl, and Until the Sun Explodes. Hewitt mentions his friend, Christian Finnegan and his podcast Audio Spackle where he referred to Hewitt as “the Howard Hughes of music.” He talks about his plans to eventually get the music out there when they are ready. Jim pushes back, saying he should release the songs and work on the next ones. Hewitt also mentions how hard it is for new songwriters to be among peers who aspire to be artistic, rather than commercial. We mention Taylor Swift and how she is inspiring a new generation but how she lacks competition in this current environment.Lionel mentions how he's been turned on to Lana Del Rey and some other artists and talks about how he demonstrates how many new artists are copies of older artists, Lana being the main exception. He says that collaboration like the kind Jim engaged with, with Kurt Uenala is so important. Jim stresses the importance of open mics in honing the craft of the singer songwriter. He stresses the unpredictability of which song is good, and how the artist is often the worst judge of this. We end with a discussion of how good or great is relative, and Hewitt mentions a song for which we had no clip, called The Shame of Diamonds, which he felt achieved everything he wanted. We will leave that song for when he decides to release it.

Just a note: Hewitt was recording into his tablet and there are lots of digital glitches that Jim could not remove. We begin with Lionel’s favorite part of the podcast which we almost never capture: the sound check before we press record. Obviously, we pressed record this time. Jim launches in with a tweet from Elon Musk and we reminisce about the movie Stripes. Jim introduces Hewitt Huntwork, one of his favorite songwriters and one who is invisible in the current music landscape. Jim talks about The Cantab Lounge and Geoff Bartley's open mic there, previously mentioned by James O'Brien. Hewitt talks about the first time he saw Jim at Passim. Jim mentions Hewitt’s first album The Only Drowning Goldfish and plays a clip of Your Pretty Head from it. We talk about the fallout for songwriters after the death of Kurt Cobain. Jim laments that the album is not available anywhere anymore, mistakenly thinking it was recorded by Tom Dubé. Hewitt talks about Tom as the subject of a book, and his near-death experience with Marc Cohn. Lionel points out the sticker on Hewitt’s glasses, which is shown in our poster image for this episode. His other glasses will be featured in next week’s episode: part 2 of our conversation, which lasted over 100 minutes.Lionel talks about Roy Clarke and his appearances on Hee Haw. Lionel mentions a few of his favorite of Hewitt’s songs, made available to us for this podcast, first The Thief, then Leaning On You, and Just Rock and Roll. Jim added 2 clips in post-production. Hewitt mentions his conversation with storyteller, jewelry maker, Raelinda Woad. Hewitt talks about how his dad encouraged him to speak publicly at an early age, and express himself with music. When he was five, he stood up at a toastmasters banquet and gave a speech about dolphins. Hewitt grew up in New Brighton, MN which was mentioned in the movie In The Line of Fire. While we are on the subject of movies, Lionel mentions Burn After Reading, but we get back on track. Hewitt's family moved to Acton, MA, home of Bill Morrissey, Steve Carell, and Caroll Spinney. A friend of his from there, Christian Finnegan used Hewitt’s music in his standup show, Show Your Work.At this point, Lionel derails us with a story about rodents being shipped by a humane society to another humane society. We hope this story is not too disturbing to listeners. We decided to keep it in. We meant no disrespect to the rodents. Jim tries to get us back on track by playing a clip from an unreleased song by Hewitt Huntwork: No Mistake. Hewitt talks about what inspired it and his recording history, and we end part one of our interview.

Dave Herlihy is an Intellectual Property/Entertainment Lawyer, a Teaching Professor on the Music industry at Northeastern University, a songwriter, and the leader/vocalist/guitarist of O Positive. We talk about his return to songwriting, his hits with the band, working with limited time, in both the daily sense and life sense, and how Dave instructs his classes in leading a musical life.We begin by talking about Dave’s instruction on ‘heartbeat physics,’ positing heartbeats as a form of life currency. He talks about how hard it is to get noticed among the 120,000 songs uploaded to Spotify each day. The importance of having a team is emphasized in the enormous endeavor of getting noticed among the hundreds of millions of songs in the air.Dave mentions how he recently has started writing songs again without any expectations. Club owners need people in the club, and those people usually need to be drinking. Jim plays a clip of a song from his new album Postcards From Kindergarden Vol. 1, 86 years. We talk about the idea of internal age and waiting for the dad download to transform us into what we are. Lionel mentions our conversation with Phil Broikos and his project A Day In Music, specifically, the song about Back To The Future. Dave says he focuses more on what we do with our time, and still being here, rather than the morbid dread of the clock ticking out.We switch to Dave’s song The Invisible Girl, and the process of getting that guitar sound. Dave says it's by Jeff Neumann from The Filters. Dave mentions that he and Jim will be doing a show at Club Passim in February. Dave talks about the process of recording with Epic Records back when O Positive had a record deal with them, Jim plays Imagine That, arguably the big hit from that record. Dave talks about working with Pete Walsh and switching out drum heads between takes.We talk about getting a vocal take right with minimum takes to keep the lines fresh, valuing verve over perfection. Jim relates that experience to his time in Iceland and working with Dan Cantor at his studio. Dave says he’s been working toward doing things alla prima. He says he's remixing a recording of O Positive songs from a cassette recorded at WERS in the 90s with Dan. Dan has software not unlike what was used on the recent Beatles single to separate out the tracks from the old recording and remix them.Dave invites Jim to write a new song with him. He says he’s been cowriting with as many people as he can. We talk about songs as postcards, the inspiration behind Dave’s new album. Jim mentions that there is a song from an O Positive album Toy Boat, Toy Boat, Toy Boat that lives in his head to today.We close by talking about the origins of music in the human species. Lionel mentions his reactions to watching both Stop Making Sense, the remastered version, and Home of The Brave. We end on an awkward note.

Leigh joins the pod with a conversation about their work at The Brooklyn Public Library and their pioneering program Books Unbanned. They are the Collections Manager and a librarian. This was a marvelous conversation, and like a great librarian, they have provided a bounty of references, which I'm including here:All Things Brooklyn Public Library
- Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned page
- Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned merch
- Brooklyn Public Library Borrowed and Banned podcast
- Brooklyn Public Library Library of Things
- Culture Pass NYC
- Brooklyn Public Library Materials Selection Policy
- Brooklyn Public Library Submission Guidelines for Authors and Publishers

Book Bans & Challenges Stats
- American Library Association Banned & Challenged Books
- National Coalition Against Censorship Youth Censorship Database
- PEN America Book Bans page
- PEN America Index of School Book Bans 2022-23

Books Unbanned Partners
- Boston Public Library Books Unbanned page
- Seattle Public Library Books Unbanned page
- San Diego Public Library Books Unbanned page
- LA County Public Library Books Unbanned page
- PEN America Advocacy Institutes

Karaugh Brown joins us to talk about her return to the creative life after years of pursuing a career in Museum patron management at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Guggenheim, The Frick Collection, and currently, her role as Vice President of Development and Partnerships at World Monuments Fund. We talk about balance between our professional and creative lives. We listen to her past recordings, including One Round Orange, and Favorite Daughter, and talk about her two upcoming projects, a new recording of her recent compositions, and an album of cover songs written by Bill Morrissey.We begin by talking about the balance between the creative life and career, and how that balance is never equal. Jim reads the lyrics from Ottawa before playing a clip, saying he wishes he had the lyrics printed out because they are so good. He mentions having seen a video on TikTok about how lots of women pitch their voices higher to gain acceptance. Karaugh says that the pitch of her voice matches her writing voice. We talk about the production of One Round Orange and Favorite Daughter and the process of working with Billy Conway from Morphineand Bill Morrissey in the studio.We talk about the next track San Antonio, and Karaugh shares a story about busking in Padua Italy. The song is about the basilica there. Lionel gets excited about the university which he calls the first university in Europe, however, it was the second. We talk about the joys and dangers of revisiting a magical place from the past. We discuss the ritual hazing of the graduates there and compare to other ritual events in our visits to Italy.Karaugh talks about how great it has been to get amazing and famous musicians to play at little bars around Boston. Jim mentions Dave Mattacks as an example before playing a clip from the song Blackout City. This song features Rose Polenzani on background vocals. Karaugh says it was written about New York City during a blackout during the early 2000s.Jim plays a clip from a song called Stealing Women. Karaugh relates the story behind the song, which took place in Boston at the time she was working at a women’s shelter. There had been a series of kidnappings in the area at that time. Jim mistook the place for something more rural. Karaugh and Jim compare writing styles.Before playing a clip from the song Gone, and then a clip added in post-production of the original song All Good Men, recorded live at Club Passim, the Campfire. Jim talks about how James O'Brien, Karaugh Brown, Jim and his wife Catherine used to live in a carriage house in Davis Square, Somerville. We talk about the changes between the James & Karaugh version of the song and the original.Jim plays another clip from The Campfire: Keep Giving. We talk about Karaugh’s plans for her next recording of her originals, and she talks about a plan to release an album of Bill Morrissey’s songs including Last Day of the Last Furlough and She Moved Through the Fair. Jim suggests that the Bill Morrissey album should be all synthesizers and recorded in Iceland. Karaugh thinks that would be something Bill would like. We discuss Bill’s music and why he was such an icon in New England folk music. Jim mentions the last time he saw Bill alive.At this point, we lost Lionel to a computer problem. We close out with a clip from Favorite Daughter: the song I Can Save You featuring Kris Delmhorst on strings and Bridget Matros on backing vocals written during Karaugh’s time at the shelter.After the outro, Lionel returns to talk more about the songs and the Gardner museum.

Jim starts by talking about a candy bar he’s eating. Lionel references The Simpsons. Jim talks about feeling under the weather and needing some sugar energy. We talk about putting our show on YouTube (some episodes are there now.) Lionel talks about visiting Sacramento. Lionel talks about his favorite cafe Recess Coffee. Jim recalls a music venue called Happy Endingsand Lionel mentions Kitty Hoyne’s Irish Bar.On to books: Lionel talks about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. At this point, Jim asks Lionel to reposition his mic to avoid plosives. We think maybe our podcast should be retooled to feature nothing but the two of us adjusting the mic. We then resume our book discussion with some words The Books of Jacob and the issues of translation, referenced in Drive Your Plow. Lionel mentions a translation of Sex by Madonna being translated into Hungarian. Douglas Hofstadter’s writing on the problems of translation comes up. Then we address The 13 Clocks by James Thurber. Jim mentions that Keith Olbermann reads Thurber each Friday on his podcast Countdown, but never from that book. Jim talks about wanting to write a musical based on that book, thinking it had only been done in a high school somewhere, but unaware that it has already been written and published.Jim says he’s been following a YouTube artist Andrewism who is a philosopher and historian, taking another look at our history and thinking. He is a Solarpunk advocate who discusses the benefit of Libraries of Everything. Specifically, Jim talks about Andrew’s piece on the Myth of the Barter Economy. We look forward to our interview with Leigh Hurwitz, a librarian at The Brooklyn Public Library, who pioneered Books Unbanned. Lionel advocates for drone delivery from the Library of Things and Jim pushes back citing issues Amazon faces with drones. We explore some ideas for what is practical for Libraries of Things.We talk about existing shared resources, touching on robotic cars and the protest against them. Jim says he’s reading Piranesi to his daughters but that it’s been slow going with increased homework by his eldest. He talks about plans to see his wife Catherine race in the Head of the Charles regatta. Jim mentions he’s feeling like crap and they close... but...The discussion continues offline, and Jim and Lionel realize, as Lionel gives his critical take on Andrewism that they should come back on the pod and discuss it further. Lionel says it’s really hard to determine how people actually lived, citing the charred scrolls at Vesuvius and the amazing advances in reading them. They seem to be a library of Epicurean Philosophy. Lionel mentions Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and our Euro-centric concept of agriculture. We mention the Three Sisters and The Lenape People and their form of agriculture. We talk about returning to a discussion of Andrew’s work, and the problems with content on YouTube.Jim brings up his notion, not an original idea, that money is the one true global religion and references his experience writing the latest volume of his book series. He proposes that monetary valuation is a category mismatch that leads to unhappiness. Lionel draws comparison to the age of railroads and the use of capital to create big works and talks about how technology forces all of us to change the way we order society.Lionel says he’s hopeful that it is increasingly possible to question the basic tenants of the dominant culture without being labeled a commie. He wonders if there’s a way to do away with agriculture and just print food. He speculates how fusion energy might change all of this with molecular assembly. Jim mentions that we have a giant fusion reactor available to us right now, we just need to collect the energy and store it. Lionel says the fact that information transmission has become so cheap, the effects on the world are remarkable, and the idea of infinite cheap energy would change everything. Jim remembers his old college professor Eric Chaisson who said that even with a zero carbon world, we will still end up with a heat surplus.In the end, we decide we need to become like Larry Niven’s puppeteers and move the earth.

This week, we talk with Robert Blake Whitehill, the author of the Ben Blackshaw thrillers. Deadrise, the first book, takes place in the Chesapeake Bay, on Smith and Tangier Islands and the surrounding areas. We talk about this history of those islands in relation to the books, as well as the meaning of the title, and boats called Deadrise, and work boats like the Winnie Estelle. Our conversation branches off into related authors Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard. The movie Jim mentions but can't remember is Barton Fink. Robert talks about a screenplay he is working on about Robert Smalls who commandeered a confederate gun ship during the civil war and went on to join the US House of Representatives.We discuss Frederick Douglass, who was born in Robert’s home town. Lionel is reminded of two books we have discussed: American Nations, and Union by Colin Woodard. Impressed by Robert’s vocabulary, we veer off into nautical terms used by Patrick O’Brian’s use of language in Master and Commander, for example, what is a futtock shroud? We discuss the best way to define a thriller, and Robert draws the example to the TV show Banshee. We bring up other notable related novels in this genre including The Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, The John Clark novels by Tom Clancy, the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald, the Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Series by Arthur W. Upfield, and Chesapeake by James A. Michener. Lionel is reminded again of The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes. Robert talks about flying his Cessna 152 out of New Jersey and Lionel and he get excited about the future of Air Taxis.Thank you to Robert Whitehill for spending time with us talking about all these things. We’d love to have him back to discuss his later books.

Podcaster, musician, songwriter, artist, writer, thought leader, and our somnolent listener, James O’Brien joins the pod to talk about his many projects and how he gets it all done. We talk about his podcast, All Your Days, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Pump Club project, and his documentary about Betsy Siggins, Long Ago Way. We talk about the Wes Anderson film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Roald_Dahl and the evolution of children’s stories, and The Cement Garden, by Ian McEwan, which James has recently finished. James describes the taste of Paxlovid, and we close with an excerpt from the song Rabbit Run from his album Careful In The Future. This was a really fun conversation, and we hope James will come back to the pod in the future. An hour and a half seemed too short.

Jim starts talking about his adventures in social media and James O’Brien’s wisdom on how not to get noticed there. We tell 2 jokes and Lionel talks about discovering Literacy CNY at his local library and his volunteer work in digital literacy. Jim and Lionel talk about Lionel’s upcoming trip to Boston. They talk again about The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. They talk about The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis and The Annotated Alice, which includes various illustrations for Alice In Wonderland. They branch off into a discussion about trees in upstate NY, especially the Celebration Maple. Jim tries his hand at reading made up ads for the podcast, something we don’t expect to do for real. Lionel talks about his adventures in bike riding on the Empire State Trail. Naturally, The Library of Babel by Borges comes up again. Jim talks about reading to his daughters and working on the open source version of his web publishing platform. Jim stresses the importance of apple picking. Lionel talks about his readiness for winter.

In this episode, we welcome Nick Bruel. Nick is the New York Times best selling author and illustrator of Boing, Who Is Melvin Bubble, and the Bad Kitty books. We start the discussion with Jim and Nick's history together from first grade, where they met their common nemesis and how it continued in college, where Nick drew a comic strip called Kawala Bob for the bi-college newspaper. We talk about books store categorization and the evolution of the chapter book and the graphic novel. We talk about his school visits and how he has moved from a hybrid model of graphic chapter books, toward making full color graphic novels. We talk about how the graphic novel format has its own challenges and bonuses. We find out the origins of Uncle Murray from the Bad Kitty books. We mention his influence of Mad Magazine artists Sergio Argonés and Don Martin. Lionel mentions Don Marquis & George Herriman, the creators of Archy and Mehitabel. We touch briefly on Windsor McKay and Little Nemo in Slumberland. Jim’s uncle Carmine Infantino comes up a lot as a big influence. We talk about Dav Pilkey and Kazu Kibuishi and the different type of community of illustrator/authors now vs the past. We talk about Kibuishi's graphic novels Amulet and his process in creating them.Finally we have a discussion about book banning and how it has impacted Nick’s life and career, branching off into the power and danger of books from the time they were invented. Nick talks about a larger threat of public and school libraries getting completely defunded, a process that is on the way in many states. Jim says the first book that should be banned for inappropriate subjects would be the Bible and Nick mentions that this was brought up in Utah. This was a fantastic conversation - thank you very much to Nick Bruel for joining us on the pod.