Pop Culture Tonight with Patrick Phillips

Morgan Higgins lived in San Clemente. She  has performed Pop and Broadway music for 10 years. She was on ABCs Rising Star two summers ago. In addition to that, she just finished filming her first Nickelodeon Movie and is currently filming a web series. She has a YouTube channel with over a million hits. Morgan sings organic pop rock music and is also a songwriter

Ronnie Blevins is one of the most consistently working character actors in Hollywood. Currently he is recurring on the new DirecTV series, KINGDOM, and will soon be coming out in the feature films THEN THERE WAS, HOT BATH AN’ A STIFF DRINK, and CRAWLSPACE and in a recurring role on the second season of HBO’s TRUE DETECTIVE. His lengthy film resume includes supporting roles in SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, THE HUNTED, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, while his recent guest star credits include HBO’s TRUE BLOOD, FX’s JUSTIFIED, and CBS’ CSI: NY, HAWAII FIVE-0, and THE MENTALIST.

Larry Tye is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is a biography of Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate. Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon explores RFK’s extraordinary transformation from cold warrior to fiery leftist.

Tye’s first book, The Father of Spin, is a biography of public relations pioneer Edward L.Bernays. Home Lands looks at the Jewish renewal underway from Boston to Buenos Aires. Rising from the Rails explores how the black men who worked on George Pullman’s railroad sleeping cars helped kick-start the Civil Rights movement and gave birth to today’s African-American middle class. Shock, a collaboration with Kitty Dukakis, is a journalist’s first-person account of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), psychiatry’s most controversial treatment, and a portrait of how that therapy helped one woman overcome debilitating depression. 

Satchel is the biography of two American icons – Satchel Paige and Jim Crow. Superman tells the nearly-real life story of the most enduring American hero of the last century.

In addition to his writing, Tye runs the Boston-based Health Coverage Fellowship, which helps the media do a better job reporting on critical issues like public health, mental health, and high-tech medicine. Launched in 2001 and supported by a series of foundations, the fellowship trains a dozen medical journalists a year from newspapers,radio stations, and TV outlets nationwide.

From 1986 to 2001, Tye was an award-winning reporter at The Boston Globe, where his primary beat was medicine. He also served as the Globe’s environmental reporter, roving national writer, investigative reporter, and sports writer. Before that, he was the environmental reporter at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, and covered government and business at The Anniston Star in Alabama.

Tye, who graduated from Brown University, was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993-94. He taught journalism at Boston University, Northeastern, and Tufts.

Matt Yockey is assistant professor of film studies at the University of Toledo. His work on fan studies and the superhero genre has appeared in such publications as The Journal of Fandom Studies, Transformative Works and Cultures, The Velvet Light Trap, and Studies in Comics.

ABC’s action-comedy series Batman (1966–68) famously offered a dual address in its wildly popular portayal of a comic book hero in a live action format. Children uncritically accepted the show’s plots and characters, who were guided by lofty ideals and social values, while adults reacted to the clear parody of the values on display. In Batman, author Matt Yockey argues that the series served as a safe space for viewers to engage with changing attitudes about consumerism, politics, the Vietnam war, celebrity, race, and gender during a period when social meaning was increasingly contested in America.

Yockey examines Batman’s boundary pushing in four chapters. In “Bat-Civics,” he analyzes the superhero as a conflicted symbol of American identity and considers the ways in which the Batman character parodied that status. Yockey then looks at the show’s experimentation with the superhero genre’s conservative gender and racial politics in “Bat-Difference” and investigates the significance of the show’s choices of stars and guest stars in “Bat-Casting.” Finally, he considers how the series’ dual identity as straightforward crime serial and subversive mass culture text set it up for extratextual production in “Bat-Being.”

The superhero is a conflicted symbol of American identity—representing both excessive individualism and the status quo—making it an especially useful figure for the kind of cultural work that Batman undertook. Batman fans, from popular culture enthusiasts to television history scholars,

Justin Fabus is a singer/songwriter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is gaining attention in country’s music scene. Writing songs and playing guitar from an early age, Justin never believed in the word can’t.

Justin has performed at fairs and festivals across the East Coast, and has appeared with many artists such as Gary Allan, Craig Campbell, Randy Houser and David Nail. Justin also had the honor to be invited to perform at The Wheeling Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia.

In September 2013, Justin released his debut EP. The title track “Save Me” was used for Justin’s first full length music video starring MTV actress and model Cara Parrish. Following the debut of Justin’s EP, he released “Kiss of a Gypsy” the first single off his forthcoming debut album in the summer of 2014. “Kiss of a Gypsy’” found great success for Justin as TouchTunes jukeboxes named him a “Breakout Band” of 2014. “Kiss of a Gypsy” was added to all 60,000 TouchTunes jukeboxes throughout North America and Europe. Closing out 2014, Justin was named as one of the “Best-Up-And-Coming Pittsburgh Bands” of 2014 by CBS and KDKA.

Justin released his debut self-titled album produced by Steve Hornbeak on June 12. Hornbeak has recorded and toured with artists such as Billy Gillman, Faith Hill, Journey, Richard Marx and Tim McGraw. Hornbeak is currently a cast member on the ABC hit series “Nashville”. In the summer of 2015, Justin will be opening for Nashville recording artists Frankie Ballard, Dierks Bentley, Hunter Hayes, Sam Hunt, Jonathan Jackson, Lady Antebellum, Maddie & Tae and Kip Moore.

Justin’s self-titled album debuted at number 8 on “The iTop iTunes 100 New Country Releases.” To celebrate the release of Justin’s debut album, Touchtunes added the complete album to all 60,000 of their jukeboxes.

I sat down with action-star Keanu Reeves at Fantastic Fest recently to discuss his new film John Wick, his preparation for the role, physical training, learning choreography in one day, how he hasn’t aged a day and how he really feels about today’s generation watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure!

Paranormal investigator, Steve Gonsalves (GhostHunters) also joins Patrick to chat about the popular television show, and his biggest fear!

Dave Bickler‘s biggest hit with Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”, was #1 on the Billboard charts for six weeks. The song won Dave a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

It was voted “Best New Song” by the People’s Choice Awards, received an Academy Award nomination, came in at #18 on the “Top 100 Singles” chart in Billboard’s 100th Anniversary issue, sold over 2.5 million copies on iTunes, is featured on popular electronic games such as Guitar Hero, and was ranked #63 on VH1’s “100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs” in 2008.

Dave can be seen being interviewed about “Eye of the Tiger” on replays of the VH1 “100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs” television program in episode 2 of the 5 part series. In 2012 Dave appeared on The Colbert Report singing Newt Gingrich’s book “A Nation Like No Other” to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger”.

Dave is currently finishing up recording on his solo project.

Tom DeMichael is degreed in US History and has published numerous books and magazine articles in subjects as diverse as American film, American firefighting, collectible toys, and television’s greatest game shows.

As a video writer/producer of broadcast, corporate, and educational programming, DeMichael has received several industry awards. He is also a former Top Ten finalist on TV’s “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?”

In 2005, Paul Greene’s passion for acting brought him to Los Angeles.

After studying in New York at Stella Adler, Uta Hagen’s HB Studios, and Susan Batson’s Black Nexxus, Paul’s commitment to developing his craft continued in Los Angeles at Improv Olympic West and the Actor’s Circle Theater and in work with, Nicoli Guzov, Sandy Marshal and Margie haber.

Paul has starred in Do No Harm with Lauren Holly, and recently appeared in Sofia Coppola’s  Somewhere.

His television experience reveals a broad range of characters and considerable versatility including 42 episodes on Fox’s Wicked Wicked Games as Tatum O’Neal’s love interest, and appearances on Freddie, CSI NY, Shark, My own worst enemy, The Wedding Bells, (David E. Kelley), Eastwick,The whole truth (Jerry Bruckheimer) and NCIS, Harry’s Law, The Client List, The Newsroom,NTSF:SD:SUV.,the hit syfy series Bitten, CSI and most recently, the Girlfriends guide to Divorce on Bravo. Paul has also starred in more than 100 television commercials.

XCOM 2 marks composer Tim Wynn’s second outing in the XCOM universe having also written music for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Tim’s other work includes the long-running hit TV series Supernatural as well as video games in the Command & Conquer series, Total War series, Marvel’s The Punisher and The Darkness II based on the best-selling comics.

Bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Feast of Fates, Christian A. Brown received a Kirkus star in 2014 for the first novel in his genre-changing Four Feasts of Darkness series and a Best of Book of 2015 award.

He also received a Foreward Reviews’ 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Honourable Mention. After spending most of his career in the health and fitness industry, Brown quit his job to care for his mother when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2010.

Having dabbled with the novel that would eventually become Feast of Fates for over a decade, Brown was finally able to finish the project. His mother, who was able to read a beginning version of the novel before she passed away, has since imbued the story with deeper sentiments of loss, love, and meaning.

A lover of the weird and wonderful, Brown considers himself an eccentric with a talent for cat-whispering. A funny and charismatic speaker, he is passionate about changing people’s perceptions of the fantasy genre and has appeared on a variety of media shows including Newstalk 1010, Daytime Rogers, The Mary Sue, Den of Geek, Get Bold Today with LeGrande Green, and AM640.

He continues to explore the intricacies of emotions, life, and death in Feast of Dreams and is widely sought after for his take on pop culture.

Mankind has been predicting its own demise through various methods, from fables and religious scriptures to hard-core scientific studies since the dawn of time. And if there is one thing Hollywood knows how to exploit, it is the fears of Things to Come…  Author Dale Sherman shares his insights on Hollywood Armageddon!

No stranger to comedy, Michael Wandmacher is currently providing score for the ABC hit comedy The Goldbergs,  including the rap tunes for the show’s “Big Tasty” character, which have become an internet sensation.

Wandmacher’s comedy chops are further featured in Disney’s Max Keeble’s Big Move for director Tim Hill and the FOX comedy Breaking In.

In the world of video games, Michael delivered the pulse-pounding sci-fi/horror score for Activision’s Singularity and cinematic underscore for Sony’s massively successful Twisted Metal re-launch.

Actor Ed Skrein is this week’s Celebrity Soundbite as he chats about the fight choreography in the upcoming film “The Transporter: Refueled”.

Mitch Pileggi is perhaps best known for his role as Walter Skinner onThe X-Files. He also had a recurring role on Stargate Atlantis as Colonel Steven Caldwell. He appeared in the 2008 film Flash of Genius.

In 2008, he began a recurring role as Ernest Darby in Sons of Anarchy. He also starred as Harris Ryland in the TNT revival of Dallas (2012–2014).

Mitch returns to The X-Files as Walter Skinner on January 24th, 2016 on FOX and will be performing at Zach Theatre in Austin, Texas in the award-winning play “TRIBES”.

“Teachers” is written by and stars the Katydids, a troupe of six performers who all have a name that is a version of Katie.

William B. Davis started acting as a child, working in summer stock with The Straw Hat Players in Ontario and doing radio drama during the CBC’s golden age in the early fifties. He weaned himself from acting while at university and embarked on a twenty year career as a theatre director and acting teacher.

In the early eighties, he drifted back to acting. Within a few years his acting career blossomed, highlighted by the iconic Cigarette Smoking Man in The X-Files.

Davis has worked increasingly as an actor in film and television and has well over a hundred on camera credits. He is still in high demand for a range of roles on film and television.

To learn more about Davis’ career, purchase his memoir Where There’s Smoke…

You can also read an online excerpt here.

Blake Neely is a talented composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and author.

Neely has contributed to and been credited on dozens of film and TV projects over the years such as: Everwood (which earned him a 2003 Emmy Award nomination for the theme), on the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, King Kong, The Last Samurai, The Great Buck Howard and many more.

Other film projects in which he is the sole composer are Elvis and Anabelle, Starter for 10, and The Wedding Date.

In addition, Neely has composed the music for over twenty television series, including CBS’s The Mentalist. He has frequently collaborated with writer/director/producer Greg Berlanti, including Everwood, Jack & Bobby, Brothers & Sisters, Eli Stone, Dirty Sexy Money, Political Animals, Arrow, The Flash and currently Supergirl.