Hello! And welcome to our September episode! Hopefully it’s still September by the time you hear it, but not to worry! The Halloween episode will be out long before Halloween. The reason this was so late is I basically did both episodes at once, in addition to getting three kids back in high school, college and grad school, so, ya know. It’s all here and / or on its way. 

Matt Braunger is here! Matt is a hilarious comedian and a good buddy of mine. A friend of the show, as they say. Matt has a brand new podcast out called Tank Top Talks and it’s exactly what it sounds like. People in tank tops, talking about tank tops and people. You can listen to it, watch it on YouTube. You get it. Tank Top Talks. 

And Paul Myers is here. What I said about Matt, same goes for Paul. Paul’s not a stand up, but he’s a brilliant journalist and writer. He’s written, among other books, The Kids In The Hall, One Dumb Guy, A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio, and Barenaked Ladies: Public Stunts and Private Stories. His new book is required reading for any comedy fan - John Candy: A Life In Comedy. Paul’s here to discuss the book and the amazing life and career of the great John Candy. 

True Tales From Weirdsville takes a look at something we all do, sleep, and asks the question, what could go wrong? Actually a lot. There are some dudes in prison right now for things they claim happened while they were asleep. And we’re going to investigate.

And now, it’s on, to our filthy business.

Welcome to the dog days of summer. We’ve got an action-packed episode to get you to through August, so fasten your enthusiasm harness, and get ready to listen, and enjoy. 

Eddie Muller is an expert in film noir. If you like movies with private eyes, tough guys and saucy dames who kiss and lie, Eddie is your dude. Eddie is the host of TCM’s Noir Alley, which is forever and always a celebration of all things noir. He has a new book out called Dark City Dames, which examines the lives and careers of a group of actresses from the heyday of film noir. As you may suspect, their true life stories are often more intense than the movies they made. Eddie is also the author of Dark City, San Francisco Noir, The Art Of Noir, the novels The Distance and Shadow Boxer. He is a fascinating guy. It was a great interview. I could have talked to him all day to be honest. 

Also, one of my favorite people, Katharine Coldiron, is back. Katharine also has a new book entitled Out There In The Dark. It’s part memoir, part film criticism. Maybe one could say it is memoir AS film criticism. Or film criticism as memoir? You decide. But I read it in one sitting. It’s a great. Informative, honest, brave, it’s a terrific piece of work.

True Tales From Weirdsville takes a deep dive into the cult classic Gun Crazy. Informed in large part by the book Gun Crazy And The Origin Of American Outlaw Cinema by, you guessed it, Eddie Muller, Gun Crazy is not only a terrific cult film, but it’s also an incredibly important one, kicking off as it did, an entire subgenre in American film, one that still thrives today. That is, the stories of sociopaths in love. Gun Crazy. If you can find two words that better describe this country, you let me know. 

Like a lot of you, I was moved by the passing of film director David Lynch this past January. Much more than I thought I would be, to be honest. A lot of it had to do with the timing. He was such a part of Los Angeles. He made movies set here. He did a daily weather report. He talked at length about how much he loved the light, the feeling of Old Hollywood, the smell of night-blooming jasmine, and he left as the city was on literally burning down around us. On top of that, we were four days away from a new president who is the embodiment of everything Lynch is not. It was like Dale Cooper died four days before Bob become President. Everywhere you turned on the news there was another scumbag asshole winning the lottery, and just when things could not get worse, reality said, “Wait! I got one more!”

While struggling to fight the fires, with thousands of people in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena losing everything the city was now mourning its coolest resident. And if you don’t live here I really cannot understate what a presence he is. There is a rotating sculpture of his head in head in Santa Monica. People gathered at the Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake where he used to go for coffee and a chocolate shake every day at 2:00 PM. The gathered at Jumbo’s Clown Room, the Hollywood Boulevard strip club where he, as legend has it, he wrote Blue Velvet. Every sidewalk sandwich board in town bore a chalk drawing of his iconic quiff.

So, as I began the next podcast, I figured I would dedicate the True Tales From Weirdsville segment to Mr. Lynch. But it quickly became apparent that it was way too much story for just one segment and it eventually stretched over three episodes.  And so, for your listening pleasure, we stitched ‘em together, and here they are. Enjoy.

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Aaaaaaand we’re back. It’s summer here and the livin’ is easy. For someone. Somewhere. It must be, right? It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy. For bears. It was also the night that the skeletons came to life! 

Will Sloan is here! Will is a journalist and author. He is the host of the podcast The Important Cinema Club (highly recommended). Will has a new book coming out called Ed Wood, Made in Hollywood USA which is a serious reappraisal of Wood’s filmography. No, it doesn’t posit that he was actually the greatest filmmaker of all time but it does make an attempt to put Wood’s work into context with regard to what stories he was trying to tell, keeping in mind the resources he had available to him at the time and, even more so, the cultural forces pushing against him. Glen Or Glenda specifically. 

Alexandra Seros is here. She has a new book out entitled Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur. Ida Lupino s well known as an actress, starring in several classic Hollywood films, and many of the great film noirs like High Sierra, They Drive By Night and While The City Sleeps. But she also was a great director. One of the first women directors in Hollywood. And not just a director, she directed several terrific and important films, like The Hitchhiker, Outrage and The Bigamist. Her story is fascinating, She was obviously incredibly intelligent. So intelligent, in fact, that she knew she had to pretend she was less intelligent than she was so they men that ran her exclusively all male field wouldn’t feel threatened and prevent her from working. Crazy

Speaking of directors, True Tales From Weirdsville finishes our three part story on the life and career of David Lynch, as seen through the eyes of his magnum opus, Twin peaks. It’s a little bigger than a normal segment, but he warrants it. 

Aaaaaaand we’re back so let’s get to it. Jane Borden is here. Jane is the author of the book, Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. It is everything I love in a book. It’s informative, it’s funny, it’s about weird shit that’s true and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Jane Borden, coming right up.

Mike Reiss is here! Mike is an old pal of mine. Incredible, smart, kind and funny gentlemen. One of the original Simpsons writers, he goes back to season… one. If that’s good enough for you. He is also, a world traveller, although he doesn’t really want to be, and he talks about it at length in his new Substack, which you can get, called Now I’ve Seen Everything. Mike Reiss ladies and germs. You’re gonna love it.

True Tales From Weirdsville takes us into the second part of our story of David Lynch through the lens of his magnum opus Twin Peaks. This segment cover the fascinating period from the height of his and the show’s fame to their mutual, absolute, rock-bottom. It’s the story of Hollywood, of America itself, I tell you! From the top of the heap to the bottom of the barrel. From the belle of the ball to the bum on the bench, from the homecoming queen… to a dead body, wrapped in plastic.

Hello and welcome back to The Dana Gould Hour. Your brief audio respite from the world’s worst reality show, reality. Samm Deighan is here. She is a film historian and author and has written such books as The Legacy Of World War 2 in European Art House Cinema and a study of Fritz Lang’s child murder romp M. Her new book, written with Andrew Nette is entitled Revolution In 35 MM, Political Violence And Resistance In Cinema, From The Art House To The Grindhouse 1960 to 1990. It covers everything from The Battle Of Algiers to Coffin Joe to Zabriskie Point. 

Harry Medved and Bennet Yellin are here. Harry Medved wrote the book the 50 Worst Movies of All Time when he was in high school! He was 15 when he wrote that book. And that was in the late 70’s before VHS tapes. He also wrote, with his brother Michael, the Golden Turkey Awards, which, as you know, is what helped put Ed Wood back on the map in the mid-eighties. 

He has a series now on PBS called Locationland, where he takes audiences on a tour of famous film locations, this was back when films had locations, as opposed to standing in front of a green screen at a warehouse in Atlanta. I recently had the pleasure of joining Harry on a tour of the locations for a little film you may have heard me talk about, Plan 9 from Outer Space. 

Bennet Yellin is an author and screenwriter, he’s written, with the Farrelly Brothers, There’s Something About Mary, Dumb And Dumber, Dumb And Dumber Two. Bennet and Harry have been friends for eons and they are here to talk bad movies, good movies and Ed Wood movies which are, of course, an alchemic mixture of the two.

True Tales From Weirdsville tells the tale of the place both wonderful and strange, Twin Peaks. Like everyone else I was super bummed out by the passing of David Lynch in January. I think it was a combination of things. The election, we were in the middle of these catastrophic fires and then, just when things couldn’t get worse, they did. As much as I love David Lynch and his work, and have back to…I guess Blue Velvet, what he stood for meant more to me than any particular film or television show or what have you. 

He was uncompromising in his vision, you could like it or not. That wasn’t the point. That’s a rare thing these days, when studios and networks seem to be operating under the belief that the only audience worth getting is everyone alive, and anything less is a failure. Twin Peaks, it’s origins, success, fall from grace and resurrection is a terrific microcosm of how Lynch’s refusal to compromise created something far greater than the sum of it’s parts, it flew against convention, challenged audiences. In the case of Fire Walk With Me, it really challenged audiences. But in every instance, time has proven Lynch’s instincts were right, so we’re going to do a two, possibly three part series on Lynch’s career through the lens of Twin Peaks.

And NOW, it’s on to our filthy business.

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Aaaaaaand we’re back. Episode 1 of season 14 of the Dana Gould Hour Podcast. Has anything of interest happened since the last episode? Don’t think so. Certainly not here in Los Angeles, or America. Okay. Great. Let’s get at it! 

Drew Friedman is here. Drew Friedman is one of the premiere illustrators and cartoonists in America. You know his work from The New York Observer, the New Yorker, his books, Warts And All, Old Jewish Comedians, More Old Jewish Comedians, Still More Old Jewish Comedians, Too Soon, Drew Friedman’s Sideshow Freaks, Heroes Of The Comics, More Heroes Of The Comics, the list goes on and on. In 1987 I discovered his book Any Similarity to Persons Living Or Dead is Purely Coincidental and it quite literally redefined my sense of humor. It is hard to articulate the impact the book had on me. No kidding. Drew has a new book out called Schtick Figures, portraits of people important to Drew. And me. People he refers to as The Cool, The Comical and The Crazy. Portraits of people like Gilbert Gottfried, #2 and #3 as only Drew can draw them. Drew is also the subject of a new documentary that’s about to be released entitled The Vermeer Of The Borscht Belt, Drew Friedman is here. 

Kurt Sayenga is a writer, director and producer. We first met when Kurt ran the series Eli Roth’s History Of Horror. Kurt now has a series on Shudder called Horror’s Greatest. Season #2 just dropped, with guests like Davi Dastmalchian, Joe Hill, Jonah Ray, Alex Winter, Mick Garris, yours truly and many, many more. Kurt’s here to talk about the show and the topics covered this season as it continues to explore our fascination with all things cinematically horrific. 

Cinematically horrific. If you want to examine the realistically horrific, True Tales From Weirdsville takes a deep dive into the 1957 classic A Face In Crowd, starring Andy Griffith, written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan. It tells the cautionary tale of what happens when a corrupt, amoral grifter gains a position of power and influence in America. It was made in 1957 and it was a FREAKISHLY predictive film. 

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Hello! And welcome back to The Dana Gould Hour Podcast. It’s the holidays! The election is over and, although I haven’t been paying much attention to politics, I’m sure everything turned out grea... WHHHHHAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!

But I’m still me and you’re still you, so let’s be who we are and do what we do. 

Bob Fingerman is here. Bob is an old pal, and one of the finest comic artists in the biz, Bob gained fame in the 90’s with his comic Minimum Wage which was one of my favorites of the era, along with Dan Clowes' Eightball and Peter Bagge’s Hate. Bob has a new graphic novel out called Printopia and a new book that’s sort of a career retrospective to date (anyway, he’s still a young man) called That’s Some Business You’re In. We’ll be talking about that, his days writing for Cracked and then later MAD working with Harvey Kurtzman, all that and more, Bob Fingerman. 

Burt Kearns is here. Burt had visited us before discussing his books The Show Won’t Go On as well as his biography of the great and fascinating Lawrence Tierney. But his new book holds a special fascination for me, and probably you if you’re listen to this podcast with any regularity. It’s called SHEMP! And it’s about Shemp Howard, The great Stooge. People think Shemp replaced Curly. He did not! Curly replaced Shemp, and then Shemp re-replaced Curly after that. But it’s not just Stooge lore, although there’s a lot. It’s also about showbiz in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the experience of American immigrants and how they helped define our culture and so much more. It’s a great read. It has a forward by your friend and mine, Drew Freidman. SHEMP! With an exclamation point.

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Hello! And welcome to the Dana Gould Hour Podcast’s annual Halloween spectacular. Or spooktacular! Ha ha! Get it? Not spectacular but – okay, you get it.  

What a show we have for you today. Mike McCarty and James Knight are brothers, even if they don’t have the same last name. And they are the hosts of a new horror podcast called The Head, the Tail and the Whole Damn Thing. It’s not your ordinary horror podcast as you will soon learn. I have known Mike forever. He is a special effects make-up artist who has worked on Blade Runner 2049, Mind Hunter, The Exorcist, The Orville, Stan Against Evil, if anyone remembers that show. James is an actor and educator but together, they share a love of all things creepy, and, most importantly, they are great guys and they’re super funny. Mike McCarty and James Knight. 

Also, Rob Zabrecky, or just Zabrecky, if you are a fan of magic, is here. Rob is an actor, and an author and a musician, a Valley kid, who has since gone on to become a professional illusionist and a walking encyclopedia if all things magic. Rob runs the Houdini seance at The Magic Castle and is here today to talk about the history of Midnight Spook Shows! He’s also performing one at the Mayan Theater this month here in Los Angeles, but we have him right here, right now, Rob Zabrecky. 

True Tales From Weirdsville takes us on a deep dive on Dracula, from Bram Stoker’s book to Hamilton Dean’s west end production in the 1920’s all the way up to Gary Oldman’s fright wig. We’ll discuss which film version is closest to the book, and why, but also ask, how much does that actually matter?

It’s September! Pumpkin spice lattes are back on sale, the Halloween aisles are up and stocked at stores like Target and CVS, Halloween mazes are getting ready to open, and here in Los Angeles temperatures are dipping down out of the low hundreds to the high nineties and low hundreds. And here at the Dana Gould Hour Podcast are rarin’ to go.

Sam Morrill is here. Sam is one of the best comedians out there right now. Flat out. Done. His special You’ve Changed is currently on Amazon Prime and his previous Netflix special, Same Time Tomorrow is now available on his YouTube channel. One of the best, Same Morril is here. 

Also, in our second half, moving into our holiday mood, Orenda Fink is here. Music fans will know Orenda as the co-founder of Azure Ray, she’s also performed with Rilo Kiley and The Feint among others, but she has a new book out entitled The Witch’s Daughter which is a memoir of her childhood with a mother who was a self-proclaimed witch. Whether she has supernatural powers or not remains to be proven but she put a lot of time and energy into casting spells and the like. It’s an entertaining and sometimes harrowing story, to be completely honest and she’s here to talk all about it. Orenda Fink.

True Tales From Weirdsville takes you into through the past 80 year history of UFOs in America, from the famous Kenneth Arnold Mt. Ranier sighting that coined the phrase “flying saucer” in 1947 to the revelation in the pages of the New York Times of the Department Of Defense’s Office Of Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification. And. Along the way. One of my favorite topics, UFO religions!