Category: Podcasts

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2013 Podcast Countdown: #5

On with the podcast countdown! The 5th most downloaded episode from 2013 was my conversation with musician and newly minted novelist Lori Carson!

#5 – Little Suicides, Little Fish – Singer-songwriter, member of the Golden Palominos, and debut novelist Lori Carson joins the Virtual Memories Show to talk about her new book, The Original 1982, the blurring of fact and fiction, the differences between songwriting and prose-writing (and album vs. book launches), the transformation of the  music industry, her favorite authors and the books that sustained her through her first novel, and more! It’s a great conversation with one of my favorite musical artists. (5/28/13) mp3

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I’d been a fan of Lori’s music since I first heard Little Suicides back in 1994 (here’s a live version from 2011), but I think I did a good job of not having a nerd meltdown around her. My wearing a suit & tie to the interview — I had just come from a meeting with some Pfizer execs — probably helped me with that. She surprised me with the breadth and depth of her reading, and I’ve got a number of her book suggestions on my to-read list.

Now go listen to our #5 most downloaded episode from 2013! (and check out The Original 1982 and go listen to Lori’s solo work and her two records with the Golden Palominos, while you’re at it!)

Check back tomorrow for #4! As ever, thanks to all my guests for the great conversations, and thank you, dear listeners, for each and every download!

#10-8 – Craig Gidney / Ed Hermance, Drew Friedman, Jesse Sheidlower

#7 – Willard Spiegelman

#6 – Pete Bagge

And remember, you can find all our episodes at the podcast archive or by visiting iTunes! Wanna see pix of our guests? Check out the flickr set!

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2013 Podcast Countdown: #6 in the Bagge

Hope you had a merry Christmas! I spent mine struggling to write a short story about two Jews trying to find somewhere to pray on Yom Kippur (with breaks for Dim Sum and a little basketball).

Our podcast countdown continues! The 6th most downloaded episode from 2013 was my conversation with legendary cartoonist Pete Bagge!

#6 – The Least Insane of Cartoonists – Peter Bagge, cartoonist/creator of Hate! joins us to talk about his new book, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story. We have a great conversation about why he chose to write about the founder of Planned Parenthood, how he made the shift from fiction to nonfiction comics, who his favorite “pre-feminist feminists” are, why he stuck with comic books over paperback books for too long, what the strangest sketchbook request he ever received is, and why R. Crumb considered him the least insane of cartoonists. (10/15/13) – mp3

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You want some behind-the-scenes stuff? Well, Pete & I recorded our talk at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD in September. And before we started recording, Also, I gave him a copy of The Leopard as a guest-gift (I try to do that for all the guests). I mentioned Visconti’s film version of it, which starred Burt Lancaster, and Bagge told me that Lancaster stars in his favorite movie, along with Tony Curtis: Sweet Smell of Success. I’d never seen it before, so I grabbed it on Netflix and WOW is it an amazing flick.

Now go listen to our #6 most downloaded episode from 2013! (and go watch Sweet Smell of Success sometime!)

Check back tomorrow for #5! I give thanks to all my guests for the great conversations, and I thank you, dear listeners, for each and every download! Have a great Boxing Day, if that’s your thing!

#10-8 – Craig Gidney / Ed Hermance, Drew Friedman, Jesse Sheidlower

#7 – Willard Spiegelman

And remember, you can find all our episodes at the podcast archive or by visiting iTunes!

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2013 Podcast Countdown: Lucky #7

Merry Christmas! The podcast countdown continues! The 7th most downloaded episode from 2013 was my conversation with Willard Spiegelman, but it’s an episode that almost didn’t happen!

#7 – The Magnificent Seven – Reading, walking, looking, dancing, listening, swimming, and writing: these are the activities organizing the life of Willard Spiegelman, author of Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness! We talk about his wonderful book (go read it!), his addiction to ballroom dancing, how to find joy in the day-to-day world, why he hates book clubs, how he turned me on to one of my favorite novels, who his Desert Island Poets are, and, again, Harold Bloom (sigh). (1/22/13) – mp3

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Here’s the story of the one that (nearly) got away. I interviewed Willard on his birthday in late December 2012 at his apartment in NYC. He was going to head up to Connecticut earlier in the day, but stayed on to record our conversation. We had a great time talking about his recent book and all sorts of topics. About 20 minutes into the recording, I noticed that my backup recorder’s battery was dying and the recorder was about to shut off, but what did that matter? After all, the main recorder was going just fine.

It began to snow heavily while we talked, and my drive back to NJ was a bit of an adventure — largely because of the other drivers. Willard had a tougher go of it, as . . . well, here it is in his words:

It has been a memorable birthday. First you. Then, I got on a train at Grand Central. The plan was for Ken to pick me up at Old Saybrook and take me to a wonderful CT country restaurant. We ditched that. First, it started to snow. So we agreed to cancel the reservation. Instead he would pick me up and bring me home for a delicious dinner. He called when I was on the train to announce that the street had not been plowed and he wouldn’t be able to get me. So I got off at Old Saybrook. Fortunately, an Amtrak train was late, so I hopped on that for New London, 20 minutes away, where I planned to take a cab up to the house. No cabs. No buses. No nothing. So I did when any self-respecting child of the ’60s would do. (First I tried to walk, but that was too loony even for me.) I hitchhiked. First time in 40 years. Within three minutes a nice young man who works as an engineer at Electric Boat picked me up and dropped me off at the top of the hill. I walked down and found Ken who had lost his cell phone in the snow. We found it. Then we helped to push some hapless neighbors whose car had drifted into a snowbank. Now I am enjoying a martini and understanding why people move to Florida.

So you can imagine my embarrassment/humiliation when I had to tell him that the main recorder managed NOT TO RECORD OUR CONVERSATION. No, seriously. The memory card had no sign of that file anywhere. I spent $100 on a data recovery program to scan the crap out of that SD card, but it was to no avail. The conversation was lost. And, as I mentioned, my backup recorder conked out maybe 20 minutes into our 70-minute conversation.

And THAT news is what Willard got when he finally got to their home in CT that night. Happy birthday.

Lucky for me, he was a good sport about it, and willing to record another talk. But with the ephemeral nature of great conversation, many of the topics we touched on that first time could never be recreated. That’s Virtual Memories for ya!

Now go listen to our #7 most downloaded episode from 2013!

Check back tomorrow for #6, Boxing Day fans! I give thanks to all my guests for the great conversations, and I thank you, dear listeners, for each and every download! Have a merry Christmas, if that’s your thing!

And remember, you can find all our episodes at the podcast archive or by visiting iTunes!

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2013 Podcast Countdown: #10-8

Sheesh! Only a week left in 2013? How’d that happen?

I went into 2013 with the goal of putting out a new podcast every other week. I managed to exceed that goal and even bumped up to a weekly schedule for the last quarter of the year. I’m pretty optimistic that I can sustain that in 2014, with an occasional week off.

I’ve got an extra-special (by my standards) episode of The Virtual Memories Show on tap for New Year’s Eve, but I thought we’d revisit the show’s most prolific year with a countdown of the top 10 most downloaded episodes.

I only had this countdown idea with 7 days left in the year, so let’s go with #s 8-10 in today’s post! I’ll post another top 10 episode each day until we reach Dec. 31:

#10 – The Importance of Being Out – It was our first double-episode of the year! First, Craig Gidney discussed his new YA/bullying novel, Bereft, which went on to be nominated for an NAACP Image Award, the Moonbeam Children’s Award and the Lambada Literary Award in YA. Then Ed Hermance talked about the history of Giovanni’s Room, his queer bookstore that’s celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2013. Later in the year, Ed looked to sell the store, but it looks like there are no takers, so this interview chronicles the end of an era. Lots of great conversation about writing, publishing and bookselling in this episode. (4/2/13) – mp3

#9 – Episode 21: The Guy Who Drew the Liver Spots – Drew Friedman, the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt, the great painter, cartoonist,  and chronicler of modern fame (and infamy), invited me out to 2nd Ave. Deli in NYC one morning to record a conversation about art, show biz, R. Crumb, Joe Franklin, the Friars Club, Howard Stern, Abe Vigoda, the gallery show commemorating his books on Old Jewish Comedians, and more! It’s a fun conversation with someone who watched even more TV and read even more comic books as a kid than I did! (10/8/13) – mp3

#8 – Episode 9 – Putting the “Pro” in Profanity – Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large for the Oxford English Dictionary and author/editor of The F-Word, talks about the shifting idea of “offensive” language, how one becomes a lexicographer, the OED’s digital challenge, the history of Jesse’s Word, and more! (4/30/13) – mp3

Check back tomorrow for lucky #7! Thank you to all my guests for the great conversation, and thank you, dear listeners, for each and every download! And have a great Christmas, if that’s your thing!

You can find all our episodes at the podcast archive or by visiting iTunes!

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Podcast: The Whimsical Barracuda

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 31 –
The Whimsical Barracuda

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“With my brothers, it was like ‘Resistance is futile! You will enjoy horror movies! You will go to comic book conventions! You will learn to love B-movies and worship Tor Johnson and Plan 9 from Outer Space! Shemp Howard must be worshipped!’”

Kipp Friedman is the latest member of a comedic dynasty (so says the subtitle of his new memoir, Barracuda in the Attic). The son of novelist, journalist, playwright and screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman and brother of cartoonist Drew Friedman and writer/musician Josh Alan Friedman, Kipp has tossed his hat into the ring with a book filled with tales of New York City in the 1960’s and ‘70s, of pop culture education, of living with his divorced dad during his days writing “The Lonely Guy” columns, and more!

“My father was so prolific for so many years as a writer, people would wonder why he never seemed to be working. And yet his stuff kept on being published. I think making it seem effortless rubbed off on his kids. We agonize over everything.”

While in NYC for a series of book readings, Kipp sat down to talk with me about Barracuda in the Attic (Fantagraphics Books), the joys of “growing up Friedman,” hunting for comics and Mad magazines with his brothers, what he misses about New York, what he’ll never forgive the Knicks for, how he ended up with a “real job,” and what it felt like to add a volume to the bookshelf of works by his family. It’s a wonderful perspective on the most creative family any of us will likely ever see!

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:

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About our Guest

Kipp Friedman is a native New Yorker who holds B.A.s in history and journalism from the Universit of Wisconsin-Madison. He began his career as a reporter for several newspapers in south Florida before moving to Wisconsin, where he worked in PR for GE Medical Systems, as marketing and PR director at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, and as a PR consultant for Jewish Family Services of Milwaukee. He is also a professional photographer and has shot more than 300 bar and bat mitzvahs (despite not having been bar mitzvah’d himself). He currently resides in Milwaukee with his wife, Anne. They have a grown son, Max, who is studying to be an architect. Barracuda in the Attic is his first book.

Credits: This episode’s music is When I Write a Book by Rockpile. The conversation was recorded at a hotel in SoHo on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded at home on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photo of Kipp Friedman by me.

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Podcast: War is a Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

Major Zachary D. Martin, USMC (ret'd.) on the Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 29 –
War is a Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

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“There is a great tradition of very brilliant, outside-the-box, non-traditional, dynamic thinkers in the Marine Corps. . . . At the same time, our totem animal is the bulldog, not an animal known for its finesse.”

Zach Martin recently retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 16 years in the service. But 25 years ago, he and your host were hyperliterate misfit high-school pals, trading Thomas Pynchon, Thomas Disch and Robert Anton Wilson novels. So how did he end up commanding Marine Recon forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as Maj. Zachary D. Martin?

“We greatly misunderstand the young men who go overseas and fight for us. We make them idols. They’re heroes, but we misunderstand what that means.”

We have a wide-ranging conversation about Zach’s career, the military’s risk-averse culture, the rise (and fall) of counterinsurgency strategy, what it’s like to give a kill order, how it felt to lose troops under his command, what it’s like to clear, hold and build a city in Afghanistan (and how it felt to see it all fall apart), how he fought all his best battles in Afghanistan wearing shorts and t-shirt, and more!

“The police we were training [in Afghanistan] were effective. I mean, they were gangsters, but provided you were willing to overlook their criminal activities, they were certainly maintaining order.”

We also discuss Virginia Postrel’s The Power of Glamour and how it reflects the nation’s perception of the military, how he was inspired by Bill Clinton (but didn’t reckon with survivor bias), why he’d like to write a novel about his experiences at war, what books meant the most to him during his years in the service, the difference between motivation and volition, and why war is like a self-licking ice cream cone.

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:

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About our Guest

Major Zachary D. Martin (ret.) was most recently a member of Afghan National Police Advisor Team, and previously served as the Commanding Officer, Force Reconnaissance Company, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. His most recent deployment in that role was to Afghanistan in command of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines. He keeps a blog about his reading and writing at booksandmovement.net, where you can also find some of the articles he wrote during his career in the Marines.

Credits: This episode’s music is Life During Wartime by Talking Heads. The conversation was recorded at the home of a friend of Maj. Martin on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded at home on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photo of Zach Martin by me.

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Podcast: You Can’t Get There From Here

The Virtual Memories Show visits The Fifty-First State with Lisa Borders

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 28 –
You Can’t Get There From Here

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“The physical landscape of south Jersey is one of the most beautiful places on earth. . . . And it’s juxtaposed with rusted-out trailers and collapsing shacks that people are still living in. There are a lot of extremes thrown together in that area. . . . It’s almost easier to explain south Jersey to people who aren’t from New Jersey than those who are.”

Lisa Borders joins the show to talk about her new novel, The Fifty-First State! It’s a fine book about mismatched half-siblings brought together by calamity, set in an area of New Jersey overlooked by most everyone but its residents. Lisa and I have a fun conversation about her work and influences, how her science background informs her writing process (she’s a part-time cytotechnologist), why form has to rise from story, how to teach novel-writing, why she stands by Jonathan Franzen’s novels, how a Michael Cunningham short story changed her life, and whether southern NJ should secede and become America’s fifty-first state.

“I don’t get why NaNoWriMo is in November. It’s Thanksgiving, it’s a short month: why not January? November is a bad, crazy month for me.”

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:

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About our Guest

Lisa Borders grew up in central and southern New Jersey. She is the author of two novels, The Fifty-First State (Engine Books) and Cloud Cuckoo Land (River City Publishing), chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing’s Fred Bonnie Award in 2002. Cloud Cuckoo Land received fiction honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards, and was a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year and the Independent Publisher (IPPY) awards. Lisa’s short stories have appeared in Kalliope, Washington Square, Black Warrior Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Newport Review and other journals, and her essay, “Enchanted Night,” was published in Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes (Simon & Schuster, 2007). She has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Somerville Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and fellowships at the Millay Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. She wrote a really entertaining essay about her (one-sided) love affair with Michael Stipe.

Credits: This episode’s music is What If We Give It Away by R.E.M. The conversation was recorded at the Virtual Memories Estate on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded at home on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photos of Lisa Borders by me.

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Podcast: Sex, Crime, and Other Arbitrary Genre Labels

Maxim Jakubowski on the Virtual Memories Show (2/2)

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 27 –
Sex, Crime, and Other Arbitrary Genre Labels

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“The emotions are what interest me in writing erotica, rather than the hydraulics. . . . Essex House showed me that you could write erotica without pandering to the lowest common denominator”

Maxim Jakubowski has had an amazing multi-decade, multi-genre career as a writer, editor, translator and publisher. During Book Expo America in New York, we sat down to talk about how he feels about being The King of the Erotic Thriller, the silliness of genre labels, the perils of having a bad book habit (but not a “bad-book habit”), the story of publishing the first The Mammoth Book of Erotica, how e-books have amplified Sturgeon’s Law, how he managed to make a killing off the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon, and more!

“As a publisher, you have to accept that it’s a business. And genre was always accepted as solid, an area where you don’t lose money: crime, fantasy, science fiction, horror, thrillers.”

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Maxim Jakubowski on the Virtual Memories Show (1/2)

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:

Follow The Virtual Memories Show on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS!

About our Guest

Maxim Jakubowski worked for many years in book publishing as an editor (including titles by William Golding, Peter Ackroyd, Oliver Stone, Michael Moorcock, Peter Ustinov, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Paul Ableman, Sophie Grigson, Marc Behm, and Cornell Woolrich) and launched the Murder One Bookshop, which he owned and ran for over 20 years. He now writes, edits and translates full-time in London. He was born in London and educated in France, and his books have been translated into many languages. From an early age, he was always fascinated by popular culture and his writing and editing has criss-crossed all areas, from science fiction & fantasy to thrillers and, inevitably, erotica.

He conceived one of the genre’s first major contemporary anthologies, The Mammoth Book of Erotica, which has been followed by 18 more volumes, as well as four books devoted to erotic photography. In addition to more than 80 collections in other genres, Maxim has also edited the Sex in the City series, and run the Eros Plus and Neon lists, alongside such crime imprints as Black Box Thrillers, Blue Murder and Maxcrime.

Credits: This episode’s music is Song for Bob by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The conversation was recorded in Mr. Jakubowski’s hotel room in Manhattan on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded at home on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Garage Band. Photos of Maxim Jakubowski by me.