Episode 593 – Bob Fingerman
Podcast – I Was A Teenage Structuralist!
Virtual Memories Show:
Richard Gehr – I Was A Teenage Structuralist!
“I’ve read enough Roland Barthes and Foucault to know it’s all fiction, man.”
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Richard Gehr’s new book, I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker’s Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists
“I love New Yorker cartoons, but they might be the whitest form of art ever conceived.”
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About our Guest
Richard Gehr has been writing about music, culture, and travel for quite a while. He has been an editor for the Los Angeles Reader, Spin, and Sonicnet/MTV Interactive. He currently writes for Rolling Stone, Spin, The Village Voice, Relix, AARP: The Magazine, and other publications. He was a senior writer for the book Alt. Culture: An A-To-Z Guide to the ’90S – Underground, Online, and Over-The-Counter
Credits: This episode’s music is Homesickness by Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou (because I’m on the road for a week). The conversation was recorded at Mr. Gehr’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
Podcast: Dogs of LA
Virtual Memories: Merrill Markoe – Dogs of LA
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“I hate to find out that people I admire are schmucks.”
Legendary comedy writer, producer and performer Merrill Markoe let me into her home after seeing pix of my adorable greyhounds, and we got to spend an hour talking about how she co-created Late Night with David Letterman, how she was too worried about getting canceled to appreciate changing the nature of comedy on TV, which show she would love to write for if she was starting out today, what Letterman of 25 years ago would have thought of Letterman of today, and more! Along the way, she proves Christopher Hitchens wrong (women can be very funny), weighs in on Steven Colbert’s prospects taking over the Late Show, and talks about her literary influences and favorite cartoonists. And then we get overrun by her dogs, including Wally Markoe:
“Had I been able to rewrite the whole thing from the ground up, it would’ve been far preferable not to be involved personally [with the host of Late Night] and to only have been a writer. To have doubled up on that was a real big mistake.”
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We also find out about her favorite Stooge, The Merrill Markoe Method of Sleepywriting (which she learned while recovering from a double-hip replacement), how she learned to stop sweating the details and start cartooning, and what she fears will be the first line of her obit. (BONUS: I offer a greyhound adoption PSA of sorts and tell silly stories about my dogs.)
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:
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About our Guest
Merrill Markoe has written for TV series such as Newhart and Sex and the City, and co-created the original David Letterman show, for which she won five Emmys. She’s published eight books: four collections of funny essays (How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me!
Credits: This episode’s music is Pets by Porno for Pyros. The conversation was recorded in Ms. Markoe’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones
Podcast: The Guy Who Drew the Liver Spots
Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 21 –
The Guy Who Drew the Liver Spots
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“I don’t like drawing young people, attractive people. I used to get assigned drawings of the cast of ‘Friends’ for Entertainment Weekly, and it was painful. I would finish a drawing of Jennifer Aniston, and to reward myself, I’d draw Shecky Greene.”
It’s the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt! Drew Friedman, the great painter, cartoonist, chronicler of modern fame (and infamy), and Howard Stern’s favorite artist, invited me out to 2nd Ave. Deli in NYC one Saturday morning to record a conversation about art, leaving New York, show biz, R. Crumb, Joe Franklin, Tor Johnson, the Friars Club, Howard Stern, Abe Vigoda, the gallery show commemorating his books on Old Jewish Comedians, and his upcoming book of portraits on comic-book legends (as in ‘artists, writers and publishers’). We also talk about how Harry Einstein died during a roast for Lucy and Desi, trade Gilbert Gottfried stories, discuss the state of the illustration market, explore why he used stippling effects and why he stopped, and more. This one’s a lot of fun. Go listen!
“There’s a theory about why there were so many Jewish comedians: the smile behind the pain, the haunted smile. I don’t buy into it. I think they’re all just a bunch of hams. They like to be up there, telling jokes, being funny, and meeting women.”
Photo of Drew Friedman and Jerry Lewis courtesy of Jay Ruttenberg
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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
Drew Friedman is an award-winning illustrator, cartoonist and painter. His work has appeared in Raw, Weirdo, SPY, National Lampoon, Snarf, The New York Times, MAD, The New Yorker, BLAB!, The New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal, HONK!, Rolling Stone, Field & Stream, TIME, The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, and more. His comics and illustrations have been collected in several volumes, the latest, Too Soon?
Credits: This episode’s music is Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals by Raymond Scott. The conversation was recorded at the 2nd Ave. Deli in Manhattan on a Zoom H4n recorder