Tag Archives: bob ross

Bad Books, Bad Movies, & Polite Behavior

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Since its publication in 1966, Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls has reigned as one of the most influential and beloved pieces of commercial fiction. Selling over thirty-one million copies worldwide, it revolutionized overnight the way books got sold, thanks to the tireless and canny self-promoting Susann. It also generated endless speculation about the author’s real-life models for its larger-than-life characters. Turned in 1967 into an international box-office sensation and morphing into a much-beloved cult film, its influence endures today in everything from films and TV shows to fashion and cosmetics tributes and tie-ins. Susann’s compulsive readable exposé of three female friends finding success in New York City and Hollywood was a scandalous eye-opener for its candid treatment of sex, naked ambition, ageism, and pill-popping, and the big-screen version was one of the most-seen and talked-about movies of the time. Stephen Rebello’s new book, Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Deep Inside Valley Of The Dolls, The Most Beloved Bad Book & Movie Of All Time dishes the dirt on that hugely successful book and movie and uncovers how the movie has become a cherished widely imitated camp classic. 

Continuing on from over-the-top performances we asked film and media critic, Bob Ross to share his idea of best bad movies. He focuses in on the decade, ’79 – ’89 and suggests bad movies can also have great soundtracks, like Rock & Roll High School featuring The Ramones. Bob also warns that his list of bad movies should be watched alone for fear of ridicule by those with a more sophisticated taste.  

From bad books and movies, we turn to bad behavior. Vulgar, rude, obnoxious, unrefined are just some of the epithets used to describe the current President. Polite behavior seems to have escaped his daily routine. If it were possible, we believe he could learn a lot from Galateo: Or, The Rules of Polite Behavior. Although written in Renaissance Italy, it’s just as fresh and pertinent today. Editor and translator, Matthew Rusnak offers a droll take on academia, explaining how the author, Giovanni Della Casa, gives instructions for civilized behavior, which includes making sure nothing falls out of your nose when passing someone a drink.

Show #376

How To Enjoy Social Distancing

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No matter who you are, where you live or how much money you thought you had at the beginning of this past week, the fact is, we are all now living in uncertain times. Is this the same feeling of uncertainty my parents suffered at the beginning and throughout World War Two? Can we equate this pandemic with anything we may have endured before? The rows of empty shelves at the supermarkets, the stockpiling of food and, yes, toilet-paper is bizarre and disturbing. Restaurants, bars, and almost all businesses are closed, streets are empty of people and rush-hour traffic has dwindled to mostly UberEats deliveries. “Weird!” “Unbelievable!” “Crazy!” Are just some of the descriptive words you hear repeatedly in any given conversation. And, a new vocabulary has stormed our everyday dialogue. “Coronavirus” may be slightly amusing if you choose to believe Mexican beer is associated with a plague from China.  “COVID-19” is just plain scary. Forget the initials, what does the “19” mean? Then, there are two words that you never thought you’d hear together, “Social Distancing”. Talk about a wacky contradiction. “Social distancing? It’s a bit millennial-biased!” Exclaimed my friend MS who also believes, “Good music stopped being made around 1977!” I will admit to feeling a little awkward when I first uttered, “social distancing”. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and yes, it does come across as a bit affected. Yet, here we are letting each other know we are doing it, we are “social distancing”. Now what? To help answer that bewildering question, we called upon some of our favorite guests who also happen to have exceptionally creative minds to share their thoughts on how to enjoy social distancing.

Film and media critic, Bob Ross, jaded as he sometimes pretends to be, always enthuses over his favorite movies. With a new book on the way, Demagogue For President – The Rhetorical Genius Of Donald Trump, Dr. Jennifer Mercieca turns away from politics to talk about baking while social distancing. The dry-humor of comedian, writer, musician, Dave Hill is unavoidable as he gives his sage advice on social distancing. While, best-selling author, Mark Haskell Smith offers pertinent tips for social distancing, plus enthusiastically raves about must-read books. Crosswords are Adrienne Raphel’s passion, her fascinating book, Thinking Inside The Box – Adventures With Crosswords And The Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them was published just a couple of days ago, unavoidably in time for social distancing.

 

Show #365

Predictions & Resolutions 2020

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Benjamin Dreyer
Arlo Parks
Ronny Elliott
Mark Haskell Smith
Agustin Fuentes
Erika Bach
Binoy Kampmark
Bob Ross

Do you believe part of Nostradamus’s prophecies has come true? The famous French doctor and alchemist from the 16th century, apparently predicted the beginning of the Second World War, Hitler’s ascension, the fall of communism, President J. F. Kennedy’s assassination, India’s independence and the occurrence of Israel State on the world map. According to Nostradamus 2020, the much-touted sage had a lot to say about the coming year, including Trump will win again; Destructive earthquakes; Economic crisis; The UK will fall after Brexit, and a new king will take the throne; Wildfires on a staggering scale; Record storms; Kim Jong-Un will be removed from office; Sea level rise; Big war; Implanted chips; Humans will live on the moon. Although Nostradamus is certainly one of the most illustrious personalities in history, we here at Life Elsewhere are fortunate to be able to bring to you a distinguished panel of credible guests to offer their well-considered predictions. But, we didn’t stop there, our esteemed guests were also asked to share their resolutions for 2020. You’ll hear from film and media critic, the venerable Bob Ross; Binoy Kampmark, the learned professor and social commentator; Best-selling author, screen-writer and ex-art-punk-rocker, Mark Haskell Smith; distinguished anthropologist and author, Agustin Fuentes; Erika Bach, Athens-based musician, and videographer; Self-named hillbilly soul singer, Ronny Elliott; Copy editor, author and master of Tweets, Benjamin Dreyer; London-based, singer-songwriter & star, Arlo Parks.

 

Show #354

The Hurricane Hunter

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“Imagine the worst turbulence you have experienced on a commercial flight and multiply that terrifying experience by at least ten!” This is the sobering response from Commander Justin Kibbey when asked what it feels like to fly into a hurricane. The Commander takes his time to answer questions, methodically and patiently. His composed tone implies if he were your pilot through turbulence in that commercial plane, you’d be thankful you knew you were in good hands. The Commander does emit a slight good-humored chuckle when answering a few questions, obviously aware they sound naive to the questioner. With hurricane season now in effect, we wanted to learn more than why TV weathermen scare us with confetti-colored spaghetti-like predictions on a digital map. Commander Kibbey was just the man for the task, he works for NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is a Hurricane Hunter. He flies with a crew of at least 16 directly into hurricanes. They fly around and crisscross the massive storms, gathering data. On board are scientists, climatologists, and specialists feverishly collating information, almost non-stop for about 9 hours on each mission. Even with Commander Kibbey’s placid demeanor, the true tales he tells are troubling for the layman, especially when he gets to the part about “everyone throws up!” The work that Commander Kibbey and NOAA do is impressive and we are all the better for it.

Make sure you go to the NOAA site to learn more about what they do. It’s fascinating and full of remarkable information.

Also in the program, we call upon frequent contributor, film and media critic, Bob Ross to share his thoughts about hurricanes in movies. “You have to start with Key Largo!” Insists Bob, “It’s a classic, it’s a drama centered around a hurricane, and it stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson – you can’t do better than that!”

Plus, we searched for a piece of music that referenced hurricanes. Instead of rushing to the obvious choices, we dug deeper into our archives and came up Hurricane Betsy by Lightnin’ Hopkins, a plaintive song about a real hurricane in 1965.

The photo above shows the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina as seen from a Lockheed WO-3D Orion “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft. Photo courtesy of NOAA

Sundays 12 noon ET at The Source WMNF HD3
Sundays 10.00am ET at WNRM The Root
Mondays 5.00pm PT & Wednesdays 2.00pm PT at NWCZ Radio
Thursdays 6.00pm ET at Internet Radio Network
Fridays at 9.00pm GMT on Cornucopia Radio

If you miss any editions of Life Elsewhere, go here then go to the Listen On-Demand panel, choose the date of a show and click play.

Life Elsewhere Music airs:
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Wednesdays at 3.00pm Pacific Time on NWCZ Radio
Fridays at 10.00am Eastern Time on IRN
Cornucopia Radio airs Life Elsewhere Music throughout each week
You can hear all the volumes over at Mixcloud

Show #330

Bob Ross. Binoy Kampmark. Monica L Smith. Verdigrls.

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Bob Ross on Avengers: Endgame

“I’m not interested in seeing, Avengers: Endgame!” Says the usually moderately-toned, Bob Ross, who then launches into an atypical commentary on the reasons why he believes Superstar-packed, mega-movies are a symptom of the fake news era. “There’s a lot of mass psychosis going on in the country today. People do not want to deal with reality. So they have become affixed in the Marvel universe. I find more interesting things in my universe, commonly know as reality!” He continues, “You know this whole thing about what’s true and what’s possible is no longer part of our process.”

Monica L. Smith on Cities – The First 6,000 Years

Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, and it’s predicted that by 2030, 60% of the population of China, 87% of Americans, and 92% in the United Kingdom will be city dwellers. Yet urban inhabitation is a relatively new phenomenon in the timeline of human history. The first cities came into being about 6,000 years ago. Yet. The creation of cities was not an inevitability, so why did it happen? Monica L. Smith, professor of anthropology at UCLA, discusses her new, fascinating book.

Binoy Kampmark on Julian Assange

Belmarsh Prison

A frequent contributor to Life Elsewhere, Dr. Binoy Kampmark recently wrote a piece for Counterpunch titled, Julian Assange As Neurosis. The very mention of Assange and Wikileaks immediately generates polarized opinions. And, without fail, Binoy’s take on most subjects always trigger animated responses. With Assange being unceremoniously removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to Belmarsh prison, (known as the UK equivalent of Guantanamo), and his possible extradition to the US, the outpouring of response from all quarters has been intense. Dr. Kampmark knows Assange and the Wikileaks story better than most, he ran on the Wikileaks ticket in the 2013 Australian elections.

Verdigrls

Catherine Wolk, Anna Wolk, and Rachel Rossen perform under the moniker, Verdigrls. They are out of Brooklyn, NY, and their new EP is titled Small Moves. The track you’ll hear is Daylight Savings. And we happen to think Verdigrls deserve your attention.

 

 

The Podcast is available at NPR One, Apple Podcasts & Mixcloud

Sundays 12 noon ET at The Source WMNF HD3
Sundays 10.00am ET at WNRM The Root
Mondays 5.00pm PT & Wednesdays 2.00pm PT at NWCZ Radio
Thursdays 6.00pm ET at Internet Radio Network
Fridays at 9.00pm GMT on Cornucopia Radio

If you miss any editions of Life Elsewhere, go here then go to the Listen On-Demand panel, choose the date of a show and click play.

Life Elsewhere Music airs:
Sundays 11.00am ET at WNRM The Root
Wednesdays at 3.00pm Pacific Time on NWCZ Radio
Fridays at 10.00am Eastern Time on IRN
Cornucopia Radio airs Life Elsewhere Music throughout each week
You can hear all the volumes over at Mixcloud

Show #321

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