Podcasts about kilgore trout

In this crossover episode of Queer Cinema Catchup, Allison and Joe are thrilled to be joined again by Dan and Jennifer of Banned Camp to discuss the 1972 film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical science fiction novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Together they delve into changes from the book to screen, as well as the story's anti-war message; its narrative structure; and its historical and modern relevance to the dangers of censorship.00:00 A Queer Cinema Catchup Banned Camp Mash-Up! 01:07 Personal Experiences with Slaughterhouse-Five03:44 Relevance of Slaughterhouse Five to Today08:41 Summary and Themes of Slaughterhouse Five13:48 Differences Between the Book and the Movie16:20 Character Analysis and Key Scenes24:48 Kilgore Trout and Kurt Vonnegut26:03 Anti-War Message 29:53 Billy Pilgrim Character Deep Dive34:41 Montana Wildhack and Time Travel37:25 Censorship & Kurt Vonnegut's Letter to North Dakota HS Head of School Board Chris McCarthy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

25 years after its initial release, Kurt Vonnegut's biting portrayal of America's mad chaos, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS returns in a restored 4K version, the perfect film for our complicated times. Directed by Alan Rudolph, and starring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte, Glenne Headly, Barbara Hershey, Omar Epps, Luka Haas and many more, the incisive comedy has been overlooked for far too long. And, in conjunction with the comedy's 25th Anniversary, there's no better time to rediscover Rudolph's unique cinematic vision and the timeless relevance of Vonnegut's work in a pristine restoration ready to provoke thought and captivate audiences all over again. BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS tells the story of car dealership titan Dwayne Hoover (Bruce Willis), the most respected man in Midland City. His smiling face appears on every local channel and billboard - a shining symbol of the American success syndrome. His message is "You Can Trust Dwayne Hoover." And so they do. But Dwayne Hoover is not smiling inside. Nor can he be trusted. Dwayne's shady prosperity, picture-frame family, and small mind are cracking. His television commercial-addicted wife (Barbara Hershey) may or may not be physically present when he's with her. His son (Lukas Haas) resides in a bomb shelter aspiring to be a lounge singer. His paranoid sales manager (Nick Nolte) has a significant sex secret. A Dwayne Hoover worshipper (Omar Epps) has taken up residence on his car lot. And his adulating secretary/lover (Glenne Headly) wonders if Dwayne Hoover has changed. The reeling business titan needs to find something or someone immediately to tell him the truth, to guide him out of this punishing, yet well-deserved, self-doubt. Simultaneous to Dwayne expanding breakdown, an impoverished and nonsensical science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout (Albert Finney), is making his way to Midland City's Fine Arts Festival, hailed as the world's greatest author by Midland City's wealthiest cultural leader. Once Hoover discovers Trout's impending arrival, he is maniacally determined to meet the author and receive the message that will restore his confidence and well-being. But when their orbits finally collide, neither Dwayne Hoover, Kilgore Trout, nor Midland City is prepared for the inexplicable and volatile results.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

Joined by returning guest and true friend of the pod, Samantha Oh, we journey through Paris, visit the Louvre, portal all the way to Washington DC, and get to know a lot more about the mysterious past of our favorite Aunt Bast. This episode contains a LOT of referenced media, here are links to some of the pieces mentioned or discussed: Didi, a film by Sean Wang Eighth Grade, a film by Bo Burnham A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki Jujutsu Kaisen (the manga and the anime) Kilgore Trout, a character created by Kurt Vonnegut Apeshit music video The Louvre by Lorde Reservation Dogs Gravity Falls Steven Universe SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON for monthly special episodes and On-Demand Watch-Alongs of PJOTV! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/seaweedbrain⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Anyone can still stream) Our Episodes 1&2 Watch Party on Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/live/RoNsTTI2whQ?si=tsJGQVlK_clrcyqL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our show on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@SeaweedBrainPodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@SeaweedBrainPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and on TikTok ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@EricaSeaweedBrain⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our merch shop! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/seaweed-brain-podcast?ref_id=21682⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The Fellowship is pleased to present our discussion of the hit TV shows Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch, continuing Classic TV Month. We grew up with these comedies (to varying degrees), but that doesn't mean we don't have problems with them. Plus our usual crazy talk, geek news, and tangents

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1083, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Greek Letter Homophones 1: One way to propel a boat. row. 2: Feline vocalization. mew. 3: More advanced, or recently created. new. 4: A trademark brand of format for VCR tape. Beta. 5: Lao-Tzu's ultimate principle of the universe. Tao. Round 2. Category: Pup Fiction 1: Dodie Smith wrote this "numerical" story, the basis for 3 Disney feature films. 101 Dalmatians. 2: This iconic canine made her bow wow in a 1938 Saturday Evening Post story. Lassie. 3: This Yiddish author wrote "Rabchik, a Jewish Dog", or as we like to call it, "Piddler on the Rug". Sholom Aleichem. 4: "Savage Sam" is the sequel to this Newbery medal-winning sob story, later a Disney film (Sam's his son). Old Yeller. 5: Argos is the faithful dog who recognizes his long-lost master in this ancient Greek work. the Odyssey. Round 3. Category: The Fabric Of Life 1: If someone intends to tan your hide, he's going to turn it into this fabric. leather. 2: This fabric that's on the tips of markers is also used in blackboard erasers. felt. 3: Cobweb is a type of this fabric known for its open, networked quality. lace. 4: Used with other fibers like nylon, this 5-letter fiber makes swimwear fabric stretchy. Lycra. 5: Harris is a trademarked type of this rough fabric used in sport coats. (Harris) tweed. Round 4. Category: Aussie Slang 1: Jumbuck is an Aussie term for this animal, of which there are a lot Down Under. sheep. 2: When you throw a shrimp here, make sure it's not the doll. a barbie. 3: To earn a living is to "make a" this (minus the pro quo). a quid. 4: A stubby is a small bottle of this; cheers!. beer. 5: Tommy Roe might know that this "Sweet Little" name is Aussie slang for a girl or woman. Sheila. Round 5. Category: Literary Literary Characters 1: Stephen Daedalus is the writer hero of this Joycean "Portrait". Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 2: Philip Jose Farmer wrote a novel under the name of this sci-fi writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut. Kilgore Trout. 3: In this Russian-American's "Pale Fire", John Shade is the late author of a 999-line poem. Vladimir Nabokov. 4: He's Philip Roth's novelist alter ego in books like him "Unbound". Zuckerman. 5: Writer Philip Quarles in "Point Counter Point" is a self-portrait by this author. Aldous Huxley. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Episode 165 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Dark Stat” and the career of the Grateful Dead. This is a long one, even longer than the previous episode, but don't worry, that won't be the norm. There's a reason these two were much longer than average. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Codine" by the Charlatans. Errata I mispronounce Brent Mydland's name as Myland a couple of times, and in the introduction I say "Touch of Grey" came out in 1988 -- I later, correctly, say 1987. (I seem to have had a real problem with dates in the intro -- I also originally talked about "Blue Suede Shoes" being in 1954 before fixing it in the edit to be 1956) Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Grateful Dead, and Grayfolded runs to two hours. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, partly because almost everything about the Grateful Dead is written from a fannish perspective that already assumes background knowledge, rather than to provide that background knowledge. Of the various books I used, Dennis McNally's biography of the band and This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson and David Gans are probably most useful for the casually interested. Other books on the Dead I used included McNally's Jerry on Jerry, a collection of interviews with Garcia; Deal, Bill Kreutzmann's autobiography; The Grateful Dead FAQ by Tony Sclafani; So Many Roads by David Browne; Deadology by Howard F. Weiner; Fare Thee Well by Joel Selvin and Pamela Turley; and Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the classic account of the Pranksters, though not always reliable. I reference Slaughterhouse Five a lot. As well as the novel itself, which everyone should read, I also read this rather excellent graphic novel adaptation, and The Writer's Crusade, a book about the writing of the novel. I also reference Ted Sturgeon's More Than Human. For background on the scene around Astounding Science Fiction which included Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, L. Ron Hubbard, and many other science fiction writers, I recommend Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. 1,000 True Fans can be read online, as can the essay on the Californian ideology, and John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". The best collection of Grateful Dead material is the box set The Golden Road, which contains all the albums released in Pigpen's lifetime along with a lot of bonus material, but which appears currently out of print. Live/Dead contains both the live version of "Dark Star" which made it well known and, as a CD bonus track, the original single version. And archive.org has more live recordings of the group than you can possibly ever listen to. Grayfolded can be bought from John Oswald's Bandcamp Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [Excerpt: Tuning from "Grayfolded", under the warnings Before we begin -- as we're tuning up, as it were, I should mention that this episode contains discussions of alcoholism, drug addiction, racism, nonconsensual drugging of other people, and deaths from drug abuse, suicide, and car accidents. As always, I try to deal with these subjects as carefully as possible, but if you find any of those things upsetting you may wish to read the transcript rather than listen to this episode, or skip it altogether. Also, I should note that the members of the Grateful Dead were much freer with their use of swearing in interviews than any other band we've covered so far, and that makes using quotes from them rather more difficult than with other bands, given the limitations of the rules imposed to stop the podcast being marked as adult. If I quote anything with a word I can't use here, I'll give a brief pause in the audio, and in the transcript I'll have the word in square brackets. [tuning ends] All this happened, more or less. In 1910, T. S. Eliot started work on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which at the time was deemed barely poetry, with one reviewer imagining Eliot saying "I'll just put down the first thing that comes into my head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", a book in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time, and starts living a nonlinear life, hopping around between times reliving his experiences in the Second World War, and future experiences up to 1976 after being kidnapped by beings from the planet Tralfamadore. Or perhaps he has flashbacks and hallucinations after having a breakdown from PTSD. It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature or of science fiction, depending on how you look at it. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote More Than Human. It is now considered one of the great classics of science fiction. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It is now considered either a bad piece of science fiction or one of the great revelatory works of religious history, depending on how you look at it. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 the composer John Oswald released, first as two individual CDs and then as a double-CD, an album called Grayfolded, which the composer says in the liner notes he thinks of as existing in Tralfamadorian time. The Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut's novels don't see time as a linear thing with a beginning and end, but as a continuum that they can move between at will. When someone dies, they just think that at this particular point in time they're not doing so good, but at other points in time they're fine, so why focus on the bad time? In the book, when told of someone dying, the Tralfamadorians just say "so it goes". In between the first CD's release and the release of the double-CD version, Jerry Garcia died. From August 1942 through August 1995, Jerry Garcia was alive. So it goes. Shall we go, you and I? [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Dark Star (Omni 3/30/94)"] "One principle has become clear. Since motives are so frequently found in combination, it is essential that the complex types be analyzed and arranged, with an eye kept single nevertheless to the master-theme under discussion. Collectors, both primary and subsidiary, have done such valiant service that the treasures at our command are amply sufficient for such studies, so extensive, indeed, that the task of going through them thoroughly has become too great for the unassisted student. It cannot be too strongly urged that a single theme in its various types and compounds must be made predominant in any useful comparative study. This is true when the sources and analogues of any literary work are treated; it is even truer when the bare motive is discussed. The Grateful Dead furnishes an apt illustration of the necessity of such handling. It appears in a variety of different combinations, almost never alone. Indeed, it is so widespread a tale, and its combinations are so various, that there is the utmost difficulty in determining just what may properly be regarded the original kernel of it, the simple theme to which other motives were joined. Various opinions, as we shall see, have been held with reference to this matter, most of them justified perhaps by the materials in the hands of the scholars holding them, but none quite adequate in view of later evidence." That's a quote from The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story, by Gordon Hall Gerould, published in 1908. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five opens with a chapter about the process of writing the novel itself, and how difficult it was. He says "I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big." This is an episode several of my listeners have been looking forward to, but it's one I've been dreading writing, because this is an episode -- I think the only one in the series -- where the format of the podcast simply *will not* work. Were the Grateful Dead not such an important band, I would skip this episode altogether, but they're a band that simply can't be ignored, and that's a real problem here. Because my intent, always, with this podcast, is to present the recordings of the artists in question, put them in context, and explain why they were important, what their music meant to its listeners. To put, as far as is possible, the positive case for why the music mattered *in the context of its time*. Not why it matters now, or why it matters to me, but why it matters *in its historical context*. Whether I like the music or not isn't the point. Whether it stands up now isn't the point. I play the music, explain what it was they were doing, why they were doing it, what people saw in it. If I do my job well, you come away listening to "Blue Suede Shoes" the way people heard it in 1956, or "Good Vibrations" the way people heard it in 1966, and understanding why people were so impressed by those records. That is simply *not possible* for the Grateful Dead. I can present a case for them as musicians, and hope to do so. I can explain the appeal as best I understand it, and talk about things I like in their music, and things I've noticed. But what I can't do is present their recordings the way they were received in the sixties and explain why they were popular. Because every other act I have covered or will cover in this podcast has been a *recording* act, and their success was based on records. They may also have been exceptional live performers, but James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner are remembered for great *records*, like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "River Deep, Mountain High". Their great moments were captured on vinyl, to be listened back to, and susceptible of analysis. That is not the case for the Grateful Dead, and what is worse *they explicitly said, publicly, on multiple occasions* that it is not possible for me to understand their art, and thus that it is not possible for me to explain it. The Grateful Dead did make studio records, some of them very good. But they always said, consistently, over a thirty year period, that their records didn't capture what they did, and that the only way -- the *only* way, they were very clear about this -- that one could actually understand and appreciate their music, was to see them live, and furthermore to see them live while on psychedelic drugs. [Excerpt: Grateful Dead crowd noise] I never saw the Grateful Dead live -- their last UK performance was a couple of years before I went to my first ever gig -- and I have never taken a psychedelic substance. So by the Grateful Dead's own criteria, it is literally impossible for me to understand or explain their music the way that it should be understood or explained. In a way I'm in a similar position to the one I was in with La Monte Young in the last episode, whose music it's mostly impossible to experience without being in his presence. This is one reason of several why I placed these two episodes back to back. Of course, there is a difference between Young and the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead allowed -- even encouraged -- the recording of their live performances. There are literally thousands of concert recordings in circulation, many of them of professional quality. I have listened to many of those, and I can hear what they were doing. I can tell you what *I* think is interesting about their music, and about their musicianship. And I think I can build up a good case for why they were important, and why they're interesting, and why those recordings are worth listening to. And I can certainly explain the cultural phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead. But just know that while I may have found *a* point, *an* explanation for why the Grateful Dead were important, by the band's own lights and those of their fans, no matter how good a job I do in this episode, I *cannot* get it right. And that is, in itself, enough of a reason for this episode to exist, and for me to try, even harder than I normally do, to get it right *anyway*. Because no matter how well I do my job this episode will stand as an example of why this series is called "*A* History", not *the* history. Because parts of the past are ephemeral. There are things about which it's true to say "You had to be there". I cannot know what it was like to have been an American the day Kennedy was shot, I cannot know what it was like to be alive when a man walked on the Moon. Those are things nobody my age or younger can ever experience. And since August the ninth, 1995, the experience of hearing the Grateful Dead's music the way they wanted it heard has been in that category. And that is by design. Jerry Garcia once said "if you work really hard as an artist, you may be able to build something they can't tear down, you know, after you're gone... What I want to do is I want it here. I want it now, in this lifetime. I want what I enjoy to last as long as I do and not last any longer. You know, I don't want something that ends up being as much a nuisance as it is a work of art, you know?" And there's another difficulty. There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead -- late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can't realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven't yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future. I can't explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can't not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead. So the best I can do is treat the story I'm telling as if it were in Tralfamadorian time. All of it's happening all at once, and some of it is happening in different episodes that haven't been recorded yet. The podcast as a whole travels linearly from 1938 through to 1999, but this episode is happening in 1968 and 1972 and 1988 and 1995 and other times, all at once. Sometimes I'll talk about things as if you're already familiar with them, but they haven't happened yet in the story. Feel free to come unstuck in time and revisit this time after episode 167, and 172, and 176, and 192, and experience it again. So this has to be an experimental episode. It may well be an experiment that you think fails. If so, the next episode is likely to be far more to your taste, and much shorter than this or the last episode, two episodes that between them have to create a scaffolding on which will hang much of the rest of this podcast's narrative. I've finished my Grateful Dead script now. The next one I write is going to be fun: [Excerpt: Grateful Dead, "Dark Star"] Infrastructure means everything. How we get from place to place, how we transport goods, information, and ourselves, makes a big difference in how society is structured, and in the music we hear. For many centuries, the prime means of long-distance transport was by water -- sailing ships on the ocean, canal boats and steamboats for inland navigation -- and so folk songs talked about the ship as both means of escape, means of making a living, and in some senses as a trap. You'd go out to sea for adventure, or to escape your problems, but you'd find that the sea itself brought its own problems. Because of this we have a long, long tradition of sea shanties which are known throughout the world: [Excerpt: A. L. Lloyd, "Off to Sea Once More"] But in the nineteenth century, the railway was invented and, at least as far as travel within a landmass goes, it replaced the steamboat in the popular imaginary. Now the railway was how you got from place to place, and how you moved freight from one place to another. The railway brought freedom, and was an opportunity for outlaws, whether train robbers or a romanticised version of the hobo hopping onto a freight train and making his way to new lands and new opportunity. It was the train that brought soldiers home from wars, and the train that allowed the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the industrial North. There would still be songs about the riverboats, about how ol' man river keeps rolling along and about the big river Johnny Cash sang about, but increasingly they would be songs of the past, not the present. The train quickly replaced the steamboat in the iconography of what we now think of as roots music -- blues, country, folk, and early jazz music. Sometimes this was very literal. Furry Lewis' "Kassie Jones" -- about a legendary train driver who would break the rules to make sure his train made the station on time, but who ended up sacrificing his own life to save his passengers in a train crash -- is based on "Alabamy Bound", which as we heard in the episode on "Stagger Lee", was about steamboats: [Excerpt: Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones"] In the early episodes of this podcast we heard many, many, songs about the railway. Louis Jordan saying "take me right back to the track, Jack", Rosetta Tharpe singing about how "this train don't carry no gamblers", the trickster freight train driver driving on the "Rock Island Line", the mystery train sixteen coaches long, the train that kept-a-rollin' all night long, the Midnight Special which the prisoners wished would shine its ever-loving light on them, and the train coming past Folsom Prison whose whistle makes Johnny Cash hang his head and cry. But by the 1960s, that kind of song had started to dry up. It would happen on occasion -- "People Get Ready" by the Impressions is the most obvious example of the train metaphor in an important sixties record -- but by the late sixties the train was no longer a symbol of freedom but of the past. In 1969 Harry Nilsson sang about how "Nobody Cares About the Railroads Any More", and in 1968 the Kinks sang about "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains". When in 1968 Merle Haggard sang about a freight train, it was as a memory, of a child with hopes that ended up thwarted by reality and his own nature: [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "Mama Tried"] And the reason for this was that there had been another shift, a shift that had started in the forties and accelerated in the late fifties but had taken a little time to ripple through the culture. Now the train had been replaced in the popular imaginary by motorised transport. Instead of hopping on a train without paying, if you had no money in your pocket you'd have to hitch-hike all the way. Freedom now meant individuality. The ultimate in freedom was the biker -- the Hell's Angels who could go anywhere, unburdened by anything -- and instead of goods being moved by freight train, increasingly they were being moved by truck drivers. By the mid-seventies, truck drivers took a central place in American life, and the most romantic way to live life was to live it on the road. On The Road was also the title of a 1957 novel by Jack Kerouac, which was one of the first major signs of this cultural shift in America. Kerouac was writing about events in the late forties and early fifties, but his book was also a precursor of the sixties counterculture. He wrote the book on one continuous sheet of paper, as a stream of consciousness. Kerouac died in 1969 of an internal haemmorage brought on by too much alcohol consumption. So it goes. But the big key to this cultural shift was caused by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, a massive infrastructure spending bill that led to the construction of the modern American Interstate Highway system. This accelerated a program that had already started, of building much bigger, safer, faster roads. It also, as anyone who has read Robert Caro's The Power Broker knows, reinforced segregation and white flight. It did this both by making commuting into major cities from the suburbs easier -- thus allowing white people with more money to move further away from the cities and still work there -- and by bulldozing community spaces where Black people lived. More than a million people lost their homes and were forcibly moved, and orders of magnitude more lost their communities' parks and green spaces. And both as a result of deliberate actions and unconscious bigotry, the bulk of those affected were Black people -- who often found themselves, if they weren't forced to move, on one side of a ten-lane highway where the park used to be, with white people on the other side of the highway. The Federal-Aid Highway Act gave even more power to the unaccountable central planners like Robert Moses, the urban planner in New York who managed to become arguably the most powerful man in the city without ever getting elected, partly by slowly compromising away his early progressive ideals in the service of gaining more power. Of course, not every new highway was built through areas where poor Black people lived. Some were planned to go through richer areas for white people, just because you can't completely do away with geographical realities. For example one was planned to be built through part of San Francisco, a rich, white part. But the people who owned properties in that area had enough political power and clout to fight the development, and after nearly a decade of fighting it, the development was called off in late 1966. But over that time, many of the owners of the impressive buildings in the area had moved out, and they had no incentive to improve or maintain their properties while they were under threat of demolition, so many of them were rented out very cheaply. And when the beat community that Kerouac wrote about, many of whom had settled in San Francisco, grew too large and notorious for the area of the city they were in, North Beach, many of them moved to these cheap homes in a previously-exclusive area. The area known as Haight-Ashbury. [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Grayfolded"] Stories all have their starts, even stories told in Tralfamadorian time, although sometimes those starts are shrouded in legend. For example, the story of Scientology's start has been told many times, with different people claiming to have heard L. Ron Hubbard talk about how writing was a mug's game, and if you wanted to make real money, you needed to get followers, start a religion. Either he said this over and over and over again, to many different science fiction writers, or most science fiction writers of his generation were liars. Of course, the definition of a writer is someone who tells lies for money, so who knows? One of the more plausible accounts of him saying that is given by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon's account is more believable than most, because Sturgeon went on to be a supporter of Dianetics, the "new science" that Hubbard turned into his religion, for decades, even while telling the story. The story of the Grateful Dead probably starts as it ends, with Jerry Garcia. There are three things that everyone writing about the Dead says about Garcia's childhood, so we might as well say them here too. The first is that he was named by a music-loving father after Jerome Kern, the songwriter responsible for songs like "Ol' Man River" (though as Oscar Hammerstein's widow liked to point out, "Jerome Kern wrote dum-dum-dum-dum, *my husband* wrote 'Ol' Man River'" -- an important distinction we need to bear in mind when talking about songwriters who write music but not lyrics). The second is that when he was five years old that music-loving father drowned -- and Garcia would always say he had seen his father dying, though some sources claim this was a false memory. So it goes. And the third fact, which for some reason is always told after the second even though it comes before it chronologically, is that when he was four he lost two joints from his right middle finger. Garcia grew up a troubled teen, and in turn caused trouble for other people, but he also developed a few interests that would follow him through his life. He loved the fantastical, especially the fantastical macabre, and became an avid fan of horror and science fiction -- and through his love of old monster films he became enamoured with cinema more generally. Indeed, in 1983 he bought the film rights to Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan, the first story in which the Tralfamadorians appear, and wrote a script based on it. He wanted to produce the film himself, with Francis Ford Coppola directing and Bill Murray starring, but most importantly for him he wanted to prevent anyone who didn't care about it from doing it badly. And in that he succeeded. As of 2023 there is no film of The Sirens of Titan. He loved to paint, and would continue that for the rest of his life, with one of his favourite subjects being Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. And when he was eleven or twelve, he heard for the first time a record that was hugely influential to a whole generation of Californian musicians, even though it was a New York record -- "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Garcia would say later "That was an important song. That was the first kind of, like where the voices had that kind of not-trained-singer voices, but tough-guy-on-the-street voice." That record introduced him to R&B, and soon he was listening to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, to Ray Charles, and to a record we've not talked about in the podcast but which was one of the great early doo-wop records, "WPLJ" by the Four Deuces: [Excerpt: The Four Deuces, "WPLJ"] Garcia said of that record "That was one of my anthem songs when I was in junior high school and high school and around there. That was one of those songs everybody knew. And that everybody sang. Everybody sang that street-corner favorite." Garcia moved around a lot as a child, and didn't have much time for school by his own account, but one of the few teachers he did respect was an art teacher when he was in North Beach, Walter Hedrick. Hedrick was also one of the earliest of the conceptual artists, and one of the most important figures in the San Francisco arts scene that would become known as the Beat Generation (or the Beatniks, which was originally a disparaging term). Hedrick was a painter and sculptor, but also organised happenings, and he had also been one of the prime movers in starting a series of poetry readings in San Francisco, the first one of which had involved Allen Ginsberg giving the first ever reading of "Howl" -- one of a small number of poems, along with Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and possibly Pound's Cantos, which can be said to have changed twentieth-century literature. Garcia was fifteen when he got to know Hedrick, in 1957, and by then the Beat scene had already become almost a parody of itself, having become known to the public because of the publication of works like On the Road, and the major artists in the scene were already rejecting the label. By this point tourists were flocking to North Beach to see these beatniks they'd heard about on TV, and Hedrick was actually employed by one cafe to sit in the window wearing a beret, turtleneck, sandals, and beard, and draw and paint, to attract the tourists who flocked by the busload because they could see that there was a "genuine beatnik" in the cafe. Hedrick was, as well as a visual artist, a guitarist and banjo player who played in traditional jazz bands, and he would bring records in to class for his students to listen to, and Garcia particularly remembered him bringing in records by Big Bill Broonzy: [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)"] Garcia was already an avid fan of rock and roll music, but it was being inspired by Hedrick that led him to get his first guitar. Like his contemporary Paul McCartney around the same time, he was initially given the wrong instrument as a birthday present -- in Garcia's case his mother gave him an accordion -- but he soon persuaded her to swap it for an electric guitar he saw in a pawn shop. And like his other contemporary, John Lennon, Garcia initially tuned his instrument incorrectly. He said later "When I started playing the guitar, believe me, I didn't know anybody that played. I mean, I didn't know anybody that played the guitar. Nobody. They weren't around. There were no guitar teachers. You couldn't take lessons. There was nothing like that, you know? When I was a kid and I had my first electric guitar, I had it tuned wrong and learned how to play on it with it tuned wrong for about a year. And I was getting somewhere on it, you know… Finally, I met a guy that knew how to tune it right and showed me three chords, and it was like a revelation. You know what I mean? It was like somebody gave me the key to heaven." He joined a band, the Chords, which mostly played big band music, and his friend Gary Foster taught him some of the rudiments of playing the guitar -- things like how to use a capo to change keys. But he was always a rebellious kid, and soon found himself faced with a choice between joining the military or going to prison. He chose the former, and it was during his time in the Army that a friend, Ron Stevenson, introduced him to the music of Merle Travis, and to Travis-style guitar picking: [Excerpt: Merle Travis, "Nine-Pound Hammer"] Garcia had never encountered playing like that before, but he instantly recognised that Travis, and Chet Atkins who Stevenson also played for him, had been an influence on Scotty Moore. He started to realise that the music he'd listened to as a teenager was influenced by music that went further back. But Stevenson, as well as teaching Garcia some of the rudiments of Travis-picking, also indirectly led to Garcia getting discharged from the Army. Stevenson was not a well man, and became suicidal. Garcia decided it was more important to keep his friend company and make sure he didn't kill himself than it was to turn up for roll call, and as a result he got discharged himself on psychiatric grounds -- according to Garcia he told the Army psychiatrist "I was involved in stuff that was more important to me in the moment than the army was and that was the reason I was late" and the psychiatrist thought it was neurotic of Garcia to have his own set of values separate from that of the Army. After discharge, Garcia did various jobs, including working as a transcriptionist for Lenny Bruce, the comedian who was a huge influence on the counterculture. In one of the various attacks over the years by authoritarians on language, Bruce was repeatedly arrested for obscenity, and in 1961 he was arrested at a jazz club in North Beach. Sixty years ago, the parts of speech that were being criminalised weren't pronouns, but prepositions and verbs: [Excerpt: Lenny Bruce, "To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb"] That piece, indeed, was so controversial that when Frank Zappa quoted part of it in a song in 1968, the record label insisted on the relevant passage being played backwards so people couldn't hear such disgusting filth: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Harry You're a Beast"] (Anyone familiar with that song will understand that the censored portion is possibly the least offensive part of the whole thing). Bruce was facing trial, and he needed transcripts of what he had said in his recordings to present in court. Incidentally, there seems to be some confusion over exactly which of Bruce's many obscenity trials Garcia became a transcriptionist for. Dennis McNally says in his biography of the band, published in 2002, that it was the most famous of them, in autumn 1964, but in a later book, Jerry on Jerry, a book of interviews of Garcia edited by McNally, McNally talks about it being when Garcia was nineteen, which would mean it was Bruce's first trial, in 1961. We can put this down to the fact that many of the people involved, not least Garcia, lived in Tralfamadorian time, and were rather hazy on dates, but I'm placing the story here rather than in 1964 because it seems to make more sense that Garcia would be involved in a trial based on an incident in San Francisco than one in New York. Garcia got the job, even though he couldn't type, because by this point he'd spent so long listening to recordings of old folk and country music that he was used to transcribing indecipherable accents, and often, as Garcia would tell it, Bruce would mumble very fast and condense multiple syllables into one. Garcia was particularly impressed by Bruce's ability to improvise but talk in entire paragraphs, and he compared his use of language to bebop. Another thing that was starting to impress Garcia, and which he also compared to bebop, was bluegrass: [Excerpt: Bill Monroe, "Fire on the Mountain"] Bluegrass is a music that is often considered very traditional, because it's based on traditional songs and uses acoustic instruments, but in fact it was a terribly *modern* music, and largely a postwar creation of a single band -- Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. And Garcia was right when he said it was "white bebop" -- though he did say "The only thing it doesn't have is the harmonic richness of bebop. You know what I mean? That's what it's missing, but it has everything else." Both bebop and bluegrass evolved after the second world war, though they were informed by music from before it, and both prized the ability to improvise, and technical excellence. Both are musics that involved playing *fast*, in an ensemble, and being able to respond quickly to the other musicians. Both musics were also intensely rhythmic, a response to a faster paced, more stressful world. They were both part of the general change in the arts towards immediacy that we looked at in the last episode with the creation first of expressionism and then of pop art. Bluegrass didn't go into the harmonic explorations that modern jazz did, but it was absolutely as modern as anything Charlie Parker was doing, and came from the same impulses. It was tradition and innovation, the past and the future simultaneously. Bill Monroe, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Lenny Bruce were all in their own ways responding to the same cultural moment, and it was that which Garcia was responding to. But he didn't become able to play bluegrass until after a tragedy which shaped his life even more than his father's death had. Garcia had been to a party and was in a car with his friends Lee Adams, Paul Speegle, and Alan Trist. Adams was driving at ninety miles an hour when they hit a tight curve and crashed. Garcia, Adams, and Trist were all severely injured but survived. Speegle died. So it goes. This tragedy changed Garcia's attitudes totally. Of all his friends, Speegle was the one who was most serious about his art, and who treated it as something to work on. Garcia had always been someone who fundamentally didn't want to work or take any responsibility for anything. And he remained that way -- except for his music. Speegle's death changed Garcia's attitude to that, totally. If his friend wasn't going to be able to practice his own art any more, Garcia would practice his, in tribute to him. He resolved to become a virtuoso on guitar and banjo. His girlfriend of the time later said “I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks.” But of course, you can't make ensemble music on your own: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter, "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" (including end)] "Evelyn said, “What is it called when a person needs a … person … when you want to be touched and the … two are like one thing and there isn't anything else at all anywhere?” Alicia, who had read books, thought about it. “Love,” she said at length." That's from More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, a book I'll be quoting a few more times as the story goes on. Robert Hunter, like Garcia, was just out of the military -- in his case, the National Guard -- and he came into Garcia's life just after Paul Speegle had left it. Garcia and Alan Trist met Hunter ten days after the accident, and the three men started hanging out together, Trist and Hunter writing while Garcia played music. Garcia and Hunter both bonded over their shared love for the beats, and for traditional music, and the two formed a duo, Bob and Jerry, which performed together a handful of times. They started playing together, in fact, after Hunter picked up a guitar and started playing a song and halfway through Garcia took it off him and finished the song himself. The two of them learned songs from the Harry Smith Anthology -- Garcia was completely apolitical, and only once voted in his life, for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to keep Goldwater out, and regretted even doing that, and so he didn't learn any of the more political material people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan were doing at the time -- but their duo only lasted a short time because Hunter wasn't an especially good guitarist. Hunter would, though, continue to jam with Garcia and other friends, sometimes playing mandolin, while Garcia played solo gigs and with other musicians as well, playing and moving round the Bay Area and performing with whoever he could: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia, "Railroad Bill"] "Bleshing, that was Janie's word. She said Baby told it to her. She said it meant everyone all together being something, even if they all did different things. Two arms, two legs, one body, one head, all working together, although a head can't walk and arms can't think. Lone said maybe it was a mixture of “blending” and “meshing,” but I don't think he believed that himself. It was a lot more than that." That's from More Than Human In 1961, Garcia and Hunter met another young musician, but one who was interested in a very different type of music. Phil Lesh was a serious student of modern classical music, a classically-trained violinist and trumpeter whose interest was solidly in the experimental and whose attitude can be summed up by a story that's always told about him meeting his close friend Tom Constanten for the first time. Lesh had been talking with someone about serialism, and Constanten had interrupted, saying "Music stopped being created in 1750 but it started again in 1950". Lesh just stuck out his hand, recognising a kindred spirit. Lesh and Constanten were both students of Luciano Berio, the experimental composer who created compositions for magnetic tape: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti"] Berio had been one of the founders of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio for producing contemporary electronic music where John Cage had worked for a time, and he had also worked with the electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lesh would later remember being very impressed when Berio brought a tape into the classroom -- the actual multitrack tape for Stockhausen's revolutionary piece Gesang Der Juenglinge: [Excerpt: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Gesang Der Juenglinge"] Lesh at first had been distrustful of Garcia -- Garcia was charismatic and had followers, and Lesh never liked people like that. But he was impressed by Garcia's playing, and soon realised that the two men, despite their very different musical interests, had a lot in common. Lesh was interested in the technology of music as well as in performing and composing it, and so when he wasn't studying he helped out by engineering at the university's radio station. Lesh was impressed by Garcia's playing, and suggested to the presenter of the station's folk show, the Midnight Special, that Garcia be a guest. Garcia was so good that he ended up getting an entire solo show to himself, where normally the show would feature multiple acts. Lesh and Constanten soon moved away from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, but both would be back -- in Constanten's case he would form an experimental group in San Francisco with their fellow student Steve Reich, and that group (though not with Constanten performing) would later premiere Terry Riley's In C, a piece influenced by La Monte Young and often considered one of the great masterpieces of minimalist music. By early 1962 Garcia and Hunter had formed a bluegrass band, with Garcia on guitar and banjo and Hunter on mandolin, and a rotating cast of other musicians including Ken Frankel, who played banjo and fiddle. They performed under different names, including the Tub Thumpers, the Hart Valley Drifters, and the Sleepy Valley Hog Stompers, and played a mixture of bluegrass and old-time music -- and were very careful about the distinction: [Excerpt: The Hart Valley Drifters, "Cripple Creek"] In 1993, the Republican political activist John Perry Barlow was invited to talk to the CIA about the possibilities open to them with what was then called the Information Superhighway. He later wrote, in part "They told me they'd brought Steve Jobs in a few weeks before to indoctrinate them in modern information management. And they were delighted when I returned later, bringing with me a platoon of Internet gurus, including Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Tony Rutkowski, and Vint Cerf. They sealed us into an electronically impenetrable room to discuss the radical possibility that a good first step in lifting their blackout would be for the CIA to put up a Web site... We told them that information exchange was a barter system, and that to receive, one must also be willing to share. This was an alien notion to them. They weren't even willing to share information among themselves, much less the world." 1962 brought a new experience for Robert Hunter. Hunter had been recruited into taking part in psychological tests at Stanford University, which in the sixties and seventies was one of the preeminent universities for psychological experiments. As part of this, Hunter was given $140 to attend the VA hospital (where a janitor named Ken Kesey, who had himself taken part in a similar set of experiments a couple of years earlier, worked a day job while he was working on his first novel) for four weeks on the run, and take different psychedelic drugs each time, starting with LSD, so his reactions could be observed. (It was later revealed that these experiments were part of a CIA project called MKUltra, designed to investigate the possibility of using psychedelic drugs for mind control, blackmail, and torture. Hunter was quite lucky in that he was told what was going to happen to him and paid for his time. Other subjects included the unlucky customers of brothels the CIA set up as fronts -- they dosed the customers' drinks and observed them through two-way mirrors. Some of their experimental subjects died by suicide as a result of their experiences. So it goes. ) Hunter was interested in taking LSD after reading Aldous Huxley's writings about psychedelic substances, and he brought his typewriter along to the experiment. During the first test, he wrote a six-page text, a short excerpt from which is now widely quoted, reading in part "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell-like (must I take you by the hand, ever so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells" Hunter's experience led to everyone in their social circle wanting to try LSD, and soon they'd all come to the same conclusion -- this was something special. But Garcia needed money -- he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, and they'd married (this would be the first of several marriages in Garcia's life, and I won't be covering them all -- at Garcia's funeral, his second wife, Carolyn, said Garcia always called her the love of his life, and his first wife and his early-sixties girlfriend who he proposed to again in the nineties both simultaneously said "He said that to me!"). So he started teaching guitar at a music shop in Palo Alto. Hunter had no time for Garcia's incipient domesticity and thought that his wife was trying to make him live a conventional life, and the two drifted apart somewhat, though they'd still play together occasionally. Through working at the music store, Garcia got to know the manager, Troy Weidenheimer, who had a rock and roll band called the Zodiacs. Garcia joined the band on bass, despite that not being his instrument. He later said "Troy was a lot of fun, but I wasn't good enough a musician then to have been able to deal with it. I was out of my idiom, really, 'cause when I played with Troy I was playing electric bass, you know. I never was a good bass player. Sometimes I was playing in the wrong key and didn't even [fuckin'] know it. I couldn't hear that low, after playing banjo, you know, and going to electric...But Troy taught me the principle of, hey, you know, just stomp your foot and get on it. He was great. A great one for the instant arrangement, you know. And he was also fearless for that thing of get your friends to do it." Garcia's tenure in the Zodiacs didn't last long, nor did this experiment with rock and roll, but two other members of the Zodiacs will be notable later in the story -- the harmonica player, an old friend of Garcia's named Ron McKernan, who would soon gain the nickname Pig Pen after the Peanuts character, and the drummer, Bill Kreutzmann: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Drums/Space (Skull & Bones version)"] Kreutzmann said of the Zodiacs "Jerry was the hired bass player and I was the hired drummer. I only remember playing that one gig with them, but I was in way over my head. I always did that. I always played things that were really hard and it didn't matter. I just went for it." Garcia and Kreutzmann didn't really get to know each other then, but Garcia did get to know someone else who would soon be very important in his life. Bob Weir was from a very different background than Garcia, though both had the shared experience of long bouts of chronic illness as children. He had grown up in a very wealthy family, and had always been well-liked, but he was what we would now call neurodivergent -- reading books about the band he talks about being dyslexic but clearly has other undiagnosed neurodivergences, which often go along with dyslexia -- and as a result he was deemed to have behavioural problems which led to him getting expelled from pre-school and kicked out of the cub scouts. He was never academically gifted, thanks to his dyslexia, but he was always enthusiastic about music -- to a fault. He learned to play boogie piano but played so loudly and so often his parents sold the piano. He had a trumpet, but the neighbours complained about him playing it outside. Finally he switched to the guitar, an instrument with which it is of course impossible to make too loud a noise. The first song he learned was the Kingston Trio's version of an old sea shanty, "The Wreck of the John B": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "The Wreck of the John B"] He was sent off to a private school in Colorado for teenagers with behavioural issues, and there he met the boy who would become his lifelong friend, John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately the two troublemakers got on with each other *so* well that after their first year they were told that it was too disruptive having both of them at the school, and only one could stay there the next year. Barlow stayed and Weir moved back to the Bay Area. By this point, Weir was getting more interested in folk music that went beyond the commercial folk of the Kingston Trio. As he said later "There was something in there that was ringing my bells. What I had grown up thinking of as hillbilly music, it started to have some depth for me, and I could start to hear the music in it. Suddenly, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies playing what they could. There was some depth and expertise and stuff like that to aspire to.” He moved from school to school but one thing that stayed with him was his love of playing guitar, and he started taking lessons from Troy Weidenheimer, but he got most of his education going to folk clubs and hootenannies. He regularly went to the Tangent, a club where Garcia played, but Garcia's bluegrass banjo playing was far too rigorous for a free spirit like Weir to emulate, and instead he started trying to copy one of the guitarists who was a regular there, Jorma Kaukonnen. On New Year's Eve 1963 Weir was out walking with his friends Bob Matthews and Rich Macauley, and they passed the music shop where Garcia was a teacher, and heard him playing his banjo. They knocked and asked if they could come in -- they all knew Garcia a little, and Bob Matthews was one of his students, having become interested in playing banjo after hearing the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies, played by the bluegrass greats Flatt and Scruggs: [Excerpt: Flatt and Scruggs, "The Beverly Hillbillies"] Garcia at first told these kids, several years younger than him, that they couldn't come in -- he was waiting for his students to show up. But Weir said “Jerry, listen, it's seven-thirty on New Year's Eve, and I don't think you're going to be seeing your students tonight.” Garcia realised the wisdom of this, and invited the teenagers in to jam with him. At the time, there was a bit of a renaissance in jug bands, as we talked about back in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful. This was a form of music that had grown up in the 1920s, and was similar and related to skiffle and coffee-pot bands -- jug bands would tend to have a mixture of portable string instruments like guitars and banjos, harmonicas, and people using improvised instruments, particularly blowing into a jug. The most popular of these bands had been Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, led by banjo player Gus Cannon and with harmonica player Noah Lewis: [Excerpt: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Viola Lee Blues"] With the folk revival, Cannon's work had become well-known again. The Rooftop Singers, a Kingston Trio style folk group, had had a hit with his song "Walk Right In" in 1963, and as a result of that success Cannon had even signed a record contract with Stax -- Stax's first album ever, a month before Booker T and the MGs' first album, was in fact the eighty-year-old Cannon playing his banjo and singing his old songs. The rediscovery of Cannon had started a craze for jug bands, and the most popular of the new jug bands was Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, which did a mixture of old songs like "You're a Viper" and more recent material redone in the old style. Weir, Matthews, and Macauley had been to see the Kweskin band the night before, and had been very impressed, especially by their singer Maria D'Amato -- who would later marry her bandmate Geoff Muldaur and take his name -- and her performance of Leiber and Stoller's "I'm a Woman": [Excerpt: Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, "I'm a Woman"] Matthews suggested that they form their own jug band, and Garcia eagerly agreed -- though Matthews found himself rapidly moving from banjo to washboard to kazoo to second kazoo before realising he was surplus to requirements. Robert Hunter was similarly an early member but claimed he "didn't have the embouchure" to play the jug, and was soon also out. He moved to LA and started studying Scientology -- later claiming that he wanted science-fictional magic powers, which L. Ron Hubbard's new religion certainly offered. The group took the name Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions -- apparently they varied the spelling every time they played -- and had a rotating membership that at one time or another included about twenty different people, but tended always to have Garcia on banjo, Weir on jug and later guitar, and Garcia's friend Pig Pen on harmonica: [Excerpt: Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions, "On the Road Again"] The group played quite regularly in early 1964, but Garcia's first love was still bluegrass, and he was trying to build an audience with his bluegrass band, The Black Mountain Boys. But bluegrass was very unpopular in the Bay Area, where it was simultaneously thought of as unsophisticated -- as "hillbilly music" -- and as elitist, because it required actual instrumental ability, which wasn't in any great supply in the amateur folk scene. But instrumental ability was something Garcia definitely had, as at this point he was still practising eight hours a day, every day, and it shows on the recordings of the Black Mountain Boys: [Excerpt: The Black Mountain Boys, "Rosa Lee McFall"] By the summer, Bob Weir was also working at the music shop, and so Garcia let Weir take over his students while he and the Black Mountain Boys' guitarist Sandy Rothman went on a road trip to see as many bluegrass musicians as they could and to audition for Bill Monroe himself. As it happened, Garcia found himself too shy to audition for Monroe, but Rothman later ended up playing with Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. On his return to the Bay Area, Garcia resumed playing with the Uptown Jug Champions, but Pig Pen started pestering him to do something different. While both men had overlapping tastes in music and a love for the blues, Garcia's tastes had always been towards the country end of the spectrum while Pig Pen's were towards R&B. And while the Uptown Jug Champions were all a bit disdainful of the Beatles at first -- apart from Bob Weir, the youngest of the group, who thought they were interesting -- Pig Pen had become enamoured of another British band who were just starting to make it big: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] 29) Garcia liked the first Rolling Stones album too, and he eventually took Pig Pen's point -- the stuff that the Rolling Stones were doing, covers of Slim Harpo and Buddy Holly, was not a million miles away from the material they were doing as Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. Pig Pen could play a little electric organ, Bob had been fooling around with the electric guitars in the music shop. Why not give it a go? The stuff bands like the Rolling Stones were doing wasn't that different from the electric blues that Pig Pen liked, and they'd all seen A Hard Day's Night -- they could carry on playing with banjos, jugs, and kazoos and have the respect of a handful of folkies, or they could get electric instruments and potentially have screaming girls and millions of dollars, while playing the same songs. This was a convincing argument, especially when Dana Morgan Jr, the son of the owner of the music shop, told them they could have free electric instruments if they let him join on bass. Morgan wasn't that great on bass, but what the hell, free instruments. Pig Pen had the best voice and stage presence, so he became the frontman of the new group, singing most of the leads, though Jerry and Bob would both sing a few songs, and playing harmonica and organ. Weir was on rhythm guitar, and Garcia was the lead guitarist and obvious leader of the group. They just needed a drummer, and handily Bill Kreutzmann, who had played with Garcia and Pig Pen in the Zodiacs, was also now teaching music at the music shop. Not only that, but about three weeks before they decided to go electric, Kreutzmann had seen the Uptown Jug Champions performing and been astonished by Garcia's musicianship and charisma, and said to himself "Man, I'm gonna follow that guy forever!" The new group named themselves the Warlocks, and started rehearsing in earnest. Around this time, Garcia also finally managed to get some of the LSD that his friend Robert Hunter had been so enthusiastic about three years earlier, and it was a life-changing experience for him. In particular, he credited LSD with making him comfortable being a less disciplined player -- as a bluegrass player he'd had to be frighteningly precise, but now he was playing rock and needed to loosen up. A few days after taking LSD for the first time, Garcia also heard some of Bob Dylan's new material, and realised that the folk singer he'd had little time for with his preachy politics was now making electric music that owed a lot more to the Beat culture Garcia considered himself part of: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"] Another person who was hugely affected by hearing that was Phil Lesh, who later said "I couldn't believe that was Bob Dylan on AM radio, with an electric band. It changed my whole consciousness: if something like that could happen, the sky was the limit." Up to that point, Lesh had been focused entirely on his avant-garde music, working with friends like Steve Reich to push music forward, inspired by people like John Cage and La Monte Young, but now he realised there was music of value in the rock world. He'd quickly started going to rock gigs, seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds, and then he took acid and went to see his friend Garcia's new electric band play their third ever gig. He was blown away, and very quickly it was decided that Lesh would be the group's new bass player -- though everyone involved tells a different story as to who made the decision and how it came about, and accounts also vary as to whether Dana Morgan took his sacking gracefully and let his erstwhile bandmates keep their instruments, or whether they had to scrounge up some new ones. Lesh had never played bass before, but he was a talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep understanding of music and an ability to compose and improvise, and the repertoire the Warlocks were playing in the early days was mostly three-chord material that doesn't take much rehearsal -- though it was apparently beyond the abilities of poor Dana Morgan, who apparently had to be told note-by-note what to play by Garcia, and learn it by rote. Garcia told Lesh what notes the strings of a bass were tuned to, told him to borrow a guitar and practice, and within two weeks he was on stage with the Warlocks: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, “Grayfolded"] In September 1995, just weeks after Jerry Garcia's death, an article was published in Mute magazine identifying a cultural trend that had shaped the nineties, and would as it turned out shape at least the next thirty years. It's titled "The Californian Ideology", though it may be better titled "The Bay Area Ideology", and it identifies a worldview that had grown up in Silicon Valley, based around the ideas of the hippie movement, of right-wing libertarianism, of science fiction authors, and of Marshall McLuhan. It starts "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete." [Excerpt: Grayfolded] The Warlocks' first gig with Phil Lesh on bass was on June the 18th 1965, at a club called Frenchy's with a teenage clientele. Lesh thought his playing had been wooden and it wasn't a good gig, and apparently the management of Frenchy's agreed -- they were meant to play a second night there, but turned up to be told they'd been replaced by a band with an accordion and clarinet. But by September the group had managed to get themselves a residency at a small bar named the In Room, and playing there every night made them cohere. They were at this point playing the kind of sets that bar bands everywhere play to this day, though at the time the songs they were playing, like "Gloria" by Them and "In the Midnight Hour", were the most contemporary of hits. Another song that they introduced into their repertoire was "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, another band which had grown up out of former jug band musicians. As well as playing their own sets, they were also the house band at The In Room and as such had to back various touring artists who were the headline acts. The first act they had to back up was Cornell Gunter's version of the Coasters. Gunter had brought his own guitarist along as musical director, and for the first show Weir sat in the audience watching the show and learning the parts, staring intently at this musical director's playing. After seeing that, Weir's playing was changed, because he also picked up how the guitarist was guiding the band while playing, the small cues that a musical director will use to steer the musicians in the right direction. Weir started doing these things himself when he was singing lead -- Pig Pen was the frontman but everyone except Bill sang sometimes -- and the group soon found that rather than Garcia being the sole leader, now whoever was the lead singer for the song was the de facto conductor as well. By this point, the Bay Area was getting almost overrun with people forming electric guitar bands, as every major urban area in America was. Some of the bands were even having hits already -- We Five had had a number three hit with "You Were On My Mind", a song which had originally been performed by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia: [Excerpt: We Five, "You Were On My Mind"] Although the band that was most highly regarded on the scene, the Charlatans, was having problems with the various record companies they tried to get signed to, and didn't end up making a record until 1969. If tracks like "Number One" had been released in 1965 when they were recorded, the history of the San Francisco music scene may have taken a very different turn: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "Number One"] Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were also forming, and Autumn Records was having a run of success with records by the Beau Brummels, whose records were produced by Autumn's in-house A&R man, Sly Stone: [Excerpt: The Beau Brummels, "Laugh Laugh"] The Warlocks were somewhat cut off from this, playing in a dive bar whose clientele was mostly depressed alcoholics. But the fact that they were playing every night for an audience that didn't care much gave them freedom, and they used that freedom to improvise. Both Lesh and Garcia were big fans of John Coltrane, and they started to take lessons from his style of playing. When the group played "Gloria" or "Midnight Hour" or whatever, they started to extend the songs and give themselves long instrumental passages for soloing. Garcia's playing wasn't influenced *harmonically* by Coltrane -- in fact Garcia was always a rather harmonically simple player. He'd tend to play lead lines either in Mixolydian mode, which is one of the most standard modes in rock, pop, blues, and jazz, or he'd play the notes of the chord that was being played, so if the band were playing a G chord his lead would emphasise the notes G, B, and D. But what he was influenced by was Coltrane's tendency to improvise in long, complex, phrases that made up a single thought -- Coltrane was thinking musically in paragraphs, rather than sentences, and Garcia started to try the same kind of th

AN EASTER REFLECTION ON THE TRUE MESSAGE OF THE DAY.

We are back to adding titles and descriptions, for now. This is the first installment of our series on separatist movements, starting with North America. We also did some contemporary news. As usual, we bring you more of the same, praise to Kilgore Trout. So it goes. insta, facebook, twitter, patreon Subscribe to our BitChute channel for the podcast videos Sponsors: www.agoristnexus.com/ Rae Faba - fine art from the Great Lakes Team Mandalore - keep cycling weird i paint akron -Local artists bringing art instruction to the masses. Art for the people, forever!! https://www.etsy.com/shop/AkronApothecary  BUY TODD'S GAY SOAP! DEFEAT SWAMP ASS!!  check out our merch!!  

Kurt Vonnegut interviews roster of (dearly and not-so-dearly) departed historical figures, Sir Isaac Newton, Hitler, Uncle Alex, Isaac Asimov, Vivian Hallinan, and Kilgore Trout while being kept back from returning to his Earthly body by the crotchety bureaucrat St. Peter. This provocative exploration about who and what we live for shines a light on the uplifting truth Vonnegut embraced in life. “Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us as we talk to the author of The Brother's Vonnegut, Ginger Strand. We discuss how she found Vonnegut through cloud seeding, what surprised and didn't surprise Ginger in her research, coming up with progressive rock band names, and whether her writing is more Kurt Vonnegut or Kilgore Trout. Originally aired on 99.1 WQRT FM on May 14th, 2022.  Find out more about Ginger by going to gingerstrand.com. Visit kvml.org for more information about KVML events and programs. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @VonnegutLibrary. Audio mix and editing by Nick Corey. Cover Art by Arusyak Pivazyan @bamboleiyoo.

 Ch 10 -- The narrator and Billy merge in DresdenWARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)         

Ch 9 -- the war is over, and escaping to New York CityWARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)        

 Ch 8 -- the bombing of Dresden, and the anniversary partyWARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)       

Ch 7 -- in which our band of American prisoners adapt to life in Dresden.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)      

Ch 6 -- by the end of which, Billy Pilgrim sees Dresden. So it goes.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)     

Six (or 5b) in which we finish up chapter five. Billy visits his honeymoon, and gets tangled in barbed wire.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)    

Five -- in which, the Americans are interred at the extermination campWARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)   

Four -- in which Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens and the American G.I.s arrive at an extermination camp.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)  

Three -- in which a river of American humiliation flows EastWARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;) 

Two -- in which a second narrative evolves; one that loosely orbits around Billie Pilgrim just after the Battle of the Bulge, but also in 1967, and at other times, too. So it goes.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us ;)

One -- which, in the rambling style of a beloved madman, introduces us to the novel, its narrator and fair helping of disorder. Peace.WARNING: These episodes are intended as a supplement to the reading. Anything revealed in a section is subject to a "what we know so far" discussion, with a greater than 0% chance of related speculation. We always avoid spoilers, BUT, if a close-reading reveals secrets left obscure to a casual reader... be warned. Please, keep comments relevant to the current episode. We'd like to encourage you to "like" the podcast if you do. Subscribe, tell your friends and leave us friendly or constructive comments. All of these help us grow and learn. Patreon -- This option is for those who love what we're doing and just can't live without us. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of the RSS feed, logo design, hardware upgrades, etc. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=47998540Instagram -- Follow SFFRA for episode announcements and general podcast info @scifi_fantasy_read_along If you'd like to contact us directly, use the following email: scifiandfantasyreadalong@gmail.com Thank you to Setuniman for letting us use his beautiful piano loop. https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/ The cover art from the novel used in our thumbnail is by Dominic Harman. ISBN: 978-0-547-72202-3 Welcome! We're so happy you found us. Keep reading everyone.         

Taking up Mark Twain's mantle, then expanding upon it, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was one of the greatest comic writers to have ever lived. His best-known work, Slaughterhouse-Five, features everything from sci-fi to timeless political comment, and has overshadowed his other great works. One of these is 1972's Breakfast of Champions, a novel Kurt Vonnegut had abandoned several times, even as it remains a clever examination of America's money-obsession, corporatism, sexual dynamics, artistic fraud, and more. Imparted by a (potentially) unreliable narrator, these lessons come to a twist ending in the book's last few scenes of philosophical slapstick.  You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/InsbL7cxJ_Q Joel's website: https://poeticimport.com Read the latest from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com Read Alex's (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com Timestamps: 0:23 – Kurt Vonnegut + Breakfast of Champions in context 23:00 – Joel makes sense of Kurt Vonnegut's plotting 27:42 – Is Philboyd Studge an unreliable narrator? 36:45 – Kurt Vonnegut describes great writing with a metaphor 41:40 – Ch. 1: political preoccupations in Breakfast of Champions 01:01:24 – Ch. 2: sexual dynamics & Wide Open Beavers 01:10:02 – Is Kurt Vonnegut an anti-humanist? 01:17:02 – Ch. 8: what the Pluto Gang says about white liberalism 01:26:24 – Ch. 10, 11, & 12: Nelson Rockefeller vs. a truck driver's free will 01:44:45 – Joel on Kurt Vonnegut's use of ellipses 01:47:40 – Kilgore Trout turns beautiful language into a liability 01:54:45 – Ch. 15: a bottleneck in Breakfast of Champions 02:00:00 – The Reindeer Problem: how Kurt Vonnegut tackles race relations 02:08:46 – Joel tries to escape his artistic responsibilities to watch a soccer game 02:09:12 – The narrator meets his (alleged) creations 02:13:55 – Is Kurt Vonnegut criticizing Abstract Expressionism? 02:24:06 – The last chapter, epilogue, & terrible criticism from "the failing New York Times"

This episode we have a special guest on the ROOKNTIDAS show. Author and Podcaster David Raffin of Davidraffin.com The guys talk about Crittenden county Arkansas and cheap dime store porn novels. as well as going on a long tirade about Kilgore Trout.

Kultura: architektura - německý Bauhaus (posledním ředitelem Ludwig van der Rohe - vila Tugendhat), výškové budovy (sídlo OSN), malířství - centrum New Yorku - abstraktní expresionismus - Jackson Pollock, pop-art - Andy Warhol (např. Plechovky s fazolovou polévku Cambelli, portréty Marilyn Monroe), hudba - skladatelé - Martinů, Stravinskij, černošská hudba - jazz - Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein - Westside story, bebop (bop) - zrychlená, improvizovaná verze jazzu (=> bebopová prozodie u Beatniků), Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson LITERATURA - vliv války - realismus (někdy až naturalismus), moderní kompoziční postupy - střih, prolínání rovin BEATNICKÁ GENERACE (beatnici, zbitá generace, blažená generace, generace na cestě) - od 50. Let 20. Stol., bohémská čtvrť North Beach v San Franciscu, zpočátku program veskrze negativní - odmítání masové, zkomercionalizované společnosti, příklon k východním náboženstvím, hinduismus a zejména zen buddhismus, holdují alkoholu, drogám, sexuální promiskuita, homosexualita, psychiatrické prostředí, policejní represe - autoři: Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Seward Burroughs DRAMA - bez předešlé tradice - malé scény - psychologické drama Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller (proti) válečná literatura - Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnengut, Joseph Heller, William Styron NORMAN MAILER - z židovské rodiny, ctižádostivý student, vystudoval letecké inženýrství na Harvardu, od 1942 v armádě, 1944 - 1946 seržant americké armády, studium na Sorbonně - Nazí a mrtví, 2x Pulitzerova cena, od 60. Let beletrizované reportáže, prezident amerického PEN klubu, 3x kandidoval na newyorského starostu (heslo:"Žádný další kecy") - 5% hlasů, 6x ženatý (1. žena Beatrice "Bea"), 8 dětí, zakladatel tzv. Nového žurnalismu - subjektivní pohled (všechna média někým vlastněná) DÍLO NAZÍ A MRTVÍ - protiválečný román, debut, americká kritika: "nejlepší americký román o 2. světové válce" - do té doby, než vychází Hlava XXII), nazí - přežili válku, zcela bez iluzí a snů, mrtví - padli na bojišti kolektivní hrdina - jednotka seržanta Crofta (na ostrově Anapopei) - kolektivní , psychologie, 4 části: Vlna, Hlína a tvar, Rostlina a přízrak, Brázda, zachycuje myšlenkové proudy doby (pragmatismus) - život jedince podřízen vojenským cílům - jednotka poručíka Hearna AMERICKÝ SEN - román, bouřlivá polemika, politik: 2 možnosti - sebevražda nebo vražda manželky - vražda manželky - nikdy není odhalen - autobiografické prvky - sám svou ženu pobodal nožem, ARMÁDY NOCI - reportážní protiválečný román, pochod na Pentagon - největší demonstrace x válce ve Vietnamu, 2 části: 1) popis stávky - ich-forma + následné zatknutí/věznění 2. Část er-forma, vypravěč, popisuje přípravu + realizaci (samotná osoba Mailora okem vypravěče) - Pulitzerova cena KATOVA PÍSEŇ (The Executioner's song) román, Pulitzerova cena, data o skutečném dvojnásobném vrahovi Gary Gilmorovi, biografie MARILYN - o Marilyn Monroe KURT VONNENGUT - rodina německých přistěhovalců, zajat, byl u bombardování Drážďan - 2 možnosti: zešílet nebo uchýlit see do světa fantazie - píše sci-fi, až do r. 2007 přispívá do měsíčníku In These Times, částečné alter-ego Kilgore Trout (1907 - 1981) - spisovatel brakových sci-fi románů JATKA Č. 5 (Slaughterhause Five) - sci-fi román, cituje díla Kilgora Trouta, hlavní hrdina Billy Pilgrim - díky válečnému traumatu schopný neovladatelně cestovat časem, nejednotný děj (epizodické příběhy sjednocuje Billy Pilgrim) SNÍDANĚ ŠAMPIÓNŮ - demytizace amerických dějin, americké hymny, kritika hodnot americké společnosti Závěr: oznámení, že Kilgora Trouta vytvořil sám autor (srov. Epické divadlo Bertolta Brechta) MECHANICKÉ PIANO - antiutopický román, ovládnutí roboty (srov. RUR) JOSEPH HELLER - BŮH VÍ, NĚCO SE STALO, HLAVA XXII - groteska, kapitán amerického letectva John Yossarian - cykličnost - Snowdenovy smrti WILLIAM STYRON - psychologické romány, z Virginie DOZNÁNÍ NATA TURNERA, ULEHNI V TEMNOTÁCH,SOPHIINA VOLBA

Welcome to the Proof Negative Radio Show! We have been on air since January 2010. We focus on alternative news, independent politics, & health and wellness. Kilgore Trout is our guest tonight. He is the founder of http://www.iwillnotcomply.org We reserve the right to go off topic and have fun on air as well. Freedomizer Radio does NOT embrace socialism, or pursue what the 1% global elites want us to do or think. We do not monitor this chat room. We do ask everyone check out our website http://www.freedomizerradio.com where everyone can listen live and join our chat

Gerry and Aaron discuss 1979's Jailbird! Labor, prison, massacres, communism, Reagan, Watergate, finance, Einstein, Jimmy Carter, Judas Iscariot, and Kilgore Trout, too...

Dwayne Hoover é um empresário bem sucedido na cidade de Midland. É dono de uma concessionária de Pontiacs, carros para a classe média estadunidense, além de muitos outros empreendimentos espalhados pela cidade. Homem de negócios que é, Dwayne parece sucumbir a uma vida particular esfacelada. Viúvo e pai de um filho gay por quem nutre repulsa, a única válvula de escape que resta é o romance às escondidas com a sua secretária até que, com os elementos químicos ruins, tem nas mãos um romance de ficção científica que o convence de ser o único ser humano no planeta. Todos os outros são robôs. Kilgore Trout é um escritor fracassado. Escreve a mais pura ficção científica. Seus romances, contos e novelas servem para preencher revistas pornográficas, normalmente esquecidas nos fundos das bancas mais fuleiras. De repente, pelas mãos de um bilionário e seu único fã (até onde se sabe), Trout é convidado a participar de um festival de artes na cidade de Midland. Obviamente o convite só foi feito porque sabiam que havia um smoking guardado no baú para essas ocasiões. Mal sabe ele que possui o dobro de leitores que imaginava. Café da Manhã dos Campeões foi lançado em 1973, escrito como presente de 50 anos de Kurt Vonnegut para ele mesmo. Um romance centrado em duas figuras pitorescas, mas que excede todos e quaisquer limites impostos às personagens. Às vezes semelhante a um manual de instruções para alienígenas, Vonnegut trata o homem estadunidense e sua cultura com humor ácido e um pessimismo implacável. Racismo, questões de gênero, ultraviolência, miséria, liberdade, consumo, indústria cultural, pornografia, religião e o sentido da vida são questões exploradas nos capítulos enxutos e ilustrados pelo próprio. Importante: Para mais informações e outros episódios, acessem nosso site www.centralredepoderosa.com.br. O podcast Rede Poderosa de Intrigas também está no Instagram e no Twitter como @poderosarede. Para sugestões de pauta, críticas, parcerias, anúncios e mais, nosso e-mail é redepoderosa@gmail.com. Arte feita por Nátali Nuss (@nuss.art). Esse episódio é uma produção da Central Rede Poderosa. Até a próxima!

A political fantasy, The twit, the puppet and the pawn are on trial for their crimes against us all. Cast of characters;  Twit-Alexis Kozak, The Puppet- Matt Drew. Pawn- Scott Visco  and Kilgore Trout-the Judge.  There is also a talk back bonus of the audience sharing their thoughts and questions after the play. 

Brandon "Drexel" Gerson hosts a day-after-Thanksgiving free form show, along with well know PokerFraudAlert forum members SrslySirius, Adamantium, and Kilgore Trout. Many forum members and past radio guests call in to join in the fun.

Brandon "Drexel" Gerson hosts a day-after-Thanksgiving free form show, along with well know PokerFraudAlert forum members SrslySirius, Adamantium, and Kilgore Trout. Many forum members and past radio guests call in to join in the fun.

Bestselling author and prolific lit interviewer Brad Listi was named One of LA s most fascinating people of 2015 by the LA Weekly. He stopped by to chat with me about podcasting and the secrets of successful writers. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! On his “in depth and inappropriate” podcast, Otherppl with Brad Listi, he has interviewed over 350 leading contemporary authors — including George Saunders, Cheryl Strayed, Tao Lin, Jonathan Lethem, Austin Kleon, and Susan Orlean — and his takeaways for writers are often priceless and pointed. In addition to his street-cred as a bestselling novelist, Brad is a screenwriter, and the founder and publisher of The Nervous Breakdown, an online culture magazine and literary community. In this file Brad Listi and I discuss: Why Interviews with Beginners Can Be More Interesting Than Interviews with Superstars The Magic of Deadlines, Caffeine, and Word Counts Why First Drafts are Like Ironing a Shirt The Importance of Meditation for ‘Unplugging’ How Great Writers Capture a Moment That Others Can’t 3 Key Takeaways from over 350 Interviews with Writers Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes The Otherppl Podcast hosted by Brad Listi The Otherppl App Books by Brad Listi The Nervous Breakdown — an online culture magazine and literary community Otherppl on Twitter Brad Listi on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Novelist and Prolific Podcaster Brad Listi Writes Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. Bestselling author and prolific lit interviewer Brad Listi has been named as one of LA’s most fascinating people of 2015 by the LA Weekly. He stopped by to chat with me about podcasting and the secrets of successful writers. On his in-depth and inappropriate podcast, Otherppl with Brad Listi, he’s interviewed over 350 leading contemporary authors, including George Saunders, Cheryl Strayed, Tao Lin, Jonathan Lethem, Austin Kleon, and Susan Orlean, and his takeaways for writers are often priceless and pointed. In addition to his street-cred as a bestselling novelist, Brad is a screenwriter and the founder and publisher of The Nervous Breakdown, an online culture magazine and literary community. In this file, Brad Listi and I discuss why interviews with beginners can be more interesting than interviews with superstars, the magic of deadlines, caffeine and word counts, why first drafts are like ironing a shirt, the importance of meditation for unplugging, and three key takeaways from over 350 interviews with writers. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please do me a favor. Leave a rating or a review in iTunes to help other writers find us. Thanks for tuning in. Mr. Listi, thank you so much for coming onto The Writer Files. Brad Listi: It’s my pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: I am a huge fan of not only your writing, but also your podcast, which just blows me away with the breadth and depth and number of writers that you’ve interviewed over there is fantastic. Brad Listi: Just leveraging my mental illness into productivity. Kelton Reid: For listeners who aren’t familiar with your podcast and what you do, what is your area of expertise as both a writer and a podcaster? Brad Listi: None. But I’m curious. I’m curious, professionally curious, and then also professionally confused. Those two things make for, hopefully, a decent podcaster, or somebody who talks to people regularly and interviews them, or not really interviews, but has conversations. I don’t know how unusual it is to be able to do that, but I can do it. I can sit there and talk to people and be totally fascinated, genuinely fascinated. It started as kind of a lark, which is how most of the things in my life tend to go, in my professional life, and it just snowballed. I’ve had so much fun doing it that I keep doing it. Then here we are four years later. Kelton Reid: The podcast is Otherppl on iTunes and Stitcher. I definitely would encourage writers to seek it out if they don’t know it already. You’re an intrepid interviewer, but you just get into the mind of the writer. You let them rip. You talk about process. You’ve interviewed some amazing contemporary authors, including George Saunders, Tao Lin, Austin Kleon, who I love, who was just on this show as well — just an amazing, amazing array of different types of writers, which I think is very cool. Why Interviews with Beginners Can Be More Interesting Than Interviews with Superstars Brad Listi: Yeah. That’s always been part of the idea for the show, is that I would talk to writers across a wide range, meaning I talk to a guy like George Saunders, or I’ll talk to Cheryl Strayed, or I’ll talk to Susan Orlean, or I’ll talk to Edwidge Danticat, Tom Perrotta, those really recognizable, at least within the realm of the literary world, names. Then I’m also talking to people who are debut authors on indie presses. Or I’m talking to poets, and nobody knows who any poets are practically. I’m not interested in only talking to people who have somehow managed to get some kind of media traction or name recognition. I’m interested in talking to writers who are at the beginning of the process, too. I think that’s just as interesting. Sometimes it’s more interesting. I’m mostly curious about people generally, and I happen to interview writers. I like writers as people. I have a great deal of sympathy for people who do this, who try to do this work, and feel driven to do it. Whatever that is, whatever formula that is inside of a human being, I tend to gravitate towards, and I like. It’s just fun to talk to them. Kelton Reid: For listeners who don’t know of your writing as well, you’re also a bestselling author. Brad Listi: Bestselling is generous, but I’ll take it. Kelton Reid: I loved your novel. Attention Deficit Disorder spoke to me at a time in my life, actually, when I just moved away from Los Angeles. I found the connection that you had to Colorado very interesting. But it’s kind of what’s-it-all mean novel. It really connected with me. I love the format. I love the writing itself. Anyway, where can we find more of your writing? I know that you have an online community. You’re constantly getting your hands into other projects. What are you working on presently? Brad Listi: I don’t mean to be cryptic. I’ve got a book going that’s been going forever. I published an experimental work of nonfiction with a writer named Justin Benton a couple of years ago called Board. It’s like a literary collage, ripped from comment boards on The Nervous Breakdown. I was just interested, and Justin was interested, in comment board culture and what people say on the Internet. We made this like weird book of literary collage out of it and called it Board, so that’s out there. Then I’ve been working on a book for a long time. I’m also working on film and TV stuff, which I can’t fully talk about. I’m trying to get something going there. It might go. It might not go. It’s that kind of thing. That’s been occupying a lot of my time. Then doing the podcast, running The Nervous Breakdown in all of its various iterations. It’s a full schedule, and being a parent. The time goes away quickly. Kelton Reid: The Nervous Breakdown is a great stop also for writers to discover new writing. I’ll point to that in the show notes as well. Do you want to talk about your productivity a little bit as a writer? The Magic of Deadlines, Caffeine, and Word Counts Brad Listi: Yeah. It’s in fits and starts. I’m good with a deadline, and if I have a project and I know that has like a real shape to it time-wise, I’m able to lock in. Otherwise, when I have the free time to work on a book, the problem with me is that I feel like I need a good chunk of time to get my head into the right space to inhabit the world of the book and to really feel like I have a rhythm. My life has not been able to accommodate that consistently. I have it in pockets. I’ll go to work on it, and then I’ll get pulled into another project that has a deadline attached to it and probably money. And I’ll have to go there. That’s the way that it’s been going. I have been struggling mightily to write the second book. I wrote an entire novel called City of Champions, which I trashed. It was 130,000 words. Kelton Reid: Wow. Brad Listi: Yeah. Then I wrote an entire another novel draft, trashed it. It’s been like that for me. It has not been easy. This is not something that comes easily to me at all. It’s been very frustrating. Then you compound that with trying to make a living and support a family, and it’s challenging. It’s still a work in progress in terms of trying to figure out how to make it all happen. But the good news is that there could be potentially a glimmer of light. It’s the best I can tell you. Kelton Reid: Well that’s good to hear. When you are working on any kind of project that requires you to sit in one place, do you have any pregame rituals or practices that help you get into that mode? Brad Listi: Yeah, caffeine. Just caffeine. It’s caffeine. I used to exercise and then work. Now, lately, I have been working and then exercising. In a perfect world, I’d get up really early and work. Actually, I don’t know. In a perfect world, I’d get up really early and go for a hike someplace beautiful, a couple of hours, then come down and work. Be unimpeded. But usually morning, drink some caffeine, get in front of the keyboard. I had a pocket of time earlier this spring where I was really working for about six weeks. That’s the way I was doing it. I usually operate on a word count just to give myself a no BS metric. I have to see how many words I’m getting in order to actually chart my progress. I write it down so that it’s externalized. It’s not just something that I keep in my head. I actually have it on paper day by day, so I can see what I’m doing. Because it can get really easy to sort of spin your wheels. That’s going to happen inevitably. At some point in the writing process, you’re going to have to backtrack and cut pages, or you’re going to get stuck in a certain section and just grind away and not get anywhere for a while. If I don’t write it down, I can wind up grinding away for a long time. It be like, “I feel like I’m working,” but the book has not advanced. The narrative has not advanced in six weeks or whatever. It’s just helpful for me to do it that way. It keeps me accountable. Kelton Reid: Do you prefer silence, or do you like to listen to music while you’re typing, writing? Brad Listi: Like ambient music. I’ve written parts of books at least where music has helped me in terms of getting an emotional tone, getting myself into the right emotional, tonal headspace to write whatever section it is or whatever project I’m working on. I don’t like to write with music that has lyrics and people are singing in my head. It’s too many voices, and I’ll start singing along. It’s just distracting. If I could ever find silence — I live in Los Angeles, there’s no such thing. I have small children, a small child with another one on the way, so silence is hard to come by. That would be pretty awesome if I could find that, but not any time soon. Kelton Reid: When you are in that pocket of productivity, do you find yourself needing to sit down every day? Brad Listi: Yeah. I’m very rhythmic. That’s what I mean by ‘rhythm.’ What’s frustrating is that if I could set up a schedule where I was able to do it every day at the same time. The other thing, too, some of these people, I was talking to Aimee Bender on my show. She has young twins and was talking about how she’s writing in seven-minute pockets of time, whatever’s available to her, which is the resourceful, admirable, intelligent way to go about it. For me, I need a few hours. I need a couple of hours just to mess around before I can even get started. I don’t know why. That’s the way it’s always been for me. I have to warm up. I have to sit there and re-read it. It takes me a while to get back into it. It’s always been that way. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Four hours is a minimal pocket of time in order for me to get 500 to 1000 words, unless I’m really caffeinated. Kelton Reid: Do you edit while you work, like as you go? Why First Drafts Are Like Ironing a Shirt Brad Listi: Yeah. I try to write the best possible first draft that I can. I’m not somebody who just sits there and let’s it rip. I’m always trying to write the best I can, and at the same time, I’m trying to make sure that I don’t get too nitpicky and stifle myself or let the inner critic or whatever overtake the process. I find that if you’re too permissive, then it can let you off the hook. You let yourself off the hook, and you get into lazy writing, which isn’t helpful. Then you have this huge mess to clean up. I liken it to ironing a shirt. When you’re working on a first draft, it’s like when you iron a shirt and you’re always sliding the shirt over to go back to where you just were. I don’t know if that’s the right visual. But I’ll write, and then I’ll reread what I’ve written, usually all the way from the beginning. This is another reason why it takes me forever. I’ll start, I could be on page 150 of a book, and every morning, I get up and I start on page one and I reread — and I’m just ironing. Then I’m getting back in, and then I’m trying to advance it 500 or 1000 words or whatever. That doesn’t mean that I’m not skimming. There’s certain sections where you know you have it or you need to come back to it later and focus time. That’s how I do it. Kelton Reid: You’ve interviewed so many authors, and I’m sure that you’ve asked this same question of them. Do you believe in writer’s block? Do you get writer’s block or do you have a superstition about it? Brad Listi: No. I think you just do the work, and you just write something. I can understand being blocked with respect to a particular project, or you hit some sort of impasse. There is such a thing as getting to a point where you realize a book is not going to work, or you’re just out of juice for the time being. I don’t get the whole thing where I’m too scared to say anything. You can’t let yourself have that. You just get to work. If that’s the way it is, and it’s consistent and it’s prolonged, then I think you need to consider finding other ways to occupy yourself. Kelton Reid: If I could pick your brain a little bit about your workflow over there. What kind of hardware or typewriter are you presently clacking away on over there? Brad Listi: Just a MacBook Pro, either Microsoft Word or Scribner. Nothing out of the ordinary. Kelton Reid: Do you have any methods for staying organized? Do you use outlines, et cetera? Brad Listi: No, I don’t outline. I work intuitively. The outlines that I have, it would be too generous to call them outlines. I’ll have a document where I’m keeping notes and scraps and what not, but it’s not like a great system or some sort of really ingenious method. Again, I feel like all these things could be improved upon. You know? Kelton Reid: Yeah. Brad Listi: There’s lots of room for improvement. Kelton Reid: Definitely. Well, I think all of us feel that way, but talking about it helps. Brad Listi: Yeah, that’s right. I mean I’ve been doing it for the past four years. Kelton Reid: The talking cure, so to speak. I think Austin Kleon is the one who, first at least, pointed to productive procrastination in his stuff. It sounds like what you’re doing when you do get into that mode is that you’re doing a productive procrastination prior to getting into it. Do you have any other methods for beating procrastination or is that something you wane into? Brad Listi: Just deadlines, self-loathing. Eventually you’re just like, “What the heck am I doing? I got to get to work.” I’ll be reading something that inspires me, or I’ll reread whatever I’ve been writing to get back into the voice and to figure out what’s going to happen next. Again, because I’m not working through an outline. It almost feels like I got to get this momentum. The rereading, you inhabit not only the voice of the book but also the world of the book, and then you get caught up in the narrative momentum of the book if you’re really concentrated. Then when you get into that leaping off point, if you’ve got the right momentum, then you can usually figure it out, or you can make some progress. I think that’s part of it. Kelton Reid: Nice. Brad Listi: Otherwise, in terms of prep or constructive procrastination or whatever, again, sometimes it could be more constructive. Sometimes I’m just on Facebook or whatever. Kelton Reid: How do you unplug at the end of a session? The Importance of Meditation for ‘Unplugging’ Brad Listi: Meditation. I mediate twice a day on a good day. Always once lately, but usually twice. The best thing I can do is sit for 20 minutes to 40 minutes and just do that — focus on breathing and try not to think so much. It really does reset me. Kelton Reid: Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take your free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. If we could dive into creativity a little bit. Can you define creativity in your own words? How Brad Defines Creativity Brad Listi: Let me see here. Making stuff. God, man, that’s a tough one. You’re taking disparate elements and combining them to make something that didn’t previously exist. I’m interested in the composite nature of creativity. Any work of art, I’m always fascinated when the sourcing of it is articulated, or you can figure it out by reading, like in the context of literature, like literary biography. That’s another reason I think that I like doing the podcast. I like getting into some of that, where you’re talking to somebody and figuring out what were these disparate elements that they pulled together to write this? What were the things that were bothering them? Who were the authors that they were turning to or leaning on when they were putting their initial ideas for their book together, when it was still in the realm of abstraction? I think that’s what it is to me. I’m very much a fan of collage art. I’m very much a fan of odd combinations. I think my novel is a testament to that. I like the idea of digression. I like the idea of nonfiction infused with fiction. Mini biography, all that kind of stuff really appeals to me. Kelton Reid: Those are some of the most appealing parts of your novel for sure, that infused fiction nonfiction. I love the quotes, the definitions, how it jumps. Brad Listi: I think I could do without the definitions, or at least just a couple. I think I overdid it on those. But one thing I really like, not about my own book but that would maybe further clarify what I’m trying to say, is that I really love books that are explicit reactions to reading. All books are in some way a reaction to what the author is reading. I really love authors that you can tell, either explicitly or implicitly or in the endnotes or whatever, that they’re really responding to a book or a set of books, or they have like a central question that they’re trying to get the answer to and have done the research around it, and that kind of thing. There’s something about the transparency of that, that appeals to me and that I find heroic. Kelton Reid: Do you have a creative muse at the moment? Brad Listi: I’m sure I do. I love Louis CK like everybody else. I think it’s because of the way in which he conveys how humiliating life is. I agree with that. It’s like it’s just humiliating to be alive, painful. It’s just such an awkward mess. He finds the funny in that. That sensibility really appeals to me. I mean I’m going to sound corny, but my daughter — just because when you have a four year old you have a young child, right? Kelton Reid: I do. Brad Listi: Being around kids, whether they’re your own or they’re other people’s, there’s something wonderful about how free they are in terms of how they create. Just having her sit there and scribble on a piece of paper and draw something. There’s no self-consciousness. There’s no self-editing. There’s no, “This is bad,” or “This is good.” It’s all free. That is fun to be around and a good reminder. Kelton Reid: That’s fun. Yeah, they have no filter whatsoever. It’s funny because definitely some of your monologue work on your show reminds me of Louis CK. Brad Listi: Oh really? Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pointing out the absurdity of everyday stuff, which is great. Brad Listi: I appreciate it. I think that’s generous. I watch his show. I listen. I’ve taken his standup, and I listen to a lot of Howard Stern. I listen to a lot of Maron. I listen to a lot of Terry Gross, Charlie Rose. I love interview shows in addition to doing one. I have all these people who I’ve been listening to for years and who I think were inspirational when I went to start my own little podcast. I feel like, inevitably, some of the rhythms of their delivery and some of the things that they are fixated upon, they’re going to work their way into my show somehow. Kelton Reid: II have one Louis CK standup seared into my brain, and it’s the Chewed Up special that he did. I’ll jump to what makes a writer great. How Great Writers Capture a Moment That Others Can’t Brad Listi: I think the ability to tap into and articulate well what everybody else is thinking but doesn’t have the words to say. There are some writers who are preternaturally good at that. I think a really terrific intellect is a big part of it as well. I always think of Don DeLillo whenever I think of somebody who’s just got a Teflon brain. I know David Foster Wallace is often thought of in that context, but DeLillo, it’s frightening to me. His brain is just so sharp. There’s a lot of writers like that. It’s not just contemporary. It’s not just men, obviously. It runs the gamut. There are a lot of great writers, and I think they’re all just terrifically intelligent. But in addition to having brain smarts, I think having a real sense of the human heart and having a real sense of humor. To be contradictory, I don’t know if DeLillo is a super funny writer. I know nothing about him in person. But recollecting his work, I don’t think of it as like being super funny, but I love that alchemy. I think a great writer can write tragedy and comedy in the same sentence, because that kind of sentence and that kind of work holds a mirror up to the world. There’s the old adage that the world is tragic, terrible and tragic and dark and absurd and hilarious, and often at the same time. I think that’s totally true, and really great art should reflect that. Then, again, there are great books that are like super dramatic and not funny at all. So it’s not like it’s got to be just my way, but that’s what I look for. If I can find a writer who does that. Whenever anybody asks me that question “What’s your favorite book?” — which is an impossible question to answer, I always say Journey to the End of the Night and Death or the Installment Plan, the two books by Louis Ferdinand Celine. I almost said Louis Ferdinand CK. But those two books, when I read them in my early 20s, blew me away. In the aftermath, reading up on Celine and trying to figure out who he was as a guy, you find yourself conflicted because he was a Nazi sympathizer in his later years. It got a little sketchy there. But he was a soldier in World War One. He suffered head trauma. He had a hard life in a lot of respects and regardless of how he conducted himself in his personal life in his later years or what his political beliefs might have been, those two books have a ton of humanity in them, and a ton of really deep intellect, a lot of heart, and a lot of really dark humor. I don’t know if it’s the translation. I guess the translation must be a big part of it, but those books always struck me in terms of how well they’ve aged. You read those books or I read those books at the turn of a century — they were published in like 1930s — and they didn’t seem dated at all to me, other than maybe some of the context in terms of what was happening in the books, the war or whatever. There’s just something really immediate about them and just wildly smart and funny and dark. The sense that I find myself having when I put down a book that I really admire is that it says everything. There’s just nothing left, and I got it. Another book that I had that feeling about was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Again, at the time that I read it, again, I was probably 21 years old or whatever. I was at the Boulder Bookstore, and for whatever reason, I picked that book up in hardcover, and I bought it. I read it, and I was like, “Oh man, that’s it.” It just summed up a moment. When you write something like that, that captures a moment, and I guess from a certain perspective, it really resonates. You obviously can’t say everything, but if you can capture a little sliver of it in a really full way, it has that feeling of saying everything. I don’t know if I articulated that well, but you know what I mean — hopefully. Kelton Reid: I think you articulated quite well. A couple of fun ones, and you may have already answered this, but who is your favorite literally character? Brad Listi: Hang on. Kelton Reid: I’m going to keep the silence in. Brad Listi: Yeah. I want the audience to feel the weight of the silence. Kelton Reid: That’s a terrible question, I know. Brad Listi: No. There’s the Kilgore Trout, but I don’t really feel like I grabbed on, and Bardamu in Journey to the End of the Night is not exactly somebody you lionize. You know what I’m saying? A lot of the literary characters in the books that I’ve liked best are not exactly heroic. I like the anti-hero. I always thought that Bukowski narrator was funny. There’s a guy who could write funny, like genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, at least for me, in his best stuff. God, you know who else I really liked? I liked the narrator in the Ben Learner novel Leaving the Atocha Station. To go back to the whole thing about capturing a moment, there’s something about that book that feels it’s getting it. It’s getting its time perfectly right, or at least it did for me, a certain kind of obsessive self-consciousness coupled with the moment in terms of geopolitics and technology and how we live now. I don’t know, but that narrator actually made me laugh. I always go to writing that feels really deeply smart but also funny, and that’s rare. Kelton Reid: Yeah, absolutely. Writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously, even though it might be. Brad Listi: Well, I don’t want just a silly book. If it’s just a bunch of like jokes, then that’s easy, but if it’s somebody who’s really got something to say and the laughs come unexpectedly. If I laugh out loud while reading a book, I’m sold. It doesn’t happen very often. Kelton Reid: If you could choose one author living or dead for an all-expense paid dinner to your favorite restaurants, who would you choose, and where would you go? Brad Listi: Let’s do some more silence here. Oh, living or dead. A few years ago, I probably would’ve said Gore Vidal in his prime just because I always thought he was so funny and such a great talker. But then I watched this documentary and you read the postmortem about his later years. Then was a book, this guy — I’m already forgetting his name — just wrote a book, which I didn’t really love. It was called Sympathy for the Devil. It was a guy who knew Gore going back to his years in Rome in 70s or whatever, and it was just a mess. Life, especially if it’s lived long, usually ends messy one way or another because old age is a massacre or whatever. It’s just tough to get old, but it’s especially tough to get old when you’re drinking a gallon of whiskey every day. There’s a part of me that really admired and just loved Vidal for being such a wit, so stinking funny and so sharp and acidic — just good company. I imagine that, at his best, he was really fun to sit at a dinner table with, but he could also be really mean and sloppy. He came unhinged at the end. I’ll say Gore Vidal, but in his prime. Kelton Reid: Okay. Where would you take him? Brad Listi: God, I don’t think I would take him anywhere. I think he would probably pick the restaurant. Let’s just say somewhere in Revello. Kelton Reid: Okay, perfect. Do you have a writer’s fetish at all? Brad Listi: No, I don’t even know what that is. Like I have to have a certain like pen or something? Kelton Reid: Yeah, I don’t know. I know fetish has a couple of different meanings, but yeah, do you collect weird writerly paraphernalia? Brad Listi: No. I’m the least sentimental person ever. Even baby pictures, I’m like, “Shred them. I don’t need them. It’s too much clutter. I don’t care.” I just need some space, quiet, or be in a coffee shop with some headphones on, but I’m not super nitpicky about having to have a certain kind of pen or anything like that. Kelton Reid: Who or what has been your greatest teacher? Brad Listi: The books and the writers that wrote them, no doubt. It starts with the work itself. If I were going to add a dimension that might differentiate me even a little bit, it would be that I almost always get into nonfiction if I like a writer’s fiction or if I like a writer’s work period. Meaning, I’ll always go in search of literary biography, which maybe makes my podcast make more sense. To be really frank with you, I’m often more interested in the literary biography than I was in the work, even when I loved the work. I’m very fascinated with the people who make the work, why they do it, and who they were. That kind of detective work is interesting to me. I guess that might mean that I should write biography. I haven’t done it yet. I don’t know if a straight biography is exactly what I’m wired to do, but some component of that is fascinating. I think the podcast is a form of literary biography, in the aggregate especially. That element of it has been probably the most important thing that I have done in terms of getting an education. That includes getting an MFA. It’s just got to be the case for anybody who does this. You have to read books that move you, and you have to really read them — and sometimes re-read them. Then the other thing about it is that, when I was coming up, I went through a period of about two or three years where every morning I would print out one or two interviews with authors. I just built this huge library of author interviews that I read, and I keep them in a filing cabinet. We’re talking thousands of pages when it was all said and done. I just had this huge library of them. We talked about earlier, rituals to get like ready to work or whatever, that’s what I was doing in my 20s. I would read author interviews and that would get me excited about working, just to hear them talking about the work, why they did the work, how they did the work, and successes they’d had or struggles that they had overcome. That can be extremely helpful and even medicinal, especially if you’re stuck, or you’re feeling down, or your energy level is low. Part of my motivation in doing the podcast is to get some of that for myself, but also to create a place for writers to come and hear and commiserate, virtually at least, and hopefully leave with a little bit more energy or a little bit more hope about their own lives and work. Kelton Reid: You’ve just amassed so much advice from other writers. Do you have any advice yourself, kind of sage advice for fellow scribes on just how to keep going, how to keep the cursor moving? 3 Key Takeaways from over 350 Interviews with Writers Brad Listi: Read a lot, and read interviews with the authors that you love. Find out about their lives because it’s a great way to demystify it. It’s a great way to take them down off their pedestal. Humanizing people we admire is important. It’s often instructive because you can figure out how they did and what happened to them when they hit adversity and how they handled it and so on and so forth. It’s not always great, either. You don’t necessarily learn from the best example every time. Sometimes you learn from the worst example. You learn what to avoid. So there’s that. Having done almost 400 interviews with writers, I think I’ve gleaned it. I try to boil it all down into the simplest possible insights into the writing life, if I can remember them. One of them was don’t do it for money. The writers that I’ve talked to who seem the most well-adjusted and often have the most success, they’re definitely having the most fun doing it. There just not thinking of it like, “Oh I got to make a living from this,” or, “I got to make a million dollars from this.” They’re doing it because they love it. They don’t care if they make money. They like to do it. It makes their life better. That’s one thing. Then if the money comes, great. But it’s not why you do it. It’s not anything you’re expecting. The other thing is read a lot. I’ve said this many times, but one of the big dirty secrets amongst so many writers is they don’t read, or they don’t read regularly, or enough. That’s a bad formula. Don’t do it for money, read a lot, and then write every day or close to it. Those are the three things. If you can do that, you’re likely going to get books done, and you’re not going to be miserable doing it. That’s the best I can tell you. Those are three common denominators. Obviously, it’s a little bit different for everyone, and there are always outliers and exceptions to the rule. But those are the three things, if I had to boil it down, that I’ve come away with after talking to all these writers. Kelton Reid: That’s fantastic advice. Where can fellow writers connect with you out there? Brad Listi: The podcast has its own website. It’s Otherppl.com. Then you can follow the show on Twitter, @Otherppl. Then you can follow me @BradListi on Twitter. Those are probably the best places to keep up with things. The podcast also had its own app, which is free. You can get it wherever you can get apps. You get that app on your device, and then the most recent 50 episodes are available free. You get the app and the most recent 50 shows are just there waiting for you. Then if you want to get to the deeper archives, you can sign up for premium, which is as cheap as like 75 cents a month. It’s 75 cents a month, and you get access to everything. Those are the best ways. Get the app and you should be off and running. Kelton Reid: That’s fantastic. The six degrees of Brad Listi. You probably have some connection to every great contemporary writer at this point. Brad Listi: Fewer than six degrees I would bet. Not that I know them, but I’m sure I know somebody who knows somebody who knows them. Kelton Reid: Thank you so much for taking the time. I do encourage writers to seek out the podcast and also your writing, and I really appreciate you taking the time. Brad Listi: It was absolutely my pleasure, Kelton. Thanks for having me on. Kelton Reid: Cheers. Great advice that all writers should heed. For more episodes of The Writer Files and all of the show notes or to leave us a comment or a question, please drop by at WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. See you out there.

It turns out in the local music scene, we do have a few legends -- those personalities that everyone knows, and around whom stories are built that seem to surpass and transcend reality. This week's guest, Brad Odom, is one of those. Heck, it was years of hearing stories about Brad, Kilgore Trout, Odomfest, etc. before I ever even saw the guy -- almost to the point where I was going to classify him under the "myth" category instead. Once I did meet him, I found him to be an incredibly humble, witty, everyman who acted like just about every stranger who came up and introduced themselves to him was a long lost friend, and everyone was welcome in his circle. At the time I didn't realize it, but if you study anything about self-marketing in the music field, you'll know he's doing it right. That's how fans are made. We've been playing Kilgore Trout since the earliest days of Indy In-Tune Radio, and to date there have been plenty of show recordings and bootlegs going around of various shows. It's hard to believe that until this week, however, there hasn't been a high-quality studio recording of Trout music released. Again, it's sort of that "legend" mistyque that follows these guys around. Comprised of members of No Pit Cherries, Midwest Contraband, 19Clark25, and slew of other one-off projects, Kilgore Trout can easily be classified as a supergroup with Brad Odom as the binding force that brings everyone together. The album is a tightly knit tour-de-force of power, talent, and ideas that it bears careful study, with enough looseness in it that still feels like a live Kilgore Trout performance that you just want to kick back sway to. The songs, some old and some newer, are all built loosely around a central concept -- or so Brad tells us -- but it's not so overpowering that you need to be a Vonnegut scholar to appreciate the music. After just a couple of listens, I would easily put it down as one of the years' best releases and wholeheartedly recommend it for just about any musical audience as a splendid representation of what our local scene is capable of. Links referenced in the show: Kilgore Trout can be found here: | . Co-hosting this week's show are , , and the ubiquitous . Brad and his family host an annual outdoor music festvial calle "Odom Fest" which this year has been dubbed "Arockalypse Now" by and host . The Band was named by Cootie Crabtree, last seen on , , and . The name, of course, is a reference to Indiana author . Kilgore Trout once contributed to an episode of the the Some of the tracks heard today previously appeared on . Yes, the Heinz Spotted Dick reference has been going on for far too long, particularly if you listen to the live broadcasts. If you really want to know, .

Spend any time talking to the players in the local folk, Americana, and singer/songwriter scenes, and I guarantee the name Jethro Easyfields will come up, usually connected to a story that should be made into a song, or possibly an episode of some sitcom about being a musician.  I've never had the nerve to ask how many of these are true and how many are just part of the mystique.  Really, I don't want to know.  I have my own ideas, and I don't want them tampered with.  As a prolific songwriter, poet, artist, and personality Jethro is one of those guys who just seems out of time in this era where music is either over-produced synthetic pop or over-driven guitars played percussively out of tune.  Jethro is organic.  Jethro is about the story.  Jethro is about actually listening to the music.  In an age where the Black Eyed Peas have a top-selling album and the world's ear and all they can contribute to the conversation is "Boom Boom Pow," Jethro gives us The Outland -- eleven stories, eleven characters, and at least eleven different styles and moods.  Better still, as he puts it, he went dumpster diving through a couple hundred songs in stash of old, unused tracks to find them.  Am I the only one who sees the irony here?  Links referenced in the show:        Jethro Easyfields can be found here | | | His latest album, The Outland, is available via . It was produced by the ubiquitous . Jessie Lied written by , features (of among other projects).  It is, of all things, a prequel his song, Jessie Died, which is a sequel to . It was conceived during a trip to , where he played the local VFW.   The Outland also features guest vocals from , a New Orleans musician Jethro has worked with in the past.   Yes, Journey did have a ... and it was nothing like Guitar Hero. This interview was recorded at 's Open Mic at , aka "Studio C." As such it features guest appearances by some of the regulars there.  Namely, (ex and Kilgore Trout) and Jack Barkley (of fame) Friend of the show, , lent his talents to our third track, Stoneyville  Jethro played the 's MFT Stage at    For those of you who are not familiar with the instrument, Darren Brush brought his to open mic that night.

Kilgore Trout is Dead – Open Film Night Presents from geoffrey celis on Vimeo. Ezra and I had collaborated on some experimental pieces a few years back and to see his musical evolution has been inspiring. From a legacy of musicians, Ezra always had an affinity to vaudville, ukeleles, and technology. It was a naturalContinue reading "Kilgore Trout is Dead – Open Film Night"