Podcast appearances and mentions of Peter Falk

When we invoke the Boodle Boy, we're also invoking a kind of professional shamanism. The shaman moves between worlds, bringing back knowledge from spaces others can't access. The Boodle Boy moves between disciplines, between technologies, between ways of knowing. He speaks theater to programmers and code to dramatists. He finds the musical structure in a business plan and the corporate logic in a symphony. This isn't interdisciplinary work in the academic sense; it's transdisciplinary in the most radical sense, refusing to acknowledge the borders between different forms of knowledge.

Änglar har vakat över oss sedan urminnes tider. Konstkritikern Nils Forsberg har träffat några av släktets mer sorgsna exemplar i Berlin. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Essän sändes första gången 2025.Den är inte bara rätt ful, den är liten också. Som ett A4-ark ungefär, som ser gulnat och trist ut. Det här visste jag egentligen, men sådant är ändå svårt att förbereda sig på. När jag såg Paul Klees akvarell Angelus Novus från 1920 i verkligheten för första gången fick jag den där känslan man kan få inför något som man hört så mycket om.Att jaha, är det inte mer än så här?För det handlar om en bild som lite indirekt blivit, som man säger, ikonisk. Inte för hur den ser ut eller är gjord, utan för att filosofen och kritikern Walter Benjamin, som hade fått målningen av vännen Klee, utgick från den när han, i slutet av 30-talet, skrev det som skulle bli en av hans sista och mest kända texter. Nämligen den om historiens ängel, den som med utbredda vingar färdas med ryggen mot framtiden och med stirrande ögon och gapande mun ser ruinerna torna upp sig vid sina fötter, driven av historiens storm som blåser från paradiset.”Det är det här som vi kallar framsteg”, skriver Benjamin melankoliskt.Det är en av de i olika kultursammanhang mest citerade texterna de senaste decennierna. Ruiner, storm, blindhet inför framtiden. Där vi uppfattar en kedja händelser ser ängeln bara en enda stor katastrof.Andy Warhols Marilynbilder får ursäkta, men Paul Klees gåtfulla Angelus Novus framstår lite som postmodernismens Mona Lisa. En sorgesång över en sönderfallande, fragmenterad värld.Men vilka är de, änglarna i kultur- och religionshistorien? Enklast är väl att beskriva dem som ett slags gränsfigurer, som kan röra sig mellan olika världar och är lika hemma, eller främmande, i båda.Ordet ängel kommer från grekiskan via latinet, och betydde från början just budbärare. Gestalten som sådan finns i alla de monoteistiska religionerna, och en teori är att änglarna uppstår när de äldre religionerna, med ett otal gudar som alla har sina särskilda egenskaper och intressesfärer, ska förvandlas till en berättelse där det finns en enda Gud. Det blir ett antal degraderade figurer över och de får bli den nye, ensamme gudens medhjälpare.Och visst kan man se något änglalikt hos Hermes, budbäraren med sina bevingade skor i den grekiska mytologin? Hos Hermes finns också drag av tvetydigheten hos änglarna. Dessa var nämligen, åtminstone tidigare, inte nödvändigtvis entydigt goda. De beskrivs också ofta som mycket vackra, med androgyna drag. En undflyende, svårfångad och särskilt i äldre tider ofta skrämmande gestalt. En mellanfigur.I Bibeln finns de med hela vägen, från början till slut. Det är änglar som meddelar Guds vilja till Abram i Första mosebok, det är änglar som blåser i basunerna och slåss mot monster i Johannes uppenbarelser. I Krönikeboken skickar Gud en ängel för att sprida död och förintelse i Jerusalem, och i Matteusevangeliet skakar vakterna av skräck när ängeln kommer ner från himlen till Jesu grav.Änglar är inte att lita på.Men de blir mindre skräckinjagande med tiden. Renässansmålaren Rafael blev den som satte den fortfarande allmänna bilden av hur en ängel ser ut, med lockigt hår och rar uppsyn. De som är förebilden för de bokmärken som flickor i alla åldrar samlade på förr.Men en del konstnärer har sett mer dramatisk potential i dessa varelser, inte minst under åren runt 1900 då symbolismen stod på topp. Schweizaren Carlos Schwabes Der Totengräber und der Totesengel glömmer man inte om man sett den. Där sitter en stram, svartklädd, mörkhårig gestalt på huk vid kanten av en grav. Hennes smala spetsiga vinguddar bildar en gripklo ner mot den arme kyrkogårdsarbetaren som släppt spaden i skräck för dödsängeln. Det är hans tur nu.En helt annan stämning finns i Hugo Simbergs Sårad ängel från samma tid, den som röstats till Finlands nationalmålning. Två mörkklädda bondpojkar bär en bår där en vitklädd blond ängel sitter med nedböjt huvud. En vinge är blodfläckad, ögonen förbundna och hon håller en bukett snödroppar i handen.Det är en gripande bild, mystisk men ändå saklig. Pojkarna ser lite trumpna ut men verkar inte tycka det är något konstigt att bära runt på en ängel. Hur har denna ljusgestalt hamnat på en kärv finsk äng? Varför är den sårad? Hur kan en förmedlare mellan världar bli så ömklig?Men det är inte bara i bildkonsten vi hittar änglar. De finns på film också.I Wim Wenders Himmel över Berlin från 1987 finns en scen där Peter Falk, känd som den rufsige tv-deckaren Columbo, står vid en ensam kaffevagn. ”Jag kan inte se dig, men jag vet att du är här”, säger han. Han ser inte Bruno Ganz ängel som står intill honom, för änglarna är osynliga för vuxna människor, men en listig gammal kommissarie kan förstås ana deras närvaro. Särskilt som han själv varit ängel, visar de sig. En som lämnat evigheten och valt att bli dödlig, precis som Ganz ängel fundera på att göra.Peter Falk uppmuntrar honom, berättar hur skönt det är att värma sig genom att gnugga händerna mot varandra, dricka kaffe, kanske ta en cigarett.Bara två år efter filmens premiär skulle Berlinmuren falla men här är det den delade staden vi ser, med idel ödetomter och ruiner. Det är som att var och varannan scen är genomsyrad av Walter Benjamins text om historiens pågående sönderfall. Människorna, vars funderingar vi får höra när filmens änglar stannar till hos dem och kanske lägger en hand på någons axel, verkar inte ha mycket att glädjas åt heller.Från skrämmande budbärare utskickad av en sträng Gud i Gamla testamentet, till ett grått 80-talsberlin där Gud nog är död och änglarna är sorgsna, maktlösa gestalter som inte kan förhindra att vi tar kål på världen, eller oss själva.Inte konstigt att Paul Klees ängel stirrar rakt på oss, som för att säga ”vad håller ni på med?”Eller så har den drabbats av en helt annan insikt. Bruno Ganz ängel i Himmel över Berlin säger att han vill leva nu och nu och nu, inte bara alltid i evighet. Han vill känna och älska och kanske ta en mugg kaffe en kylig morgon. Det är som med de grekiska gudarna: Man anar att de är avundsjuka på människorna och jävlas med dem för att de kan dö, och det är det enda gudarna inte kan. Änglarna befinner sig i samma belägenhet – de lever inte på riktigt, för de kan inte dö /är odödliga/. Medan vi människor lever en stund på jorden, om det så är bland ruiner.Som Bruno Ganz säger i slutet av filmen, när han blivit människa: Jag vet nu, vad ingen ängel vet.Nils Forsbergkonstkritiker

Andrew watched a remarkable episode of Columbo yesterday while dog sitting and concluded that Peter Falk is a bit of a dog himself. Meanwhile, Luke was checking out some slightly more modern HBO productions, like The Chair Company and The Alabama Solution and shares his thoughts. They also discuss a new AI app that is churning out impressive but concerning content and a stolen gas station dinosaur who found its way back home. 

Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo on the NBC/ABC series Columbo (1968–1978, 1989–2003), for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards (1972, 1975, 1976, 1990) and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.[1] He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.[2][3]He first starred as Columbo in two 2-hour "World Premiere" TV pilots; the first with Gene Barry in 1968 and the second with Lee Grant in 1971. The show then aired as part of The NBC Mystery Movie series from 1971 to 1978, and again on ABC from 1989 to 2003.[4]Falk was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Murder, Inc. (1960) and Pocketful of Miracles (1961), and won his first Emmy Award in 1962 for The Dick Powell Theatre. He was the first actor to be nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award in the same year, achieving the feat twice (1961 and 1962). He went on to appear in such films as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Great Race (1965), Anzio (1968), Murder by Death (1976), The Cheap Detective (1978), The Brink's Job (1978), The In-Laws (1979), The Princess Bride (1987), Wings of Desire (1987), The Player (1992), and Next (2007), as well as many television guest roles.Falk was also known for his collaborations with filmmaker, actor, and personal friend John Cassavetes, acting in films such as Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky (1976) and the Columbo episode "Étude in Black" (1972).PICTURE: By Margie Korshak Associates-publicity agency-Falk was appearing at an awards dinner in Chicago. - eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20745073

The loneliness of eternity. The horrors of the 20th century. Nick Cave's hair. Yes, this week Pop Screen is tackling the biggest things possible with Wings of Desire, in which Wim Wenders's observations of Berlin, fondness for the poetry of Rilke and Bad Seeds fandom combined to form one of the most unlikely masterpieces of the 1980s.Join Joe and Graham as they discuss Wenders's wayward, rewarding career and the notes of unexpected reality in this grand fantasy - from Peter Falk's supporting turn as himself to Solveig Dommartin's real-life trapeze skillz. We also talk about the film's sequels and remakes, Claire Denis's talent for novelty casting decisions, which era of Nick Cave's work appeals to us the most, and why every sufficiently highbrow artist needs their own Berlin period.For a more sustained taste of heaven, you should donate to our Patreon, where you'll get a bonus episode of this show every month plus an end-of-month round-up podcast, Last Night..., that isn't available anywhere else. All this and weekly written articles on The X-Files, The Twilight Zone and the various things Doctor Who's cast and crew get up to away from the show in Outside the Blue Box. Follow us on Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook to find out more.

Join us as Ben, Dessy, Tiago, and Rose cover the inspirations behind Ace Attorney! After being so well-behaved last time, this episode the crew gets particularly unruly, and even attempts to usurp Ben as host. Bombs, chemicals, and well-endowed actors are the name of the game here! Columbo always gives us a nice place to blow off some steam, and if the silly string isn't enough, we also consider the mellified man, an Ace Attorney dinner party, and Dessy deploying a long-awaited chemical-based pun. Join us for all this and more as we dive back into Peter Falk's bumbling detective! NEXT TIME: "The Roman Hat Mystery" by Ellery Queen (Parts 1 & 2) Follow us online: aceattorney.bsky / aceattorneypod.tumblr.com / updatedautopsy.report Watch Ben, Dessy, & Iro's Let's Plays of the series on YouTube here! Want a shirt? Check out our store here! Ben: yotsuben.bsky Dessy: dessy.bsky Rose: rosenonsense.bsky Tiago: tiagosdutra.bsky / linktr.ee

The Shabby Detective returns to Season Six with “Old Fashioned Murder,” where genteel larceny meets genteel homicide. Joyce Van Patten takes center stage as Ruth Lytton, a spinster running her family's failing museum. When her ambitious brother threatens to sell off the artifacts, Ruth turns to murder and possibly taking revenge for things that happened off-screen twenty years prior.This episode went over-budget and over-schedule thanks to some behind-the-scenes meddling from Peter Falk's pals, leaving a messy and uninspired episode where it's tough to care about anything apart from Lt. Columbo's bizarre hairstyle.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.

Stesso titolo, ma...diversa locandina.Niente Elliot Ness né Al Capone come cattivaccio. Niente Brian De Palma e niente Morricone alla colonna sono...e invece Morricone c'è pure qui!Non ci state capendo più una cippa? Beh, non penso che questo film l'abbiano visto in tantissimi eppure il vostro CaRfa guardate un po' che chicca che vi tira fuori, in questa puntata.Gli Intoccabili, pellicola necessaria e alimentare per Giuliano Montaldo, è una storia di gangster, rapine e tradimenti. Sicuramente, una storia minore rispetto a quella cui il regista aveva abituato il pubblico, ma non per questo meno interessante, nonostante alcuni difetti.John Cassavetes è un ottimo protagonista, coadiuvato dagli altrettanto bravi Peter Falk, Gabriele Ferzetti, Luigi Pistilli, Britt Ekland, Florinda Bolkan e Gena Rowlands. Il ritmo è sempre abbastanza alto e il finale molto molto cattivo.Vi ho incuriositi? Beh, lo trovate su Prime, nel canale Minerva Classic (7 giorni gratuiti)

Hi! My name is Terry J. Aman, marking my 105th episode of VideoFuzzy, reporting the progress I've made in cataloging thousands of VHS transfers and digital recordings. My Fuzzy Feature is "Happy Town 2," following up from "Ep. 101: Happy Town" after the balance of those episodes turned up in my classic collection, and I archived the two that only aired online to my current collection. This set covers discs 1901 to 1925 in my Classic Collection. My Fuzzy Feature represents a look back at discs 1820, 1825, 1834, 1835, 1861, 1868, 1878 and disc X549 from my current collection, along with my 14th-ever "VideoFuzzy the Video" posted here: https://youtu.be/c3nd-ra93Zo Cross Connections through the mystical centers of my media collection -- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Joss Whedon productions, Six Feet Under and Ryan Murphy Productions -- are Studio Whedon Under Murph or SWUM, and "Happy Town" was a nexus for all of them. Also appearing in this set: Joe Koppinger, Jade Tailor, Rutger Hauer, Anthony Stewart Head, Kylie Minogue, Matt Lucas, Weird Al Yankovic, Richard Kind, Burt Reynolds, Steven Culp, Alan Ruck and Garrett Dillahunt. In Book Report, I got my home library set up and added books by Lucy Foley, Nita Prose, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Sophie Hannah and Ellis Peters. In my Classic Collection, I chat with my Minot theater friend Joe Koppinger about his work in the third season "Leverage" production "The Studio Job," our time on stage together and what he's done since, including his comic book, collectible and pop culture discussion YouTube channel "Crazy Hungarian" at https://bit.ly/4nvbLfY. Also, comments on "The Glades," "Rizzoli and Isles," "Covert Affairs," "Haven" and "Doctor Who" among others, including "The Universe" and "Parks and Rec." Also, getting my home office up to speed and filling gaps in my commercial media. In my Current Collection, along with the final web-released entries of "Happy Town," I archived the two short seasons of "Galavant" and so far about three seasons of "Schitt's Creek," both released on hulu, and "Queens of Mystery" off Utah Public Television. Also, I had a couple dozen music videos by artist DJ Benjamin Koll. I'd chatted with him for my world music VideoFuzzy the Soundtrack "Ep. 14: Osito," and I included the second part of that conversation here under Video Outreach, talking about his music videos, posted to his YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/4627Hys, and I chat a bit about the bear culture we reference. In Off the Shelf, I go off the rails a bit with comments on the 1996 Peter Falk, Woody Allen production of Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys." Also, in Old Business I chat about a DVD of Grand Jubilee performances from Branson, Mo., and a box set of remastered Rodgers & Hammerstein Classics I found when I was clearing my mom's space last spring. In What I've Been Watching, Ralph and I got to Seth MacFarlane's "Naked Gun" reboot, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, James Gunn's "Superman," and the invention of something called a "musical" at the Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater in Pleasant Grove, Utah, where Ralph and I took in the hilarious Shakespeare-themed comedy, "Something Rotten." SPREADING THE WORD! "VideoFuzzy: The Video - Celebrating 100 Episodes!" is posted at https://youtu.be/eWfcCDiOZ2I. Please share as you're able to with anyone you feel might enjoy this production. For PROMOS, scroll all the way down at https://videofuzzy.libsyn.com. Also, there's a "Top Fifteen" episode guide for people looking for a quick read-in on this blog and podcast effort at: https://videofuzzy.libsyn.com/about. Enjoy!

National Guacamole day. Entertainment from 1986. 1st hole in one in golf history, horse carriage bomb explodes on wall street, Hollywood sign suicide Todays birthdays - Lauren Bacall, B.B. King, Peter Falk, David Bellamy, Mickey Rourke, David Copperfield, Richard Marx, Molly Shannon, Marc Anthony, Amy Poehler, Flo Rida, Nick Jonas. Daniel Fahrenheit died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Corcoran    https://www.diannacorcoran.com/Guacamole - JayoTake my breath away - BerlinGot my heart set on you 0 John ConleeBirthday - In da club - 50 Cent     https://www.50cent.com/Key Largo - Berntie Higgins3 O'clock blues - B.B. KingIf I said you had a beautiful body (would you hold it against me) - The Bellamy BrothersShould've known better - Richard MarxYou sang to me - Marc AnthonyLow - Flo RidaJealous - Nick JonasHot in herre - NellyExit - A letter to myself - Jeannie Angel     https://jennieangelmusic.wixsite.com/mysitecountryundergroundradio.comHistory & Factoids webpage

Coming in a couple of days late, it's a new-to-both-of-us pick from Patreon supporter Michele: The In-Laws! Why on earth were there not half a dozen movies with Adam Arkin and Peter Falk, and a couple of sequels to this movie?! Truly off the charts chemistry between these two.  Thank you for your support and bearing with our offseason. As we said on this episode, we're going to a new schedule: the 1st of the month here on Patreon for $5 and up members, and the 15th on the main feed. Want to hear the rest of this episode? Visit Patreon.com/DissectingThe80s to learn more! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Keywords: The In-Laws, Peter Falk, Adam Arkin, 80s, eighties, movie, podcast

There are a ton of big screen version of Robin Hood, but on this week's episode we see what happens when the Rat Pack do their take on the classic hero. Shane Conto from The Wasteland Watchlist joins us for the musical gangster romp Robin and the 7 Hoods, featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, and Peter Falk. 

What's myth and what's fact in the story of Charles Manson? What were the true motives behind the murders and who was really involved? There are many books covering this topic, yet very few have broken through the 'official' tale told by the trial's prosecutors and the news media at the time. This book includes hundreds of hours of research into court and police documents, witness statements, media reports and interviews with those involved. This book examines the current theories surrounding the case and appraises their likelihood against a timeline of events and the words of Manson himself. The prosecution case promoted by Vincent, Bugliosi, the Process Church influence as endorsed by Ed Sanders and David McGowan, the robbery scenario as spoken of by Nikolas Shreck and William Scanlon Murphy and the possibility of MK Ultra mind control as discussed by Adam Gorightly are all examined and tested.How do Terry Melcher, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Jane Fonda, the Mamas and the Papas, Michael Caine, Dean Martin, Angela Lansbury, Peter Sellers, Warren Beatty, Yul Brynner, Peter Falk, Cary Grant, Steve McQueen, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, Nancy Sinatra, Ronald Reagan and Debbie Harry fit into the tale? What Hollywood secrets did the industry, the police and the prosecution strive to keep hidden? Were the victims really chosen at random by a crazed cult of serial killers, high on a mix of LSD, Satanism and the music of the Beatles? Read on to uncover the secrets of the Manson family, their trial, the main players in the case and the murky world of Hollywood.The book contains 564 pages, 200,000+ words containing a complete history of the life of Charles Manson.A detailed examination of the Hinman, Shea, Tate and LaBianca murders, appraisal of all the most prominent theories surrounding the case, explanations of the coded confessions revealed in interviews with Manson.Stories of celebrity encounters, facts about Manson's relationship with the music industry, details of organised crime connections, faults with the prosecution's case, troubling indications about the motives and character of Vincent Bugliosi, examinations of further murders and other criminal activity possibly connected to Manson.Revelations about the main players involved in the case, embarrassing secrets of the Hollywood elite, suggestions of police ineptitude, signs of a cover-up, bizarre coincidences, strange occurrences, salacious gossip, radical political movements, riots, the Black Panthers, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, cults, religion, sex, drugs and murder.This book has been read, enjoyed, praised and promoted by friends of Charlies and members of ATWA. https://amzn.to/4naItmKBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

What's myth and what's fact in the story of Charles Manson? What were the true motives behind the murders and who was really involved? There are many books covering this topic, yet very few have broken through the 'official' tale told by the trial's prosecutors and the news media at the time. This book includes hundreds of hours of research into court and police documents, witness statements, media reports and interviews with those involved.How do Terry Melcher, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Jane Fonda, the Mamas and the Papas, Michael Caine, Dean Martin, Angela Lansbury, Peter Sellers, Warren Beatty, Yul Brynner, Peter Falk, Cary Grant, Steve McQueen, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, Nancy Sinatra, Ronald Reagan and Debbie Harry fit into the tale? What Hollywood secrets did the industry, the police and the prosecution strive to keep hidden? Were the victims really chosen at random by a crazed cult of serial killers, high on a mix of LSD, Satanism and the music of the Beatles? Read on to uncover the secrets of the Manson family, their trial, the main players in the case and the murky world of Hollywood.The book contains 564 pages, 200,000+ words containing a complete history of the life of Charles Manson.A detailed examination of the Hinman, Shea, Tate and LaBianca murders, appraisal of all the most prominent theories surrounding the case, explanations of the coded confessions revealed in interviews with Manson.Stories of celebrity encounters, facts about Manson's relationship with the music industry, details of organised crime connections, faults with the prosecution's case, troubling indications about the motives and character of Vincent Bugliosi, examinations of further murders and other criminal activity possibly connected to Manson.Revelations about the main players involved in the case, embarrassing secrets of the Hollywood elite, suggestions of police ineptitude, signs of a cover-up, bizarre coincidences, strange occurrences, salacious gossip, radical political movements, riots, the Black Panthers, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, cults, religion, sex, drugs and murder.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

En este místico viaje a través de Berlín, los ángeles, testigos silenciosos, contemplan la ciudad desde torreones y monumentos, la cámara salta y planea sobre los transeúntes, sobre los coches, ellos escuchan sus pensamientos e intentan confortar a los más infelices con su presencia invisible. El reflexivo film de Wenders exalta la celebración de la vida, el amor al prójimo y a uno mismo, como cantaba Walt Whitman en sus poemas. Wenders filmó sin un guion al uso, partía de poemas de Peter Handke, de versos iba recreando imágenes, de ahí la extrañeza que se pueda sentir, sobre todo en la primera parte, etérea y abstracta, con dos heraldos de la bondad que se reúnen en un coche para hacer recuento de sus notas, uno de ellos confiesa que está algo cansado de no poder sentir, desear, de una biblioteca luminosa, catedral de los libros, paraíso poblado de ángeles y mortales, lecturas que se confunden con la música de Jürgen Knieper. Los textos de Handke verbalizados por Homero, el anciano en busca de la plaza donde un día sintió algo parecido a la felicidad, la Postdamer Platz, se sienta en un sillón desvencijado, en medio de un solar baldío. El personaje de Peter Falk, un Colombo con su gabardina, hace de sí mismo, está trabajando en un film sobre la barbarie de la segunda guerra mundial, Wenders añadirá imágenes de archivo mostrando el terror de los bombardeos en Berlín. En la segunda parte el ritmo toma brío, Damiel ya pone los pies en la tierra el personaje de Bruno Ganz, prefiere renunciar a la inmortalidad, encarnarse y sentir el tacto de una trapecista en soledad, Solveig Dommartin, compañera en ese momento del director. Si en Paris Texas la unión entre Travis y la madre de su hijo ya es imposible, las alas del deseo de un ángel transformado en hombre si alcanzan a tocar la piel de su adorada contorsionista, a quien observa ahora desde abajo mientras levita como él solía hacer. Esta noche vendemos la armadura en una tienda de empeños… Raúl Gallego, Zacarías Cotán, y Chari Medina.

The sixth season of Columbo kicks off with “Fade in to Murder,” and we're right there with it. Yes, we had to scrap our planned chat on Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky (Mike just couldn't stomach it), but that means we get to dive straight into William Shatner swaggering his way through one of the great villain roles of the NBC years. Chris can't help but heap praise on Shatner's performance as ego-fueled actor Ward Fowler, while Mike wrestles with the episode's meta conceit, its TV-within-TV layers, and Peter Falk's always-dependable rumpled brilliance.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.

Agents Scott and Cam, along with guest operative David A. Goodman, writer & producer on Family Guy, Futurama and The Orville, scream "Serpentine!" at one another while tackling the 1979 Peter Falk & Alan Arkin buddy spy comedy The In-Laws. Directed by Arthur Hiller. Starring Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, Richard Libertini, Nancy Dussault, Penny Peyser, Arlene Golonka, Michael Lembeck, Paul L. Smith, Carmine Caridi and Ed Begley Jr. You can buy David's comics The Masked Macher and Space Job on Amazon. You can also follow him on Instagram. Become a SpyHards Patron and gain access to top secret "Agents in the Field" bonus episodes, movie commentaries and more! Purchase the latest exclusive SpyHards merch at Redbubble. Social media: @spyhards View the NOC List and the Disavowed List at Letterboxd.com/spyhards Podcast artwork by Hannah Hughes.

DJ & Matt discuss the trivia behind the 1988 Adventure, Comedy, Romance film "Vibes" starring Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum and Peter Falk. Next Time: Always (1989) To Be Released 8/15. Recommendations: "Romancing The Stone" (1984), "High Spirits" (1988) Write to DJ & Matt at matineeminutiae@gmail.com Leave a comment on our page at matineeminutiae.com Follow the show on BlueSky. View our our videos on Odysee. Friend DJ on Facebook

Not every Peter Falk performance comes with a rumpled coat and a homicide to solve. In this episode, we take a look at Griffin & Phoenix, a 1976 made-for-TV gem that finds Falk in rare romantic form. As Geoffrey Griffin, a terminally ill professor, Falk trades sharp wit for quiet heartbreak opposite Jill Clayburgh's Phoenix, a fellow traveler on a limited timeline. What might sound like a recipe for melodrama turns into something far more poignant and disarming, with Falk giving one of his most restrained and vulnerable performances. We dig into the film's TV-movie roots, its place in the 1970s “disease-of-the-week” wave, and how its frank, unvarnished take on death—and love—holds up nearly fifty years later. It's Peter Falk without the trench coat, but not without charm, soul, and a monologue or two.

Oh, just one more thing... it's a new ALTMANIA coming down the chubes for you all, this week we're joined by our dear friend Chris Woodward to talk about Jonathan Demme's episode of COLUMBO. Made in a down period of his career, hot off the flop of CITIZEN'S BAND; a fortuitous phonecall comes in the form of Peter Falk, who happened to be part of the handful of people to see that movie. He hires Demme on to direct an episode centered around the restaurant biz and a murder involving rare fish! We get into all things Columbo, our love for the show - a new love for one host and a returning favorite for the other - all of the fun idiosyncracies Peter Falk brings to the character, his populist appeal, his devotion to the show and character, the writers banging their head on the wall trying to adhere to the show's quirky structure, how the show made a good vehicle for up-and-coming filmmakers, and a whole lot more on ALTMANIA... Follow Chris Woodward: Podside Picnic https://patreon.com/PodsidePicnic https://twitter.com/cww_0 Follow Altmania: https://altmaniapod.com https://estebannoel.com JONATHAN DEMME ARCHIVE Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/altmania

You are in for a real treat on this episode. My guest this time is Greg Schwem. Greg is a corporate comedian. What is a corporate comedian? You probably can imagine that his work has to do with corporations, and you would be right. Greg will explain much better than I can. Mr. Schwem began his career as a TV journalist but eventually decided to take up what he really wanted to do, be a comedian. The story of how he evolved is quite fascinating by any standard. Greg has done comedy professionally since 1989. He speaks today mostly to corporate audiences. He will tell us how he does his work. It is quite interesting to hear how he has learned to relate to his audiences. As you will discover as Greg and I talk, we often work in the same way to learn about our audiences and thus how we get to relate to them. Greg has written three books. His latest one is entitled “Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff”. As Greg says, “Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, ‘woe is me,' self- serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. Greg offers many interesting observations as he discusses his career and how he works. I think we all can find significant lessons we can use from his remarks. About the Guest: Hi! I'm Greg Schwem. a Chicago-based business humor speaker and MC who HuffPost calls “Your boss's favorite comedian.” I've traveled the world providing clean, customized laughs to clients such as Microsoft, IBM, McDonald's and even the CIA. I also write the bi-weekly Humor Hotel column for the Chicago Tribune syndicate. I believe every corporate event needs humor. As I often tell clients, “When times are good, people want to laugh. When times are bad, people need to laugh.” One Fortune 500 client summed things up perfectly, saying “You were fantastic and just what everybody needed during these times.” In September 2024 I released my third and most personal book, Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff. Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, “woe is me,” self-serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. You can pick up a copy at Amazon or select book stores. Ways to connect with Greg: Website: www.gregschwem.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/gregschwem LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/gregschwem Instagram: www.instagram.com/gregschwem X: www.x.com/gregschwem About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Hi everyone, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we are going to definitely have some fun. I'll tell you about our guests in a moment, but first, I want to tell you about me. That'll take an hour or so. I am Michael Hingson, your host, and you're listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And I don't know, we may get inclusion or diversity into this, but our guest is Greg Schwem. Greg used to be a TV reporter, now he's a comedian, not sure which is funnier, but given some of the reporters I've seen on TV, they really should go into tonight club business. But anyway, Greg, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I really appreciate you being here and taking the time   Greg Schwem ** 02:04 Well, Michael, it is an honor to be included on your show. I'm really looking forward to the next hour of conversation. I   Speaker 1 ** 02:10 told Greg a little while ago, one of my major life ambitions that I never got to do was to go to a Don Rickles concert and sit in the front row so that hopefully he would pick on me, so that I could say, Yeah, I saw you once on TV, and I haven't been able to see since. What do you think of that? You hockey puck, but I never got to do it. So very disappointed. But everybody has bucket list moments, everybody has, but they don't get around to I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Well, the other one is, I love to pick on Mike Wallace. I did a radio show for six years opposite him in 60 minutes, and I always love to say that Wallace really had criminal tendencies, because he started out being an announcer in radio and he announced things like The Green Hornet and the Sky King and other shows where they had a lot of criminals. So I just figured he had to be associated with criminals somewhere in his life. Of course, everybody picked on him, and he had broad shoulders. And I again, I regret I never got to to meet him, which is sort of disappointing. But I did get to meet Peter Falk. That was kind of fun.   Greg Schwem ** 03:15 Mike Wallace to Peter Falk. Nice transition there. I know.   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 Well I am really glad you're with us. So why don't we start? We'll start with the serious part. Why don't you tell us, kind of about the early Greg schwim and growing up and all that sort of stuff, just to set the stage, as it were,   Greg Schwem ** 03:34 how far back you want to go? You want to go back to Little League, or you want to   Speaker 1 ** 03:37 just, oh, start at the beginning, a long time ago, right? I was a   Greg Schwem ** 03:41 very strange child. No, I you. You obviously introduced me as a as a comedian, and that is my full time job. And you also said that I was a former journalist, and that is my professional career. Yes, I went from, as I always like to say, I went from depressing people all day long, to making them laugh. And that's, that's kind of what I did. I always did want to be I majored in Journalism at Northwestern University, good journalism school. Originally, I always wanted to be a television reporter. That was as a professional career I was, I dabbled in comedy. Started when I was 16. That is the first time I ever got on stage at my school, my high school, and then at a comedy club. I was there one of the first comedy clubs in Chicago, a place called the comedy cottage. It was in the suburb of beautiful, beautiful suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, and they were one of the very, very first full time comedy clubs in the nation. And as a 16 year old kid, I actually got on stage and did five minutes here and five minutes there. And thought I was, I was hot stuff, but I never, ever thought I would do it for a living. I thought comedy would always be just a hobby. And I. Especially when I went to college, and I thought, okay, Northwestern is pretty good school, pretty expensive school. I should actually use my degree. And I did. I moved down to Florida, wrote for a newspaper called The Palm Beach post, which, don't let that title fool you. It's Palm Beach was a very small segment of of the area that it was, that it served, but I did comedy on the side, and just because I moved down there, I didn't know anybody, so I hung out at comedy clubs just to have something to do. And little by little, comedy in the late 80s, it exploded. Exploded. There were suddenly clubs popping up everywhere, and you were starting to get to know guys that were doing these clubs and were starting to get recognition for just being comedians. And one of them opened up a very, very good Club opened up about 10 minutes from my apartment in West Palm Beach, and I hung out there and started to get more stage time, and eventually started to realize at the same time that I was getting better as a comedian, I was becoming more disillusioned as a journalist in terms of what my bosses wanted me to report on and the tone they wanted me to use. And I just decided that I would I would just never be able to live with myself if I didn't try it, if I didn't take the the plunge into comedy, and that's what I did in 1989 and I've been doing it ever since. And my career has gone in multiple directions, as I think it needs to. If you're going to be in show business and sustain a career in show business, you have to wear a lot of different hats, which I feel like I've done.   Michael Hingson ** 06:40 So tell me more about that. What does that mean exactly?   Greg Schwem ** 06:43 Well, I mean, I started out as a what you would pretty much if somebody said, If you heard somebody say, I'm a comedian, they would envision some guy that just went to comedy clubs all the time, and that's what I did. I was just a guy that traveled by car all over the Midwest and the Southeast primarily, and did comedy clubs, but I quickly realized that was kind of a going nowhere way to attack it, to do comedy unless you were incredibly lucky, because there were so many guys doing it and so many clubs, and I just didn't see a future in it, and I felt like I had to separate myself from the pack a little bit. And I was living in Chicago, which is where I'm from, and still, still exist. Still reside in Chicago, and I started to get involved with a company that did live trade show presentations. So if you've ever been on a trade show floor and you see people, they're mostly actors and actresses that wear a headset and deliver a spiel, a pitch, like every, every twice an hour, about some company, some new product, and so forth. And I did that, and I started to write material about what I was seeing on trade show floors and putting it into my stand up act, stuff about business, stuff about technology, because I was Hawking a lot of new computers and things like that. This was the mid 90s when technology was exploding, and I started to put this into my stand up act. And then I'd have people come up to me afterwards and say, hey, you know those jokes you did about computers and tech support, if you could come down to our office, you know, we're having a golf tournament, we're having a Christmas party, we would love to hear that material. And little by little, I started transitioning my act into doing shows for the corporate market. I hooked up with a corporate agent, or the corporate agent heard about me, and started to open a lot of doors for me in terms of working for very large corporations, and that's pretty much what I've been doing. I stopped working clubs, and I transitioned, instead of being a comedian, I became a corporate humor speaker. And that's what I do, primarily to this day, is to speak at business conferences. Just kind of get people to loosen up, get them to laugh about what they do all day without without making it sound like I'm belittling what they do. And also when I'm not doing that, I work about eight to 10 weeks a year on cruise ships, performing for cruise audiences. So that's a nice getaway.   Speaker 1 ** 09:18 It's interesting since I mentioned Don Rickles earlier, years ago, I saw an interview that he did with Donahue, and one of the things that Don Rickles said, and after he said it, I thought about it. He said, I really don't want to pick on anyone who's going to be offended by me picking on them. He said, I try to watch really carefully, so that if it looks like somebody's getting offended, I'll leave them alone, because that's not what this is all about. It isn't about abusing people. It's about trying to get people to have fun, and if somebody's offended, I don't want to to pick on them, and I've heard a number of albums and other things with him and just. Noticed that that was really true. He wouldn't pick on someone unless they could take it and had a lot of fun with it. And I thought that was absolutely interesting, because that certainly wasn't, of course, the rep that he had and no, but it was   Greg Schwem ** 10:16 true. It is, and it doesn't take long to see as a as a comedian, when you're looking at an audience member and you're talking to them, it, you can tell very quickly, Are they enjoying this? Are they enjoying being the center of attention? A lot of people are, or are they uncomfortable with it? Now, I don't know that going in. I mean, I you know, of course. And again, that's a very small portion of my show is to talk to the audience, but it is something particularly today. I think audiences want to be more involved. I think they enjoy you talk you. Some of these, the new comedians in their 20s and 30s and so forth. Them, some of them are doing nothing, but what they call crowd work. So they're just doing 45 minutes of talking to the audience, which can be good and can be rough too, because you're working without a net. But I'm happy to give an audience a little bit of that. But I also have a lot of stuff that I want to say too. I mean, I work very hard coming up with material and and refining it, and I want to talk about what's going on in my life, too. So I don't want the audience to be the entire show, right?   Speaker 1 ** 11:26 And and they shouldn't be, because it isn't about that. But at the same time, it is nice to involve them. I find that as a keynote and public speaker, I find that true as well, though, is that audiences do like to be involved. And I do some things right at the outset of most talks to involve people, and also in involving them. I want to get them to last so that I start to draw them in, because later, when I tell the September 11 story, which isn't really a humorous thing. Directly,   Greg Schwem ** 12:04 i know i Good luck. I'm spinning 911 to make it I don't think I've ever heard anybody say, by the way, I was trapped in a building. Stick with me. It's kind of cute. It's got a funny ending. And   Speaker 1 ** 12:20 that's right, and it is hard I can, I can say humorous things along the way in telling the story, but, sure, right, but, but clearly it's not a story that, in of itself, is humorous. But what I realized over the years, and it's really dawned on me in the last four or five years is we now have a whole generation of people who have absolutely no memory of September 11 because they were children or they weren't even born yet. And I believe that my job is to not only talk about it, but literally to draw them into the building and have them walk down the stairs with me, and I have to be descriptive in a very positive way, so that they really are part of what's going on. And the reality is that I do hear people or people come up and say, we were with you when you were going down the stairs. And I think that's my job, because the reality is that we've got to get people to understand there are lessons to be learned from September 11, right? And the only real way to do that is to attract the audience and bring them in. And I think probably mostly, I'm in a better position to do that than most people, because I'm kind of a curious soul, being blind and all that, but it allows me to to draw them in and and it's fun to do that, actually. And I, and   Greg Schwem ** 13:52 I gotta believe, I mean, obviously I wasn't there, Michael, but I gotta believe there were moments of humor in people, a bunch of people going down the stairs. Sure, me, you put people get it's like, it's like when a bunch of people are in an elevator together, you know, I mean, there's I, when I look around and I try to find something humorous in a crowded and it's probably the same thing now, obviously it, you know, you got out in time. But I and, you know, don't that's the hotel phone, which I just hung up so but I think that I can totally see where you're going from, where, if you're if you're talking to people who have no recollection of this, have no memory where you're basically educating them on the whole event. I think you then you have the opportunity to tell the story in whatever way you see fit. And I think that however you choose to do it is there's no wrong way to do it, I guess is what I'm trying to get at.   Speaker 1 ** 14:55 Well, yeah, I think the wrong way is to be two. Graphic and morbid and morbid, but one of the things that I talk about, for example, is that a colleague of mine who was with me, David Frank, at about the 50th floor, suddenly said, Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And as as I tell the audience, typically, I as as you heard my introduction at the beginning, I have a secondary teaching credential. And one of the things that you probably don't know about teachers is that there's a secret course that every teacher takes called Voice 101, how to yell at students and and so what I tell people is that when David said that, I just said in my best teacher voice, stop it, David, if Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he told me later that that brought him out of his funk, and he ended up walking a floor below me and shouting up to me everything he saw. And it was just mainly, everything is clear, like I'm on floor 48 he's on 47/47 floor. Everything is good here, and what I have done for the past several years in telling that part of the story is to say David, in reality, probably did more to keep people calm and focused as we went down the stairs than anyone else, because anyone within the sound of his voice heard someone who was focused and sounded okay. You know, hey, I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping. And it it helps people understand that we all had to do what we could to keep everyone from not panicking. And it almost happened a few times that people did, but we worked at it. But the i The idea is that it helps draw people in, and I think that's so important to do for my particular story is to draw them in and have them walk down the stairs with me, which is what I do, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Now I'm curious about something that keeps coming up. I hear it every so often, public speaker, Speaker experts and people who are supposedly the great gurus of public speaking say you shouldn't really start out with a joke. And I've heard that so often, and I'm going give me a break. Well, I think, I think it depends, yeah, I think   Greg Schwem ** 17:33 there's two schools of thought to that. I think if you're going to start out with a joke, it better be a really good one, or something that you either has been battle tested, because if it doesn't work now, you, you know, if you're hoping for a big laugh, now you're saying, Well, you're a comedian, what do you do? You know, I mean, I, I even, I just sort of work my way into it a little bit. Yeah, and I'm a comedian, so, and, you know, it's funny, Michael, I will get, I will get. I've had CEOs before say to me, Hey, you know, I've got to give this presentation next week. Give me a joke I can tell to everybody. And I always decline. I always it's like, I don't need that kind of pressure. And it's like, I can, I can, I can tell you a funny joke, but,   Michael Hingson ** 18:22 but you telling the   Greg Schwem ** 18:23 work? Yeah, deliver it. You know, I can't deliver it for you. Yeah? And I think that's what I also, you know, on that note, I've never been a big fan of Stand Up Comedy classes, and you see them all popping up all over the place. Now, a lot of comedy clubs will have them, and usually the you take the class, and the carrot at the end is you get to do five minutes at a comedy club right now, if that is your goal, if you're somebody who always like, Gosh, I wonder what it would like be like to stand up on stage and and be a comedian for five minutes. That's something I really like to try. By all means, take the class, all right. But if you think that you're going to take this class and you're going to emerge a much funnier person, like all of a sudden you you weren't funny, but now you are, don't take the class, yeah? And I think, sadly, I think that a lot of people sign up for these classes thinking the latter, thinking that they will all of a sudden become, you know, a comedian. And it doesn't work that way. I'm sorry you cannot teach unfunny people to be funny. Yeah, some of us have the gift of it, and some of us don't. Some of us are really good with our hands, and just know how to build stuff and how to look at things and say, I can do that. And some of us, myself included, definitely do not. You know, I think you can teach people to be more comfortable, more comfortable in front of an audience and. Correct. I think that is definitely a teachable thing, but I don't think that you can teach people to be funnier   Speaker 1 ** 20:10 and funnier, and I agree with that. I tend to be amazed when I keep hearing that one of the top fears in our world is getting up in front of an audience and talking with them, because people really don't understand that audiences, whatever you're doing, want you to succeed, and they're not against you, but we have just conditioned ourselves collectively that speaking is something to be afraid of?   Greg Schwem ** 20:41 Yes, I think, though it's, I'm sure, that fear, though, of getting up in front of people has only probably been exacerbated and been made more intense because now everybody in the audience has a cell phone and to and to be looking out at people and to see them on their phones. Yeah, you're and yet, you prepped all day long. You've been nervous. You've been you probably didn't sleep the night before. If you're one of these people who are afraid of speaking in public, yeah, and then to see people on their phones. You know, it used to bother me. It doesn't anymore, because it's just the society we live in. I just, I wish, I wish people could put their phones down and just enjoy laughing for 45 minutes. But unfortunately, our society can't do that anymore, so I just hope that I can get most of them to stop looking at it.   Speaker 1 ** 21:32 I don't make any comments about it at the beginning, but I have, on a number of occasions, been delivering a speech, and I hear a cell phone ring, and I'll stop and go, Hello. And I don't know for sure what the person with the cell phone does, but by the same token, you know they really shouldn't be on their phone and and it works out, okay, nobody's ever complained about it. And when I just say hello, or I'll go Hello, you don't say, you know, and things like that, but, but I don't, I don't prolong it. I'll just go back to what I was talking about. But I remember, when I lived in New Jersey, Sandy Duncan was Peter Pan in New York. One night she was flying over the audience, and there was somebody on his cell phone, and she happened to be going near him, and she just kicked the phone out of his hand. And I think that's one of the things that started Broadway in saying, if you have a cell phone, turn it off. And those are the announcements that you hear at the beginning of any Broadway performance today.   Greg Schwem ** 22:39 Unfortunately, people don't abide by that. I know you're still hearing cell phones go off, yeah, you know, in Broadway productions at the opera or wherever, so people just can't and there you go. There that just shows you're fighting a losing battle.   Speaker 1 ** 22:53 Yeah, it's just one of those things, and you got to cope with it.   Greg Schwem ** 22:58 What on that note, though, there was, I will say, if I can interrupt real quick, there was one show I did where nobody had their phone. It was a few years ago. I spoke at the CIA. I spoke for some employees of the CIA. And this might, this might freak people out, because you think, how is it that America's covert intelligence agency, you think they would be on their phones all the time. No, if you work there, you cannot have your phone on you. And so I had an audience of about 300 people who I had their total attention because there was no other way to they had no choice but to listen to me, and it was wonderful. It was just a great show, and I it was just so refreshing. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 23:52 and mostly I don't hear cell phones, but they do come up from time to time. And if they do, then you know it happens. Now my one of my favorite stories is I once spoke in Maryland at the Department of Defense, which anybody who knows anything knows that's the National Security Agency, but they call it the Department of Defense, as if we don't know. And my favorite story is that I had, at the time, a micro cassette recorder, and it died that morning before I traveled to Fort Meade, and I forgot to just throw it away, and it was in my briefcase. So I got to the fort, they searched, apparently, didn't find it, but on the way out, someone found it. They had to get a bird Colonel to come to decide what to do with it. I said, throw it away. And they said, No, we can't do that. It's yours. And they they decided it didn't work, and they let me take it and I threw it away. But it was so, so funny to to be at the fort and see everybody running around crazy. See, what do we do with this micro cassette recorder? This guy's been here for an hour. Yeah. So it's it. You know, all sorts of things happen. What do you think about you know, there's a lot of discussion about comedians who use a lot of foul language in their shows, and then there are those who don't, and people seem to like the shock value of that.   Greg Schwem ** 25:25 Yeah, I'm very old school in that. I guess my short answer is, No, I've never, ever been one of those comedians. Ever I do a clean show, I actually learned my lesson very early on. I think I think that I think comedians tend to swear because when they first start out, out of nerves, because I will tell you that profanity does get laughter. And I've always said, if you want to, if you want to experiment on that, have a comedian write a joke, and let's say he's got two shows that night. Let's say he's got an eight o'clock show and a 10 o'clock show. So let's say he does the joke in the eight o'clock and it's, you know, the cadence is bumper, bump up, bump up, bump up, punch line. Okay, now let's and let's see how that plays. Now let's now he does the 10 o'clock show and it's bumper, bump up, bump up F and Okay, yeah, I pretty much guarantee you the 10 o'clock show will get a bigger laugh. Okay? Because he's sort of, it's like the audience is programmed like, oh, okay, we're supposed to laugh at that now. And I think a lot of comedians think, Aha, I have just discovered how to be successful as a comedian. I will just insert the F word in front of every punch line, and you can kind of tell what comedians do that and what comedians I mean. I am fine with foul language, but have some jokes in there too. Don't make them. Don't make the foul word, the joke, the joke, right? And I can say another thing nobody has ever said to me, I cannot hire you because you're too clean. I've never gotten that. And all the years I've been doing this, and I know there's lots of comedians who who do work blue, who have said, you know, who have been turned down for that very reason. So I believe, if you're a comedian, the only way to get better is to work any place that will have you. Yeah, and you can't, so you might as well work clean so you can work any place that will have you, as opposed to being turned away.   Speaker 1 ** 27:30 Well, and I, and I know what, what happened to him and all that, but at the same time, I grew up listening to Bill Cosby and the fact that he was always clean. And, yeah, I understand everything that happened, but you can't deny and you can't forget so many years of humor and all the things that that he brought to the world, and the joy he brought to the world in so many ways.   Greg Schwem ** 27:57 Oh, yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And he Yeah, he worked everywhere. Jay Leno is another one. I mean, Jay Leno is kind of on the same wavelength as me, as far as don't let the profanity become the joke. You know, Eddie Murphy was, you know, was very foul. Richard Pryor, extremely foul. I but they also, prior, especially, had very intelligent material. I mean, you can tell and then if you want to insert your F bombs and so forth, that's fine, but at least show me that you're trying. At least show me that you came in with material in addition to the   Speaker 1 ** 28:36 foul language. The only thing I really have to say about all that is it? Jay Leno should just stay away from cars, but that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 28:43 Oh, yeah, it's starting to   Greg Schwem ** 28:47 look that way. Yeah, it   Michael Hingson ** 28:49 was. It was fun for a while, Jay, but yeah, there's just two. It's like, Harrison Ford and plains. Yeah, same concept. At some point you're like, this isn't working out. Now I submit that living here in Victorville and just being out on the streets and being driven around and all that, I am firmly convinced, given the way most people drive here, that the bigoted DMV should let me have a license, because I am sure I can drive as well as most of the clowns around here. Yeah, so when they drive, I have no doubt. Oh, gosh. Well, you know, you switched from being a TV journalist and so on to to comedy. Was it a hard choice? Was it really difficult to do, or did it just seem like this is the time and this is the right thing to do. I was   Greg Schwem ** 29:41 both, you know, it was hard, because I really did enjoy my job and I liked, I liked being a TV news reporter. I liked, I liked a job that was different every day once you got in there, because you didn't know what they were going to send you out to do. Yes, you had. To get up and go to work every day and so forth. So there's a little bit of, you know, there's a little bit of the mundane, just like there is in any job, but once you were there, I liked, just never known what the day would bring, right? And and I, I think if I'd stayed with it, I think I think I could have gone pretty far, particularly now, because the now it's more people on TV are becoming more entertainers news people are becoming, yeah, they are. A lot of would be, want to be comedians and so forth. And I don't particularly think that's appropriate, but I agree. But so it was hard to leave, but it gets back to what I said earlier. At some point, you got to say, I was seeing comedians making money, and I was thinking, gosh, you know, if they're making money at this I I'm not hilarious, but I know I'm funnier than that guy. Yeah, I'm funnier than her, so why not? And I was young, and I was single, and I thought, if I if I don't try it now, I never will. And, and I'll bet there's just some hilarious people out there, yeah, who who didn't ever, who just were afraid   Michael Hingson ** 31:14 to take that chance, and they wouldn't take the leap, yeah,   Greg Schwem ** 31:16 right. And now they're probably kicking themselves, and I'm sure maybe they're very successful at what they do, but they're always going to say, what if, if I only done this? I don't ever, I don't, ever, I never, ever wanted to say that. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 31:31 well, and there's, there's something to be said for being brave and stepping out and doing something that you don't expect, or that you didn't expect, or that you weren't sure how it was going to go, but if you don't try, then you're never going to know just how, how much you could really accomplish and how much you can really do. And I think that the creative people, whatever they're being creative about, are the people who do step out and are willing to take a chance.   Greg Schwem ** 31:59 Yeah, yeah. And I told my kids that too. You know, it's just like, if it's something that you're passionate about, do it. Just try it. If it doesn't work out, then at least you can say I tried   Speaker 1 ** 32:09 it and and if it doesn't work out, then you can decide, what do I need to do to figure out why it didn't work out, or is it just not me? I want   Greg Schwem ** 32:18 to keep going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 32:21 So what is the difference between being a nightclub comedian and a corporate comedian? Because they are somewhat different. I think I know the answer. But what would you say that the differences between them? I think   Greg Schwem ** 32:33 the biggest thing is the audiences. I think when you when you are a nightclub comedian, you are working in front of people who are there to be entertained. Yeah, they, they paid money for that. That's what they're expecting. They, they, at some point during the day, they said, Hey, let's, let's go laugh tonight. That's what we really want to do when you're working in front of a corporate audiences. That's not necessarily the case. They are there. I primarily do business conferences and, you know, association meetings and so forth. And I'm just one cog in the wheel of a whole day's worth of meetings are, for the most part, very dry and boring, maybe certainly necessary educational. They're learning how to do their job better or something. And then you have a guy like me come in, and people aren't always ready to laugh, yeah, despite the fact that they probably need to, but they just they're not always in that mindset. And also the time of day. I mean, I do a lot of shows at nine in the morning. I do shows after lunch, right before lunch. I actually do very few shows in the evening, believe it or not. And so then you you have to, you kind of have to, in the while you're doing your act or your presentation or your speech, as I call it, you kind of have to let them know that it is okay. What you're doing is okay, and they should be okay with laughing. They shouldn't be looking around the whole time wondering if other people are laughing. You know, can I, can I? Can I tell you a quick story about how I drive that point home. Why not? Yeah, it's, I'll condense it into like five minutes. I mentioned that I worked on that I work on cruise ships occasionally, and I one night I was performing, and it was the first night of the cruise. And if anybody's ever been on a cruise, note, the first night, first night entertainers don't like the first night because people are tired. You know, they're they're a little edgy because they've been traveling all day. They're they're confused because they're not really sure where they're going on a ship. And the ones that have got it figured out usually over serve themselves because they're on vacation. So you put all that, so I'm doing my show on the first. Night, and it's going very well. And about five, six minutes in, I do a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. And from the back of the room in total darkness, I hear hat just like that. And I'm like, All right, you know, probably over served. So the rule of comedy is that everybody gets like. I was like, I'll let it go once, yeah. So I just kind of looked off in that direction, didn't say anything. Kept going with my active going with my act. About 10 minutes later, same thing happens. I tell a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. Hat now I'm like, Okay, I have got to, I've got to address the elephant in the room. So I think I just made some comment, like, you know, I didn't know Roseanne Barr was on this cruise, you know, because that was like the sound of the Yeah. Okay, everybody laugh. Nothing happened about five minutes later. It happens a third time. And now I'm just like, this is gonna stop. I'm going to put a stop to this. And I just fired off. I can't remember, like, three just like, hey man, you know you're you're just a little behind everybody else in this show and probably in life too, that, you know, things like that, and it never happened again. So I'm like, okay, mission accomplished on my part. Comedians love it when we can shut up somebody like that. Anyway. Show's over, I am out doing a meet and greet. Some guy comes up to me and he goes, hey, hey, you know that kid you were making fun of is mentally handicapped. And now, of course, I don't know this, but out of the corner of my eye, I see from the other exit a man pushing a son, his son in a wheelchair out of the showroom. And I'm just like, Oh, what have I done? And yeah. And of course, when you're on a cruise, you're you're on a cruise. When you're a cruise ship entertainer, you have to live with your audience. So I couldn't hide. I spent like the next three days, and it seemed like wherever I was, the man and his son in the wheelchair were nearby. And finally, on the fourth day, I think was, I was waiting for an elevator. Again, 3500 people on this ship, okay, I'm waiting for an elevator. The elevator door opens. Guess who are the only two people the elevator, the man and his son. And I can't really say I'll wait for the next one. So I get on, and I said to this the father, I said, I just want you to know I had no idea. You know, I'm so sorry. I can't see back there, this kind of thing. And the dad looks at me. He puts his hand up to stop me, and he points to me, and he goes, I thought you were hysterical. And it was, not only was it relief, but it kind of, it's sort of a lesson that if you think something is funny, you should laugh at it. Yeah. And I think sometimes in corporate America, my point in this. I think sometimes when you do these corporate shows, I think that audience members forget that. I think very busy looking around to see if their immediate boss thinks it's funny, and eventually everybody's looking at the CEO to see if they're like, you know, I think if you're doing it that way, if that's the way you're you're approaching humor. You're doing yourself a disservice, if right, stopping yourself from laughing at something that you think is funny.   Speaker 1 ** 38:09 I do think that that all too often the problem with meetings is that we as a as a country, we in corporations, don't do meetings, right anyway, for example, early on, I heard someone at a convention of the National Federation of the Blind say he was the new executive director of the American Foundation for the Blind, and he said, I have instituted a policy, no Braille, no meetings. And what that was all about was to say, if you're going to have a meeting, you need to make sure that all the documentation is accessible to those who aren't going to read the print. I take it further and say you shouldn't be giving out documentation during the meeting. And you can use the excuse, well, I got to get the latest numbers and all that. And my point is, you shouldn't be giving out documentation at a meeting, because the meeting is for people to communicate and interact with each other. And if you're giving out papers and so on, what are people going to do? They're going to read that, and they're not going to listen to the speakers. They're not going to listen to the other people. And we do so many things like that, we've gotten into a habit of doing things that become so predictable, but also make meetings very boring, because who wants to look at the papers where you can be listening to people who have a lot more constructive and interesting things to say anyway?   Greg Schwem ** 39:36 Yeah, yeah. I think, I think COVID definitely changed, some for the some for the better and some for the worse. I think that a lot of things that were done at meetings COVID and made us realize a lot of that stuff could be done virtually, that you didn't have to just have everybody sit and listen to people over and over and over again.   Speaker 1 ** 39:58 But unless you're Donald Trump. Up. Yeah, that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 40:02 Yes, exactly another podcast episode. But, yeah, I do think also that. I think COVID changed audiences. I think, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about crowd work, right, and audiences wanting to be more involved. I think COVID precipitated that, because, if you think about it, Michael, for two and a half years during COVID, our sole source of entertainment was our phone, right? Which meant that we were in charge of the entertainment experience. You don't like something, swipe left, scroll down, scroll, scroll, scroll, find something else. You know, that kind of thing. I'm not I'm not entertained in the next four or five seconds. So I'm going to do this. And I think when live entertainment returned, audiences kind of had to be retrained a little bit, where they had to learn to sit and listen and wait for the entertainment to come to them. And granted, it might not happen immediately. It might not happen in the first five seconds, but you have to just give give people like me a chance. It will come to you. It will happen, but it might not be on your timetable,   Speaker 1 ** 41:13 right? Well, and I think that is all too true for me. I didn't find didn't find COVID to be a great inconvenience, because I don't look at the screen anyway, right? So in a sense, for me, COVID wasn't that much of a change, other than not being in an office or not being physically at a meeting, and so I was listening to the meeting on the computer, and that has its nuances. Like you don't necessarily get the same information about how everyone around you is reacting, but, but it didn't bother me, I think, nearly as much as it did everyone else who has to look at everyone. Of course, I have no problems picking on all those people as well, because what I point out is that that disabilities has to be redefined, because every one of you guys has your own disability. You're light dependent, and you don't do well when there's dark, when, when the dark shows up and and we now have an environment where Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb, and we've spent the last 147 years doing everything we can to make sure that light is pretty ubiquitous, but it doesn't change a thing when suddenly the power goes out and you don't have immediate access to light. So that's as much a disability as us light, independent people who don't   Greg Schwem ** 42:36 care about that, right? Right? I hear, I agree, but it is but   Speaker 1 ** 42:41 it is interesting and and it is also important that we all understand each other and are willing to tolerate the fact that there are differences in people, and we need to recognize that with whatever we're doing.   42:53 Yeah, I agree.   Speaker 1 ** 42:57 What do you think about so today, we have obviously a really fractured environment and fractured country, and everyone's got their own opinions, and nobody wants to talk about anything, especially politics wise. How do you think that's all affecting comedy and what you get to do and what other people are doing?   Greg Schwem ** 43:18 Well, I think Pete, I think there's, there's multiple answers to that question too. I think, I think it makes people nervous, wondering what the minute a comedian on stage brings up politics, the minute he starts talking about a politician, whether it's our president, whether it's somebody else, you can sense a tension in the room a little bit, and it's, it's, I mean, it's funny. I, one of my best friends in comedy, got to open for another comedian at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago, and I went to see him, and I'm sitting way up in the top, and he is just crushing it. And then at one point he he brought up, he decided to do an impression of Mitch McConnell, which he does very well. However, the minute he said, Mitch McConnell, I you could just sense this is Carnegie freaking Hall, and after the show, you know, he and I always like to dissect each other's shows. That's what comedians do. And I just said to him, I go. Why did you decide to insert Mitch McConnell in there? And I, and I didn't say it like, you moron, that was stupid, yeah, but I was genuinely curious. And he just goes, well, I just really like doing that bit, and I like doing that voice and so forth, but, and it's not like the show crashed and burned afterwards. No, he did the joke, and then he got out of it, and he went on to other stuff, and it was fine, but I think that people are just so on their guard now, yeah, and, and that's why, you know, you know Jay Leno always said he was an equal opportunity offender. I think you will do better with politics if you really want. Insert politics into your act. I think he would be better making fun of both sides. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And I think too often comedians now use the the stage as kind of a Bully, bully pulpit, like I have microphone and you don't. I am now going to give you my take on Donald Trump or the Democrats or whatever, and I've always said, talk about anything you want on stage, but just remember, you're at a comedy club. People came to laugh. So is there a joke in here? Yeah, or are you just ranting because you gotta be careful. You have to get this off your chest, and your way is right. It's, it's, you know, I hate to say it, but that's, that's why podcast, no offense, Michael, yours, is not like this. But I think one of the reasons podcasters have gotten so popular is a lot of people, just a lot of podcast hosts see a podcast is a chance to just rant about whatever's on their mind. And it's amazing to me how many podcast hosts that are hosted by comedians have a second guy have a sidekick to basically laugh and agree with whatever that person says. I think Joe Rogan is a classic example, and he's one of the most popular ones. But, and I don't quite understand that, because you know, if you're a comedian, you you made the choice to work solo, right? So why do you need somebody else with you?   Speaker 1 ** 46:33 I'm I'm fairly close to Leno. My remark is a little bit different. I'm not so much an equal opportunity offender as I am an equal opportunity abuser. I'll pick on both sides if politics comes into it at all, and it's and it's fun, and I remember when George W Bush was leaving the White House, Letterman said, Now we're not going to have anybody to joke about anymore. And everyone loved it. But still, I recognize that in the world today, people don't want to hear anything else. Don't confuse me with the facts or any of that, and it's so unfortunate, but it is the way it is, and so it's wiser to stay away from a lot of that, unless you can really break through the barrier,   Greg Schwem ** 47:21 I think so. And I also think that people, one thing you have to remember, I think, is when people come to a comedy show, they are coming to be entertained. Yeah, they are coming to kind of escape from the gloom and doom that unfortunately permeates our world right now. You know? I mean, I've always said that if you, if you walked up to a comedy club on a Saturday night, and let's say there were 50 people waiting outside, waiting to get in, and you asked all 50 of them, what do you hope happens tonight? Or or, Why are you here? All right, I think from all 50 you would get I would just like to laugh, yeah, I don't think one of them is going to say, you know, I really hope that my opinions on what's happening in the Middle East get challenged right now, but he's a comedian. No one is going to say that. No, no. It's like, I hope I get into it with the comedian on stage, because he thinks this way about a woman's right to choose, and I think the other way. And I really, really hope that he and I will get into an argument about to the middle of the   Speaker 1 ** 48:37 show. Yeah, yeah. That's not why people come?   Greg Schwem ** 48:40 No, it's not. And I, unfortunately, I think again, I think that there's a lot of comedians that don't understand that. Yeah, again, talk about whatever you want on stage, but just remember that your your surroundings, you if you build yourself as a comedian,   48:56 make it funny. Yeah, be funny.   Speaker 1 ** 49:00 Well, and nowadays, especially for for you, for me and so on, we're we're growing older and and I think you point out audiences are getting younger. How do you deal with that?   Greg Schwem ** 49:12 Well, what I try to do is I a couple of things. I try to talk as much as I can about topics that are relevant to a younger generation. Ai being one, I, one of the things I do in my my show is I say, oh, you know, I I really wasn't sure how to start off. And when you're confused these days, you you turn to answer your questions. You turn to chat GPT, and I've actually written, you know, said to chat GPT, you know, I'm doing a show tonight for a group of construction workers who work in the Midwest. It's a $350 million company, and it says, try to be very specific. Give me a funny opening line. And of course, chat GPT always comes up with some. Something kind of stupid, which I then relate to the audience, and they love that, you know, they love that concept. So I think there's, obviously, there's a lot of material that you can do on generational differences, but I, I will say I am very, very aware that my audience is, for the most part, younger than me now, unless I want to spend the rest of my career doing you know, over 55 communities, not that they're not great laughers, but I also think there's a real challenge in being older than your audience and still being able to make them laugh. But I think you have to remember, like you said, there's there's people now that don't remember 911 that have no concept of it, yeah, so don't be doing references from, say, the 1980s or the early 1990s and then come off stage and go, Man, nobody that didn't hit at all. No one, no one. They're stupid. They don't get it. Well, no, they, they, it sounds they don't get it. It's just that they weren't around. They weren't around, right? So that's on you.   Speaker 1 ** 51:01 One of the things that you know people ask me is if I will do virtual events, and I'll do virtual events, but I also tell people, the reason I prefer to do in person events is that I can sense what the audience is doing, how they're reacting and what they feel. If I'm in a room speaking to people, and I don't have that same sense if I'm doing something virtually, agreed same way. Now for me, at the same time, I've been doing this now for 23 years, so I have a pretty good idea in general, how to interact with an audience, to draw them in, even in a virtual environment, but I still tend to be a little bit more careful about it, and it's just kind of the way it is, you know, and you and you learn to deal with it well for you, have you ever had writer's block, and how did you deal with it?   Greg Schwem ** 51:57 Yes, I have had writer's block. I don't I can't think of a single comedian who's never had writer's block, and if they say they haven't, I think they're lying when I have writer's block, the best way for me to deal with this and just so you know, I'm not the kind of comedian that can go that can sit down and write jokes. I can write stories. I've written three books, but I can't sit down and just be funny for an hour all by myself. I need interaction. I need communication. And I think when I have writer's block, I tend to go out and try and meet strangers and can engage them in conversation and find out what's going on with them. I mean, you mentioned about dealing with the younger audience. I am a big believer right now in talking to people who are half my age. I like doing that in social settings, because I just, I'm curious. I'm curious as to how they think. I'm curious as to, you know, how they spend money, how they save money, how what their hopes and dreams are for the future, what that kind of thing, and that's the kind of stuff that then I'll take back and try and write material about. And I think that, I think it's fun for me, and it's really fun to meet somebody who I'll give you a great example just last night. Last night, I was I there's a there's a bar that I have that's about 10 a stone's throw from my condo, and I love to stop in there and and every now and then, sometimes I'll sit there and I won't meet anybody, and sometimes different. So there was a guy, I'd say he's probably in his early 30s, sitting too over, and he was reading, which I find intriguing, that people come to a bar and read, yeah, people do it, I mean. And I just said to him, I go, and he was getting ready to pay his bill, and I just said, if you don't mind me asking, What are you reading? And he's like, Oh, it's by Ezra Klein. And I go, you know, I've listened to Ezra Klein before. And he goes, Yeah, you know? He says, I'm a big fan. And debt to debt to dad. Next thing, you know, we're just, we're just riffing back and forth. And I ended up staying. He put it this way, Michael, it took him a very long time to pay his bill because we had a conversation, and it was just such a pleasure to to people like that, and I think that, and it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing for me to do, because I think people are on their guard, a little bit like, why is this guy who's twice my age talking to me at a bar? That's that seems a little weird. And I would get that. I can see that. But as I mentioned in my latest book, I don't mean because I don't a whole chapter to this, and I I say in the book, I don't mean you any harm. I'm not trying to hit on you, or I'm not creepy old guy at the bar. I am genuinely interested in your story. And. In your life, and and I just, I want to be the least interesting guy in the room, and that's kind of how I go about my writing, too. Is just you, you drive the story. And even though I'm the comedian, I'll just fill in the gaps and make them funny.   Speaker 1 ** 55:15 Well, I know that I have often been invited to speak at places, and I wondered, What am I going to say to this particular audience? How am I going to deal with them? They're they're different than what I'm used to. What I found, I guess you could call that writer's block, but what I found is, if I can go early and interact with them, even if I'm the very first speaker, if I can interact with them beforehand, or if there are other people speaking before me, invariably, I will hear things that will allow me to be able to move on and give a relevant presentation specifically to that group, which is what it's really all about. And so I'm with you, and I appreciate it, and it's good to get to the point where you don't worry about the block, but rather you look at ways to move forward and interact with people and make it fun, right,   Greg Schwem ** 56:13 right? And I do think people, I think COVID, took that away from us a little bit, yeah, obviously, but I but, and I do think people missed that. I think that people, once you get them talking, are more inclined to not think that you're you have ulterior motives. I think people do enjoy putting their phones down a little bit, but it's, it's kind of a two way street when I, when I do meet people, if it's if it's only me asking the questions, eventually I'm going to get tired of that. Yeah, I think there's a, there has to be a reciprocity thing a little bit. And one thing I find is, is with the Gen Z's and maybe millennials. They're not, they're not as good at that as I think they could be. They're more they're they're happy to talk about themselves, but they're not really good at saying so what do you do for a living? Or what you know, tell me about you. And I mean, that's how you learn about other people. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 57:19 tell me about your your latest book, Turning gut punches into punchlines. That's a interesting title, yeah, well, the more   Greg Schwem ** 57:26 interesting is the subtitle. So it's turning gut punches into punch punch lines, A Comedian's journey through cancer, divorce and other hilarious stuff.   Speaker 1 ** 57:35 No, like you haven't done anything in the world. Okay, right? So   Greg Schwem ** 57:38 other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln. Yeah, exactly. See, now you get that reference. I don't know if I could use that on stage, but anyway, depend on your audience. But yeah, they're like, What's he talking   Speaker 1 ** 57:50 who's Lincoln? And I've been to Ford theater too, so that's okay, yes, as have I. So it was much later than, than, well, than Lincoln, but that's okay.   Greg Schwem ** 57:58 You're not that old, right? No. Well, okay, so as the title, as the title implies, I did have sort of a double, double gut punch, it just in the last two years. So I, I got divorced late in life, after 29 years of marriage. And while that was going on, I got a colon cancer diagnosis and and at this end, I was dealing with all this while also continuing work as a humor speaker, okay, as a comedian. And I just decided I got it. First of all, I got a very clean bill of health. I'm cancer free. I am finally divorced so and I, I started to think, I wonder if there's some humor in this. I I would, I would, you know, Michael, I've been on stage for like, 25 years telling people that, you know, you can find something funny to laugh at. You can find humor in any situation. It's kind of like what you're talking about all the people going down the stairs in the building in the world trade center. All right, if you look around enough, you know, maybe there's something funny, and I've been preaching that, but I never really had to live that until now. And I thought, you know, maybe there's something here. Maybe I can this is my chance now to embrace new experiences. It was kind of when I got divorced, when you've been married half your life and all of a sudden you get divorced, everything's new to you, yeah, you're, you're, you're living alone, you you're doing things that your spouse did, oh, so many years. And you're having to do those, and you're having to make new friends, yeah, and all of that, I think, is very humorous. So the more I saw a book in there that I started writing before the cancer diagnosis, and I thought was there enough here? Just like, okay, a guy at 60 years old gets divorced now what's going to happen to him? The diagnosis? Kind. Made it just added another wrinkle to the book, because now I have to deal with this, and I have to find another subject to to make light of a little bit. So the book is not a memoir, you know, I don't start it off. And, you know, when I was seven, you know, I played, you know, I was, I went to this school night. It's not that. It's more just about reinvention and just seeing that you can be happy later in life, even though you have to kind of rewrite your your story a little   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:33 bit. And I would assume, and I would assume, you bring some of that into your ACT every so   Greg Schwem ** 1:00:38 very much. So yeah, I created a whole new speech called Turning gut punches into punchlines. And I some of the stuff that I, that I did, but, you know, there's a chapter in the book about, I about gig work, actually three chapters I, you know, I went to work for Amazon during the Christmas holiday rush, just scanning packages. I wanted to see what that was like. I drove for Uber I which I did for a while. And to tell you the truth, I miss it. I ended up selling my car, but I miss it because of the what we just talked about. It was a great way to communicate with people. It was a great way to talk to people, find out about them, be the least interesting person in the car, anyway. And there's a chapter about dating and online dating, which I had not had to do in 30 years. There's a lot of humor in that. I went to therapy. I'd never gone to therapy before. I wrote a chapter about that. So I think people really respond to this book, because they I think they see a lot of themselves in it. You know, lots of people have been divorced. There's lots of cancer survivors out there, and there's lots of people who just suddenly have hit a speed bump in their life, and they're not really sure how to deal with it, right? And my way, this book is just about deal with it through laughter. And I'm the perfect example.   Speaker 1 ** 1:01:56 I hear you, Oh, I I know, and I've been through the same sort of thing as you not a divorce, but my wife and I were married for 40 years, and she passed away in November of 2022 after 40 years of marriage. And as I tell people, as I tell people, I got to be really careful, because she's monitoring me from somewhere, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it, so I got to be a good kid, and I don't even chase the women so. But I also point out that none of them have been chasing me either, so I guess I just do what we got to do. But the reality is, I think there are always ways to find some sort of a connection with other people, and then, of course, that's what what you do. It's all about creating a connection, creating a relationship, even if it's only for a couple of hours or an hour or 45 minutes, but, but you do it, which is what it's all about?   Greg Schwem ** 1:02:49 Yeah, exactly. And I think the funniest stuff is real life experience. Oh, absolutely, you know. And if people can see themselves in in what I've written, then I've done my job as a writer.   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:03 So do you have any plans to retire?   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:06 Never. I mean, good for you retire from what   1:03:09 I know right, making fun of people   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:12 and making them laugh. I mean, I don't know what I would do with myself, and even if I there's always going to be I don't care how technology, technologically advanced our society gets. People will always want and need to laugh. Yeah, they're always going to want to do that. And if they're want, if they're wanting to do that, then I will find, I will find a way to get to them. And that's why I, as I said, That's why, like working on cruise ships has become, like a new, sort of a new avenue for me to make people laugh. And so, yeah, I don't I there's, there's no way. I don't know what else I would do with   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:53 myself, well and from my perspective, as long as I can inspire people, yes, I can make people think a little bit and feel better about themselves. I'm going to do it right. And, and, and I do. And I wrote a book during COVID that was published last August called Live like a guide dog. And it's all about helping people learn to control fear. And I use lessons I learned from eight guide dogs and my wife service dog to do that. My wife was in a wheelchair her whole life. Great marriage. She read, I pushed worked out well, but, but the but the but the bottom line is that dogs can teach us so many lessons, and there's so much that we can learn from them. So I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to create this book and and get it out there. And I think that again, as long as I can continue to inspire people, I'm going to do it. Because   Greg Schwem ** 1:04:47 why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't I exactly right? Yeah, yeah. So,   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:51 I mean, I think if I, if I stopped, I think my wife would beat up on me, so I gotta be nice exactly. She's monitoring from somewhere

It's here. The one we've all been bracing for: Last Salute to the Commodore. As the final episode of Columbo's fifth season and a proposed ending place for the entire NBC run, it manages to sink the ship with an almost gleeful disregard for coherence, tone, and character. Mike and Chris try to make sense of the chaos—was it Jackson Gillis's bewildering script? Patrick McGoohan's direction? Peter Falk's performance? Or all of the above? Whatever happened, the result is a baffling, self-sabotaging parody of the show itself. Come for the messy nautical metaphors, stay for the analysis of Columbo's most infamous misfire.

Get your champagne (or coffee) and cake and join us while we discuss a Case of Immunity starring Hector Elizondo, Sal Mineo, and Peter Falk.  We chat about possible inspirations for the plot, Harold Lloyd's Greenacres estate, Hector Elizondo's career and more!   Some of the other topics discussed: -films by Ted Post -Sal Mineo - the book by Michael Gregg Michaud -Nickel Ride - the movie written by Eric Roth -The Actor Within: Intimate Conversations with Great Actors by Rose Eichenbaum with a Hecto Elizondo interview     And for our Patreon listeners, our full uncut video podcast is available now on Patreon!   Check out photos from the show on our Instagram - @trenchcoatcigar .   We have EXCLUSIVE content available on Patreon!  Get video recordings of the podcast and monthly updates & behind the scenes. Head to https://patreon.com/trenchcoatcigar to join today!   If you'd like to add to our conversation, you can email us at trenchcoatcigar@gmail.com.   Get podcast merch on RedBubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/trenchcoatcigar/shop?asc=u  

Turn up the radio, or the speakers, and listen to the CINEMA CHAIN GANG PODCAST! On the latest episode, Nick and Andrew talk about the Keanu Reeves comedy TUNE IN TOMORROW. Tune in and take a listen!// THIS WEEK: Tune In Tomorrow (1990), dir. Jon Amiel//CHAIN #38: Katie Holmes → The Gift → Keanu Reeves → Tune In Tomorrow → Peter Falk//Follow Andrew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cinema Frenzy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Follow Nick: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Email Us: CinemaChainGang@gmail.com

On today's show, I chat with friend of the show Marta Djordjevic of Rewind & Revive about Elaine May's classic comedic two-hander drama Mikey & Nicky, where we discuss the fragile male ego, fights with the studio, reviving lost cinema, and the amazingly raw performance styles of John Cassavetes and Peter Falk.Check out Marta's website and podcast Rewind & Revive.follow and subscribe to the show on your favorite platform via the link below:https://linktr.ee/martynstrangeSupport me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/martynstrange Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like one of the best lines in Nick's favorite sitcom, this is a PIVOT for the Cinema Chain Gang podcast. We finish one chain at the beginning of this episode with the Colin Farrell thriller PHONE BOOTH, then start the next with the Cate Blanchett supernatural drama THE GIFT. Take a listen! // THIS WEEK: Phone Booth (2002), dir. Joel Schumacher; The Gift (2000), dir. Sam Raimi//CHAIN #37: Dick Van Dyke → Curious George → Juan Pope → Phone Booth → Katie HolmesCHAIN #38: Katie Holmes → The Gift → Keanu Reeves → Tune In Tomorrow → Peter Falk//Follow Andrew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cinema Frenzy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Follow Nick: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Email Us: CinemaChainGang@gmail.com

On the forty- second episode of All the Film Things, writer/ director Bassel Jadaa and actor Melissa Lindsey join me in analyzing Wim Wenders's 1987 romantic fantasy classic, Wings of Desire! This episode is spoiler- filled. Wings of Desire is a German art film that follows two angels who have been around since the beginning of time, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) in a, literally, divided Berlin, before the wall came down, as they observe and take note of the thoughts of people, young and old, in the city. One angel in particular, Damiel, confesses his desire to become human as he's grown tired of merely being an observer of humanity, craving to understand the good, bad, and mundane that comes with the human experience, of which he wholeheartedly celebrates. His desire becomes a reality as his falling in love with a trapeze artist named Marion (Solveig Dommartin) motivates him to “take the plunge”. The film also stars Curt Bois and features a special appearance by Peter Falk. Wings of Desire succeeds Wenders's widely acclaimed film Paris, Texas (1984) and, out of rebellion from calls to make “another Paris, Texas”, Wenders made something completely opposite, which ended up, much to his surprise, achieving higher levels of success. Wings of Desire is one of my very favorite films and is truly one of the most beautiful films ever made as it leaves a significant impact on all those who watch it.This is both Bassel and Melissa's first times on the podcast! I first met Bassel a few years ago through attending WIFT events before recurrently attending Jax Film Bar, for which he is one of the hosts. In recent months, we befriended Melissa, who has just recently began attending these events as well. Wings of Desire is Bassel's very favorite film while this was Melissa's first time watching the film. As we discuss in the beginning of the episode, we have all been deeply impacted by it. For the first twenty minutes, Bassel's audio is a tad quiet and staticy but I assure you the rest of the episode, his audio is much better! This episode was recorded on May 1, 2025. Bassel's long- awaited feature film, Dances of the Dead, is expected to premiere this year so I will keep you all updated on its release! Melissa is a talented free- agent actor/ dancer/ singer so if you have a project in the works, definitely reach out to her @evilseamonkey or on Facebook under her name (Melissa Lindsey)!Like the film Wings of Desire itself, our conversation seamlessly flows from one talking point to another. In this episode, we examine the thoughts of those the angels encounter, discuss the limited power angels have in helping humans, the important yet overlooked character of Homer, and the surprising way in which this film was made. All this and much more on the latest episode of All the Film Things!Background music created and used with permission by the Copyright Free Music - Background Music for Videos channel on YouTube.

GGACP celebrates Bike to Work Week and National Bike Month by revisiting this memorable interview with veteran actor and environmentalist ED BEGLEY JR. In this episode, Ed talks about the glory days of the Troubadour, the timelessness of “The In-Laws,” the absurdity of Hollywood urban legends and the career of his Oscar-winning dad, Ed Begley. Also, Forrest Tucker takes a nip, Steve Allen checks into St. Eligius, Harry Belafonte shuts down Rodney Dangerfield and Ed hits the rink with Charlie's Angels. PLUS: Wheeler & Woolsey! “Amazon Women on the Moon”! Mr. Warmth lowers the boom! Ed remembers his friend Peter Falk! And the unsolved death of John “Stumpy” Pepys!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

May is here, which means it's Star Wars month once again at Simplistic Reviews. The boys celebrate a galaxy far far away by...well...comparing it to soccer clubs...angrily ranting about missteps done to Andor...joking about Columbo and towels received in the mail...and many more things that we promise are Star Wars related. At least Star Wars adjacent. With special appearances by Heather Baxendale-Walsh, Harrison Ford, and Peter Falk. It's enough to have two overweight men in their 40s fighting clumsily in the lobby of a movie theater with plastic replica lightsabers. 

Join us as Ben, Dessy, Tiago, and Rose cover the inspirations behind Ace Attorney! Today we're watching the first episode of the original Columbo TV movies, "Murder by the Book!" This excellent introduction to the character is a favorite of ours already, so we're thrilled to rewatch it and talk about it here! We talk about Peter Falk, Jack Cassidy, and how this episode was directed by Steven Spielberg! We also have our usual tangents about Ken Penders, Doogie Howser, and the most important thing of all: conversation pits. Also discussed are the wonderful use of light and shadow in the episode, how Columbo is like Jaws, and why does Columbo need so many bowls to make a omelette?? Find out the answers to SOME of this and more in today's pod! NEXT TIME: G.K. Chesterton's "The Innocence of Father Brown" Follow us online: aceattorney.bsky / aceattorneypod.tumblr.com / updatedautopsy.report Watch Ben, Dessy, & Iro's Let's Plays of the series on YouTube here! Want a shirt? Check out our store here! Ben: yotsuben.bsky Dessy: dessy.bsky Rose: rosenonsense.bsky Tiago: tiagosdutra.bsky / linktr.ee

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema's greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you've got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 94 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by AwardsWatch contributor Trace Sauveur to discuss the next film in their Elaine May series, Mikey and Nicky (1976). Just a few years after the second film, Elaine May set out to make her follow-up to The Heartbreak Kid, and in doing so, made one of the most memorable films of the 1970s in Mikey and Nicky. While the movie was another step forward for the director as a visual storyteller and featured to dynamite performances from Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, its journey to the big screen was wild, as it took May years to hand the studio a finished edit of the film, as she tinkered with it until she was forced to hand it over. Even after its release, she still wasn't fully satisfied with the final film, reworking on it some when it got into the Criterion Collection. In the end, what she gave us is an intense, heartbreaking looking into a crumbling friendship set over the course of one night. Ryan, Jay, and Trace breakdown their thoughts on the film, May's direction, the behind the scenes stories of the making of the film, their thoughts on the main character's friendship, the harsh ending, and the fall of auteur driven cinema of the 1970s.  You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more. This podcast runs 1h53m. The guys will be back next week to conclude their series on the films of Elaine May with a review of her final film, Ishtar. You can rent it via YouTube in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let's get into it. Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

TVC 684.2a: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Hank Garrett, the actor known around the world as Officer Nicholson on Car 54, Where Are You? and one of the most accomplished voice artists in the entertainment industry. In this segment Hank shares a few memories of working with Peter Falk on Columbo: Undercover and with Buddy Hackett at one of the nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains of New York early in Hank's career. Hank's memoir, From Harlem Hoodlum to Hollywood Heavyweight, is available through Briton Publishing, Amazon.com, and other online retailers.

ABC's "Mr. Belvedere" premiered 40 years ago this month and in this memorable conversation, comedian, movie obsessive and podcaster Doug Benson (“Doug Loves Movies”) finally reveals the sordid "truth" about the infamous on-set mishap. Also in this episode, Doug and the boys talk about bad sequels, booking dream guests, breaking into the business and the perils of meeting Hollywood heroes. Also, Harry Dean Stanton shuts it down, Doug messes with Harrison Ford, Peter Falk reunites with Alan Arkin and Gilbert (once again) rags on Ferris Bueller. PLUS: Foster Brooks! “Captain EO”! In praise of Alexander Payne! The Three Stooges in 3-D! And “The Curse of the Pink Panther!”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your brandy and bread roll (or ice cream) and join us as we chat about Forgotten Lady starring Janet Leigh, Peter Falk, John Payne, Maurice Evans, Sam Jaffe and more.  We discuss Tony Curtis's autobiography, 1970s fashion, Pasadena filming locations, bloopers and much, much more.  Some of the films and books we discuss: -Crime and Misdemeanors -Tony Curtis's autobiography -Good Fellas -The Party, starring Alma the maid -The Last Show Girl, starring Janet Leigh -There really was a Hollywood, Janet Leigh's autobiography and more! Our most recent podcast episode is available wherever you listen!  Or click the link in our bio!   And for our Patreon listeners, our full uncut video podcast is available now on Patreon! Check out photos from the show on our Instagram - @trenchcoatcigar .   We have EXCLUSIVE content available on Patreon!  Get video recordings of the podcast & monthly updates & behind the scenes. Head to https://patreon.com/trenchcoatcigar to join today!   If you'd like to add to our conversation, you can email us at trenchcoatcigar@gmail.com.   Get podcast merch on RedBubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/trenchcoatcigar/shop?asc=u  

TVC 680.4: Harrison Page talks to Ed about how the success of Vixen led Michael Landon to cast him in “The Wish,” an episode of Bonanza written and directed by Landon that not only aired in 1969, but also marked Harrison's first network appearance; how, upon completing production of “The Wish,” Landon made a phone call that resulted in Harrison being cast in “Tooth of the Serpent,” an episode of Mannix that also aired in 1969; and how Peter Falk immediately made Harrison feel at ease by paying homage to the character Harrison played in Lionheart on the first day of the shoot for Columbo: Undercover. Harrison Page will be seen opposite Jonathan Majors in Magazine Dreams, the story of a man who looks after his ailing grandfather while trying to succeed in the world of professional bodybuilding. Magazine Dreams is scheduled for release in theaters on Friday, Mar. 21.

You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out!Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review!This week, we're taking a journey into one of the most beloved fantasy films of all time—The Princess Bride. A perfect blend of adventure, romance, comedy, and swashbuckling action, this 1987 classic continues to capture the hearts of audiences across generations.Directed by Rob Reiner and based on William Goldman's novel, The Princess Bride is a fairy tale that refuses to be ordinary. It delivers heartfelt romance, thrilling action, and razor-sharp wit, making it one of the most enduring films in cinema history.The story begins with a sick boy (Fred Savage) reluctantly listening to his grandfather (Peter Falk) read a fairy tale. But as the adventure unfolds, the boy—and the audience—quickly becomes engrossed in a tale that defies expectations.The story follows Westley (Cary Elwes), a farmhand who transforms into the daring Dread Pirate Roberts. His mission? To rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright), from an unwanted marriage to the scheming Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). Along the way, he faces countless obstacles, from duels with a vengeful swordsman, Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), to a battle of wits with the cunning Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), and even a wrestling match with the lovable giant Fezzik (André the Giant).The Princess Bride is a film that transcends generations. Whether you first saw it as a child, a teenager, or an adult, it offers something new with every viewing. It's a perfect introduction to adventure films for younger audiences, packed with humor and excitement that the whole family can enjoy.So grab your swords, prepare for adventure, and join us as we revisit one of the most charming, quotable, and endlessly entertaining films ever made. As you wish!

This week, we're driving for the mob with 1989's "Cookie." We talk about how great Emily Lloyd, Peter Falk and Dianne Wiest are in this charming gangster comedy co-written by Nora Ephron and directed by Susan Seidelman. Listen now.

Dan and Tom decode the 1979 comedy spy movie THE IN-LAWS.  This movie stars Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. Plus they compare it to the 2003 remake with the same name. The 1979 version of THE IN-LAWS is a classic comedy spy movie. But, the 2003 version is not held in the same high regard.  Why is that? Take a listen to find out more about the 1979 version.  Why does it work?  And, what works and what doesn't work in the 2003 remake. Some of the details we examine include: An overview of the plot The casting The chemistry between the two lead actors and their characters In what other movies have we seen some similar scenes as we see in THE IN-LAWS? How do they mislead the viewer as to Vince's role in the beginning of the movie? What does Michael Lembeck, who played Tommy, have in common with Albert Brooks, other than appearing in a version of THE IN-LAWS. The success and failures of the casting in the 2003 version – Tom and Dan disagree here What was better and what was worse in the 2003 version? And more …. There is a lot to decode, so take a listen to enhance your viewing experience as new things are discovered – worth a watch?  Take a listen!  Are you in?  Tell us what you think about our decoding of THE IN-LAWS So, take a listen and let us know what you think.  Have you seen THE IN-LAWS?  If so, what did you think of it? Were there any other movies you think influenced this one that we didn't mention? Let us know your thoughts, ideas for future episodes, and what you thought of this episode. Just drop us a note at info@spymovienavigator.com.  The more we hear from you, the better the show will surely be!  We'll give you a shout-out in a future episode!   You can check out all of our CRACKING THE CODE OF SPY MOVIES podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app or our website. In addition, you can check out our YouTube channel as well.   Episode Webpage: https://bit.ly/3EcaZD7

Description Returning guest John Darowski joins Joe to discuss the iconic tv series Columbo. We discuss the odd and long production history of the show, how Peter Falk embodies the character, and the unique twist the franchise has on the … Continue reading →

TVC 667.3: David Koenig, author of Unshot Columbo: Cracking the Cases That Never Got Filmed, talks to Ed about how “Old-Fashioned Murder,” the sixth-season episode featuring Joyce Van Patten as the murderer, was originally conceived as a modern-day Richard III that would have featured Burgess Meredith as the lead character, and why Peter Falk always wanted female murderers on the series to be seen as sympathetic characters. Both Shooting Columbo and Unshot Columbo are available through Bonaventure Press.

TVC 667.2: Ed welcomes back Columbo historian David Koenig (Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective). David's latest book, Unshot Columbo: Cracking the Cases That Never Got Filmed, takes a deep dive into nineteen Columbo mysteries that were written for either the original NBC series or the ABC revival, but, for one reason or another, never went into production. Topics this segment include the various attempts to bring back Sergeant Wilson, the character played by Bob Dishy in “The Greenhouse Jungle” and “Now You See Him,” beyond those two episodes and why Peter Falk kept opposing those efforts. Both Shooting Columbo and Unshot Columbo are available through Bonaventure Press.

TVC 666.6: David Koenig, author of Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective and Unshot Columbo: Cracking the Cases That Never Got Filmed, talks to Ed about “Fear No Murder,” an innovative mystery that Peter Falk not only wanted to film, but which would've served as the coda to the Columbo series, were it not for an impasse between Falk and ABC over casting that ultimately killed the project. Both Shooting Columbo and Unshot Columbo are available through Bonaventure Press.

TVC 665.6: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with James Sutorius, the award-winning stage actor who recently starred in My Life with Will: An Evening with Will Shakespeare and James Sutorius, a one-man show (written by Dennis Brown) in which James shares stories from his fifty-year career in stage, movies, and television, and why he always returns to the works of Shakespeare for sustenance. In this segment, James shares a few memories of working in television alongside James Garner, Peter Falk, Angela Lansbury, and Stephen Caffrey. He also talks about the responsibility he felt to the entire cast and crew when he was the lead in his own series, The Andros Targets (CBS, 1977).

TVC 665.6: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with James Sutorius, the award-winning stage actor who recently starred in My Life with Will: An Evening with Will Shakespeare and James Sutorius, a one-man show (written by Dennis Brown) in which James shares stories from his fifty-year career in stage, movies, and television, and why he always returns to the works of Shakespeare for sustenance. In this segment, James shares a few memories of working in television alongside James Garner, Peter Falk, Angela Lansbury, and Stephen Caffrey. He also talks about the responsibility he felt to the entire cast and crew when he was the lead in his own series, The Andros Targets (CBS, 1977). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paul Reiser is a comedian, actor, writer and producer who just happens to have starred in some of Team Empire's favourite films. So, when our Chris Hewitt was given the chance to talk to the star of Aliens, Diner, Whiplash, and Beverly Hills Cop, he jumped at the chance. The result is a wide-ranging and freewheeling chat about Reiser's astonishing start in Hollywood, his aversion to directing, his time spent working with Peter Falk, the experience of shooting Aliens and Whiplash and, of course, his new movie, The Problem With People, a charming Ireland-set comedy which he wrote and produced, as well as starring alongside Colm Meaney. It's a cracking interview, with Reiser on top form, and so we invite you to turn up your collar, relax and listen. Enjoy.

Get your dry martini and pretzels and join us as we chat about Deadly State of Mind starring Peter Falk, George Hamilton, Lesley Ann Warren, Stephen Elliott and others.  We chat George Hamilton's career, vintage sofas (yes, again!), hypnosis, and much, much more.    Some of the books and films we discussed: On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever (more hypnosis!) Beyond The Black Rainbow Dead Again (hypnosis!) Grand Deceptions, starring Stephen Elliott Portrait of a Showgirl Don't Mind If I Do, by George Hamilton Godfather 3 And loads more.   We have EXCLUSIVE content available on Patreon!  Get video recordings of the podcast & monthly updates & behind the scenes. Head to https://patreon.com/trenchcoatcigar to join today!   If you'd like to add to our conversation, you can email us at trenchcoatcigar@gmail.com.  Follow us on Instagram at @trenchcoatcigar to see photos from today's episode. Get podcast merch on RedBubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/trenchcoatcigar/shop?asc=u

GGACP celebrates October's National Book Month by revisiting this 2021 interview with David Koenig, author of “Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective.” In this episode, David and the boys look back at the iconic detective series, its mercurial star Peter Falk and its impressive lineup of guest killers and character actors. Also in this episode: Bing Crosby takes a pass, Eddie Albert speaks his mind, Steven Spielberg knocks it out of the park and Larry Cohen signs on as “murder consultant.” PLUS: Vito Scotti! The brilliance of Jack Cassidy! The genius of Levinson & Link! The debacle of “Mrs. Columbo”! Truman Capote “bumps off” Johnny Carson! And David reveals the truth (?) about Danny Kaye and Laurence Olivier! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedian, actor, television writer, author and musician Paul Reiser is one of Hollywood's most prolific creatives.2024 is a busy year for Reiser. On the heels of his new comedy The Problem with People which Reiser wrote, produced, and starred in alongside Colm Meaney and Jane Levy, Reiser has projects across a multitude of media formats. In March, Carter Burke, Reiser's iconic character from Aliens re-emerged in a What-if… concept comic book from Marvel comics and he appeared in the independent comedy The Gutter, directed by Isaiah and Yassir Lester. Reiser also co-wrote the New York Times bestseller What A Fool Believes: A Memoir the candid, freewheeling memoir of his friend and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Michael McDonald. In July, Reiser will appear in Netflix's Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, reprising his role from BH Cop 1 and 2. Recently, Reiser could be seen in Hulu's critically-acclaimed comedy series “Reboot” by Modern Family creator Steve Levitan. He also took his first step into bloody, superhero glory in Season 3 of Amazon Prime's Emmy-nominated The Boys playing “The Legend.” Reiser is widely celebrated for his roles in two hit shows for Netflix: Stranger Thing  and Chuck Lorre's The Kominsky Method, for which he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor. Mad About You, the long-running Emmy, Peabody, and Golden Globe-winning comedy that Reiser created and starred in with Helen Hunt, returned as a limited series on Spectrum Originals. Reiser earned acclaim for his supporting role in the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash. The veteran actor has garnered praise for notable performances in films such as Diner, Bye Bye Love, One Night At McCool's, and The Thing About My Folks, which Reiser wrote for his co-star Peter Falk. Reiser is a fixture behind the camera as well. He co-created and produced the seven-episode series There's Johnny!, a seven-episode series which streamed on Hulu and Peacock. The show, a fictional story set behind-the-scenes of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show circa 1972, co-produced with director David Gordon Green. His new standup special – his first in 30 years – will be released later this year via Comedy Dynamics.

Paul Reiser talks about his new film, “The Problem with People”, deciding to be a comic, comedy and heartbreak being from the same well, His love of Peter Faulk, Jack Lemon, and Alan Arkin, fathers, getting out of the house, building a music room just in case Billy Joel dropped by, Writing “What A Fool Believes” with and about Michael McDonnald, “Diner” “Mad About You.” “The Thing About My Folks”, acting and writing seriously, his sons, and realizing you can't write a standup act but just holding a pad and thinking to yourself…”What's funny?”Bio:  n Hulu's recent critically-acclaimed comedy series “Reboot” from Modern Family creator Steve Levitan, Reiser plays Gordon, the original creator of the old sitcom being rebooted. Awards Daily says “Reiser truly excels, giving one of his very best performances…here, he reminds us just how very funny and experienced he is in the world of television comedy.” He also took his first step into bloody, superhero glory, joining Season 3 of Amazon Prime's Emmy-nominated The Boys, playing “The Legend.” Also this year Reiser filmed “The Problem with People,” an original comedy feature film which he wrote, produced, and stars in alongside Jane Levy and Colm Meaney. Reiser currently stars in two hit shows for Netflix: Stranger Things—the company's biggest series of all time—where he plays Dr. Sam Owens, a role created by the Duffer Brothers specifically for him; and Chuck Lorre's The Kominsky Method, for which he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in and Golden Globe-winning comedy ended in May 1999 and premiered 20 years later as a limited series on Spectrum Originals. All seven seasons of the original Mad About You and the re-visit are available for streaming on Amazon Prime. The multi-faceted actor also revived one of his most iconic roles in the highly anticipated return of Mad About You, the long-running hit 90s comedy Reiser co-created and starred in with Helen Hunt. The Emmy, Peabody and Golden Globe-winning comedy ended in May 1999 and premiered 20 years later as a limited series on Spectrum Originals. All seven seasons of the original Mad About You and the re-visit are available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Throughout his prolific career, Reiser has worked with both independent and mainstream filmmakers. Having earned acclaim for his supporting role in the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash, Reiser was also recently seen alongside Kevin Hart in the Netflix feature Fatherhood, John McDonagh's War on Everyone and in frequent collaborator Jeff Baena's “The Little Hours” and “Horse Girl,” which premiered at Sundance 2020, the fourth film the pair has worked on together. The veteran actor has garnered praise for notable performances in films such as Diner, Bye Bye Love, Aliens, One Night At McCool's, Beverly Hills Cop I/II and The Thing About My Folks, which Reiser wrote for his co-star Peter Falk. Reiser is a fixture behind the camera as well. He co-created and co-produced There's Johnny!, a seven-episode series which originally streamed on Hulu and now streams on Peacock. The show, a fictional story set behind-the-scenes of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show circa 1972, co-created with filmmaker David Steven Simon and co-produced with director David Gordon Green in conjunction with The Carson Company, premiered to critical praise, with Decider saying There's Johnny! is “a television experience unlike any I've seen on TV in recent years” and “unfolds like a dream, a memory fondly recalled.” As an author, Reiser's first book, Couplehood, sold over two million copies and reached the number one spot on The New York Times bestsellers list. His subsequent books, Babyhood and Familyhood, were best sellers as well. Voted by Comedy Central as one of the Top 100 Comedians of All Time, Reiser regularly performs sold-out standup at venues nationwide with dates currently booked throughout 2022 and beyond. A SUNY Binghamton graduate of its prestigious music program, Reiser co-wrote the theme song for Mad About You, “The Final Frontier,” with Grammy-winning producer Don Was, and released an album of original songs with British singer-songwriter Julia Fordham called Unusual Suspects. Over the course of his career, Reiser has received multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, American Comedy Awards and Screen Actors Guild nominations. Reiser and his family reside in Los Angeles.

EPISODE 53 - “Tribute to Gena Rowlands” - 09/16/2024 ** This episode is sponsored brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BENEATH and get on your way to being your best self.” ** When screen legend GENA ROWLANDS passed away last month at the age of 94, she left behind a film and TV legacy that will undoubtedly influence artists for decades to come. She was an acting titan who changed the way modern audiences looked at acting. From her historic independent movies with husband JOHN CASSAVETES to mainstream Hollywood to powerful performances in iconic television films, Rowlands' performances were always honest, complicated, and emotionally raw. There was just no one like her; and there never will be again. This week, we pay tribute to her endearing legacy on and off the screen. SHOW NOTES:  Sources: Cassavetes on Cassavetes (2001), by Ray Carney; In The Moment: My Life As An Actor (2004), by Ben Gazzara; “Family First, Says Pretty Blonde,” November 16, 1963, The Tribune (South Bend, IN); “I Want It All…Husband…Children…Career!” June 1975, by Ronald Bowers, Photoplay; “NBC Offers Drama About AIDS,” November 11, 1985, by John J. O'Connor, The New York Times; “To Mom With Love: Gena Rowlands' Son Directs Her Latest Film,” February 23, 1997, by Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press; “Idol Chatter: Gena Rowlands,” 1999, by Al Weisel, Premiere Magazine; “Shop Talk: Actress Gena Rowlands, Not Much of a Shopper, Tells Tales,” February 15, 2002, by Gwen Davis, The Wall Street Journal; “Gena Rowlands On Pioneering The Indie Film Movement With Her Late Husband John Cassavetes,” November 13, 2015, by Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter; “Oscar Goes To Gena Rowlands,” November 14, 2015, by Susan King, Los Angeles Times; “And The Honorary Oscar Goes To…” November 20, 2015, by Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter; “The Notebook's Gena Rowlands Has Alzheimer's, Is in Full Dementia,” June 25, 2024, by Cara Lynn Shultz, People Magazine; “Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama To Her Roles, Dies at 94,” August 14, 2024, by Anita Gates, New York Times; TCM.com; IBDB.com; Movies Mentioned:  The High Cost of Loving (1958), starring Jose Ferrer; Lonely Are the Brave (1962), starring Kirk Douglas; The Spiral Road (1962), starring Rock Hudson; A Child is Waiting (1963), starring Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland; Tony Rome (1967), starring Frank Sinatra; Faces (1968), starring John Cassavetes; Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), starring Seymour Cassel; A Woman Under the Influence (1974), starring Peter Falk; Opening Night (1977), starring John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara; A Question of Love (1978), starring Jane Alexander; The Brink's Job (1978), starring Peter Falk; Gloria (1980), starring John Adams; Tempest (1982), starring John Cassavetes; Love Streams (1984), starring John Cassavetes; Thursday's Child (1984), starring Don Murray; An Early Frost (1985), starring Aidan Quinn, Ben Gazzara; The Betty Ford Story (1987), starring Josef Sommer; Another Woman (1988), starring Mia Farrow; Once Around (1991), starring Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter; Night On Earth (1991), starring Winona Ryder; Face of A Stranger (1992), starring Tyne Daly; Crazy In Love (1992), starring Holly Hunter; The Neon Bible (1995), starring Jacob Tierney; Unhook The Stars (1996), starring Marisa Tomei; She's So Lovely (1997), starring Sean Penn; Hope Floats (1998), starring Sandra Bullock; Hysterical Blindness (2003), starring Uma Thurman; The Notebook (1999), starring Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams; Broken English (2007), starring Parker Posey; Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014), starring Cheyenne Jackson; --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices