Charlie Meyerson interviews
59 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 months ago -Veteran radio news guy Charlie Meyerson talks to interesting people. (Some episodes consist of historic raw audio.) Contact: [email protected]
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Episodes
How best to open a podcast
June 12, 2023 15:19I haven’t posted much here lately about my work with the talented team I helped assemble a decade ago at Rivet (now formally known as Rivet360)—mostly in secret at the beginning. That’s partly because, as I’ve shifted focus since 2017 to my award-winning Chicago Public Square email news briefing (subscribe free!), I’ve eased into a role as Rivet’s Vice President of Editorial and Development—or, as I call myself, Nagger-in-Chief. And it’s partly because the company’s shifted its focus from...
Science fiction writer Greg Bear in 1994: The Internet’s future
November 20, 2022 14:39[Updating this original post—from March 1, 2015—on Nov. 20, 2022: Greg Bear is dead at 71.] Science fiction writer Greg Bear in a 1994 interview with me on WNUA-FM, Chicago, on the future of the Internet: “It’s going to be a huge intellectual telephone line, with graphics and library materials, all available at a few minutes’ notice. That, I think, will be revolutionary. ... We have a lot of people from the entertainment industries thinking it’s going to be a lot of the same old, same old ...
Why I should never sing in public
June 11, 2022 18:31Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky was kind enough to invite me on his show this week—we talked Wednesday, the podcast was published Saturday—to answer questions about how and why I do what I do for Chicago Public Square. I was honored along the way to express my admiration for columnists Neil Steinberg and Robert Feder, Reader critic Jack Helbig, The Onion, WXRT-FM News pioneers C.D. Jaco and Linda Brill, Square reader Angela Mullins, radio DJs Bob Stroud and Marty Lennartz, my college...
1995: Peter David, Chris Claremont and Gary Colabuono discuss the comic book industry’s flirtation with disaster
June 01, 2022 23:17[It’s been a while since we dove into the archives. But now that hour’s come round at last—again.] In 1995, the comic book industry was approaching what later became known as “the Great Comics Crash of 1996”—triggered in part by Marvel Comics’ 1994 purchase of the business’ third-largest distributor, converting it to distribute Marvel’s stuff exclusively. So that was a significant topic June 30, 1995, when I sat down at WNUA-FM in Chicago—just ahead of the 20th annual Chicago Comicon*—wit...
Ex-Chicago Tribune editor James Squires warned in 1993 about the corporate takeover of America’s newspapers
August 25, 2021 00:40Back in 1993, a former editor of the Chicago Tribune sounded an alarm about the growing conflict between the drive for corporate profits and traditional journalism’s social-reform agenda. That was close to six years before I joined the Trib and close to two decades before that trend inexorably led to a gutting of the paper’s staff. As the paper welcomes a new editor, now seems like a good time to revisit the words of Jim Squires, talking about his book Read All About It! The Corporate Tak...
WTTW’s new stars navigate changing news landscape
August 10, 2021 21:01Odds are good you didn’t know their names a decade ago, when one of them was just breaking into Chicago radio news and another was barely removed from an internship at Chicago’s public TV station. And now they’re two of the city’s most influential journalists. In another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks, WTTW News’ multiple award-winning reporters and Chicago Tonight co-anchors, Brandis Friedman and Paris Schutz, talk about their careers, the cha...
Block Club Chicago’s origin story
July 27, 2021 02:11When a billionaire yanked the plug on a pioneering Chicago digital news site, putting a large team of local reporters out of work, some of them banded together to start another digital news site—for themselves, and for the people of the city. Block Club Chicago editor-in-chief Shamus Toomey joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks. Listen on YouTube, in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify...
Music journalist Jim DeRogatis: ‘Every system in this city failed … to protect these young black girls’
July 21, 2021 01:27You could trace the evolution of the news business through Jim DeRogatis’ career arc over the last 35 years—as he’s moved from print to broadcast to online and podcasting, and from employer-supported to audience-funded journalism. And along the way, he broke one of the biggest stories in music history. He joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks—to discuss his life, how he broke the R. Kelly scandal, and the state...
After a lifetime at the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn and Steve Johnson are leaving. What’s next?
June 29, 2021 00:04Columnist Eric Zorn started at the Tribune in 1980; cultural critic Steve Johnson started six years later. Now, they’re among the more than three dozen editorial staffers who’ve left—taking buyouts offered under the Trib’s new ownership. They join hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks. Listen here, or on YouTube, in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered s...
Pulitzer winner Jamie Kalven on the news business: ‘I see no reason to despair’
June 22, 2021 00:52Jamie Kalven—journalist, human rights activist and founder of one of Chicago’s newest Pulitzer Prize winners, the Invisible Institute—says he has “deep sympathy for those who wagered their lives and their careers on the stability of legacy media,” but he says “some of the new forms that are evolving … may actually ultimately produce a healthier diet for consumers of the news.” He joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podc...
A ‘mouthy black lesbian feminist’ is one of Chicago’s most influential media leaders
June 15, 2021 01:59Karen Hawkins—self-described “mouthy black lesbian feminist over 40” and “recovering mainstream media reporter and editor”—is doing a terrible job of recovering: She’s now co-publisher of the Chicago Reader, the founder of Rebellious Magazine, and a leader of the upstart Chicago Independent Media Alliance. She joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson to survey the 21st-century media landscape for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks. L...
Did Mayor Lightfoot make things better for journalists of color?
June 08, 2021 02:28Pulliam Professor of Journalism at DePauw University and former Sun-Times editor and columnist Deborah Douglas joins host Charlie Meyerson and co-host Sheila Solomon to launch the new Chicago Media Talks podcast—a joint production of Chicago Public Square and Rivet360—with a discussion of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to limit her anniversary interviews to journalists of color. Listen here, on your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speaker...
Who was Stan Lee? Two biographers discuss his life and legacy.
February 10, 2021 21:13Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee so inspired a generation of readers and writers, a multiplicity of biographies was inevitable after his death in 2018. On the occasion of the publication of Oak Park, Ill., native Abraham Riesman’s entry, True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, the Chicago Public Square Podcast invited Riesman and A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee author Danny Fingeroth to join a conversation about Lee’s life and legacy. Listen here, on your favorite podcast ...
Email pioneer Aaron Barnhart interviewed in 1996
February 08, 2021 22:59Of all the interviews I’ve conducted, none have influenced my career more than this 1996 sit-down with Aaron Barnhart, whose Late Show News newsletter pioneered the email news biz. Listen to us discuss his model for how, in my words, “a lot of us in this profession will … do our work in the future” and you’ll hear the siren call that two years later would draw me from radio to the internet—and, not much later, to lead the Chicago Tribune’s email program. Decades later, Barnhart’s work insp...
Chicago 7 lawyer William Kunstler in 1994: That trial ‘changed me totally’
October 16, 2020 21:43Prepping to watch The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix, I revisited my Sept. 16, 1994, interview with The 7’s defense lawyer, William Kunstler, who told me then that the trial “changed me totally. … “I never knew what it was to really fight until I watched Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Hayden and so on fight in a courtroom—do things that would make the jury understand that they were being persecuted: Bringing in a birthday cake for Bobby Seale, a Viet Cong flag on their tabl...
Chicago 7 lawyer William Kunstler in 1994: That trial ‘changed me totally'
October 16, 2020 21:43Prepping to watch The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix, I revisited my Sept. 16, 1994, interview with The 7’s defense lawyer, William Kunstler, who told me then that the trial “changed me totally. … “I never knew what it was to really fight until I watched Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Hayden and so on fight in a courtroom—do things that would make the jury understand that they were being persecuted: Bringing in a birthday cake for Bobby Seale, a Viet Cong flag on their tabl...
Charlie Meyerson interviewed … about Charlie Meyerson
September 06, 2020 17:59This hasn’t happened much in my career, most of which I’ve devoted to profiling people far more interesting than I am. But, twice in less than two weeks, I was honored to be interviewed about journalism, politics, radio, the origins of Chicago Public Square and my personal journey: On Friday, I was a guest on Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky’s podcast—and that was just seven days after Matt Baron had grilled me for the Common Ground Oak Park podcast. So here, in the Charlie Meyerson...
Barack Obama's 1st biographer, David Mendell: Michelle didn't care for the book
November 22, 2019 21:23He’s Barack Obama’s first biographer. But journalist David Mendell doesn’t expect his award-winning 2007 book, Obama: From Promise to Power, to land a spot in Obama’s presidential library. Mendell and I were colleagues at the Chicago Tribune through much of the 2000s, but we barely exchanged hellos back then because he was so busy covering Obama’s rise to the U.S. Senate. So I learned a lot—including just how hard Obama worked to conceal his smoking habit—as Mendell and I finally got to cat...
'Star Trek' creator Gene Roddenberry in 1974 and 1976
November 07, 2019 06:01You’d think if you’d met the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, in the flesh you’d remember it. Especially if he told you the real reason he made Mr. Spock look a little … devilish (about 32:17 in). Well, I did meet him, and he told me that—and I confess that I forgot all about it. Only when a longtime friend and neighbor lent me a vintage reel-to-reel tape player and I opened a long-filed-away box labeled “Gene Roddenberry” did I recall that I was actually in a studio with Roddenberr...
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1974 and 1976
November 07, 2019 06:01You’d think if you’d met the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, in the flesh you’d remember it. Especially if he told you the real reason he made Mr. Spock look a little … devilish (about 32:17 in). Well, I did meet him, and he told me that—and I confess that I forgot all about it. Only when a longtime friend and neighbor lent me a vintage reel-to-reel tape player and I opened a long-filed-away box labeled “Gene Roddenberry” did I recall that I was actually in a studio with Roddenberr...
1988: Chaos in the Chicago City Council
September 05, 2019 22:28This week’s transformative Chicago City Council development—the historic livestream video presentation of a committee meeting—brings to mind a time when the council was maddeningly tough to follow. In 1988, I was a newbie City Hall reporter for WXRT-FM. It was an assignment I relished not—partly because the council’s procedures were bewilderingly opaque and byzantine. But I channeled my journalistic frustration into creation of a series that won a nationwide United Press International award...
Journalists Lois Wille and Linda Lutton discuss Chicago's urban development in 1997
July 23, 2019 18:17The death Tuesday of Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago journalist Lois Wille—a veteran of the Tribune, the Sun-Times and the Daily News—brings to mind a memorable 1997 interview with her and journalist Linda Lutton. You can hear them debate urban housing trends that were remaking Chicago then and, more than two decades later, are shaping it still. Here’s how it sounded—as aired June 22, 1997, on WNUA-FM, Chicago. More conversations with thought-leaders through the years on this website, in Ap...
How to get your story on the air in Chicago
June 24, 2019 18:30Do you have a story, an issue, a company or a person you’d like to bring to the attention of Chicago radio and TV newsrooms? Stand by for news you can use. Ava Martin, Stephanie Tichenor, Justin Kaufmann, Stacey Baca, Charlie Meyerson (Photo: Maggie O'Keefe.) The Publicity Club of Chicago, once again taking advantage of my offer to moderate for food, invited me to preside over a panel of Chicago broadcasters gathered to explain just how to get on their radar—and why you’d care about aging ...
Science fiction, Radicalized: An interview with Cory Doctorow
March 24, 2019 22:11Wanna know what terrible technology is headed your way in the years ahead? Journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow says it’s not hard: Take a look at what The Powers That Be are foisting on prisoners and students. Doctorow joined the Chicago Public Square Podcast for half an hour or so to talk about police brutality; controversial high-rise developments and “poor-doors”; the criminalization of copyright law; and his new book, Radicalized—a collection of four science fiction nov...
We were warned in 1997 of 'underground prejudice'
November 18, 2018 19:00In his 1997 book A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America, Pulitzer Prize winner David K. Shipler documented a major split among Americans: "The divide between those who see racism and those who do not." And he sounded an alarm about what many then might not have perceived: "How much prejudice has gone underground since the civil rights movement." Here's my 1997 interview with Shipler, aired 19 years ago today. Sadly, it doesn't sound dated. Related listening: A panel disc...
Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee in 2017: 'Nerdism is the highest state of mankind'
November 13, 2018 04:13(Updated on the occasion of Stan Lee's death, Nov. 12, 2018. Here’s Stan Lee, the man who created or co-created the core Marvel Comics universe, sitting down during C2E2 at age 94 for what his staff said was his last Chicago comics convention appearance. As you’ll hear, he had energy and enthusiasm to betray his age. His interviewers: Adrian F.E. and Paola Alejandra. Recorded at C2E2 Chicago, April 21, 2017. (Photo from that day: @Malcchiato on Twitter.) More: My interview with Stan Lee...
Leon Lederman, science education hacker, in 1997
October 05, 2018 03:14The death of Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman took me back to March 19, 1997, when I interviewed the professor about his then- (and still-) revolutionary ideas on how to overhaul science education. Hear him talk about that—and much more—here … … or on iTunes or via your favorite podcast player. And while you’re at it, check out my other interviews with thought-leaders through the years here and here. (1988 photo: Energy.gov.)
Newspaper editorial boards: Cracking the code
September 17, 2018 23:37How do you get the attention of newspaper editorial boards? How do you get them to see things your way? Are editorials as valuable as they used to be? Every once in a while, the Publicity Club of Chicago takes me up on my motto, “Will Moderate for Food,” and invites me to lead a panel discussion to address important questions like those. And so it was Sept. 12, 2018, as I joined three of the Chicago area’s most influential journalists—Chicago Tribune editorial board member Michael Lev, Sun-...
How Steve James overcame doubt—his and others'—to create 'America to Me'
September 14, 2018 04:21Filmmaker Steve James’s work—including the Oscar-nominated Hoop Dreams and Abacus—has won him critical acclaim galore and goodwill in the town where he lives, Oak Park. But when he set out to create his 10-part documentary series America to Me—about Oak Park, its historic commitment to integration and its high school’s challenges in living up to a reputation for inclusiveness—he had his doubts. Hear all about that—and catch up with two of the students spotlighted by this celebrated Starz se...
Food Network star Jeff Mauro talks about that time a guy in the audience died
May 18, 2018 19:13Something different for the Chicago Public Square Newscast (and Podcast) series this time: A visit with Food Network star and Chicago native Jeff Mauro. He joined the Wednesday Journal Conversations series May 15, 2018, to talk about his life and times—including that time he was performing improv comedy and a ticketholder died. And stick around to hear in detail about Mauro’s bathing habits. (Photo: Carmen Rivera.) Listen here, on your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, o...
Anna Quindlen, talking out loud in 1993
May 05, 2018 17:55Approaching Mother’s Day 1993, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Anna Quindlen—who shaped a generation’s approach to parenthood—stopped by the WNUA-FM studios in Chicago to promote her then-new book, Thinking Out Loud. Check out this audio—recorded May 5, 1993—to learn why she objected to the name of a Chicago Tribune newspaper section. Listen to my interview with Anna Quindlen—on the web, iTunes or your favorite podcast player. (Book jacket cover photo: Joyce Ravid,)
Trump’s precursor? An interview with Pat Buchanan in 1998
May 03, 2018 16:25In many ways, two-time presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan—former adviser to three Republican presidents (Nixon, Ford and Reagan)—set the stage for Donald Trump’s ascendance. When Buchanan made 2016’s “Politico 50,” the magazine pronounced Trump “Pat Buchanan with better timing.” How similar are they? Here’s the unheard-since-broadcast audio of my interview with Buchanan, aired on this date in 1998. What similarities—and differences—do you hear? Listen on the web, iTunes or your favori...
Trump's precursor? An interview with Pat Buchanan in 1998
May 03, 2018 16:25In many ways, two-time presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan—former adviser to three Republican presidents (Nixon, Ford and Reagan)—set the stage for Donald Trump’s ascendance. When Buchanan made 2016’s “Politico 50,” the magazine pronounced Trump “Pat Buchanan with better timing.” How similar are they? Here’s 20-year-old, unheard-since-broadcast audio of my interview with Buchanan, aired on this date in 1998. What similarities—and differences—do you hear? Listen on the web, iTunes or yo...
From 1998: The man who REALLY saved Apple
April 27, 2018 22:31In 1998, Apple’s now-widely-forgotten CEO, Gil Amelio, sat down with me to discuss his relatively brief time atop what was then a struggling company—the subject of his book On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple. As you’ll hear—and as Engadget noted in 2014—Amelio proved remarkably “accurate … regarding how Apple could get its groove back.” In at least one way—his decision to bring Apple founder Steve Jobs back to the company—Amelio may truly be the man who saved Apple. Twenty years ...
National Lampoon's origins, recalled by founding publisher Matty Simmons in 1987
January 28, 2018 06:03Netflix’s comedic biography of National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, sent me back to my conversation decades ago with one of the story’s key figures, who shared his recollection of developments that made their way into the movie. If you enjoyed A Futile and Stupid Gesture, you’ll get a kick out of this unedited April 30, 1987, interview with the Lampoon’s founding publisher, Matty Simmons. Enjoy this? Get more on iTunes or via RSS feed.
In 1998, a look to the future of working women
January 25, 2018 17:14From the perspective of the Women’s March and #MeToo era of 2018, a 20-year-old book that set out to examine “working women and the transformation of American life” offers insight into trends decades in the making. Here’s my 1998 interview with author Sally Helgesen, who, over the course of three years, put a microscope to women in the Chicago suburb of Naperville—and found dramatic changes, which she documented in her book Everyday Revolutionaries. One excerpt, as she discussed two-caree...
How the Fantastic Four radio series disappointed Stan Lee in 1975
December 28, 2017 20:211975: I was just beginning my radio career at college station WPGU-FM, hosting an investigative mini-documentary radio series, Probe. What would be more natural to “investigate” than my passion for comic books—with what became the first of several interviews over my career with Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee? Presented here far more for the value of Lee’s remarks—including his disappointment in the then-new Fantastic Four radio series and his enthusiasm for Howard the Duck—than for my o...
The time I interviewed 'Chickenman' creator Dick Orkin in 1976
December 26, 2017 20:52Radio production, comedy and advertising visionary Dick Orkin’s death Sunday sent me back into the archives—waaaay back in the archives—to my days learning radio at my college station, WPGU. (Image: 2016 Radio Ink cover.) Aired Feb. 2, 1976, here’s my journalist-in-training report from the time I interviewed Dick Orkin, a man whose creation of the hilarious serial Chickenman led me to love—and seek a career in—radio.
The time I interviewed ‘Chickenman’ creator Dick Orkin in 1976
December 26, 2017 20:52Radio production, comedy and advertising visionary Dick Orkin’s death Sunday sent me back into the archives—waaaay back in the archives—to my days learning radio at my college station, WPGU. (Image: 2016 Radio Ink cover.) Aired Feb. 2, 1976, here’s my journalist-in-training report from the time I interviewed Dick Orkin, a man whose creation of the hilarious serial Chickenman led me to love—and seek a career in—radio.
David Simon—before 'The Wire,' in 1997
November 30, 2017 21:48Twenty years ago, journalist David Simon, author of the book that inspired the TV show Homicide—and later the creator of HBO’s acclaimed The Wire, among many others—joined me for a discussion of the then-new book he’d co-authored, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Simon’s time spent on an urban corner in Baltimore had persuaded him then that the war on drugs was a failure—that the concept of “lockin’ ’em up” was a losing battle that served only to further isol...
David Simon—before The Wire in 1997
November 30, 2017 21:48Twenty years ago, journalist David Simon, author of the book that inspired the TV show Homicide—and later the creator of HBO’s acclaimed The Wire, among many others—joined me for a discussion of the then-new book he’d co-authored, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Simon’s time spent on an urban corner in Baltimore had persuaded him then that the war on drugs was a failure—that the concept of “lockin’ ’em up” was a losing battle that served only to further isol...
'Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me!' host Peter Sagal tells his not-favorite things
November 26, 2017 23:55Let Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s incredibly successful Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, tell you this: He hates the show’s name. He also hates the place where he creates that show. You’ll learn why as you listen to a podcast of my onstage interview with Sagal—part of the Wednesday Journal Conversations series—in which he talks about the show, his career, the Constitution under Donald Trump, the challenge sexual harassment poses to comedy writing, the differences between announcers Bill Kurtis and...
‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!’ host Peter Sagal tells his not-favorite things
November 26, 2017 23:55Let Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s incredibly successful Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, tell you this: He hates the show’s name. He also hates the place where he creates that show. You’ll learn why as you listen to a podcast of my onstage interview with Sagal—part of the Wednesday Journal Conversations series—in which he talks about the show, his career, the Constitution under Donald Trump, the challenge sexual harassment poses to comedy writing, the differences between announcers Bill Kurtis and...
Turning a live event into a podcast: A case study
September 10, 2017 21:03Last week, I interviewed my former neighbor, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, on stage. A sellout crowd of 1,000 people paid to see it, and many more told me they wished they’d been there. So I made arrangements to turn it into a podcast. Photo: Alexa Rogals, Wednesday Journal Our hosts at Dominican University, which recorded the event, shared the audio with me. In broad outline, here’s what happened next: I opened the audio in the free Audacity audio-editing software. I edited the a...
David Axelrod: From Oak Park to the White House
September 09, 2017 20:23When President Obama’s former chief strategist—now University of Chicago Institute of Politics founder and CNN senior political commentator—David Axelrod agreed to return to his old suburban neighborhood to kick off the Wednesday Journal newspaper’s series of public conversations at Dominican University, I was honored by the request to moderate the session with my long-ago neighbor and teammate at Chicago’s WXRT-FM. It was an enlightening and—by the account of Axelrod’s fans in the audienc...
If your school kills your student newspaper—or you’re laid off—you can keep going. Cheap.
April 25, 2017 23:46[Headline revised July 15, 2020, to include “or you’re laid off.” Because, well, you know.] If you were asked to lecture 600 high school journalists and their teachers on the state of journalism, what would you tell them? When the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association (NISPA) invited me to deliver the keynote address at its annual conference, we agreed to title the talk “Journalism on a (Really Cheap) Shoestring.” But the underlying message was more subversive: If your school kill...
If your school kills your student newspaper—or you're laid off—you can keep going. Cheap.
April 25, 2017 23:46[Headline revised July 15, 2020, to include “or you’re laid off.” Because, well, you know.] If you were asked to lecture 600 high school journalists and their teachers on the state of journalism, what would you tell them? When the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association (NISPA) invited me to deliver the keynote address at its annual conference, we agreed to title the talk “Journalism on a (Really Cheap) Shoestring.” But the underlying message was more subversive: If your school kill...
Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee in 2017: ‘Nerdism is the highest state of mankind’
April 23, 2017 03:13(Updated on the occasion of Stan Lee's death, Nov. 12, 2018.) Here’s Stan Lee, the man who created or co-created the core Marvel Comics universe, sitting down during C2E2 at age 94 for what his staff said was his last Chicago comics convention appearance. As you’ll hear, he had energy and enthusiasm to betray his age. His interviewers: Adrian F.E. and Paola Alejandra. Recorded at C2E2 Chicago, April 21, 2017. (Photo from that day: @Malcchiato on Twitter.) More: My interview with Stan Le...
The gang that used to rule cyberspace: A 1993 interview
January 14, 2017 19:19As digital lawlessness holds center stage in the national political drama, doesn’t this seem like a good time to revisit the first generation of internet outlaws? So let’s set the WABAC machine for Feb. 5, 1995, original airdate for my interview with Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner — authors of the seminal hacking story Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace. (Quittner, by the way, also holds the historic distinction of being the person who first bought the domain McDona...
Stan Lee interviewed in 1998 (raw audio)
December 28, 2016 20:17It’s a tradition on the birthday of Marvel Comics’ fearless leader, Stan Lee, for me to revisit one of my favorite encounters with him: A July 18, 1998 sitdown at the Wizard World pop-culture convention in Rosemont, Ill. This time, though, something different: Raw, unedited (stereo; he’s in the right channel, I’m in the left) audio of the session we recorded—followed by the sound of one of my Merry Marvel Marching Society membership perks, a record featuring Stan and many of the old Marvel B...