My Interview with "Gonzo" Director Alex Gibney Airs Nov. 24th on KCSB-FM

On this week’s edition of "The Freak Power Ticket" (Monday, 11am-noon PST, on KCSB 91.9 FM [kcsb.org]): my interview with Alex Gibney, the Academy Award-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side -- about the US’s post-9/11 torture policies -- and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. We discuss the 2008 documentary, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Gibney's biography of the celebrated journalist (and patron saint of my blogs and radio show). Gonzo was just released on DVD by Magnolia Home Entertainment. (To access my conversation with Gibney, click here.)

Monday’s complete broadcast also features further excerpts from a recorded dramatization of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” snippets from “The Gonzo Tapes” CD box set, readings from Thompson’s works, selections of music, and more in the way of audio séance magic.

My CHICAGO 10 "Freak Power Ticket" Radio Special

Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 is an unique cinematic mashup: one part deadly-serious political documentary, another part trippy and iconoclastic animated docudrama. Throw in an anachronistic soundtrack -- ranging from symphonic movie music to Rage Against the Machine, Billy Preston to Eminem, Black Sabbath to the Beastie Boys -- and you’d think the filmmakers would have had a hit on their hands on the college/midnight movie circuit. But for various reasons an Opening-Night Premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival didn’t translate into theatrical success: the film largely came and went upon its release in the spring of 2008.

The DVD market gives some quality movies a second life, however. Perhaps the late-August release of Chicago 10 on video will help it find new audiences around the country. What’s more, Chicago 10 is scheduled for a free-TV debut on PBS’s Independent Lens documentary series this October 22nd. Its story revisits the events surrounding the Democratic National Convention of 1968 in Chicago -- a site of mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War and violence caused by police and state officials -- and the subsequent trial of 8 dissident organizers on charges of conspiracy to incite riot across state lines and violations of the 1968 anti-riot act.

George A. Romero and Me

Back in mid-February, I conducted an interview with legendary horror-film creator George A. Romero, on my KCSB 91.9 FM radio show, "The Freak Power Ticket," discussing the 40 years of zombie cinema that he pioneered. This year, Romero's movie, "Diary of the Dead" (his fifth "Living Dead" work), received a select theatrical release, and it is now available as part of The Weinstein Company's Dimension Extreme line of DVDs. 2008 also marks the 40th anniversary of Romero's first feature, the all-time classic, "Night of the Living Dead." Our conversation focuses on the topicality and impact of Romero's works. Tune in here.

I've been obsessed with Romero since, ...oh, I don't know, I was about 14 or so. I remember hearing about "Dawn of the Dead" during the long nighttime drive back from a "field" trip that my Babe Ruth League baseball team (the Cardinals of East Sacramento) took to Marriott's Great America in Santa Clara, California: an older kid in the van described that crazy movie in some detail, and I was from that very moment dying to see it. I finally got a chance a year or 2 later with my brother and his then-girlfriend at a packed & rowdy midnight screening at Sacramento's now-defunct Capitol Theater. It definitely changed my life. Have seen it dozens of times since, and I also went on to watch all of his Dead flicks repeatedly. I even got to meet the man in person at an industry preview screening of "Land of the Dead" in 2005 in Los Angeles (for more on that encounter, read this and this). His studio handlers wouldn't let him do any interviews at that point, though, so I guess you can say I've been chasing this one for a few years (25+ years, perhaps?). Romero's a big fish, clearly. My white whale, maybe?

It was a real pleasure being such a big fanboy with him (off mic) and getting to gush appreciatively about his influence on me, at the end of the interview. Sorry I didn't share that moment with you in the recording I posted online. But the rest is worth it too, I believe. Here's hoping you enjoy listening to it half as much as I loved the chance to do it!