 The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad pathetic humps. Welcome to the broadcast. I'm David Feldman, DavidFeldmanShow.com. Please friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and I'm starstruck today. David Itzkoff, the cultural reporter for The New York Times. A cultural reporter for The New York Times is with us. David Itzkoff has written a book about Patti Chayefsky. He's currently writing a book about Robin Williams and he covers culture. Please welcome to our show, David Itzkoff. How you doing? Thank you for doing this and I am just honored to have you here today. I want to talk about Robin and Patti Chayefsky and Stephen Colbert and the role of satire and culture in our culture. Trump, as we're taping, went over to The New York Times today, said he's not going to lock Hillary up. He says he loves The New York Times. He said that he would probably live 20 years longer if he didn't read The New York Times. He said he's not going to tear up the Paris climate treaty and up until I read the tweets coming out of The New York Times today, I hated the man and all of a sudden I'm falling in love with my abuser. When did you start writing for The New York Times? Stephen Colbert Let's see. I started freelancing for them probably around 2002, 2003 and then I became a full-time reporter in 2008. Tom Hanks You worked for Men's Magazines Maxim before that? Stephen Colbert Yes. Not proud of it but it is where I got my start so everybody's got to start somewhere. Tom Hanks You don't speak for The New York Times and I'm not interviewing The New York Times and I don't want to put you in an awkward position. Other than, if anybody who listens to this show knows that I am constantly singing the praises of The New York Times because it is an ongoing academic institution and it is constantly being attacked and I'm sick of it. Stephen Colbert Thank you. Tom Hanks From your lips to God's ears. Stephen Colbert So let's move on beyond The New York Times which I consider if we lose The New York Times we've lost the Republic. You cover the culture. When as somebody who works in the cult, I work in the culture right now I'm working for a Triumphian Socomic Dog and that kind of stuff. Tom Hanks Were you part of that contingent that went to the tower today? Stephen Colbert Yes I was. Tom Hanks Oh well that's- Stephen Colbert How do you know everything? Tom Hanks Were you there? Tom Hanks No. No I heard about it though. This is what I'm supposed to be up on aware of but that's your story to tell. I don't want to take it away from you. I went to see Cafe Society the new Woody Allen movie and I loved it and somebody who I took said it's irrelevant to what's going on and to me it was a great departure from what's going on. How do you determine what is relevant in our culture and what isn't? Tom Hanks I don't think it's for me to determine per se. I think I'm fortunate that I have an opportunity where I can respond to things that just kind of you know send my antenna up if I see something out in the world that either is of interest to me or that I think has some relevance or bearing. I can sort of put my hand up to my editors or my colleagues and say hey I think I see a story here and often I'm given the license to pursue that and sometimes that can take a fairly mundane shape of you know here's a personality who we think is interesting or has something coming up that people are going to pay attention to so here's a story about that person or here's a story about that project and sometimes it is really determined by things that are literally happening right in front of our face and I wasn't part of for example the team that covered everything that was happening at Hamilton this past weekend but that was a story that dictated itself that you have you know vice president elected the United States going to a Broadway show that would have been one layer of a story then there's a you know a strong audience reaction that he receives that's another layer to it. The cast of the show addresses him directly while that elevates it even further. The president elected the United States then responds to the fact that the cast members address the vice president elect then it becomes you know another layer so that's I mean that's the most obvious example something is actually happening in the world or in the country that is sort of saying well here is a collision of culture and politics and here is an event that really says something about what's going on in our country right this very moment. Some people would say that Hamilton is a distraction what happened with Mike Pence was a distraction and not worthy of coverage what do you say to that I'll give you an example Norman Ornstein from AEI the American Enterprise Institute he is a he's now their resident liberal and he tweeted out this attack against the New York Times about your coverage of Hamilton that it's a sideshow it's a distraction I tweeted back to Norm anybody who works at the American Enterprise Institute should keep his mouth shut vis a vis the New York Times and I was surprised at the number of people who came to Norm Ornstein's defense because they see he's verified and on Twitter and he's from the American Enterprise Institute and he's I guess become a liberal but they don't know what the American Enterprise Institute is right but I'll get to that in a second what what do you think of people who say cult the culture distracts from the real real problems with the Trump administration well I you know I understand where that criticism is coming from particularly in a moment where I think it just seems so unclear uncertain so sort of nebulous to people well what is a Trump administration even going to be and so people might like maybe more tangible things like tell us who your secretary of state is going to be that's going to give us a very clear indicator of what it's going to be like to live with you as our president but I think this whole incident of their set of circumstances also tells us what it's going to be like to live with him as a president when on the one hand the president elect is somehow seems to be demonstrating a fence that you know members of a Broadway company would speak directly to the vice president elect in the audience that night as is their right to do so we would all believe under our First Amendment rights and that the vice president elect by putting himself in the audience of a Broadway theater is likely going to attract some attention that way especially at a what is still a very polarized time for everyone all that should be expected and even so the way that we see Trump reacting to a moment like that is telling the way that I thought the cast handled the moment is also very telling and then even for Mike Pence a day or two later to say you know I mean he explained that he told his kids I think his daughter and a friend of the daughter that to that you know he's a plan to them that's what freedom sounds like and that is very telling even compared to how Trump reacted to it that we we seem to think we should have the right to address even our vice president and president be able to tell them things and that is ideally what art is supposed to do that it is supposed to communicate these ideas to people and Hamilton does it in ways that often are a little more subtle just by virtue of having you know are racially and ethnically diverse cast playing people who are all historically white men it does that through songs and numbers that are specifically about you know celebrating what immigrants have contributed to American society but also on this particular night they took the opportunity to speak directly to an elected official I mean really just talking straight to him in a way that the whole audience and you could hear yeah I believe it was the guy who played Burr is that correct I believe so or and Burr was a vice president so it was a an African American pretending to be a vice president and we had a he was addressing a vice president pretending to be a Christian right but I mean the larger point is you know took me took me a somewhat roundabout way to get to it but that I mean culture is a kind of a crucible to see how ideas are being received to see what a society is open to and can tolerate and I think there was I would say perhaps a little bit of some some fear some consternation that that Trump even tried to characterize this as you know Mike Pence was being harassed by either audience members or the cast or that it was somehow inappropriate and he was even asking audience member or rather the cast member to apologize for doing this and and Mike Pence even a couple days later saying no no it's not anything he has to apologize for and and so right right away I mean you see just in this sort of cultural event I mean you see first of all a cast how they feel you know about our president and vice president elect and perhaps two very differing points of view from the two highest elected officials in our country about well how are they going to feel about issues of free speech and how the culture reflects that so it is extremely telling I think Mr. Pence will miss all this attention come January 21st I think he's going to become as all vice presidents and in the attending funeral business yeah Donald Trump is a consumer of our culture our core creator of our course culture the apprentice how how course was the apprentice I don't you know honestly I don't think it was that that course I mean I think it's sort of it came up at a time when just reality TV in general was very much in vogue that that's certainly at least on the broadcast network that's kind of fallen away all you've got you've got you know survivor shark tank couple others but that was a huge craze and you watch these reality shows not as much as I used to but I will say I was a huge fan of the apprentice and celebrity apprentice in their heyday of course you know never knowing exactly that this was the outcome it was going to lead to or that this was sort of a you know maybe a trial balloon for him to eventually become a politician it wasn't that course of a show it was a strange it just a strange avenue are you watching this as a student of our culture are you being sucked into it I think I do it pretty voluntarily I think I have enough latitude more or less to watch things that either I genuinely enjoy or that I at least find interesting or feel like they have a kind of a dangling thread that I can pull on as it happened I mean I wrote back in the day I wrote a story when you know when the apprentice was on the air and they were making this transition they used to have Trump used to have these two other advisors with him on the show they kind of phase them out and they started bringing in Donald Jr. and Ivanka to be his sort of you know co-advisors on this reality show so I wrote a story spoke to Trump spoke to Don Jr. spoke to Ivanka again not knowing where this is all going but I think if you were to look back at that story you would see I mean their personalities I think have carried forward intact the people that they were then are still very much the people that they are today we're talking with David it's coffee's the not the a cultural reporter for the New York Times I you know my mother will say David writes the triumph in something I'm one of the writers on it just but I so I understand but it's not the same thing triumph is much more worthy your source is culture the canary in the coal mine covering culture is aren't you the the canary in the coal mine in that it reveals the atmosphere but doesn't necessarily change it do you believe that our culture really moves the needle anywhere you're I know you're a big fan of Steve Colbert I don't think there's anybody who isn't but is he moving the needle that is new york is is the is saturday night live moving the needle it's a I think it's a really good question and I might have given you a different answer even two or three weeks ago if we were speaking before the election it might have felt to me like you know the late night shows have become a kind of not only an expression of you know what people are feeling but maybe even a way of informing people or you know getting you know a way of sort of channeling dissent that can't come out in other places but I think we can pretty plainly see I mean none of these shows or even the sort of the accumulation of those shows whether it's you know you mentioned Colbert and saturday night live and you can add in Samantha Bee and Seth Meyers and any number of these hosts and shows that you know we're pretty vehemently uh I don't want to say anti-trump but that they you know these they hammered him pretty hard satirically throughout the campaign they you're they didn't move the needle they certainly did not achieve the result of getting Hillary Clinton or anybody else but him elected president so it does certainly makes you wonder uh you know what what can these shows do or what I mean what can they can they do anything to really uh you know push things forward or are they just creating a kind of uh a very you know pleasant and entertaining echo chamber for the people who are tuning in just to hear back distill to them uh a version of what they already think and there may be value to that I think there is I as a liberal progressive I've done some comedy shows since trump won and I found it a bomb BALM to be around like-minded people are is there a conservative culture in our society or is it just corporate like if you were if you were working in Los Angeles you'd be focused I guess more on a a global scale as opposed to New York City which is more of a university I think New York is we want to believe right you'd be limited to just the earth as opposed to the entire universe with the New York Times and I mean that uh so on a global scale there there really isn't conservative culture there's corporate culture well I think I mean conservatives have their you know they there are conservative cultural expressions as much as there are liberal ones but they haven't they certainly haven't manifest as much in let's say you know late night talk shows and I think I think you've seen why is that I think for any number of reasons but I think late night for one thing is just a kind of a self-propelling engine and that either I mean there used to only be one institution and then there were two and then there was a kind of multiplicity of them but the way that people were chosen to host the shows they had to come out of a very specific kind of tradition and often you know many of them came from Saturday Night Live which at least is perceived to have a kind of left-wing bent and you know produces a lot of liberal comedians and you know I think we also had we may we may be seeing the the pendulum swinging differently but we had pretty lengthy period you know pre-Obama we had the long years of the Bush administration and a lot of comedic dissent was born out of it that's what gave rise I think to the sort of certainly the heyday of the Daily Show and John Stewart's you know peak years there and that you know Stewart then begat Stephen Colbert and his show and you know I mean Colbert in a way was sort of perfectly positioned to take advantage of the Obama years because by sort of turning the premise on its head by playing at the role of you know a kind of fake conservative commentator he was better equipped to sort of deal with years where maybe the viewer is actually sort of happier about who's in office and the only way you can satirize it is through the voice of someone who's pretending to dislike what an Obama administration is doing it's that's sort of the only way you can characterize it or make comedy out of it now that that era is over it's going to be very interesting I wish I could use a more sort of descriptive or interesting say interesting myself but I wish I could use a more specific additive in that my sense is that the hosts of these shows are still a little bit at a loss a little bit lost in the weeds to try to figure out well what is their next step well the next step they're going to be afraid to take and they can't take it and the next step is to attack corporate America it's to attack Exxon Mobil and expose the lies that they've known for 30 years and knew that they were I mean Exxon Mobil the Rockefeller family just invested themselves from Exxon Mobil which is really standard oil their fortune right because they now have incontrovertible evidence that 40 years ago the top climate scientists were working over at Exxon Mobil and knew that Exxon Mobil was destroying the planet and the planet's being destroyed in order to do the right kind of satire we have to move I think beyond political satire and do corporate satire which really is not going to happen in America well I think it's unlikely to happen on television because there's really no way you can participate either in you know broadcast TV cable TV or even streaming TV without having some kind of corporate affiliation yourself that you know if you're on you know NBC your CBS or ABC you're part of a corporation so at what point do the late night talk show hosts become enemies of the republic because I'm being serious I think it's a fair I mean I'm sort of absurd whistling past the graveyard as you asked that because I think that's uh at what point it's a real concern because what that what what I noticed writing for late night television writing these jokes is we make fools out of politicians and thereby make fools out of us for voting that they're all idiots they're all morons and we diminish the only safeguard we have against fascism and that is Washington DC there's been that since Reagan took office there's been this onslaught this attack on Washington DC and making fun of politicians trivializes our democracy so haven't we really been carrying the water I'm talking we being me writing for late night television haven't we been carrying the water for our corporate paymasters by trivializing politicians I mean I don't mean to take it out on you personally but I think that's a question that can be fairly asked sort of you know post post election I think we all you know I'm as guilty as anybody I certainly enjoyed watching these shows and got a lot of good laughs out of them and you know felt like okay you know they're they're really they're really taking it to to trump that's entertaining but there is it I think it is fair to ask you know did they not only did they all sort of point themselves at the same target at the same time but what they were really attacking was uh a personality and not really uh any sense of uh you know what uh his policy might be there was never the the onion was never sliced any thinner than you know here's who we see at a kind of surface level now when you mention the onion I don't mean the bow I'm gonna say the onion is an example of great political satire and white people who want to practice it should go away unless you know the onion is the gold standard of political satire John Oliver I think brings to HBO corporate satire I think this is the next step I think that there may be some truth in that I think part of what people found so satisfying about his show is that they made a very conscious choice most nights or you know the one night a week that they're on to try to avoid the uh the US presidential election as much as possible and to surface other issues that are you know relevant to American life and where they see hypocrisy and certainly where they where they see issues that they want people to be aware of and found ways to talk about them in a humorous way make it a little bit more digestible for a Sunday night audience but it wasn't they couldn't totally avoid this but it wasn't a kind of weekly you know uh bonfire of the vanities of of Donald Trump at a certain point even they could not fully get away from that but they certainly turned audiences on to many more topics and and did so in a fairly uh journalistically thorough well I mean they're they're very open about the fact that they're writing the coattails of the people who have actually done the legwork and the reporting but they always want their jokes to be based in truth and to you know conform with what people have already reported and they add the humor and the satire and the can you believe this is actually happening element that strictly speaking an objective journalist kind of can't step out and editorialize in that way did the media drop the ball I don't think so I think the the networks might have but if you were paying attention there were reputable I will not suck up to anybody in this room but there were reputable news organizations that were staying on top of Trump from day one I think there was definitely a lot of high quality information out there I think what we're seeing now is more questions about how people are getting their information how they're consuming it we see clearly a lot of people were taken in by if not outright you know false fake news organizations but just the tendency for people to seek out information that already or what looked like information that reflected the worldview that they already held so getting you know it's it's not only the question or the the ongoing issue is not going to be just about well you know you do a great investigative story you put it out there and the world finds it it's going to be about well how do you put it in front of the people who need to hear it most how do you convince them that this is valid this is truthful and also that it's relevant to your life I wonder if we'll ever know there you know it each at each layer there's kind of a you know a sieve or a filter that's kind of you know partitioning away a part of the audience that needed to hear that and then at the bottom most layer were there people that were hearing it who you still said you know what I don't care I'm still going to vote the way I want to vote that did how much that's you know changed hearts and minds Walter Cronkite talked before he died about internet literacy and nobody paid any attention so this is a day I I get sent stuff from the American Enterprise Institute with dead links when I when I try to engage with conservatives they will send me articles about supply side economics and why trickle down works and I'll go to the website and I'll click on the hyperlinks that take me to their their proof their footnote and it's a dead link right uh at least you're getting it via email and there's a real live human being on the other end of it who is trying to send you something they thought was useful or truthful as opposed to the millions of people who were getting their information throughout the election from Facebook and from feeds that I think were just clogged with bad information that they couldn't distinguish from the good where do you get your information from well I will say I'm pretty dedicated and addicted to Twitter and but that in and of itself is kind of uh you know a self-sustaining feedback loop because it's based on who I follow and I try to follow a diverse uh you know constituency of people not just people who reflect my viewpoints but then you're somewhat dependent on what they tweet or who they retweet and I'm sure I'm guilty of if I see a headline that I don't like I just don't click through it let's talk about Twitter literacy if you don't mind because in the past three weeks since the election everybody's been talking about the fake news out of Macedonia that Google and Facebook couldn't seem to wrap their arms around and strangle and Google and Facebook controls something like 40% of internet advertising they stock you know it's always record prices and they're doing wonderfully meanwhile Twitter is looking for a suitor they're going the way of Yahoo but we have a president who has 14 million followers on Twitter got elected president because of his Twitter feed there are some people who speak of Twitter the same way they speak of the New York Times that's been a new suggestion that that if we lose Twitter we lose the Republic why is Twitter suddenly the sacred institution I don't know if it and it's endangered why could it be more important than Facebook you know it's I don't I don't even spend time on on Facebook so I have my my biases here why not well because Facebook for me is it's first of all way too time consuming there's way too much there's much more I mean this is just a personal choice there's more personal information that you have to give over to the site and I have you know vaguely paranoid concerns about what would happen to that if they turn their back on mainstream journalism during the selection cycle who Facebook yeah I don't know I think I think they thought they were the right thing to do was to take a kind of laissez faire approach and now everybody is a reaping they had hired and I think I don't know who it is Alex but somebody on our show actually had a job helping aggregate real news for Facebook that was a yeah that was I think they went through over the summer where there were concerns or perceptions that they were sort of steering their trending topics too much sort of too far to the left and so the idea was to sort of just do away with that all together as I understand it and let the just let the market dictate just let people's interest drive what was trending and then the problem that they found after that is that mostly what was trending were false stories or stories that you know had major major inaccuracies or totally incorrect premises and so you know I wish it's interesting on an academic level of sort of what happens if you if you introduce a human element to it then of course biases become apparent and if you let the market dictate then bad stuff rises it's fascinating in that way unfortunately it has a pretty huge impact on our lives I'm gonna ask you a stupid question sure and I tell my kids there's no such things as stupid questions just stupid people okay well maybe you're gonna get a stupid answer from a stupid person let's find out journalism the notion of journalism was redefined in America I guess in the 30s right the journalism was kind of like it is now before the 30s where there was no paper of record really it was there were basically partisan rags I think the New York Times kind of set the the tone and then you have the Columbia School of Journalism and we it became something you taught in colleges objectivity became this new idea during the third is that a fair statement that in the 30s we began to believe that reporters could be objective I really I mean I see where you're going and we can definitely get into that I mean I think historically there's all different errors you can look at I think if you looked at the times even in the I'm not gonna ask you to speak for the New York Times but I think if you looked at the times even in the late 1800s early 1900s it'd be kind of surprised and astounded by how it read it was in a way it was much more colloquial than I think there was that meaning that it read the way people talked it sounded like a human voice would have spoken to you I think now I think people understand there was a period and I think we're trying to get away from that somewhat but the tone is meant to be a kind of you know elevated and a little more authoritarial and now I think they might like it to be a little bit more authorial where it might actually sound like you're engaging with a human being and not a kind of a person who's acting like they're you know above it but ultimately it should convey confidence and you as the reader should come away feeling like I was told the truth or something that I can believe occurred whether it's a whatever your source is it whatever perspective it might have and it can have you know a political slant and it can make it apparent but as long as you come away feeling like you were told things that are truthful and that did occur that's that's important and the person on the opposite end who's giving you that should be telling you the truth as they know it they shouldn't be telling you things they shouldn't be telling you that you know a candidate who didn't win the popular vote actually did win the popular vote that's a false I guess my stupid question among many today is do we have a generation of people under the age of 40 who don't know the definition of the word journalism well I think that they would have they would have hugely hugely differing definitions of that among themselves and I think you would probably encounter people who might even believe that a little bit of mischief is somehow permissible in journalism that it's okay I mean I'd be horrified to find this but I bet it's true that there are some people who think that it's okay or that part of journalism might also include writing false stories to you know convince people of a point of view even if they even if the information underlying it is incorrect that some people might now believe that that is a facet of what journalism is supposed to be because it's become so prolific and there is so much of it now and that that should that shouldn't be but there's I don't I don't have a good solution for you know reigning that in yeah I think the problem with not knowing what journalism is is people no longer know how to talk to one another people do not exchange information they exchange opinions because all they see on television are pundits as opposed to real journalism I mean CNN for the most part will have a report at the top of the hour Anderson Cooper will have a reporter do a story and then the pundits come on and create the false equivalency and give and give the their political line and we have to know who they represent that's not journalism that's the op-ed page yeah I mean without I don't want to I got to be careful about not singling out let's say any particular network but I do agree in terms of what's broadly happened certainly in in cable news which I think you know there was this this idea even a couple years ago well you know cable news isn't really that influential if you look at the numbers of who's watching these shows not that big compared to the network news shows but certainly this election cycle is taught us actually I think cable news as a whole is hugely influential what do you think would happen this sounds really arrogant and I think this is the problem with blue states when people are listening in the Midwest or Florida or wherever idiots vote would I go to a doctor I want them to have a medical degree and I know they're real problems with the AMA but I still want to go to a dentist who has a dental degree what would happen if as an experiment we only hired over at CNN and MSNBC that would mean getting rid of Rachel Maddow people who grant and I love Rachel Maddow I think she's you know she and Amy Goodman are working my information from uh have you done a story about Amy Goodman no not me personally she's a miracle I'll take a look but if you have to have a journalism degree a certified journalism degree well I'd be out of work because I only have a a bachelor's in English so but right there I'm in trouble I understand I understand the point I mean unfortunately I don't think the economics of that make it possible you know that's that is very much what underlying that I think the problem is people like me and Bill Maher and Dennis Miller and John Stewart and Stephen Colbert I'm putting myself into some heady company who say hey I read the New York Times I read The Economist I read The Nation I can talk about these things I can repurpose what The Daily Coase is putting out there like Keith Olberman used to do on his show right why don't you give me a show I'll talk about this stuff and I'll say crazy things to be entertaining and then I don't have to if I make a mistake I'm joking right well yeah it's pretty reckless stuff even you put it that way it does sound pretty dire I would have I would have I would have believed that there was a time when you know again you know maybe I'm just patting myself on the back here that you know this was those kinds of shows were like the dessert in your diet as long as you're getting you know the meat and the vegetables where you know your entree and your side and a salad or something as long as you're getting the proper nourishment it's okay to have the dessert too of the people who are then you know taking what you already know and should have learned elsewhere and just having a little bit of fun with it and putting it in a way that is a little bit more palatable or you know a way that you know sort of clearly pointing out the contradictions and hypocrisies underlying it the problem is if that's your all that is your only way of getting information I think that is you know I think there is some truth to the people who think that you know this constellation of these late night shows to kind of create their own bubble that you know if you only lived inside those shows and only paid attention to them and got your information that way that you know you were you were only ever hearing what you wanted to hear play dough in the republic hated poetry and music you didn't think it made for good citizens Kanye who's now in a psychiatric ward yeah let's be kind to him let's be kind to him one of my children told me that he's very important and and should be listened to he said he doesn't vote and had he voted he would have voted for Trump Dennis Miller used to say the f-word all the time and had long hair and I would project my own liberal values onto his long hair and his use of the f-word until I began to work for him and found out oh he's conservative is the danger of musicians and comedians that the people who follow them project their own political values onto them without really knowing what they're saying I mean it's Kanye I know he said George Bush hates black people after Katrina and God bless him for saying speaking the truth but do we project things onto poets and musicians and comedians things that don't exist well I think I think there is I think I think you're on to something in terms of you know they are malleable and we can shape them into what we want to see or what we want them to be and so right when we do we can align ourselves with them for a time until they you know they seem to become dispensable or they don't share our viewpoint anymore you know we just we just sort of you know wear them like buttons on a jacket and if you have the right buttons it's sort of you know if you root for the right people or your fans of the right people you're sort of you know you're demonstrating to the rest of the world well this is this is the part of the spectrum that I occupy but I think we've all clearly learned the lesson that just sort of rooting for the right team or rooting for a team that isn't that doesn't that in and of itself doesn't necessarily change anything you know Ronald Reagan appropriated born in the USA until Bruce Springsteen spoke up and said you know actually this is not a song about how great this country is doing right now I went with a friend who performed at a private party for some wall street stock brokers it was amazing this was amazing and Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine sang the ghost of Tom Joed fascinating in front of all these plutocrats right and they were bouncing up and down and dancing and shaking their fists meanwhile you know they're pressing buttons and putting entire towns yeah out of work that that whole anecdote is making me so cynical right now just hearing it I feel my my idealism is just draining out of me so isn't Plato right that music and poetry because it's so vague I mean so what that it's a danger to the republic and that you can see anything you want in it who is the dangerous who are the dangerous musicians out there who are really speaking truth to power Tom Morello is one of them and so is Springsteen and Mellon camp and but his Dylan is but did Bob Dylan deserve in his in his time he was and it'll be interesting to see I think you know I mean music in particular I think you know that's an avenue where we've I think you know we've been looking for so long for you know where are the sort of when I say you know popular artists meaning who are the artists who sort of speak to the issues of the people of the time we haven't been seeing that for a while we've been seeing people who in a way have been sort of fetishizing their own you know their own successes and their own excess and it's been as much as I've enjoyed it and I've heard a lot of good music I mean it's it's been pretty solipsistic and it'll be interesting to see if you know the next four years or so if that is is there going to be some kind of you know does that does that go in a different direction if people see things in the wider world that they're actually upset about if they can sort of look beyond themselves and see things that concern them and they feel that they want to express in that way is that is that going to have an effect on music and are we going to see a return of these kinds of the balladeers you were talking about do you think that's what turns the rust belt off to Hollywood liberals I have a bone to pick I'm going from a Hollywood liberal living in New York and I believe in cannibalizing and and eating our own and before we go and attack the republicans this is the thing I'm conducting an autopsy on my side first I have a problem with people like me who but more successful I have a problem with successful people period just out of your jealousy but the the the Hollywood liberal is an ally to our cause my cause I'm like you're I'm not going to presume to know what your politics are but the Hollywood liberal is is is an ally but I think they're hurting us and I think what they do is they make a lot of money doing one thing and then expiate their sins by speaking out about Hillary Clinton and and global you know climate change and all that kind of thing I rather have them either in their work make a movie about climate change which some of them do but for the most part they make crap and then try to you know make good with the world by speaking out I think that hurts us I see your point I don't I don't see things quite so dire but I do think it is a I don't think there is a problem I think certainly you know you can point to the example of you know the day or two before the election you know Hillary Clinton giving that huge rally in Philadelphia and having Jay-Z and Beyonce I was just gonna ask you there and look I think it made tremendous sense for Hillary to want to align herself with somebody like Beyonce and who you know I think espouses a lot of the values that that Hillary should have been campaigning on and certainly you know I mean it and what are those well I don't you know I don't want to but I mean I think Beyonce is certainly earned her place as a feminist you know icon I think has is it solipsistic no I think it was I think you know it's something that she does she attack the corporate culture does she speak out in favor of unions does she sing songs about climate no I'm serious giving you know I think there are a lot of women who I think do if not directly identify with her who feel empowered by her because they see you know somebody like her who has you know made it the point that she has and who has a platform to basically voice the opinions and ideas that she wants to and so that is hugely inspirational so all that said I can understand why if you're Hillary Clinton that's who you want you know on stage with you in the last night that you're in you know Pennsylvania before the election but we also see the results that that in and of itself or even in conjunction with whatever else didn't move the needle enough for Hillary and when Katy Perry is busy who is fantastic and she points out that her parents are voting for Trump and she comes from a type of religious background that would suggest that she would be a Republican and not so much a Democrat and she's pretty corporate she understands the system when she speaks out for Hillary it makes me doubt whether or not she cares about anything other than the fact that Hillary is a grandmother you know I don't want to speak I don't for her I don't know you know I want I would like to believe that anyone who and you know endorses a politician in that way is doing it for you know reasons that they themselves believe are sincere that they find some genuine connection to that person that's why they're doing it but I think we've just seen this past year that you know if you're a voter who is motivated by more you know if you're somebody that is out of work or sees you know economic decline in the area where you live I don't think you particularly care whether Beyonce or Katy Perry is supporting Hillary Clinton you've got things that are much more immediate and important to you and maybe you know which celebrities you're aligned with is kind of you know it's it's a useful just a kind of a metric of sort of saying okay I like these people so I should like that candidate I like these people I should like that candidate but that's not ultimately what's getting people to you know pull the lever or press the button yeah yeah and that's why I'm saying and I don't want to bring you into my agenda you're an objective reporter I'm darn trying to be well and and part of this is your being here is emblematic of what politicians should take into consideration because who you associate yourself with reveals a lot now you work for a venerable journalistic institution and you're coming on my show in a way puts you in a you're taking a chance because if this show were vulgar and disgusting you would not be reflecting well on the people you work for for example Bill Maher who I worked with for a long time okay and I love him and I always say the best job I ever had was working for Bill Maher because you were paid to read and it was a great job that being said Bill is very controversial he uses the f-word constantly which I don't understand because he doesn't need the f-word he's already a champion of the First Amendment although I think there's probably something with HBO wanting him to say the f-word he promotes the use of pot which I disagree with I think pot should be legal but I don't think people should be proselytizing about cannabis he is saying horrible things about the Muslim community that creates fear in our country and he gave a million dollars in 2012 to the Obama campaign and complained for the past four years that President Obama refused to do his show now I think President Obama is just perfection I'm not an apologist I worship President Obama and he refused despite Bill Maher giving his campaign or a super PAC a million dollars President Obama refused to come on Bill's show and rightfully so rightfully so because you have to be careful who you associate with President Obama does not need to be around somebody who curses he does he's got small kids uh kids are small he should you know you don't want to be around somebody who condones the use of drugs and marijuana is a drug uh if you give me a million dollars and expect me to come on your show it implies that you think I'm some kind of uh uh courtesan right who can be bought and I'm a president who refuses to say the words Islamic terrorism because uh it's wrong and you're you're you're saying there's a problem with Islam so I'm not coming on your show he did just recently or after the election I think before the election that was in a period when you know I don't know if this other writing was on the wall or what but he was you know Obama was doing a lot of these shows with a kind of you know somewhat generic get out the vote message and so that was I mean it was part of uh you know a kind of a package of shows that Obama did but he did finally go on I think at a point where you know it couldn't couldn't damage him politically and actually thought it was a fairly boring interview interview was not he didn't do it in studio uh you know they did it in I think in the Roosevelt Room of the White House it was almost uh you know if with the exception of some of the topics that Bill asked him about it could have just as easily aired on 60 minutes maybe I actually found it a pretty uh interesting conversation in in the sense that you know compared to when Obama let's say goes on uh I mean I enjoy him on you know Jimmy Kimmel or you know some of the talk shows where he gets to talk about the kind of just the the day-to-day uh quotidian aspects of the White House and can talk about it like a human being but these were it was a 20 or 40 minute long conversation and they really got he really got the floor for a while and got to talk about you know Bill tried to put his feet to the fire as much as he could I mean there was something there was a journalistic integrity I thought to what he was doing I I respect and I understand all the the points that you're raising about the the potential problems of his show but I think when it's when it's at its best and when it's really freewheeling uh I mean I think can be a really uh it can be a platform to people for people to express ideas in a way that they can't get across at least on other television shows oh I think he's the bravest comedian I think Bill's the bravest comedian after I just just even in the airtime that they give people the length of discussion that they allow the the you know they go a little bit deeper on topics than most shows just I mean maybe it's not the best you know metric or reference to use but compared to most of what else is on television where things are you know uh you know they can't they can't there is a tendency to make one make things compact and watered down at least he resists some of those impulse oh absolutely I think he's as I said it was the best job I ever had and I think that he's the bravest of all of them and even and he's not afraid of ruffling feathers and being wrong but if you but not to understand why President Obama won't do your show you know we look at who Donald Trump surrounds himself with because we you know we all say I kind of trust Trump in a way because I don't think he means anything but look who he surrounds himself with Steve Bannon this guy E. Belf who's a climate change denier Jeff Sessions who is an inveterate virulent racist who has been caught saying the n word he's going to be the attorney general it's who you surround yourself with and if we're going to judge Trump by who he surrounds himself with we should also kind of question who Hillary surrounds herself with and I think there's something or Bernie when he's having vulgarians comedians who I love like Sarah Silverman I love Sarah Silverman I just don't think she should be introducing Bernie at rallies because I don't think it helps us and it goes back to what we were talking about earlier cuts both ways and you get the benefit of you get the benefit of celebrity you get the benefit of a visible person who you know okay I'm already interested in Sarah Silverman I'm already interested in Beyonce I'm gonna at least spend 30 seconds paying attention to whoever comes on after them the problem is if all you're focusing on is the celebrity you're not really receiving the message of the person who's following and you know again you're just collecting these people like their you know buttons on a jacket or like their you know date myself if they're like you know trading cards like baseball cards these are these are the people that that I like so I should like the people that they like but it doesn't you know certainly you know I think Trump was roundly mocked for the way they conducted you know the RNC and and the people that spoke there and you know there was I'm I'm guilty of it of you know oh Scott Baio is there who cares about Scott Baio when was the last time he was relevant you know jokes like that but look it did that really affect that that didn't that in no way prevented Trump from winning the election I think it helped not Scott Baio but the lack of actors and Hollywood types Patty Chayevsky you wrote a book on Patty Chayevsky what's it called it's called Mad as Hell good good it's about the movie Network yes it was right it's specifically about the making of network and within that we get to sort of tell retell the story of of his life and the works that he created when's the last time you saw the movie Network oh I mean probably within a couple of weeks I try to go back to it pretty often and I mean certainly through this election cycle it was just way too you know it I mean just a predictive power of it at this time is really uncanny and that baby's speech is exactly my critique of political satire well you know it's it's I'm glad you bring that up because I mean look we called the book Mad as Hell of course the scene that everybody remembers from Network is you know Peter Finch going on the air and losing his marbles and then being on everyone to go to their window and yell out but I agree I think in a way the Ned Beatty speech later in the movie when he's you know reeling about you know there are no nations there's only the you know the almighty dollar I mean in a way that is the much more globalization corporate power banking one world order money don't rock the boat exactly well that right and that's I mean that's the speech I think is in some ways it's an even more truthful about the world that we inhabit we sure don't that's not the one we get to hear all the time no no and that's you know if you want to look at you know trumpism as a as a philosophy that's the world that he was sort of pushing back against and sort of telling people you know you maybe you don't want to live in this kind of uh you know interconnected fraternity of of corporations and that's what people respond to you're very generous with your time what is the name of the book about paddy chieftain who exactly was paddy chieftain so I mean he was a screenwriter without compare a three-time academy award winner wrote marty he wrote the hospital and then network was his magnum opus that came out in 1976 and sadly he he died in 1981 still in his in his 50s I mean you think about all the work that he probably could have created for you know at least another 30 years beyond that I mean a very pugnacious and kind of dyspeptic guy very uh you know angry and paranoid about the world but boy I mean he really he channeled those feelings so well yeah I think the closest we get to that is Aaron sorkin I mean I think sorkin definitely takes a lot of inspiration from chieftain in terms of yeah well I mean well wanting his his work to be uh I think you know polemical or relevant in the same way but I think I think sorkin is way more of an idealist I think you know he sees the world as he wishes it were and and chavsky did not have any blinders whatsoever he thought he was really stripping away every artivist and telling you this is really how it is and it ain't great yeah yeah yeah frat sirling was pretty good yeah the movie is it patterns what what is the yeah well patterns was uh I think first uh like a tv like a you know one time tv drama not a series but just a standalone and they made a motion picture uh out of that I mean that was in that that whole era that marty kicked off of you know the movies basically taking these kind of you know playhouse 90 type dramas and then adapting them into films that gave us you know 12 angry men right patterns is a great movie because it's an indictment of corporate america and at the same time kind of the defense of the free market yeah and that's another one actually I'd be curious to go back to and see how it sort of resonates in a in a post trump america if it maybe that had a little bit of uh predictive power for us as well I think you would like it because I know I know I just haven't I haven't watched it and I just watched it because I watched your classic movies that's the only thing I'm on it anyway just rewatch it and at the end of patterns it almost preaches the purity of the free market is the free market is the only only way you can arrive at a truth uh but very quickly something very painful you're writing a book about robin williams can we talk very briefly sure it was who was robin williams do i even need to say i mean he was truly one of our great great comedic talents and and uh you know uh uh just an artist who i think was able to uh you know exist in so many different spheres of the popular culture i mean someone who you know people know i mean trained uh you know as you know was was classically trained as an actor i went to three different colleges including julia to study acting uh and then you know arrived or came back to san francisco uh at a very potent time in you know what was becoming the uh stand-up comedy scene there and got drawn into that and parlayed that into a really phenomenal stand-up career there and in los angeles then turned that into a tv acting career then turned that into a film acting career you know earned an academy award and just led a uh you know kind of a you know an exemplary you know modern artistic life i mean we know it had also a pretty terribly tragic ending but also a life that was uh you know very much worth celebrating and and uh really deeply engaged in artistic and intellectual pursuit yeah i started in san francisco 1982 at the holy city zoo which is and i i just remember all the clubs would be filled with bad comedies you know with bad comedians like me on the bill nice to say to my friend larry brand you realize the only reason this audience is here is they're hoping robins that robin would show up at just enough throughout the year to keep these clubs going and he would keep them going financially the uh you know anybody who came out of the san francisco comedy scene you know loves robin and uh the greatest compliment you can give robin is that you were jealous and envious of robin's immense talent sure that is not the success it was the talent that and even after he passed away i was watching him with steve martin it was some kind of science show that he had done and you know i'm sad that robin's gone and i'm watching this on youtube i'm going to use son of a bitch you know even i was jealous and envious of him even with his being gone i look forward to reading that book i hope i hope you come back sure it's a true honor i know and uh thank you david it's cuff is a cultural reporter for the new york times i could go on and on singing your praises you read him thank you read him in the new york times subscribe to the new york times and if i may be so not to this is what i say at the end of my show uh so this is not me sucking up to you working for the greatest newspaper in the world okay okay i still feel good about myself i came away with a little self-esteem so i'm not sucking up to you but i'm gonna end the show by saying this a lot of fake news coming out of macedonia you have a lot of garbage in your life your hoarders america you don't need more crap your kids don't need more crap your friends don't need more crap what you do this holiday season is you give the gift of knowledge to your children your parents or your trump supporting crazy aunt you know there are crazy ants did you know that it's not just crazy uncles at thanksgiving they're actually some crazy ants i think that's sexist it's all right the craziness on my side uh it certainly is through the uncles so i relate to that so this is what you do give a subscription to the nation magazine to your loved ones it's the gift that keeps giving every week you'll get your friends and loved ones will get a reminder that you love them in the mailbox once a week or the economist or time magazine or the washington post but most importantly the new york times the the oldest playbook in the right wing playbook is the oldest page in the right wing playbook is to attack attack the new york times that's what they do they've been doing it and i remember when sparrow agnew was doing it and dick chaney did it with judith miller planting you know the new if we look we need the new york times support the new york times and despite what donald trump says the new york times gained 43 000 subscribers after his election is it isn't it is very much alive because we need it for our republic as we do the la times the washington post your local newspaper and uh thank you very much for coming on the show and uh from the show brisk studios in downtown manhattan that'll do it for us the david feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you you sad pathetic humps