• Korla Pandit Documentary

    It’s hard to imagine a world without televisions. Today, TVs are not just ubiquitous, they’re everywhere. But in the 1940s, television was an expensive, new gadget that very few households owned. When the World Series was televised for the first time in 1947, only 44,000 TV sets were in use in the entire U.S. In 1948, only ten percent of Americans had ever even seen a television program. The only thing more scarce than TV sets was TV programming. Radio had been widely adopted for decades, with over 40 million sets in use in the late 1940s. So, the majority of talent and advertising money was still going into radio.…

  • Drummer & Comedian Jon Wurster

    As a musician, Jon Wurster is best-known as the drummer for Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, New Pornographers and The Bob Mould Band. He’s also half of the comedy team Scharpling and Wurster. Tom Scharpling was the host of a radio show which originally aired on WFMU. Scharpling and Wurster struck up a friendship, and Wurster started regularly calling into Scharpling’s radio show, voicing different characters. The Best Show aired for 13 years, and an exhaustive collection of the show’s shenanigans featuring Wurster’s crazy personnas, has just been released as a box set. We talk to Wurster about his early days in the Philly punk scene in the 1980s, becoming a…

  • Mad Men: Behind The Lens

    The groundbreaking TV show Mad Men is now in its final season. For seven seasons, the show has immersed its viewers in the treacherous world of New York ad executives. It centers around the iconic Don Draper, whose genuine talents and charisma are constantly being undermined by his self-destructive behavior. Mad Men’s unhurried story lines and morally feeble characters have broadened the possibilities for a basic cable drama. Its plot lines are rarely wrapped up at the end of a single episode. Some plots last several seasons long, giving the show the pace of a novel, rather than that of a TV series. Another one of Mad Men’s essential elements…

  • Hot Rod Artisans and Entrepreneurs

    We took this episode on location to the 2015 Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California. The GNRS is easily the biggest hot rod show in Southern California. The best of the best of the best of the hot rod world get polished up to the nines and put on display here every year. And don’t let the name fool you, there’s way more than roadsters here. You’ll find traditional hot rods, rat rods, kustoms, drag racers, gassers, bikes and even some low riders here. Plus, they have live bands, pinstripers, artists and vendors of all kind. So, yes the GNRS is so huge, that you really have to hustle…

  • Car Talk With Marky Ramone

    Punk Rock Blitzkrieg is the new book by legendary punk drummer Marky Ramone of The Ramones. The book tells the story of Marky’s life behind the kit, playing drums for one of the most influential and iconic punk bands of all time, The Ramones. Long before any books were written about the band, wild rumors about The Ramones had been the stuff of punk rock urban legend. Such as: all of The Ramones had served in Vietnam, Joey was in a mental institution, Dee Dee was a heroin addict and a street hustler, Johnny was a right-winger, Tommy had dropped off the grid and was the owner a fleabag hotel…

  • Interview With P.J. O’Rourke

    P.J. O’Rourke is one of the most popular modern American humorists, but he’s also a car nut. We find out that O’Rourke comes from a long line of Buick men and then take a humorous look at the sad state of the American auto industry as we discuss his book “Driving Like Crazy.” Starting with his days at National Lampoon magazine in the 1970s, O’Rourke went on to write for magazines such as Playboy, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper’s and Rolling Stone. He’s also the author of best-selling books like Republican Party Reptile, Parliament of Whores, Give War A Chance and Peace Kills: America’s Fun New Imperialism. He’s best known as…

  • In Search of Tiki Exhibit

    Photos from the In Search of Tiki museum exhibition at the Forest Lawn Glendale Museum. The exhibition was curated by Doug Nason and Barracuda’s creator, Jeff Fox. The exhibit was on display from August 8th to January 4th. It featured traditional oceanic art, post-modern Polynesian pop and current tiki art. Artists included Shag, Mark Ryden, Marc Davis, William Stout, Edgar Leeteg, Eric Askew, Anthony Ausgang, Atomikitty, Leroy Schmaltz, Mr. G, RK Sloane, Doug Nason, Dave Burke, Makoto, Crazy Al, Dawna Hammond, Gecko and more. [Show slideshow]