Fun 2 Know Podcast

Lucky Episode 13: David West Part 2: Our second of a two-part episode with San Francisco poet David West. In this second part, our discussion travels beyond history and biography and into the realm of pure conversation and gives us a look at how David uses the knowledge and wisdom he has collected to navigate the world. The topics swing through everything from Thelonious Monk, W.B. Auden, Shakespeare, Dante, Mark Twain, The Pussycat Dolls, Hip-hop, the politics of protest, Obama, cultural inertia, and television, but as rambling as things get, David always brings it back to poetry, letting us see the world through the poet's eyes.

David West, revered San Francisco poet is our guest for Part One of a two-part episode. Like Bucky Sinister, whose interview kicked off our first podcast, David West was a prolific participant of the San Francisco spoken word scene of the 1980s and 1990s, a scene that spawned such memorable writers as Daniel Higgs, Michelle Tea and the Sister Spit collective, Eli Coppola, Beth Lisick, David Lerner and many more. Week in and week out, David West would bring the reading's volume down to stillness as his gentle voice and his writing brought a ragged range of characters to life, some transcendent and some miserable, but David made them all human and beguiling in their own way. As wise and he was funny, David has slipped away from the world of readings to quietly ponder Shakespeare, politics and the arts while bringing a certain grace as a secretary hiding away in the business world. This episode was recorded in David's Bernal Heights kitchen as the sun and a bottle of red wine slowly disappeared. Unfolding like most of the sprawling two-part episodes of FUN 2 KNOW, the first part tells David's origin story, traveling from factories in Ohio, to an ill-fated stop at Harvard onto the mid-seventies world of Harvey Milk's San Francisco and beyond. The second part turns from biography of conversation, and David is a fount of insight and humor into people and today's world.

Bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma is in the interview chair this episode. Not to discount the hard work that makes it possible, but for the music lover, Tacuma's career seems like a dream. After a couple years woodshedding on the electric bass as a North Philly teen, his talent is spotted and he is whisked away to the major leagues of jazz, first with organist Charles Earland, who had a sizable hit with the tune “Black Talk” in 1969 and then famously with jazz legend Ornette Coleman in his ground-breaking band, Prime Time. In 1975, at the age of 18, Jamaaladeen packed his bags and relocated for six months to Paris with Ornette's band, playing and recording the classic LP DANCING IN YOUR HEAD. From there Jamaaladeen's world expanded, playing international stages, releasing his own records and playing with Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, The Roots, Nona Hendryx, Kip Hanrahan, The Golden Palominos, and James Blood Ulmer on numerous and far-reaching sessions. Jamaaladeen's playing exhibits a good-humored excitement that flows from the man himself as we meet for the first time on mic. He talks about the Philadelphia he grew up in, his insights into Ornette, his appearance on Saturday Night Live, his interest in fashion and design, his exclusive clothing boutique and his new acquisition, the acoustic bass.

Greg (WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?) Proops' weekly podcast THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD delivers comedy and political wit by the bushel as he records the show from stages around the globe. Greg Proops also has a monthly spin-off podcast, The Greg Proops Film Club where he hosts and discusses classic films. Discussion of film and classic Hollywood takes up a big part of this week's program but we also discuss Greg's on-running chat shows, feminism and misogyny, family, Udo Kier, Ian Banks, Fiona Apple, Paul Mooney, silent film, True Jackson VP and we hear Greg's Jeff Goldblum imitation, not once but twice.

Greg Proops has been a showbiz fixture for over the last 25 years, as a popular stand up, and as the guy with the glasses from the long-running "Whose Line is it Anyway." He's been the voice of "Bob the Builder," the announcer in the "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" pod race scene, as well as being seen in a myriad of other appearances. Proops' own podcast "The Smartest Man in the World" was cited in 2014 by Rolling Stone as a top comedy podcast and is a weekly live monologue by the gifted improviser that swings through current events, pop culture, film and music geek valentines, and surreal flights of fancy, all with an old time Lefty passion that is unheard of in the old media. Greg was passing through Philly on a three-night stand at he Helium comedy club in Philly when he stopped by to be interviewed at our Center City kitchen table. In Part One we talk about everything from class, the U.S. military, today's San Francisco, Ringo, Leslie Gore, and Proops' many stops along his 30-odd year career. Part Two drops next week.

Al Young's credentials are voluminous. He was appointed poet laureate of California in 2005, by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger no less, Al Young has been honored with Fellowships from Guggenheim, Fulbright, and the National Endowment for the Arts, he's won the American Book Award twice, he's written for Rolling Stone, and authored many volumes of essays, poems and five novels, including SITTING PRETTY, SNAKES and SEDUCTION BY NIGHT. We discuss Mr. Young's trail from Mississippi to Detroit in the 1940s. His time in NYC, his friendship with Charles Mingus, his screenwriting days with Cosby, Poitier & Pryor and his undying love for jazz.

Ep. 7: KENN KWEDER Pt. 2 The second and final part of our conversation with Kenn Kweder. Kenn survives beyond the record industry's cold reach to deliver a series of riveting indie releases straight from the heart of Kweder. A true troubadour, Kweder plays a near 300 gigs a year that gives him perch to observe the endless mating ritual of the young. Kweder shares all he has observed in this raucous talk, sharing his philosophies on the modern world, people's changing relationship to music, and the wisdom of “The Sandwich Trick.” Plus, Kweder meets Dylan! All music from Kenn Kweder – KWEDEROLOGY Vols. 1&2

Songwriter and Rock Star Kenn Kweder sits down to tell his epic story. First climbing to local Philly fame in the late 70s with his band the Secret Kids, a great batch of songs and the charisma of their frontman led Kweder and the band to be branded, “This Next Big Thing” from out of Philly. Whether it was a record company recession or Kweder's reputation for drunken recklessness that foiled this big break is uncertain but Kweder's commitment to music never waned. Still playing a near 300 gigs a year, the troubadour has soldiered on, his passion for life and music intact. In the first of two shows, Kweder discusses his working class roots and his rise to local legendhood.

Longtime FRESH AIR producer Amy Salit joins F2K for a Conversation. A lifelong music lover with roots in community radio, Amy is starting her 30th year a producer on the National Public Radio interview institution. We talk to Amy about growing up a young Jewish Beatles fan in Lubbock Texas, her radio beginnings at WCUW in Worcester, Mass., Amy's thoughts on the changing spirit of Austin's SXSW festival, the current state of the music industry and some of Fresh Air's most memorable guests.

Sculptor and visual artist Al Farrow's hosts F2K in his San Rafael studio for the second and final part of a discussion of his life and work. In this second half Al talks about the rising political content in his work that sometimes hampered him commercially and finally his breakthrough in his sixties with an ambitious series of religious reliquaries made of bullets, gun parts and bones.