The TV Room

Special guest Ian Rosen joins the podcast for a review of the 70s cult classic film Cisco Pike (1971). Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Gene Hackman, Karen Black.

The early 1970s were angry times. From Kent State to Watergate, from Vietnam to Patty Hearst, society was polarized, and arguably no figure was more polarizing than mild-mannered, bespectacled singer-songwriter John Denver. By the late '70s Denver had found mainstream success as a Hollywood leading man and a new life's hobby--flying experimental aircraft...

Venice beatniks, gambling ships off the Santa Monica Pier, Raymond Chandler stories, the Gidget phenomenon, Jim Rockford's trailer, Jack, Janet, Chrissy, the Ropers, and Fletch too, have all shaped the cultural geography that defines the character of Billy McBride and the landscape of Goliath.

A quick update on the upcoming TV Room season (it's about Patty Hearst and the SLA!). Remembering Tom Wolfe and Philip Roth, by comparing them to Hunter S. Thompson and John Updike, and revisiting the New Journalism of the 1960s.

Could there be a stranger time and place than the Bay Area in the 1970s? The saga of Patty Hearst and the SLA would seem to say no.  In this two-part episode of the TV Room, we revisit those events and review some of the tapes Patty and the SLA released to the media throughout the ordeal, which the public eagerly lapped up, and which chronicled the transformation of a frightened 19-year old kidnap victim into a gun-toting revolutionary.

A spoiler-free review of Stranger Things Season One. Topics discussed on this episode include: Digital Natives vs. Digital Neanderthals..How a little startup called Netflix killed off the 20th Century...1983: Whose year was it anyway? 1983 was Time's Year of the Computer, but with shag carpeting, plaid furniture, and breadbox-sized telephones...Freaks and Geeks, Risky Business and WarGames...The Upside Down qualities of water and electricity...The return of Winona Ryder and the return of Matthew Modine...and the timelessness of kids on bikes.

In 1980, album oriented rock was high art, radio was king, and music videos were mere novelty items featured on an obscure cable program called Video Concert Hall. There was no better embodiment of these ideals at the time than Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and their breakthrough album "Damn the Torpedoes," particularly the single "Here Comes My Girl," which stands out as a great love song as well as a breakout music video from before there was even MTV.

A century before Bart Simpson, another cleverly drawn little boy burst upon the scene. He caused such a sensation in his day that Yellow Journalism was named after HIM, not the other way around. He was the Yellow Kid.

Hearst, Pulitzer, Jacksonian Democracy, the Fourth Estate. New York City in the 1890s. Tabloid media concentrates its power, and becomes unchecked and unbalanced.