Hello, Hubsters!
Guess who’s going to be on the Intrepid for the special Friday StePhest Colbchella taping? ME!!! And several other Hubsters are also attending, so we’ll be well represented. I’m pretty stoked, as you might guess, since this should be one big party. Now if we could only sail off and spend a couple of days on the ship, that would be perfect.
It’s been hard for me to keep up with the Report this week (and I haven’t really with TDS) because I’m Olympics mad. So I’m taping TCR and watching it at midnight when the local news comes on and the games are briefly off the air. (Sleep? What’s that?) I think London has done a fabulous job, and the city looks stunning whenever you get to see it. I’m glad the Mittster is being proven wrong about London’s readiness every single day.
And now, on to the guests. It’s a great list this week, I think!
Monday, 8/6: Pete Seeger
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning. I’d hammer in the evening; all over this land. That’s Pete Seeger. Even before StePhest officially launches, the week opens with one of America’s great musical treasures and political activists. What an amazing career Seeger has had! The 93-year-old singer, composer, and banjoist has been a fixture on the folk music scene for nearly 70 years. A colleague of Woody Guthrie’s, whom he met in 1940, Seeger followed Guthrie’s lead by writing his own socially topical songs and together they founded a group called the Almanac singers; later Seeger also created a magazine that documented the folk movement called Sing Out! Seeger suffered during the McCarthyite era due to his refusal to appear before HUAC; like many principled people, he would not name names and was blacklisted. He was able to continue performing, but in far fewer venues and not on TV, which honored the list. Anti-Vietnam and pro-civil rights, he thrived in the 60s: his engaged music remained popular, with groups like the Byrds recording his songs. He participated in the marches in Selma and in Martin Luther King’s Washington, DC rally—which should be of special interest to Stephen who, as we all know, was there in utero. In more recent years, Pete Seeger has dedicated himself to environmental causes as well, in particular with his Clearwater sloop, which has agitated for cleaning up the Hudson River. Needless to say, he also opposed the war in Iraq.
His awards have been many, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy®. Contemporary musicians like Bruce Springsteen (in his superb Seeger Sessions) and Ani DeFranco have paid tribute to him. And sadly, because the causes he championed still need to be championed, his older songs have occasionally been reworked to reflect contemporary realities.
Coming up for the still-goin- strong Seeger: a new CD for his own Appleseed label called A More Perfect Union, featuring Springsteen and Steve Earle, and also a two-CD work called Pete Remembers Woody, to honor Pete’s friend. (Guthrie would have been 100 years old this year.) I hope I’m doing half that well when I’m his age.
The son of a musicologist, Seeger also who married the first woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in music, and his own children Seeger and many of his siblings continue the tradition today.
And…isn’t this the perfect occasion for a duet? Please, Stephen, please?
Visit his website. There you’ll find links to his Appleseed label, a longer bio, and much more.
Listen to some of his most famous songs here.
When he was a mere 90 years old, Seeger celebrated with a big concert.
In 2007, a documentary about him was made, called Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. The New York Times reviewed the film.
There was also a radio documentary, Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep from Singing?
Seeger (among others) were interviewed in this video tribute to Woody Guthrie, put together by Democracy Now!
Watch Seeger and Springsteen sing Woody’s rousing “This Land Is Your Land.”
PBS dedicated an episode of American Masters to him.
Tuesday, 8/7: Mark Shriver
We all know that Stephen is a fan of the Kennedys, and this night’s guest is one of the family. Mark Shriver, the son of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, has written a book about his father. Sargent Shriver, who died in 2011 after suffering from Alzheimer’s, accomplished much in his life, including the creation of the Peace Corps, Job Corps, VISTA, and Head Start. Along with his wife, he helped found the Special Olympics – something worth mentioning as we celebrate the goings-on in London. He also served as ambassador to France and as George McGovern’s vice-presidential candidate. But what motivated Mark to write A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father wasn’t those historically significant and well-known achievements. Instead Mark was inspired by the many sympathy notes he received upon his father’s death, and the personal stories those writers had to tell. So he set out to examine the moral principles Sargent Shriver lived by, and to try to emulate them.
Mark Shriver himself is the senior vice president of Save the Children’s US programs. This advocacy group steps in to help children who live in poverty or who have been affected by disaster; Shriver has established partnerships with corporations and with schools to strengthen these programs. He was a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates; became the first chair of the Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families; and created the Choice program to keep at-risk kids in school. He received his MA in Public Administration from Harvard. Sounds to me as if he’s following in his father’s footsteps to become a very good man, indeed.
Shriver recently appeared on the TODAY show.
NPR also covered Mark Shriver and his book.
Here’s an article on him in The Daily Beast, also with a video.
Follow him on Twitter.
Read an excerpt from the book on his sister Maria Shriver’s blog.
This is his second visit to The Colbert Report! He wasn’t the featured guest, but he had quite a bit of time.
This is a small website dedicated to the book, with audio, quotes by such admirers and Bill Clinton and Doris Kearns Goodwin, an excerpt, and purchasing links.
Like the book’s Facebook page. (Shriver’s own FB page is personal, not public.)
Wednesday, 8/8: Liza Mundy
We all know how much fun Stephen has dealing with feminists who seem to imply in any way that men are becoming redundant or more disposable in the modern world. I doubt that Liza Mundy actually says that, but from what I can gather, her new book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family, certainly suggests that the times they are a changing—and women are grabbing more and more power. Mundy has a name for this shift: the big flip. According to data she presents, the next generation will see more women than men act as the major breadwinner in their households. What will this mean? Mundy explores the social, political, and personal ramifications of this transformation.
Liza Mundy writes for the Washington Post on a variety of topics, from the arts and family life to science and politics. She’s received numerous awards, including from the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; was a Media Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; and had one of her articles included in an anthology by Oliver Sacks. She earned her BA from Princeton and her MA in English Literature from the University of Virginia, where she has also taught. She currently is a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.
Visit her website.
Follow her on Twitter.
Here’s her official publisher page, where you’ll get links not only to The Richer Sex but to her other books—which include a biography of Michele Obama and a study of fertility.
The New York Times reviewed The Richer Sex.
So did the her own newspaper, the Washington Post.
One of the big changes Mundy predicts in this new world order? Sex!
TIME magazine excerpted some of the book. Find out why men are attracted to high-earning women .
Here’s a Q&A with Mundy—from Maria Shriver’s blog. (A little connection between Tuesday and Wednesday’s guests.)
Mundy spoke about the book on Minnesota Public Radio (part of the NPR network).
Thursday, 8/9: Woody Harrelson
The laid-back Woody Harrelson—or, to use his full, real name, Woodrow Wilson Harrelson–came to fame as the dumber-than-dumb bartender in the TV show Cheers. He’s since gone on to show his diversity playing such characters as a cold-blooded murderer (Natural Born Killers), the pornographer and publisher of Hustler magazine in The People vs. Larry Flynt (for which he received an Oscar nomination), a zombie hunter in Zombieland, and Haymitch Abernathy, a former winner of the deadly competition in The Hunger Games. He’s had a rich career not going for commercial leads or depending on his undeniable beauty when he was young.
Harrelson’s newest venture isn’t on screen but on stage: a new off-Broadway comedy that he’s co-written and directed called A Bullet for Adolf. He says that it’s “based on real people, though the events depicted are fiction and the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.” The plot involved two Midwestern pals, a streetwise New Yorker who’s on the run, and a WWII artifact that goes missing—presumably the bullet from the play’s title.
But fiction can’t even begin to compare to at least one aspect of Harrelson’s own life: his father was a hit man convicted of killing a county judge—among other crimes. Woody managed to overcome this, although he himself got into a few drunken fistfights that almost derailed his career. He began acting in high school, then won a scholarship to Hanover College where he majored in English and theater arts. Auditions and some theater followed, until the breakthrough TV role that earned him five Emmy® nominations and one win. No fool he, Harrelson quickly created his own production company.
Go to his IMDB page to see the huge number of films and TV shows he’s appeared in.
The New York Times wrote an article about the creation of the play, interviewing Harrelson and his co-writer Frankie Hyman. And that’s not all: here’s another Times article!
Harrelson spoke to Michael Musto of the Village Voice about his indie films: I wish they were blockbusters….
Next up for him (well, one of many next ups): the cop drama True Detective with Matthew McConaughey on HBO.
Watch this video of Harrelson and Hyman discussing their play.
Read some excerpts from his interview in Men’s Journal.
One of his more recent films was Rampart, and here’s a USA Today review that says he “mesmerizes” in the role. (Note that there’s also a link to 10 questions with the actor.)
He played a little soccer to benefit charity—and scored with a penalty kick!
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart!
Monday, 8/6: Tim Gunn
Project Runway‘s fashion consultant and host with the most. This is his fourth appearance on The Daily Show; here’s a clip of the last visit.
Visit the Project Runway website or his own Bravo webpage.
Follow the Project Runway Twitter.
Tuesday, 8/7: Saima Wahab
Born in Afghanistan, Saima Wahab left her native country as a child and came to the US. She now serves as a much-needed interpreter and cultural adviser for the US Army and has a new book, In My Father’s Country:An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate.
Listen to an interview with her on NPR.
Wednesday, 8/8: Chris Rock
Yay! I love Chris Rock! This should be just wonderful. He’s in a film with the French actress Julie Delpy called 2 Days in New York, and is playing the more serious role of her husband coping with a visit from her relatives.
It’s been quite a while since Rock has visited TDS–not since 2003.
Visit Rock’s website.
The New York Times just interviewed him.
Follow him on Twitter.
Th 8/9: Joanna Brooks — or TBD?
Who will it be? The Late Night page says Joanna Brooks, who wrote The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith. Jon’s website says that the guest will be announced. We shall wait and see.
That’s all, folks. Let me know what you’re most looking forward to seeing this week!
Cheers!
Better Know a Guest: August 6 – 9, 2012
Hello, Hubsters!
Guess who’s going to be on the Intrepid for the special Friday StePhest Colbchella taping? ME!!! And several other Hubsters are also attending, so we’ll be well represented. I’m pretty stoked, as you might guess, since this should be one big party. Now if we could only sail off and spend a couple of days on the ship, that would be perfect.
It’s been hard for me to keep up with the Report this week (and I haven’t really with TDS) because I’m Olympics mad. So I’m taping TCR and watching it at midnight when the local news comes on and the games are briefly off the air. (Sleep? What’s that?) I think London has done a fabulous job, and the city looks stunning whenever you get to see it. I’m glad the Mittster is being proven wrong about London’s readiness every single day.
And now, on to the guests. It’s a great list this week, I think!
Monday, 8/6: Pete Seeger
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning. I’d hammer in the evening; all over this land. That’s Pete Seeger. Even before StePhest officially launches, the week opens with one of America’s great musical treasures and political activists. What an amazing career Seeger has had! The 93-year-old singer, composer, and banjoist has been a fixture on the folk music scene for nearly 70 years. A colleague of Woody Guthrie’s, whom he met in 1940, Seeger followed Guthrie’s lead by writing his own socially topical songs and together they founded a group called the Almanac singers; later Seeger also created a magazine that documented the folk movement called Sing Out! Seeger suffered during the McCarthyite era due to his refusal to appear before HUAC; like many principled people, he would not name names and was blacklisted. He was able to continue performing, but in far fewer venues and not on TV, which honored the list. Anti-Vietnam and pro-civil rights, he thrived in the 60s: his engaged music remained popular, with groups like the Byrds recording his songs. He participated in the marches in Selma and in Martin Luther King’s Washington, DC rally—which should be of special interest to Stephen who, as we all know, was there in utero. In more recent years, Pete Seeger has dedicated himself to environmental causes as well, in particular with his Clearwater sloop, which has agitated for cleaning up the Hudson River. Needless to say, he also opposed the war in Iraq.
His awards have been many, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy®. Contemporary musicians like Bruce Springsteen (in his superb Seeger Sessions) and Ani DeFranco have paid tribute to him. And sadly, because the causes he championed still need to be championed, his older songs have occasionally been reworked to reflect contemporary realities.
Coming up for the still-goin- strong Seeger: a new CD for his own Appleseed label called A More Perfect Union, featuring Springsteen and Steve Earle, and also a two-CD work called Pete Remembers Woody, to honor Pete’s friend. (Guthrie would have been 100 years old this year.) I hope I’m doing half that well when I’m his age.
The son of a musicologist
, Seeger alsowho married the first woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in music,and his own childrenSeeger and many of his siblings continue the tradition today.And…isn’t this the perfect occasion for a duet? Please, Stephen, please?
Visit his website. There you’ll find links to his Appleseed label, a longer bio, and much more.
Listen to some of his most famous songs here.
When he was a mere 90 years old, Seeger celebrated with a big concert.
In 2007, a documentary about him was made, called Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. The New York Times reviewed the film.
There was also a radio documentary, Pete Seeger: How Can I Keep from Singing?
Seeger (among others) were interviewed in this video tribute to Woody Guthrie, put together by Democracy Now!
Watch Seeger and Springsteen sing Woody’s rousing “This Land Is Your Land.”
PBS dedicated an episode of American Masters to him.
Tuesday, 8/7: Mark Shriver
We all know that Stephen is a fan of the Kennedys, and this night’s guest is one of the family. Mark Shriver, the son of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, has written a book about his father. Sargent Shriver, who died in 2011 after suffering from Alzheimer’s, accomplished much in his life, including the creation of the Peace Corps, Job Corps, VISTA, and Head Start. Along with his wife, he helped found the Special Olympics – something worth mentioning as we celebrate the goings-on in London. He also served as ambassador to France and as George McGovern’s vice-presidential candidate. But what motivated Mark to write A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father wasn’t those historically significant and well-known achievements. Instead Mark was inspired by the many sympathy notes he received upon his father’s death, and the personal stories those writers had to tell. So he set out to examine the moral principles Sargent Shriver lived by, and to try to emulate them.
Mark Shriver himself is the senior vice president of Save the Children’s US programs. This advocacy group steps in to help children who live in poverty or who have been affected by disaster; Shriver has established partnerships with corporations and with schools to strengthen these programs. He was a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates; became the first chair of the Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families; and created the Choice program to keep at-risk kids in school. He received his MA in Public Administration from Harvard. Sounds to me as if he’s following in his father’s footsteps to become a very good man, indeed.
Shriver recently appeared on the TODAY show.
NPR also covered Mark Shriver and his book.
Here’s an article on him in The Daily Beast, also with a video.
Follow him on Twitter.
Read an excerpt from the book on his sister Maria Shriver’s blog.
This is his second visit to The Colbert Report! He wasn’t the featured guest, but he had quite a bit of time.
This is a small website dedicated to the book, with audio, quotes by such admirers and Bill Clinton and Doris Kearns Goodwin, an excerpt, and purchasing links.
Like the book’s Facebook page. (Shriver’s own FB page is personal, not public.)
Wednesday, 8/8: Liza Mundy
We all know how much fun Stephen has dealing with feminists who seem to imply in any way that men are becoming redundant or more disposable in the modern world. I doubt that Liza Mundy actually says that, but from what I can gather, her new book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family, certainly suggests that the times they are a changing—and women are grabbing more and more power. Mundy has a name for this shift: the big flip. According to data she presents, the next generation will see more women than men act as the major breadwinner in their households. What will this mean? Mundy explores the social, political, and personal ramifications of this transformation.
Liza Mundy writes for the Washington Post on a variety of topics, from the arts and family life to science and politics. She’s received numerous awards, including from the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; was a Media Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; and had one of her articles included in an anthology by Oliver Sacks. She earned her BA from Princeton and her MA in English Literature from the University of Virginia, where she has also taught. She currently is a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.
Visit her website.
Follow her on Twitter.
Here’s her official publisher page, where you’ll get links not only to The Richer Sex but to her other books—which include a biography of Michele Obama and a study of fertility.
The New York Times reviewed The Richer Sex.
So did the her own newspaper, the Washington Post.
One of the big changes Mundy predicts in this new world order? Sex!
TIME magazine excerpted some of the book. Find out why men are attracted to high-earning women .
Here’s a Q&A with Mundy—from Maria Shriver’s blog. (A little connection between Tuesday and Wednesday’s guests.)
Mundy spoke about the book on Minnesota Public Radio (part of the NPR network).
Thursday, 8/9: Woody Harrelson
The laid-back Woody Harrelson—or, to use his full, real name, Woodrow Wilson Harrelson–came to fame as the dumber-than-dumb bartender in the TV show Cheers. He’s since gone on to show his diversity playing such characters as a cold-blooded murderer (Natural Born Killers), the pornographer and publisher of Hustler magazine in The People vs. Larry Flynt (for which he received an Oscar nomination), a zombie hunter in Zombieland, and Haymitch Abernathy, a former winner of the deadly competition in The Hunger Games. He’s had a rich career not going for commercial leads or depending on his undeniable beauty when he was young.
Harrelson’s newest venture isn’t on screen but on stage: a new off-Broadway comedy that he’s co-written and directed called A Bullet for Adolf. He says that it’s “based on real people, though the events depicted are fiction and the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.” The plot involved two Midwestern pals, a streetwise New Yorker who’s on the run, and a WWII artifact that goes missing—presumably the bullet from the play’s title.
But fiction can’t even begin to compare to at least one aspect of Harrelson’s own life: his father was a hit man convicted of killing a county judge—among other crimes. Woody managed to overcome this, although he himself got into a few drunken fistfights that almost derailed his career. He began acting in high school, then won a scholarship to Hanover College where he majored in English and theater arts. Auditions and some theater followed, until the breakthrough TV role that earned him five Emmy® nominations and one win. No fool he, Harrelson quickly created his own production company.
Go to his IMDB page to see the huge number of films and TV shows he’s appeared in.
The New York Times wrote an article about the creation of the play, interviewing Harrelson and his co-writer Frankie Hyman. And that’s not all: here’s another Times article!
Harrelson spoke to Michael Musto of the Village Voice about his indie films: I wish they were blockbusters….
Next up for him (well, one of many next ups): the cop drama True Detective with Matthew McConaughey on HBO.
Watch this video of Harrelson and Hyman discussing their play.
Read some excerpts from his interview in Men’s Journal.
One of his more recent films was Rampart, and here’s a USA Today review that says he “mesmerizes” in the role. (Note that there’s also a link to 10 questions with the actor.)
He played a little soccer to benefit charity—and scored with a penalty kick!
And now, let’s check in with our good friend Jon Stewart!
Monday, 8/6: Tim Gunn
Project Runway‘s fashion consultant and host with the most. This is his fourth appearance on The Daily Show; here’s a clip of the last visit.
Visit the Project Runway website or his own Bravo webpage.
Follow the Project Runway Twitter.
Tuesday, 8/7: Saima Wahab
Born in Afghanistan, Saima Wahab left her native country as a child and came to the US. She now serves as a much-needed interpreter and cultural adviser for the US Army and has a new book, In My Father’s Country:An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate.
Listen to an interview with her on NPR.
Wednesday, 8/8: Chris Rock
Yay! I love Chris Rock! This should be just wonderful. He’s in a film with the French actress Julie Delpy called 2 Days in New York, and is playing the more serious role of her husband coping with a visit from her relatives.
It’s been quite a while since Rock has visited TDS–not since 2003.
Visit Rock’s website.
The New York Times just interviewed him.
Follow him on Twitter.
Th 8/9: Joanna Brooks — or TBD?
Who will it be? The Late Night page says Joanna Brooks, who wrote The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith. Jon’s website says that the guest will be announced. We shall wait and see.
That’s all, folks. Let me know what you’re most looking forward to seeing this week!
Cheers!