Director Barry Blaustein is making his directorial debut with the new documentary film “Beyond the Mat.” The movie takes a look at the personal lives of the stars of the World Wrestling Federation, men with names like “Mankind” and “Jake the Snake.” Blaustein previously was head writer and supervising producer at Saturday Night Live and he co-wrote many of Eddie Murphy’s best-loved characters like “Buckwheat,” “Velvet Jones,” “Gumby,” and “Mr. Robinson.”
Daniel Gross is a New York-based writer and columnist for Investment News and the author of “Bull Run: Wall Street, the Democrats, and the New Politics of Personal Finance” (PublicAffairs). He has worked as a reporter at the New Republic and Bloomberg Business News. Gross is the author of Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All Time (Wiley, 1996).
We talk about the Taliban with Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. His new book is called Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Yale University Press). In the mid 1990s, the Taliban Movement gained power in Afghanistan, a country in the wake of a civil war. The Taliban declared they wanted to restore peace and enforce traditional Islamic law. Instead, The Taliban has shown itself to be a troubling development in Islamic radicalism. It has launched a genocidal campaign against Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan. It has sanctioned acts of international terrorism.
Actor, writer, director and producer Peter Berg. He is the creator and executive producer of the new controversial ABC series Wonderland. The show is set in a mental hospital. Some call it the most accurate portrayal of the mentally ill on network television, while some mental health organizations say that the series further stigmatizes mental patients. As an actor, Peter Berg has started on the TV show Chicago Hope, and has appeared in movies like The Last seduction, Copland, and the Great White Hype.
Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is new movie is called Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, starring Forrest Whitaker. Jarmusch often acts as writer, director, and producer of his films. His other films include Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Night on Earth, and Year of the Horse.
We will talk about the psychology of sports and athletes with Doctor Michael Miletic. He is one of the few psychoanalysts currently treating active professional athletes. Miletic serves as a psychiatric consultant to the Detroit Pistons, several professional Hockey teams, and the parents group of the National Football League Players Association. Miletic himself was an athlete. He was even a member of the Canadian Olympic weight lifting team, until an injury cut his career short.
Essayist and feminist journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. For three weeks last year Ehrenreich worked for a cleaning service in Portland, Maine. She writes about her experience, and the politics of house cleaning in this month's issue of Harper's magazine. The article is called "Maid to Order: The politics of other women's work" (April 2000). She is a contributing editor of Harper's. Her articles, reviews, essays and humor have appeared in Time, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal.
Actor Om Puri is a star of Bombay's film industry, known as Bollywood. In his two decades of acting he's worked with every major Indian film director including Satjayit Ray. In western films he had roles in "Ghandi" and "City of Joy," and in the TV series "The Jewel in the Crown." Recently he's had starring parts in two British films "My Son the Fanatic," and the new film "East is East."
Actor John Spencer. He plays Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff to the President in the tv series "The West Wing." The show, set in the Whitehouse, and concerning a fictional democratic President and his staff has just won a prestigious George Peabody award. In this first season of the show, Spencer's character has had to deal with his former alcoholism becoming a matter of public scrutiny. Spencder previously was a regular on "L.A. Law" and began his career on "The Patty Duke Show."
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two new CDS from two Southern hip hop groups: "Tha G-Code" (Cash Money) by Juvenile and "World Party" (Arista) by Goodie Mob.
Singer Keely Smith. She has been called “The Queen of Swing” and “the First Lady of Las Vegas”. Smith is perhaps best known as the duet partner and wife of Louis Prima. Smith and Prima drew crowds to the lounges of Las Vegas in the 1950s. Their hits include “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail,” “Just a Gigolo,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and “That Old Black Magic.” Smith talks about her marriage to Prima, the music they made together, and her career. Smith has just released a new CD called Swing Swing Swing
This year marks the centennial of the birth of German-born Kurt Weill, considered one of the 20th century’s most influential composers. And Monday, April 3, is the 50th anniversary of his death. He and lyricist Bertolt Brecht revolutionized musical theatre with a blend of cabaret and classical traditions resulting in “The Threepenny Opera” “Seven Deadly Sins” and others. In 1933 Weill, a Jew, fled Berlin and in 1935 came to America where he began working in American theatre. We talk about Weill with Kim Kowlake (Koe-WALL-kee), President of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
Journalist Bill Turque is Washington correspondent for Newsweek and author of the new biography, “Inventing Al Gore” (Houghton Mifflin). Turque covered both of Gore’s vice presidential campaigns and the Clinton White House. He began work on the book in 1997
