Mr. Media Interviews By Bob Andelman

From 2008: If you want to see daily comic strips in their classic form, the place I’d steer you is cartoonist Patrick McDonnell’s “Mutts.” Finely drawn, acerbic in voice yet sweet by nature, gentle in image yet often violent in humor, “Mutts” is a throwback to the earliest days of the art form, when a brick to the head meant “I love you” and the illustrations took more space than the words.

From 2008: Rolling Stone writer David Wild has harbored a secret man crush for decades. Today, he will come out of the closet and fess up: He’s in love with Neil Diamond. Wild testifies to this forbidden love in a new sort-of biography, He Is… I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond, which is, at times, as much about Wild as it is about Diamond.

From 2008: Craig Glazer, the author of a new book called The King of Sting: The King of Sting: The Amazing True Story of a Modern American Outlaw, might remind you of another good guy/bad guy: Frank Abagnale Jr., the author of Catch Me If You Can. The difference, I think, if that Abagnale was a scam artist; Glazer was a sting artist. Subtle difference? We’ll see.

From 2008: Gail Simmons, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine, has the best gig of all the judges. Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio have to hang around each day for most of the challenges while Gail helicopters in for the final tastings and judgings. She always looks composed and ready, sharp and spicy assessments ever at the ready. This season she is even getting featured in an episode, as the competing chefs cook for her bridal shower. Should be fun.

From 2008: Joining me today is a co-founder of VoiceThread, Steve Muth. I encourage you to visit voicethread.com and set up a free account while we talk because I expect we’ll go through a bit of a tutorial momentarily.

From 2008: My recollections are a drop in the bucket compared with the ones collected by Harvey Frommer in his new coffee table book, Remembering Yankee Stadium. It is packed not just with oral histories collected from some of the greatest Yankees players, managers, sports writers and fans, but is also filled with awesome photos from decades of historic moments.

From 2008: Bruce Davison already owns a chunk of pop culture—he was devious Senator Robert Kelly in the first two X-Men movies and has appeared in episodes of everything from “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” to “Terminator” and “The L Word.” So it can’t be too much of a surprise that when the producers of NBC’s new “Knight Rider” series wanted a genre veteran to lend credibility to the show, they, too, turned to Davison.

From 2008L Romance is the top genre in fiction with more than $1.47 billion dollars in sales for 2007. The average romance reader is voracious and goes through 6-7 books per month. Within the genre, there are many specializations, including tonight’s topic: romance novels written by and for African-American readers. My guest is Michele Cameron, author of Never Say Never and the hot-off-the-press Moments of Clarity… Also joining us is her editor at Genesis Press, Deborah Schumacher.

From 2008: Photographer Bob Gruen just published a new collection of his classic photos, this time capturing the New York Dolls, which once upon a time starred David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Billy Murcia and Arthur Kane. The book – with its shocking pink cover – is titled, simply, New York Dolls: Photographs. If you know anything about the Dolls, you’ll want this book on your coffee table. It’ll be a good bookend for other Gruen collections, including John Lennon: The New York Years and The Clash.

From 2008: Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (pronounced bar-new-in) are the co-authors of three books whose titles start with Skinny Bitch: the original Skinny Bitch, the first sequel, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, and the latest release, Skinny Bitch: Bun in the Oven. The books are, at their core, diet guides with a strong vegan slant. But what gets your attention is the tone, the attitude, the cold, hard slap n the face.

From 2008: Rie Heffron (her first name is pronounced lee-ay) is a 34-year-old product specialist from Woodland Hills, CA. She went on the new NBC reality series “America’s Toughest Jobs” to prove she isn’t just another pretty face—even if she really does have a very pretty face. The show really put her through her paces, too, and she’s here to talk about it.

From 2008: If you consider yourself a little choosy when it comes to movies, you probably either read newspaper reviews or watch a movie review show on TV. There are some reviews who come a little more highly recommended than others. There was Siskel, there was Ebert… and since I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, there has always been Jeffrey Lyons. Lyons is back with the second season of his syndicated TV show, “Reel Talk with Lyons & Bailes,” and he’s here to tell us a little about it.

From 2008: Let me say this as clearly as possible: If you don’t buy Brian Michael Jenkins’ new book, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?? then the terrorists win. And that may be the last moment of levity in this episode of Mr. Media. Brian Michael Jenkins is one of the world's leading authorities on terrorism. He has been advising the military, government and prestigious think tanks on the dangers of escalating terrorism for more than 30 years and is a senior advisor to the president of the Rand Corporation.

From 2008: I know a lot of people who are intrigued by the idea of producing their own web site or blog but scared to death that doing so would be technically over their heads. To which I always reply, “If I can do it, you can do it.” If you’re one of those people, maybe my guest for today’s show will have better luck convincing you to give web site construction a go. His name is Haroon Mokhtarzada (Ha roon Mook tar za da) and he is CEO of Webs.com, also known as Freewebs.

From 2008: Chris Young came to NBC’s “America’s Toughest Jobs” looking for a challenge, not a new job. He’s a 49-year-old investment banker from Pasadena who signed on for a shot at the big time. He reportedly also doubled his life insurance policy.

From 2008: I didn't know much about Anita O'Day, the jazz singer whom Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden have immortalized in their new film, Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer. It would have been just as easy to take a pass on this, but I'm glad I didn't. O'Day, whose voice could be both lilting and rusty - and I mean that in a good way - was gifted with a phenomenal instrument. And she lived a crazy life, falling into serious heroin abuse for nearly 15 years.

From 2008: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Chip Rowe has one of the greatest jobs on earth. He’s the Playboy Advisor. You know, the guy who gets letters from C.J. in Chicago that begin, “What is the proper way to tip a blackjack dealer?” Or maybe this automotive inquiry, from A.K. in Harrisburg, Virginia: “Ever since I was a child, I have fixated on women in cars that won’t start. I suppose you could call this a fetish, because it gets me incredibly turned on. Have you ever heard o

From 2008: I’ve always been captivated by the Star Wars movies and mythos. My guest today, Catherine "Cat" Taber, is the actress who steps into the role of Padmé Amidala in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars."

From 2008: Peter Salett's new album, "In the Ocean of the Stars" was released this very day. Peter, if you don’t know him, is an accomplished musician whose career has been pumped up in recent years by his association with the hottest director of film comedies in the country, Judd Apatow. Peter co-wrote three songs for the recent movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall with its star, Jason Segel.

From 2008: It doesn’t matter whether you’ve seen or even heard of these real movie titles, because they’re providing a profitable existence for Paul Hertzberg, president and CEO of CineTel Films. Paul Herzberg, CEO/President, Cinetel Films[/caption] Movie fans focused on the weekly Top 10 movies and their box office take are missing an entire dimension of the film business. That’s where independents such as CineTel operate, cranking out movies largely on the fringes.