As a lover of 80s cult cinema, I greatly enjoyed the work of Marcia Karr, my newest interview subject, in movies like Chained Heat, Savage Streets and Killer Workout. I befriended Marcia on Facebook a while back, and was amazed to see her work in charitable endeavors, working with nonprofits like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and […]
December 8, 1980 was an interesting day….the world lost one legendary recording artist, but it gained a penguin. Bloom County, cited by many comic strip aficionados (like yours truly) as one of the best strips ever made, first appeared in papers the day John Lennon was shot. Its opening gag, about an old man named […]
Lizz Winstead, the subject of my newest interview for Pop Geeks, has been active as both a performer and an activist since the 1980s. Starting out as a stand-up comedienne with appearances on many popular comedy programs of the 80s and 90s, she would later go on to co-create the seminal Comedy Central program The […]
I was first introduced to my newest interview subject, Rich Manley, by Charles Sherman, the manager who helped set up my interview with Amy Stoch earlier this year. Rich Manley is an actor, martial artist and magician, among other skills, and he’ll soon be launching a new series on Tubi TV called Culture Shock, where […]
The first era of Saturday Night Live that I was exposed to in reruns was the era when Lorne Michaels was not producing the show. That period from 1980 to 1985 really made an impression on me, and one of the cast members from that era who impacted me is my newest interview subject, Gary […]
My first exposure to the work of choreographer Anita Mann, my newest interview subject, came when I rented The Great Muppet Caper as a child. Before I even knew her name, I saw the Muppets and Anita’s dancers creating footwork fireworks with numbers like “Hey, A Movie!” and “The First Time It Happens”. As I […]
My first exposure to the work of Oscar-winning makeup artist Valli O’Reilly, my newest interview subject, came when I purchased a copy of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours on VHS and the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense on DVD in the early 00s. The makeups she created for David Byrne’s self-interview for Stop Making […]
In the late 00s, much to my mom’s chagrin, I started up a small cassette collection again after having gotten rid of a larger one in the early 00s. One of the albums I had on cassette came from my newest interview subject, Melissa Manchester. Her album Emergency had a collection of great songs that […]
I first saw Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure on Showtime in the early 90s, but I wouldn’t really appreciate the movie until my high school years. One of the most memorable characters in the Bill And Ted movies has been Missy, the stepmother of both members of the duo throughout the films. Missy was played […]
My first exposure to my newest interview subject, Brie Howard, came when I heard her background vocals and instrumental work on Robbie Nevil’s song C’est La Vie, which I first came across on an 80s compilation CD I purchased in the late 90s. As I grew older, I would come to discover more about Brie’s […]
In 1997, to mark my 15th birthday, I rented three Eddie Murphy movies from the video store. One of those movies was 48 HRS, and that film was my first exposure to my newest interview subject. Greta Blackburn played Lisa, a hostage of Ganz (James Remar), and although her role was small, it was memorable. […]
My first exposure to my newest interview subject, Sandy Helberg, came through the movie Spaceballs, where he memorably played the character of Dr. Schlotkin, the plastic surgeon who was going to give Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) her old nose back if King Roland (Dick Van Patten) didn’t turn over the key to the air lock. […]