Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

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Fred Armisen Sep 10, 2012

Show notes

This week, Alec talks with Fred Armisen. Armisen has been a punk rock drummer, currently he’s a cast member on Saturday Night Live and is also the co-creator and co-star of IFC’s Portlandia. Armisen has always been ambitious; when he was a drummer, he recalls, he always "wanted much more."

Long ago, Armisen played drums with the Blue Man Group in Chicago and he tells Alec he learned a lot: about "simplicity," "reinvention" and "that audiences want to be entertained." Armisen admits that he’s always working; when SNL is on hiatus, he’s producing Portlandia. But he still dreams about what might come next: "I want to invent a type of entertainment that is really blurry between comedy and something else. That doesn’t have a name yet...another level of fooling people as opposed to just doing a character. Something a little bigger than that."

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Zarin Mehta Aug 27, 2012

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This week, Alec talks with Zarin Mehta who retired as president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic at the end of this past season. Mehta, an accountant by trade, grew up in 1940’s Bombay before it became the booming city of Mumbai. In Mehta’s memory, Bombay was more like a colonial fishing village.

Mehta talks with Alec about his father, who founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, his brother Zubin, and the realities of running a major arts organization in New York. As Mehta states, “Look, in the United States one does not look to the state for support of the arts.” Alec also talks with Carmen Mehta, Zarin Mehta's wife, and she offers her own insights into Mehta’s success.

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Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery Aug 13, 2012

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This week, Alec talks with documentary filmmakers Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery – each of whom has made a controversial political films, one about a golf course in Scotland; the other about whether 9/11 was a government cover-up.

Both films were made on meager budgets and both have attracted significant attention. Dylan Avery’s film, Loose Change, became an internet sensation and spawned a “Truther Movement” composed of people that believe that the government’s version of 9/11 is a lie. Anthony Baxter’s You’ve Been Trumped has given voice to people around the world who are fighting encroaching developments.

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Billy Joel Jul 30, 2012

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This week on Here’s the Thing – Alec sits down with fellow Long Islander Billy Joel – at the piano – for a conversation about life and the musical choices he’s made.

Joel joined his first band at age 14 and became the third best selling solo artist of all time in the United States. He’s sold more records than The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, but at this point, he says, the “rock star thing” is something he can “take off.” “I go shopping, I cook my own food, I wash the dishes, I take out the garbage … And the music has nothing to do with money or career. It’s just part of me. It’s like love.”

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Peter Frampton Jul 16, 2012

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This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton. “Sound is very inspirational to me,” explains Frampton – and it always has been: he started playing guitar before he was 8 years old.

Frampton talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who he says is “sort of like my mentor, my older brother.” Eleven years later, Frampton was on stage in San Francisco, recording "Frampton Comes Alive," one of the biggest selling live albums of all times.

Frampton also talks about the challenges of his extraordinary success: “I don’t think anybody can be ready for that kind of success,” explains Frampton.

Peter Frampton recently completed a 35th anniversary tour of Frampton Comes Alive – a DVD will be available later this year.

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Robert Lustig Jul 02, 2012

Show notes

This week, Alec talks with Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco, about our country’s addiction to sugar. Children today are the first American generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, in large part due to obesity. According to Lustig, this obesity often comes from eating too much sugar.

Sugar is hard to avoid. A recent study reveals that 80 percent of the 600,000 food items in America are laced with added sugar. Lustig says, “There is not one biochemical reaction in your body, not one, that requires dietary fructose, not one that requires sugar. Dietary sugar is completely irrelevant to life. People say oh, you need sugar to live. Garbage.” Dr. Robert Lustig has made it his business to get the rest of the world to pay attention.

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David Letterman Jun 18, 2012

Show notes

This week on Here's The Thing, Alec talks with late-night legend David Letterman. Letterman describes his early years on TV in Indiana; his decision to try radio despite a boss who said “You will never be heard of again”; and his eventual journey to LA where after 3 years at comedy clubs he found himself on The Tonight Show. As Letterman says, "that's not supposed to happen."

Letterman’s been doing the Late Show for 30 years and he says for a long time he “just didn’t do anything else.” Things have changed now, he tells Alec; he has “no patience for meetings” and he avoids making decisions on the show. Dave is also taking time to explore the world with his 8-year old son: “when you have a child you do things you never thought you would do, and it’s fun.”

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Jon Robin Baitz Jun 04, 2012

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This week Alec talks with playwright Jon Robin Baitz, whose Broadway play, Other Desert Cities, is up for a Tony later this month.

Baitz grew up in Brazil and South Africa -- transferring to Beverly Hills High School for his final year of school where he says he “became friends ... with fellow freaks.” He’s been writing ever since -- even though “writing plays has always been very tricky.” Baitz talks about the origin of the new play, his short-lived adventures writing for television in Hollywood, and the relief of coming back to the American theater. For Baitz, “it’s a privilege to be in [the theater]. I’m lucky to have found my way back to it.”

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Renée Fleming May 21, 2012

Show notes

This week Alec talks with opera singer Renée Fleming, whose singing voice has been described as "double cream." Fleming remembers her professional debut -- “I was just jelly at the end of the first rehearsal” -- and celebrates her long association with The Metropolitan Opera. Fleming talks about performing and the challenges of being heard, without amplification, over an orchestra, but also about the pleasure of being in the audience “where I have literally been sobbing at the end” of an opera.

Music excerpts included in Here’s the Thing’s conversation with Renée Fleming (in order of appearance):

“Glück, das mir verblieb (Marietta’s Lied)” from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt

(Live performance from the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala, March 15, 2009; Conductor: James Levine)

“I’ll Be Seeing You” (Renée Fleming with the Eastman Jazz Ensemble/”Arranger’s Holiday” recorded Fall 1981 (archive tape courtesy Renée Fleming; special thanks to Ed Fleming)

"Contessa, perdono!" from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Houston Grand Opera. Conductor; Christoph Eschenbach. 1991

“Glück, das mir verblieb (Marietta’s Lied)” from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt

(Live performance from the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala, March 15, 2009; Conductor: James Levine)

“Dis-moi que je suis belle” from Massenet’s Thaïs

(Live Met performance, December 20th, 2008; Conductor: Jesús López-Cobos)

“Hab’ mir’s gelobt” from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier

(Live Met performance, January 9, 2010, with Susan Graham as Octavian and Christine Schäfer as Sophie; Conductor: Edo de Waart)

“Mio caro bene” from Handel’s Rodelinda

(Live Met performance, January 1, 2005; Conductor: Harry Bicket)

Finale from Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades

(Live Met performance, March 26, 2011; Conductor: Andris Nelsons)

Finale from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro

(Live Met performance, February 12, 1994, with Dwayne Croft (Count Almaviva), Marie McLaughlin (Susanna), James Morris (Figaro), Jane Bunnell (Cherubino), François Loup (Dr. Bartolo), Judith Christin (Marcellina), Michel Sénéchal (Don Basilio), James Courtney (Antonio), and Korliss Uecker (Barbarina); Conductor: Julius Rudel)

Special thanks this week to The Metropolitan Opera and the Houston Grand Opera for providing archival musical excerpts. In particular, thanks to Peter Clark, Mary Jo Heath, Brent Ness, Sam Neuman, Elena Park, and Claire Vince. And thanks to Paul Batsel at the Office of Renée Fleming.

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Joseph Stiglitz May 07, 2012

Show notes

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks about the financial crisis with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Stiglitz shows no restraint when unleashing criticism of presidential policies -- on both sides. Of President Barack Obama’s financial-industry rescue plan, Stiglitz said that whomever designed it was "either in the pocket of the banks or … incompetent." Stiglitz talks to Alec about growing up in Gary, Indiana and how that impacted his decision to become an economist.

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