Exclusive radio interviews by Mr. Media®, a.k.a., Bob Andelman, with celebrities and newsmakers in TV, radio, movies, music, magazines, newspapers, graphic novels, and comics! Now in its 4th year! Listen LIVE or download to your iPod or other portable MP3 player!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Aziz Ansari, FUNNY PEOPLE, PARKS AND RECREATION actor, comedian: Mr. Media Radio Interview
Aziz Ansari, who starred in both NBC’s “Parks & Recreation” and ABC’s “Scrubs” was just in Montreal for the annual Just For Laughs Comedy and Film Festival. He went there to promote his new movie, Funny People, starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen and he also performed there as a stand-up.
But was he Aziz—or Randy, his character from “Funny People”?
Here’s a clip of Randy—and this where, if you have delicate ears, I recommend you switch over to Dr. Blogstein or Olivia Wilder. Because from this point on, this is adults-only radio.
Are they gone? Great.
If you’d like to hear more of Randy, go to his website, LaughYourDickOff.com. And this fall he’ll be back opposite Amy Poehler in the second season of the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” You call also follow Aziz on Twitter.
Tom Farley, Jr., THE CHRIS FARLEY SHOW co-author: Mr. Media Audio Interview
Losing a family member at the tender age of 33 is incredibly tough. It’s even more complicated when that young person lived his existence in a bigger-than-life way, like Chris Farley – and his trials and tribulations are witnessed by millions.
In his new book, The Chris Farley Show, Chris’s older brother, Tom Farley, Jr. – with help from co-author Tanner Colby - pieces together his late brother’s life in the form of an oral history with interviews from most everyone who encountered Chris. This includes family and friends from his youth, on through the “Saturday Night Live” family, and people from his hit movies, including Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, and Beverly Hills Ninja.
The book is an easy, breezy read, and was excerpted last month in Playboy.
You can LISTEN to this interview by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below!
Babysitting is scarce these days, so when our daughter disappeared over the weekend for a Girl Scout camping trip, Mrs. Media and I evacuated the compound for some sushi and a movie.
Mike Binder's Reign Over Me had us laughing one moment, on the verge of tears the next. On paper, it didn't sound as good as it is: a buddy comedy about two unlikely pals, former dental college roommates, played by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. They reconnect at a point when Cheadle is at the top of his game, Sandler at the bottom of his.
What makes this work is the twist; Sandler's wife and kids were on one of the two planes that terrorists flew into the World Trade Centers on 9/11. Curiously, I can't remember any specific mention of "9/11" or the "World Trade Centers." But everyone in the theater knows what is at work on Sandler's emotions and the story plays better because Binder (remember HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man"?) has chosen not to beat us about the head and neck with it.
I also liked the college roommate angle. Cheadle and Sandler? Roommates? Who'd believe that? But then I remembered my own unlikely parade of roomies, starting in 1978, when the Shah of Iran fell and I was a freshman at the University of Miami. Someone thought it appropriately entertaining to squeeze the Jewish kid from New Jersey into a 20 x 10 concrete cell with an Iranian exchange student named Ali. No sense of humor, didn't like music, visitors, or opening the hurricane shutters to let a little sun in. When that didn't work out, he was replaced by another Iranian, Keyvan, who was his polar opposite, full of stories, questions and never dull. I think my best roommate, two years later when I was at the University of Florida, was Cesar, a Venezuelan student. He was hysterical, attracting more girls by blinking than most guys meet in a lifetime. He established "jungle rules" for the fridge, loved nothing better than to spend a quiet afternoon fishing in the middle of Lake Alice... and then there were the tropical fish. Cesar would go to the neighborhood pet store and buy tame, placid tropical fish and ask what fish, under no circumstances, should he never put in his tank with these lovelies. Then he would go to another store and buy those fish.
If you avoided United 93 or World Trade Center because you already knew how the stories ended, you might actually enjoy Reign Over Me. We did. Great soundtrack, too.
Bob Andelman is the host and producer of the “Mr. Media Radio” online interview show, now in its 4th year. He is also the author or co-author of 10 books including: The Profiler; Will Eisner: A Spirited Life; Built From Scratch; Mean Business; The Profit Zone; The Corporate Athlete, Stadium For Rent and several others. Complete biography & book reviews here. Looking to hire a collaborator or writer for a book? Contact my agent, Michael Bourret. Magazine editors can contact me directly.
Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk,” “The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored History of the Porn Film Industry,” Punk Magazine)
Bob Gruen (John Lennon, The Clash, New York Dolls rock ‘n’ roll photographer)
Michael Uslan (The Dark Knight, The Spirit, Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, Catwoman, Constantine, National Treasure, Swamp Thing, Shazam!, The Shadow, Constantine)