Bob Claster was a DJ on KCRW in Los Angeles. In the 80's he had a comedy show called Funny Stuff and he would interview comedians. He has many of these interviews online as mp3s. He interviewed Tom Lehrer, Douglas Adams, Danny Arnold (a.k.a. Barney Miller), Peter Cook, Terry Jones, two interviews with John Cleese, one solo and another with Michael Palin, Emo Philips, Billy Connolly, Mort Sahl, Quentin Crisp, "Brother Theodore" Gottlieb, June Foray and Bill Scott (a.k.a. Rocky and Bullwinkle and an epic five-part interview with Stan Freberg, the subject of my last post.
posted by Kattullus on Mar 27, 2009 - 7 comments

The Sling Shot Man is Rufus Hussey, a man who's awesome with a beanshooter. This is a segment from 1985 of Down Home with the Carolina Camera which is a long-running part of Charlotte's WBTV's Top o' the Day variety show. There are a total of 22 videos on the YouTube channel which all feature interesting but non-famous Carolinians. Here are some other stories I liked: The Dulcimer School, Alligator Catchers, The Checker Players, The Gourdman of Angier and Backwards Man.
posted by Kattullus on Jan 15, 2009 - 18 comments

What was it like during the Great Depression? University of Oregon Economist Mark Thoma links to interviews by Studs Terkel which deal with the Great Depression. All interviews in Real Player format. Interviewees: Gardner C. Means, economic adviser to FDR. Peggy Terry, a migrant farm worker (my favorite interview). Virginia Durr, civil rights activist. Ed Paulsen, dayworker. Emma Tiller, cook. Pauline Kael (yes, that Pauline Kael). Mary Owsley, farm worker. Much more in the Hard Times section of the wonderful Studs Terkel website, which has been featured twice previously on MetaFilter (1, 2) [via Obsidian Wings]
posted by Kattullus on Sep 29, 2008 - 30 comments

The Atlantic Monthly has helpfully indexed literary interviews from its archives. These include, among others, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, Dennis Lehane, Zadie Smith, Charles Simic, Salman Rushdie, Susan Sontag and John Irving.
posted by Kattullus on May 31, 2008 - 5 comments

Invisible Handwriting is the blog of Heron & Crane Productions, who do podcasts for the MIT, Harvard, Yale and University of California presses. Heron & Crane link to every episode they produce from their blog. The Rutgers Press and University of Michigan Press do their own podcasts. All podcasts are almost exclusively interviews with authors of books recently published by the presses. Heron & Crane also does a business management podcast called The Invisible Hand.
posted by Kattullus on May 4, 2008 - 8 comments

The Greatest Interviews of the 20th Century according to The Guardian. The interviews are with Princess Diana, John Lennon, Marlon Brando, Dennis Potter, Francis Bacon, Marilyn Monroe, Sex Pistols, Malcolm X, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margaret Thatcher and Fidel Castro. You know who else is interviewed? That's right, Nixon. Oh, and there's a Hitler interview, too. Apparently he likes tea. So do I. Funny ol' world. [via Neil Gaiman]
posted by Kattullus on Sep 20, 2007 - 32 comments