Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

For his final episode, Sean Rameswaram traces the path of creative work he has personally posted, from blogging to sketch comedy videos to a truly ill rap posse. To close out the show, he gets the posse back together for one last song. Special thanks to Jay Cowit for this. 

Sloane Crosley had a successful career as a book publicist and had written two best-selling collections of funny essays. But to write her first novel, she ditched it all and moved to France — not too shabby! Also, we hear from the CEO of FX, who thinks there’s just too much TV on TV. And sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady were as close as sisters can be — but they didn’t start the band CocoRosie until they reunited as adults.

This is America's soapbox.

In his latest movie, “The End of the Tour,” Jason Segel stretches from the goofy, lovable characters he normally plays to the role of the tragic genius David Foster Wallace. Also, the writer and director of “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” Marielle Heller, explains why a relationship between a 15-year-old girl and a 35-year-old man might be empowering. And the indie rock band Yo La Tengo agrees to play a cover of your choosing.

Jonathan Wolff is the Michael Jordan of TV theme songs. He’s written over 40, from Will and Grace to The Hughleys. Before becoming Hollywood’s go-to theme song writer, Wolff spent a decade as a “multi-purpose utility tool for musical chores” — a studio musician, a music producer, and a recording engineer. He even taught Arnold Schwarzenegger how to act as a violinist for Stay Hungry. Eventually, Wolff started composing exclusively, which landed him a gig on the Seinfeld pilot.  The show’s producers were having difficulty finding music that wouldn’t overpower the comedian’s opening routines. “Jerry, you’ve already given me the melody and theme,” Wolff told Seinfeld. “My job is going to be to support you and the organic nature of your voice.”  Wolff sampled his own mouth noises and slapped some funky bass over it and the rest is history. He built the theme to be manipulated — the rhythm of the mouth pops, shakers, and bass notes changed ever so slightly to fit the different monologues that opened every show. Decades later, the internet has begun to manipulate it, too:   In the past year, the Seinfeld theme has been mashed up with songs by Limp Bizkit, Kendrick Lamar, ODB, Evanescence, and — just this week — Radiohead. Back in March, we decided to name the meme the “Jerry Roll.” Wolff never wrote lyrics for his original theme, but he couldn’t be more tickled with all the variations popping up online. “It’s like I’ve been invited to another party,” Wolff says. “It’s really quite a compliment.”   Special thanks to Reed Dunlea, who wrote about Jonathan Wolff for Vice. AUDIO CORRECTION: Jonathan Wolff has written music for over 70 TV shows, but penned themes for only 44 of them. He retired in 2005, not 2000. 

The actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg explains how he went from making funny genre flicks with his buddies to starring in some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises — “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” and “Mission: Impossible.” Also, the musical duo The Bird and the Bee performs their lush, catchy retro-pop live in our studio. And a British bookie explains why you can bet on just about anything — except who will perform the next Bond theme.

This is the novel about racism that America couldn't ignore.

Kung Fury is every 80s action film you've ever watched and dreamed of, packed into a ridiculous, rollicking, fully retro 30 minutes. It’s about a renegade cop in 1985 Miami who gets hacked back in time to kill Hitler, of course. But really it's about reveling in synth-pop, mullets, awesome jackets, and all things silly about cinema. David Sandberg, a 29-year-old Swedish filmmaker, wanted to make something that would live up to a child's wildest dreams of what a movie should be. "When you look at movie posters from the 80s, it's like, 'Wow!'" he says. "I wanted to make Kung Fury like jumping into that poster and delivering what the poster promises."  Sandberg came up with Kung Fury while making commercials and music videos in Stockholm. “I had a piece of paper and I wrote down a bunch of cool words," he says. "Inferno, justice, cop force, and then I had 'Kung Fu' and somewhere on there I had 'fury' and it just clicked: 'Kung Fury!'" Sandberg quit his job, moved back to his mom’s, played around with a green screen on his own dime, and then, in December of 2013, put a trailer on Kickstarter. The internet responded exactly as he had hoped and he raised over $600,000 in under a month.  Kung Fury will probably end up in the history books — not because it's particularly good (though millions of YouTube viewers would argue it is), but on account of it going from popular joke trailer, to blockbuster Kickstarter campaign, to an eventual debut at the Cannes Film Festival — yes, that Cannes. Sandberg found out about beachside screenings outside the annual Festival and applied earlier this year. He didn't think much would come of it, but was accepted. “When we had the screening I was super nervous because there were some films before Kung Fury that were super serious," Sandberg says of the film's premiere at this year's festival. "I thought that people would hate Kung Fury for poking fun at the art of film or something. But people loved it.”  Next, Sandberg is working on a full-length version of the film. But he might not have to depend on the internet this time around. After Cannes, he met with Hollywood producers who offered to finance a longer version of his kung fu comedy. He also befriended David Hasselhoff, who offered to help in any way possible:   WATCH THE FULL VERSION OF KUNG FURY:   

As the lead singer of The Gap Band, Charlie Wilson had huge hits — as well as a debilitating drug habit. He tells his story of recovery and rebounding to the top of the charts with the help of Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, and Kanye West in the new memoir “I Am Charlie Wilson.” Also, The Silver Lake Chorus commissions new songs from indie rock's greatest songwriters, and we hear the story behind one Aimee Mann wrote for them. And, for a poet obsessed with the passage of time and the end of the world, Mary Jo Bang has a surprisingly upbeat personality.

Ian McKellen has played Magneto in the “X-Men” movies and Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings,” but his latest role is a real biggie: Sherlock Holmes. Plus, Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” upends our picture of Atticus Finch, but the LA Times’ book reviewer says it shouldn’t be too surprising. And a new museum preserves the everyday artifacts of the Eastern Bloc — in Los Angeles.

Most comedians have just a few memorable bits; Howard Kremer has just one. Good thing he managed to build a comedy empire on it. A few years ago, Kremer had an epiphany while on the beach in Los Angeles: there was nothing more important in life than making the most of the summer — which Kremer calls “summah” in honor of his native New Jersey. “There it is! That’s the crux of the debate!” he said. If you have to choose between work and adult responsibilities and enjoying a summer day, “I’m going to choose summah, and I’m going to tell people about it!” But how does a joke turn into a brand? Kremer spun his revelation into a few funny minutes of comedy (being bitten by a shark in the ocean is better than not having been to the ocean, he thinks). That turned into merchandise, summer songs (three albums worth), and Summahfest, a party in Los Angeles with water slides, food trucks, and live music. "You always want to do something that catches the public’s imagination. It’s hard with stand-up to convey raw emotion and still be funny, but with ‘Have a Summah’ it’s a meaningful thing.” If the mileage Kremer has taken out of the bit doesn’t make it clear, he’s serious about summer. “It goes so fast, and people don’t start it on time,” he laments. “The government has moved in and chopped it up — school starts now on August 15th. You have to remind yourself” to enjoy life while you have it.  Actually, Kremer’s taken it upon himself to remind you. He was recently at the beach with a friend who had forgotten the pleasures of summer. “This is great,” the friend reflected, “I should have been doing this all summer.” Incredulous, Kremer responded, “If only there was a guy that reminded everybody to have a summah!” (This episode of Sideshow first aired at the end of last summah – September 3, 2014.)

Tony Bennett has been defying skeptics since the Depression, and his current tour with Lada Gaga is no exception. We hear from Taylor Mac, who’s performing a comprehensive survey of 20th century American music — in drag. Plus, a married couple tries to read “On the Road” together, with mixed results.

In under two years, the 20-year-old dance-pop phenomenon Shamir Bailey has gone from recording songs in his bedroom to seeing his face on a billboard in Times Square. Kurt also talks to rock legend Leon Russell, the subject of a fascinating documentary that’s a time capsule from the weird rock scene of the 1970s. And the artist Laurie Frick turns our obsession with personal tracking into sculptures she calls “data selfies.”

The seven siblings featured in the new documentary The Wolfpack grew up in New York’s Lower East Side, but they were raised almost completely shut off from the outside world. Despite and because of these strange circumstances, they became completely obsessed with pop culture – in particular, with movies. Two of the Angulo brothers, Mukunda and Bhagavan, fell hard for The Dark Knight.  And it was this film – about a man who dresses up as a giant bat – that made them want to discover the world outside their windows. “After I saw The Dark Knight, that made me believe that something was possible to happen,” says Mukunda. “Not because it was Batman, but because it felt like another world.” WATCH MUKUNDA AND BHAGAVAN RECREATE A SCENE FROM THE DARK KNIGHT:  Oscar Angulo, the siblings’ father, was strict. For years, he didn’t let them leave their apartment on their own. On the rare occasion when they went out as a family, the kids were told not to speak to anyone. The internet was also off limits. But Oscar loved movies, so he recorded a massive library on VHS and DVD – about 5,000 films in total. The siblings would watch the same films over and over and, after fiercely debating their collective Top 40, they decided to start recreating some of them. “We always say lines from our favorite films and we thought, why don’t we do those films, be the characters,” Mukunda says. Without a computer or even a typewriter, he had to handwrite all of the individual scripts. “It took me a week to write Goodfellas, a week to write The Dark Knight, about five to write The Dark Knight Rises, two to write Batman Begins. Writing that and hurting your hand, it’s torture, but seeing the result is everything.”  The siblings now star in their very own film – albeit a documentary.  The Wolfpack, directed by Crystal Moselle, won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Moselle first encountered the kids on one of their very first unsupervised forays out of their apartment. She took them to an internet café where Mukunda used the internet for the first time. “I just googled The Dark Knight and found out stuff I had no idea existed,” he says. “That’s the first thing I googled. I’ll never forget it.” 

John Lennon described Yoko Ono as “the world’s most famous unknown artist.” That’s changing, with 10 number one dance hits in recent years, and a solo show of her art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Also, we hear from comedian Aziz Ansari, who started doing stand-up in college on a whim and now headlines Madison Square Garden. And, barely in their teens, the band Unlocking the Truth might be the youngest metal band ever to sign a major record deal. Segments in this episode aired previously.