(Blank on Blank) Dolly Parton on Getting Dirty!

"Mama just always said, 'you be what you are and you don't have to worry about nothing'" 

- Dolly Parton as told to Lawrence Grobel on March 13, 1978

Dolly Parton was not your typical model to appear on the cover of Playboy magazine. But that's just what Dolly did in 1978. She wouldn't take her clothes off, yet that issue still became one of Playboy's most popular issues of all time.

Inside that issue of Playboy was an amazing interview done by Lawrence Grobel. The recording of this interview has never been heard until now. Dolly was at the height of her stardom. She was in her early 30s. And what we loved hearing were her stories about growing up with 11 siblings in Tennessee. They slept four to the bed. The little ones often peed on her at night. In the summertime everybody bathed in the river. And Dolly was into tight clothes and makeup even as a little girl. It's quintessential Dolly. There is nobody in show business like her.

(Blank on Blank) Ayn Rand on Love and Happiness!

" I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions."
- Ayn Rand on February 25, 1959, as told to Mike Wallace

Recording from Mike Wallace Collection @ Harry Ransom Center
The University of Texas at Austin

(Blank on Blank) Dustin Hoffman on Duplicity and Famosity!

"I did as much as I could do at that time in my life ... I tried as hard as I could and I couldn't do better"- Dustin Hoffman in 1971

Interview by Milton Hoffman from the Pacifica Radio Archives

Hear more from this rare interview: http://blankonblank.org/dustin

We came across this rarely heard interview with Dustin Hoffman recorded in 1971. It's such a thoughtful, unrushed conversation from a Hollywood icon when he was just a few years into becoming a star. He was still catching his breath and asking the questions that so many of us wonder when professional careers and a family life are beginning to take shape.

Even though Hoffman was only 33 at the time of the interview, he said Hollywood already viewed as an old timer, part of the establishment. This despite the fact The Graduate, Hoffman’s breakout film, had been released a few years earlier. That was followed up by his role as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy -- the X rated film that won an oscar for best picture.

Listening to this interview tape, we were drawn to this idea of the struggles that pop up between different generations and the questions one confronts internally as he or she gets older.

(Blank on Blank) Beastie Boys on Being Stupid!

"There's a way we talk and it includes profanity. We never figured we'd be arrested for it."
- Mike "Mike D" Diamond

Interview by Rocci Fisch for ABC News Radio
1985, Washington, D.C. Cassette Tape

(JESSE on the BRINK) Rotto Swim… and quokka selfie!

 

by Jesse Archer

I jumped at the opportunity to join three girlfriends for a relay ocean swim from Perth to Rottnest Island. The Rottnest Channel Swim is 20+ kms across notoriously shark-infested waters... to the island home of the adorable marsupial, the quokka.

(Blank on Blank) Fidel Castro: the Lost Interview!!

"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro

Interview by Clark Hewitt Galloway
1959, Havana

Executive Producer: David Gerlach
Animator: Patrick Smith
Translator: Sebastian Betti

Hear the full 35-minute interview with Castro with english translation:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/fi...

(Blank on Blank) Roger Ebert on Ego!

"I have innate confidence that I am right. Partially out of conviction and partially as a pose." - Roger Ebert in 1990

This episode contains excerpts of Lawrence Grobel's extended interviews with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in 1990. The famous duo worked side-by-side from 1975 until Siskel’s death in 1999, co-hosting the acclaimed, nationally syndicated show Siskel & Ebert. They remained together despite–or perhaps because of–their famously tumultuous relationship.

We focused on the ideas of ego and cultural taste that bubbled up throughout the interviews with Roger Ebert. They are essential to both creatives and the people who critique them. Was Ebert a genius? A blowhard? You be the judge.

(Blank on Blank) Meryl Streep on Beauty!

"It's very humbling to imagine somebody else's real life and their pain ... It's my drug"
- Meryl Streep

Interview by Christine Spines, 2008

Read Christine's Meryl Streep profile here: http://bit.ly/1miZ1XR

(MOVIE FREAK) RE-views of The Witch; Risen; Race!

Focus Features

by Sara Michelle Fetters

The Witch
4 STARS

Unsettling Witch a Timeless Shocker!

(Blank on Blank) Philip Seymour Hoffman on Happiness!

"Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live"
- Philip Seymour Hoffman

Conversation with Simon Critchley recorded live at the Rubin Museum of Art on Dec 22, 2012

(BLANK on BLANK) Jimi Hendrix on The Experience!

"When things get too heavy just call me helium--the lightest known gas to man."
- Jimi Hendrix in his final interview

Interview by Keith Altham, September 11, 1970

GIFs and more episodes @
http://blankonblank.org

(Blank on Blank) Joni Mitchell on Illusions!

"I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me."
- Joni Mitchell in 1986, as told to Joe Smith

This interview is from the Joe Smith Collection at the Library of Congress and has never been heard before.

Hear the full, unedited interview with Joni @ http://blankonblank.org/joni

Roberta Joan Anderson sat down for a personal, reflective interview in November 1986. The interviewer, Joe Smith, was a longtime record executive who interviewed hundreds of music legends as part of his book, Off The Record. In this extended conversation with Joni we hear an artist come to grips with both her rise to fame and the price that she felt she paid for experimenting in her career and not seeking hits and fame alone.

(Blank on Blank) Ray Charles on Singing True!

"If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine."
- Ray Charles

Interview by Joe Smith
June 3, 1987. Cassette Tape

Recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at The Library of Congress

(Blank on Blank) David Bowie on Stardust!

"I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star. I always felt a little bit out of my element"
- David Bowie

GIFs and more Bowie @ http://www.blankonblank.org

Interview by Joe Smith

(Blank on Blank) Tupac Shakur on Life and Death!

"If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play" - Tupac Shakur

Interview by Benjamin Svetkey
March 1994
Microcassette recorder
Related profile appeared in Entertainment Weekly

(OUTview NW) RE-view: This Year's HAM for the HOLIDAYS is One of the Bitchiest Ever!

Domenico dominated the SGMC sketch!     (Bennion)

By MK Scott

It is that time of year again that we get to Check IN with the Spudds and the Drama queens of the Sequim Gay Men's Chorus and more at Ham for the Holidays: Who's Afraid of Virginia Ham?  Always performed by Seattle comedy legends of Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt! Also last but not least the supporting talents of DJ Gommels and Michael Oaks, newcomer, Abbie Drake and the ripping beefcake of Joel Domenico (Judy's Scary Christmas, Robbie Turner Revue).

Once again (For 3 years in a row) with a larger budget at ACT Theater and a Full house, this comedy masterminds went from sketch after sketch with professional ease.

(Time Warp) THREE YEARS LATER: Same-sex couples now account for 1 in 6 Washington weddings!

Jane  and her partner of 37 years, Pete-e , hold the very first same-sex marriage
 license  issued in King County on December 6, 2012. (Photo: THE SEATTLE TIMES)

This week was the Three-year anniversary of Washington’s same-sex marriage law. To mark the occasion, the state Department of Health has released marriage statistics gathered from the date the law took effect — Dec. 6, 2012 — through the end of September, date of most recent available numbers.

In that time, 7,071 gay couples tied the knot. That’s 17 percent of the total 42,408 new marriages, or one out of six.

(SNAP daily) Our Favorite Thanksgiving Movies!

Thanksgiving is TODAY. Celebrate with us and watch these flicks!

(Blank on Blank) Carol Burnett on Finding Home!

"When I looked in his eyes, he was there. He was home... I had a dad."
- Carol Burnett

Interview by Leonard Lopate
August 19, 2003, WNYC Studios

Original interview aired on the Leonard Lopate Show

(Blank on Blank) Ray Bradbury on Madmen!

"Nobody else is going to give a damn what you're doing, so you need a few other people like yourself" - Ray Bradbury as told to two college kids on road trip in 1972

In the autumn of 2012, Lisa Potts rediscovered -- literally, behind her dresser -- a taped cassette of a long-lost interview with author Ray Bradbury that she made as a college student journalist back in 1972.

The recording was made in a car plying the Los Angeles freeways between Bradbury's home in West L.A. and Chapman College in Orange County. Potts and a fellow student named Chadd Coates were taking Bradbury to present a lecture. Bradbury had a lot of advice for Lisa and Chadd.

On tape we get to hear Bradbury telling the students about the keys to friendship, why he was afraid of himself and would never drive, his keys to writing and telling a story, why Mars was the center of his fascination, what's the secret to love, and why he called himself "a madman".