Gerry Fialka interviews me

 I appeared yesterday on Gerry Fialka's interview show on YouTube, "I'm Probably Wrong About Everything." I was on for about 90 minutes. We talked quite a bit about Frank Zappa, I got to talk about my Robert Shea book, and we covered many other topics. When I admitted I collect radios, Gerry told me he dumpster dives for radios and explained which ones he prefers! 

Many members of the "RAW community" have appeared on Gerry's show, among them, Oz Fritz in 2024,  Eric Wagner two months ago, and also last year, with Bobby Campbell in 2021,  Peter Quadrino in 2016, Gerry asked me for some interview suggestions and I gave him some names. UPDATE: Here is an interview with Mike Gathers.  And here is the Steve "Fly" Pratt interview. 

Gerry Fialka is an experimental filmmaker and writer, has interviewed hundreds of people, and worked for Frank Zappa for ten years. Here is the official website. He led a book group that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake.  (From the Guardian article in the last link: "My phone interview with him [Fialka] lasted one hour and eight minutes, and its zigs, zags and sheer velocity were unmatched in my nearly 20-year journalism career. Was I writing about Finnegans Wake, or was I suddenly inside it?"

Music trivia note: You may have heard of the musical artist Stormin' Norman and Suzy. The "Suzy" is Suzy Williams, who is married to Mr. Fialka. 

A new podcast interview with Eric Wagner

 Eric Wagner, author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson and Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson, is interviewed by Gerry Fialka in the above podcast. I will watch it soon; this week has been hectic for me.

The above interview is billed as Part Two. Part One is here. 

Eric says, "I really enjoyed talked with him. We have already scheduled part three."

Eric Wagner to do live podcast interview Friday

Eric Wagner will be doing a live podcast interview on Friday to promote his new book, Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson.

Eric will be a guest at 3:10 p.m. Pacific time (e.g. 6:10 p.m. Eastern) Friday Oct. 3 on Gerry Fialka's  "I'm Probably Wrong About Everything" podcast, tune in here. If you miss the 90 minute podcast live, it will be archived at the same website.

Eric's book is an Hilaritas Press product and also features a long essay by Michael Johnson. Read about Gerry Fialka.  See also my blog post. Mr. Fialka did a long interview with Bobby Campbell. 

PQ on being in the Guardian

Peter Quadrino (photo from X)

I had missed it when I wrote yesterday's blog post, but Peter Quadrino has weighed in about being featured in the Guardian's article about the Gerry Fialka reading group for Finnegans Wake. Excerpt: 

"I am honored to be a part of this celebration of Wake reading groups around the world. The author, Lois Beckett, did a great job covering the oddity of one-page-a-meeting reading groups dedicated to Joyce's bizarre night-book. To look at a global newspaper and see the front page with all the wars and turmoil and then have this article appear next to all of it feels like a celebration of the eternal forces of creativity and imagination. Poetry, the realm of the mind, the joy of art, language and humanity, remains undefeated."

More here. 

Finnegans Wake reading group finishes first pass after 28 years

Gerry Fialka. (Creative Commons photo by David Healey, source.) 

Two familiar names pop up in the  Guardian's article about a Finnegans Wake study group in Venice, California, that has completed its first survey of the book after 28 years.

Peter Quadrino, 38, joined Fialka’s group around 2008 or 2009. He would drive up three hours from San Diego, where he lived, to attend the meeting. “If you’re really interested in Finnegans Wake, it’s kind of hard to find people who will talk about it with you.”

Because Joyce spent 17 years of his life working on the book and then died not long after it was published, “He didn’t really get to explain it,” Quadrino said. “It’s up to us to figure it out, and figure out why he was so devoted to it.”

When Quadrino moved to Austin, Texas, in 2011, he did not want to stop reading, so he put up fliers around town, put some ads in the newspaper, and started his own Texas-based group. Twelve years in, Quadrino’s group is now about halfway through Finnegans Wake, putting them on track to complete the whole thing in about 24 years.

Joyce scholar (and RAW scholar) Eric Wagner has said one of his favorite maxims is "slowness is beauty." I looked closely at the photo accompanying the article but I didn't see Eric. 

Gerry Fialka, the guy who organized the group, did a long interview with Bobby Campbell that I wrote about a couple of years ago.   Fialka worked for Frank Zappa for years and has done other interesting things, see this Wikipedia bio. 

Just to be clear, Gerry's group hasn't finished but has begun again on studying the Wake. 

Bobby Campbell on almost everything

 

Bobby Campbell is one of the nicest people I know. Fortunately, he is also interesting, and quicker on his feet than I would be if I had a bunch of rapid fire philosophical questions tossed at me by Gerry Fialka, who interviews him for an hour and 40 minutes.

It turns out that if someone is interviewed for that long, you can learn a lot about him. If you watch, you will learn what Bobby has in common with Frank Zappa, how we should deal with Ezra Pound these days, what Bobby liked to do with $20 bills when he was younger, what Bobby would call his autobiography, how Robert Anton Wilson shaped his behavior, why he is optimistic, and many other topics. 

I inferred watching the video that Gerry Fialka seemed to know something about Frank Zappa; I'm a Zappa fan and I read the Barry Miles biography a few years ago. Well, it turns out that Fialka is an artist, writer and filmmaker who used to work with Zappa. The interview with Bobby is part of Fialka's interview series; there's also an interview with Steve "Fly" Pratt I need to get to.