Gail Collins knows a little bit about firsts.  A columnist with the New York Times since 1995, in 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page.  Leaving that job six years later to finish a book, she returned to writing her pithy, humorous and devastatingly on target columns that same year.  Collins, the author of several books including America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, sat down recently to talk to Red about her latest tome When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (Little Brown 2009, $27.99)

I was amazed when reading your book about how quickly things have changed for women and though we still have a ways to go, your opening vignette about Lois Rabinowitz, a Manhattan secretary who went to court to pay her boss’s traffic fine and got kicked out because she was wearing pants, was really amazing. And it wasn’t that long ago.

That was in 1960 and the judge went nuts, he said she was defaming the honor of the traffic court and sent her home to put on more appropriate clothes though men could wear sweatshirts and overalls in his court.  He also told her husband, who was with her, “start now and clamp down a little bit or it’ll be too late.” So many women I’ve talked to remember those days and how awful it was. If you worked in the Post Office you had to wear a skirt. And it was extremely uncomfortable, extremely cold for some women.  The right to wear sensible clothes was completely withheld.

And there was the men’s only plane . . .

Yes, that’s the plane United used to have that went from New York to Chicago every day–the Executive Express.  It was men only.  A woman could not buy a seat on that flight.  So it was too bad for them if they needed to get to Chicago at that time.  The men on that flight were served huge steaks and cigars and part of the training stewardesses received was how to lean over and light their cigars.

The amazing thing to me was that it wasn’t illegal to have men only flights.

Whenever I talk about the Executive Express, someone asks a question like wasn’t it illegal, and I say nothing was illegal back then. It was perfectly legal to say, “We don’t hire women for this job,” or as Newsweek told Nora Ephron when she applied for a reporter job, “Women don’t write. They only research.”  There was the head of the medical school who said “We do keep women out, when we can. We don’t want them here.”

None of that was illegal?

None of it. In 1960 the vision of women’s limitations of the proper role for women in society was not, at bottom, much different than it was, say, in 1200 or 1600.   And it all changed in such a small period of time.  It knocks me out when I think of it.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins credits her career advancement to the women who came before her and opened doors that until 1960 had been closed to women.  Collins recounts the female revolution in her newest book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.

You interviewed over 100 people for your book, is there one interview that stands out?

One of my favorite stories is about Lorena Weeks.  She was just one of those people who just do something because they believe in what they’re doing.  She applied for a job as a switchman and was denied because there was a law in Georgia that women couldn’t lift heavy equipment over 30 pounds, though she had been lifting her typewriter which weighed more than that every day.  She sued and lost but kept fighting.  Her husband was horrified, her kids were petrified but she just went on.  And she finally won her case.  She’s just a regular woman, she just instinctively knew what was right and what was wrong.  And she just went on.

How did it change?

There were many factors–the birth control pill so that women could no longer be denied jobs and promotions because they might get pregnant.  Before the pill, women used birth control but it wasn’t as effective–it might limit the number of kids they had to three instead of 12.  Suddenly you didn’t’ have to be a woman committed to being single to get ahead.  You could be married or sexually active and control when you had children. Financially, there was a little window of opportunity in the 1950s where you could obtain the middle class on just one salary but that went away in the 1970s and you needed that extra income.  Then there was the Civil Rights Movement.

The Civil Rights Movement?

Yes, women helped spearhead the movement.  Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat and they had a huge rally when she got out of jail but she wasn’t invited to speak.

You were born in 1945, were you part of the women’s movement?

There were women who were one second ahead of me, who filed the suits, took on the fights and generally they were not the ones who got the rewards, it was those of us who followed, who went through the doors they had opened.

So no stories about you fighting the good fight?

One of my first jobs was in Connecticut and in the capital there was this dreadful room called the Hawaiian Room. It was where the lobbyists and the legislators went to drink. Male reporters could go in, too. A woman radio reporter filed some kind of complaint and the legislators’ response was instantly to bar all reporters from the Hawaiian Room.  The male reporters were so angry at her for doing that.  At the time I just sort of thought, “Wow, who would want to go to a Hawaiian Room?”  I totally did not get it at all.

You talk a lot about Gloria Steinem and I think she showed women that they could be glamorous and demand to be taken seriously at the same time.

Yes, there was a thought in the early days of feminism that women shouldn’t wear make-up and they should wear sensible shoes and that part of the movement just hit the wall.   Speaking of Gloria, during the presidential campaign I wrote that the woman’s movement had made it possible for Sarah Palin to run for the vice presidency and Gloria called me and said if that’s true, I’m going to shoot myself now.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

It was the feel good story of the year when we surely needed one.  Crippled by a bird strike after leaving New York’s La Guardia Airport, US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to make an emergency landing but the only “runway” available was the Hudson River.

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who with Jeffrey Zaslow wrote Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters (William Morrow 2009, $25.99) talked to Red about the ultimate in high anxiety.

I know you’ve probably told this story a million times already but how soon after taking off did you first know that the plane was in trouble?

Almost immediately, about 100 seconds after takeoff, Jeff (Skiles, the first officer) saw the birds a split second before I did. We saw them when they were probably a football field away from us, certainly not enough time to avoid them. You can hear them clearly on the cockpit recording–thump, thump–and almost immediately I could hear the noise of the birds going through the core of the jet engines, I could feel the severe vibrations and smell the birds burning.

Did you know right away it was bad?

Yes, it was immediately obvious that it was a dire emergency. In 40 years of flying I had never experienced one engine failing, let alone two.

What was your first response?

My very first reaction was disbelief, I had two distinct thoughts, one was this can’t be happening, my second was this doesn’t happen to me. It was definitely shocking, the enormity of the problem, the intensity. The initial second or two was when I had those thoughts.  The physiological reaction I had to this was strong, and I had to force myself to use my training, force calm on the situation and force myself to concentrate on the problem.

So you stayed calm?

I had to fight my body, I was sure my blood pressure and pulse spiked.  I had to fight to ignore that and to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not let what was happening, to keep myself from panicking or paying attention to what was going on with my body.  I had only 208 seconds, an extreme time compression.  Jeff stayed calm too and he and I worked together seamlessly.

Did you ever think oh this isn’t going to work; we’re not going to make it?

Despite everything I had confidence we could do it.

That sounds calm.

For a week or two afterwards, my pulse, which was normally 60, was at 75; my blood pressure was 160 over 100 when normally it’s 100 over 70.

Recounting the story of his heroic struggle to save his Airbus 320 from crashing either into the densely populated Manhattan skyline or into the Hudson River, has also given Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger a chance to discuss how cost saving measures at airlines is impacting passenger safety.

Indeed, as Sully struggled to keep control of his aircraft once its two jet engines had died, his first flight officer Jeff Skiles reached for the inch thick Quick Reference Handbook to find the most appropriate procedure for the emergency they were facing.  But US Airways, to save money, no longer had numbered tabs.  Skiles had to quickly leaf through the book’s pages, looking for the right procedure–taking away precious seconds at a time when every second counted.

You really have several stories to tell, don’t you?  Not only about how you and Skiles saved the plane and 155 passengers and crew but also about how cost cutting is threatening aviation safety.

Jeff and I felt like we had an obligation to tell about what’s going on.  The economic difficulties that most people have seen in the last year or so, pilots and airlines have seen for the last seven and eight years.  I took a 40% decrease in salary, Jeff took a 60%, and we’ve lost our pensions.  As I describe in the book, many of us are the working wounded, it’s a real testament to the nature of our dedication to flying that we’re still working in this field. People don’t want their pilots worrying about their second job that they need to pay their mortgage.  One of my messages is that is that many people who run airlines now are financially trained and I think they’re all too often removed from what it’s like to fly an airplane.

Was it difficult writing a book and talking to so many people about your experiences?

No, because the concept I used when I started the book was that I knew that it had to be more than just the story about the flight–that people had already heard that.  I had to get it inside of my head, how I had only 208 seconds and how Jeff and I communicated and made the decisions we made.  It had to be a survey of my life and what it was about this that prepared me to face that challenge that day and to face all this attention in the aftermath.

And what did prepare you for this?  Was it all your years of flying from being a teenager in a crop duster’s plane to being in the Air Force and flying an F-4 Phantom?

What had really helped was that I had paid attention over the years.  One of the things that makes flying large jet engines–which are bigger, heavier–difficult, is that you need to pay attention to that energy and power and know how to manage it. I was also running through a host of facts and observations that I had filed away over the years, giving me a broad sense of how to make this decision which was the most important one of my life.

And one of the decisions was not to return to LaGuardia?

It would be an irrevocable choice and it would have ruled out every other option and it would have had catastrophic consequences for both everyone on the airplane and who knows how many people on the ground.  I also knew that whatever happened we would need a serious rescue effort and I knew that the water rescue resources at LaGuardia were just a tiny fraction of those available on the Hudson between Manhattan and New Jersey. As a fighter pilot I had had to pay the closest attention to everything because life and death could be separated by seconds and by feet.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Canadian comedian Dave Foley, star of the long running series The Kids in the Hall, plays Glenn, a store manager in The Strip, a movie about a low end electronics store located in a Chicago area strip mall. The script of this independent movie, written and directed by Chicago resident Jameel Khan, brings together Foley with four other actors, all who have  a background in improvisation comedy. 

 Foley, who dropped out of high school to become a standup comedian, spent a year at the Toronto Second City Training Centre taking improv classes.  Following that, he worked as an usher in an movie theater before starring in The Kids in the Hall which ran for about five years.  Foley spent some time with Red chatting about his new movie.

First of all, I read that you drink about 50 cups of coffee a day.  It’s 10:30 am, how many cups have you had so far?

Not a one today because I’m just getting up and doing this interview.  But I’m going to have one really soon.

Do you really drink 50 a day?

Not so much anymore, I’ve tapered off a lot in the morning, but I still drink a lot.

Tell us about The Strip.

It’s a nice human comedy.  There are no big plot twists or crazy premises.  It’s about a bunch of guys who work in a third rate appliance store in a desolate strip mall.  I hope people come to see it, get 90 minutes of laughs and enjoy the happy ending.

What’s your character Glenn like?

He’s a very depressed person whose life is unraveling and it’s something I could identify with as my own life has unraveled many times.

Any examples about your life unraveling for us?

Well, before we started filming I was in the swimming pool with my daughter and decided to move an umbrella to shade her.  It had a 40 pound concrete block which fell on my foot and shattered the big toe on my right foot, breaking all the bones. I had to calmly get my daughter out of the pool and back in her playroom, get on the phone and then waited for my wife to come home to find me bleeding to death in the bathroom.

Wow.  How did that impact your being in the movie?

Well, every time you see me walking in the movie, be aware that I am, at that moment, re-breaking all the toes in my foot all over again.

Sounds like an athlete playing through an injury.

Yeah, it kind of is.  And it wasn’t the first time.  I had done another movie where I tore the ligaments on both sides of my ankle.  But this was worse.  This was the kind of pain that makes you cry.

Could your injury have been written into the script so you wouldn’t have to be on your feet as much?

There wasn’t a real convenient way of doing that, so I just kept a wheelchair at the ready. Then as soon as they called cut, somebody would wheel the chair up, I would sit in it and put ice on my foot, and slowly rock back and forth in pain.

Dave Foley’s character in his new indie movie The Strip is a store manager whose life begins to fall apart when his wife begins an affair. Foley, a comedian, actor and writer who starred in the popular show NewsRadio, talked to Red about his work and his life.

What made you decide to do this movie?

I just got a call from my manager telling me to check out these guys in Chicago which is where the writer /director and a lot of the cast are from. My manager said that they had a good script and they seem like decent people. So check out the script.” My manager is a decent guy, so I trusted him.  And the script was good, it was a really nice little script and I liked that it was all about the characters.

Glenn, your character, sees so much of his life slipping away as he loses everything that makes him feel secure.  Can you relate to that at all?

My dad was an alcoholic and I some crappy jobs and during the first year of “Kids in the Hall” we were told that we canceled and it seemed like that happened every year.  Even with NewsRadio every year we thought we were canceled so we did a series finale every year.

You’re known for your improvisational abilities, how much of the script was improvised?

There’s isn’t a lot of improv, there was a little talking over each other and playing loose with it but we had a very tight schedule which doesn’t give you a lot of time to play.  So there was
just a little ad libbing but mostly we shot the movie that Jameel Khan wrote

I know this is off the subject but what’s your take on the American health care system and how everyone warns it could turn into something like the Canadian system?

It’s baffling to Canadians.  When people threaten that you’ll end up with a system like Canada, we don’t’ understand it because we love our system.  There was a poll recently over who was the greatest Canadian and the winner was Tommy Douglas, he beat out Wayne Gretzky and well known people like him.

Who is Tommy Douglas?

He’s a 1950s politician–and Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather–who introduced universal national health care in Canada.

What do you have coming up next?

Just the onward slow decline. The march of age, the loss of bone mass. Oh and I’ve got a “Kids in the Hall” mini-series coming up in Canada and maybe it will come down to the U.S. too.  And I’m getting in a better mood as we speak because someone’s bringing me coffee.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Performing in such roles as the father who throws hamsters out of a window to teach his ne’er do well son Earl Hickey a lesson in responsibility on the comedy series My Name is Earl (note to animal lovers–the lesson worked and no hamsters were injured), Beau Bridges shows his versatility in numerous movies and over 80 television shows including such venerable long ago hits as Sea Hunt which starred his father Lloyd Bridges and The Fugitive as well as the very up to date Sci-fi drama Stargate SG-1 where he played General Hank Landry and Desperate Housewives.

Now Bridges, who won a Grammy Award along with Al Gore, Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for An Inconvenient Truth, is playing the part of Detective Andrews in the Monday, December 14th episode of The Closer. In the show Andrews comes out of retirement to help with a case that was closed seven years ago.  But there’s a slight difference–back then Andrews was a man.  Red chatted with Bridges about acting in lipstick and high heels.

Were you drawn to acting from an early age? When you were hanging out on the Sea Hunt set, did you know that this is what you wanted to do?

I always enjoyed acting though I did play around in high school with basketball as something that I wanted to do, probably not as a player because I was good but not that good.  But I also realized that being a circus rat, which is what I called us, was lucky break for us. My dad loved what he was doing and since acting is such a hard business to break into and he was willing to help us break into the field, I realized what a gift that was too. And so I decided to go into acting instead.

How did you prepare for your role as Detective Andrews?

I began by stepping into my wife’s high heels. I found a dress that was too big on my wife and put it on. My wife coiffed my hair, so I went in there like that. Everything was pretty cool except for those high heels.

Did you do any other research besides dressing up?

Yes. And one thing that really became true for me is the realization they’re like any other niche of people. You can look at all race car drivers, all mountain climbers–there’s a wide spectrum of individuals who fill that niche. It’s the same with those who have sex operations. I once met a person who was very feminine, quite beautiful in an almost Hugh Hefner-type way, all coiffed, heavily made up. Then I met a person who had been a fire chief: really long hair, very much a woman, but with firm handshake. It eased my mind about this. I also believe men have a feminine side and women have a masculine side. I pick out all my wife’s clothes. I hate men’s clothes and never shop for myself. And high heels are brutal. I told my wife I’m never going to complain again that she has to hurry up.

So do you think playing Detective Andrews will give you more insight into what to shop for next time you buy your wife clothes?

Definitely.

Beau Bridges first started acting at age nine. That was in 1949 and he hasn’t stopped since.  Bridges took the time to talk to Red about the family business.

Your brother Jeff is an actor too and I read that your son Jordan is an actor as well so it truly is the family business isn’t it?

All my kids–and I have five of them–in one way or another are involved in communications. I just finished a new movie, Rush Lights with my son Jordan who just got back from Italy. My oldest son Casey is a soccer coach and is also a documentary film maker.  My son Dylan works in digital marketing, my daughter Emily is an actress, she and I just adapted a novel and turned it into a play.

Tell us about that.

It’s the only book on acting that my dad ever gave us. It’s Richard Boleslavsky’s book, Acting: The First Six Lessons, about the Stanislavski method. As for my kids, there’s only one guy left in the nest, Zeke, who is 16, so we’ll see what direction he goes in.

I met your mother and father years ago and at the time she was talking about writing a book which puts her in the communications business too.  Did she ever finish it?

Yes.  It’s called You Caught Me Kissing and is mostly a collection of her writings.  She was very talented.

She must have been a great mother too because both you and your brother seem very down to earth.

She was certainly at the hub. But dad was a real involved father too, he coached our sports, we traveled with him when he was filming.  He was there for us.

It seems like it would be fun filming with family but that also must have its own challenges too.  What is it like?

Pretty much just the fun. I worked a lot with my dad and my brother.  Acting is just a filial thing anyway, so doing it with family just adds to that filial environment.

You seem like you’re always working, what do you do for fun?

I am pretty busy.  For fun? I love growing things, we had a cold spell in L.A., it froze a lot of my plants so that was bad.  I love anything to do with the ocean and go swimming about four or five times a week and I still play a little basketball in my driveway.

Back to your role as the gender changing Detective Andrews in The Closer. What were your thoughts when you saw yourself as a woman?

I’ve been told I have great legs, for one thing. Although shaving them was kind of weird. It was a bit disconcerting in the beginning to look at myself. I always feel that for any part, that’s a magical time–when you look in the mirror as the character.

I always remember you throwing the hamsters out the window in My Name is Earl.

(Laughs) I’m in a movie with Jason Lee who played Earl.  He was all cleaned up.  He’d shaved and cut his hair. I walked right past him on the first day and didn’t recognize him.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Comedian Fred Willard is co-hosting, with comic Kevin Nealon, TBS’s Funniest Commercials of the Year: 2009 on Dec. 15th at 10 pm ET.  Willard, winner of the Harvard Lampoon’s Marquand Award for Excellence in Humor (other honorees include Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman, and Jay Leno), has had a diverse career spanning decades and includes three Emmy nominations for his role as Robert Barone’s father-in-law on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Besides appearing in numerous TV series and movies such as his role as news director Ed Harken in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Willard also was in the Pixar movie Wall-E and had voice parts in The Simpsons and is the voice of Ed Warmer in the PlayStation Portable game Hot Brain. Nealon, who stars as the pot smoking accountant in the popular TV show Weeds, also appeared on Saturday Night Live from 1986 to 1995, winning an Emmy for his writing on the series. Red talked to Willard and Nealon about Funniest Commercials of the Year 2009. 

Fred, you’re a Second City alumnus.  How did that experience shape your comedy?

FW: It’s interesting you ask because there’s a 50th year anniversary coming up in about two weeks that I’m going to.  Second City was the first time that I ever did improvisation and it was a wonderful experience. Before I went there–when they wanted me to go there–I said, “I can’t do that.” I can’t improvise because I’ve seen all these wonderful improvisers, Alan Arkin and all these people. But once you do it and you’re on stage and you see the ideas come it makes you relax a little and have a little more confidence in yourself.  After a while it becomes second nature. And I felt that I could do it. It was a good start to my career. I spent one year there and then since then I’ve kept in contact with a lot of people who went through Second City and it’s like a fraternity now.

You’re both comedians but with somewhat different styles.  How did you each develop your styles?

KN:  Well I don’t know about Fred but for me it’s that you start trusting your instincts and everything from your background comes into play as well. When I first started doing stand up comedy you emulate people. A lot of comics emulate other comics that are successful until they find their confidence and what they’re really trying to say themselves. Fred?

FW:  I haven’t done too much standup like Kevin does but I find I like all kinds of comedy. My favorite is the more subtle kind of comedy but I also enjoy if something gets very slap-stick and silly, I feel like I can just join in very easily. I am open to all kinds.

Tell us what’s so fun about hosting this show.

KN: You watch a commercial and it’s like a piece of art.

FW: They’re like little stories, they’re little films.

World’s Funniest Commercials: 2009, is being shot in various locations in New York and is a collection of both U.S. and International commercials.  In its sixth year, the show is a high ratings draw and this year viewers get to go online and vote for their favorite of the top ten ads.  Red got a chance to chat with comedians Fred Willard and Kevin Nealon who are hosting the show.  

Do you have a favorite commercial?

FW:  That’s why I watch the Super Bowl. One of my favorites is a husband finds a guy hiding in the closet naked. And the wife is in bed. And it starts off with him spinning this long story about how he was running through the woods and he climbs a tree and they cut the tree down to get him and then the tree is sent to a mill and he just misses the chainsaw.  Then he’s thrown down in the water and it goes over the waterfall and that’s how he got into the closet and the guy believes him. And I thought that was pretty clever. One of the most fascinating commercials–I don’t know if you’ve seen it–Steve Wynn in Las Vegas is perched on top of his hotel the Encore. And he’s promoting the new hotel. We have a TiVo and I keep telling my wife, “Run that back!” I’ve got to see how they do that, if he’s actually sitting on top of that hotel with no net or anything or unless there’s CGI that puts him up. It’s fascinating. And he’s got lines, he’s got to deliver very crisp lines and timing. Now that’s tough.

If you wanted to make something up about each other, a type of rumor, that had just a kernel of truth to it, what would it be?

FW:  I think Kevin wanted to play all the parts on this. He wants to be known as the master of disguise. And at the end of the show he wanted to be unveiled, pull off the moustache, the beard, the spectacles and be treated as more of a serious actor, kind of an Orson Welles approach to the show.

KN:  That’s right, but they want to keep making the show funny instead.

FW:  He wanted to make it a dramatic piece like Invaders from Outer Space or Martians, you know–what Orson Welles did.

KN:  The rumor for Fred is basically that the same women that are coming out of the woodwork for Tiger will be coming out of the woodwork for Fred too. Same ones.

FW:  But in my case literally coming out of the woodwork which is a little scary.

KN:  Yeah, they’re basically termites.

Listening to you and Kevin talk, you both are really good at improv. Is it sometimes hard to turn off improvising and follow a script?

FW:  What I’ve found is in a show like this there are time limits; you’ve got so many seconds for each spot.  Am I right Kevin?

KN:  Yeah, that’s true. You’ve got to have an in and an out for it. It’s mostly scripted but we do improvise off camera until we come up with the lines and then we use those lines.

FW:  That’s true. And sometimes it’s not that we’re so great, but it’s just when we’re talking we’ll come up inadvertently with something that’s a little more on the spot or funnier than writers, who have a tough job just sitting by themselves writing an hour-long of when-this-guy-say-this, this-guy-says-that.   I think that the writers like comedy actors coming up with some lines.

Well, it’s great listening to the two of you riff off each other. 

FW:  I’m sorry, what did you just say? What did you just say? Would you repeat that for–is this being recorded?

I said the two of you should have your own show because I’m enjoying listening to you guys talk . . .

FW:  Thank you very much. I just wanted to get my recorder going for that.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Golden Globe winner Scott Bakula is returning to television in the new TNT series Men of a Certain Age.  Bakula is one of three friends (the others are Ray Romano and Andre Braugher) who find themselves on the dark side of 40 facing the second act of their lives and not totally sure of where they’re going or if they want to go there.  In his role as Terry, Bakula is slightly playing himself; he is, after all, a tall, handsome actor who presumably as always had an easy time with the ladies.

But the differences end there.  While Bakula, who has starred in Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise, is happily married with four children, Terry finds himself at a point in his career where he’s spending more time as a temp than an actor.  Men of a Certain Age, which was created by Romano and Mike Royce, airs Monday December 7th at 10 pm (ET/PT) and Red chatted with Bakula about the series which had just finished filming.

Men of a Certain Age seems to be a touching combination of humor and drama.  Tell us a little about the making show.

Well, first of all, it was a ball to make; I didn’t want to wrap it.  I was sad during our last week because I knew we wouldn’t be together when it first aired, Andre is an east coast guy, Ray and I are here but we’re each doing our thing.  The crew and cast were low key, we worked fast and there wasn’t a lot of drama on the set.  We did a lot of improv, which was fun.   The show gives an insight into Ray, it tells you what kind of guy he is, he’s quick but he has this vulnerability.  I think his fans will be delighted because that vulnerability will be very appealing particularly to women.  What’s most unusual about the show is that men are talking about their feelings with other men.  I think there’s something very open and honest about that.

Ray Romano was one of the creator and the writer for the series but you mention that you did a lot of improv, how did that come about?

Ray’s especially gifted at improv and it’s very seldom that he’ll do the same scene twice, which kept Andre and I on our toes.  Ray’s always coming up with a new joke, a new ad-lib, a new this or that. And I think that’s what sticks with me every day is you just have to be able to go with Ray because he’ll just branch off and start talking.  You never know what he’s going to come out with.  We’re off script a lot. It’s a great feeling to be able to work in an improvisational way, which is really unusual for television. We’d say, “Do we have the scene?” “Yeah, we got the scene.” “Okay, now let’s just let it rip, you know, and let’s see what happens.”

You’ve spent a lot of time in outer space.  Any thoughts on Star Trek and Quantum Leap?

It’s a great history to be a part of.  There is a certain responsibility to fans–there’s an intelligence, there is a commitment and there is–you really feel a relationship with your fans and especially the sci-fi fans. And I’m proud to be a part of that.  We just celebrated 20 years since Quantum Leap premiered. With the Star Trek tradition, there are so many new fans coming. I’m meeting new kids now who are watching it with their parents or that are just finding the show for the first time because of cable. It’s ironic but I’m finding so many people are discovering Enterprise now and I’m not sure why that was, why they weren’t there when we were on the air.

Besides just completing filming his series Men of a Certain Age, Scott Bakula is starring as an FBI agent in the Steven Soderbergh comedy The Informant with Matt Damon.  Bakula, who developed an interest in acting at a young age and spent time both on stage and playing sports in high school, also sings and dances (bet you didn’t know that) and earned a Tony nomination as Lead Actor in a Musical for his part in Romance/Romance.  He doesn’t do any singing and dancing in his new series, at least not yet . . .

So how do you compare to Terry, the actor you play in Men of a Certain Age to yourself?

I’m a very physical guy like Terry is, he being aware of is body and what he puts into it.  But he’s a pot smoker and I’m not.  I have kids and I have been married a long, long time.  He really is lost.  The reality is I have been in this business a long time and have known a lot of actors and not everybody that I know has made it.  Lots of people have branched off into other things and lots of them are happy doing that. I think what makes Terry kind of sad is at this point in his life is he hasn’t quite given up yet, he’s still hanging on and I think that’s the hardest thing when we see people that we care about and they’re hanging on too long, whether to a relationship or whether it’s to a dream or whatever it is. You want to say it’s time to move on but this is something obviously only that person and certainly this character can do.

And you?

I’ve been very fortunate in my life and in my career that I reached a certain point a few years ago where I thought, I think I’m going to be okay in this business. and I should be able to make a living for the rest of my working days if I choose to. And not everybody can do that and we joke as actors that each job is the last job you’re ever going to get. But I’ve been doing it a while so I think I’m okay.

Any thoughts on why you all got along so well on the set?

In this business and in life as humans on this planet, we’re all interested in chemistry.  Our business is obsessed with chemistry.  People always ask, “Do they have chemistry?”  But I think it’s the talents that make it work.  These guys wrote these great characters and that’s what makes this show work.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Paula Wolfert, who is considered an expert on Mediterranean cooking, describes herself as a clay pot junkie.  It’s easy to see why.  Wolfert, often credited with introducing the foods of the Middle East to America and whose numerous cookbooks have garnered awards, has a collection of over 100 clay cooking pots, many hanging on the wall of her large kitchen in Sonoma, California.  She’s also recently written a cookbook, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: Traditional and Modern Recipes to Savor and Share (Wiley 2009, $34.95) and she has one clay pot, a tripiere, that is used solely for cooking tripe.

Not that tripe recipes abound in her cookbook.  Indeed, the book is filled with many tantalizing offerings such as Catalonian Chicken Sautéed with Red Peppers, Tomatoes and Black Olives, Warm Green Olives with White Wine, Garlic and Hot Red Pepper and Greek Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta Cheese.  Red talked to Wolfert as she was whipping up a French daube, or stew, in of course, a clay pot.

So how did this addiction start?

I was 19 when I bought my first clay pot.  It was shortly after I started taking cooking lessons from Dione Lucas. She had sent me to a French restaurant supply store on Sixth Avenue in lower Manhattan and it was there that I saw an odd-looking pot-bellied, earthenware vessel that had a tiny covered opening. The sales clerk told me it was used to cook tripe.  I had no idea what tripe was back then but I loved the shape of the pot and so I bought it.

Do you still have it?

Yes, it survived countless moves.  You know I lived 17 years abroad in the Mediterranean and seven years in Morocco and it made it through all those moves as well as my living on the East and West coasts.

It sounds like you got your money’s worth from it.

It produces the most rich, satisfying beef stews.

What makes cooking in a clay pot so special?

Clay allows soft cooking, it doesn’t burn anything and it lets the flavors infiltrate into the dish because the food is simmering more gently.  It’s also a great way to cook underutilized meats; the types of inexpensive cuts that people don’t usually know what to do with.  Because it tenderizes the food, you can use those meats in clay pot cooking and bring out their best taste.

Do you have a favorite pot?

A tagine I bought in the early 70s in the souks of Marrakech.  I’ve only cooked lamb tagines in it over the years and it is imbued with the scents and flavors of the numerous Moroccan spices I use. This patina gives a very subtle under-taste to every dish every time I cook in it.  Though I also really like this Chinese sand pot I bought for nine dollars.  I guess I like them all.

Paula Wolfert’s classic cookbook Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco is still in print more than three decades after she wrote it.  A vagabond who had her three children in France and then raised them in Morocco, Wolfert now makes her home on the West Coast but she remains fascinated by the cookery of the Middle East and Mediterranean and the traditional ways of using clay pots for slow cooking food to bring out its wonderful flavors.  Red talked to Wolfert about her latest cookbook, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: Traditional and Modern Recipes to Savor and Share (Wiley 2009, $34.95).

You know, when I first heard about your book–and I have a couple of your other cookbooks that I love–I thought when I first read the title it would be about those clay pot cookers that everyone was giving away one Christmas for cooking chickens.  

You’re thinking of the Romertopf clay bakers.  They’re good.  I have so many different kinds–Moroccan tagines, Provencal daubieres, Chinese sand pots, Spanish cazuelas, Italian bean pots, Turkish guvecs and even ceramic colanders including one I use to steam couscous. There is not a home chef in Spain would make their arroz (rice) in a cazuela, a French homemaker always makes daubs (stew) in her daubiere and any Northern Italian woman will make her risottos in a coccio.  These pots tie me to traditions, to the deep-rooted ways of cooking.  I’ve been collecting and cooking in clay pots for more than 50 years, I was going to call my book “The Confessions of a Clay Pot Junkie.”

Why didn’t you?

This really started off as a memoir, I’ve had a pretty interesting life, or so my publisher told me. But I just couldn’t write about me, I’m not that type of person.  I studied other food memoirs but I just didn’t know how to do it.  So went back to my publishers and said I’m going to have to totally redo this as a straight cookbook.

How do people reading this start getting into clay pot cooking?

In my book, I whittle it down to five pots that you can do most of the recipes in.  Most of the pots are stove pots.  Most people think of clay pots as being pots you use in the oven, but with many clay pots you do bottom up cooking by putting them on the stove.

How does it compare to a slow cooker?

It’s not like crockpot cooking at all.  With clay pot cooking there’s a caramelization that adds layers of flavor.

What are some easy recipes to start off with for people reading your book?

The pumpkin soup with Roquefort–it’s easy and uses a $9 Chinese sand pot that you can find in Chinatown.  The potato gratin is another one.  But there are a lot of easy recipes in the book.  I was just on Martha Stewart’s show and she fell in love with the Moroccan Fish Tagine with Tomatoes, Olives and Preserved Lemons on page 54.  She actually ate it on her show.  The book is diverse enough that there is something there for everyone.

And if I was going to go out and buy just one clay pot, which one should I get?

The cazuela is the work horse of clay pots.  But make it the 10-inch cazuela, not the 8-inch, that won’t be big enough.  Be sure to soak the clay pots in water overnight.  But you won’t be able to buy just one, I promise you that.

For more information, visit www.paula-wolfert.com

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

David Plouffe was somewhat hoping that first term U.S Senator Barack Obama might return from a trip to Hawaii having made the decision not to run for the presidency in 2008.  Managing a presidential campaign should have been a dream come true for Plouffe who managed two U.S. Senate races, a congressional race and the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee and was also Democratic leader Dick Gephardt’s Deputy Chief of Staff in 1997-98.

He joined with Democratic campaign strategist David Axelrod in 2001 and three years later their firm AKP Media served as lead strategist in helping Obama win his senate bid. But he and his wife had a new baby and his wife also wanted to return to graduate school, and Plouffe knew that managing Obama’s campaign would mean putting family plans on hold and working day and night for almost two years.

But he also believed in Obama’s message and when his wife told him to go for it, he did.  Plouffe, considered the architect of Obama’s victory, recounts the story in his new book The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (Viking 2009, $27.95).  On a nationwide book tour, he paused long enough to chat with Red.

You are often described as having run a perfect campaign, but you don’t see it that way, noting that the failure to fully vet Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright was your own personal failure. Tell us about that mistake and some of the others.

We vetted Wright some but not as exhaustively as we should have. We didn’t look at every sermon that was on tape and that’s something I should have personally done.  There’s no doubt that was a big oversight. We needed to know anything that anyone could know about it but we didn’t.  I think the other big mistake we made was in losing New Hampshire and we should have taken a different approach in Texas.  Those things allowed the primary to go on as long as it did. It doesn’t seem like a mistake now because we won, but it gave John McCain a three-month head start, which is nothing to sneeze at.  It could have been a phenomenal mistake but McCain didn’t use that time well and it was something we overcame.

Were you surprised that McCain wasn’t more ready for you?

We were very surprised. I thought for sure they would have guns a blazin’ for us coming out of the primary.   Here’s what we thought would happen–we thought he would use those three months to really organize and get ahead of us in all of the battleground states.  But that didn’t happen. By the end of June, we were actually far more organized on the ground.  We also thought he would have a better economic message and we thought he would try and separate himself from Bush. None of that happened. I was pleased none of that happened.  They had three months to get ready and we were extremely fortunate that some political malpractice was at play.

There obviously are a lot of surprises in any long fought campaign, but is there one that stands out more than others?

When McCain picked Palin.

David Plouffe knew that Barack Obama, a charismatic but relative newcomer to the national stage, was a long shot. “I suspected that if you ran a computer simulation of the primary, ninety-five out one hundred times, Hillary Clinton would win,” Plouffe writes in his New York Times Best Seller, The Audacity to Win, the ultimate inside look at the 2008 campaign.

“Edwards would win a couple of the remaining five.  There was no guarantee that our strategy would lead to victory, backtracking or zigzagging would unquestionably lead to a precipitous fall off the electoral cliff.”  But Plouffe, who would help in raising $750 million dollars and an army of volunteers harnessed through the Internet, didn’t zip or zag.

Did you ever have doubts about Obama as a candidate for president?

As it became clear that he was serious, and that it might happen, I think I began to really feel confident that he had the potential to be a terrific president. I wasn’t sure he had the potential to be a great candidate. But we were very blessed in our team–we had a group of people who weren’t there for their own ambition and Obama inspired a great deal of loyalty.  He doesn’t do it by yelling and screaming; he does it by being a calm leader. He does inspire a great deal of passion and he has a very good vision for the country and he was a pleasure to work with side by side.

You and your team had to surmount formidable opponents, who was the toughest?

We knew how unlikely our victory was.  I knew we’d have to run a near perfect campaign against Hillary and even then we might not win.  We had one narrow path to go down. The primary was brutal. It was tough, it was close. But once it was over, Hillary didn’t take two or three months to kind of get her arms around helping us. She helped us right away, and in profound and important ways.  And she put all her effort into helping us beat McCain.

Your opponents claimed that the press was on your side.  What’s your take?

There’s a popular narrative that the media welcomed Obama into the White House, but back in the 2007 there weren’t very positive towards us.  People think we got glowing coverage, but the truth is, when you’re doing well, you get good coverage. The moments we were doing well in the primary and the general we got good coverage. The moments we were struggling, like during the fall of 2007 when Hillary won New Hampshire, we didn’t get good coverage. The questions would become what’s wrong with the campaign and why are you struggling?

Any predictions for 2010 and 2012?

I have learned not to predict.  We live in a society that moves very quickly.  Political winds move very quickly.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

The murder of the garter snake that lived in the garden of Jeff Corwin’s grandmother may have triggered his passionate determination to save animals.  Corwin first discovered–and became fascinated–by the snake when he was six years old, and for the next two years he would lay in the grass and watch its every movement.  That is, until, the neighbor ruthlessly destroyed the snake with a shovel, sending snake parts slithering through the yard in front of Corwin’s eyes.

Corwin, a wildlife biologist, Emmy Award winning television host and founder of the EcoZone, an environmental educational center in Massachusetts and the Emerald Canopy Rainforest Foundation, recently authored 100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth’s Most Endangered Species (Rodale 2009; $24.99).  The MSNBC documentary series based on his book premieres this November 22.

Red caught up with Corwin who, when not traveling the word saving animals, hosts such shows as the Food Network’s Extreme Cuisine, as he finished editing his documentary.

Tell us about 100 Heartbeats and what that means?

100 Heartbeats is the ultimate club you don’t want to join.  It’s an excusive club of animal species that number 100 or less and are close to extinction.  For over a year, I’ve been traveling the world, documenting endangered species and the heroes who are trying to save them.

I imagine that some people say, well, there are so many animal species in this world.  What’s it matter if a few disappear?  After all, there are no more dodo birds and we’re all doing okay.

Many people, when they think of “extinct,” they think of the dodo bird and the dirty old dusty dinosaur bones.  Even since I began doing my show, there are animals that I have featured that don’t exist anymore.  It’s about my daughter who saw an old show that I did on the Golden Frog and she said “Dad, when we go to Panama, can we see the Golden Frog?” And I said “Honey, no.”  She thought she had done something wrong so I wasn’t going to show her.  But it isn’t that, it’s that that frog doesn’t exist anymore.  So what is the significance of losing the Golden frog or the California condor or the Chinese alligator?  What does it mean to lose a little frog?  Last week we went into a rain forest where the frogs are gone and it’s picture perfect but then you think what is wrong with this picture.  It’s absolutely quiet.  The frogs were the keystones, their loss disrupted the food chain and now it’s a dead forest because that frog is gone.  What did we lose?  There are thousands of chemicals we harvest from those forests to fight diseases and we lose those.

So losing rainforests just isn’t about losing habitats for animals?

No, we get 40% of our medicines from these forests.  Rainforest take up only 5% of the earth’s surface but the hold 60% of the planet’s life.  And we lose 3000 acres of rainforest in an hour.

Articulate and a born story teller, Jeff Corwin is on a mission to save the animals and in doing so, leave a better world for future generations.  Corwin is passionate as he talks about animals, from getting to snuggle with tranquilized polar bear cubs to the garter snake he discovered in his grandmother’s garden when he was six.

So tell us about your snake.

I grew up in the city, my dad was a Boston cop.  My grandmother lived in the country and I found this coiled up snake and took it in the house.  Everyone screamed and said to get it out of the house and I was like, “No.”  They asked why, and I said I loved it.

Do you think that was the basis for your quest to save animals?

I don’t know.  Animals are my life.  There’s a saying, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

When you talk or write about saving these species, I get a sense of despair.  As if there is just too much to do and the odds are too great.  Do you ever feel like that?

I think that the most dangerous thing for any effort is to be paralyzed by the sense of loss of power.  People are powerful.

In what way?

They are powerful in how they use natural resources.  Everyone is going to leave an impact, you’re going to leave a footprint.  It’s whether it’s a good or bad one.

How can people leave a good footprint?

I believe it starts in our own backyards.  If you’re a Rockefeller and can cut a check for $100,000, great. I’ll tell you where to send that check.  But it can start much smaller.  The average person produces five pounds of non-reusable waste a day.  Take bottled water.  That’s one way to start.  Instead of buying water in a bottle that will never decompose, buy one and refill it.  Making a decision like that can impact climate change.  One of the reasons rain forests are destroyed and animals lose their habitat is because of the quest for palm oil.  Palm oil is in one of every ten products we use.  Palm oil is the reason why tigers, elephants and rhinos won’t have a home.  So before buying a product, check to see if it has palm oil and if it does, don’t buy it.  It’s not good for you anyway.

You spent over a year filming your documentary.  What was that like?

It was incredibly hard.

What were some of the hardest parts of the trip?

I had a two-day journey into hell taking orangutans away from poachers where I thought I would be killed.  I tried to swim through a river of trash that was 50 miles wide that sea turtles have to swim through and I couldn’t do it.  It was devastating to go into the black markets of Asia and Africa and seeing them selling animal parts.  But it was important.  I really believe that there’s hope, that we have a chance and we have to rise to the challenge.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Susie Essman, who plays Susie Greene on the hit TV comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm, learned fast about stepchildren when she married a man with four children, ages ten through 15.  “My mother used to tell me ‘you can’t buy your kids’ love,’” she writes in her recently released memoir What Would Susie Say?  Bullsh*t Wisdom About Love Life and Comedy (Simon & Schuster $25, 2009).

“You can, and it’s exponential. They’re like Russian mail-order brides–the more you spend, the more they love you.” This type of humor typifies the book, which though often funny, is poignant too.  And Essman, when she’s not filming or doing stand-up, lives in a ranch style home in Albany, New York where her husband works, came across as thoughtful and wise when she chatted with Red about family, comedy and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

So I guess you’re saying you can buy love, right?

I’m telling you, the spending thing worked.  They’re superficial and so am I. It’s perfect.  But really, it’s a joke and it really wasn’t calculated to buy their affection.  It’s just that I like to shop and so do they and so it’s something we do. As long as my money doesn’t run out, we’ll be friends.

Tell us about your book.

Thank you for asking. It’s really like a compilation of essays about things in my life, some funny but some serious like when I talk about my father’s death.  There’s scoop on Curb Your Enthusiasm and one chapter where I talk about “Weather Porn” which is about how my husband is obsessed with the weather channel.

Is writing a book like writing your stand-up routines?

I don’t write stand-up.  And writing the book was both fun and also just brutal.  I also feel it’s sort of like childbirth in that I don’t remember writing it which is what women say about having children.  But facing that blank page every morning is so difficult.

Do a lot of people wonder if you’re like Susie Greene, the foul mouthed character you play on Curb Your Enthusiasm who kicked Larry David out of her house because he didn’t want a tour of the place?

None of us is exactly like our characters. As an actress I like to play something extreme and Susie Greene is very extreme.  But people have the hardest time with me because they think I’m Susie Greene.  It’s a thing I do called acting and though I love Susie Greene and I love playing Susie Greene, but I’m not her.

Were you allowed to develop Susie Greene as you wanted or was it all planned from the start of the series?

I had no idea whatsoever as to my character when I started the show.  There were no scripts, no budget, there wasn’t a contract.  It was kind of like I have a barn, let’s do a show like an old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movie.

Susie Essman always wanted to be a performer from the time she climbed on the kitchen table at age 10 and did improvisational commercials with canned goods to entertain her older brother’s stoned friends.  Four years ago, Essman, a New York based stand-up comedian, married and moved upstate to Albany, leaving behind a hip single life to be a wife and mother to four teenagers.  It’s a role she relishes but it hasn’t stopped her comedy routine or playing Susie Greene on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Do your stepchildren watch your comedy routines?

No, my act is edgier than Susie Greene and it’s not for kids.  But my oldest stepson, who is now 20 and in college, his friends have seen me and all of a sudden he invited me to visit because suddenly I’m cool.  Otherwise my work is nothing to them.  But I don’t think that’s unusual.  Probably Bruce Springsteen’s kids don’t think he’s cool either.

Tell us about working on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  It’s been on the air seven years now.  Are you surprised by its success?

Curb is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.  It’s amazing that it attracts such a wide range of followers.  This is just anecdotal, Jane, all these people of all ages approach me telling me they love the show.  25-year-old boys love us and we’re all old people on the show.  But it seems like everyone just loves that show.  Curb really takes social niceties and turns them on their head.  I’m hoping we’ll be back every year.  Though each year Larry doesn’t think he’ll be able to another year, that he won’t be able to be funny.  That’s because each season wrings him out but then he has a few months off and is ready to come back.

I hope the show comes back.

You?  I hope it does more than you.  I’m counting on that paycheck.

Reading your book, I’m surprised at how well thought out some of your insights are in raising stepchildren, beyond buying them everything. 

My real advice is to be really, really careful with stepchildren and don’t compete.  They’ll be gone soon enough and they should be first.  Don’t have an agenda with them.  I really have no agenda; I feel that our job is to protect them, set boundaries because kids in general really want boundaries even though they’re always testing them.  I also think the basis of any relationship in life is to see others clearly for who they are.

It sounds like that’s your next book, how to stepparent.

If I hadn’t become a comedian, I would have been a psychologist.

What do you do for fun?

I like to decorate, spend time with my family, Jimmy, my husband, and I like to get in the car and go someplace.  I really like to lie around reading a book with a bad TV show on in the background.

What do you like to read?

Lots of things–mysteries, non-fiction.

Like what?

I’m reading The God Delusion right now.  I’m trying to think of what else I just read . . .

Don’t worry, you’re doing better than Sarah Palin did when Katie Couric asked her the same question.

That’s a low bar.

For more on Susie Essman, visit www.susieessman.com

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff
–Photo credit: Michael Cogliantry