Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Arts Express: Prescription Thugs, Native American Jim Crow; Workplace Satire On The Small Screen



**Prescription Thugs: A Conversation With Director Chris Bell. So what exactly is going on with the deadly prescription drug epidemic in this country. And the filling of overflowing prisons with the incarcerated serving draconian sentences for illegal drugs, seemingly to make way for the legal prescription thug peddlers - pharmaceutical corporations in league with doctors and drugstores - moving in and taking over the business. And raking in billions in the process. Filmmaker Chris Bell talks Prescription Thugs, taking it personally as well as publicly in this documentary, with the related tragic death of his own brother. Welcome to 'The United States of Addiction.'

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE


**Mark McKinney Talks Superstore, Saturday Night Live: The Canadian born actor, writer and comedian, best known for SNL and Kids In The Hall, is on the line from LA to talk about the working stiff audience appeal of stinging workplace comedy after hours, in Superstore. And a small screen satire in which he stars as a befuddled boss along with America Ferrara's department store drudge, and touching on hot topics including race, gender and labor unions. Also, terror and fear on SNL; differences between the American and Canadian sense of humor linked to geography The Sopranos and what led McKinney into acting; and depression in comedians connected to a broken world and possibly fascism.

**Nicholas Sparks Discusses The Choice: The popular novelist phones in to Arts Express to talk about the page to screen, latest adaptation of one of his books. Sparks also fields questions about his First Nation surrogate father, how that relationship has informed his life journey, and what he learned from him about Native American Jim Crow in this country. Also, why writing the last page of a book is always the most fulfilling moment of writing for him.

Prairie Miller

Arts Express: Airing on WBAI Radio in NY and the Pacifica National Radio Network and Affiliate Stations.

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