Let's Do Lunch

I've been a huge fan of the series Somebody Feed Phil which streams on Netflix and stars Phil Rosenthal who co-created Everybody Loves Raymond.  In fact, I began watching it during the show's original incarnation when it was on PBS until the title of I'll Have What Phil's Having.  In the show, he travels around the world to different cities and eats. And talks joyfully and often hilariously with the locals.  And participates in the culture.

But this is not about that.  This is a podcast that he does with longtime Rolling Stone journalist David Wild.  It was brought to my attention by the inveterate Chris Dunn, after the show did a long interview with the great Elaine May, which he thought I'd like.  And he was right.  In fact, I enjoyed it enough to have now listened to about a half-dozen of their interviews, and they've all been a total pleasure.

(This is not surprising.  Back when I wrote a column for the WGA website called "Email Interviews, I did an interview with Phil Rosenthal, and he was thoroughly gracious and a pleasure.  I'm pretty sure that I posted it here, though at the moment can't find it.  Perhaps I'll try to track it down.)

The interviews are wide-ranging and fun -- really more conversations than interviews, all taking place over whatever lunch that Phil has ordered in.  (The utter love of food is a major factor in his life.  While Everybody Loves Raymond was in production, the story I was told by another WGA member was that Rosenthal would let a different member of the writing staff order in lunch each week -- from anywhere in the world.  If you watch a rerun of the show, note his production company credit at the end -- the company is called Where's Lunch?)

If I have any quibble with the show is that's as good and deeply knowledgeable a journalist as David Wild is, and as good a storyteller as he is (and he's a wonderful storyteller), he tends to ask fewer questions of the guest than Phil does and instead more often tells stories about himself, almost as if to establish his bona fides.  The stories are terrific, as are his seriously impressive credentials and renown friends, which come through in his stories, but the guest should be the center.  Also, he tends to be a touch more "suck-uppy" with hyperbolic praise than I prefer.  Still, he and Phil Rosenthal are longtime friends, their affection comes through, and his part of the conversations help make it all so enjoyable.

And Phil Rosenthal is just a purely enthusiastic, funny, smart guy.

I figured I should start by offering the conversation with Elaine May.  It's the first podcast interview she'd ever done -- and wasn't even quite sure what a podcast was, or if anybody would even hear it.  This isn't totally surprising when you realize that she's 90.

Interestingly, when Chris told me about the show, he hadn't heard the full interview yet, he was only about 10 minutes in.  Off-handedly, I mentioned an interest tidbit about Elaine May that isn't well known -- that very long ago, he and Sheldon Harnick (who wrote the lyrics to Fiddler on the Roof, among other musicals) were married.  I've never brought it up with him, but I've always found it fascinating.  As it turns out, this actually gets brought up -- albeit somewhat tangentially -- in the interview.  But now you'll know what they're referring to.

I have one, small issue in the conversation.  At one point, when Elaine May talks about the improv work she did at the precursor of what became Second City in Chicago and her career with Mike Nichols, the hosts (and mostly Rosenthal) sort of seem to suck up to her by insisting that improv is writing.  Sorry, no, it's not.  And he knows it's not.  Writing is looking at a blank piece of paper, putting down your first thoughts, going over it to rephrase things -- then going over it again and again, cutting out full passages, changing lines, editing single words, editing for pacing and (if you're writing a script), creating the dialogue for all the characters.  Just because, at some point, you put down your first thought, it's not improv.  They might be cousins -- or really more distant cousins -- but they are not the same.  Not.

That aside, it's a joy.  It's also longer than most.  Generally, each episode is around 50 minutes.  This goes on for an hour and 22 minutes.  You get the sense that they don't want her to leave.

Unfortunately, I can't embed it on this site, but you can listen to it here.  Then, just click on the "Play" icon you'll see underneath the Naked Lunch graphic.