That Said With Michael Zeldin

Join Michael in his conversation with Graydon Carter about his memoir When the Going was Good, An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines which documents his life and storied journalism career including his twenty-five years as the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from his restaurant, the Waverly Inn, and have five children. Book Notes From the pages of Spy and Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture After working at both Time and Life and cofounding Spy, Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992. He knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as those who would grace the pages of Vanity Fair. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades. When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business, further planting a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out. Biography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graydon_Carter Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Elliot Williams about his new book Five Bullets, The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York’s Explosive ’80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial that Divided the Nation which explores the riveting events surrounding the shooting of four Black teenagers by a white man on a NY subway car. Elliot Williams was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for legislative affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2013-2017. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Director for congressional relations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and as a counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He began his legal career by clerking for Judges Donald M. Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and Charles R. Wilson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He was then accepted into the Attorney General’s Honors Program, where he served as a trial attorney in the Domestic Security Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Elliot earned a law degree and master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a Spring 2022 Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. Bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Williams Book description On a dirty New York subway car on December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot Barry Allen, Darrell Cabey, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, four teenagers from the Bronx, at point blank range. Goetz claimed they were going to mug him; the teens claim that one of them had simply asked for five dollars. Crime was at an all-time high. So was racial tension. Was Goetz, who was white, a hero who finally fought back? Or a bigot whose itchy trigger finger seriously wounded three unarmed black kids and condemned a fourth to irreversible brain damage? By the time Goetz went on trial for quadruple attempted murder, the “Subway Vigilante” saga had become a global sensation, and New Yorkers across race and class were split over whether he deserved decades in prison…or a medal. In Five Bullets, Elliot Williams vaults back to gritty 1980s Manhattan and reexamines the first major true-crime story of the cable news era. Drawing on archives and interviews with many main characters, including Goetz, Williams presents a masterful and vivid tale that also tells the origin stories of larger-than-life figures: Al Sharpton, a polarizing young local activist rocketing to national prominence; Rudy Giuliani, a rising-star prosecutor with an important decision to make; the NRA, which needed a poster boy for its transition from hunting club to political juggernaut; and Rupert Murdoch, whose new purchase, the New York Post, grew his empire by keeping a scary story in the headlines. A shocking account of a pivotal moment in our history, Five Bullets demonstrates why, in order to understand today’s debates about race, crime, safety, and the media, it’s imperative to reflect on what went down in the subway four decades ago. As Williams’s powerful narrative reveals, it was not just Goetz on trial, but the conscience of a nation. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with David Margolick about his new book When Caesar Was King, How Sid Ceasar Reinvented American Comedy which chronicles the life and times of Sid Caesar who, essentially, invented sketch comedy for television with his shows Your Show of Shows and the Caesar Hour in the 1950s. As Mel Brooks said “without Sid Caesar there would be no Mel Brooks.” David Margolick is a longtime contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he writes about culture, the media, and politics. He served as national legal affairs editor at The New York Times, where he wrote the weekly At the Bar column for seven years. His prior books include "Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock," a study of the iconic photograph taken outside Little Rock Central High School during the desegregation crisis of 1957; "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink"; "Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song"; “The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy”; “Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns”; and Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune. When Caesar Was King Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael’s conversation with Stephen Rea about his new book Ozzy and Me, Life Lesson, Wild Stories and Unexpected Epiphanies from Forty Years of Friendship with the Prince of Darkness which chronicles his more than 40-year friendship with Ozzy Osbourne. Stephen Rea is a former United Kingdom newspaper journalist and the author of the memoir Finn McCool’s Football Club. Originally from Northern Ireland, he lives and teaches writing in New Orleans. Joining us as a special guest and co-host in Randy Blythe. Randy is the frontman for the heavy metal band Lamb of God. Randy was a guest on our show in April 2025 where we discussed his new memoir Just Beyond The Light, Making Peace with the Wars Inside our Head. Randy is a writer, photographer, and actor. He lives in Richmond, VA when he is not on the road touring. About the Books Ozzy and Me—Stephen Rea Stephen Rea was born in Northern Ireland in 1969, the same year “The Troubles” began. Violence was everywhere. His grandmother was nearly killed when gunmen opened fire on the wrong house, leaving young Stephen to pick at the bullet holes in the walls. He found refuge from this turmoil in heavy metal—especially the music of Ozzy Osbourne. As a pre-internet teenager, he hunted down dozens of live concert bootlegs—corresponding by mail with collectors around the world—and devoured every music magazine he could find. In late 1984, when Stephen was fifteen, he read about a huge festival in Rio de Janeiro that January called “Rock In Rio” whose bill included AC/DC, Queen, and Osbourne. As a lark, he mentioned it to his dad, and was stunned when he said they should go. He was even more shocked when his mother, looking for information about how to get tickets, began a correspondence with Osbourne’s secretary, who scored the family VIP passes and introduced them to Osbourne in Brazil. Thus began a friendship with Ozzy, his wife Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne family that has continued for decades. While traveling on tour in the mid-nineties, Ozzy gifted Stephen a pair of fancy leather notebooks and told him to keep a record of their adventures and conversations. The result is Ozzy & Me: a beautiful behind-the-scenes memoir that proves the life-affirming, soul-nourishing power of music—and disproves the notion that you should never meet your heroes. Just Beyond the Light In his gripping, bestselling debut memoir Dark Days, Lamb of God vocalist D. Randall (Randy) Blythe unflinchingly wrote about some of the most harrowing episodes of his past. Now, in his highly anticipated follow-up Just Beyond the Light, Blythe shares how he works daily to maintain positivity in a world that feels like it is spinning out of control. In his own words, Just Beyond the Light is a "tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times." Written with a scathing balance of hard-edged reality offset by a knowing humor and a razor-sharp wit, voiced in in his inimitable, conversational, everyman-philosopher style, Blythe clearly breaks down his approach to life, which is a personal and idiosyncratic mix of sobriety, art, and surfing. He writes movingly of his childhood in the South, of fallen friends, of what he’s learned touring the world as the vocalist of a successful heavy metal band, and of the very real ways he is doing what he can to leave the world a better place. Above all, he offers readers hope that balance, real balance, is possible, even (or especially) when things seem hopeless. Compelling, compassionate, and refreshingly honest, Just Beyond the Light ultimately reminds readers that “as long as we keep our feet (and minds) planted firmly on the ground that is reality, the sky isn’t falling— it never has been, and it never will.” Bios https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Blythe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Rea Stephen Rea Stephen Rea was born in Northern Ireland in 1969, the same year...

Join Michael in his conversation with Jonathan Freedland about his new non-fiction book The Traitors Circle, The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them which tells the story of a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite who shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. Jonathan is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and presents the BBC Radio 4 contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland has published twelve books: three non-fiction works under his own name and nine novels, eight of them under the pseudonym Sam Bourne. When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth. Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo. They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe. How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap? Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny? The Traitors Circle Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On today's show we'll be speaking with Congressman Jim Clyburn about his new book, The First Eight, a personal history of the pioneering black congressmen who shaped a nation, which tells the story of those black congressmen from South Carolina who were elected in the aftermath of the Civil War while revealing why it took nearly a century before the ninth. The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On today's show, we are speaking with Andrew Porwancher about his new book, “American Maccabee, Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews.” This episode was taped before a live stream audience in conjunction with Adas Israel Synagogue and Temple Beth El. Most Americans underestimate how deeply Theodore Roosevelt's relationship with Jewish communities shaped both his policies and his legacy. Discover how Roosevelt’s personalized diplomacy, daring public stands, and private actions set a new standard for moral leadership on the global stage from fighting anti-Semitism in Russia to integrating Jewish diversity into America’s national identity. Andrew Porwancher is a historian and author of American Maccabee, exploring Roosevelt’s complex and groundbreaking relationship with Jewish Americans. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this week’s show we will be speaking with Chris Matthews about his new book Lessons from Bobby, Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters which offers important lessons for public and private sector leaders alike. Chris Matthews hosted Hardball with Chris Matthews for a generation on MSNBC and now can be found exclusively on Substack. Chris is the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit among many others. Chris was presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and a top aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neil. Chris Matthews Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Jeffrey Rosen about his new book, The Pursuit of Liberty. How Jefferson versus Hamilton ignited the lasting battle over power in America. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation Dr. Sanjay Gupta about his book It Doesn’t Have to Hurt, Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life which explores the neuroscience of chronic pain and offers a seven-step process for addressing it. Dr. Gupta is an Associate Professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and CNN’s Emmy Award-winning chief medical correspondent. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his previously recorded special presentation in conjunction with Adas Israel Congregation of Washington, DC and Congregation Beth El in Montgomery County, Maryland with Rachel Cockerell about her new book Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land. Rachel Cockerell is a writer and historian, born and raised in London. The book is an “experimental” history about her family’s search for a promised land. It centers around Theodor Herzl and the early Zionist cause that he championed and the Galveston Movement, a long-forgotten project that brought 10,000 Russian Jews to Texas pre-WWI which was led in part by her great-grandfather. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Jane Leavy about her new book, Make Me Commissioner, I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It which is a behind the scenes road trip through the far corners of the baseball world as she sets out to uncover how the game broke, and to find the people and the ideas that just might bring it back. Jane Leavy is an award-winning former sportswriter and feature writer for the Washington Post, known for diving into a subject and emerging with work that is both meticulously researched and narratively rich. She is the author of the national bestsellers The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, The Last Boy Book: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel, Squeeze Play, called “the best novel ever written about baseball” by Entertainment Weekly. She lives in Washington, D.C. and Truro, Massachusetts. https://janeleavy.com/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Jane Leavy about her new book, Make Me Commissioner, I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It which is a behind the scenes road trip through the far corners of the baseball world as she sets out to uncover how the game broke, and to find the people and the ideas that just might bring it back. Jane Leavy is an award-winning former sportswriter and feature writer for the Washington Post, known for diving into a subject and emerging with work that is both meticulously researched and narratively rich. She is the author of the national bestsellers The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, The Last Boy Book: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel, Squeeze Play, called “the best novel ever written about baseball” by Entertainment Weekly. She lives in Washington, D.C. and Truro, Massachusetts. https://janeleavy.com/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with DeMaurice Smith about his new book, Turf Wars, The Fight for the Soul of America’s Game which chronicles his 14-year tenure as the head of the National Football League Players Association. DeMaurice Smith is the former executive director of the National Football League Players Association. Prior to the NFLPA, De was an assistant United States attorney, counsel to the US deputy attorney general, and a partner in major law firms. He is now a visiting professor of law at Pepperdine University. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with DeMaurice Smith about his new book, Turf Wars, The Fight for the Soul of America’s Game which chronicles his 14-year tenure as the head of the National Football League Players Association. DeMaurice Smith is the former executive director of the National Football League Players Association. Prior to the NFLPA, De was an assistant United States attorney, counsel to the US deputy attorney general, and a partner in major law firms. He is now a visiting professor of law at Pepperdine University. This is Part 1. Part 2 will be out soon! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Alex Vernon about his new book Peace is a Shy Thing, The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien which chronicles the life and writings of Tim O’Brien best known for his beloved book The Things They Carried. Alex is the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College. Alex Vernon graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (the only literature major in his class of over a thousand), served in combat as a tank platoon leader in the Persian Gulf War, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. This is his eleventh book. Alex Vernon Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his conversation with Will Bardenwerper about his new book Homestand, Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America which tells the story of Will’s efforts to find the heart of Americana through the lens of minor league baseball. Will has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s and other outlets and is the author of The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid. He served as an Airborne Ranger infantry officer in Iraq and was awarded a Bronze Star. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he received a B.A. from Princeton and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael Zeldin for this extraordinary 90-minute conversation with Max Weinberg, Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame drummer from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, as they discuss Max’s musical career, his thoughts on music and drumming, his recollections of other great drummers, especially the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, and much more. Guest Max Weinberg, Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame drummer from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band Max “the Mighty Max” Weinberg. A bundle of drive, neurosis and wily suburban street smarts, and source of great humor, Max found a place where Bernard Purdie, Buddy Rich and Keith Moon intersected and made it his own. The soul of dedication and commitment, each night in the midst of the continuous hurricane our sets are designed to be, the sheer physical pressure of three hours of nonstop, steamrolling rock music lies upon his shoulders more heavily than anyone else’s. Onstage, Max goes beyond listening to what I’m saying, signaling; he “hears” what I’m thinking, feeling. He anticipates my thoughts as they come rolling full bore toward the drum riser. It’s a near telepathy that comes from years of playing and living together. It’s a real-world miracle and it’s why people love musicians. They show us how deeply we can experience one another’s minds and hearts, and how perfectly we can work in congress. With Max at my back, the questions are answered before they’re asked. There are twenty thousand people, all about to take a breath; we’re moving in for the kill, the band, all steel on an iron track, and that snare shot, the one I’m just thinking about but haven’t told or signaled anyone outside of this on-fire little corner of my mind about, the one I want right . . . and there it is! Rumble young man, rumble! -Bruce Springsteen “Born To Run” (2016) Max Weinberg's Jukebox A truly interactive experience, Weinberg invites the audience to create the set list, in real time, that he and his crack four piece group will play that night. Performing songs from the glory days of rock and roll your guests get to choose from a video menu of over 200 songs — everything from the Beatles to the Stones to Bruce and The E Street Band’s biggest hits — and hear the group play ‘em the way they want to hear them played! That’s right—the crowd gets to yell out their choices and Max plays them! This unique approach is fun and satisfying. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Stevie Van Zandt while, perhaps, best known as a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band and leader of Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, he is also a writer, producer, actor (having starred in the Sopranos and Lilyhammer), radio host on Sirius/XM’s Little Steven’s Underground garage, political activist, founder of TeachRock.org, and much more. He is also a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Join me and Stevie Van Zandt as we discuss his terrific new memoir, Unrequited Infatuations, which traces his odyssey from a teenager in suburban New Jersey to the Rock and Hall of Fame. Guest Stevie Van Zandt What story begins in a bedroom in suburban New Jersey in the early ‘60s, unfolds on some of the country's largest stages, and then ranges across the globe, demonstrating over and over again how Rock and Roll has the power to change the world for the better? This story. The first true heartbeat of UNREQUITED INFATUATIONS is the moment when Stevie Van Zandt trades in his devotion to the Baptist religion for an obsession with Rock and Roll. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join Michael in his discussion with Cody Keenan as they discuss his book, Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America. The book recounts the most remarkable eulogy delivered by President Obama in Charleston, South Carolina after the hate crime murders of Reverend Pickney and eight parishioners in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Guest Cody Keenan Cody Keenan rose from a campaign intern in Chicago and deputy pirate to become chief speechwriter at the White House and Barack Obama’s post-presidential collaborator. He’s been named the “Springsteen” of the Obama White House, even though he can’t play an instrument, and Obama calls him “Hemingway” for reasons that have little to do with his talent or seasonal beard (ask him sometime). Even British GQ once named Cody one of the “35 Coolest Men under 38 (and a Half),” ahead of Ryan Gosling, but behind Tom Hardy. n truth, Cody is more comfortable behind the scenes, helping to shape the stories of our time. He got his start as a young aide to the legendary senator Edward M. Kennedy before earning a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. A sought-after expert on politics, messaging, and current affairs, he is now a partner at leading speechwriting firm Fenway Strategies and teaches a popular course on political speechwriting to undergraduates at his alma mater Northwestern University. Born in Wrigleyville, Cody finally got to write his dream speech just four days before Obama left office—one welcoming the World Champion Chicago Cubs to the White House. To his wife Kristen’s enduring embarrassment, their White House courtship was documented on CNN. Today, they live in New York City with their daughter, Grace. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy