Quimby's Bookstore Podcast #6 Up, With Caseen Gaines and His Book Inside Pee-Wee’s Playhouse

So I finished mixing down the sixth episode of the Quimby's Bookstore Podcast, which features an interview with Caseen Gaines, the author of Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Untold, Unauthorized, and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenomenon. Click here or on the picture above and you can go listen to it.

Caseen talked to a lot of people involved in the show, as well as many fans, and it's really a fun book. And I must say, I didn't really watch the show that much as a kid when it was on (late 80s, early 90s) but I loved the first Pee-Wee movie as well as the Christmas special. In some ways I do sort of feel like Pee-Wee Herman is a part of my childhood, which added to making this interview special for me. I guess what I'm saying is that it was kind of like sitting down with someone and just reminiscing about stuff you loved when you were younger but with the added benefit of adding the social commentary that you can do as an adult. Intelligent observations about pop culture, so satisfying.

Relevant topics touched on in the with Caseen: public persona, breaking the fourth wall, the concept of hommage vs. rip off, tribute vs authorization and so on. It was a super fun interview because Caseen is charismatic, funny and extremely articulate. He's a high school teacher, and I bet sitting in his class is super fun.

You can listen to this episode at quimbys.podbean.com or find it (and subscribe) to the podcast on I-tunes, or even go to podbean where it provides a link to I-tunes if you need some guidance. You have options for streaming live or downloading, depending on what your preferance are, or if you're not a Mac person and still want to listen to it. At the podbean site I also included some links to things we talk about in the interview.

Sidenote: I realized something lately, and that is that I think my favorite thing to do is sit around with my friends and talk about/make fun of media. Some people like to travel, some people like to knit, some people like to decoupage, some people like to cook. I like to sit around with engaging people and talk about media, which sometimes devolves into making fun of certain things in the entertainment industry. (Hence a totally different podcast I do with my friend Sacha here.) That explains why I love things like MST3K, Amelie Gillette's "Hater" stuff in The Onion, or just the parts of Beavis and Butthead when they were making fun of the music videos -- people making fun of things (when the making fun of is warranted) is amusing to me. And I feel like the creative endeavors that I take the most amount of joy in usually include elements of comedy and music. And I am not talking about the Capitol Steps. They sound like a parody of bands that do comic musical performances about politics, except that they are actually a band that does comic performances about politics.


ANYWAY, click on the above picture and go listen to it and leave a comment on I-Tunes that YOU THINK IT'S AWESOME.