Welcome to the Dinner Party Download. This is your icebreaker.

Here's a music joke. What do you call perfect pitch?

It's when you throw a banjo in the garbage and it hits an accordion.

I'm Brendan Francis Noonam.

I'm Rico Gagliano and from APM American Public Media, this is The Dinner Party Download,

the culture show that helps you win this week's dinner parties.

You just got a joke from musician Ben Johnson.

He doesn't play the banjo.

That'll help break the ice.

His band Pre-War just released their new album, My Friend, The Enemy.

Later, we'll speak with actor Michael

Shannon, star of HBO's Boardwalk Empire, and the new movie The Ice Man. And also, by the way,

the star of the viral video of the week, right? In which he does a dramatic reading of a note

written by an insane sorority girl. He's in all our screens. He's got the zeit guys covered.

That's right. Also coming up, actor Hugh Dancy lists some good, bad guys, and travel writer Paul Theroux tells us where not to go.

But first, as at any dinner party, we start with Small Talk.

All week long, you've been hearing these headlines.

President Obama meets with Enrique Pena Nieto for the first time since the

Mexican president took office. Three more suspect in the case of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Jason Collins became the first man still active in a major team sport to come out.

Now for a story you might not have heard, we are talking with Pat Morrison of the LA Times

and the LA Public

...