George Clinton & Cristela Alonzo

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're listening to some of our favorite interviews from Bullseyes past this week, and we've got a couple doozies. First up: the living legend, the master of funk music, Dr. Funkenstein himself: George Clinton, from 2014. The impact he's had on modern music is so huge that he's almost more myth than actual person nowadays, but Clinton's life story is a fascinating one: starting in doo-wop, moving on to Motown, and then creating his own genre from scratch: funk. He'll talk about that, his struggle with drug addiction and some of his best wild stories from Parliament Funkadelic's early days. Then, Cristela Alonzo, from last year. She's a veteran standup comedian and actress. You might've seen her on the ABC sitcom Cristela - she was the show's creator, star, she also wrote and produced it. Alonzo was actually the first latina ever to do all that on one TV show. She's been working on her standup act more lately, and it's really great. Cristela mixes political humor with her own life story (including her time spent living in an abandoned diner) to a hilarious and really endearing effect. She's also starring on the new Maximum Fun podcast Bubble, which you should check out if you haven't already. C'mon! And, finally: Jesse tells you about an SNL sketch that he connects with on a profound, deep level. And - since you're a Bullseye listener - we bet you will, too.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:13.2	I'm Jesse Thorn. When you think of funk, you think George Clinton. His shows with
0:17.7	Parliament Funkadelic were raw, tripped out, and spontaneous. I read that frequently in
0:24.7	your shows, and at the very beginning of the 1970s, you would end up naked.
0:31.7	That was a period that the trendy chemical substance was always around. The first thing that
0:36.7	could possibly happen is the music stop. In the lights come on. I didn't feel like I
0:43.7	idiot. I was like, I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little
0:49.7	bit more careful. I was the music stop. In the lights come on. I didn't feel like I
0:56.7	idiot. In that happened, that thing to cover the dance. It's Bullseye.
1:06.7	Coming up, my conversation with the Living Legend, the Master of the Funk, Dr. Funkinstein
1:13.7	himself. George Clinton paid his dues in the mainstream, singing duop, writing songs
1:19.2	from Motown. Then, with Parliament Funkadelic, he developed a look and a sound that was
1:25.2	like nothing else before. Like, but Jimmy Hendrick was to rock a roll. We was like that
1:31.2	to R&B and probably everything else. We was weird to everybody. And we'll talk about his
1:38.7	trouble, and doing the business side of things. I've been trying for the longest, but you
1:43.7	can't do that. And smoke crack at the same time. It don't hurt. And that was trying to
1:48.7	do that. You can file that one under real talk. Then later, I'll talk with the comedian
1:53.7	actress and showrunner, Kristella Alonso. She talks about her childhood in her stand-up
1:59.7	back. How she grew up poor in South Texas. I mean, actually poor. Like her family squatted
2:04.7	in an abandoned diner with electricity from an extension cord running from her neighbor's
2:10.7	backyard. She says that for the longest time, she never even realized her life was different.
2:17.7	And I called me. We called my family. I'm like, do we live in a diner? And everybody started,
	...

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