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Author Jeff Griggs talks about Guru: My Days with Del Close. Close was central to Chicago's Second City club, which gave rise to John Belushi, Bill Murray and many other comic talents.

A Texas rapper sets his rhymes to country beats. Host Jennifer Ludden talks with singer Cowboy Troy about the hybrid music style he calls "hick-hop." Troy's new album is called Loco Motive.

Filmmaker Marshall Curry talks about his new documentary Street Fight. The chronicle of the 2002 mayoral race in Newark, N.J., illustrates the city's rough-and-tumble politics.

The 2005 Tony Awards will air Sunday. James Earl Jones has been nominated for best actor for his role in the Broadway play On Golden Pond. His leading lady is acting veteran Leslie Uggams. The two portray an elderly couple who visit their summer home in Maine and deal with a number of family issues. Ed Gordon visits with Jones and Uggam at Corte Theater on Broadway.

Ron Howard's latest film Cinderella Man tells the story of James Braddock -- but doesn't share the boxer's confidence. The real Braddock believed enough in himself to accomplish miracles in the ring, notes Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan. But the movie lacks faith in the audience, which undercuts its ability to deliver complete satisfaction.

Most of us text on a regular basis, but is there a right and wrong way to do it?

Novelist Ann Hood, whose Fly Girl paints a picture of her time as a flight attendant, was a beneficiary of the fight by the women profiled in Nell McShane Wulfhart's book to be treated professionally.

A most unlikely CD has been close to the top of the Billboard charts recently. The Mars Volta, from Texas, somehow missed the news that progressive rock was nearly extinct. Their new CD, Frances the Mute, is a saga based on the diary of a child in search of a birth mother.

Since its opening in 2003, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles has been a big success. But it turns out part of the of the shiny metal building is making its neighbors squint. Workers are busy sanding the metal to dull the gloss.

Madeleine Brand talks with Edward J. Epstein, author of The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood, about why movie studios spend millions of dollars advertising to teenagers — money they sometimes never get back in ticket sales.