A
lifelong Southern Californian, Nathan Callahan was born in Hollywood,
raised in the glow of Rocketdyne and
ripened in Orange County during the halcyon days of John
Schmitz.
Responsible
for the initial creation of the Orange
County Great Park, Callahan has inadvertently earned a reputation
as a cynic, clairvoyant
journalist, traitor, reverend,
and bon
vivant.
According to Congressman, actor, talk show host and U.S. presidential
candidate "B-1" Bob
Dornan, Nathan Callahan is a cowardly pseudonym for a Marxist
employed by the Democratic Party to run campigns for U.S. congressional
candidates.
In the real world, Callahan has been employed as a cook, an auto worker,
a graphic
designer,
a
musician, a municipal adminstrative aide, a xeriscaper, a window
dresser, a bookseller, a political consultant, and a writer.
In 1988, Callahan teamed with Will Swaim — future founding editor of the OC
Weekly — to publish The County, a short-lived zine of
leftist political and social commentary that nowadays can be found in the University
of California, Irvine Library archives.
In
the early 1990s, Callahan co-wrote and edited "Shut
Up, Fag!": Quotations from the Files of Congressman Bob Dornan with
William Payton. With its unsettling title and contemptible subject matter,
the book became a B-list cult success. TV and radio interviews followed.
So did Dornan.
A contributing
writer for the OC
Weekly beginning with its premier issue in 1995, Callahan was
recognized by The New York Times for helping break through Orange
County's conservative media stranglehold. After an intense migraine,
he left the Weekly in
2005.
Nathan
Callahan can be heard broadcasting from the University
of California at Irvine, his alma mater, with co-host Mike Kaspar on KUCI talk
radio Tuesday mornings from 8:00 until 10:00 Pacific Time on the programs Weekly
Signals, and filmschool.
Callahan and Kaspar have interviewed some of the world's most fascinating
people including Seymour Hersh, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arianna Huffington,
Joseph Wilson, Daniel Ellsberg, Errol Morris, Garrison Keillor, Helen
Thomas,
John Sayles, Lewis Lapham, Philip Glass, Frederick Wiseman, Thomas Frank,
Paul Krugman, Terry Jones, Susan Jacoby, Chalmers Johnson, Haskell Wexler,
Robert Fisk, Anne Lamott, and George McGovern.
Outside
the airwaves, Callahan collaborates with Bob
Aul on the darkly humorous, internationally notorious comic strip Pet
President.
Suburban
Manners: An Irreverent View of Politics, Wealth and Culture in Orange
County, California and Interviews are
Callahan's latest published works. When
not walking,
he is an avid coffee
drinker, reader, and online junkie.
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