Host
Max Schmid
Guest
Eugene B. Bergmann
Author of "Excelsior You Fathead - The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd"

On Thursday,  October 20th 2005, the 30th Friends of Old Time Radio Convention opened at the Newark Holiday Inn North, and continued through Sunday, the 23rd. The convention featured dealers from across the country, selling tapes, records, cd's, and other memorabilia of old time radio shows. In addition, there were live panels of discussion on an hourly schedule.

Gene Bergmann sat on two of the panels on Thursday.

The first was an authors panel featuring Gene and six other authors of radio related books. Each author gave a presentation on their book and then the panel was opened to the audience for questions of which most were asked to Gene about Shep.

The second panel was with Max Schmid, host of WBAI's "Golden Age of Radio" and "Mass Backwards" programs. Opening with Shep's theme music Max conducted an excellent interview of Gene discussing the book and Shep in general. Again the panel was opened to audience questions of which there were many.

There appeared to be a lot of interest in Shep at the convention, Gene was stopped numerous times in the hallways by people who not only wanted their copy of the book autographed, but wanted to share their own Shep experiences.

Prior to the panels, Lou Miano, fellow Shep fan and author of "Russ Columbo - The Amazing Life and Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Singing Legend", taped an interview with Gene.

Gene and Max photo by Jim Clavin	Signing Another Book photo by Jim Clavin	Discussing the Book photo by Jim Clavin
Will any copy go unsigned! photo by Jim Clavin	Convention Photos	Talk about self promotion! photo by Jim Clavin
Doing an interview for Lou photo by Jim Clavin	Gene - Lowell - Lou photo by Jim Clavin	Jim - Gene - Lou photo by Lowell Thelin