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CNN Larry King Live

Interview with Andrea Mitchell, Mareen Dowd, Walter Rodgers, Barbara Guggenheim, Soulive, Dj Splyce

Aired November 12, 2005 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, not just covering presidents, congressmen and international dictators, talking back to them too.
Also, controversial columnist, Maureen Dowd, on sex and politics and why women make better leaders than men.

Plus, the acclaimed art consultant, Barbara Guggenheim. She usually works with museums and auction houses. And now she's going to tell you how to decorate with eBay.

All that and a lot more next on "LARRY KING LIVE."

There's a terrific new book out. Its called "Talking Back...To Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels." There you see its cover. Its author is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, Andrea Mitchell.

Always good to see you, Andrea, and thanks for joining us.

ANDREA MITCHELL, AUTHOR AND CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, NBC NEWS: It's great to be here, Larry. Thank you.

KING: Give me the significant of the title, of why you're using the word "talking back." I thought you were asking?

MITCHELL: Well, I do feel it's important to talk back to power. Not shout back; not get into fights, but to be appropriately adversarial. So I wanted to write about my career about covering five administrations, five different presidents, and a lot of powerful figures, mostly men. And why it's important to stand up and talk back to people, especially those in political power.

KING: Plus or a minus in a career to be married to the out-going head of the -- the man who controls our finances, Mr. Greenspan?

MITCHELL: It's always been a plus. Not from a career standpoint, certainly, but it's certainly been a plus from a personal standpoint. I've been blessed by my wonderful marriage and the fact that we've walked a very fine line. We've had to be very careful.

There's obviously an appearance of a conflict of interest, so I write about that, I write about Alan and how we met long before he was in government. And how he has never spilled any secrets. In fact, I've been as surprised as anyone when he's done important things on the economy. I've also, Larry, been shocked to discover things like he knew about Saddam's capture before I did. I was called at five in the morning, turned to him and said, "Is that what you were talking about last night?" And he said, "Don't ask me that question."

KING: Why did you decide on this as a career?

MITCHELL: I love telling stories. And when people ask me, "What else would you do?" I can't imagine anything else other than chasing after the news, trying to find out what's happening.

Out on the book tour, a little girl in Charlotte, North Carolina, asked me why I so loved the Nancy Drew mysteries as a kid. Because I talk about my childhood. And I said it's because she was always solving mysteries. She was chasing after stories. And there were very few girls or women back then able to do that. So we didn't have too many role models.

KING: You like the foreign beat?

MITCHELL: I love the foreign beat. But I also mix it up. I cover politics. I've always been out on the campaign trail, which I love. I write about the changes in covering politics over all of these decades. The differences in the way we covered Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, from the way we covered Bill Clinton, the bus tours, you know, all of those stories.

The first coverage of Hillary Clinton, when she first got thrown into the political arena, and how she's changed over the years. I covered her 2000 campaign as well, when she was first running for the Senate.

Now I cover Condoleezza Rice, who is a political player in a different context, and may actually be in elective politics, although she denies it. So it's been very interesting to cover all of these different issues. And I love foreign policy, because of the adventure and because of the stakes.

It was really, really important in the Reagan years, when it was, you know, the United States against the former Soviet Union, nuclear missiles, the hair-trigger of the nuclear missiles aimed at each other.

Now it's equally important when we're facing Osama Bin Laden and other kinds of terror, and the threats that we all face since 9/11.

KING: Condoleezza denies. Do you think she might run?

MITCHELL: I think that there is a scenario under which she could be persuaded to join a ticket, perhaps in the number two slot. She is a fascinating political figure. And when we saw her going to Alabama, doing that trip back home with the British foreign secretary, her counter-part over the weekend, and seeing her out on the football fields, that's not a traditional secretary of state. This is woman with a lot of political sparkle and a lot of appeal.

KING: Was the James Town Massacre, the Guyana thing one of the first things you covered?

MITCHELL: It was. I've been thinking a lot about that lately because the emotional impact of seeing the aftermath of all of those mass suicides. The children who were killed by their parents before the parents killed themselves. It was a hugely devastating event. And yet, as a reporter, especially as a woman, I felt I had to separate myself from it and be very authoritative and not convey any emotion.

KING: You've covered all the presidential campaigns back since, what,'72, right?

MITCHELL: Exactly. Since the '72 conventions.

KING: OK. You write that Ronald Reagan taught you a lot about how to cover things because he was the best at doing the dance.

MITCHELL: He was such an artful dodger, as I describe him. You know, David Brinkley, the late great David Brinkley, once asked Ronald Reagan, "How can an actor be president?" And Reagan famously said, "Well, I don't know how you could do that job if you weren't an actor."

And he did bring all of the tools of the performer. He was the great communicator. You knew him so well and, of course, continue to know Nancy Reagan so well. But I was fascinated by watching Reagan over those years. And I covered him for eight years in the White House and traveled around the world with him.

And for all the people who tried to demean of diminish him in his importance, by saying that he delegated too much. Well, you know, occasionally he did. And Iran-Contra was the best example of that. But he also had big ideas and big principles and he stuck to them.

He understood what the stakes were in the Cold War and he helped pave the way for the end of the Cold War with those so important summits with Mikhail Gorbachev.

KING: And damned likable.

MITCHELL: Boy, was he likable. He was the nicest of politicians. I always found that he was kind.

In fact, my very first question at a press conference was, as I write -- because he didn't know me. I hadn't covered him in the '80 campaign. I had actually been out on the Walter Mondale vice presidential re-election plane.

But I kept shouting questions. I was the junior NBC correspondent on the weekends. And so I was the designated shouter, you know, at the helicopter and all. And he was always, you know, holding his hand up to his ear.

And so finally, he was having a press conference. They weren't that frequent. And he said to Mike Dever (ph) and the rest, you know, I want to call on that woman who's been trying so hard to ask me questions, that nice woman.

And when he pointed to my picture in the picture book. Because that's how he identified all of us.

KING: Yes.

MITCHELL: They said, "No, you don't want to call on her. She'll ask you something you don't want to answer." And he said, "No, no. Yes I do."

So he called on Helen Thomas, you know, and then the Associated Press correspondent, Vi Ritua (ph). And then before he called on any of the big shots in the front row, you know, the Sam Donaldsons and Leslie Stahl and Judy Woodruff and all the rest, he said, "Now, Andrea, what is it you've been trying so hard to ask me?" Because I'd been shouting at that helicopter.

KING: What'd you ask him?

MITCHELL: I asked him a very boring question about the deployment of the MX missile, which at the time seemed like an important question.

KING: We'll be right back with Andrea Mitchell. The book, it's terrific, "Talking Back...To Presidents, Dictators and Assorted Scoundrels." Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Rice tried to challenge Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, his security men blocked her aides, evening slamming one against a wall.

Then the security men tried to stop us from covering a photo opportunity.

And when I asked Sudan's president a question they grabbed me from behind and dragged me out.

Rice was outraged, demanding, and getting, an apology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: Over the past 20 months, Mr. President, some people would say that you have made very strong threats against the Bosnian aggressors, that you have warned North Korea not to build even one nuclear bomb, yet now there's acknowledgement that they at least have one. To what extent would you said that it is fair criticism that Saddam Hussein might be testing you because his country has not been strong enough in responding to aggression and to aggressive threats?

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: We're back with Andrea Mitchell, author of "Talking Back."

Do you think Colin Powell went out disappointed?

MITCHELL: Yes, I do. I think -- and he spoke to Barbara Walters, you know, in a really important interview where he said that he will now view his testimony to the United Nations, that presentation on weapons of mass destruction, as a blot on his record of public service.

I mean, you know Colin Powell. This is a man who was deputy national security advisor, national security advisor to Ronald Reagan, chairman of the joint chiefs, and here he considers this a blot on his record of public service. A proud man.

I think he was so marginalized by the in-fighting there and by the disagreements over the weapons of mass destruction and what to do about Iraq. We know see Brent Schokoff (ph) coming out and saying, you know, that he doesn't know that Dick Cheney, the man of 30 years' friendship that is now the vice president in this particular foreign policy fight.

I think he was a disappointed man.

KING: We taped this interview, so we don't know what happened with regard to the special investigator, Mr. Fitzgerald, so there's no way I could ask about it. Other than to say, in retrospect, do you think the votes would change dramatically if Iraq were brought up today?

MITCHELL: Actually, I don't think so because, I think, fundamentally the American people were not voting on the war issue. That there were other qualities. They just didn't take to John Kerry.

And so if was not so much a debate over the war. In fact, we didn't really have a debate over the war. More importantly, we didn't have one back in 2002 and 2003 before the war.

The Democrats, John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, many of the liberals in Congress voted for the war, because they wanted to avoid being tagged as, you know, dubbish Democrats. They wanted to move towards the center. Many were positioning themselves for future presidential races. So we never really had that debate.

And I fault the news media, as well as Congress, for not at least raising more of the issues. I think there was a reaction after 9/11 to rally around the president. An understandable reaction. And I don't think the news media dug deeply enough into the sources of the CIA's claims and the other claims about weapons of mass destruction.

KING: Hillary Clinton a lock to run?

MITCHELL: Not necessarily. I think so much can happen in politics.

Hillary Clinton's a fascinating politician. I write a lot about her in "Talking Back" because I covered her for so many years. But, I think, she would want to run. She's positioned to run. She's got the best name identification and the greatest war chest.

But at the same time, she's got a polarizing effect on a lot of people and high negatives. And there could still be events -- who knows what events -- that could militate against her running.

KING: You have become more outspoken, haven't you?

MITCHELL: I have. I feel, perhaps, a little more compelled by the events around us since 9/11. I had covered Osama bin Laden for many years, Larry, and the summer before 9/11, the stories we focused on most were tabloid stories. Not stories of foreign policy. I covered a lot of the Shondra Levy stories, the missing intern. And that wasn't the most important issue that I could have been addressing. I think we all realize that now.

And since then, I think, we've done a lot better at being more serious and digging more deeply. But we still have challenges and we're only as good as sources, and we get a lot of things wrong. We try.

I don't think it's for lack of trying. But, I think, sometimes we have to focus on big issues, what's happening in Syria, what's happening in Lebanon, what's happening in the Middle East. We have to stick to it and, perhaps, be a little bit more aggressive in our reporting.

KING: Cable news helped or hurt you at your work?

MITCHELL: I think it helps. I think it's helped all of us. At the same time, I think, there are occasions when cable news misses the point, focuses too much on things I don't think are that important.

I know that we have to feed the tabloid beast and compete for ratings, but there are a lot of serious issues that can still be in an entertaining an interesting way. It's our challenge to tell stories, to be good story tellers, and do it in a way that is accessible and interests people more in politics and in foreign policy and things that really do effect their lives.

KING: What's the future in network news?

MITCHELL: See, I think that the death of network news has been vastly over emphasized. I think that network news will always be there in some fashion. We'll find other ways to reach people, through cell phones, you know, all sort of new digital platforms.

So we'll be doing a network news cast. We may not be delivering it in exactly the same way. We're blogging. We're using cable and using all of the interactive media to try to reach people and reach new generations.

The big problem that we have, of course, is younger people are not watching either network news or reading newspapers. So we have to reach them in ways on the net, whatever, that are more accessible to them. But we need to find this next generation.

You know, the stakes are really high with the threats from overseas, with the threats to our economy, with what the future holds for our pension system, healthcare. And people need to have information. They need to vote. They need to be engaged in politics. And it's up to us to make it worth their while.

KING: I think I speak for our industry. We're glad to have you in it.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Larry. Well, we're glad to have you here.

KING: Andrea Mitchell; what a book, "Talking Back...To Presidents, Dictators and Assorted Scoundrels." We thank Andrea. We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: It was already getting late when Castro greeted me at one of his many government offices. It is here that Castro spends most nights in meetings that usually last until dawn.

This night we talked for three hours; brief, by Castro's standards. About to turn 75 in August, who would replace him?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Even her staunchest critic would say that Maureen Dowd is one of the best writers with a pen in her hand or whatever they do with writing today without typewriters.

Maureen Dowd, whose style embellishes the "New York Times." She's the columnist Pulitzer Prize winner. And her new book -- there you see it's cover -- is "Are Men Necessary?"

We welcome Maureen Dowd to "LARRY KING LIVE." It's always good to have her.

And since I am one, am I not necessary?

MAUREEN DOWD, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": Larry, well, actually men aren't necessary, but then neither is ice cream, so...

KING: True. And you wouldn't be here had there not been men.

DOWD: Exactly.

KING: So what are we getting at here?

DOWD: Well, this is a book that -- the one subject that I've been as passionate about exploring as politics is the gender perplexities over the last 40 years. And I hope this book will help men to understand, crack the code about women and women to crack the code about men.

KING: It is Mars and Venus though, isn't it?

DOWD: Exactly. With the added complication that, according to geneticists, the Y chromosome is shutting down, going out of business, getting very tiny. And so we may have to fact the fact that in a 100,000 years women will be running the world.

And as Norman Mailer says, men, they'll just be 100 male sperm slaves that women will milk everyday. You can apply, Larry, if you want.

KING: Why are men, you state, biologically unsuited to run the country?

DOWD: Well, it's a Democrat and Republican thing that men are biologically unsuited. They used to think women were biologically unsuited because it was better to have manly reasonable discourse.

But if you just look at the Bush administration, women only have lunar types once a month. Dick Cheney has hormonal crazy lunar types everyday, I mean, this war and the Valerie Plame week.

And look at W., our president. He's obsessed with fashion and fitness. He's always dressing up in costumes. Like on the mission accomplished, you know, carrier. And he was obsessing so much about having a little seven-pound fat around his waist, at the ranch this summer, that he totally missed Katrina.

And of course, you've got Rommy. He's has these J. Lo diva fits and hissy fits. So I really think we need to not have them running the world any more.

KING: And women don't care how they look?

DOWD: Well, actually women -- that's part of the book -- this really weird boomerang affect that has happened with women where, when the feminist revolution started in the late '60s, we weren't supposed to care about looks or, you know, we didn't want the honorific Mrs. And there were all kinds of other things we were going to get rid of, you know, bras, and we weren't going to shave our legs.

And now, instead of demanding equality, women are just demanding bowties.

KING: Would you, therefore, be so happy if Condoleezza Rice ran against Hillary Clinton?

DOWD: This is the dream that reporters are salivating, the dream race. And if, somehow, Cheney would retire early, if he gets in trouble with all this Patrick Fitzgerald stuff and W. would take Condi on as his vice president. And then she would face Hillary.

And the reason they salivate over that is (A) Hillary and Condi are much more manly than a lot of the male candidates of the past. One, Hillary is nicknamed the warrior and Condi is nicknamed the warrior princess. And they are very adaptable and relentless. And it would be the ultimate catfight.

And in my book, I say, as much as I hated catfights and thought humanism would get rid of them, they're bigger than ever.

KING: Since this program will air after the Fitzgerald investigation, so we don't know how that came out, but there was a major embroilio between you, Judith Miller, the "New York Times" involvement. What's your overview of that? And I know you'll relate it somehow to the book.

(LAUGHTER)

DOWD: Well, speaking of catfights. I mean, I was reluctant to write about Judy Miller because I knew it would be perceived as WMD catfight. And it isn't that at all. It's, you know, involving very serious issues.

And I felt I had to address it because my last book was about WMD and how the country rushed into war on ginned up evidence. And I got one of the first interviews with Joe Wilson about Valerie Plame and the smearing.

And I just felt we really needed to acknowledge and explore the "Times' " role in that, and Judy's role in the center of the big scam to go to war and the little scam to undercut and denounce the people who questioned that.

KING: Was she doing her job or was she caught up in it?

DOWD: I think she was too creditable. And too, you know, investigative reporting is not stenography. When your sources tell you something, that's the beginning of your work. Not the end of it.

KING: So you even question your source?

DOWD: Of course. And Judy's sources all had agendas, Choliby (ph), you know, "Scooter" Libby, the neo-cons. They all had specific agendas. And if they had a "New York Times" reporter who believed those agendas in too creditable a way, they were able to use that to then further their agendas.

KING: Will your paper change?

DOWD: Well, the paper is in a lot of paper. But the paper, it's a fantastic paper. The most fun you can have for a dollar. And they are really working hard to do the right thing here, and figure out how to move forward pass these, you know, inner turmoil that we have.

KING: What's your read on how Martha Stewart has come back?

DOWD: Well, I have in the book -- it's interesting because I say -- what's interesting about Martha Stewart and Hillary is that they were both very strong women who needed to be slapped back to proceed. I think if Monica Lewinsky had never happened and Hillary had never been humiliated, she never would have been a Senator and, therefore, she couldn't be running for president. Because she was seen as so controlling that, in a way, she needed to be seen as out of control to get the sympathy of the public.

KING: And what's your situation personally with regard to men? Where is the Dowd deal now?

DOWD: Well, that's why I need you to take me for a drink, Larry, and explain to me why men...

KING: Still at it Maureen.

DOWD: Why men pop the question. I think you can tell me that.

KING: Do you want to get married?

DOWD: Oh, yes.

KING: You do want to have children?

DOWD: Yes, I would like to have the whole thing like every woman.

KING: I don't know one person, no matter if they're your severest critic, who would not say you are a great writer.

DOWD: Well, thank you. That means a lot to me. Thank you.

KING: Maureen Dowd. The book is "Are Men Necessary?" She's funny and talented.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: ...breaking news. Walt Rodgers is there now. Walt --

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. Another sign that the battle plan is unfolding. Again, the U.S. Army is sitting in the extreme northern edge of the Kuwait desert, very close to the Iraqi border.

But the sign that the battle plan is unfolding, on the horizon in that direction about two miles, I can see tanker trucks moving up. These are the support vehicles, which will refuel the tanks and the Bradley fighting vehicles when President Bush does give the order for the units to more forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST: He's had more than three decades of experience as a broadcast journalist. He's one of the best. He served as CNN senior international correspondent and as its Jerusalem bureau chief, and he's the author of a great new book, "Sleeping with Custer and the 7th Calvary: An Embedded reporter in Iraq," and as this interview is taped, the U.S. military death toll is at or about 2,000.

Was Custer's the 7th?

RODGERS: Indeed it was, and the reason I named it that was because - and this is in the book - we were sitting on a bus, the embedded reporters, about to go up to the border with Kuwait.

In the dark they called out the units that each of us was assigned to, and when somebody said to us, "Rodgers, CNN, 7th Calvary," somebody in the bus also said, "Boy, those guys have got balls of steel." I began to worry because I knew what happened to Custer at The Little Bighorn.

KING: What was the best thing about being embedded?

RODGERS: Tough question. I think the best thing was that for each of us, reporters and soldiers, we got to prove to ourselves that we were equal to the task - me, reporting under fire, the soldiers - and many of these kids were at least as young as my sons - they were equal to the task; they were fine soldiers.

There's something self-proving about being in combat, whether you're a journalist or a soldier, so I guess that's it.

KING: What was the worst?

RODGERS: Oh, God, the discomfort, Larry -- a Humvee - you had to sit with your knees under your chin. This will surprise you. The worst was the physical discomfort, not the combat, and I think I probably saw more combat than any other embedded reporter on that ride to Baghdad because we were the very front of the assault. But the very worst was the physical discomfort - 72 hours, no sleep, no way to stretch out at all, no food. We just rode and rode across the desert.

KING: What was it like going in?

RODGERS: It was an adventure, and for me, because I was trained as a professional historian, it was an opportunity to put the present in a historical perspective. And when I wrote in the book that I really thought of Alexander the Great's army passing through what is now modern-day Iraq, I did think of all the historical parallels, and one of the parallels I thought of was, as Americans, we're just like sand blowing across the Iraqi desert because all of the grandmothers and grandfathers through the centuries of the Iraqis had seen invaders come and go -- occupiers come and go -- but the Iraqis go on forever.

The historical perspective to me was really fascinating.

KING: Were the troops gung-ho?

RODGERS: Yes, they were. They really believed, and I think we all believed at the time -- whether it was the threat of alleged weapons of mass destruction -- but really, the night that we launched across the border, I remember the captain of my troop, of 7th Calvary's Apache Troop, Capt. Clay Lyle -- who, incidentally, got a Silver Star for his performance -- he got up and he gave a very gung- ho speech to his unit on his M1A1 Abrams Tank, and he told them that they were going up there as liberators.

He really believed it -- the soldiers believed that they would be welcomed as liberators because they were overthrowing Saddam Hussein. I've got to tell you, the reason I wrote this book was because having lived through the Viet Nam era, I wanted to pay tribute to what I thought were the best soldiers in the world, the best army in the world, and that's the U.S. Army.

KING: Have you talked to any of those guys and girls since?

RODGERS: Yes, on email, with more than a few, and mostly the sergeants. You know, the officers are a little busy, but the unit soldiers that I was with, and mostly the sergeants -- Paul Wheatley and Capt. Cody, Clay Lyle, Sgt. Chase.

Yes, I've been in touch with them -- just on email -- and we never expected that, but because of the trauma of combat, each of us has sort of sought each other out afterwards to make sure that what we remember was intense as we remember it and that it really happened.

KING: And have their feelings changed?

RODGERS: That's a good question, and I don't think they'd ever tell me. I don't think they would ever tell me that at all. These are committed, fine professional soldiers. If they question the policy of the commander-in-chief, I don't think they'd talk to a reporter, and in fact, I rather hope they wouldn't.

KING: Have your feelings changed?

RODGERS: Yes.

KING: What changed them?

RODGERS: I begin to question the wisdom of what has happened, and I think my feelings are very much in lock step with the opinion polls in the United States. I believe that the war was just if indeed there were weapons of mass destruction, because, as I say in the book, no American president, no British prime minister could ever allow a belligerent and unpredictable Arab leader like Saddam Hussein to possess nuclear weapons and threaten the State of Israel.

The American debt to Israel and Western civilization's debt to the Jewish people, theologically, culturally and intellectually, is so great that we could not have permitted that threat to the Jewish State.

The problem was the threat wasn't there, and even worse, Saddam's political regime never made the decision to pursue those weapons of mass destruction after the U.N. inspectors were in there.

KING: What's next, Walter, for you? RODGERS: I'm going to take a year off and think, Larry. I really need to do some thinking. Maybe I'll write another book. I don't know. I'd like to just sit down and think for a year.

KING: You're welcome here any time. We miss you.

RODGERS: Thank you.

KING: Walter Rodgers. The book, "Sleeping with Custer and the 7th Calvary: An Embedded Reporter in Iraq." They don't come any better.

We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODGERS (off camera): There has been some substantial fighting not far from where we are in the direction of Al Hilla. The 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division (on camera) scored a significant success earlier in the day.

They charged across that bridge again under protective artillery barrage, and they have taken a strategic bridge head just north of the Euphrates again, and the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division is now in a position to threaten Al Hilla when the orders come forth to make the attack.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, with the U.S. 7th Calvary in the Iraqi desert.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: It's a great pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE a good friend, the acclaimed art consultant and style writer, Barbara Guggenheim. Her new book - as there you see its cover - is "Decorating on eBay: Fast and Stylish on a Budget."

And, in the interest of open reporting, Barbara is married to the well-known attorney, Burt Fields, who is also my attorney.

You're saying here, what - that you can do your whole house on eBay?

BARBARA GUGGENHEIM, AUTHOR, "DECORATING ON EBAY": Yes, and it won't be "lesser than." You'll find that it will be fantastic.

KING: How did this idea come about?

GUGGENHEIM: Well, Burt and I bought a house at the beach that came partially furnished, and, like everybody who works, I didn't have the time to go to antique shops and malls and design centers, and so I went on eBay and had a blast doing it - so much so that I thought, "Wow, I wonder if you could do a whole house."

KING: But if you can't feel it and touch it, how do you know you're getting what it looks like?

GUGGENHEIM: Well, you can ask a lot of questions, and I advise you to ask a lot of questions. And you have to take a lot of risks and follow your own intuition.

KING: Now that home that you got in Malibu, that was featured in "Architectural Digest," right?

GUGGENHEIM: Yes.

KING: Do you learn by error? Were there some things that came to you that you didn't expect that weren't up to what you wanted?

GUGGENHEIM: Both. You can order something, buy it, and then it comes, and it's 50 times better than you thought it ever was, or it could be a big bust. That's why there's Christmas. You can give it away or, guess what, you can put it back on eBay.

KING: Is eBay always a bargain?

GUGGENHEIM: I think not always, but sometimes, and in fact, if it's not just the bargain that you're after, you can find things -- let's say, like the game board that you wanted when you were a kid that's not in the stores anymore - so it's a lot about the hunt.

KING: Now, you teach people in this book how to site-navigate, right?

GUGGENHEIM: I do.

KING: Explain what that means.

GUGGENHEIM: It means how to get on eBay from the very beginning and make sure that you don't make the mistakes that you've already been talking about.

KING: Yes, but is that difficult?

GUGGENHEIM: It's really easy. All you have to do - the first time is the hardest time on just about anything -- you have to get on, you have to get yourself a name, you have to register, and then you probably have to get into Pay Pal, which is their credit system.

KING: How about bidding? Is there strategy to bidding?

GUGGENHEIM: All kinds of strategies. Some people bid along the way, some people wait until the very end, and others get a program called Sniper, which allows you to wait until everybody else bids and then the last second, just come in and give a raise.

KING: How do you know - I'm unfamiliar with it - when you've won?

GUGGENHEIM: They send you an e-mail.

KING: Do you get it right away? GUGGENHEIM: Immediately.

KING: How many different things have you bought on eBay?

GUGGENHEIM: Thousands, but the house has 430.

KING: Wow. Now do you buy on eBay for clients, too?

GUGGENHEIM: No because the quality of art isn't good at the moment, but someday I hope that it will be.

KING: What you do for clients is buy art - explain what you do.

GUGGENHEIM: I'm an art consultant, which means I help clients buy paintings, and that may be through auctions or galleries or private dealers or from other collectors.

KING: And are you looking for bargains, or for exceptional work, or both?

GUGGENHEIM: We look for both, but our job is really to protect the client to make sure that he doesn't make a mistake in terms of authenticity or in terms of conditions or in terms of what he pays.

KING: How do people find out about you?

GUGGENHEIM: Oh, it's like being a good hairdresser. One person tells another, or they find out through museum curators or people who work in galleries and auctions.

KING: Back to the book - the book is called "Decorating on Ebay: Fast and Stylish on a Budget." You've found vintage items as well, right? You found antiques?

GUGGENHEIM: That's part of the fun. In other words, if I were - poor Burt - he doesn't have to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday in the freezing cold or the rain and schlep out to flea markets with me. Instead we can be sitting around with a cup of coffee in our hand, in our pajamas and going on eBay.

KING: Tell me about this inspiration board, about pinning photos on things. How does that work?

GUGGENHEIM: Well, I have your house on my inspiration board, Larry, the one that appeared in "Architectural Digest." You just glom everything you can from magazines and books, pin them up, and then you kind of have an idea of what you like and then what to look for.

KING: And you match colors in, too?

GUGGENHEIM: You can match colors, you can take photos of things you already own, whatever you want.

KING: And you can take this book and do it on your own, right? I don't need you.

GUGGENHEIM: You don't need me. You need to trust yourself.

KING: Thanks so much, Barbara.

GUGGENHEIM: Thank you, Larry.

KING: Barbara Guggenheim, the acclaimed art consultant and style writer, and her new book is "Decorating on Ebay: Fast and Stylish on a Budget."

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back.

CNN recently held a 20th anniversary program for this show - held it out in L.A. at Spago's -- and one of the top entertainment groups there that night was Soulive, a funky organ trio known for their blend of soul, jazz and hip hop, and they tore the place down. The jazz trio includes Eric Krasno on guitar, Alan Evans on drums, and Neal Evans, his brother, on keyboard.

Eric, how did the group come together?

ERIC KRASNO, GUITARIST, SOULIVE: Well, Alan and Neal were getting the group together, looking for another member to get it started. They called me up and when we got together, we actually didn't talk much about what we were going to do.

We just kind of plugged in, started playing, and the chemistry was there -- and the first day we actually got together, we recorded our first CD, which, how we started promoting...

KING: Do you all live in the same place?

KRASNO: No, I actually came out to where they were living up in Woodstock. I was in Boston, and then we ended up all moving here to New York and basing ourselves here.

KING: How would you describe, Alan, the sound?

ALAN EVANS, DRUMMER, SOULIVE: Well, the sound is constantly changing. It's what we're listening to, really, but influencing us at the time. When we started out, it was, like you said, like a soul- jazz type of a thing - George Benson-type sound, Jimmy Smith -but now it's progressed to more of like an R&B, funk sound, so it's always changing, always.

KING: How was it named?

NEAL EVANS, KEYBOARDIST, SOULIVE: It was a kind of a name Alan and I came up with years ago. It was just kind of a play on words - the fact that it was live music, and it was soulful and blended the two together, and that's soul live.

KING: How did you get... Is there a leader of the group, someone who makes the decisions?

KRASNO: It's democratic, you know. We all come together. We're usually on the same page, you know, musically, and it's been pretty easy to kind of move forward together because we all kind of listen to a lot of the same things, have a lot of the same influences and so, you know...

ALAN EVANS: A lot of good things come out when we disagree, though, also, you know, and then we finally come together and there's some compromising, you know, and in the end it always works out.

KING: Tell me about the album, "Break Out."

NEAL EVANS: It's a new direction that we decided go in. We have a bunch of singers on there, including Chaka Khan and Reggie Watts, Corey Glover. It came about - we all kind of do different production stuff, and we were all doing different types of songwriting and kind of came into the studio and...

KING: Put it all together?

NEAL EVANS: ... kind of put it all together.

KING: You work all around the world?

KRASNO: Yes, we've been to Japan seven or eight times, and we've done really well there, and we've been to West Africa in the summer. We went to Istanbul, Turkey, and all over Europe and Russia.

KING: So music is obviously universal, right?

KRASNO: Absolutely.

KING: Horns are essential, right, to your group?

KRASNO: Very definitely.

KING: Is "funky" a correct term? Would you call yourselves funky?

KRASNO: Definitely. It's danceable music for sure. People come with me and they get down. It's cool because you see a lot of different walks of life at our shows.

You see jazz listeners, hip hop fans and people that want to just come out and dance and, you know, it covers a lot of ground. At the last show we just did here in New York, you could see pretty much, you know, every age group in the crowd, which was a nice feeling.

KING: When you're constantly changing, though, isn't that throwing the audience a little?

ALAN EVANS: Yes, a little bit. Yes, definitely, but, I mean, we have to be true to ourselves, you know, and, it's funny -- you can't please everyone, so there's times where people are, like, "Oh, I want to hear the old songs, the trio stuff." If we do too much of that, "Oh, well, they're not doing enough new material," and you know, it's back and forth. We have to do what we like.

KING: What type radio formats play you, Neal?

NEAL EVANS: We were just talking about satellite radio is actually a great way that our music is getting out...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: On XM and Sirius?

NEAL EVANS: Exactly. So those are huge, but also we get e-mails all the time, you know, from around the world, Brazil and Germany, and people are like, "We heard it, you know, on the radio." So, London - I guess it's all kind of -- we're underground, but, you know, we're trying to break through to mainstream radio.

Our current album, actually, has kind of a rare situation where we have one song that's going to kind of rock radio and one that's going to urban radio. The song with Chaka Khan being more of an R&B kind of thing, and we have a song with Reggie Watts that's more of a rock, soul kind of thing

(CROSSTALK)

The thing about the album is there's a lot of different directions, but there's a lining through the whole thing so you can tell that it's us, you know.

KING: You guys were terrific.

(CROSSTALK)

Next time we have any kind of party, you're booked. Soulive - the new album is "Break Out." You'll love them.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Going to end on an unusual note tonight. DJ Splyce is our guest, disc jockey to the stars. Great guy - spinning at some of the hottest, most exclusive events and clubs in Hollywood, he spins an eclectic mix of hip hop, 80s, rock and funk and - as you might have guessed - DJ Splyce, hip name, is not his name.

His name is Michael Eisner. No kidding, right? You get kidded about - you must get kidded.

DJ SPLYCE: Oh, all the time.

KING: How did you pick "DJ Splyce"?

SPLYCE: I picked the name, actually, by just using the definition out of a dictionary for the word "splice," which is "to combine two elements together to create one final product," which is what I do with the two turntables, and I create my mixes. KING: Splicing tape, as we used to say in radio. What makes a good DJ at a party?

SPLYCE: I think it's a combination of a few things. The first is being able to feel out the crowd. I think understanding when to play the exact record at the right time leads to that energy and also practicing, practicing at home and making sure that you know your material and you're able to perform it to the best of your ability.

KING: You're only 24. Have you had to work parties with a little older people where you've got to do Sinatra or Ella?

SPLYCE: I have. I've done - a lot of the stuff I do is - I do red carpet events, I do premieres, I do fashion shows, so you definitely get an eclectic mix of people coming, and you have to play - you have to know that you need to play all different kinds of music to do well.

KING: You make a good living doing this?

SPLYCE: I make a phenomenal living, especially at my age right now. I can't complain.

KING: Tell me about this new computerized program, they tell me, called Serato (ph).

SPLYCE: Serato (ph), yes. Serrato (ph) - it's an amazing technology. It's what I use, and what you use is a computer, which is your musical library, and it incorporates your turntables - and I still use my two turntables and I use two records, but I use control records.

They are time-coded records, and they read the files just like I was playing them off a record. So I'm able to scratch, I'm able to bring the record back. You hear all the sounds, the record sound, in actual time.

KING: Did you ever want to be a DJ on a radio station?

SPLYCE: I've actually done radio -- did it when I was in Syracuse. While I was in Syracuse University I decided I was going to join radio, and I worked on radio for quite a few years, Friday nights from 10 p.m. until 2 in the morning, and I loved it.

KING: By the way, for more news about DJ Splyce as well as booking information -- and he worked the party for us -- he's tremendous - just punch in www.djsplyce.com. You can make a - is it true? -- $1,000 an hour?

SPLYCE: You can. I mean, when you do the events, you're booking for a few thousand dollars for an evening, and it's usually around three hours of work.

KING: How do you know you've got 'em?

SPLYCE: You know because you can feel the energy. You can see the crowd reaction. You can see the smiles, and you can feel it. I mean, a lot of times you'll practice at home and you go out and you perform, and you know it worked.

KING: You work hard, though, don't you?

SPLYCE: It's not just the three hours that you're working. Every day you wake up and you're practicing, and you're trying to be creative, and that's what it is - being creative that makes you different and knowing that you can mix different kinds of music together.

You can mix 80s into a brand new hip hop song into a rock song, one after the other. People aren't going to know what comes next, but that's what's going to keep them.

KING: Well, you're terrific, and congratulations. Good luck, man. You don't need it. You've got everything.

SPLYCE: Thank you.

KING: DJ Splyce. He's sensational. Hope you enjoyed tonight's show. It was certainly eclectic and certainly diverse.

Speaking of diverse, stay tuned for more news around the clock on your most diverse network for news, CNN. Good night.

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