While I’m keeping my head down, drawing every minute the kids are out of the house, hoping to finish a short comic before their last day of school (June 7, but with end of year in-school celebrations and CAKE friends visiting means 4 more work days until July summer camp begins, ACK!), I’ve been listening to a lot of things! Here are a few breezy recommendations:
Podcast: Normal Gossip, episode The CHAIR SAGA. I caught up on the whole back catalog of this podcast last week after not getting references about a hot dog family in a group chat, and what a treat it is! The host gathers gossipy stories from listeners and recounts them to a guest, who reacts to the story as audience surrogate. I don’t think I’ve audibly gasped or cackled out loud as much in an hour of listening more than this episode!
TV: Beef, Netflix. Ali Wong and Steven Yeun get in a road rage conflict that builds into resentful obsession and escalates (for reasons equally absurdist as they are grounded in character) over a number of years to explode both of their lives. Steven Yeun is one of my favorite actors (Burning! Nope! Tuca and Bertie!); he always chooses extremely interesting projects, and then he meets the project’s tone perfectly and brings so much more than the script or character needed. It makes me mad that more people don’t talk about him in “greatest actors of their generation” conversations. The galloping pace of this show was almost too distracting to draw along with (I kept looking up from my paper! not great!) but it was too compelling to stop! Aah!
Music: Aperture, new album by Hannah Jadagu. The sleepier hours of my young adulthood were steeped in the melodic-bedroom-low-fi-pop of the mid-aughts (Camera Obscura, Jolie Holland, etc), and Hannah Jadagu fills that same spot in my heart and ears. Lovely!
Music: Wild Planet, the B-52s, Give Me Back My Man on a loop, yelling I’ll GIVE you FISH!! I-i-i-i-i-I’ll give YOU canDY! while I drive to pick up kids from school. When I first started really listening the B-52s in college I hooked into the wild, weird, queer joy of every single choice Fred Schneider made in his vocals, but after seeing them in their farewell tour last fall I’ve been pretty obsessed with Cindy and Kate. LIKE, how did I not hear the direct line from them to Sleater Kinney? I’ll give you EVERYTHING I HAVE IN MY HAAAAAAAND!
Music: Company, Original Broadway Cast Recording. Yesterday I planned on doing a Sondheim deep dive, but got stuck on Company and couldn’t move on. I love musical theater and Sondheim is a big blind spot; like, I knew the Documentary Now parody of the documentary of the original cast recording of Company (Paula Pell, a genius for the ages), and I knew Ladies who Lunch from a month about a decade ago where I watched everything I could about Elaine Stritch, but that’s about it. Anyway! I sure get it now! Sure did cry at the end!
This video of Chicago guys in kayaks finding a big snapping turtle: “YOU LOOK GOOD! I’M REAL PROUDDA YOU!” These guys sound like my friend Ed, the first friend I made in Chicago. Tom and I had just moved to town so he could start the sociology PhD program at Loyola, and we were lifting at a nearby super cheap powerlifting gym (an unairconditioned apartment building basement with weights, no machines, and lots of men built like refrigerators). While we were lifting a big guy came over to us and said “You’re doin dat wrong. Come back tomorrow, I’ll show you how to do dat right. I’m Ed, you seem like nice kids, want to come to my birthday party in July?” It was September! And that’s how he became our trainer for the next year, teaching me to deadlift with proper form, throwing medicine balls at my stomach to teach me how to take a punch, and eventually giving a heartfelt and playfully aggressive toast at our wedding. Except for pandemic years, we haven’t missed Ed’s birthday party in 15 years. I love Chicago, I love the bravado and punchy tenderness of these Chicago guys, and this video made me miss my old friend a lot.
SPEAKING OF CHICAGO WILDLIFE: The emotional peak of the comic I’m working on has to do with foxes in Chicago, and lo and behold, now there is a new famous family of foxes living in Millennium Park downtown blowing up Chicago local media. I drew this panel in that sequence two weeks ago, when no one believed me that there are foxes in the city, so I want it on the record that I drew this before the famous foxes blew up my scene!
And now, back to drawing and listening to the Succession Podcast to get pumped up/braced for this weekend’s finale. If you have any recommendations for me to listen to, I’ve got another 4 days worth of ear-time to fill! Ha!
Have a great weekend!
With love,
Your friend,
-m
AAAAH! I so love the video of Kate singing Give Me Back My Man because she braces herself for the chorus like my cats do when they want to complain I haven't fed them enough. Also, please enjoy this Steven Yuen hangout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k70xBg8en-4