Short List: Podcasts that Inspire Me

1. Cool Hunting
Best Episodes: Ian Hundley, BAP Lap Part 1, Okamato Studio, Social Suicide, Troika, Jill Greenberg, Jose Parla, To Catch a Web Part 1, Gelitin, Y.A.C.H.T.


2. The Nerdist
Best Episodes: Tom Lennon (#1), Billy West (#49) I think it depends on if you're interested in the interviewee for the most part.


3. Kevin Pollak's Chat Show
Best Episodes: Craig Ferguson (#53), Bryan Cranston(#64), Paul Provenza (#69), , Billy Bob Thornton(#94) Each show is about 2 hours so it helps to be interested or at least open-minded about the possible intrigue level of the guest.


I considered summarizing each podcast individually, but they really all hit home on the same point. They all feature people who are doing something that they are passionate about, who know what they are talking about, or who have hobbies that are just as interesting, but not necessarily related to their well-established careers. Cool Hunting often focuses on someone who handcrafts something unique, and how they have carved out a niche for their business. In one episode, they talk to Ian Hundley, who sews quilts based on aerial view maps. People being recognized for their strange side projects, and turning those side projects into profitable pursuits, encourages me to explore any crazy idea that comes into my head.

Kevin Pollak often says "if you're not creating, you're waiting." There are always obstacles to being creative, but they aren't really that big, and it's mostly a person's initiative or lack thereof that delays their career from advancing. Many guests of the chat show will begin a story with a small role they had in a TV show that someone saw and that lead to their breakout role. Small projects can still be introductions to people who can help you out later in life, and can be that extra foot in the door that leads to the next project. Often actors who began in improv will say they are no longer comfortable doing it, because they are out of practice. It's not just something you can let lay around, you have to work on parts of yourself that you think are valuable.

In the Nerdist, Chris Hardwick often asks his comedian guests what their writing process is, how they became comfortable with themselves on stage, and how they got a grip on what their perspective as a comic is. When people come up to him and ask how to be a comic, he says "Start doing it! If you lose interest or you can't take the life, you probably shouldn't be a comic." They are casual, often going totally off-topic of biographical information, but seeing them in action is also rewarding. His two co-hosts add more perspective from working comics.

It's about taking ACTION. It's about finding out who you are, using your strengths and developing skills to find a job, or invent one, and move confidently from there.

Bands I Thought Were British

I have never not seen more concerts than I have this semester.

It all began with such hope, but one without a car only gets to do things after 10 if people with cars do too. Dresden Dolls, Nada Surf and Hot Hot Heat with Louis XIV have passed, and Gogol Bordello plays tonight. Later this week Rufus Wainwright (for a pretty penny) and Presidents of the United States of America play on the same day. The Bobs have a  concert on a Thursday, radio show day (kdup.up.edu) so that won't fly, which only leaves... VAMPIRE WEEKEND.

Vampire Weekend can go fuck itself a little, because they've been gradually destroying my concept of them since I first heard them. To be honest, I can't say that I knew them before they were famous. My music sources these days are: KEXP podcast song of the day, NPR Second Stage podcast, NPR Music segments podcast, bands from old Never Mind the Buzzcocks episodes and occasionally one brother or the other. Vampire Weekend came from KEXP, a Seattle radio station that has a pretty good mix of songs it delivers to my McBook. I usually am about 3 weeks behind, because I will listen to one and then 20 minutes later I'll realize there is no music playing and assume it was not memorable, or give up on my "hey! let's listen to new music!" mood. So I'm pretty harsh about the first 30 seconds and then decide from that. Vampire Weekend won me over, I believe with A-Punk. It's a nice little guitar, very clean with a ska beat that my brother Conn made me love through the Toasters.  Sounds like the rest of their material will be punk revival, and the singer's voice is inarticulate enough that I start to think they are from England. 

This continues when I fall in love with "Oxford Comma," not only because it's fun to swear, but because I actually know what an Oxford comma is, and I used one when I was in Oxford myself. (For breakfast we had eggs, toast, bacon, and cake. putting that comma before 'and' makes it Oxford-style.) Yay Oxford! Yay England! Yay Vampire Weekend! I also start to love Mansard Roof, though you really have to want to get past those first slow measures. I don't know what a Mansard roof is, maybe it's an English thing. I watch a LOT of British shows, and I still think the singer has an accent, so that slides by. I finally get to loving "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" and now I can't just say I love one song and can deny the band as a whole, I'm hooked.

This magical dreamland of finding a modern British punk band ends only when I start to listen to the lyrics of A-Punk that I hear "Washington Heights," and realize that I know that's in double New York. When I read off the list of concerts to my friend Em, she immediately commits to Vampire Weekend because I've given her Oxford Comma and A-Punk. Great, because it's early and I still have my foolish hope it will be one of many. The absolute blow to this love affair was last Saturday when I watched SNL. 

I didn't know what they looked like, I didn't think they would be fabulous, but I was hoping. They play A-Punk, fine, but when he sings "look outside at the raincoats coming I say OH" and on the record it's really hip and cool and cool and hip and he punctuates "OH" so much that I hate it every time, and that was my favorite part of the song, especially with the background.  I get a good look at them, collared shirt under a sweater, sweater around the shoulders, and it kind of sickens me. Maybe it's just for this, since I now know they are from New York, this is a big gig and their mothers are nearby, but I really hate it. I start hoping that isn't normal. They are not Vampires. They do not look like they party on weekends. They look like a normal band that I don't have to care about. Dammit.

Then on Monday I stand waiting for the bus and NPR Music from a few weeks ago interviews them, talks about their early hype, blah blah. They describe they're wardrobe as WASPy, and that they have a lot of African influence. Wait wait wait, what happened to my amazing British new wave punk band? Bullshit. 

In lighter news, another band I thought was British, Louis XIV, continues to bring hot sex to their fake British rockery. I can't say I've heard they're whole new album "Dog and Pony Show," only the two off of their site but my GOD they make chauvinism and S&M sounds enviable. Recently I got "The Grand Apartment" from their self-titled EP, and holy gods, that first 35 seconds is just DRIPPING with rockgod sex. I've never been so supportive for the maltreatment of women. Louis XIV is really from San Diego, which I find ridiculous and impossible, but I guess it's good news that I will see them more often, up and down this left coast. 

I think that's all for this godforsaken Wednesday. Here's to a better tomorrow and a new band to lust after. Sláinte.