Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

The Department of Tangents Podcast


Years ago, playing a sort of improv game with friends in which we all picked super powers based on our personalities, I dubbed myself “Tangent Lad.” I was not a very strong superhero, and I could not defeat a super villain on my own, but I could distract them with Monty Python quotes and football trivia. I have many times since apologized to an interview subject in my capacity as a journalist by saying, “I am either very good or very bad at tangents, depending on how you feel about tangents.”

I had a rough time coming up with the concept and naming this blog/podcast. I knew I wanted to create a place where I could address things I’m passionate about – comedy, music, and horror. Finding a name that communicated all three of those things proved a bit impossible. I bugged my friends, and they all tried to help. To no avail. Then I thought, maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe my lack of focus should be the focus.

As a journalist, I have written for The Boston Globe since 2000, starting out writing CD reviews and then writing a regular column on comedy for seven and a half years. I still contribute there, and to Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. I’m also a musician, and released my debut full-length album, Blue Skies and Broken Arrows, in March of 2015. And I’ve been publishing short horror fiction for a couple of years.

I like to climb into things I love and see how they operate. That’s what the Department of Tangents is for. The main thing here is love. To talk about the things that make I’ve loved forever, and some new things that might stand the test and be around, at least for me, for decades to come. I’ve had to be critical in my writing at times, and it might not all be nonstop roses here, but in the end, what I really want to talk about is the good stuff. That’s why I will regularly write about things I think are “Perfect,” even if someone can demonstrate empirically that they are flawed. Still perfect to me.

Also, fish.

I hope you, dear anonymous surfer person, will come to expect only the highest-quality, free-range, grass-fed tangents. And I hope some of you love the same things I do and find it useful. Or at least a welcome distraction until the others get here.

Jun 1, 2016

I've interviewed Steven Wright for a couple of different publications over the years and always enjoyed the strange and wonderful twists in the conversation. He's one of the reasons this podcast and site exist as the Department of Tangents - some of the most fun I've had is getting off topic with him. I sat down with him in a conference room at one of Emerson College's offices in Boston, and we talked about comedy, music, poetry, and anything else that came to mind. Wright got a lot of the best laugh lines on Louis CK's independently filmed show Horace and Pete, and he's had a brilliant career in stand-up. And yet, it took a very long time for Wright to be okay standing in front of people telling jokes. That's part of where his deadpan delivery comes from. He would also like you to know that the universe is underrated.

Stick around after the interview to hear "Alabama At Night" by Robbie Fulks, who will be on the podcast June 15, talking about his new album, Upland Stories, the inspiration he drew from journalist James Agee, and classic Universal horror films.