The Department of Tangents Podcast: DoT EP45: Boston Comic Con 2017

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.

DoT EP45: Boston Comic Con 2017

Dec 24, 2017

You’ve heard of Christmas in July? This is more like July in Christmas. Or August in Christmas. This is kind of a lost episode, in that I had meant to publish it much earlier, but it kept getting bumped for interviews I felt needed to get out there first. I gathered a bunch of interviews with artists, writers, and creators at Boston Comic Con in August, and this is Part I of a two-part series. I spoke with Gordin McAlpin, creator of the Multiplex Web comic, Michael Denison of the Bea Arthur-centric Bea A Day, a collage artist who makes pop culture scenes out of action figures and old television sets and Ben Goldsmith and Kayla Velario, the creative team behind the Séance Room comic.

It has been a while since I posted a podcast, and there’s a reason for that. I was working episode-to-episode, so any little thing could knock me off track. While the Department of Tangents Podcast has been off, I’ve been collecting new interviews and setting up a few things I hope you’ll like. In January, the podcast will return in earnest with new episodes every week. I have a lot of music for you to look forward to – The Lowest Pair, Matt York, and the Len Price 3. And more comedy and horror in the works.

I’ll still be featuring a new song or comedy set from new albums, and I’ll have plenty of interviews with musicians, comedians, filmmakers, writers, and more. Drinking from the fire hose of music, comedy, and horror. For this episode, I have a song from VanWyck called “An Average Woman,” the title track from her upcoming album, out January 19. Find out more about her at www.vanwyck.nl .