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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.

Feb 23, 2018

Two performers. Two microphones. Banjo and acoustic guitar. The Lowest Pair are about as elemental an act as you’ll see onstage. You can hear that approach on their album, up to and including the two releases from 2016, Uncertain As It Is Uneven and Fern Girl. I sat down with Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee last year...


Feb 15, 2018

Welcome to the extra-tangenty 51st episode anniversary of the Department of Tangents Podcast, my interview with inventor and Information Philosopher Dr. Robert Doyle, with new music from Ruby Boots.

This interview came about it a strange way. For years I have been trying to explain to people my favorite board game as a...


Feb 13, 2018

Welcome to the extra-tangenty 50th episode anniversary of the Department of Tangents Podcast! This episode came about it a strange way. For years I have been trying to explain to people my favorite board game as a kid, Stop Thief. It had a regular cardboard square with a cartoon grid on it, and your job was to find the...


Feb 1, 2018

I first became aware of Matt York’s music when he released his Americana album Boston, Texas in 2016. I also write and play music, and we had a few friends in common. We played on a couple of bills together, and I got to know a bit more of his history, how he had been part of Boston’s rock scene years before and had...