Pitch Please Episode 2: DSTLRY Comics

  Hello again and welcome back to Pitch Please. It’s a show all about guiding you through something new. I’m your host Jason and this episode we are talking comics! But we aren’t talking the big two. No we are talking about a newer publisher on the scene, creator owned DSTLRY Comics! Oh fancy…

  Before I drill down into DSTLRY, let me show my bona fides a bit and talk about my love of comics. As you can probably guess just from looking at me, I grew up on superhero comics. (Shocker) As a kid, my neighbors uncle used to sell comics for a dollar each, every year at their annual garage sale. It was mostly 90’s trash (complete with wild body proportions and infinite pockets) with gimmick 3D lenticular covers, but I was like 10 so those gimmicks worked on me and I was hooked. As I got older, I fell off of superhero comics (for reasons I’ll get into), replacing them with superhero movies and more adult (ie pretentious) graphic novels. I stopped reading DC and Marvel books and started reading stuff from Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, and the like. 

  As I got older, I also started to learn the stories of the people who made some of my favorite books and noticed a theme of them getting absolutely boned by the corporations they were writing for. I’m thinking of people like Alan Moore with Watchmen, Bill Finger with Batman, or Shushter and Segal with Superman. It seemed that, just like the rest of the working class, the creatives I loved were being exploited by creating some of the most recognizable and profitable characters in fiction and never seeing the fruits of their labor. You shouldn’t be able to invent Superman and die penniless. 

  It’s all possible through a trick as old as the creative industry. In case you don’t know, when you make anything for a big comic publisher, most of the time you’re under contract with them. So whatever you create is theirs. You’re just the hired gun. (It’s the same idea behind all the gig apps like Uber and Doordash. It’s a nice little trick to get out of giving people the benefits of being a full employee) The trade off is that, theoretically the corporation has the resources so that, whatever you create, will be seen by more people (and you’ll get a bigger upfront check). Theoretically. Even if you aren’t creating characters whole cloth, any story you write or picture you draw, is theirs to do what they see fit with. So say, years down the line, there’s a multibillion dollar movie that is inspired heavily by something you created, while it may be cool, you won’t see a dime.

  This changed in the 90’s when Image comics came along. Image offered artist the chance to publish their work and keep the rights to whatever they created. Image wasn’t without its controversies (chronically late books, tensions amount partners leading to lawsuits, the 90’s comic bubble crash, etc. It’s almost like they had a bunch of artist in charge of a company. Weird.) but this strategy seemed to work out for them in the long run. They are now the third largest publisher out there and have put out some of the all time most influential comics in history (Spawn, The Walking Dead, Invincible, god damn Saga. It’s a star studded list). It’s almost like if you give creative folks room to be creative, you have a higher chance of getting quality work. Crazy.

  The brings us to DSTLRY, which seems to be looking to replicate that Image success, albeit in a simpler, smaller, and more modern way. DSTLRY was started by the guys behind Comixology, the digital comics reader (another thing that Amazon has gobbled up and essentially destroyed). Now, I’ll be straight with you. I don’t trust these suits as far as I can throw them. Unlike with Image, they are not artist, they are business men (which means they are not in it because they like comics. They’re in it because they like money.) and business men are not to be trusted. (That might be our first evergreen rule on this channel. Let’s put it on the board.) For example, while the company stresses that their digital collectible comics aren’t NFTs, they certainly smell like NFTs. So before I go heeping praise on the books they’ve been pumping out, let me be clear that just because they’re a corporation that has realized that giving the creatives that give your brand value a steak in the company, thereby aligning your wellbeing to their wellbeing, does not mean they aren’t still a corporation at the end of the day. 

  Disclaimers aside, DSTLRY is making one business decision that I do agree with in that they are copying that Image model. Artist and writers not only get to keep the rights to their creations but the founding creators even earn equity in the company. So if their books sell and the company does well, they do well. Rising tides and all that. What that means is, say some all consuming media conglomerate comes around and wants to make a movie based on, let’s say Gone by the artist known only as Jock, then instead of the company who just happened to print the book and happens to have a relationship with Diamond Distributors, raking in the dough, Jock makes that money and, crazy thought, could even work on the movie based on the book he made. (If only there was some way for all workers to get the value they create and own the means in which they produce value in common. Hmmmm)

   But for any of this scheme to work you have to have some damn good founding creators and attract some big talent with big ideas. In a business dominated by to behemoths, it’s a steep uphill climb to even be noticed, so you need some heavy hitters (and, in the case of a few folks, whose name alone can move a few units). Well between the founding creators and the folks currently slated to have books put out on DSTLRY, it seems the these business types went deep into their Rolodex to call in some award winning titians from around the industry and world to write a book of two and have ended up with an absolutely stacked list of creatives. (Kids, a Rolodex is this mechanical device we had before cellphones…never mind) We have the likes of (and apologies if pronounce any names wrong here) the aforementioned Jock, Becky Cloonan, Marc Bernardin of podcast fame, Jamie McKelvie, Scott Snyder, Chip Zdarsky, and on and on. This a group of people that have put out some of the best comics this century and here they are, under one label, given what seems like free rein. (At the very least there seems to be no restrictions on content, style or genre)

  So far, hiring the best comic book writers and artist has paid off. Every book DSTLRY has put out as of writing has been good or, often times, better than good. There’s any genre you can dream of here (except, notably, superheroes.) from western to sci-fi to romance to heist. Each with enough of a twist to get deep hooks in you. Plus, the art in some of these books is stunning. It helps that all their books come in this oversized, magazine dimensions that really suck you into the artwork. I love a big ol’ physical piece of media (He said in front of his 1500 records. Admittedly, this doesn’t make them harder to store but I think it’s worth it). When you make something this size, it feels like a statement. Like a celebration of the medium. Maybe it’s the American in me but, bigger is usually better (I can hear you snickering) and these are some hefty comics. 

  While the physical size of the books may be supersized, one thing I really like about DSTLRY is each story is only three or four issues long, with the exception of Life which is listed as being six issues. But still in the single digits. The big two could learn a thing or two from this approach. Actually, I think this is gonna take us to a new segment, Side Rant. Come join me in my old man corner.

 

  One of the things that caused me to fall off of superhero comics was the tendency for them to spin out into multiple books with long arcs over hundreds of issues. For example, I started reading the Ta Nehisi Coates run on Black Panther month to month. It was a really interesting take on the character by a great writer who was from outside comics. But then that single book spun off into three books and, if I recall correctly, was broken up by one of those crossover events that superhero comics love so much. I stopped reading because I simply didn’t have the funds to collect that many books every month. It was just too much. And not just for me but for you, the publisher, too judging by the amount of times you have to reset the continuity. It became unwieldy and the story just fizzled out. And for my money, the ending is the most important bit!

  So here’s my pitch. Less is more. Instead of ongoing series with no real end, limit the story to a maximum twelve issues. The artist pitches a story for the character THAT MUST INCLUDE AN ENDING, and that goes for movie producers too. People only remember the ending so it’s best to start there. Then you stagger your books so there’s always something coming out but in a way that there’s always a number one each month and readers know there will be a satisfying end to the story and a fresh jumping on point regularly. So it’d be like: Superman: Luthors Revenge: 1 of 7, or whatever, and once it was done, new creative team, new story, new number one. Everything as an interconnected collection of miniseries.

  Granted, it has been a while since I bought single issues so maybe the big two are already doing this and I just don’t know it. I read Absolute Batman #1 recently and it appears that all these Absolute stories will be miniseries. In which case, I’m really showing my ass here. All I know is, if there’s a book with a lot of hype out, I usually wait for the collected softcover or the big hardcover if it’s really special. Maybe that’s just me and I’m yelling at clouds again. Anyway, rant over. Back to what we were talking about.

  Ok, where were we? Oh yea, DSTLRYs short and sweet runs. I love this approach as it’s concise and means you always have something new on the horizon. But I will admit, it’s a double edge sword. It is a very hard thing to world build in three issues, especially if you’re doing something a little more out there. Gone, the book by Jock I mentioned before, is a prime example. This book takes place in what seems like a deep, interesting universe with a lot of characters and factions I’d love to see more of. But with only three issues, you really have to focus on the one story you’re telling. That’s not to say Jock couldn’t come back and expand in further series but maybe he’d rather move on to other things. In the end, it’s always better (in fiction, movies and playing music) to leave the audience wanting more rather than have them grow tired of you.

  And let me tell ya, boy do I want more of these books. No matter what book you start with, you’re gonna get quality. I’m gonna go over some of my favorites but I’d honestly start with the first book the put out, The Devils Cut. This compilation book serves as a great taste of everything they’re doing over there at DSTLRY. It’s like a bunch of trailers for these comics. You can read through this and figure out which stories you want to get or keep an eye out for. DSTLRY has only been around for about a year, so there’s not so much backlog that you’re going to be way behind on. The only just started putting out collected hardcovers (That I very much like as well). So not everything in The Devils Cut has been expanded into a full book yet, but plenty has. 

  A lot of what I’ve read are just number ones so I’ll start with the aforementioned new hardcovers. The first, Somna by Becky Cloonan & Tula Lotay, is the story of a woman at the height of the witch trials having an affair on her witchfinder husband with the devil…in her dreams. (I can’t do it because I’ll get a copyright strike but, if you could put the band Witchfinder General on in the background here while I talk about this book, that’d be ideal) If that synopsis doesn’t do it for you, I don’t know what will. I love how this book uses its setting and the supernatural to explore how society was (and let’s face it, still is) openly hostile to women who dare to reach for power of any kind. And how other women, instead of coming together in solidarity, use that hostility to turn on other women. The addition of the actual Devil only serves to bring out those gulfs between the powerful and powerless. Plus the art is fabulous, switching from a more traditional comic art to this soft watercolor look when the character is in the dream world. I won’t spoil the ending but, while I liked it, I did wish it’d go a slightly different way. (As always, I was rooting for everyone to burn)

  The second collected hardcover is a book I’ve mentioned a few times already, Gone by Jock. I first became aware of Jock when he did a book with Scott Snyder called Wytches that creeped me the hell out (in a good way of course). His art in that book was so experimental and different that it was hard not to become engrossed in the book. In Gone, Jock is doing everything, so the art is a little more traditional but still with great design and incredibly inventive page layouts and panel work. This world feels grimey and lived in but with the scale of the future in its giant slums and looming ships (making use of the large format book). The story is that of a kid who, while tying to steal supplies from a luxury interplanetary ship, gets trapped aboard, stranded for possibly many years back on Earth (The ship travels at light speed so it’s your classic case of one year for her is like six back home. Or is it the other way around? You know, that old gem.). The fact that they cover so much story in just three issues is kind of mind boggling. There are many twists and turns and factions and politics that sort of get glaced off of in pursuit of telling the main characters story well. But as I mentioned before, I’d love to spend more time in this world.

  Lastly, they just released the collected Blasfamous by Mika Andolfo. This is the story of a new religion secretly run by demons, using immoral pop stars to turn faith and worship into drugs. It’s a wild concept but also not so far fetched if you’ve ever been around religion in your life (especially here in the states). Just imagine one of those megachurches plus JoJo Siwa. The art is lovely and borders on cartoonish with big spreads depicting angels and demons in battle. The story was fun but once again I was a little lukewarm on the ending. (It falls into the cliche I think a lot of big heady stuff like this falls into. High fantasy, sci-fi, cosmic stuff, it all gets to a point where it’s so out there that only a mcguffin of twisted internal logic, a special sword, a spell, the right code, can reset the story stakes arms race that had been going on beforehand. In comics, it’s usually in stories with cosmic multiversal enemies like The Anti-Monitor or Eternity) Other than that, I liked it a lot. It was the weakest of these three so far but I still had a great time. 

  That does it for their collected editions, so I’m gonna quickly run through my favs of the #1’s they’ve put out. Now, for these, I’ve only read the first issue. So if the ending sucks, I’m sorry, I’m waiting for the hardcover. 

   Let’s start with my favorite, White Boat by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla. I don’t have many fears (some would say I have almost a complete lack of self preservation) but one big fear I have is water. The last six times I’ve been in a body of water, I’ve almost drowned. So we have an understanding now and I stay on dry land. (I’m even nervous in the shower at this point) So, I cannot think of a worse place to be when a Lovecraftian nightmare kicks in than on a cruise ship in open ocean. I’ve liked almost everything I’ve read by Scott Snyder (I wasn’t big on Dark Knight: Metal or The Batman Who Laughs) and he has scared me before with a comic I previously mentioned he did with Jock called Wytches. But this one feels like it’s targeted at me. Plus the Hellboy-esque, tattoo worthy art really adds to the atmosphere with it’s thick line work and jagged edges. (If you’re thinking of getting almost cliche tentacle tatttoos, get it in this style instead to mix it up) I’m really excited to see where this one goes. (And if anyone has an unsigned copy of the seven inch they put out with this book they can spare, slide into my DMs.)

  Next up, Life by Brian Azzarrello, Stephane Philips, and art by Danijel Zezelj (again, so sorry if I mispronounced any of those names. I’m hopelessly white). Now, this looks like any other DSTLRY release except, what’s this? *flips book around* What the hell? Which side is the front? Up is down? Topsy turvy. This is actually a cool way to tell the same story from to different angles. One side from the perspective of a band of criminals looking for a score on what they think is an abandoned planet and the other side from the perspective of the mutant prisoners on that planet, with the two stories meeting in the middle. I have the first two issues of this because I think this (for lack of a better word) gimmick is so interesting. That’s why I love small publishers. They have the freedom to experiment with the format in a way the big two would never. Gimmick aside, it’s a cool villain on villian story that I’m actually gonna collect all six issues of. That’s like 12 stories! (Talk about bang for your buck)

  Lastly, let’s talk about Spectregraph by James Tyrion IV and art by Christian Ward. Like White Boat, this is another horror book, this time set around a billionaires mansion (at least it’s on land this time) and the cult dedicated to whatever he’s building in there (insert Tom Waits reference here). These billionaires are always up to no good. They are not to be trusted. In fact, let’s update the board. (*adds billionaires to earlier rule*) The art is surreal yet crisp and like White Boat, really sells how unnatural all the goings on are. This real estate agent (and all around terrible mom) is in deep shit for sure. (Although, the housing market is so bad, I’m sure I know a few people who would take the house, murderous cult and all, if they could get it for cheap) I hope this gets collected soon so I can really spend some time in this unsettling mansion. 

  Those three are just my favorites but honestly, every book that’s come out so far has been good to great. I can’t wait to see what comes next. They’ve recently announced (or released depending on when I put this up) a few holiday one shots and have teased some upcoming books that all look intriguing, even if I’m not familiar with any of the names attached. But that’s actually what I would like to see from DSTLRY. Don’t get me wrong. I can think of a few names I’d love to see do books for them. I’m thinking Sean Murphy, Crom, Alexis Zeritt, Ben Passmore, Kelley Sudiconik, Andrew MacLean, etc. But the DSTLRY M.O. is great for new talent. You don’t have to worry about a new team tanking sales on a popular character or shoehorning their take into a bigger continuity and 3-5 issues is relatively not too big a commitment to take a chance. DSTLRY is what the world needs more of. Less big, risk adverse companies, churning out sequels and remakes and more smaller companies taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy (to paraphrase Miss Frizzle). It’s been a banger year of books and I can’t wait for more (even if I’m very skeptical of the digital collectible side of things).

  Well I think that about does it for this episode of Pitch Please. What are your thoughts? Have you read any of these books? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Let me know in the comments along with any other comics talk you want. Do all that normal YouTube stuff with the liking and subscribing and shit and I’ll see you in the next one where we will talk about film photography. But until then, death to the algorithm.

Pitch Please: Jazz

  Hello and welcome to Pitch Please! It’s a show where I give you a guided tour of a rabbit hole you might not have fallen down…yet. Today we are talking about Americas original art form, Jazz.
  So I know what you’re thinking,
  "Jazz? Isn’t that just for old men? I mean I knew you were old but not that old. I thought you were a punk."
  You’re right. I am old. Thanks for bringing that up. And I am a punk, but I, like anyone interesting, like and listen to a WIDE variety of music. There’s 1500 records here. If they were all punk records, it’d get dull pretty fast.
  I got into jazz in the 6th grade when, after a story too dark for the internet, I first discovered music as more than just something to have on in the background. It was really the first time I consciously decided to really get into something. And I figured, if I was gonna be a music obsessive, I should start at the beginning and the beginning of modern music for me was jazz.
  Now obviously there was music being made in America before jazz. There was ragtime, classical, blues, folk, etc. But jazz came about just as the technology to record music was invented and the LP, which is a format we still have today, was popularized which meant it spread far and fast for the time. That plus the touring vaudeville shows and being born in the port city of New Orleans meant it became Americas first cultural export. By taking European classical music that these early jazz pioneers had been trained in and mixing it with musical traditions born of the slave trade, (of course it goes back to slavery. This is an AMERICAN art form after all) these black musicians (love to burst any of the racist bubbles out there but yes, jazz was created by black folks. So was rock n roll and hip hop and techno and really almost everything else worth talking about in American culture. They made it and folks that look like me stole it, which seems to be our legacy. But I digress) created a new form of music that could not be created anywhere but here. Best of all, it was party music.
  When I worked midnights at 7-11 (something I’m sure I’ll bring up too much on this channel) I used to play music all night trough a shitty set of speakers in the corner. I’d plug in my iPod and try to drown out the infinitely idiotic general public as they shambled in throughout the night. In the morning was when the crowd switched from drunks and junkies to folks coming in for their morning coffee. One morning, one of my regulars (a woman who got an extra large French vanilla coffee, two packs of Pall Mall red shorts, a paper and had a son with a heroin problem) came in and heard me listening to jazz. She made the mistake of saying that all jazz sounded the same. (This seems to be a common sentiment seeing as I also was in a band briefly with a drummer who said all jazz used the same drum beat. He didn’t last long. In the band or in life if I recall after taking one too many percosets and driving off a bridge) Seeing this as an educational opportunity, for the next few weeks, I played a different type of jazz every morning at work. It made for some interesting mornings.
  The fact that there are so many ways to play jazz is why it caught fire across the globe. It was a truly NEW music. Completely new things RARELY happen. Imagine turning on the radio and the DJ plays a song that sounds like absolutely nothing that came before. It’s a whole new approach to arranged sound. And most importantly, it gets you fucking moving. You’d flip out too. The last time that might of happened was when people started making music with computers. This variety is one of the things that attracts me to jazz. You can always go deeper and find something new to love. There is a subgenre of jazz for every occasion. Rainy night, feeling lonely? Cool jazz. Looking to freak out? Free jazz. Wanna dance? Dixieland or swing. Cocktail party or anime about a space bounty hunter? Bebop. There’s always something new around the corner.
  That playability that allows jazz to be shaped and morphed into new and exciting things make it, along with the blues, the root of all the music I love that comes after it. The improvisational nature of the guitar solo or jam band wouldn’t exist without jazz. You can draw a direct line from Louie Armstrong to The Stooges and from there, all of punk rock (Louie Armstrong to Miles Davis to Coltrane to The Stooges for those of you who want me to show my work).
  A few years after I became a music nerd, I also started down a path to become a musician. This is also around the time YouTube came into existence. (Again, yes, I know, I’m old) Let me tell you, I would spend hours watching jazz drummers like Buddy Rich and Max Roach and just thinking to myself, I am never gonna be this good. Jazz musicians have an UNREAL amount of talent. The complex timings, the inventive song structures, and the improv skills! They’re unmatched in any other music genre. Honestly, if you’re just starting out making music like I was, it might be best to brace yourself or risk being discouraged. It’s probably almost as discouraging as seeing a child prodigy that’s leagues better than you when you’ve been playing for multiple decades.
  So if I’ve convinced you to give jazz a shot, great. I’m gonna give you some record recommendations in a second but first I’m gonna give you some advice on HOW to listen to jazz. Because that variety, while amazing, can also make jazz seem daunting and impenetrable. People will hear something labeled jazz and assume, like my former customer and former bandmate, that it all sounds like that so they must not like it. What’s important to do, not just with jazz by the way but any art you trying to get into, is to find what you like about what you’re listening to and, just as importantly, what you don’t like. With all that in mind, let’s go through some tentpole albums and artist and from there you’ll be able to drill down into the subgenres you like.
  At the forefront of almost all movements in jazz you’ll find one artist that is out there pushing the boundary. We are talking about, of course, Miles Davis. Miles Davis started off in the 40’s in a group led by the great Charlie Parker (someone else you should listen to), he quickly struck out on his own and started pioneering new evolutions in jazz. I’m gonna recommend two very different albums here to highlight the breath of his output. The first being his first outing as a bandleader, and probably my favorite jazz album?, The Birth of Cool. It helped spawn cool jazz (go figure) and just kinda has everything you want from jazz. It’s got fast numbers and drum solos, slow songs to be romantic to, and just a great warm production that falls just perfectly between early rough recordings that are tin-y and harsh and more modern production that can be too surgical and sterile. The last song, Darn That Dream, is one of my personal favorites and was on many a mix CD I made for high school crushes.

  On the other side of the Miles Davis spectrum, we have the 1970 album Bitches Brew which is a landmark piece in jazz fusion. A four sided, 93 minute sprawling freakout, Bitches Brew is music that makes me wish I did drugs. I mean, the dude puts his trumpet through a wah pedal. It’s a journey but a fun and freaky one so hit the lights and just go with it.

  Next up, we have a member of Miles Davis’ band, John Coltrane who pioneered his own evolutions in jazz which I’m sure Miles was perfectly fine to share the spotlight for. (Only one of them was worshiped as a god though, sooo…) Coltrane was one of the greatest in hard bop and this is really exemplified on Giant Steps. Almost all of the pieces on this album have become jazz standards. You know it’s good when people have to learn it in school, right? Polyphonic has a video explaining why the title track alone is so revolutionary and he explains it much better than I could. What I will say is it’s a great record for a summer backyard hang. From Giant Steps we have the evolution of Coltrane himself into a post bop era with A Love Supreme. If Giant Steps is a backyard summer hang, this is a midnight deep conversation hang. It’s cool and confident and just feels like a record from a man trying to shine his light for all to see.

 

 

  Coltrane for me though is at his coolest when he’s pioneering free jazz. Which is why I’m gonna recommend the record Interstellar Space. Another chaotic album full of long tracks made to be put on as a soundtrack to your own inward exploration. This record opens you up to a tempo-less soundscape made by artist pushing their instruments to do things they were not deigned to do. Plus it’s the only time I’ve ever like sleigh bells.

 

  There are countless jazz musicians I could recommend further like Louis Armstrong, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday (who is one of a handful of artist that if you don’t enjoy I think there might be something medically wrong with you), and on and on. Honestly all of them worthy of having their own dedicated video. Luckily, with jazz, all these artist were constantly playing with each other. So if you find someone you like, you can follow them around and you most likely bump into the rest. But I’d like to leave you with someone very special to me, Thelonious Monk.
  Thelonious Sphere Monk was a composer and pianist unlike any other. His improvisations were confounding, his compositions eclectic. You never knew where on the keys he was going and that is thrilling. And yet, the result is soothing and inviting. So much so that a lot of his original works have become jazz standards. It’s music that as you hear it, makes you want to know the mind that could think like this. A mind that could compose like this and take two seemingly disjointed ideas and fit them together so beautifully. All this makes Monk one of my favorite musicians of all time. Plus, he’s got such a cool name. Thelonious Sphere Monk? Come on!
  There are two records I’d recommend if you’re looking to get into Monk. First is Solo Monk. I’m a sucker for simplicity. Just an artist, their instrument and their song. No fancy production tricks, no band to hide behind. Just them and their composition, straight down the barrel of a microphone. That is exactly what you get with this record. And also with this record by Art Tatum. Recorded secretly at a party. No frills. Just a great artist doing what he does best. Perfect for a rainy day or late night.

  On the other end of the Monk spectrum is this record, Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (Remember him? I told you they all bump into each other). What’s great about Monk playing in a group is his ability to play in the spaces where the other members aren’t. He plays almost against the others, filling in the gaps in a way that teeters on discordant in a way that makes his playing stand out but never tipping into complete noise. He’s still playing with the band but doing it while playing where they’re not. It’s something I try to keep in mind whenever I’m playing with anyone (Even though I play a very different type of music). How can I play something unique while elevating the song and everyone else playing? It’s a very hard thing to do but always does it with style and here’s he’s doing it with another giant of the jazz world. What a treat.

  And with that I think we’ve come to the end of the first episode of Pitch Please. I hope this is just your first step on a journey of loving jazz. If you’re already a jazz freak, let me know some of your favorite records down in the comments. Do all the normal YouTube, social media things of course. If you are interested in reading this rant instead of having to stare at my ugly mug, I’m gonna post this script as a blog with embedded songs so you can hear what I’m talking about without me getting a copyright strike. I’ll link it in the notes below. Stay tuned for more as I record them, and as always, death to the algorithm.