Dammit Damian! A Mostly Harmless E-Zine.
12/10/2021
This is kind of embarrassing….
I’m 40 years old and I’m bringing my Mostly Harmless podcast back. Again.
But not just my podcast, I’ve been writing so much lately that I need a home for it. I want that home to be mine and not owned by a Zuckerberg. So I’m starting this email magazine list thing with the hopes that you all will join me on this journey.
It’s suppose to be embarrassing to still be trying to “MAKE IT!” at this age, isn’t it?
Sure, this might be some kind of midlife crisis thing, but I’m not trying to “Make it,” any more. Whatever the hell does “make it” even mean, anyways?
Last year I tried to bring the podcast back after losing my job. I thought I could use it to make a little extra money on the side, while working on my writing and living off my unemployment and savings. Unfortunately, my head was not in a good place and the pressure of trying to make money off something I just love doing, wasn’t working. It wasn’t clicking in place and I felt lost and I quit again.
These days, I’m on new meds, I’m coming to terms of what it means to be a depressive and creative person. I think I might be Bipolar Type 2 and I’m trying to really understand what that means. I’m learning to recognize what my brain wants to do and what my brain really loves to do is write long essays, write about movie, book reviews, interview artists and just fucking create things for others to enjoy!
When I look in the mirror now, I no longer loathe the person looking back at me. I look into that mirror and I see the best me I have ever been. My head feels clearer than I have in years and I want to jump back in to those things that I have loved doing most, and most of it I have been doing since I was in high school.
I keep asking myself if this is a midlife crisis or perhaps it’s a cry for help? But at the end of it all, it’s something that I love doing… and I can’t fucking stop. Believe me, I have tried.
I love writing about music, films, comedy, comics, art and I’m a LEO, so of course I love talking about myself. I’m going to use this email list thing and start a new e-zine kind of thing, just like I use to make when I was 18 years old and living in Louisiana.
In the interviews I have been banking, I have been asking advice from older creative people about their ideas and processes. How they make their art, and how they find their voices. I’m still trying to find mine, so I’m asking others how they found theirs and maybe we can all learn something along the way?
I don’t know what shape this email newsletter and the podcast are going to take. I keep trying to wait till I have all the answers figure out before I re-start this thing, but I don’t think you can grow a garden without planting the first seed, watering it and watching it grow and with this very first email to you all, I’m planting that seed.
And I guess what I’m trying to say is this, Do you want to watch me grow a metaphorical garden full of interviews with writers, directors, musicians, artists, and whoever else’s brain I want to pick? Do you want that garden to have lots of ridiculous writings about movies, books, comedians and whatever things light up my brain when I write about them?
Won’t you guys come on this journey with me? I can’t do it without you, yes YOU! I mean, I can, but it’s a whole lot less fun that way!
Next week I’ll be back with another long winded email and the first interview of this new series of Mostly Harmless. My guess will be Hutch Harris, formerly of THE THERMALS! I talk to Hutch about the end of The Thermals and his new record SUCK UP ALL THE OXYGEN! I get him to tell us what it’s like to write and record an album all by yourself, how how important it is to have FUN. There’s all of that and more in our chat, coming next week!
It’s going to go up Wednesday and as long as I can keep my mental illnesses at bay, I really want to write and post one of these things every week or two. But it’s all about riding the ebbs and flows of my mental illnesses and figuring out how to use it all to my advantage… So we’ll see what happens! I’m excited and scared and a little embarrassed about it all. But as long as I’m working on producing this thing I call “ART,” I’ll be happy.
So thank you for giving me your email address at some point. You didn’t know I was going to sign you up for this when I asked for it, so I guess I was kind of tricksy of me. Feel free to hit that unsubscribe button, or stick around a little bit. You might just find your next favorite band, movie, comedian, artist here in this future space.
Or laugh at my stupidity as I tell you all about my upcoming cross country move to parts unknown and the misadventures Claire and I are sure to get into.
A few weeks ago I dropped a bottle of essential oils into my poop water and decided to flush the toilet anyways. That was a disaster. I have that story written up and just waiting to drop here, along with so many more ramblings, essays, and thoughts.
So thanks to you who are coming along on this ride. I can’t wait to see where it takes us all.
xoxo
-Damian
RECOMENDATIONS!
Music:
ADULT MOM – Driver: Adult Mom’s Driver was my surprise record of the year. I rolled over in a hungover daze one morning and saw an email that pre-orders were live for this record. I had never listened to a bar of Adult Mom, I just knew they were on Epitaph and this record was limited to 500 copies, and in the space between half-awake/half-asleep I just bought it right then and there. It was meant to be, as it has barely left my ears.
It’s a melancholy record of exploration of heartbreak that feels very much in the vein of Sarah McLachlan meets The Cranberries, with a DIY unpolished punk rock edge. It’s the DIY-ness that makes this beautiful record come alive, allowing the record to really connect and hit home. I can’t stop listening to it, and I can’t believe more people are not talking about it. Had Covid not stopped the touring industry altogether, I’m sure Adult Mom mastermind, Stevie Knipe, would have toured the world and we’d all be talking about their great masterwork! Instead the tours got cancelled and then Stevie had to battle fucking CANCER all in the midst of a global pandemic and putting out their best album to date. Geez, what a year!
If you’re into Sad women presenting music, please check this out. You will not be disappointed. It’s so god damned beautiful. Just go give this one song a listen, for me? Please? https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/m3q_CGXj2n0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
WATCHING:
If you love LATE NIGHT TALKS shows like I do, I can’t recommend CNN’s The Story of Late Night enough! All six in depth episodes are currently streaming on HBO Max. Really influential on how I’m approaching this new series of ridiculousness I plan on jumping into. Highly recommended docuseries! Loads of info on Steve Allen, Joan River, Carson, Letterman, Conan, The Daily Show and so much more!
READING:
I just finished the wonderfully odd book, NINA SIMONE’S GUM, written by the composer Warren Ellis. Once upon a time, Ellis found himself onstage after a performance of Ms. Simone’s in London, that his partner in crime, Nick Cave had organized. There upon the piano she had just finished playing, was her discarded piece of gum. Ellis wrapped that gum up in Simone’s towel and kept that gum hidden away in a secret place for years. When he unraveled that towel so many years later, he found the power of the gum was not lost, but in a way magnified. It was magic and the book explored the power and magic we can find in objects and the journeys they can take us on. It was wonderful and I actually put it down for a month because I just didn’t want to finish it.
https://bookshop.org/a/21194/9780571365623
That’s all folks. I could keep going, but I need to save some of this magic for the first episode coming out on Wednesday December 15th! HUTCH HARRIS! THE THERMALS! WOOO! See you then!
Stay subscribed for more info, or follow me on the webs at:
https://www.mostlyharmlesspodcast.com
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https://www.instagram.com/dammitdamian
https://www.dammitdamian.com
See ya in the funny papers.
-D