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!
I’m on building a NEW Mostly Harmless Podcast website, and thought it might be a good idea to announce that I’m bringing Mostly Harmless back from the dead!
We’re going to be re-launching Mostly Harmless 2.0 on December 1st with a new series of video interview podcasts! Video will be available on YouTube, with audio versions made available wherever you get your podcasts. I’m also launching a Patreon where we’ll pull back the curtains and give you behind the scenes access to the world of Mostly Harmless!
For those of you who don’t know what Mostly Harmless was, it was a somewhat weekly podcast where I focused on long form interviews with musicians, filmmakers, artists, writers and whomever I felt had a story to be told. I was lucky enough to host events for Denver Comic Con, Tattered Cover, Ratio Beerworks, Illegal Petes and others!
Now I know Stephen King said it best himself when he wrote the words, “Sometimes Dead is Better.” I lost my job this year, and there has been this itch in the back of my head that just hasn’t gone away since the pandemic hit the U.S. and I just have to scratch it. I missed doing interviews. I missed telling stories.
When the podcast ended, I had just started a successful first year music festival that fell apart in it’s second year. I was running a very small PR firm. I had some legal issues come up as well, and I’m still fighting hard to clear my name of those accusations. I just lost the juice to make the podcast work.
But I have this note to myself taped to my desk, that asks the question, “How do I make the world a better place.’ I’ve been thinking about that question for all of 2020.
How do I make the world a better place?
So the goal of Mostly Harmless 2.0 is to create a community of like minded individuals who want to change the world one story at a time. Will there still be lots of band interviews? Yes! But we’ll also focus on raising money for non-profits, awareness of causes. We’ll focus on how to make ourselves and each other better. I’ve been in therapy for a little while now and I can’t wait to talk about that on the show and how we can better ourselves.
We’re going to talk to behind the scenes people. I want to tell the stories of people out there doing it themselves and building their own communities.
I just want to tell great stories and turn people on to cool things.
I’m on a lot of prozac these days. I’m meditating daily. I’m no longer trying to be the Mostly Harmless clown, I was, but something bigger, something better and something more.
So stay tuned! I should have a brand new webpage up in the next couple days! December 1st will be the first of a new weekly podcast series. Until then, please SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow the new Mostly Harmless Podcast instagram page. Sign up for the Patreon and email list.
Those numbers are public and that’s what record labels and publicists look for when agreeing to have their clients on our show, so that’s the easiest way to participate! We’re also planning a lot of cool stuff for our Patreon, but we’ll get to those once I get this thing back up off the ground.
I’m super excited to be back with you all! I hope you like the new stuff I have in the works. I can’t wait to see what we all together can accomplish! Until December 1st….. I’ll see you guys in the funny pages!
What? What? What? Mostly Harmless ranks #4 on Denver’s top Music Podcast list!
Hey buddies! I’m really bad about updating the news section on this here ole website. For up to date information, please sign up for the email list or follow Mostly Harmless on Facebook! Those are always up to date and up to the minute!
WOAH! Mostly Harmless made Westword’s Seven Best Music Podcasts in Denver for 2016?!?! What the What? I’m in great company with my good friends These Things Matter as well as Cory Helie’s Welcome To Denver! (I’ve also been on both shows!) Not to mention Denver newcomer Ask A Punk makes the list! Hell of a way to start this week! Thanks to Westword for the love! It couldn’t have come at a better time!
DINK, Denver’s Independent Comic And Art Expo was a blast. Stay tuned for coverage from the event in the coming weeks! Can’t wait to help make next year even better! I’ve also been approved for Denver Comic Con press pass for later this year. We’ll be hosting a ton of panels as well! Keep an eye out for that and make sure you sign up for the mailing list for more info!
I am also one of the producers of the Ratio Sessions at Ratio Beerworks. The idea was to combine the acoustic vibe and feel of video series’s such as Punk In Vegas & NPR’s Tiny Desk Series, but instead of keeping these performances private; we’re inviting all of our friends to come along!
You can check out the first video in the series with The Menzingers playing “Kentucky Gentleman,” live in the taproom! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ThyprQcnk
Upcoming Ratio Sessions are:
4/9 with Laura Stevenson!
Make sure you follow us on our Facebook page for more information! I have tons of other cool events in the works!
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