BEOTI
The Virtual Memories Show News
A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life
Intro
“How are you able to DO everything!?” By which they mean holding down a heavy-duty day job while making the podcast (and doing all the related reading/research), drawing/art, Haiku for Business Travelers, postcard-a-day, This Very Email, I guess maybe the exercise stuff, etc.
For years, my stock response has been, “It comes down to three things: I don’t have a social life, I don’t drink, and I don’t have kids,” followed by, “And that last one is most important. If you DO have kids, get rid of them.” Hahaha.
In general, that ‘advice’ holds up. I also usually tell people that I’m barely holding it together and they only think I’ve got it all going on because they don’t see the panic and anxiety that characterizes much of my life.
This weekend, it occurred to me that there’s another factor more recently at play in my (perceived) productivity: I really don’t spend time Being Outraged On The Internet [BEOTI].
That is, I don’t post on social media about politics or other Topics Of Outrage and generally Don’t Read The Comments, and I mute or unfollow accounts that go overboard with those sorts of posts. I have to keep up with politics because of my aforementioned heavy-duty day job (okay, career), so when I’m scrolling on a social media feed, it’s the last goddamned thing I need to see (esp. given people’s tendency to misread, simplify or otherwise tailor everything to confirm their priors). And not posting about that stuff, focusing instead on sharing things I like or have made, feels better to me, regardless of whether it leads to Likes/Reposts/etc.
When cartoonist Joe Matt died Monday night, I took some solace the next morning in sharing my Joe anecdotes and reading so many people’s memories of him and his work. Along those lines, over the weekend, cartoonist Evan Dorkin gave a prompt on Bluesky about people’s favorite experiences meeting their comics/cartooning idols; reading the responses and taking in those folks’ joyful memories was a lot more invigorating than Outrage-feeds I could have been reading.
(Also, as a result of Twitter’s implosion, I spend far less time on social media in general, so that’s a secondary boost to Getting Stuff Done. Thanks, Elon.)
So I guess I want to add, “I’m not Being Outraged On The Internet all the time,” to my productivity tips.
(But we all know the real answer for my hyper-productivity: “Gil’s frantically running from death.”)
And now, on with The Virtual Memories Show!
Podcastery
This week, I posted Episode 555 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. cartoonist, writer, & TV producer Keith Knight, as we celebrate his long-awaited graphic memoir, I WAS A TEENAGE MICHAEL JACKSON IMPERSONATOR. We get into his 18-month stint as an MJ impersonator in the mid-’80s, how he found himself by being someone else, what he learned about audiences and the business of entertainment, the role music has played in his life, his favorite MJ song, why Off The Wall is better than Thriller, and how Janet Jackson was the lucky one, all things considered. We also talk about Keith’s experience writing and producing two seasons of WOKE on Hulu (sadly cancelled), how he got involved in every aspect of making that show, what he learned about storytelling in the writers’ room, and what he wants to bring to his next TV project. Plus we discuss why comics are the ultimate DIY art form, the differing modes of audience-artist interaction from comics to TV to slideshow lectures to MJ performances, how deadlines can be your friend, why Stevie Wonder may have the best three-album run of anyone in music history, and a LOT more. Give it a listen! And go read I Was A Teenage Michael Jackson Impersonator and watch WOKE
Last week, I posted Episode 554 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. Brett Martin as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of his book DIFFICULT MEN: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution. We talk about how the TV landscape — prestige & otherwise — has changed in the past decade, how it felt to revisit his book 10 years later, and why this anniversary was more startling than his turning 50. We get into how Difficult Men was lauded for its criticism and analysis at the time but now shines for its reporting and character studies, how the explosion of prestige TV was unsustainable but did lead to amazing shows, how the #metoo movement intersected with male-dominated writers’ rooms, and his thoughts on the writers’ and actors’ strikes. We also discuss Brett’s writing career, what he’s learned about interviewing, what food & restaurant media really talk about, his reporting on the history (& racial complexities) of Preservation Hall, what our favorite eras of M*A*S*H are, and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read DIFFICULT MEN!
Other recent episodes: Peter Rostovsky • Bill Griffith • Jerome Charyn • Ron Rosenbaum • Karl Stevens
Links & Such
RIP Joe Matt (tributes by his publisher, Chris Oliveros, and artists Mari Naomi and Matt Wagner (latter via Xitter)) . . . RIP Botero . . .
Sad, creepy, weird story about being the daughter of the BTK Killer.
Some young elite runners are blowing off GPS watches and all the data they spew, in favor of just running.
This article about Tony Parrotti and his shirtmaking practice reminds me that it’s WAY past time I get some shirts made, because my upper body’s changed a lot in recent years.
Michael Dirda reviews the new memoir from Gay Talese while getting whomped with COVID.
Nice NYT interview with Brett Martin about the 10th anniversary of Difficult Men, his book about the TV revolution of the ’90s-into-aughts. Go listen to me & Brett talk about it in 2013 and 2023.
Hal Mayforth gets biophilic.
Seoul searching (haha). I feel like Rian Hughes had a hand in this story.
I’m thinking of splitting this e-mail in 2 parts: mid-week for the new podcast announcement & maybe the below-stuff (reading, art, fitness), and Sundays for the link-fest. What do you think?
Current reading
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
John Le Carré: The Biography - Adam Sisman
Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter - Rachel Shteir
Art
I made a few sketches this week that were interesting enough for me to scan & share with you: an ink-sketch DO~TD of the poet Richard Brautigan (~ because they’re not sure of the exact date of his suicide), a pencil DOTW of Robert Penn Warren (week not day, because I was too intimidated to try it on his death-iversary itself), and a brush-pen DOTD sketch of Italo Calvino. For Brautigan, I started with the mustache and built out from there. The Penn Warren one began with the hat, but I screwed up the brim, which should have stayed horizontal and swept longer before arcing down to his face. I had planned on inking/brushing this one, but gave up and just shaded away with my mechanical pencil. (I will say that something about the thinness of the body & tie gives this a weird charm.) If I were to develop some guts and take up Peter Rostovsky’s advice, I’d try to draw it larger & in charcoals. The Calvino was an experiment; I just wanted to see what I could do with the big black coat he was wearing. I had my contact lenses in, so I couldn’t get too close to the pad & thus couldn’t work too finely with the brush pen, so the face was a mess, but I like some of the effects I got with the coat, incl. the shoulder roll. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
Holy crap, I actually got in all 5 days of my weights-yoga cycle, from Friday-Tuesday! It did involve a 7:00 pm yoga workout on Saturday, after we returned from a day in Princeton, but I got it in! And felt good. My back is sore in a good way (the swole way). Next week, I have to decide if I’ll get in a 2x/day on Sunday because Yom Kippur is on Monday and that’s when I go map the interior. I’m just glad to get back into this practice, because it’s too easy for me to fall off the fitness wagon.
Until Next Week
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back next week with a new podcast, some great links, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something.
Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice,
—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
Bluesky • Instagram • Flickr • YouTube • Linktr.ee