2 min read

Top10-May2024

  1. John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA (Netflix) - Live call-ins, super random, random theme per episode like coyotes and earthquakes, yet an intense examination of place that I’ve never seen done. And it’s completely shambolic. Nothing works. As a show, it’s constantly falling apart. Throughout though Mulaney really digs into the place in such a weird and wonderful way that I don’t think has ever been done before. Also, he turned an intro with John Stewart into a Danzig reference.
  2. Condensed Flesh #10 - The final DIY skate video of over a decade documenting the underbelly of skateboarding in Cleveland and rock and roll life in general there.
  3. Judas Priest’s seminal 1982 release “Screaming for Vengeance” which made me actually stop what I was doing and go skateboarding
  4. “Conan Must Go: Argentina” (HBO Max) - All four of these, and somehow there are only four episodes of Conan visiting callers to his podcast, are mint. This one in particular though is gold. So many cringe and awkwardness beyond limits. Yes, it does end with a wall mural in Buenos Aires of him with the Pope and Messi.
  5. The Mandalorian - It’s a good watch if you’re even half into Star Wars, and yet very much not Star Wars really. It’s basically a western, and it’s somehow okay for kids. Also Baby Yoda is so damn cute which is such an unexpected foil to the usual antihero journey thing.
  6. Accessibility is trending - I have no idea, but there is a lot of stuff out there on the internet right now saying that maybe, just maybe, we should give a shit for people who aren’t perfect like the tech industry thinks we need to be.
  7. Chocolate and Beer. Together.
  8. Tygers of Pan Tang - I was desperate for metal salvation. I think the request in Slack asked for twin flying V’s culminating in New Wave of British Heavy Metal that wasn’t Iron Maiden, whose catalogue I may have exhausted at the time. The reply in the ‘#topic-music-metal-etc’ channel says Tygers of Pan Tang which I never heard of and was not disappointed by.
  9. Boulder “Ravage and Savage” - “fusion of late 70’s rock bombast (i.e. Ted Nugent, UFO, Uriah Heep) and small town America angst-fueled metal with the volume cranked to 11” (Chairthrower) - You know when an album seriously saves your life? Or in particular ripping New Wave of British Heavy Metal homage via Northeast Ohio from about 2000? That. When you’re actually physically dizzy with the amount of bullshit in your life, yet two duelling flying Vs of solos calms you? That. When you think back to your youth of bands that were notorious for trying to be hated by doing things like playing the Imperial Death March for 45 minutes instead of any of their own songs. That.
  10. Werner Herzog in most things