Zigs Picks: Nick Cave, Red Letter Media, John Mulaney, Vladimir Nabokov
another new column type thing
Zigs Picks will be my weekly (or bi-weekly; again, I’m not gonna totally commit to anything regular) roundup blog where I write about stuff that I’m watching/reading/doing and enjoying — that’s right, NO complaints!!! This first post will be free, and the rest paid because I do have a few paid subscribers now and I feel inclined to give them their money’s worth.
I did not do much last week, and by the time I went out on Thursday night I realized I had not actually physically been outside since Sunday. My excuses were that it was cold, I had nowhere to go, I didn’t want to spend any money (if you forgot, I’m unemployed), and I’m committed to my full-time job of applying to jobs. It’s fine, though.
Wild God Tour w/ St. Vincent
This past Thursday, I got to see Nick Cave perform live for the second time and the first concert I’ve attended since August 20231. I do not go to concerts anymore, which is mainly because I do not like going to concerts. Sacrilege to a lot of people, I know, but it’s just how I feel. I spent hours of my adolescent life in dark auditoriums or trudging through sweltering blacktop to thrash about to a lot of music I hated because I was trying really hard to fit in with my emo friends (in secret, I was still enjoying Taylor Swift). I have been to, and forgotten, so many concerts, and I found that as I grew up, I increasingly didn’t get what I really wanted out of them — because I’m very pedantic and fussy. This was fully captured when I saw Glass Animals in 2017 with a crowd committed to swaying noncommittally along with songs that demanded to be grooved to, and this concert was probably the most crucial turning point in my waning desire to see live music.
That’s the thing I hate about concerts in my old age, ironically: no one’s ever dancing to the extent that I want everyone to be. I fucking hate standing around, or even sitting in a seat. I want to MOVE!!!2 But when it came to the shows I was attending, it’s always people standing around, nodding their heads, swaying. We are PEOPLE not TREES!!!3 I like music just fine, but also not enough to feel like concerts are generally a good way to spend my money, especially if I can’t dance — and sorry, it’s no fun being the only one doing it!!!
Anyway, my friend won a pair of Nick Cave tickets in a raffle last week, and knowing I’d been eyeing this show for a while, knowing I was an enthusiastic Cave head, he was kind enough to offer his second ticket to me. It was a truly fantastic show, and much better than the first tour I saw him on: the Carnage tour in 2022, with just him and his platonic lifemate Warren Ellis at the King’s Theater in Flatbush. A fine album, but very sleepy and somber, a seated show with lots of horrible swaying and careful nodding. This new tour was not the Carnage tour — this was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Wild God tour. So, BANGERS were on the setlist in addition to the somber sleepy songs. Tupelo, O, Children, Red Right Hand, Mercy Seat, Papa Don’t Leave You, Henry; JUBILEE STREET!!! It was a mostly seated, arena performance at the Barclay’s Center —my first time, obviously — which was less than ideal, although certainly all the Gen X-ers double-fisting beers were happy to stand in the aisles and do their little undulations.
In a perfect world, I would be gyrating to Jubilee Street and Red Right Hand like a demon exorcising from my body, but beggars can’t be choosers. It was enough just to see him live and doing the classics. Because despite how positively spry this 67-year-old man is, despite the fact that midway through the show he rips off his tie and unbuttons his shirt a good 50% of the way down, in his autumn age it’s hard to know when he’ll feel it’s time to retire from performing for good.
I should add, St. Vincent was his opener(!), who was also just sublime. I’m very in and out with St. Vincent — I mostly just repeat a handful of her catchiest tracks. But she puts on very nearly as good of a show as Nick Cave. Terrific stage presence, unreal voice, incredible band, banger after banger after banger. She performed Los Ageless from Masseduction, which is my favorite song and album of hers. Another artist I would love to have been DANCING to!
Red Letter Media
A few times a year, I check in on what videos I’ve missed out on from Red Letter Media — the boys, the fellas. If you are not already acquainted, Red Letter Media is a fantastic YouTube channel comprised of a group of regular, middle-aged nerds and filmmakers who live in Wisconsin and talk about movies and other various pop culture content. I was very into them in college and, embarrassingly, watching their videos at the time is what led me to my ultimate path towards film journalism. Nowadays, I just pop in on them every now and then and find a wealth of new content to put on while I crochet or do a crossword puzzle.
Sometimes I think they act too much like crotchety old men — such as in their hatred of movie theaters, even though I did finally watch their deep-dive into theatrical decline in which they offered potential paths forward — but I generally enjoy their insights. A lot of their content is meant to just be funny and casual: they film hour+ videos where they watch old bad action movies and talk about them, which I don’t watch because old bad action movies bore me; or videos where they watch weird infomercials that seem to have emerged from another dimension, which I do watch because those videos are usually the funniest. But they genuinely have a lot of thoughtful commentary on both modern and older film and media, and I’ve gotten a lot of really great recommendations from them over the years as well!4
Everybody’s Live w/ John Mulaney
I can say with a clear conscience that I never turned on John Mulaney when everyone became insane about him divorcing the wife he used as stand-up material. I really don’t know why that all happened and thankfully I’ve wiped most of that period from my memory. But I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s because everyone hated that Olivia Munn is “hot” and Annamarie Tendler is “normal,” even though it’s not like John Mulaney left his wife for a younger woman — Olivia Munn is older than him! Age-gap autumn!
Anyway, I earnestly love John Mulaney. I love his sense of humor, I love his stage presence, I love his mannerisms, I love the way he performs and delivers jokes. 90% of what comes out of his mouth is funny to me just by virtue of him saying it; maybe my most basic-bitch millennial trait is my love for John Mulaney. So, naturally, Everybody’s Live is — next to The Righteous Gemstones and The Valley — probably the television show I anticipate the most each week. Aside from the eclectic guests, commitment to booking distinct musical acts, mere presence of Richard Kind (another performer whose every word is hilarious to me), and dedication to an elaborate, multi-episode bit in which men from heights 5-foot to 7-foot are to be arranged in a perfect diagonal line to showcase every inch of height, I’m very charmed by Mulaney’s love of niche pop culture reference. Sure, let’s do a bit about Butterball from Hellraiser working for Doordash; sure, bring the Dumpster Monster from Mulholland Drive (played again by the original actor, Bonnie Aarons!) in as an audience guest. It’s honestly better when the joke flops and no one laughs, because not only will Mulaney just keep doing them anyway, you just know he kind of loves it when his audience is puzzled by what he’s doing.
It does seem like at least part of Mulaney’s goal with Everybody’s Live is to bemuse; especially the suits at Netflix who were, reportedly, concerned with what Mulaney was planning to do with his show. I’m a huge proponent of artists doing whatever they want and taking money from studios in the process, and Mulaney has the benefit of being a mostly beloved pop culture figure even if he brings Waingro from Heat on stage and is met with confused, hesitant murmurs. Ultimately, you just never know what’s going to happen during an episode of Everybody’s Live, and that’s what adds to the anticipation every week. There’s a loose outline and things to expect, but Mulaney and his writers keep viewers on their toes. Just the sheer amount of guests he brings on (typically three or four, all together), creates a space for any kind of conversation to happen on top of the unpredictable audience interactive aspect, and the fact that Mulaney enjoys fucking with the late night show formula. In the last episode, Mulaney described his show as “like a fake talk show you’d see in a movie, like the one in The Joker,” which I think is accurate, although I’d say it’s more like Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Vladimir Nabokov et al.
For the past month or so I’ve been reading Lolita, which I got for Christmas along with Nabokov’s Pale Fire. I’m finding Lolita to be a pretty hilarious read — Humbert Humbert is such an absurdist character I fail to see how anyone could overlook the irony and sarcasm of the story and consume it plainly at face value, but many people are also stupid. As an aside, in general I’ve realized that when it comes to fiction I prefer to read novels pre-21st century. My books of choice tend to be older fiction or contemporary non-fiction. I’m not even a literature snob, I just don’t really give a fuck about contemporary fiction? There is no real justification I can offer, I’m just not interested. Call me ignorant and incurious, that’s fine. I don’t really care. I’m similar when it comes to music, because I only really listen to classic rock and modern pop queens and don’t care about anything else in between that. I’m sure there are many fine modern novels with names like “The Small Things We Held When We Were Young” and, of course, “The Darkest Wife.” I think I’m just more interested in exploring classic literature that I once neglected because I hated reading when I was younger, and tended to Spark Notes much of the more rigorous novels we were assigned in high school. Also, it’s just kind of gratifying to read a novel that’s challenging!
Lolita isn’t a challenging novel per se, and maybe I’m just exposing myself as an idiot slop-brained mongrel. The prose is gorgeous, and every sentence Nabokov writes is like no other arrangement of words I’ve read before. But sometimes when I’m reading I actually wish I was back in school, being assigned a packet of comprehension questions so I could better engage with the text. Because of the very elaborate, I’ll call it “tricksy” way that Nabokov writes (lots of word play), sometimes I think aspects of the story are going over my head. I would genuinely welcome a weekly handout of critical thinking questions that forces me to interrogate what I just digested, so I can ensure I’m following along at every step. I suppose that’s what a book club is for, but the issue with me and book clubs is I am such a slow and procrastinatey reader I fear I would fall behind the group. Still, perhaps a future plan for when I get to Pale Fire, which was recommended to me by Brian and explained as “not a normal book”(?).
John Cale FOR FREE in Prospect Park! Very cool!
Ok sorry I guess this is still a bunch of complaints lol
To that end, I must note that the best show I have been to in years — in I don’t even know how long before that because I can’t remember the last time I had had a fun time at a show — was Tim Heidecker at the Music Hall of Williamsburg almost three years ago exactly. Lively, energetic crowd, lots of jumping and moving and dancing. He was great, a consummate showman. What a blast! Thank you Tim!
Recently, Brian and I enjoyed Strange Darling and The Coffee Table off of RLM recs
Pale Fire is my favorite novel ever, I hope you love it
Feel the aversion to 21st century literature deeply. I also don't have a real reason other than I think prose used to be prettier and more interesting and modern publishing seems SEO-oriented more than genuinely artful? IDK! But what I do know is Lolita rules.