COMING SOON: Harsh Wilderness
A starved fire, losing life.
Forgotten stars.
Whistling wind.
The buzz of insects.
Eight years ago, I met actress Lauren Olipra in improv 201 at UCB. We went beer tasting, attended an Oscar Shorts festival and then drifted off into our separate San Fernando Valley-set sitcoms/tragedies, each birthing our own podcasts (Lauren cohosts The Award Goes to…, a rundown of every Best Picture winner).
Last year, thanks to a Christmas miracle (read: the promise of mulled wine and gingerbread cookies), we reunited on Movies with Friends to discuss the Finnish horror film, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.
A couple months ago, Lauren hired me to write a scene for her and her friend Liesl Hlista to use for their acting reels. My only direction: throw a straitlaced lady and the town Madam around a campfire, Old West style.
After weeks of wandering in the desert within my own mind, Harsh Wilderness was born:
Unfairly exiled from her home and marriage, Verna must find common ground with Beatrice, the woman she hates, to survive the Harsh Wilderness of the Old West.
Then Producer Lauren and Producer Liesel took over, putting together The Magnificent SevenSix. Rounding out the crew:
Fellow beer taster and filmmaker Ashley Maria (Pioneers in Skirts) came onboard to direct.
Rodolphe Portier (Ladies of the Lake) was tasked as the cinematographer and quiche chef.
Fire wrangler, storyboarder and editor Johnny Turco (American Dad!) did everything else.
I came to hold a boom mic and play “Kites Are Fun” on repeat:
They smartly cast Joshua Tree as the titular harsh wilderness, and after mediocre coffee in Studio City, we set off in our wagons for a weekend shoot full of Spindrift, quinoa, quiche and friendship. We made a thing and nobody died of cholera!
The film is now in the harshest wilderness of all: the edit bay. In the meantime, refer to Instagram for more behind the scenes shenanigans.
Sweet Valley Diaries Book #68: The Love Bet
Earlier this month, I returned to the vaunted halls of Sweet Valley High to discuss Francine Pascal’s soapy, suntanned teen drama odyssey of the 80s and 90s at the behest of friend, writer and filmmaker Marissa Flaxbart (The Mirror Game), who has taken it upon herself to be the Internet’s Keeper of these lost treasures.
Here is the resulting podcast. We may have missed an opportunity to reference the Baha Men, but I dare say Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn would be proud anyway.
High school juniors Dana Larson and Aaron Dallas have sworn off of love forever. To address this crisis, Elizabeth and Todd concoct a scheme as disappointingly chaste as it is poorly conceptualized, then take sides on a bet over whether it will work. Meanwhile, Jessica and Lila agree to be roadies for a new band in town, sight unseen. Just another week in Sweet Valley, CA! Andy Greene (Gossip Guys, The Naked Man, Wanderings) joins Marissa to unpack it all.
If you’re craving further canards, there’s always Extra Drama when it comes to SVH:
Andy Greene is back and we're talking bands, band battles, battles with band instruments, and bad band boys.
I also reveal my trauma around (not) playing the recorder at school.
Wanderings is Accepting Tips!
(And no, Dad, “get a real job” isn’t the tip I’m looking for.)
Podcast Recommendation Round-Up!
Blessed with a new VO job, I’ve been commuting into Hollywood the past couple of weeks. For someone who’s created two podcasts and guested on perhaps a dozen others, I don’t actually get a chance to listen to them, so I’ve been catching up on shows that I’ve been recommended over the past year by graphic designer and artist, Christopher Miles.
THIRD EYE DROPS: Writing Reality Into Existence with James McRae
In a wide-ranging discussion of creativity, imagination and consciousness between writers Michael Phillip and James McRae, I was particularly inspired by their ideas around the very concept of knowledge: that we are all born with access to the source of knowledge, and our lives are spent unlocking it, simply remembering something that was already there.
EMBODIMENT MATTERS: On Mycelium, Compost and Animate Sensibilities with Sophie Strand
I’m not sure I’ve heard a more inspiring and intelligent speaker than Sophie Strand. A survivor of sexual trauma who lives with a disability, she comes at every single concept with a different vantage point than I do, overflowing with wisdom. It’s almost as if she speaks only in hyper-researched personal essays — and in a way, that’s true, because she so knows herself. Hosts Carl Rabke and Erin Geesaman Rabke are obviously gifted podcasters/humans, but I got the sense that even they were in awe (drink every time they say “Beautiful.”)
If you’ve been wondering after the masculine, the feminine, mushrooms, ableism, Big Tech and climate change, Sophie Strand scatters seeds into your mind begging to be watered, or indeed, composts some seeds you once had but had long forgotten.
TEN LAWS WITH EAST FOREST: Creative Bliss with Tiffany Shlain
In 2020 after watching Social Dilemma, I wanted to give up all social media forever. Instead, I doubled down on it in an effort to expand my network, reconnect with people and utilize it as an outlet for my work and surely take over the world. Lately, I’ve been questioning how much time and effort I put into it (and what I get out of it), and have taken some time off to reassess. I don’t have conclusions yet, but this podcast hit me in the right moment because it reminded me of many routines and desires that I had abandoned, like journaling every morning outside without my phone. Learning that Tiffany and her family spend one day a week without screens every Friday inspired Lili and I to make Wednesday a tech-free evening, with aims at continued experimentation and expansion.
FILTER STORIES: A History of Coffee
The history of coffee as we know it is the history of the modern world. As such, it’s enormously depressing. It is a tale that starts in Ethiopia, lands in Yemen, then spreads across the globe to the Caribbean, Central America and Vietnam, featuring Mankind’s greatest hits: colonialism, slavery, industrialization, war and capitalism.
This oh-so-accessible six-part history of a psychoactive bean from James Harper and Jonathan Morris (Coffee: A Global History) encapsulates all of the biggest events of the past 500 years, from the Civil War to the invention of the TV. Coffee and the commodities that we desire, need, are inextricable from world events.
The notion that coffee should be cheap and affordable is an ideal that far precedes the American Dream, but has since taken root there. In the 1700s when the entire world’s supply of coffee came from Yemen, it cost $13 per pound. Today, coffee costs $1.76 per pound. Perhaps that seems like a victory. But that victory comes with a heavy cost paid by those exploited to accomplish the feat: farmers and the environment.
LIFE EXAMINED: Why Good Listening Matters…
After a weekend marked with a bit too much conflict with the spouse, I returned to this podcast that Chris Miles had first shared with me to give it a second listen. We as a society expend a lot of oxygen TALKING and teaching how to speak, but we don’t teach how to listen. And hey, what’s the root cause of conflict? Not listening.
And why do we find ourselves arguing with the people we love the most?one might hypothesize that the more you know someone, the better you communicate, but it’s often the opposite. Enter: the closeness-communication bias. The more I know someone, the more I can shortcut — I know where this is going, I’ve been here before, I know how this person talks, etc.
Listening involves a great deal, but my favorite definition: listening is being willing to change your mind. Host Jonathan Bastian speaks with two listening experts and uncovers the four villains to good listening:
the dramatic listener [the “Yeah, well, what about MY STORY” person]
the interrupting listener [the obsessed with time and efficiency person who guesses what the speaker is going to say next]
the lost listener [the distracted person — phone, shiny objects, their own mind, etc.]
the shrewd listener [the person who thinks they’re ahead of the other person and rushes to fixing the problem]
(I tend to fall under #2 and #4.)
If anyone out there is listening to this, I’d add this, or any of these, to your list o’ shows to stick in your ears.
More Bite-Sized Reviews!
EMPIRE STAR (1966): “The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.” For my birthday, writer friend and Ballads of the Distant Reaches editor/co-maestro Robert Frankel gave me a 2-in-1 book with stories by Samuel R. Delany, collecting Empire Star and Babel-17. Because Empire Star was way shorter, I read that first. It’s unlike any novella I’ve read— the complexity of its fourth wall breaking narrative mirrors the growth of the protagonist, someone who begins as an uneducated “simplex” backwater boy and becomes a galactic “multiplex” traveler tasked with sending a message he doesn’t even know or understand. It might be backwards from a gender perspective (and others), but it’s a story about the multiple layers of understanding and intelligences. It’s a story about asking questions, the only way to learn.
GREASE (1978): Last week, after a lifetime of playing Muse for us all, Olivia Newton-John returned to Xanadu. To celebrate her life and Ascension, my partner and I ventured back to Grease, a movie that had shamefully drifted from my memory banks. I certainly didn’t remember that this much weirder than you think film opens with an animated title sequence. Don’t worry, the film still slays, and that’s really all I wanted to say. But fine: in addition to a perfect soundtrack (paired with perfect choreography), this musical accurately depicts the toxicity of male/societal peer pressure that I have both been subject to and perpetrated. Not great.
Postcards
Feat. David Youngblood:
Feat. Aaron Davitian:
Next Time on Wanderings: I finally grapple with what happened to the Missouri Waltz in the playoffs and get ready for another season.