ATT #1: Parenting w Succession, Radiohead as history, and how I Think You Should Leave is a love language
Introducing ALL THE THINGS - a weekly record of things I've made, recommendations, and as always, dumb thoughts
I want to write here more. Open the faucet of expression so that each new post doesn’t feel like me going up the attic and dusting off the ol’ typewriter again, but more of something I know I do on a regular basis.
And also I want to share more easily the stuff I am making with people who are not on Twitter 24/7. I believe there are 6 or 7 such people left in the world - I dedicate this to them.
Important caveat: I wrote most of this newsletter in the beginning of January, so it has some of my OLDER STUFF which may be temporally old but culturally still quite relevant.
Things I’ve made:
Parenting with Succession - Like the rest of the western world, we are obsessed with Succession. Here’s a video of me parenting my baby the same way Logan Roy parents his kids.
Switched At Birth - I worked way too long on this trailer for a fake movie where me and my baby son switch bodies. My favorite response to the video thus far was someone sending a listing of the psychologists in Los Angeles.

Zillow Wrapped - This went mega viral, by which I mean those instagram accounts like ThirtyAF and FuckJerry reached out asking if they could post it. As a result I gained about 25 followers on Instagram. A huge W for all involved.
Recommendations:
Listening to:
“History is Over” - Throughline - This is my favorite episode that this pod has ever done. It’s about how Radiohead predicted our present in the year 2000 when creating the weird, super not commercial albums Kid A and Amnesiac after their breakthru hit OK Computer. Some moments I specifically loved:
Liquid Modernity - The concept by polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman that says technology is moving faster than culture and so we are stuck in a permanent present that tries and fails to catch up with the technology within it.
Thom Yorke writes lyrics by putting lines into a hat and picking them out at random. Raaandom!
What to do from here - I love the hope at the end of this quote from Yorke about how we have begun to turn a corner inside our algorithmic lives by naming the thing itself: "The moment where we're at this particular fulcrum right now, where dread and division has become an economically useful algorithm, whatever you want to call it, like a - we've developed this new form of interacting with each other, which is a form of sickness…And now, it finally is being talked about. And so as soon as it's named, its power will rescind, you know, because that's what happens. If you want to take something's power away, you have to name it.”
Noam Chomsky on Talk Easy - Listening to Chomsky both makes me feel hopeful and terrified about the future of the world which is a nice combo when compared to most stuff that just makes me feel terrible.
Reading:
“I Think You Should Leave” Is a Love Language (New Yorker) - If you’ve talked to me in the last two years, you know I am obsessed with this show. This article does a great job of naming the way I feel about it, how communicating using lines from the sketches has become a language for me, a way of connecting deeply with people. Note that the love language is not always reciprocated - I say lines to my wife Lauren all the time and usually she laughs or goes ‘uh huh’ which is FINE.
Also loved how the author Rachel Syme describes Tim Robinson’s comedy as musical: “Robinson’s comedy gets stuck in your head, like pop hooks, because he makes a strange kind of music with language, bending it with his own idiosyncratic phrasing and goofy alliteration.”
Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott 1 - A simple book about prayer. I didn’t think of myself as the praying type until I read this - Lamott makes you see how prayer doesn’t need to be to “God” but more to that something which is bigger than you. The first of the three prayers is “Help” - you use it when you need help, which for me is basically all the time. We all often talk about how we need to give up control, but in order to do so it seems you need something else to take its place. And maybe that something is prayer. Prayer to say ‘hey, I can’t control this, can you help lol?” Acknowledging that lack of control is more than enough for me to believe this is worthwhile.
“The Cultural Supremacy of Pizza” (Good Ones) - Ever wonder why pizza is the first and only food that people eat in tv and film? Me neither! This deep dive is hilarious and fascinating and was inspired by this tweet from comedian Cullen Crawford:
My Dumb Thoughts
Having a baby is like going on a diet for your whole life - its sucks in the moment but everyone tells you it’ll be worth it in the end.
Parents are like hype men for their kids, except its about the most boring shit: “He’s only seven months and can already use a spoon on his own. USE A SPOON ON HIS OWN!”
All of my jokes and videos and everything is about my baby. This is…not good. Note to self: start making stuff about literally anything else.
Remember when the coronavirus was novel? Good times.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas jk its warm as hell and no one is allowed to gather so yea not xmas.
A bold artistic choice to send this without updating the little bits at the end, even if they are about Xmas.
Bookshop link above seems to be in back order so if you have trouble, here’s the Amazon link too.