Month: March 2021

Sometimes, you get to chat with someone who was a big creative influence on you and the way you think about things, and you have to just go back to the rest of your day afterwards, and pretend that this didn’t mean as much to you as it very clearly does.

I’m not sure if I’m any closer to whatever it was that I was looking for when I began this quest. But I can say that some part of me is going to be processing this for a little while.

It’s our off week, so we have a… bonus episode? Where we are announcing our ZOOM Watch Party happening next Saturday, and where you can there the two different appearances we made on WAYO Radio.

Please, enjoy this unexpected audio treat, and get ready for the ZOOM Watch Party we’re hosting next Saturday!

Enjoy the show!

https://20minutesintothefuture.org/2021/03/28/zoom-party-announcement-and-wayo-promo-broadcasts/

On 24 March, 2021, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Martin Newell, legendary home-taper, a big figure in the Cassette Trading Network in the ’80’s, and The Greatest Living Englishman, with a staggering amount of poetry and published, literary work, in addition to his Weekly Podcast, the Oddcaste.

Martin is the driving force behind The Cleaners From Venus, but his solo albums are just as inventive and whimsical, attracting the likes of Andy Partridge to work on producing for him.

capturedtracks.com has reissued Martin’s solo albums, and a new edition of “The Off White Album” hit stores YESTERDAY.

In this conversation, my friend Heather and I discuss this reissue, the impending documentary about his life, and plenty of other bits and bobs throughout the half-hour.

This is actually a 30 minute edit of an 80 minute conversation, that will come out on 20minutesintothefuture.org this summer. But for now, you can enjoy this version, where you get to watch Martin Go-Go Dance for the camera, as well as get pumped while you wait for your copy of “The Off White Album” to land on your doorstep.

It was a really honor to speak with Martin, and he is as wonderful as his albums and songs. As a tease, you can hear a sample of one song from an album that has not yet been released yet, at the end of this video. So stay tuned! The album is coming out this summer… but you can hear this sample, NOW!

I finally got some boxes, to sort / store my mail. This is not everything; I know I have at least one or two boxes of letters from the rest of my life stored elsewhere. But this is relatively recent correspondence, largely stuff that was inspired by the last year of isolation, and or the last few years of mail orders.

Previously, everything was shoved in a box, without being labeled or anything. At least this way I can find the right person when I’m looking for their letters / mail. I will probably need another box very soon, and this particular brand of box is probably better suited for non-paper storage. But it’s a start.

What’s interesting about participating in mail and mail art: the people you hope will write back often don’t. But people you didn’t anticipate start interacting with you more than you ever imagined would. And, with the time delay and intimacy of letters, it is often a bit of an exercise to pick up where you left off, and track the story over time.

I don’t get as much mail as I’d like. But it certainly is entertaining me, in the here and now.

And, we are Live & Direct on Network 23! You can hear our first episode, where we outline what our viewing order is, what our history with the show has been, and iron our the plan for our brand new show.

If you heard previews, this is different. And, if you aren’t already, please subscribe to the show! Leave a favorable review, and help keep the show going!

Let us know what you think, and in the meantime: enjoy!

https://20minutesintothefuture.org/2021/03/21/01-we-can-title-em-too-our-pilot/

There’s a lot going on today, but if you aren’t doing anything this evening, I will be a guest on UB Radio Salon with @dasalaubuibi & @ubpixie tonight, starting at 6 PM PST.

You can tune in and hear it all on DFM.nu, where I will be performing UBSR for listeners. (User Binaural Sensory Radio.)

Listen as Vic Sputnik talks their way through fixing the engine of the Starcloud, then consider while Detective Dexter Roland meets with a new client for the first time. It’s pulp fiction UBSR, and you get to reap the results.

This will be a headphone show: “quiet experiments” for two hours.

We hope that you will be kind enough to join us.

I hadn’t seen these since our first break-in a while back, and I was a little worried that they might have gotten lost in the craziness of the move and the holiday season at the time. (We were moving around the Christmas season, and were at our new house Christmas Day while our old house was being robbed.) Anyway, these apparently went into a box that went unlabeled, and was then buried among other items that both Marla and I were surprised too see when we were cleaning our garage.

I was always into Halloween, even as a kid, so in Jr. High I made these in my arts and crafts class. I was never really that good at art growing up, and since I wasn’t given a lot of opportunity to write creatively in school, or make radio at school for that matter, it never occurred to me that I was creative, either. Regardless, these were important enough to me to keep. For the longest time I kept pins and buttons in the pumpkin, next to my bed, before I was married.

The green character is named Tweak, who appeared in a story I wrote in High School, based on the imaginary adventures Tweak and I had when I was younger. Tweak was an imaginary friend, sort of: he floated around using psychic powers, and was a vegetarian creature from a magical island in the Aegean Sea, full of all sorts of strange creatures, sort of a more pastoral version of Monster Island, from the Godzilla films. Tweak is discolored here; I never really got him painted right, and sort of gave up. His skin should be more lizard like, his horns should be more brown and should look like they are growing out of the skin.

I’m still not a very good visual artist, but for some reason, I’m pretty proud of these.

This part of the studio / office was looking like a disaster, so I finally took the initiative to put it all in order. This required organizing the bookshelf, which I had been dreading.

One of my first real jobs was working in a bookstore; first, in my mom’s used shop, and then later, at B. Dalton. Before that, it had all be food service janitorial work, and as a kid interested in music and art and books, I was miserable in all those shitty jobs. I would cry myself to sleep, covered in grease and hamburger smell. But bookstores allowed me to put on a bow tie, and talk to people about Brautigan and Douglas Adams.

I loved working in bookstores. I was the nerdy comic book collector in my group of friends, and bookstores had comics, so I was into it. I did my best to do my best at that job.

I worked for B. Dalton / Barnes & Noble for 10 years. I was positive I would retire from that company. I worked my ass off, became the manager for the music department. I poured my entire paycheck into books and booze and was proud of that job. I was sure I had found my place in the world.

A corporate manager was hired on one day, and took over managing the Barnes & Noble I worked at. She was one of the most difficult managers I’ve ever encountered. She found something wrong with everyone, except those who agreed with her and her alone. She systematically fired all the long-term staff, who were eligible for benefits and long vacations. Then she increased the turnover to the point where, within six months, almost no one I knew still worked there. I was one of the first people fired, for showing up early one day to make sure the returns in my department were finished promptly. (I’ve never understood her logic, either.)

The moral of the story is: you shouldn’t have goals or dreams, because corporate America will eventually fuck you over once in a big way, if it means that they can fuck over many more people who will come after you to take your place.

After that, I decided to go to college to pursue writing and radio. Not that my degree ended up being worth anything either, but at least it was a nice distraction from being fired.

And at least I still have the books.

We registered a phone number for our podcast. 20 Minutes Into The Future: A Max Headroom Podcast. If you have memories of Max that you want to share on our program, you can give us a call and leave a message. As the show rolls out, you can leave your responses to new episodes via the phone. This is your chance to be a part of the show: Audience Participation!

1 (585) 678-1211

You can also e-mail us, if you prefer text interactions. Just contact our producer, and they will forward the message to us:

mitchheadroom@gmail.com.

Sunday is just around the corner. I’m stoked. For anyone in the test audience, or for those who received the March Postcard, you’ll be happy to hear that Episode One has been re-edited, and is longer and has more jokes in it. So even if you think you’ve heard it before… we’ve made some fun changes.

Thanks again for all the advance interest. Don’t forget to call with your memories of Max from over the years.

See you… 20 Minutes Into The Future!

I’m not on the Socs as much as I used to be, as I’m largely working on this project these days (among other fun things not ready to announce). But forget all of that stuff:

This new show launches this Sunday. Our second episode corresponds with the 36th Anniversary of the first broadcast of the original “Max Headroom” telefilm. We will be announcing a viewing party via zoom very soon. After that, we’ll have a new episode every two weeks. And, we hope, you will be joining us.

The premise is very simple: my friend Wendella Mermelstein has never seen Max Headroom, and sort of remembers the coke commercials from the 80’s. I am a big fan, and have seen most of it a few times each. Together, we watch Max (in a variety of forms), and talk about it afterward.

Humorously, since we all live online now anyway, and TV rules our lives, and the police are finally as scary in real life as depicted on the show, our current lives are strangely parallel to the world of Network 23 and The Fringes. And, with all the ’80’s retro nostalgia and VHS aesthetic that vaporware is predicated on, Max is probably more relevant now than it ever was.

We discuss all of this, and the potential for what a Max Headroom sitcom would look like, and so much more, on our new show.

We’ve worked very hard on this, and I’m excited to get your reactions. So click “enjoy” on the page, which will be the main FB presence for the program.

Get ready to live 20 MInutes Into The Future.

Beginning Sunday, at 23:00 GMT. (19:00 EST or 16:00 PST.)

facebook.com/MaxHeadroomPodcast/

It is always a pleasure to become one of the UB Monkeys with @dasalaubuibi, @ubpixie, and @univac_iphoneography for UB Radio Salon on DFM Radio. It will get re-run on Thursday morning, so tune in to hear the madness, and there will be more AV coming soon.

Until then, enjoy the photos.

One year ago this weekend: the last time I went out in public without fully internalizing that the pandemic was worse than I thought. All my shifts had been canceled, so I went to this show at The Space, where @xpartxtimexstraightedgex was playing a show to commemorate a tape I mixed for their band. Then I had Olsen Twins rehearsal that Sunday. Re-reading my blog and journal from then, even though I had read the news, and should have know how serious it was, I was still a week away from fully being conscious of how bad it was. We locked down pretty quickly. I started wearing a mask, reluctantly at first, within another couple weeks.

Re-reading my thoughts from then are so eerie, as I’m still locked down, I’m still canceling plans , and I’m still lost, confused, and a little lonely as a result.

I miss you.

Finally got the CD shelf in the left, and assembled it. Finally motivated me to get the CDs in order.

There’s a couple boxes of CDs not on these shelfs, left over from the 90’s, that are out in the garage. But I probably need to get another shelf like the one in the left to hold everything.

The small box in the last photo are the 3” collection.

I could probably spend the next several years listening to these and have a good time doing it.

I bought one of these portfolio folders from the @artdepartmentsupply and put my fave old show fliers in it.

I attended / performed in all of these shows, except the X flier, which I got from an ex many years ago, who has since passed away.

I have twice as many that still need a home, but these are the important ones. At least they won’t rot away in a box somewhere, not being seen or stored well.

Looking at these makes me miss being in Cathead more than I have in years. And it made me miss a period in PDX where Cheryl and I would go to shows several days a week.

And another era, before that, when Sierra and I would go to shows all the time in Eugene.

And even further back, when I wanted more than anything to see live music, and play in bands, because holy shit, these albums are amazing.

Music is the best, and I wish I could put up fliers again.

I fuckin’ miss all of you.

I’ve been very lucky, and have received a few excellent books in the mail lately, which I’m very much looking forward to reviewing.

“This Could Be The Cover” is a book where it is mailed around to different artists, and they each fill a page before mailing it to someone else. (I got it from Hal McGee, and I desperately need to fill a page and send it along.)

“White Screen” was published by my mail-art pen-pal, John M. Bennett, in 1976, one year after I was born!

Formaldehydra’s new CD / Zine is perfect for trying to get work done in the afternoon.

“Medicine For A Nightmare” is a beautiful book / zine that contains art written / drawn / photographed during the pandemic.

Amazing stuff, and I’m very excited to have a change to get stuff like this!

Thanks friends!

I went to check out the #SalemSnailMailArtSwap at The @artdepartmentsupply today, and it was really excellent! It’s so cool to see an art show like that in Salem, and I couldn’t wait to check it out. Plus, I hadn’t been in since a lot of the new changes have been made, so it was worth the trip. The store looks great, and I picked up a new portfolio so I can hold my old show fliers. I already need another one.

Anyway, not only is the show incredible, and the other entries are very, very cool, I was stoked to see that my entry was prominently on display! How very cool! I don’t think I can do the show justice here, only to say that I was really excited to see so many other people who are local, and also participate in mail art! I am humbled to be included in such an excellent show.

Has anyone named the snail yet? Because it is amazing.

The other artists did incredible work, so you should check it out the next time you’re downtown. I’m looking forward to hearing about the other excellent events that they will put on this year!

Thanks again!

I’m spending less time looking at IG & FB. But I miss you terribly, and I want to keep in touch.

I will write to you. I will send you musical postcards. I will tell you all I can.

But: through the mail. Please?

Message me your address. Let’s keep in touch.

Send your address to: austinrich@gmail.com

I miss you.