The Legend of the Great Sigourney Weaver

My latest Badlands episode was pitched to me with a helluva challenge. My editor Zeth came to me and said, “We want to do an episode about Sigourney Weaver,” which made me raise an eyebrow. As far as I was aware, Sigourney Weaver wasn’t really someone with a reputation for sex, drugs, and other lurid activity, ya know? I feel like she’s a pretty wholesome person.

But Zeth had an idea. There was – as I learned — apparently a really fucked up murder case that got into all kinds of slippery complications in the legal system. And the killer — who, to be clear, definitely did it — apparently had a serious mental break that involved worshiping Sigourney Weaver as a goddess.

So that would be my “in” to the story. Tell the story of Sigourney Weaver’s life, through the veil of this horrifying crime.

I always do a lot of research for these podcasts. But this is the only time I found myself looking up old court transcripts and appeals. Badlands is a stylized show, and I wanted to honor that pulpy aesthetic without glamorizing the horror and trauma at the center of it. I wanted to approach it with empathy and truth, inasmuch as I could in this situation.

I think I did a pretty damn good job, if I do say so myself.

DISGRACELAND: Sigourney Weaver

Thom Dunn / Double Elvis Productions

My new BADLANDS episode on Diego Maradona is out now!

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m not much of a sports guy — but that doesn’t stop me from writing a helluva’n anti-imperialist crime yarn! And that’s exactly what I did for my latest Badlands episode, which focuses on the football legend Diego Maradona.

Diego Maradona was busted for drugs, prostitution, and shooting an air rifle at reporters. He was also associated with one of the biggest and oldest organized crime families in Italy. Despite all of this, Diego Maradona somehow still showed up the next day and played a great game of soccer. He even turned a soccer match into a weapon during a centuries-long war between England and Argentina. Diego Maradona was more than one of the greatest of all time on the pitch – he was also one of the most infamous.

You can check it out below, or wherever you listen to your podcasts:

DISGRACELAND: Diego Maradona

Thom Dunn / Double Elvis Productions

Exploring the lurid life of Armie Hammer on BADLANDS

My script for the Season 5 premiere of the Badlands podcast could not be more opposite from the script I wrote for the Season 4 finale. Okay well maybe that’s not entirely true — they both involved a lot of sensitivity and careful wording. In the case of Robin Williams, that was because of the tragedy surrounding his suicide. In the case of Armie Hammer, that was, uhhh, because of ongoing legal matters and some really dark sexual fetishes that I don’t want to kink-shame but also went to some pretty disturbing places.

So, ya know. Tread lightly and all. But in very, very different ways.

Here’s the synopsis for the Badlands Season 5 premiere, written by me, titled “Armie Hammer: Dirty Texts, Bloodthirsty Fetishes, and a Cannibal Kink”

With his chiseled jawline and matinee idol good looks, Armie Hammer could have been another leading man like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But Armie Hammer was not most movie stars. He wasn't even most people. On the surface, his life was perfectly curated and appeared picture-perfect, with no major public scandals or dirt-digging by the press. But his increasingly bizarre appearances in interviews and on social media, not to mention leaked videos and texts, led to shocking revelations about what was really going on behind closed doors. And what was going on was more wild than the untamed dreams of a Hollywood screenwriter.

You can listen to the episode below, or wherever you get your podcasts:

Disgraceland: Armie Hammer

Thom Dunn / Double Elvis Productions

Listen to the new Roland High Life song, "Old Atlantic!

My indie rock band The Roland High Life is finally playing shows again! And so to celebrate, we put out a new song. Well sort of.

We’re calling this a “remix” even though the non-remixed version of the song hasn’t actually been released yet. That’s because I record this version by myself, with the intention of releasing it as a single under the name “The Quentin Choir.” Then, the Roland High Life started practicing again, and “Old Atlantic” began taking a new life with the full band sound. But I was still really happy with this solo version I’d recorded. So, with the band’s permission, we decided to put it out to help promote our upcoming shows.

The real fun story behind this song is that it came to me almost complete formed. I was driving back to Boston from Ithaca at some point, listening to a live bootleg from Frank Turner’s 2019 Lost Evenings festival, which took place in Boston, and which I attended with Jake and Chris from my band. Just as I crested the curve of the Mass Pike and saw the Boston skyline in through the distant sunset, the Frank Turner song “If Ever I Stray” came on. It’s already a song about home and friendship and, well, water — “If ever I stray from the path I follow, take me down to the English Channel, throw me in where the water is shallow, and then drag me on back to shore.” And suddenly, the chorus of “Old Atlantic” just struck me. I think “This is gonna be my Boston version of ‘If Ever I Stray.’” I pulled over and recorded a voice memo, then finished the song as soon as I got home.

The bonus irony here being that the final version of the song has a weirdly Everclear vibe to it, sounding nothing like Frank Turner at all despite being written as a deliberate homage. Ah well!

You can “Old Atlantic” on any ol’ streaming platform. So check it out!

My new BADLANDS podcast about Robins Williams is now out everywhere!

I’ve been doing some freelance writing work lately for Double Elvis Productions, the company behind the popular true crime music podcast Disgraceland (which also just aired its 100th episode). The first of my scripts to go live is the ✨season finale✨ to the latest season of Badlands: Hollywoodland, which goes deep on the dark side of Robin Williams’ life, leading up to this tragically complicated death.

I’m really, really effing proud of the work I did on this one. It’s obviously a sensitive subject, and one that really affected me personally on a lot of levels, and I think I did a damn good job of handling it with care, without losing the delight and humanity of the story. Also, it was just a cool experience scripting within an established episode format, with a pre-existing structure and stuff.

You can check out the episode below, or on whatever podcast platform you prefer:

…Also did I mention that, right after my episode premiered, we shot to #1 (!!) on the Apple Podcast History charts?! I GOT A #1 HIT, BABY! (in the same sort of technicality way like how I sort-of kind-of have a Tony Award, but still)

Disgraceland: Robin Williams

Thom Dunn / Double Elvis Productions

This month's gigs: July 22 at Exhibit A Brewing

Come catch the Roland High Life on Friday, July 22 at Exhibit A Brewing in Framingham, MA. It’s an outdoor show, and we’re on early at 7pm — so there’s really no excuse not to come out and rock out, right? We’ll even have merch!

But even if you can’t make it, we’ve got some stuff coming in August and September, too. See ya at the show!

We're back, baby! Come see the Roland High Life LIVE!

That’s right — my indie rock band the Roland High Life, which has mostly been a studio-only project for the last long while, is finally doing live shows again!

Our first show back is later this month at the Jungle in Union Square Somerville:

We even got some fancy new merchandise to show off too!

See ya there!

Hear me talk for 3+ hours on CEREBRO about Irishness, DILFs, and Mutant Superheroes

Connor Goldsmith's CEREBRO podcast — "where a homo and his friends dive deep into the history of Homo Superior," also known as the X-Men — has been one of my favorite podcasts over the last two years. And I'm not alone: Ezra Klein is a fan, and Entertainment Weekly even named it one of the 10 best podcasts of 2021. I've shared a few episodes here as well, including Spencer Ackerman's wonderful exploration of the radical politics and Jewishness of Magneto.

I had the privilege of speaking to Connor for an episode focused on the X-Men's token Irishman, Sean Cassidy AKA Banshee. A three-hour deep dive into mutants and Irishness is basically what I was born to do, and I had a wonderful time doing it (which I hope comes through in the episode!).

In addition to being an absolute Himbo DILF, Banshee is also the long-time paramour of Moira MacTaggert, who was recently revealed to be the most important character in the Marvel Universe — a complicated but fascinating retcon that we got into on the episode, which recasts their relationship in an intriguing new light. We also talk about the difference between Irish and Irish-Americans, and breakdown some of the stereotypes that have plagued the character, including the IRA and Banshee's cop past, as well as his castle full of leprechauns who were the first to reveal Wolverine's real name. And of course, no discussion of Banshee is complete without bringing up his cousin, Black Tom, whose long-standing relationship with Juggernaut hasn't been canonically acknowledged as gay on-page, but like, c'mon, the subtext is even less sub than Juggernaut himself.

You can hear for yourself on your preferred podcast network.

Announcing "Forfocséic, Vol. 2 — Whiskey & Work"

After the success of last year’s pandemic-produced Irish folk album Forfocséic, Vol. 1, I decided to follow it up with — well, more of the same, I guess. Except this time, the production is even richer, and I stuck to a more coherent theme that’s resonant throughout Irish cultural history: whiskey, and workers’ rights.

And so, I present Forfocséic, Vol. 2 — Whiskey & Work, now available everywhere you stream or download music!

Once again, I had some help from some remote friends (including the fantastic fiddle work of the inimitable Jacqui Cheng). Continuing in the tradition of Irish song mashups, I made a wild medley of “The Rare Aul’ Mountain Dew” and “The Hills of Connemara,” which are both about poitín (basically Irish Moonshine / illicit white whiskey) and both kind of follow the same form anyway.

The other fun thing I did this time (aside from the arrangements, which I’m just generally very proud of) is to twist one of the songs here and make it my own. In addition to the conspicuous Red Sox references in “The Leaving of Liverpool,” I also wrote and added a new verse to “Muirsheen Durkin,” turning it from a more generic immigrant song to one specifically about my own family. Not to give too many spoilers away, but the last verse you hear is indeed something that actually happened to an ancestor of mine, after coming to America from the West of Ireland during the Great Hunger.

Anyway — I hope you enjoy it, and I can’t wait to actually (maybe?) do some live St. Paddy’s Day shows next year (finally!).

Finally, someone has paid me money to write about monks and beer!

My latest piece for the Weather Channel involves two of my favorite things: sustainability, and beer!

Specifically, it’s about a Trappist Monastery in Belgium that has instituted a cool new way to clean their beer tanks using phytoremediation, or plant-based fining. This is not only an environmentally-friendly method of beer production, but it’s also a scalable project that can ultimately help the monastery to produce more microgreens, legumes, and other human-edible food products, making the entire beer production process that much better for people, and the planet.

I also spoke with some other religious leaders about the role of God in environmental stewardship. While the popular narrative tends to show climate-denying Evangelical Christians, there are in fact many devout Christians whose faith actually calls them to actively protect God’s planet from the greed of mankind. And that’s a really powerful message that the world could use right now.

The word of the week is "Float-o-voltaics" →

In my latest piece for the Weather Channel, I spoke with the folks at the Anglo-American Mining Company in Chile, who have created one of the first major commercial floatovoltaic energy systems on one of their mining tailing ponds. What this essentially means is that they’ve floated a bunch of arrays of solar panels onto the semi-toxic water residue from their mine. The water actually helps to make the solar panels more efficient, and the solar panels help to re-purpose the otherwise-wasted space from the mine tailing pond.

It’s actually some pretty fascinating, forward-thinking science, and I’m really glad to have learned about it. Maybe you’ll be into it, too!

Recording Roland High Life album #3, Part 1

We started working on the new Roland High Life album this weekend, carrying on the tradition we established from last October. This time, we got together outside of Newport, Rhode Island — and for the first time, we actually had an active, functioning bass player there to contribute to the songwriting process! Jake WM had played one show with the Roland High Life back in the day as a fill-in, and it was probably the best show we ever played; we had wanted him to play on “Another Other Dorset,” but he had some family stuff that come up. We couldn’t have been happier to finally officially welcome him into the band.

We got another 5 songs done this time, and I think that covers it for our existing back catalog of tunes we wrote between the bands’ active eras. That means it’s a good diversity of tunes, but we’re also looking forward to writing with the future in the mind — starting from who we are now, as individuals and a band, and working together to crank out the best stuff for who and where we are in our lives.

I’ll share some samples of the songs we did as soon as I have them!

We out here #newalbum #newmusic #recording #homerecording #homerecordingstudio #diy #punkrock #indierock

🎶 Chris and I cased the neighborhood We found out that everybody sleeps in the middle of the night 🎶 (#timelapse of #drummer @n_correia laying down #drums for @therolandhighlife's #newalbum) #newmusic #punkrock #indierock #recording #homerecording #homerecordingstudio #recordingstudio

A lil' #behindthescenes #music from @therolandhighlife's recent #recording session. #newmusic #indierock #rockandroll