February: The Drunkest Sounding Month

It’s February now. Yeehaw or whatever greeting it is you prefer.

Right up top - here’s a special shoutout to Producer Bobby for maybe the most thoughtful Christmas present ever received - Producer Bobby surprised me and Stella with homemade mead in incredible bespoke X-Treks bottles, specifically to be opened after we wrap this, our final season. It was thoughtful and loving and he deserves some praise, so go make him uncomfortable by giving him compliments and telling him what a good job he did.

ALSO here’s a special shoutout to Stella, for knocking it out of the park with the updates to the NYD Productions website! Go look at it, it’s so pretty, and is actually functional in that there is a lot of information there to provide your wondering brains about what exactly the hell is going on around here.

As always, we've also included things to watch out for in the upcoming month, and a look at what's happening on our Patreon (which you can join for ~as little as a dollar~) & Discord which is now open to all!

it's time for: the f e e l i n g s

STELLA:

LOL I HAVE SHINGLES. Did you know I was stressed? Also we had to put off IVF because of my dumb body doing dumb body things so now I just have a bunch of meds chilling in the podcast studio. Bodies are incredible. Incredibly annoying.

It’s been pretty cool watching our nation slip not* so slowly into fascism. Particularly scrolling on TikTok as it was actively shutting down. I deleted it completely after they licked Trump’s boots less than 24 hours after their “big statement”, but it was a fun/important historical marker in the ever changing world of social media so that’s something I guess. My favorite farewell tiktoks were the Titanic references. Now, I’m not making fun of people worried about losing the communities they created, I’m never going to be a SOCIAL MEDIA BAD person. Heck most of yall found us through social media so I will always maintain that it does good too! It was just sort of a remarkable thing to watch live.

My only reading goal this year is to read two books (not comics - BOOKS) I already own a month. Simple right? We’ll see. This month I read “This Will Be Fun” by EB Asher and “The Ride of Her Life” by Jennifer Dugan. One is a great read if you love cozy DNDesque fantasies like Legend and Lattes. The other is an extremely mid lesbian horse girl romance.

Speaking of books, Bookshop.org just announced they can sell ebooks now! One small step in dismantling Amazon's book monopoly.

I’ve really only been listening to and watching Critical Role- Bells Hells in an effort to catch up before I see them live in April (I’m on episode 45, lol so many more to go!) but when I’m not plugged into CR I’ve been listening to this Queer Country playlist. There is something comforting in consuming art that the right thinks belongs to them, but in reality they barely understand.

The world is overwhelmingly bad right now, but don’t let it lead you to despair. Small actions are still worthy, your mental health is important, happiness in the face of facism is a form of resistance. You got this. I got you.

*

ERIN:

Power listener John Craig FOUND THE AMADEUS MEME i talked about on last month’s Not Your Demo and it's actually a part of this incredible piece by Daniel Lavery from May 2020 about how Amadeus is really Kirk and Spock if Spock just absolutely fucking hated Kirk. It's so good and so funny and absolutely worth the three minutes you'll spend reading it.

Took my own future into my hands and 86ed my fallopian tubes. Goodbye and good riddance. I will simply never be pregnant again, end of. We live in a scary time, and when I told my doctor “I want something they can’t take from me” she listened. Now is the time to take your reproductive care seriously and advocate for what you need.

Video I’m obsessed with this month is this set on the Late Night Show with Johnny Carson with Andy Kaufman. He’s so incredibly talented and watching him makes my heart swell. The whole video is 15 minutes and worth the watch, but if you only watch part of it, watch from 11:06 and see him truly fuck up some bongos. He ripped comedy apart and did something no one else has ever done before or since. It seems fucked up in a way that I’m now older than he was. Anyway! Andy Kaufman rules and everyone should be into him.

If you've ever, as I'm sure you have, been like “man i really do not understand the David Hasselhoff being huge in Germany thing” well boy-o do i have the video for you. My kid got super into this like two years ago and literally the first time i watched it, i said, out loud to an infant, OH I TOTALLY GET IT NOW. It came up recently on a “forgotten favorites” on his algorithm and i knew immediately i had to spread this to your eyeballs.

Okay that's it. The End.

PRODUCER BOBBY:

That week was a month, that month was a year. A really smart person in my life signs off on things with “Feed Your Neighbors” (the only way I know anything is because I’ve surrounded myself with smart people) and I’ve put some time into finding ways to do that coming up. Physical or mental or donations can help when it feels like you can’t do anything.

On the NYD front we have the wheels rolling for X-Treks S4 and wowwwww some strong opinions on our upcoming episodes (from me as well)! I’ve also started working on a personal podcast project of mine that y’all might get to hear sometime soon maybewhoknows whocansaywheretheroadgoeswherethedayflowsonlytime.

Music:

Been revisiting some early aughts era punk/screamo/emo shit. No reason.

boysetsfire - After The Eulogy

Games:

As this will drop on the first of the month, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector will have been released the day before. The original is a favorite of mine; a dingy, cyberpunk/fungalpunk branching narrative visual novel with dice roll mechanics and musings on corporeal existence and data preservation. I’m really excited to see what this team has done with a larger scope and will be playing this most likely as you are reading these words.

Also, if you dig games like Hades or Bastion I’d recommend Windblown, an up to three player rouge-like action game with a really cute aesthetic and amazing soundtrack. It’s in early access currently, but very polished and a great “relax between screaming at Marvel Rivals” game.

TV:

I’m sorry if this doesn’t get to you in time but the Paramount+ Section 31 movie is so much more disappointing than even these crumbly-ass Popeyes wings. Not in a funny/snarky/cringe way but in a “don’t watch this if you’re already depressed and love Star Trek” way. Do not engage.

We wanted to include some resources to give money to organizations in LA helping people who have had their lives decimated by the fires. It’s incredibly fucked up that we have to crowdsource in order to provide people with what should be basic aid, but this is the hellscape we live in. We’re all we have.

• LA Food Bank is in massive need of funds to help the people displaced

• LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund: Getty-led coalition providing emergency relief for artists and arts workers

• Friends in Deed: nonprofit providing services for the unhoused, of which there are now many more

• Gofundme by Flava Flav (yes, for real, literally go check him out now if you haven't lately, he's amazing) specifically to help black families displaced by the fires

• Pasadena Humane is sheltering and caring for displaced animals, and they deeply need funds for supplies

Things coming this month:

• 2 X-Treks episodes this month on 2/14 (Who Greenlit This? - happy go fuck yourself day i guess) and 2/28 (Famous Person - lol haven’t we done like a lot of famous people already? whatever don’t worry about it)

• New Not Your Demo drops on 2/5

• Seriously, go check out our website, Erin loves looking at it.

• Will we still be on Instagram in the March newsletter? Only time will tell! Until then at @nydproductions you can get show announcements and hilarious clips in your feed, and in your stories just absolutely anything unhinged and even tangentially related to NYDProductions that Erin sees fit.

• Should we reignite that tumblr we used to have? Weigh in!

Exclusive to our Patreon (it's only a dollar!) and newly open for all Discord!

• Discord Book Club (it’s free!): It’s Producer Bobby’s pick! Next meetup is February 26 and you can find all the information about the book choice in our Discord.

• X-Treks xtras on the Patreon include:

  • Show notes - Our watch-along notes. Stella & Erin’s first reactions to the episodes as they watch them for the first time

  • Scripts - even if you have listened to the show, there is so much that goes into the script that we sometimes just skip right over! Find an easter egg!

  • Episode outtakes - is any of it intelligible?? Only you can say!

• And, of course, we’re having a delightful time in the Discord generally, come hang with us. Come with your meme game set to stun.

Snappy kicker.