e've come to the end of another year. Everyone alright? All fingers and toes accounted for? What have we lost? What have we gained? Have we learned anything new? Have we forgotten anything important?
And most importantly, here's to hoping that 2024 is a much better year for everyone. I don't have any major wisdom or witty gleanings to share. I just have a brief wrap-up of some entertainment offerings I enjoyed this year and would like to pass them along to you in case you might like them as well. BOOKS In the first category, let's take a look at some books I read this year that I greatly enjoyed. (They may not have been released this year, but I enjoyed them this year nonetheless.) Geddy Lee's autobiography, My Effin' Life/Mark Kelly, The Diary of Mad Jack Ged is a personal hero and has been since I was in high school. Rush is one of my two favorite bands. I enjoyed the hell out of his autobiography, and it was a great glimpse at a band that usually kept their personal lives out of the spotlight. On the other side of the musical autobiography coin, the keyboardist for my other favorite band, Marillion, wrote a memoir last year that I finally got around to reading this year. Highly enjoyable for fans of the band. If you’ve never heard of the band, you might find reading Kelly’s autobiography as something closer to Russian microwave instructions. Still, I loved it. Maggie Ginsberg's Still True Full disclosure, Maggie was a year behind me in the hallowed halls of Mount Horeb High School. Anytime a MoHo alum comes out swinging, I'm in their corner. STILL TRUE is a wonderful piece of lit fiction that breaks down the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell others, and the rifts that even the closest of people can have between them. CJ Box's Endangered I've been working my way through Box's catalog for the last couple of years. He writes the sort of book I enjoy, but I'm not overly compelled to plow through his work in the same way I am other authors in the genre. It's no knock against Box's style or abilities. It's just that other people get put to the front of the list, while poor Joe Pickett lies on the backburner waiting for me to come back to him. ENDANGERED was a pleasant surprise. It’s the fifteenth book in the fan-favorite Pickett series, and it’s one of Box’s strongest offerings. He created a truly unique and interesting villain in this one, and had it come too close to Pickett’s family to be anything but riveting. Jeanette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died Get this one on audiobook. A great tale of a narcissistic parent pushing a child into a life that child hated along with some really freaky details of long-term abuse. (For instance, McCurdy’s mother wiped her butt for her until she was in her late teens and performed breast and vaginal exams in the shower on her almost daily.) A tragic tale, but it ends hopefully and kudos to McCurdy for having the strength to write it. Alex Bledsoe's Give the People What They Want A fun collection of short stories from another MoHo guy, Alex Bledsoe. With stories from his popular Tufa series and Eddie LaCrosse series, as well as a new zombie novella, this is a fun audiobook collection. It's worth checking out. TELEVISION I watch too much TV. I think I even put that fact in my author bio. I have always been a TV fan, and I always will be. I’ve always hated the elitists who act like they’re better than television. “Oh, I never watch television!” they’ll say with dripping disdain. To me, that’s exactly the same as saying, “Oh, I don’t care about keeping up with American culture.” Television is what links us as a people. It’s weekly visits from friends for stories and laughs. The best things I’ve watched this year: Season 2 of Quantum Leap No sophomore slump for Quantum Leap. They’ve done some original things beyond what the first series did, and really kept it from getting stale. Highly enjoying what they’re doing with the reboot, and I can only hope Scott Bakula eventually makes an appearance (even though Bakula has said it’s unlikely). Mr. Monk’s Last Case I wrote about this a couple weeks back. It was a great final appearance for the great Adrian Monk. I enjoyed it greatly. Reservation Dogs I didn’t start watching the first two seasons of Rez Dogs until just before the third season aired, so I watched all three seasons of this in the span of about a month. I was kicking myself for putting it off so long. It was unique and charming. It wasn’t the hard comedy the commercials made it out to be, and often it was far more dramatic than comedic. Shows like RESERVATION DOGS, BARRY, and THE BEAR almost need a new genre in awards shows because they get called comedies because they’re 30 minutes long, but they’re not comedy. They’re far more of drama with the occasional funny moment. Rez Dogs makes great use of its young cast, all of whom I hope to see far more of in the future. In the third season, they really go hard on the idea of the community as a whole as a legacy. It was there in the distant past, and it will persevere into the future. It was delightful as a series and had a wholesome, poignant final episode. I’ll miss this show. Dark Winds Zahn McClarnon is a great character actor, and I’m happy to see him take a leading role in the mantle of Tony Hillerman’s great character, Joe Leaphorn. Add in Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee and some great setting and costume work, and Dark Winds is one of my current favorite shows. It’s extremely well done, and I’m looking forward to Season Three. I also greatly enjoyed THE LAST OF US, THE IRRATIONAL, and WILL TRENT. SHRINKING and POKER FACE were also good fun. FILM A small selection of the best movies I watched this year. THE WHALE Brendan Fraser is the real deal. Even though this came out in 2022, I didn’t watch it until March, so it’s a 2023 film to me. I spent a long time thinking about this one after it was over. HONOR AMONG THIEVES: A DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MOVIE Finally, someone did a D&D movie justice. Great fun. Gimme a sequel! COCAINE BEAR One of those stupid, fun, pointless movies that I enjoyed the hell out of. Some serious laughs in this one, but it’s not going to be something you ever watch twice. THE IRON CLAW Saw this in the theater the other day. It’s a nice change from the high-budget CGI-fests that movies are becoming. Simple costumes. Simple sets. Low budget. It’s a good story based around the tragic true story of the Von Erich family. If you’re not familiar with early ‘80’s wrestling, the Von Erichs were like the first family of professional wrestling. Five of the sons of golden age wrestler Fritz Von Erich were poised for greatness. but over the span of a decade, four of the five sons died in horrible ways which some called a family “curse.” (There was a sixth son who died when he was six.) I was pleasantly surprised by a strong performance from Zac Efron in this one, and the nostalgia for that era of wrestling was nice to revisit. Strongly recommend. GODZILLA MINUS ONE From Toho, the company that originally made Godzilla movies, came a really strong post-WWII story about the rebuilding of Japan and the PTSD that went along with some of the kamikaze pilots who survived the war…with Godzilla added in for good measure. Not to be missed. A really strong flick. AIR A really neat movie that flew under the radar about Nike’s successful acquisition of Michael Jordan’s endorsement for the Air Jordan sneakers. Strong cast. Strong performances. Neat story. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. MUSIC I don’t get into music like I did in college and post-college. I don’t have the time anymore, but here’s a few things I really enjoyed: MARILLION - AN HOUR BEFORE IT’S DARK (Live in Port Zelande 2023) A live album that contains the entirety of Marillion’s brilliant 2022 record “An Hour Before Its Dark.” Marillion is my favorite band, hands down, and it’s a crime they’re not more popular. AHBID is one of their strongest albums in almost 40 years of music, and the live version is brilliant. Steve Hogarth, the lead singer, notoriously does NOTHING to keep his singing voice in good shape. He just comes out and it works every time. Knock on wood. If anything, his voice has gotten better over the years because it’s gotten just a tiny bit ragged and more expressive. LORDS OF THE TRIDENT – Live at the Annex in Madison, Wis. Going out to concerts with my buddies Scot and Matt used to be my favorite thing. We saw a lot of great bands in the ‘90s. Now, I hardly ever get out to a show, but when the Madisonian masters of metal mischief put on their Patreon-backer concert a few weeks ago, I managed to get out and see them. Lords of the Trident should be a lot more popular than they are. They’re talented. They’re funny. They don’t take themselves seriously. And they’re keeping the good kind of 1980’s metal alive. Check out their 2022 album, “The Offering.” Great record. They’ve got a new EP coming out with a song on it called “John Milwaukee.” They recorded the chorus of that song live at the Annex, so if you listen closely, you’ll be able to hear me. (Probably not, I was one of about 100-120 voices, but still—I’m on it.) NEWSKI – FRIEND ROCK Milwaukee dork rock troubadour Brett Newski released a new record called “Friend Rock” earlier this year. He recorded each track with another musician of some renown adding to the track. For instance, he wrote the song “Chemicals” and recorded it with Matthew Caws from Nada Surf. Really fun record, and it’s got two bonafide hit tracks (if only American radio wasn’t so corporate…). Highly recommend anything Newski does. He has a song called MIND AT LARGE on his “Land Sea Air Garage” album that I want as the theme song for any potential Abe & Duff series. If you listen to it, you’ll understand the vibe I hear in my head when I write Abe & Duff. KARMIC JUGGERNAUT Just discovered this progressive rock outfit recently. They sound like King Crimson with Yes’s Jon Anderson at the lead vocals. Wild stuff. I recommend checking them out on YouTube. Great musicianship and fun, psychedelic prog songs. PODCASTS My podcast list hasn’t undergone much change in the last year. Still listening to SPOOKED on Fridays, especially now that they’ve gone weekly. Still the best-produced paranormal story podcast in the game. Really enjoy Dan Cummins’s work on both TIMESUCK and SCARED TO DEATH every week. Derek Hayes is killing it with his MONSTERS AMONG US podcast. And every week I enjoy hearing CONAN O’BRIEN NEEDS A FRIEND. Heck, the radio in my car hardly ever deviates from Conan O’Brien radio on Sirius XM lately. Also enjoying LORE and CABINET OF CURIOUSITIES from Aaron Mahnke. I also started listening to OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA this year. Really enjoying everything that podcast has to offer, as well. That about wraps up the pop culture I’ve been imbibing. I didn’t really do anything fun this year. It was all work, mainly. Getting the teenager to graduate from high school and start her first year at UW-Platteville has been my biggest success. Putting Bought The Farm into the world was a close second (even though sales don’t reflect my joy for it). I’m hoping to release two books in 2024, but we’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned for details. I’m looking forward to attending BoucherCon this coming year. And I’m now a member of the Mystery Writers of America, so that’s exciting. But this year has been pretty lackluster overall. Here's to hoping for better things in 2024. Thank you so much for your support. It means the world to me. All the best, --S |
About the AuthorSean Patrick Little is a writer, speaker, editor, educator, and general literary dude from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Click the pictures below to purchase books!
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