JDO recorded this looking at a bunch of mountains. At one point he pretends to be afraid of a bug. Miike tells the story of a gay yakuza and a half-black/half-Japanese bartender/harmonica player. We can see traces of the madness that would come in Dead or Alive. This one is a slow, cozy gangster tale. Are all of Miike's films bangers? Can the man miss? Kelby and JDO investigate.

Watch Blues Harp for free on YouTube here.

On this episode, Kelby and I talk about the recent piece by Sam Pink, and how his whole style got lifted by the author of Fuccboi. We link that to Miike's 2002 masterpiece Agitator, in which low-level yakuza get caught up in the schemes of their bosses. We go over the movie in depth, discussing the pacing, the plot, and choices in depicting violence.

Is there a future for working-class writers? What does making art actually mean? Should it mean something at all? Why care about any of this?

Enjoy.

Read "FUCK, BOY!" by Sam Pink here.

Watch the full 200-minute cut of Agitator for free here.

On this episode, Kelby and I talk about 1999's Dead or Alive, a yakuza gangster revenge flick with bizarro side characters and an apocalyptic ending. We touch on covid whateverism, metaphor in film, how to get from point A to point B in an interesting way, and bringing yourself to a work of art. The show ends with a sort of manifesto on how a person is supposed to be in this world. It gets pretty heavy, and I'm proud of how it turned out. This is definitely the best AGITATOR episode, and maybe one of the best podcasts I've recorded.

On this episode, we chat about Mike Ma's Gothic Violence, Alt Lit 2.0, and Miike's best film, Ichi the Killer. JDO tries to reconstruct the movie from memory and we do a deep dive into how something can be so fucked up and so entertaining at the same time.

Kelby and I talk about Visitor Q, Miike's 2001 family drama/comedy. It's one of the most fucked up and unpleasant movies I've ever seen. It starts with an uncomfortably long sequence of incest, and the rest of the movie follows it up with rape, murder, necrophilia, and lots and lots of breast milk. I'm glad Kelby picked it, because it gives us an opportunity to talk about making fucked up art and why that might be important. We also vent a lot.

Oh, and another cool thing: Kelby recorded his end on a TASCAM, so there is a lovely background soundtrack of cicadas and passing cars. He's walking around his neighborhood near Houston. Great stuff.

Ben from AP stops by the show to talk about exercise, black metal, and finding your place in the world of creativity.

Apocalypse Party is seriously one of the best presses around right now. Check them out here.

Kelby Losack and I talk about our favorite filmmaker, Takashi Miike. Favorite/least favorite Miike movies, writing projects, and the balance between work ethic and childlike creative mind.

Kelby Losack reads the entirety of my novel Black Gum.

On this episode, Kris and I begin our discussion of the history of media and advertising’s control over the public consciousness.  We discuss the trajectory of modern news networks, test pattern curses, and the decentralization of journalism vs. tech company censorship.

Show Notes:

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

The monkey and the ant reference

Lowell Thomas

Curtis Yarvin’s “Cathedral”

“TV’s First Star - Felix the Cat”

Walter Cronkite

William Randolph Hearst

“Profiles in Journalistic Courage”

Studs Terkel

Nicholson Baker’s “Lab Leak” article

E-mail us with your thoughts at [email protected]

Kris on Twitter: @KrisSaknussemm

David on Twitter: @brbjdo

Leave us a review on iTunes

David’s novels are available here

Music/mixing by ous/li

Follow the official No Country feed here. This is where you can listen to the full episode!

On this episode, Kris and I round up our discussion on the five elements of human progress. This time, we focus mainly on social progress, with a focus on Prohibition, the tradeoffs of social reform, and the need to maintain our humanity.

Plus, we answer listener mail, responding to an extremely insightful comment from Philippa of Greenspace.

Show notes:

Robert Irwin

Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler

“LOST IN TIME AND OUT OF SEASON: GROWING UP IN 1960’S BERKELEY” by Kris Saknussemm

The Public Universal Friend

“Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beyond Culture by Edward T. Hall

Slavoj Žižek - Tell me a dirty joke about yourself and we will be friends

Chester A. Arthur

The Pendleton Act of 1883

The Riddle of the Sphinx

E-mail us with your thoughts at [email protected]

Kris on Twitter: @KrisSaknussemm

David on Twitter: @brbjdo

Leave us a review on iTunes

David’s novels are available here

Music/mixing by ous/li

Follow the official No Country feed here. This is where you can listen to the full episode!