SI audio podcast #3: Andy Beckerman remembers the wild kindness of David Berman

photo: the host + the guest, sometime in 2004 or 2005.

I dusted off the microphones to record the first Serious Introspection audio podcast in over two years. Sadly, the occasion was the passing of David Berman, poet and musician, whose death has affected me immensely. I called up Andy, a comedy writer and proper podcaster based in Los Angeles, to talk about Berman's work and what he meant to us and to so many others.

Even if you weren't a Silver Jews fan, you might enjoy our conversation. We talk about public mourning, avatars of America, the America that never existed, Otherness and art, irony and honesty, Judaism, propagating values through culture, support systems, kindness, empathy for the MAGA, and the quality of light on the West coast. Notes and links relating to our discussion appear below. 

Andy Beckerman / Beginnings podcast / Couples Therapy podcast

• David Cloud Berman (January 4, 1967 - August 7, 2019)
• Tom Scharpling's tweet
• Andy's Incesticide t-shirt
• Charles Gocher, Jr. (1952 - 2007)
• Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser
• BBS's
• Drag City's 1998 website
• Joe Frank (1938 - 2018)
• Bookforum's Berman memoriam
• Self-Portrait at 28
• Kant's Thing-in-itself
• Berman's Menthol Mountains blog
• After The Future (note: all posts appear to have been deleted)
• And The Others
• Charles Bowden (1945 - 2014)
• The New Yorker's Berman memoriam ('it is a weather system’)
• Dual 1229 turntable (note: not the 1270 as I incorrectly stated)
• Redd Kross