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This week’s installment comes from improv comedian, actor, podcaster and musician Tawny Newsome. In addition to a role in an upcoming episode of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot, Newsome has two stellar projects on the horizon: the hotly anticipated Space Force, premiering May 29 on Netflix, and the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks.
I’m an avid outdoors person. I think I follow almost every national park social account within driving range of Los Angeles; I use them for inspiration and camping and hiking ideas. My friend, who’s another hiker, sent Subpar Parks to me. I think her quote was “I know how much you love the outdoors, but I also know how much you love reading negative reviews.” (It’s true: I can get lost in the weeds of a Tripadvisor forum where people are arguing over business-class train rides from Munich to Paris.) Subpar Parks marries the two. My favorite post is the one for Big Bend: “It Rained on Me in the Friggin’ Desert.”
It’s technically a double album of greatest hits, but it flows beautifully and is perfect for making a weird iced tea and having company over on a Saturday afternoon. You can discuss it if people haven’t heard it before, but everyone knows at least one Minnie Riperton song, so you’ll get to talking about that late-1960s, early-1970s era of music that I love. It’s not so obtrusive that it jumps over conversation, but you’re not just sitting back listening to instrumental bossa nova or something; it’s more hip than that. And the whole thing feels a little psychedelic, a little tripped out, maybe some druggy euphemisms happening—which I’m all about.
Ben Schwartz: If you aren’t already laughing at a performance of Ben’s, you haven’t been watching TV closely enough. Diana Silvers has a dry wit and weird vibe that I very much enjoy; we had so much fun doing our scenes together. Jimmy O. Yang is hilarious, but any Silicon Valley fan could tell you that. John Malkovich is an absolutely delightful maniac, as funny as he is profound—and he knows more about K-pop than any of us. Lisa Kudrow is the GOAT. Her show The Comeback changed how I looked at the type of TV I wanted to do. Don Lake, Canadian treasure, is soon to be American royalty. And finally, the king, our hip, sweet dad, the funniest man in the room with nothing to prove: Steve Carell. (And by “our” I think I mean everyone’s. We all want Steve to be our dad.)
First of all, Halt & Catch Fire is only four seasons. I thought it got cut off too soon, but it turns out four seasons is a nice amount during these COVID-19 times. And it’s almost a perfect show. It’s a four-hander, and the main actors kind of trade the number-one spot season to season. It takes place in the early days of Silicon Valley and computer programming, which I find so fascinating—what those early tech companies used to look like and how start-up culture started. I love a 1980s, early 1990s period piece.
This book messed me up, in a good way. Tara Westover basically grew up in an off-grid, anti-government, separatist Mormon family. I also grew up rural, and I still live in a rural place. It’s interesting how many things about that type of lifestyle appeal to someone like me—a little bit of a hippie who just wants to live naturally and have a little more space to roam. But then there’s this family that’s actually doing it because “the government is spying on us and medicine is from the devil.” It’s weird to see how our interests almost align in some places. I had to ask myself, What do I really like about this?