Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend (Podcast)

I started listening to this podcast at the start of quarantine last year, and I have been hooked since! Conan O’Brien, in my opinion, is the best talk show host out there, as he possesses the ability to joke about himself and genuinely laugh, a quality that is seldom considered among talk show hosts.  Essentially, this podcast is an interview between Conan and a celebrity guest (my favorite episodes are those with Keegan Michael-Key, John Mulaney, and Deon Cole), with the occasional interjection from Conan’s assistant, Sona Movsesian, and producer Matt Gourley. Each conversation is so easy to listen to and is guaranteed to make you laugh!

“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel

Noted by Billy Joel (in an interview with Stephen Colbert) as his favorite song that he has written, this is one of my new favorite tunes.  The song starts off as a somber ballad, outlining specific details within a special Italian restaurant, and then it progresses into an upbeat, feel-good tune that just tells a story! It’s seven minutes, but it’s all worth it! Plus, it’s Billy Joel, so does length even matter?

Monk (2002-2009)

I stumbled upon Monk while channel surfing on a lazy Saturday. I spotted Tony Shalhoub, an actor I knew from the hilarious 90s comedy Wings, and that’s when I was hooked. I continuously watch with intrigue as San Francisco’s favorite obsessive-compulsive homicide ‘consultant,’ Adrian Monk, solves homicides with superintelligence and Sherlock Holmes-like skills of observation and deduction.  Each episode brings an incredibly cryptic mystery which is fun to solve along the way, but not without laughing at some strange jokes and spotting celebrity cameos in nearly every episode. Whether it be Kevin Nealon playing a patient in a mental hospital, Angela Kinsey playing a woman lying through her teeth, or Willie Nelson playing, well, himself, there’s always so much to look forward to with this uniquely bingeable series!

Spaghetti Western Soundtracks

No, this isn’t a podcast or some sort of show; it’s exactly what it says it is! As of recently, I have gained an obsession with listening to the music from 1960s spaghetti westerns, primarily focusing on the collaborations between iconic Italian director Sergio Leone and musical genius Ennio Morricone, two of the biggest names in cinema! Iconic ballads and observationally accurate compositions dominate this film genre that defined a generation, with such incredible tracks from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, For A Fistful of Dollars, and Once Upon a Time in the West. 

Two tunes I would recommend are “The Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and “Dopo la Condanna” (translates to “The Verdict”) from The Big Gundown. Both are incredibly unique, as “The Ecstasy of Gold” draws the listener in by starting off with a soft baseline and gradually constructing excitement and courage. On the other hand, “Dopo la Condanna” opens with Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on the piano, but quickly switches gears to accommodate a guitar lick; an unexpected, but not unwanted addition!

Speed (1994)

This movie. THIS MOVIE. I have declined phone calls and “hang-outs” with friends because I was actively rewatching this movie. I have left parties and celebrations early to go home and REWATCH. THIS. MOVIE. I consider Speed to be the best-worst action movie of all-time, as it possesses this insane (but not unlikely) concept of a police officer, obviously played by the phenomenal Keanu Reeves, who is personally targeted by a presumed-dead bomber, played by the forever-Marlon Brando-worshipping photojournalist, Dennis Hopper, when a bomb is fastened to the bottom of a city bus. The bus cannot go under 50 mph, so you can only imagine the *intensity* and *nail-biting action* existing throughout, especially when it is revealed that there are (apparently)էք no completed highways or subway tracks existing in L.A. Oh, and just to make it even more high-stakes, someone threw a romance in the middle of it all! I guess they’ll never learn that relationships based on intense experiences never work out. Their loss.