As I’ve mentioned before, I like to watch my stories and/listen to audio books while I’m in the sweatshop, toiling away. One of my secret indulgence is putting on one those tawdry made-for-tv Lifetime movies, a habit I developed back in my college days when I used to watch them while trying to crank out painting assignments for classes. In those days my brother and I had lived together in a very hip and happening part of Greenwich Village so there would always be a stream of people coming in and out of our place so until my parents very kindly bought me a little TV set for my room, I hadn’t been able to watch movies like “When No One Would Tell” starring Fred Savage and DJ from Full House and “Face of Evil” starring a very blonde Tracy Gold, without interruptions. Imagine my joy to find such gems on YouTube now, pretty much doing the same sort of work as I did back then, but now I could watch these movies in peace. Naturally, with the amount of time I put in at the work table, I pretty much exhausted the entire library saved on my YouTube watch list in a few short months’ time and was low key freaking out about how to keep my sanity in tact whilst painting.
Thankfully, my illustrator friends came to the rescue and recommended some podcasts they thought I would be interested in and I am addicted. My favorite by far is My Favorite Murder, featuring two gals discussing murders with a comedic overtone. Listening to them have gotten me through some seriously harsh hours at my work table and, in my spare moments, I cranked out these two lovely ladies, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark.
If you’re familiar with this popular podcast, you’ll recognize Elvis the cat and his cookie as well as a nod to Karen’s vocal styling at the beginning of every show. Just for fun, each doll is filled with various murder-y weapons including little bottles of poison.
As much as I enjoyed listening to them discussing a variety of murders, the subject matter does tend to get a bit intense, so I would switch on over to “The Baby-Sitters Club Club” podcast featuring two young men in their 30s talking about the seminal classic pre-teen books penned by Ann M. Martin. That particular podcast is not something I can listen to while painting detailed stuff because I’d be too busy doubling over laughing.