This Week: It was 3:00 AM and I had finished editing the mixing the show and I kept listening to parts of it over and over again. Not something I’ve done in the last 10 years, I usually wrap up and get the hell to bed, the kids will be up at 5:30, but this show is truly in many ways the best work I’ve ever done. The interview has everything, Dana Bassett, Emily Heath, Jessie Malmed, and Caroline Picard (who along with her charming and kind husband Devin hosted the gourmet taco dinner our interview obstructed) all participate in the interview in moments. It is a chaotic mess, but largely through the, frankly, extremely impressive brilliance of Christian Kuras we manage to do a solid job of talking about their 10 year long collaboration. This interview does justice to their collaboration and at the same time really shows the best parts of the collective collaboration all of the aforementioned people have had with Duncan MacKenzie. This interview comes dangerously close to being a Duncan MacKenzie Roast but through the focus of Mr. Kuras we always manage to skirt the precipice.
I am proud of the work I have done over the last 10 years of Bad at Sports and particularly proud of this show. While you don’t get to listen to the raw tape, and A/B the subtle editing, the excising of the truly off topic, side conversation and HOLY SHIT loud chewing of chips and salsa, if I had to produce what I thought to be the example of my craft at it’s best, it would be this episode.
Not to be so self involved here, the real heroes of the hour are the team of Duncan MacKenzie and Christian Kuras. I doubt anyone in our audience appreciates it truly, but I do, Duncan MacKenzie has, in many ways, done this project at the expense of his own practice. When I see a show like this, where the two of them have made an amazing book “Diagrams” (Green Lantern Press) and a great show in their exhibition Everything is Still Really Interesting, the sacrifice he has made is more than a little heartbreaking. Time is the biggest monster of all and I want a world where he can work with Christian full time and still produce the show. Regardless, time strain aside, the still bring it and put everything on the table, they are super human, they killed here. This is a great show and you should check it out. Sure, like many partners, like many siblings, Duncan and I have not always gotten along, sure there were a few years in there where we hardly communicated, but more often than not we worked together with a synergy and chemistry that I count myself lucky to have had with anyone in a creative endeavor, at the end of the day, at the end of my primary involvement the project Duncan MacKenzie is family, he is my brother, and I am proud of him.
Go see their show, go buy some art, buy the book and enjoy this episode, I did my best work here.
Richard Holland
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