September 13 2026 Issue

If you had to give a 10-minute TED Talk with no preparation, what topic would you pick?

I am an insane person and when I get into something I go way too far with it. For instance, I love Godzilla but not like a normal person loves Godzilla, like I know all about the toys, the production of all the movies, which suit actors played which kaiju for which movies during which eras. I know why the man responsible for one of the greatest Godzilla scores this side of Akira Ifukube only made two Godzilla scores and which trilogy of gothic horror he also scored for Toho in and around that same time. I know this because it is not enough to know everything about Godzilla, I need to know everything around it. This leads down rabbit hole after maddening rabbit hole until you're lying awake at night running through facts and trying to hold them all in your brain, grabbing books from your bookshelf and re-reading parts. It also means driving 8 hours away to shake the hand of a guy who was in the rubber suit of your favorite character. Then you have to get him to sign your obscure press book from a release of a movie most people never heard of. A movie that you have hyper focused on for years and need signed because they made this thing and aside from knowing too much about it, I just need to stand in the vicinity of the person that did the thing.

Similarly, I collect comics and again it is not enough to know I love Doctor Strange and why the Ditko run is of biblical level importance, like fucking gospel level, life changing, holy shit importance. Enjoying it is not enough though, I also need to know what else Steve Ditko worked on and what was he like as a human and what was his relationship like with other humans in his life. I needed to know what he believed, not unlike when I needed to know everything about Eiji Tsuburaya because the guy worked on the greatest special effects driven giant monster sci-fi movies there ever was or will be. If that does not merit researching him, finding out he was raised a Buddhist but converted to Catholicism or what was the impact of the 1933 King Kong film on him then I don't know what does.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with metal, especially the 80's thrash metal but when the burgeoning death metal scene erupted it stole all my attention for quite some time. I needed to know everything. I needed to not only know Fred Estby was the drummer of Dismember, the best or second best death metal band from Sweden depending on your vantage point at that time, but that he was also a producer and engineer. I needed to be able to rattle off those production credits just like I needed to know every lineup change Napalm Death made. Just like I needed to know which records each member appeared on and how that subsequently changed the sound of the band. Just like I needed to know what those members did after they left the band. Now take this mindset and add toy collecting, vinyl collecting, weightlifting, boxing or film makers. I mean fuck I could probably give you an unscripted hour right now as I sit here in my pajamas about David Lynch, his life, his films and his art. I can do that because I am a psycho who has tried to absorb every fucking note there ever was written about the guy because, well for fucks sake he made Eraserhead I do not need to explain that further, that is why.

So to close out this otherwise incoherent rabble of words, sentences and paragraphs I would give a Ted Talk on being an extremely obsessive person who often annoys people close to him with his insanity and inability to casually enjoy anything. It would be the subject I possibly know the most about.