Welcome…
Moms and dads! People without kids! Dog owners! Bartenders! Gardeners! Honorary aunts and uncles!
Hey Pop is a new project about the intersection of family life, work, and creativity. It includes a podcast in which I talk with some of the most fascinating and unusual parents in the world—musicians, writers, athletes, painters, chefs, and so on.
There are written posts too, by me and a wonderful cast of contributors, as well as some bonus audio pieces (anecdotes, jokes, poems, recipes).
While I originally conceived of Hey Pop as a project about fatherhood, it’s really about parenthood and family in general. Not every guest and contributor will be a dad, and not everyone will have kids. I’m interested in those personal, intimate, human stories that instruct and delight.
Many of the posts will be for paying subscribers, but I’ll publish things for free readers too. If you’re able to take out a paid subscription—which is the only source of funding here—I’d be deeply grateful. And then you’d have access to the whole damn thing.
If you know someone who might enjoy conversations about the highs and lows of parenting, please let them know that we’re here.
Who am I?
I’m a dad of two kids, a boy and girl, Virgil and Amaro, ages 8 and 6. During the height of the pandemic, we moved from Oakland, California, to the town of Beacon in New York’s Hudson Valley. My wife, Kim Gooden, is a writer and editor who produces this brilliant Substack on motherhood and creativity. That might give you the impression that we’re obsessed with parenting, the sorts who can’t stop talking about it, since we each have projects focused on the topic. But the truth is, we’re just waiting for the stroke of 5 o’clock so we can stir up a couple Gibsons and sit out back, pretending we have no responsibilities and an exciting night ahead. Fast forward to 9:30, and we’re asleep.
For my main gig, I work at Substack with a bunch of the top writers on the platform across a handful of culture categories. I also own a bar and bookstore in Oakland, previously ran a magazine focused on literature and rock & roll, wrote a book on how our financial world became such a mess, spent several years producing radio shows and documentaries at the National Endowment for the Arts, taught middle school, and I co-edit a college literature textbook. Most importantly, I’m an assistant coach for my son’s baseball team, trying to maintain the illusion that I know what I’m doing.
The art for Hey Pop was drawn by my kids and designed by my pal Casey Burns.
Original music for the podcast is by Brandon Herring and his sons, Elliott and Nicholas, ages 14 and 11.
