Max and Coco have a plan to take over the world with country and western themed creative writing. This is their adventure.
Max Sparber and Courtney Mault
Visiting a showcase for oddities and curiosities; a 1989 cult film based on HG Wells; a new direction
A discussion of a cult music scene that developed parallel to the swing revival but far outlived it; also, Fast Company, a 70s racing movie by David Cronenberg.
The pleasure of — and increasing absence of — tacky Americana
Absolute Bleeding Edge returns with a new episode about The Wicker Man and the process of preparing to exit lockdown.
Baby Boy Monaghan and Coco win their first international screenplay contest; they also acquire a piano.
The COVID spike, a relentless ratatatat, and an old ventriloquist dummy.
Baby Boy Monaghan celebrates a half-done project and the end (sort of) of a very troubling election
Baby Boy Monaghan and Coco discuss memoirs and Baby Boy gets an idea for home decoration from Pee-wee Herman
Baby Boy Monaghan buys increasingly bizarre books and records.
A new name, a sick president, and a new project. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge editor Bunny Sparber starts a new project: a book about the stranger creative output of artists from Minneapolis and St. Paul. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge editor Bunny Sparber starts a weight-loss program, starts digging through old zines on Archive.org, and discusses the increasing absence of little cultural secrets.
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber is bedeviled by construction noises and discusses how the pandemic may be affecting people's activism. Subscribe here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber discusses the epochal shifts that seem to happen on a daily basis, buys new clothes for lockdown, and wins the Page One Award for arts journalism for Absolute Bleeding Edge. Subscribe here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber watches weird old movies while Minneapolis erupts into the largest Civil Rights protest in history. Subscribe here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge's Bunny Sparber, still isolating due to COVID-19, discusses with Coco the way that capitalism is like a vast pyramid scheme that is increasingly making the creation of new art and culture unaffordable and impracticable. Subscribe here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber is nominated for an award, talks about horror movies A LOT, and has a strange dream. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber welcomes May Day with his first annual podcast about the original The Wicker Man, a 1973 British folk horror movie that he watches every year, and so will podcast about every year. Show notes: Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home Oss Oss Wee Oss on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISO1QmG_VE4
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber navigates taking his dog to a vet and sending the dog out for a sort of vacation, discusses his theory of chaotic personalities, and digs into bad taste. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber discusses art post-pandemic and how art is moving online. He also talks about his dog and restarts a fraud psychic column that he wrote for 15 years for an Omaha newspaper. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://www.absolutebleedingedge.com/home
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber celebrates Passover in quarantine with a film by Pasolini; mourns the death of John Prine, and decides he can't go outside. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber considers life during lockdown, and what it might look like afterward. Subscribe here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber struggles to figure out how to write about the arts as news of COVID-19 grows grimmer. Subscribe here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber realizes in real-time what this coronavirus pandemic might mean. Subscribe here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge editor Bunny Sparber tours lost cultural locations in downtown Minneapolis, discusses the Catalog of Cool, and finds something amazing at a thrift store. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here:https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber battles the wing, takes a tour of his old neighborhood in south Minneapolis, goes to a dentist for the first time in 10 years, and has a dream. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber ziplines at the Mall of America, remembers New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, and prepares for a staged reading of one of his plays. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Ege at https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber tries to develop some new habits, searches for a great grilled cheese in Minneapolis, and then purchases some weird crap.
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber goes to Yale to speak to a 86-year-old student debate society about art and propaganda.
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber buys a ukulele, starts to pump iron, and discusses the history of Coney Island.
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber takes a walking tour of the University of Minnesota campus, attends a polka event, and gets a pamphlet on sniffing glue. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber reminisces about being a cult movie fan at the Guthrie theater and obsesses about anti-Irish cartoons while thinking about tattoo designs.
Absolute Bleeding Edge creator Bunny Sparber discusses the intersection between avant-garde art and Judaism, searches Minneapolis for book and record stores that carry the sort of oddball content he craves, and explores the legacy of tattoo artist Sailor Jerry. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: http://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Absolute Bleeding Edge author Bunny Sparber starts 2020 floating in a sensory deprivation tank. Once his senses return, he starts scouring the Twin Cities for very strange records, starts writing a British mobster film, and contemplates a new tattoo, as you do. Absolute Bleeding Edge Magazine can be subscribed to here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Bunny Sparber, editor of Absolute Bleeding Edge magazine, buys a record album consisting entirely of humans repeating simple phrases for birds to memorize, as well as preparing for the start of a New Year. Sign up for Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
Bunny Sparber, creator of the Absolute Bleeding Edge magazine, gets a Carnaby Street tie, sees the Christmas noir film Blast of Silence, goes to a secret, free movie theater in Minneapolis, and buys a book about the psychology of prostitutes. With Coco Mault and a one-eyed chihuahua named Burt. Subscribe to Absolute Bleeding Edge here: https://abe.mailchimpsites.com/
A late episode. Updates from Max and Coco.
Max and Coco throw themselves into the world of hemp supplements, which maybe works? And definitely makes them a little spacey? Plus: a new wardrobe for Max and trying to understand the Disney film Watcher in the Woods.
Max and Coco try to get back on track after overpartying. They also discuss the strangest lake names in Minnesota and a 1973 movie called Arnold involving a corpse, a bride, and a series of strange deaths.
It's 2019, and Max and Coco have made some changes to the podcast -- unfortunately not included getting rid of the crackling noise, which they're working on (sorry!). Also in the episode: Hitting reset on brainstorming, a 1970s film about a satanic motorcycle gang, and a New Year's party with a 108-year-old woman.
It's our end of 2018 wrap up, where Max and Coco discuss what they accomplished in their first year of writing creatively (a lot!), as well as do various New Year's traditions from around the world.
One quick tip from Max and Coco: Don't say no for other people. Max and Coco revisit their cheers moments, which really seems like an excuse for them to drink a lot more. Max talks about "Build Your Own Ladder," where he tries to figure out his art career by stealing other people's. Finally: Max helped a child write a play, and Coco tries to describe it.
Topics: The importance of just showing up; Max and Coco wrote a Christmas play (come see it!); foods invented in Minnesota; when doing something out of spite turns bad; The House that Dripped Blood.
Max and Coco discuss creativity as a habit, Minnesota Christmas movies, and the horror movie Slumber Party Massacre.
Max and Coco dress their dog as a lumberjack, Max works on a theater project for children, and the two repeatedly get sidetracked discussing actor Pete MacNicol.
Max and Coco have another retreat, in which they fantasize about living by the Mississippi. They also go to Octoberfest, discuss the German history of Minnesota, and talk about Monster Squad.
Max and Coco explore local Frankensteins, of which there are a lot. They also discuss Minnesota's own monsters and revise their own horror screenplay.
Max and coco discuss the process of submitting work, Max proposes his "triangle theory" of getting work produced or published, and they struggle to describe an odd, marvelous slasher film from the 80s.
Max and Coco discuss self-care for the artists, which, in their care, includes going to the Minnesota State Fair. Also, somehow they wrote an entire screenplay between the last episode and this one.
Max and Coco are delighted to discover they have won a major screenwriting award. They also introduce a couple of new games into the show: Four lies and a truth, in which Coco must determine which of four statements about Minnesota festivals is false; and Wild Loglines for Wild Movies, in which Coco must concoct a two-sentence summary of one of the strangest horror films ever made, 1979's Tourist Trap.