Downlow.d: The Rise And Fall of Harry Knowles and Ain’t It Cool News might have been written, edited, and narrated by me. But this series could not have been made without the involvement of these people:
My first collaborator Ben Jones, who played the voice of Harry Knowles in each of the narrative episodes of this show. Ben is a comedian who frequently travels to clubs across the southeast. He’s hilarious – so check him out if you can. My executive producer Kristina Bell. A year and a half ago, I once shared a crudely produced pilot version of the first episode with a group of friends on Facebook, asking for feedback. When Kris wrote me back with a list of things I did wrong, I immediately asked her to be part of my team. Fortunately, she agreed. Since then, she has saved all of my listeners from many of my worst impulses. Each and every one of you owe her a debt, but not as much as I do. Kris is currently a media studies professor for High Point University, and she’s got a lot of exciting things in the works for both online culture and video games.
My co-producer and sound engineer, Eddie Garcia. Someone once accused this show of being a ‘prestige podcast series,’ and I think the biggest reason for that is because Eddie makes our show sound great. Eddie is currently part of two different bands or musical projects – the first is 1970s Filmstock and the other is Spirit System.
Speaking of music, our theme and a lot of other original songs was written by Chester Endersby Gwazda. A prolific composer, sound designer, and producer for a lot of artists and podcasts, including Future Islands, Chester has also released a lot of music under his own name. You can find him on Band Camp.
Jeremy Massie created the illustrations for each Narrative episode of this program. I’ve known Jeremy from the time we both grew up in Wise County, Virginia. He’s a fantastic sequential artist. Check out his graphic novel All My Ghosts, which appropriately enough is about the death of a small town newspaper. Let it also be said that his current comic book series Holler – about punk rock kids living in the Appalachian Mountains – is one of the best indie comics being produced today, and I hope more people discover it.
Janessa Smith built our website. She is an incredibly talented marketing professional, and I hope more people realize this and hire her.
On a personal note, I want to thank my partner Jasmine for so many things, but specifically for allowing me to monopolize our bedroom closet when I turned it into a sound booth.
I also want to thank my kids for inspiring me to use my art to fight for the world they will one day inherit.
I also want to give quick thanks to the following people:
Ries Allyn, Abrar Mubashar, Adrian vom Baur, Kate Erbland, Rae Alexandra, Kimberly Owczarski, Alyssa Bereznahk, Karina Longworth, Alan Cerny, Drew McWeeny, C. Robert Cargill, Jake Steward, Scott Booker and The Flaming Lips, the Ain't It Bale News team, John Chenoweth, AJ SChrader, Erin Poytrhess, Rod Morrow, Ruth Maramis, Erica Milsom, Craig D. Lindsey, Rene Rodriguez, Betsy Pickle, Jason Bailey, Andrew Woods, Felicia Feaster, Whitney Phillips, Wally Wallace, Jessica Mashburn, Don Murphy, and Barbra Cossman.
Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone again who agreed to be interviewed for this show – specifically the former writers and contributors of Ain't It Cool News. I hope they feel I told their story as fairly and accurately as I could.
This season is dedicated to the life and memory of late artist and storyteller Kentaro Miura – a person who died encouraging all strugglers to navigate the currents of causality in order to finish their journey.
And on that note….