The Suburban Abyss

Chad Andrew Dryden
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Society & Culture

Transmissions from the leafy green nowhere. Music, pop culture, pandemic life. Yard work, remote work and the eternal quest for discount groceries. Written and produced by Chad Andrew Dryden.

  1. 06/26/2024

    Episode 40: Epilogue / Goodbye Dirt Mall

    We've come to the final(?) episode of The Suburban Abyss, a tying up of loose ends of sorts, featuring a long walk through the Streetsboro Flea Market, a short walk through our neighborhood in the leafy green nowhere and one big question I had not considered since moving back to Ohio nearly four years ago.

  2. 12/14/2023

    Episode 39: Across the Great Divide(s) b/w Glory Days

    Are you the same person you used to be? The question was posed in the October 2022 New Yorker article “Becoming You,” and it’s an easy one, perhaps an inevitable one, for a middle-aged person to ask while staring into the real or proverbial mirror. Especially after moving back to your place of birth after two decades away.

  3. 05/04/2023

    Episode 38: Bring Us the Head of Craig Brubeck, Who Stole Our Rocco’s Super Bowl Sheet Pizzas

    Every family history has a few good “dumb shit” stories, when something happens that’s so dumb it crosses the threshold of stupidity into the absurd, and once it’s over the only thing left to do is laugh about it and file it away as another dumb shit story to be told and retold in the years to come. And when it came time for Travis and me to pick up our Rocco's Super Bowl sheet pizzas near the end of Dad's 75th birthday weekend, shit got dumb.

  4. 01/25/2023

    Episode 37: The 12 (NA) Beers of Christmas

    Holiday drinking is an international sport, a holly-jolly right for all. The Christmas lights go up and everyone gets lit, ho ho ho and a bottle of rum. I’ve suited up and worked my elbow every season since my freshman year of college, but for the first time in 26 years, I took myself out of the game until Christmas Eve following the last underwhelming sip of red wine on Halloween night. Spending the season sober was a calculated decision, one I had been considering for months – for years, really – as I found my relationship with alcohol changing.

  5. 11/23/2022

    Episode 36: Got a Blank Space Where My Head Like a Hole Should Be – A Portrait of Generation X as Middle-Aged Summer Concert Series Nostalgia Trippers

    Erica and I did not set out to make 2022 a big concert year, especially a year of big concerts, but that's what happened after scoring tickets to Nine Inch Nails' homecoming show and a shared bottle of wine led to an impulse trip to Long Island to see Phish while our kid was away at band camp. We are not tourists of our own pasts, but it's hard to ignore the nostalgic tinge to these two concert experiences or the aging Gen X vibes – different yet similar – that dominated both.

  6. 08/28/2022

    Episode 35: Mark Lanegan, Daydream Reliever

    Long before music, baseball was Mark Lanegan’s first love. Growing up in Ellensburg, Washington, Lanegan did what most 20th century American boys did: he played pickup games until it was too dark to see the ball. For certain music fans, it’s difficult to reconcile the counterculture lineage of an artist like Lanegan with said artist’s passion for popular sports. Billy Joel throwing out the first pitch at Shea Stadium? Sure, whatever, who the hell cares? But Mark Lanegan, the dark prince of grunge, a high school hurler with professional aspirations?

  7. 07/15/2022

    Episode 34: Boise (Slight Return) Revisited

    Returning to Boise last summer for the first time since moving away in 2020 was particularly disorienting – seeing a place I once called home through the odd-fitting lens of a quasi-visitor – and a year into this new rhythm in my work life, the Hudson me and the Boise me feel like different people, and I haven’t figured out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

  8. 06/15/2022

    Episode 33: The New Belle and Sebastian Album Makes Me Feel Old

    Listening to "A Bit of Previous," I get the sense the core members of Belle and Sebastian, now in their late-40s and early-50s, are at a similar juncture in their lives – perhaps, like me, asking themselves where the hell the last 20 years went – as the prevailing theme on the album is aging, and in the hands of Belle and Sebastian, it sounds incredibly dull.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Transmissions from the leafy green nowhere. Music, pop culture, pandemic life. Yard work, remote work and the eternal quest for discount groceries. Written and produced by Chad Andrew Dryden.

Information

  • Creator
    Chad Andrew Dryden
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2024
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Suburban Abyss