Episode 9 - Matthew Latkiewicz
First, the links:
Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and pretty much everywhere pods are cast! (just search for "15 minutes jamie berger).
Now, the Intro:
Matthew Latkiewicz is a writer, most recently of the book You Suck at Drinking - he’s also a graphic designer designer, videographer, creative director, and now TV-show-maker.
His first TV series, the comedy-advice-show You Can Do Better, debuts on Tru TV on August 23rd.
More important to my, though, is that Matthew, along with Sarah Reid are co-founders of the legendary - Lady Killigrew Cafe in the equally Legendary Bookmill in Montague MA.
Ten years ago after nearly a decade and a half in San Francisco, I had applied and gotten accepted to the creative writing MFA at UMASS and had to find a place to live from 3,000 miles away. So I moved back east, closer to my parents and my Upstate NY roots, to Western Massachusetts to get an MFA in fiction.
From 3,000 miles away, I somehow decided to move not to the college town, Amherst, nor to what I then saw as a wannabe San Francisco, the up and coming Northampton, but to a tiny village called Turners Falls, one of the five Villages of the town of Montague. I had never lived outside a city in my life before. At first, it was daunting.
But I got very lucky in my choice of towns. The Bookmill was ten minutes away, and, quickly, the The vibrant, creative community that formed around Matthew and Sarah’s cafe became the social center for my dog Bo and me - it was my study hall, my writing den, bar, cafe, and, the place where my dog introduced me to my future wife - I’ll tell you that story another time.
Matthew and Sarah were these two cool people more-or-less out in the woods who were obsessed with and connected to a community I had just moved away from and was friendly if not exactly friends with in SF, the world of Dave Eggers and Co’s McSweeney's Magazine and 826 Valencia educational and arts center and pirate store. The cafe and bookstore would even put on events by travelling McSweeney’s authors and related music acts.
Matthew and Sarah sold the cafe and moved to Oakland several years ago, but we meet and catch up on one coast or the other from time to time. This Spring, I had a drink with Sarah, now an interior designer (smallvictoriesdesign.com) when she came home for a quick visit lately, and she told me that Matthew had just landed a TV show on the cable network Tru.
So of course I thought what a great place to run into a friend, reluctantly climbing, or, maybe, being pushed is a good way to put it, up that Fame Wall.
We talked on the phone about an hour before Game 6 of the NBA semi-finals, when our Warriors were just peaking, in Game six of their Series with OKC.
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How I managed to forget to talk about this event is beyond me. Design by Matthew!
Outro: (spoiler alert!)
