"Think of it," Dialta Downes had said, "as a kind of alternative America: a 1980 that never happened. An architecture of broken dreams."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
"The future could influence the past in various ways. First, it's the difference between the microscopic and the macroscopic demission of the physical world: Retrocausality may appear in the microscopic world but cannot appear in the macroscopic world.
The microscopic and macroscopic are different worlds. Therefore, the impact of future events on past events is only possible in the microscopic world of quantum mechanics."
-Professor Yi Jiang, "Can the Future Influence the Past? A Philosophical Analysis of Retrocausality," Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
"If you want a classier explanation, I'd say you saw a semiotic ghost...they're semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken a life of their own...you saw a different kind of ghost, that's all. That plane was part of the mass unconscious, once. You picked up on it somehow."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
"In experiments like the delayed-choice quantum eraser, later 'choices' about measurements alter the correlation of data, allowing physicists the evaluate the past states of entangled particles."
-A.I. Overview, "Retrocausality and Quantum Information," Google
"Los Angeles was a bad idea, and I spent two weeks there. It was prime Downes country: too much of the Dream, there, and too many fragments of the Dream waiting to ensnare me."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
Producing, hosting and performing in stand up comedy shows means knowing comedians and more comedy show producers. Meeting Taylor Chaney Glomstad was an accidental honor. Already admiring his work was easy. There's a lot of comedy shows, networking events and late evening filming to do, so seeing the man in 3-D was not. Sometimes, at night, I can't even find myself.
My awesome spouse and the humble writer were at Steven Marcus Releford's A.A. comedy show, which I've already written about, and the man history knows as Taylor Chaney Glomstad introduced himself and showed me an old pseudo-digital camera that could record a few seconds of video on a 1.44 MB floppy disc.
He let me serve as a doorman several of times (doing a dozen martial arts forever means doing security for friends/relatives/business contacts) which was more fun experience on my resume next to, "Performed Service of Summons as an Officer of The Court for Various Lawyers and Law Enforcement Agencies throughout Los Angeles including San Bernardino County, Armed Security for Private Corporations under Federal Contract (it was the 90's) and Vertical Stunt Fighter."
Seeing the show up close, watching behind the scenes, was inspiring. Glomstad has an artistic gift. He was a good boss, too, no nonsense. With so many wheels spinning behind the scenes to create the show, it takes a whole new talent to delegate without losing it. He did it with aplomb.
Having grown up in the 70's and 80's loving MTV, late hour cable shows like NIGHT FLIGHT, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, strange PBS specials or TV documentaries featuring people from far away, or just far out on drugs, and the numerous weird shows that could blip into existence out of the underground, featuring a band you liked that was too cool for prime time, watching his show was as nostalgic as it was visionary. The past as the future, shaped by one artist's vision.
Glomstad's style is from another era, and another dimension. I love the references to David Lynch, of course, although his show goes beyond into it's own place. The show is surreal. Off-balance. In a good way. There's a live band, and, of course, he occasionally talks to God.
Interviewing people for me is easy. They are a very good, best friend. I'm not going to hurt their feelings, embarrass them or play mind games. My job is to celebrate their successes, advertise their art, and elevate their career. We are all in this as one. You've read the 1,000+ interviews I've written. Nothing special/fake.
So of course Glomstad's stylish take on the interview is fun to watch. A comedian that just performed is experiencing a rush. It's adrenaline up there, when you are watching those people who watch you. You've seen me do it. Not easy. I'd hate to do an interview after that. Geesh.
His interview style gets it done his way. There's a professional, biomechanical, visionary, transcendent, ascendant, cybernetic, artistic, vintage/retro, multidimensional quality to the "stage show" Glomstad glorifies as much as he commands. It was fun to work for somebody that bolted it home like a real boss. He's already Netflix ready.
A special shout out to fellow journalist and stand up comic Russell Navarrette, who is the voice o' God during Glomstad's show. There's a back and forth to their banter that's spicy enough to enjoy. It was always a drag when Johnny Carson's cohost just kissed his butt. Playing God ain't easy. Navarrette does it. Although surely surreal, the banter makes the show always good.
Vaporwave is easy to remember. In the 80's and 90's, technology was scarce. Television had a particular, warm glow. Polychromatic. Combine that with light bulbs and outside streetlights...now you have a suburban, somewhat technological experience. It's still not vaporwave. "Floral Shoppe" by Macintosh Plus, is.
You are in an office in Southern California, during the same era. Personal computers are creeping in. Still no email or smartphones. Or cellphones! The light from outside could be neon. It combines like Mario Bava film lighting with the PC on the desk, which displays only green. Telephones with digital displays are harsh amber, foreboding, like my first Brother word processor.
Later PC's could show more color, yet it was a mote in the darkness when offices turned off at night. That's vaporwave. The barren wasteland of the normal world, quietly becoming suffused with the distant horizon of hypertechnology and cybernetic online media oversaturation.
There's hope in technology. It can free us. For a fee. There's still not a lot of it, though, and the digital phone on the desk gives us little luminescence. Walk alone down the city streets long enough, and the darkness will vanish you.
Once the PC turns off, there's nothing. Payphones are a block away. Streetlights go out. You have no smartphone. Limited hues of flickering dusty neon filter through the greenish windows (seriously, watch films and television shows during the 80's. They are all green). Wires hum. Machines hiss.
There's ghosts in the darkness. Any technology you'll experience is programmed. Voices from the past. The iPhone ain't around, yet. The minimalism in the essence of vaporwave music heralds the beginning of a technological age, or as an oasis from the chaos online social media gave us.
.jpeg)
Here is what Taylor Chaney Glomstad had to say in an interview after his last show. His next show is June 1st, 2026 at Molly Malones in Los Angeles, CA at 8:30 p.m. Don't miss it. We hope you enjoy this for now:
Where are you from, and how did you get started doing stand up comedy?
I'm from the pacific northwest, I started doing stand up in middle school, I had the itch then and did it in front of my middle school class for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I did it a couple more times and, I don't know why, but when I went to college there was no where to do stand up comedy in a small town, it wasn't really happening, so I ended up doing broadcasting.
I moved to LA for acting and when I turned 30 I did stand up again.
Where did you get the idea for your show?
The show is an amalgamation of things I like. Things that I find when I talk to people about. I always tell people the show is essentially like Arsenio Hall and early Conan O'Brian had a baby. With a hint of David Lynch. I love TWIN PEAKS. I love the surreal. The whole concept is like, my show was made up during The Pandemic, so there was nobody to interview buy myself.
I really wanted to do a talk show, though, so I would interview myself with a computer helmet on and just responded with .gif's or any comedic theme from shows and movies in the 80's and 90's. My love for all that turned into, "I want to do this live." I just interviewed comedians and disguised the show as an open mic. That's how it spawned.
The aesthetic for your show is intentionally retro. Early cable television, early MTV, early music videos, that kind of look. Why is it that you like that? Is it nostalgia or just something that you are drawn to?
I have a lot of props in the show and it's just the stuff I've collected over the years. This show basically falls under, "Vaporwave." I call it, "A vaporwave talkshow," or, "The only vaporwave talkshow," as far as my understanding goes.
.jpeg)
I'm obsessed by the era in time I barely grew up in where the early dawn of the internet and physical media still exists, but so does the promise of tech, the future of how that would expand our lives, so the early promises of the internet, I guess. Knowing what I know now, I wish we could go back to when 1986 never ended.
I own several minidisks, but I can 't afford a minidisc player. If that answers your question.
Your show looks like it's ready to go. I could already see this show on Roku, old skool MTV, or even Amazon or Netflix. So where do you see your show going in the future?
That's a good question. Down the road we are going to do pop up places throughout L.A., California, maybe 'Vegas. I want to take it back to my hometown. I'd also, if I could, own a small theater, I'd love to have red velvet curtains for the band playing, something more David Lych-ian.
I want a small bar that has 20-50 arcade games, it's like "Flynn's Arcade," Then you walk into a small theater and sit down, it's stadium style seating, ideally all of the seating is looking down on the stage, or you are peering into something.
As a producer and comedy show host you have an outside perspective that is different than a comedian that just go off the bus to make it in L.A. What is your advice to any stand up comic starting out in L.A.?
I was talking to a couple of comedians the other day who have traveled or done stand up in New York, or other major cities and it's interesting that other comics don't want to host. Every other city, a lot of really good comics love to host and it helps them get comfortable right in the moment.
So that would be my advice. I love hosting. I do talk to a lot of people who don't do their own thing, don't do anything, they just show up and hope for time. One of my good friends, Steven Marcus Releford, told me to, "Do your own sh*t."
Hell, yeah.
Buy tickets for Goodnight with Glomstad right here.
