The Saturday List — January 24, 2026
What I'm Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering
Howdy! Here’s a recap of what I’m digging into this week…
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Watching: Patriot
No, not The Patriot, the Mel Gibson movie. Also not The New England Patriots, who play football on Sunday with a chance to go to another Super Bowl (yes, it would be the franchise’s 12th appearance in The Big Game).
Patriot is a television series that is in a class by itself; that class is “How Can a Show About Spycraft and International Intrigue Be So Goofy?”
I’ll admit that I started watching it again — after abandoning it at some point during COVID — mostly because Iran was in the news. And I had to ask myself: “What was the show where the folk singer is also a spy and he sang a song about the nuclear aspirations of Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?”
Here’s that song:
Michael Dorman stars. He’s an actual folk singer in real life; and his folk-music skills are part of his character’s oeuvre. He’s brilliant; Terry O’Quinn is in it, and he’s always great.
Honestly, though, I think the star here is Kurtwood Smith. Remember him? He’s from That 70s Show and he seems to have a keen sense of picking good roles.
Available on Prime. No spoilers, I’m 2/3 of the way through. Perfect cold weather binge watch.
Reading: Outlive, (and the additional work of) Peter Attia, MD
You’ve possibly seen Peter Attia on 60 Minutes. Or maybe one of a number of podcast interviews, or his own show, which has more than 1 million YouTube subscribers (an intro to his work is below).
Outlive serves as a user’s manual to expanding your “healthspan,” or adding more “life to your years.” Beyond just a diet and exercise guide, or a treatise on finding the right medicines, it’s quite a bit more than that.
There’s actually a method to the madness, and part of that method relies on understanding your own genetic predisposition. It’s complex, but simple; for me, the book is less of the type that you read from cover-to-cover and more of a “refer to this chapter, then go back to another chapter” type of book.
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.
Listening To: Interpol
Had one of those “Mt. Rushmore” discussions on X recently: “Who Would Be on Your Favorite Music Mt. Rushmore?” Note this isn’t BEST bands ever, but your FAVORITE bands or artists.
I had three easy answers: Pearl Jam, The Smiths, Queens of the Stone Age. The fourth isn’t as easy for me; but, if pressed, I’d say Interpol.
I’ve seen Pearl Jam live quite a few times; saw Morrissey once (performing a couple tunes from The Smiths, so that kinda counts); and have seen QOTSA more than a handful of times. But Interpol? I have yet to see them in person. That could change if I play my cards right, as they’ll be performing with Bloc Party in a co-headlining tour that is — literally and figuratively — all over the map.
In the spirit of gearing fans of either band (and myself) up for potential 2026 live shows, here are a few Interpol performances worth checking out.
One of my favorite things to do is to watch David Letterman say that a musical guest is making its “network television debut.” SO…Here’s Interpol’s network television debut. The song is “PDA.” 2002!
Here’s “Evil” — which was on my IPOD — on The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno in 2005:
From 2007, also on Letterman, here’s “The Heinrich Maneuver.” The song was the highest-charting of any of the band’s work, hitting #11 on the US Alternative chart.
One final Interpol tune, after the Share button, is “All the Rage Back Home.” (2014)
Rediscovering: The Brilliance of Norm Macdonald
We lost Norm Macdonald in September 2021; he had battled cancer rather privately, so his death came as a complete shock to quite a few fans.
You can spend a whole lotta time going down a Norm rabbit hole — hey, as you remember a Canadian, might as well do it when there’s a major cold-weather event, eh? — but I’ll give you just two of my favorites, with a note that the second one is NSFW. But so very Norm.
“The Moth Joke:”
“Dirty Johnny:”
Enjoy your week. Stay warm.