The Kristen Arnett Show: Tommy Pico and Kristen Arnett Talk White Claws and Group Chats

On the debut episode of The Kristen Arnett Show (brought to you by the Black Mountain Institute on Instagram Live), Kristen talks with Tommy Pico, author of Feed. They drink IPAs and discuss the Sagittarius group chat that they’re both part of, the concept of airports being a “lawless land,” releasing the idea of productivity, and the story of how White Claws came into Pico’s life. (Tune in this Wednesday at 6pm EST #blackmtninst for a conversation with Esmé Wang.)

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Tommy “Teebs” Pico is the author of the books IRL, Nature Poem, and Junk. Feed completes the Teebs tetralogy. He’s been the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Brooklyn Public Library. He co-curates the reading series Poets with Attitude, co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Los Angeles, CA.

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From the episode:

Kristen Arnett: Are you actually working on stuff right now? Writing? Making anything?

Tommy Pico: Oh God, Kristen.

Kristen: Yeah, I mean we don’t even want to do that stuff anyway!

Tommy: With the added pressure of the world, waking up everyday, do I want to make myself feel shittier? God no! I have tried to give myself a pass on productivity for the sake of sanity, but honestly, and this is the only time I’m going to admit this to anybody, good that this is only you and me [laughs], but I am actually not terrible at writing. So it has been helpful actually to write and feel like I have some sort of futility, like I have a use as an individual. Otherwise I’m just burning scrambled eggs and getting in fights with my liquor delivery person. So writing can actually feel like there’s a reason I’m here.