Super excited for this one–it’s the second edition of our interview series Consumption Gumption.

This time we are joined by Maique Madeira, a photographer from Portugal. I knew I wanted to ask Maique to participate when I originally had this idea for a few reasons.

First of all, Maique is a phenomenal photographer and storyteller. You can see for yourself at a new blog he spun up recently to tell the stories of his photographs. It’s quickly become one of my favorite blogs on the web–I truly adore it. I especially loved Walking Meditation.

Second, he is hands down one of the kindest (and most active) people across micro.blog and Mastodon. micro.blog itself is quite a lovely community, but it became that way because of people like Maique who drop nice replies and share things with a positive spirit.

Lastly, I thought it’d be interesting to get someone not based in the US to see how things might differ (or be the same) when it comes to media and entertainment consumption.

📸 Maique Madeira, photographer

Watches TV shows; listens to music and podcasts; checks in with YouTube, TikTok, and blogs

Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a 53 year old dad of a 3 year old incredible girl, husband, and a photographer [Ed Note: Happy Birthday, Maique!]. I live in Lisbon, Portugal. I’ve been a photojournalist for decades.

Can you give us a quick glimpse into your taste–what are some recent favorites?

I have found that, probably influenced by my line of work, I like non-fiction a lot. Books, documentaries, bio pics, etc., but I will watch almost anything, really.

Recent favorites, as far as TV shows, I’d say Patriot, Beef, The Bear, and also The Crown, Slow Horses, The Righteous Gemstones, Tehran, and Succession… I watch a lot of TV–not so many movies these days. We can’t find the time to sit through them in one go. Still, a few recent ones: Barbie, Still, Elvis, Bullet Train, Tetris, and Air.

Podcasts: Hacked, Darknet Diaries, Underworld, Hemispheric Views, Smartless, and a couple others.

Books are left unread a lot of times. I have them with me, but drop them for other, shorter, options.

Where do you discover new music from?

I don’t actively go looking for new music these days, I’m afraid. I tend to listen to the same ones all the time. New music comes to me. Something that’s playing somewhere. It might be the radio when I’m driving. I have a particular radio station that I listen to almost exclusively–RADAR, but only in the car; I might be at a beach bar and some song will interest me; at a friend’s place; on a tv show; I’ll just Shazam it, and add it to my music.

I listen to RADAR while driving, and it’s where I get a lot of music from. If you’re into cool music, you can listen to it at https://radarlisboa.fm/.

Funny thing, and another reason why technology is awesome: this is a very local Lisbon radio, covering the area around it only. In the past, I would be out of luck if driving a bit further away from the city. These days I’ll just open Broadcasts, and tap a button. Technology turned this local radio into a worldwide thing.

When you listen to music do you tend to listen as albums, playlists, via radio, or something else?

Mostly playlists I’ve made ages ago. I keep playing these over and over again. I put a few “mixtape” playlists together a while back. One for movieStar, one for a friend of mine who was going to Japan, another one for motorcycle rides… They have dozens of songs in there, many hours of continuous play. (I’m with YouTube Music now, and these playlists follow me around). Sometimes I’ll do the “radio” thing, where I’ll listen to songs that sound like some other song, suggested by the streaming service. Albums, front to back, happens once in a while only, with very specific ones: Portishead, Live, Cowboy Junkies, Live. And radio, as I’ve said, while driving. I only listen to that radio station, and only in the car.

What does reading a book look like for you?

Mostly digital these days whenever I get the chance. Always stuff to read on the phone or Kindle. No special place, I’m afraid. When the mood strikes (and it does not strike as often as before, or as it should), I’ll just grab the phone and read. I usually have a couple I’m going through, and pick the one I’m in the mood for. Last ones I picked up: The Last Resort by Sarah Stodola, Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman, Unreasonable Behaviour by Don McCullin, How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr, and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata*.

Reading books on the iPhone is far from ideal, though. I have no issue with the form factor, but I have to turn off the cell service or put the phone in radio silence mode. Otherwise, I’ll just read a couple of pages before I’m distracted by something else.

I’m also planning on re-reading a few of the books I read as a younger man. The ones that helped make me the one I am today. Back to Hunter S. Thompson, Kapusckinksi, and Paul Theroux.

What’s your relationship look like with your phone when you’re watching a show or movie at home?

As with books from the previous question, I’ll try not to look at it, but we all know how that goes. I’ll set it on the table, charging. That’s the best way to avoid checking it. Also take the Apple Watch out. Sometimes I’ll enable sleep focus (it’s the one I use), and that will turn off all notifications, except wife/parents/kindergarten ones.

Do you use anything to keep track of what you are watching/reading/listening to?

Trakt with Sequel to keep track of what I’m watching and Letterboxd, mostly to feed into micro.blog and share.

I know a lot of it might be the same, but I’m curious to hear what services you subscribe to and what the experience is like with movie theaters since COIVD in Portugal?

We subscribe to HBO, Prime, Disney, Netflix, AppleTV, and now YouTube Premium. Movie theaters are now exactly the same as before. COVID is still here, but long gone in a way. No masks, nothing is different.

What’s the last movie you saw in a theater?

In the past (way back when) I would spend hours at the movies–art houses, multiplexes, everywhere. But I’m not a huge fan of going to the theaters to watch movies anymore. We still do it quite often these days, as the little one loves it. I’ve seen Top Gun: Maverick in a theater, and that was the last one for me, if I’m not mistaken. But I’ve watched a few more on daddy duty lately. tinyMovieStar is close to four years old, but she’s a sucker for advertising already We will see the movies advertised on the side of buses, or on tv, she’ll demand we visit the theater! We do what she tells us.

You mentioned daddy duty for watching movies with your daughter, aka tinyMovieStar–I’m curious how you’ve seen your consumption habits change with her as she’s gotten older?

Our daughter has influenced a lot of our media consumption. As, I guess, all kids do. Before she came along, we watched movies. We don’t do that as much now. We could stay up later–much later–and binge TV series. Not anymore. We’re too tired to binge.

She “owns” the tv now when it’s her allowed time to have screen access. She’s also ruined my YouTube algorithm.

We love, LOVE Bluey, and wouldn’t have found out about it without her.

Is there anything out of Portugal you think is worth the rest of us checking out?

Hard one. I don’t read Portuguese authors or listen to a lot of music made in the country. Same goes for TV. I’ve been doing this, oddly, since I was a teenager. Very much US/UK influenced, I’m afraid.

We did watch Causa Própria - Natural Law (Trailer), a couple of years ago. I liked it.

As far as music, I tried, but came up short. Best thing you can do, if you’re interested in what’s been released, is to check this playlist: Eléctrico / Antena 3. A national radio station has this series of live performances, with everyone who’s anyone here. Some are really good.

Orelha Negra com A Garota Não - Ready (Mulher Batida)

Since you’re heavily influenced by US/UK media–do you find this to be common place in Lisbon or do you think your habits are more of an outlier?

I don’t think I’m an outlier, no. Not everyone is like me, of course, but American music and cinema is an influence all over the world. We’re not different. I did start reading the classics (Hunter S. Thompson, Kerouac, Burroughs) when I was a teenager/young adult and just kept at it. Moved to fiction, back to non-fiction, but stayed in that lane. The Doors, Violent Femmes, Tom Waits, Dylan were part of my growing up by that time too and is what I still listen to today. My three year old daughter sings Ol-55 with us in the car.

What’s something older than 10 years you think is worth people revisiting?

I wouldn’t even call it revisiting because, as I’ve said, my music is probably all older than that, and that’s what I listen to still. A lot of good TV too. We recently watched a couple of The Sopranos episodes, as movieStar didn’t watch that at the time. I’d love to see Hill Street Blues again. I loved it.

Any last words about your media consumption or the state of entertainment?

It feels overwhelming sometimes–probably because I’m old now. I do appreciate the amount on offer, but we feel we have to subscribe to a ton of services and we’re still bound to miss out on a lot of shows. We have hundreds of channels on cable now, on top of the streaming platforms, and we never even watch those.

Anyone you think has good taste we should interview next?

Alexandra, David, Gabz, and Colin.

Big thanks to Maique for taking the time to answer all of my questions.

We’ve got quite the line-up queued up for future interviews to take us though the end of the season, but if you might be interested in participating down the line, make sure to reply or drop me a note.

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Stay sane,

–humdrum

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