This is April Richardson.

Hi!

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): And this is her apartment, which doesn't reveal anything at all about her areas of interest.

I live alone.

I'm a very lonely person, so you're basically looking at all of my friends.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): If you couldn't tell, April is a stand-up comedian, but she's also a writer, created the much-loved "Saved By the Bell" podcast "Go Bayside!"

and makes frequent appearances on "@midnight Midnight with Chris Hardwick."

But back to why we're here.

I'm April Richardson, and these are five of my favorite works of art.

Billy Bragg's 1988 album "Workers Playtime."

I first heard this album when I was 17 years old, because a guy that I liked put the song "The Only One" on a mixtape for me.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg released "Workers Playtime" as his third full-length album with the subtitle "Capitalism is Killing Music."

This is how she'd describe his voice.

Imagine if Bob Dylan and The Clash were one person who sounded like Michael Caine.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): She even has a Billy Bragg tattoo, so yeah, she's kind of a big fan.

This album has, like, fiercely political songs right next to the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard.

This was the first political music I heard that came from a place of love, where it was like a marriage of the two things, where it was like, yes, I'm angry, yes, things need to change, but the impetus for my activism is love for my fellow man.

It was like a perfect mix of those two things where it wasn't just phrased as sort of us against them or we got to take them down-- which, again, totally valid and I'm totally here for.

But it was the first time I heard songs that were like, let's fix the system because everybody matters and I love everybody.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): So what happened to the mixtape guy?

He's married to another person who isn't me.

We-- we're totally still friends.

Any zine made by Molly Kalkstein.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): Tell us, April, what is a zine?

A zine is a photocopied magazine, basically, usually made by one person.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): April has a collection of zines she started in high school, which she keeps in these file cabinets.

She made and traded zines with friends from all over the world.

All I did was make zines.

I never did homework-- never-- to where my mom would be like, this is-- you have to stop doing this and do real schoolwork, and I was like, I'm going to be fine, I think this will help me at some point.

And then when I moved to LA, I got a job as a copy editor at MTV News and I brought my zines to the job interview, and I was like, I've already been writing about this stuff for free my whole teenage life, and they were like, you're hired.

So suck it, Mom.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): So who is this Molly Kalkstein?

Well, Molly was a pen pal of mine all throughout high school.

She made many zines, but the main one was called Tiger Voyage.

And the effort that she put into making her zines-- it's breathtaking, really, because first of all, all of this is hand-cut.

Like this-- she cut these.

They're individual sheets of paper that she cut and stapled.

The first-- the cover has photo corners in which she's inserted, like, a transparency print that she made.

All of this is typed with, like, a handmade border.

There are inserts-- photo corner inserts where she's inserted individual pages that she's also hand-cut into it.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): How did these compare to your zines?

Yeah, I just remember trading with her as a teenager and feeling guilty because I was like, I didn't do as good of a job as you.

This is very much not an equal trade, but thank you.

I mean, that's how sweet she is as well.

I mean, it's the sort of thing where you get something like this and you're like, I have to step up my game.

I mean, this is what somebody made in their bedroom and it's-- uh, you know, to me this is like a finer work of art than things hanging in museums and it cost $2 and some stamps.

"The Most Beautiful Suicide" by Robert C. Wiles.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): This photo appeared in the May 1947 issue of Life magazine and it depicts 23-year-old Evelyn McHale.

She had jumped to her death just moments before from the observation platform of the Empire State Building, landing on a parked limousine.

It's powerful, it's haunting, and it's hard to believe it's real.

I thought it looked like the cover of a Smiths record.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): The Smiths are one of April's all-time favorite bands and have album covers that looked like this.

So she's right.

Like, I thought it was fake.

I thought it was gorgeous, and I was like, this is a beautiful photograph, but I'm like, yeah, this is a staged pose thing.

Her death, it was so violent and so tragic, but when you look at the end result, it's like she's sleeping peacefully.

So there's that sort of odd comfort of like, no matter what happens, at the end, we're all just going to fall asleep.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): But it's really complicated, right?

I was a bit nervous picking this because I absolutely don't want it to sound like I'm glorifying suicide in any way.

And that's another-- another set of emotions I feel about the picture when I look at it, is, is it exploitative?

Because the-- the man who took it was a photography student who heard what happened-- like, heard the woman fall into this car, and grabbed his camera and took a picture, which is very gross.

Morally, what-- what area do you get into if-- if your first instinct is to pick up a camera?

Is it like, oh, well, I'm honoring her by capturing her last moment, or is this, yeah, are you exploiting her like-- I-- yeah, right?

There's no answer.

One particular scene from the movie "Hairspray" by John Waters.

My favorite movie of all time is "Hairspray," the 1988 original by John Waters.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): She's not kidding-- she has a "Hairspray" poster in her kitchen.

And there is one particular scene in it that breaks my heart every time.

It's the scene where Tracy and her boyfriend go to a segregated-- it's like the black people's dance party.

The movie is about segregation in Baltimore in the '60s, and they go and there's a performer-- the real guy, Toussaint McCall, a singer who makes an appearance as himself.

And Motormouth Maybelle, a character in the movie, introduces him to the dancehall.

When he's introduced, Motormouth Maybelle makes no effort to hide the fact that she's putting a needle on a record.

Like they don't-- it's not Milli Vanilli style where it's like, let's play the tape backstage.

She fully openly puts a needle on the record, he comes out, starts lip syncing, everyone still freaks out.

No one is angry about that or sad or is like, why isn't he singing live?

They're just so happy to see him in the flesh.

It's just such a heartwarming and heartbreaking scene all at the same time.

And because the soundtrack to the whole scene, again, is that song that's so sad-- um, yeah, it's just great.

Siouxsie Sioux's face!

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): Siouxsie Sioux, born Susan Ballion, is a punk rock innovator and icon who was the lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees, which formed in 1976.

She's hugely influential and yeah, pretty much invented goth.

Growing up-- this is my hair and skin.

Like, I grew up a pale brunette in a sea of tan blonde girls, and so already I was looking to, like, Wednesday Addams and Morticia and the Munsters.

Like, those were my style people, because I was like, well, they look like me.

It was either them or Disney villains.

Those were the only people I saw that looked like me, and so when I saw Siouxsie with, like, her shock of black hair and her super pale skin and the fact that she was accentuating that with makeup, it kind of blew my mind and it made me-- now I'm obsessed with makeup.

I wear it all the time.

I try to get super weird with it.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): Siouxsie went solo in 2004 and still puts out new music, performs, and looks incredible.

She's still at it.

She's still at it and she still looks amazing.

I saw recent pictures of her where I'm like, man, whatever you're doing, give me some of that.

I want to age like that for sure.

SARAH URIST GREEN (VOICEOVER): Thanks, April.

Thank you for having me, and I can talk about 500,000 more things anytime you need me to.