😻 Cat chat, plastics, Uncle Phil hugs, 9/11, Jesus’ wife 👰🏽♀️
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, September 6. There are 261 days until I go on my next Disney cruise. If you don’t have time for the whole newsletter: please don’t miss this event, this was the cutest darn thing, this was something I didn’t expect to like, but did.
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Dane Cardiel, who’s been helping podcasters launch and grow their podcasts since 2017. As a founding member of Simplecast, he had a front-row seat as podcasting accelerated in popularity and attracted the interest of all sorts of creators and industries. He’s currently the VP of Business Development at Headgum, working to bring new podcasts into our ad marketplace, Gumball, which connects podcasts with brands for host-endorsed sponsorships. If you’re looking for a creator-friendly monetization partner, talk to Dane!
The app I use: I’m getting used to a new podcast app, actually, with Pocket Casts. I really like the ability to manage my episode queue with bulk actions and their custom episode filters are nice. I was previously using Castro, which is a great app for anyone hoping for a very simple, inbox-like experience, that also supports some power-listener features.
Listening time per week: 20-25 hours per week at about 1.3x listening speed. Add another ~10 hours a week to account for local sports radio through the Audacy app.
When I listen: I tend to keep serialized content to the weekend and leave the weeklies that are a bit more information-heavy for weekday listening. Lately, that’s included Object of Sound, Delete Your Account, Citations Needed, Drag Her, The Dig, I Hear Things, and Food 4 Thot. And this past weekend I spent about 8 hours catching up on the latest campaign of Not Another D&D Podcast while doing chores and gardening.
How I discover: For me, podcast discovery is the easy part. I’m subscribed to a lot of podcast discovery newsletters (here's a great Twitter thread aggregating those) and I’m constantly being introduced to new podcasts through work. I'd say the hard part is taking a new podcast and introducing it into my regular rotation.
Anything else? I'd love to chat with podcasters about monetization through Gumball, especially if you’re just learning about us! I’m also happy to chat with anyone who wants to monetize their podcast but might feel like they aren't quite there yet. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter and we can find time to chat!
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Anna Rubanova
Anna Rubanova is a co-host of Left Handed Radio. Follow her on Twitter here. Follow Left Handed Radio on Twitter here and Instagram here.
How did you get into the podcast space?
I’ve always appreciated the relationship between the ol’ ears and throat. When I was young, I was painfully self-aware of my voice, my speaking style, how hard it was to string a sentence together or keep my voice steady. I was an only child with no friends, completely unsocialized, but for some reason thought I should fix that. I suspected that anything could be learned if I had the time and a good teacher. I took improv classes under the guise of “becoming a better public speaker.” And a few years later, when this guy I was dating, Adam, asked me to join an audio sketch team he was starting with some other dudes, I was more excited about the prospect of making funny voices into microphones than having just met the love of my life. And then, years later, I felt halfway decent at it.
How do you describe your show to people?
Well, I will never be able to describe the show better than you did in your newsletter! Your interpretation of what’s going on with us was very sweet and touching.
Essentially, we think of our show as a universe of sketches, bits, formats, and characters that Adam and I keep adding to. We use sound design and music to flesh out the narrative.
When we encounter new ideas, new people, fun environments, or even something awful we need to get off our minds, we add them to our show. We’re terrible with branding so we follow the fun instead. We’re currently obsessed with Star Trek and have gotten a lot of references and moods from there. There’s certainly no shortage of “terrible” these days; we have a lot to interpret there. And we love NPR, so a lot of our formats live in that space. In the past, we did by-the-numbers sketches and now we’re more likely to fake an audio book. Really, the show is just us.
Fill in the blank. If you like _____ you will like Left Handed Radio.
Joe Frank. He was the greatest. He was doing “sketch” comedy and conceptual radio art for decades without enough attention. The first time I heard his work, I was probably 17 and completely blown away. I tuned in every Sunday night until podcasts of his work became sort of available. But that’s my take on it, because Frank would do whatever he wanted and that’s what we do now. Adam probably would say Steve Martin or Mr. Show or BBC Radio. Also, LHR has changed since Adam and I became the keepers; but it still owes its DNA to our former founders. Brett White is the best narrative and sketch writer I know, his dedication to game and structure is very important to us still. Matt Little brought an earnest love of comedy and nerdom to the mix; I try to remember how much fun he was having and keep that with me. Taylor Moore would masterfully fold philosophy, genre, and mind-bending ideas into very silly sketches, and he experimented with sound design instead of just adding SFX, which we’re constantly building on. And then there’s Dan Chamberlain, the artist who was already a star when we were just messing around and was already the best in every way. Most of us still make podcasts or audio. Because Adam and I kept the name, we dip back into the styles that made the show special at its inception. But close listeners would spot the difference of how we’ve evolved. And I’m sure everyone else has evolved, too. I mean, we’re all ten years older and wiser, you know?
How do you come up with ideas for Left Handed Radio?
We’ve tried and failed to have dedicated writing/pitch time. So the thing I’ve found most helpful recently is the voice memo app.
When Adam and I do a spontaneous bit to make each other laugh, we whip out an iPhone and try to recreate it. Later, it either serves as a fun interstitial or a skeleton for a sketch. When we’re searching for material to release, that’s our first stop. “What did we record?” We used to write ideas down but would forget the essence of the bit.
Actually, a recent LHR episode was written on a dare. Adam was rightfully complaining I wasn’t writing enough so I sat down and banged out a sketch in ten minutes to prove I could do it. “The Computer Cube” felt like cheating because I used whatever was on my mind to write it very quickly - the TV shows we were watching the night before, the fight we were currently having, my desire to be a walking-talking sentient computer. But then we punched it up and made some choices. We decided I would do this halfway Robert Picardo impression and Adam would do Nick Braun and, all of the sudden, it brought us joy, and we hope it brings others joy. The pressure to be funny or bring joy can slow us down. We don’t need help coming up with the ideas or finding the fun, we need help allowing the fun to exist.
What are the ingredients to a perfect Left Handed Radio sketch?
Funny premise. Laser sound effects. Bad British accent.
You also do stuff on Twitch. Do you recommend other podcasters do that? Why does it work for you?
Honestly, I would recommend live-streaming as a good exercise for all media folk. A lot of people like watching their favorite comedians and personalities talk.
We had a lot of fun streaming. But the intent was to see what was possible with the technology we have. For context, we don’t stream as ourselves, we use animated character puppets (see Chippy the Little Gerbil) and, initially, we played parlor games to get some followers. I think there’s so much potential there for an animated talkshow, a children’s show, or even live sketches or improv done through the puppets, but it would require a lot of pre-production time that we don’t currently have. (Something to watch out for on Twitch are trolls. It’s hard to play a fun drawing game when one person is deliberately uploading offensive imagery for everyone to react to.) We haven’t quit Twitch but we’re going to focus on the talk show format more when we do actually have the time.
If people haven't listened to Left Handed Radio, where should they start?
Since we’re all over the map, I made a starter pack, a Spotify collection of my favorite episodes. It includes sketches old and new, some NPR parodies, and one or two longer pieces that I consider homages to Joe Frank. And a Harklist of clips that will hopefully pique some interest.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I never would have thought that I’d enjoy a podcast about 9/11, but I trust Jenna Spinelle and she recommended one in the Bello Collective newsletter. (<—Subscribe!) Hosted by journalist Garrett Graff, author of The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, Long Shadow maps out a clear picture of September 11th. It was hard not to binge, but taking it all in is a lot, and I wanted to save. The podcast contains audio from the planes that went down, the voice messages from people who were trapped in the towers. Each episode asks a pivotal question: Why weren’t more people rescued from the towers? What was the target of Flight 93 and who issued the order to shoot it down? Was there a fifth plane? It’s truly the recordings that had me glued. It’s some of the most gripping audio I’ve heard on a podcast. (My dad told me he choked up in the first five minutes of episode one, my husband is hooked, this is a strong recommendation.)
hey.
🎙️Don’t forget to join me on Friday for the London Podcast Festival at 8am EST. I’ll be playing a game for a fun panel with BBC producer Ella Watts. Ella will recommend an audio drama to me, and I will hit her back with a non-fiction show, and back and forth we will go until we have named every podcast ever created. (Or until 90 minutes is up, that’s all they’re giving us.)
🎙️I’m getting ready to launch my first issue of Podcast Marketing Magic, a podcast marketing newsletter that will make you hate marketing your podcast less. Sign up now so you catch her when she decides to make her first appearance.
🎙️When you listen to a great podcast episode, don’t you wish you had people to discuss it with? That’s the idea behind Podcast Brunch Club, where Adela Mizrachi leads chapters all over the world to listen to one podcast playlist each month based on a theme, then come together to talk about it, just like a book club. (If you’re reading this newsletter, you should probably join!) I’m the one who curated this mont’s playlist about fairytales. It includes episodes from Femlore, Imaginary Advice, The Community Library, You’re Dead To Me, and more. Even if you don’t join the club, it’s a great list of some of the most thought-provoking podcast episodes about fairytales. I think that if you listen, you’ll be dying for friends to talk about it with. And that is what Podcast Brunch Club is all about. (Follow them on Twitter.)
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt’s EarBuds newsletter and podcast are must haves for podcasters and podcast nuts. This week she spotlighted Planthropology, which is a blast of plant facts and cool insight into the people who work with them. Subscribe to EarBuds here and here.
💎BTW💎
🎙️h/t to Ashley Lusk for recommending Trace Material, a podcast I probably would have scrolled over if I didn’t know that Ashley had such good taste. It’s a new podcast (from the Parsons Healthy Materials Lab at the New School) exploring “the intersection of our lives and the lives of the materials that surround us.” Each season focuses on a different material, and this season is plastic. (Season one was hemp.) The first episode, The Fourth Kingdom, explains how we went from using materials from the natural world to going absolutely nuts with plastic. Dance Against the Incinerator talks about the non-biodegradable waste our obsession with plastic has caused, and the people most impacted by it (low-income communities of color and New Jersey, which bears the brunt of being the butt of Manhattan’s jokes for being filthy and foul, yet Manhattan is the cause of this problem in the first place) by introducing us to a garbage incinerator in Newark, which…excuse me for being childish but I was picturing as a character in The Brave Little Toaster. The Guilt Eraser talks about how the push to recycle was doing just that…trying to erase our guilt, when reducing and reusing is much more impactful. This podcast reminds me of This Is Uncomfortable, another show I love, for telling stories that by any other name would not smell as sweet. It’s grounded in beautiful storytelling and is able to pull you in by the throat to whisper in your ear something about plastics, or something else you hadn’t planned on thinking about much before.
🎙️Rosh Hashanah, which begins tonight, is about cleanup time, even at the Kotel, a wall of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem where people leave notes to God by stuffing them inside the crevices. Each year before Rosh Hashanah, the wall is cleaned. And Isreal Story’s Mishy Harman asks: what happens to the notes? He is truly worried about this, and shouldn’t he be? A letter to God instantly becomes a sacred object, if you ask me. In an investigation (that we get to hear from his recordings) we find out that the letters aren’t treated with much care. Though he’s promised that the notes are extracted by respectable people with special wooden sticks and put inside special bags, he tags along with some teenagers who are tasked to do the cleaning and let’s just say the teens must have missed the memo about the special bags and sticks. Getting to hear Mishy go on his adventure up close (and feel his disappointment when he sees how the letters are handled) is worth a listen and will get you thinking about what a message to God really means, and how much we value the ones that we write, but also the ones written by others.
🎙️A recent episode of Short Cuts on tenderness has one of the sweetest stories I’ve ever heard—during the pandemic, Emily Drabinski hosted a daily Zoom call at 8am every day called Cat Chat, where children shared stories about their cats. It was a tiny piece of security during one of the scariest times these kids, if they’re lucky, have ever seen. On Short Cuts, hear the kids talk about their cats, and watch how they drive the conversation when adult gives them the space to tell their own stories.
🎙️I have mentioned that The Dropout was one of my favorite podcasts of 2019, and now it’s back in the feeds to keep up updated on the Elizabeth Holmes trial. It feels like a second season with all of your old friends—Elizabeth is back, along with many of the people harmed in her wake, and the first two episodes give focus to Billy Evans, Elizabeth’s husband (or boyfriend…we are left with so many questions about this #girlboss.) The spotlight on the relationship between Elizabeth and Billy is fascinating. Mazel tov to the happy couple. They seem…perfect for each other. I would love to be a fly on the wall in their home, I can hear them high-fiving themselves for thinking they’ve gotten away with murder from where I sit. But with the Dropout, you do kind of feel like a fly on the wall in this trial. Everything is expertly combed through and the presented with clarity and excitement. There’s a reason I read the Theranos book, watched the HBO documentary, and am now listening to two podcasts about it. I can’t get enough of this juicy story and The Dropout is delivering all the juicy gossip, supported by all of the facts.
🎙️Other Men Need Help had a lil bonus episode that brightened my goddam day. On Hug Me Like Uncle Phil, Mark talks to a friend about the phrase that men struggle with saying the most: hold me. They illustrate this with a memory of Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, when Phil comforts Will when Will’s dad crushes him. It starts out with a story about how Mark seeks comfort from dads when he’s flying, something he is afraid to do. I was smiling the whole way through this episode, and don’t tell anyone (big girls don’t cry,) but I think I had tears in my eyes.
🎙️Criminality is where trash TV meets true-crime—Melissa (Moms and Murder) and Rebekah (DIE-ALOGUE) tell non-murdery stories of reality personalities who break the law. Melissa and Rebekah are really fun to hang out with, have written the best episode names I have seen, and surface some juicy but underreported stories. The episode I listened to was about Charles and Diana Ingram, who cheated their way to win in a 2001 episode of the UK’s Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? by establishing a complicated coughing system during the taping. Midway through the episode, you get to hear audio from the show—the coughing, the lying. But that’s only midway—this is just the beginning. The Ingrams build a case to prove they didn’t cheat but were convicted on a single count of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception anyway, and were ridiculed and bullied so much their children had to switch schools. They were later convicted of an unrelated offense involving insurance fraud in 2003, but that case was a lot less fun.
🎙️On 70 Over 70, Max Linsky is interviewing 70 (big name) people over 70—he posits that these are the people we should be celebrating, instead of the people under 30. It’s true—the stories are incredible. (My favorite was a conversation with poet Nikki Giovanni.) But I have to point out the intros to these episodes—they are always short stories that spotlight a more regular person. They’re tiny stories, almost always my favorite part of the episode. From the woman who invented the Duncan Donut color combo to the man who says surviving the atomic bomb enabled him to enjoy pasta again, these beautiful vignettes are touching, well presented, and end up taking up more space in my brain than the celebrity interviews. To me, it’s the highlight and why you should listen. So even if you see an episode you don’t think you’ll like, listen to the first few minutes. I imagine you’ll end up sticking around. (The latest episode was with Anthony Fauci and the intro is great.)
🎙️Does Southlake, Texas ring a bell? It’s where a video went viral in 2018 showing Southlake high school students laughing and chanting the N-word at a party. With a great-ranking public school system, Southlake has a reputation for being one of the best places to raise a family (if you’re white) but the video forced its white residents and school administrators to confront something that the Black community already knew, that Southlake was extremely racist. This set off a bomb in the community, and the school board vowed to make changes with something called the Cultural Competence Action Plan, which sounds promising but ended up being a bit of a disaster (a recording of one of the CCAP’s meetings is almost word-for-word episode of The Office) and a fight about critical race theory. On Southlake, Mike Hixenbaugh (Do No Harm) and NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton are talking to residents and uncovering the story. In the second episode alone, there are several jaw-dropping audio recordings. In this moment, a student confronts another student for using the N-Word in the principal’s office, and because she recorded the conversation we get to hear how he dealt with it. (“You’re too pretty to let this bother you.”) This is why kids think adults are fucking idiots.
🎙️Book Dreams dropped what I think qualifies for one of my dream episodes, a story that is part true-crime, part dive into the historical Jesus. Ariel Sabar, author of Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, was on to tell the story of a Harvard professor who made enormous claims about Jesus (that he had a wife) based on a gospel she was sent by a conman, that was fake. Ariel was present at the announcement in Rome and helped uncover the the gospel’s forgery, and spent years unraveling the truth. This story’s a nail-biter and a quick lesson in post-modernist theory and the history of truth in faith. If this was a true-crime podcast, I would listen to it twice.
🎙️The Waves’ What’s Next for TV’s White Guys? rounds up the white guys that have been gracing our top TV shows for a thorough analysis, forcing us to wonder if they’ve lost their place as the protagonist in our stories. Who is supposed to be the hero in The White Lotus and Ted Lasso? Willa Paskin and Kathryn VanArendonk suggest it’s not a zero sum game—that diverse voices CAN tell stories more closely to where we are culturally, and the idea of the trojan horse, introducing a show with a white male protagonist only to let a woman or queer person or person of color can swoop in and steal the show. The conversation about Ted Lasso, one of the most utopian, enlightened white man we have ever seen, was one of the best I’ve heard. Season two of Ted Lasso is getting more harsh critiques, but that might just because the audience doesn’t want to join a more difficult storyline. Why have we embraced Ted? What does that say about us? Nate, after all, might just be Ted Lasso’s trojan horse. Perhaps the show will launch him into his own stardom. Maybe the world just needed a nice white man to give him the greenlight. I’m not exactly sure what to think about that.
🎙️My brain kind of freezes up when I see anything that has to do with numbers or math, but on The Allusionist, Helen Zaltman hosts a conversation that makes them fun and tied to something I do love—writing and story. Stephen Chrisomalis, professor of anthropology and linguistics and author of the book Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition and History, comes along to explain why we sometimes write out numbers and why we sometimes use the numeric system by tackling numerous numerical notation systems. Why we talk about numbers the way we do isn’t random, it’s tied to colonialism and globalism. (Isn’t everything?) I was particularly interested to learn about the history of Roman numerals and why we might use then still. Knowing this will make me look at statues and Super Bowls differently for the rest of my life.
🎙️Hollywood Remixed is a podcast from The Hollywood Reporter that hosts diversity-focused conversations from people might feel like they’re on the sidelines of Hollywood. (Just because you’re starring in a Marvel movie doesn’t mean your problems are over.) Each episode is themed to tell the story of a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture, and with special hosts and guests, tries to comb through history so that we can understand just how far away from inclusion that we are, and what white people can do better. This week’s guest was Simu Liu, star of Shang-Chi, who brought up so many interesting points I was basically underlining the whole thing in my head. Topics discussed: the two conflicting paradigms of martial arts films (martial arts kick ass, but are we limiting Asians to doing them in movies?) the problem with sexualizing hot guys like Simu and how it hurts both Asian men and women in the same way, and what why we love/what we get wrong about Bruce Lee.
🎙️The next time you can’t fall asleep click here—my Podcasts to Fall Asleep To Harklist is a collection of soothing moments that do a better job lulling you to sleep than your own mother. A meditation on kindness, two people falling in love via Google translate, Candle Hour, Helen Zaltzman reading a list of soothing words, the sound of exoplanet discovery, a poem, and more. Just click—and fall asleep. (Satisfaction guaranteed but warning, do not click if you do not want to fall asleep IMMEDIATELY and don’t click while driving a this stuff is stronger than Ambien.)
🎙️I love you!