👨❤️👨 Other Men Need Help's Mark Pagán 🎸 The death of a punk rocker, the worst Olympic event ever held, lost treasure, forks, dads 🏆
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app of Emily Reardon, Associate Publicist at Knopf.
App: Apple podcast app on phone
Listening time per week: 2-4 hours
When I listen: On the subway in the before times! Nowadays, I’ll pop something on when I go for a walk, clean dishes, do laundry, cook dinner, or take a shower. Sometimes if I can’t sleep. I very clearly remember listening to the second season of Slow Burn while cleaning my closet. And the third season almost exclusively on the M train.
How I discover: Newsletters like this one! I also work as a book publicist, so sometimes I fall down research rabbit holes and discover new shows that way.
I have a few regulars I keep in the mix (some daily news podcasts and the like), but this is what’s next for me for now…
The Writer’s Voice — I don’t think I love anything more than somebody reading me a story. I also can’t wait to read Bryan Washington’s novel, Memorial.
Keep It – I may be one of the few people who came to this show via their Snapchat channel (!), which is only a few minutes long, so I’m looking forward to hearing them talk for even longer.
Home Cooking – I have been cooking a lot during quarantine, and Samin keeps me company. Her joy is infectious.
Radio Lab – Horseshoe crabs are WILD.
xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Other Men Need Help’s Mark Pagán
Mark Pagán is the host of Other Men Need Help. Follow Other Men Need Help on Twitter here. Follow Mark on Twitter here.
Kindly introduce yourself and tell us what you do!
I’m Mark Pagán, host and creator of Other Men Need Help. It’s a podcast that playfully looks at how men present themselves to the world, and pulls back the curtain to reveal what's behind the performance. It’s a narrative show, very autobiographical, very transparent, and very silly at times. We’re now in our third season which is looking at men and their friendships. I work a few other shows and also currently take care of a pigeon named Valentina.
Which episode of Other Men Need Help was the most fun to make?
I Looked Up your Ex. It’s the second episode of the show. OMNH was brand new, with so much room to try whatever we wanted. Sure, I cringe at some of the production elements of it, but it feels the most distilled version of the kind of show I wanted to hear from another man - “my partner’s ex is a tremendously gorgeous painter and here are all the ridiculous ways it’s making me feel -- anyone with me??”. It’s the one that makes me smile the most. For this season, I've had the most fun with the third episode (debuting on August 13), I Miss You. Period. That one feels the most like I'm talking to my twelve year old self.
Are there too many podcasts?
I don’t think so. I do find it overwhelming as a digital format; not tactile in the same way as physical media. We can't grasp the gems that exist in RSS feeds all over the world. I would love to see podcasting fetishized in the same way physical media has been by collectors and anthropologists. How many one-time authors and regional audio recordings were created in the last 100 years? We don’t seem to say “too many books”, “too many records”. Instead we have communities who showcase deep knowledge, love, and awe over a limited press pulp paperback from the 50s or a self-funded Northern Soul 45 recorded in Manchester by a group of teens in the 60s. Sure it only sold a few dozen copies, but it’s beloved and shared as a divine object by multi-generational fans. We offer so much love for the volume and obscurity that exists in physical media. I’d love to see that with the plethora of pods we have! Can you imagine?! “This self-funded chatcast had a total of 55 listens but was recorded in so-and-so’s car in Nairobi off a Motorola. Only two episodes exist!” Who are the archivists doing this work?
What’s something listeners don’t understand about podcasts and what goes into making them?
Making podcasts is writing. SO MUCH WRITING. Ours is narrative in format so this is a given, but every format I’ve encountered requires writing. Also, people don't appreciate the time commitment to painstakingly remove little sound issues that hopefully no one ever registers. If there’s a hell for podcasters, all the mouth noise you spent your life removing during long late night editing sessions will be waiting for you.
Other Men Needs Help feels totally different than anything else out there. Where did you get the idea?
As a listener, I was finding one of three options when looking for conversations about gender or masculinity. One was the round table discussion with limited introspection or accountability from hosts. Second was the “I’m the asshole” proclamation that doesn’t really own actions, or indicate any reflection. And the other was what I call the “earnest open mic-er show”: someone just expressing feelings, getting very sentimental and heavy AND usually sharing a one-sided narrative. These three all have one thing in common: they're joyless.Our go to explanation for the show is “Sesame Street about men for adults”. You're getting to the heart of the matter, but doing so in a colorful, engaging way. In terms of style, I wondered what an animated series sounded like as a podcast? Internally, each season I say to the team, “ok we’re gonna try to make Bob’s Burgers as a podcast”. It’s kind of the goal! The goal being characters you relate to - people that are flawed, who will take responsibility, and ultimately share what they care about deep down - in bite-sized episodes with a resolution that’s tender and honest. In the midst of that, expect absurdity, ridiculous voices, and dope music.
Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
Oh I’m glad you asked that question. I’ve heard that from other podcasters (the criticism for their voices). And I do think a lot about gender and male-ness in audio when recording. Ultimately, what I’m saying could be patriarchal since frankly I’m still a man talking with the assumption that my voice carries weight where many of my peers are criticized just for their speaking voice. I exist in this world as a man, but I’ve felt unease in some male spaces and groups, so I am very intentional about dispelling that unease with a disarming voice. By talking intimately to people, I’m very intentional about trying to offer authenticity, but also a male voice like the ones that made me feel safe when I was younger. So I very explicitly replicate three voices that comforted me when I was a boy. I alternate between copying my brother-in-law Gilberto’s Southwestern blanket of warm patter; John Travolta’s calm and charm as Jack Terry in Blow Out; or Donnie Simpson’s mellow confidence during his days as Video Soul host and WKYS DJ. Hopefully it comes off sounding like the most approachable version of myself.
What shows do you love?
It changes when we’re in production -- I can’t listen to most narrative shows until we wrap! Right now, it’s Switchblade Sisters, BBC 4’s Soul Music, Still Processing, Bag Ladiez, Heat Rocks, Imaginary Advice, Natal, Articles of Interest, Thirst Aid Kit. I’m a big Bullseye fan. Would love to talk with Jesse Thorn - he’s one of my faves.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I binged The Ballad of Billy Balls in record time for me (I discovered it through the Pocket Casts app, which was featuring favorite episodes of Lauren Ober. Thanks, Lauren!) Listening to it reminded me of reading a book I can’t put down. I was waking up in the middle of the night to continue the story, and I looked forward to any moments during the day I could snag to hear it. It’s technically about the 1982 murder of punk rocker Billy Balls, a death which affected the host’s mother and Billy’s Partner, Rebecca. Rebecca is destroyed by this, even after all these years, and her son iO is determined to get to the bottom of the mysterious circumstances of Billy’s death. iO whisks you away to the 1980s East Village, New York City (my very own street is referred to “the asshole of New York”) in an emotional journey that digs far deeper than the crime itself. The show is actually about a complicated, healing family, and whether or not digging for the truth is the right thing to do. I’m done listening to everything, even the bonus episodes, and I find myself missing iO, Rebecca, and Billy. I I find myself looking for them while I’m walking around my neighborhood (even Billy.) I think I know people like Rebecca, the skeletons in this family closet feel familiar, and all of the characters in this story resonate with me although I have nothing in common with them. This story has swallowed me up whole.
💎BTW💎
🎙️The Constant’s Run for Your Life is the story of the worst Olympic event ever held, The 1904 Olympic Marathon. It stars a cast of characters almost too over-the-top to be true, and their stories feel like tall tales. In only 26 miles, competitors were plagued by sickness, dehydration, injury, near death, and utter and complete misfortune. Most of them didn’t have any experience running, and the mix included a Black duo likely taken from a side show at the nearby World’s Fair. Host Mark Chrisler is probably the most exciting history teacher I’ve ever known. In every episode, his enthusiasm for history is contagious, his storytelling is completely unique and personal, and this is one of the most bizarre stories I’ve ever heard.
🎙️Dear Young Rocker is back! We pick up where we left off, with young Chelsea in college, studying music. (If you haven’t started, start with season one.) I wasn’t a musician in college but the way Chelsea writes about anxiety, insecurity, and finding herself (oh, and terrible college parties and hookups) resonates so strongly with me that it hurts. Episode two introduces us what seems to be one of the most exciting part of the series, Chelsea accidentally joining some sort of yoga cult. This show stirs up so many emotions and I feel so protective of Young Chelsea (and maybe of all Young Rockers and even my younger self.) Chelsea is tapping in to humanity with gorgeous storytelling and remarkable self-reflection. I am so excited about what’s to come.
🎙️I love Bizarre Albums because each episode is a piece that explores an album almost too incredible to believe, each one truly deserving of Tony Thaxton’s well-produced deep dive. I dare you to look at the episode list, peruse all of the album covers, and not choose several to add to your queue immediately. The episode Mrs. Millers Greatest Hits tells the story of a casual hobbyist singer, Elva Miller, who caught the attention of Capital Records in the 60s, but not because her voice was anywhere near good. Her covers of songs like “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” and “Downtown” are pretty kooky. Listen, I have no idea how to describe these insane songs. Mrs. Miller’s voice sounds painfully restricted and set to a high pitch she can’t quite hold. It sounds like she’s fretting over he lyrics of the songs, and the music doesn’t even sync up with her singing, which we can hardly blame Mrs. Miller for. The producers seemed to be in on the joke, which is that these songs are so bad they go past bad and back to good, but then back to bad because they are just bad. But Mrs. Miller is not in on the joke. She sings with the confidence of someone who has hit the top 100 charts. Which she has. Bizarre Albums tells this story in all it’s glory. Poor Mrs. Miller?
🎙️Every time I listen to an episode of Short Cuts, it seems like it’s exactly what I need to hear, even if I didn’t know it. It’s like each one is a film negative, filling the spaces of what other podcasts give me. The polar opposite of the loud, showy shows that fill my ears with attention-grabbing noise. Subtle moments that value silence, that know that sometimes less is more. This episode, The Question, had 3 very different, beautiful pieces, that made me feel like I was reaching into a surprise box of gifts. The first piece was a documentary snapshot of what people need to know at this point in time. The second, a piece about a gameshow. And the third was a non-imposing piece about how a journalist gets her subjects to open up to her.
🎙️When an organ is donated, quickly getting it from the deceased to the awaiting patient is a matter of life or death. And often, no matter how perfectly doctors are able to set this up, organs don’t always make it to the patients in time, due to transportation errors. This episode of Reveal, Lost in Transplantation, takes a fascinating look at the weakness in our system for transporting organs. So at that point of the episode, you’re mad. My anger of this was quelled at the end due to a short audio piece about honor walks, a new ritual that hospitals are adopting to honor the gift of life that dying people are giving to patients who will receive their organs. A choir was arranged for an honor walk for a man killed in a car accident, and it brought tears to my eyes.
🎙️Science Diction is wrapping up its food season, and the last episode on restaurants was a lesson on the word restaurant, which originally referred to a sort of wellness-soup that people would eat in these locations. RESTAU = restore. (If you’re sick and tired, you can’t be expected to eat solid food!) So people would gather together, restoring themselves with this soup, and then things started getting tacked on, like menus. I recommend memorizing this story so that when you are at an awkward blind date or an uncomfortable dinner (when we once again can dine in restaurants,) you can rattle off everything you know about the history of the restaurants, and how it all started with a soup.
🎙️Red Web covers internet mysteries, conspiracies, and supernatural events, and Lead Masks Case feels like something ripped from a novel, or like a terrible/amazing horror movie I’d want to watch. Two young men were found dead on a hill next to crudely made lead masks and a notebook containing cryptic instructions. They had been robbed, but some of their money remained on their chests. We still don’t know what happened to them. I enjoyed this episode but cannot stop wondering what happened.
🎙️This episode of Very Presidential is the story of Woodrow Wilson, a shitty, selfish man who cheated on his wives and lied to America. We all know how much he sucked. But it’s also the feminist tale, sort of, of technically the first female president in the US, Woodrow’s wife Edith, who stepped in to take over Woodrow’s duties when he became too sick to lead. We have all been indoctrinated since birth to believe these white guys were extraordinary in some way, and I’m grateful for this series, which drives home the fact they weren’t at all. I don’t come away thinking that Presidents are inherently awful. We all are awful. We just happen to keep electing the very worst ones to lead our country.
🎙️Relative Unknown is one of my favorite new shows—it started out with a bang and is continuing to keep me on the edge of my seat. It’s following the story of Clarence “Butch” Crouch, whom we know a little bit about from the fantastic first episode. The show opens with his dead body in a car, overlooking his house, which had recently been burned down, killing his wife and her son. (Butch was the arsenist and had taken his own life.) Then we learn about his life, which includes the Hell’s Angels and eventually the Witness Protection Program. I just finished episode Bomb City USA, which focuses on the waves Butch made on Cleveland and its history with the organized crime. I have a lot of readers from Cleveland (AYOOOO!!!) and I urge them to listen to this wild ride set in their city and on their streets. I urge everyone to listen to it.
🎙️Judge John Hodgman bursts into my life each week, and for one hour, I forget all of my problems and marinate in the show’s joy. On the show, John Hodgman acts as judge to help settle disputes between partners and friends. He’s not just a judge and comedian, he’s a sort of therapist, too. By digging into these seemingly trivial disputes, we get to know the couples and connect with them. The participants are always sweet (and usually nerdy,) their problems are sweet (and usually nerdy.) On Neverlandmark Case, Ryan’s ex-girlfriend made him a Peter Pan themed painting and he still has it. His wife, Jessie, wants to get rid of the painting.
🎙️Tracy Clayton (you know her from Another Round and a bunch of other stuff) and Pineapple Street Studios Producer Josh Gwynn are mining our nostalgia for moments in pop culture to find real meaning for their new show Back Issue. It’s silly but also smart—the first episode looks back at the admirable highs and questionable lows of Tyra Banks and her messy show America’s Next Top Model. (Jay Manuel makes a guest appearance.) The two are able to laugh at some of the show’s outrageous stunts while presenting an empathetic understanding into where Tyra was coming from, calling her out but giving her credit where credit is due. It’s easy to dismiss Tyra, it’s much more interesting to think about her with context—the racist, sexist world she was operating in, and the hurdles she was clearing as she produced season after season of America’s Next Top Model.
🎙️I am continuing to love Bad People, where criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw and comedian Sofie Hagen join forces to take a funny and intelligent look at why people crime the way they do. It’s a must-listen companion series for anyone who listens to true-crime, and a fascinating look at what makes people tick, even if you don’t love true-crime. (It’s also very funny.) This episode about wrongful convictions introduces us to Ronald Cotton, who spent 10 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and his current relationship with the woman who put him in jail. Understanding Ronald Cotton’s story helps us get a better understanding of the entire criminal justice system, how racism fuels miscarriages of justice, and why we can’t always trust eyewitness accounts, or even our own memories.
🎙️Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is famous for one of the biggest scandals in sports—getting caught betting on games that he officiated in 2008. Donaghy claims the NBA was the one fixing the games, and journalist Tim Livingston is setting out to find the truth in Whistle Blower. It seems unsurprising that Donaghy would be made a sacrificial lamb for the NBA, and doubtful that he did this all alone. (And the show promises that everyone involved has something to hide.) I like this show because the journalism is wide open and totally personal. Tim is inviting us on a wild ride. I have been so into sports podcasts lately, even though sports have been basically cancelled this year. This show will give sports freaks their sports fix, but will appeal to anyone who loves good storytelling told through a sports lens.
🎙️This Snap Judgment story feels like something that could have been a lost story from Genesis, or a fable. It’s about fishing, fathers, greed, and doing what’s best for your family, and feels timeless. A fisherman down on his luck finds gold at the bottom of the sea. Getting the gold could make him a billionaire, but it could also put him and his family at great risk. It’s a perfect story that tells the story of one man, but feels like it is talking about all of humanity.
🎙️Other Men Need Help’s The California Friend takes us to LA, where Mark Pagán visits an old friend to discuss maintaining long-distance friendships, and why men are so afraid to communicate on the phone. Sometimes I don’t think I am Mark’s target audience because I don’t identify as male, but these themes are applicable to everyone. This episode made me want to pick up my phone and call all of my old friends one by one, but that might freak them out. People sure do hate phone calls! Listening to this series about friendships has made me examine my own relationship with my friends, and what I’m doing to maintain them. I think this series has the power to make us all happier, more fulfilled people.
🎙️In 1978, Tim Jenkin was charged under South Africa’s Terrorism Act for disseminating anti-apartheid material, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. An episode of Criminal, Ten Doors, tells the story of Tim reading Papillon (“a manual of escape”) in jail and escaping by creating homemade keys for all of the prison doors. It’s an incredible escape story that we can feel good about because Tim is a good guy imprisoned for a bad reason. Listening, you’re cheering him on and completely wowed over how he managed to pull this off.
🎙️There’s this certain genre of show that explores mundane topics and finds ways to arm you with facts about them so that you can bore people to death at dinner parties with them. These shows are usually called things like “Faxts to Explode Yr Brain!” or “The World Is Cool!” or something. I don’t like these shows. But I LOVE Pessimists Archive, which ends up giving you an appreciation for things like mirrors and birthday parties with nuance. Jason Feifer presents them as things that we once feared, and goes through their stories trying to figure out how and why we collectively reject and then embrace things in society. For this episode about forks, Jason begins looking at medieval art, noticing the lack of forks, and traces the history of the fork, following its path to Florence and around the world, as it is feared by Christians, used by rich people, and finally accepted by the entire world. (Two other shows that handle this subject well are The Boring Talks, which does this with beautiful almost poetic narrative, and Alex Schmidt’s new Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, which is both deeply fascinating and pumped with humor.) And oh! Jason interviewed Tink client Bruce Feiler on his other show, Problem Solvers, where he and Bruce talk about managing life transitions.
🎙️You’re Wrong About’s Sarah Marshall has a new show with a friend Alex Steed, Why Are Dads?, which looks at “what the hell it means to be the grown children of dads and other dad-like figures” by examining dads in pop culture. (The first episode looks at dads in Jaws.) Getting to see things through the eyes of Sarah Marshall on You’re Wrong About is a gift, and I’m excited that she’s expanding her world. The show’s specificity allows her and Alex to wisely unpack movies, TV, and books with a focus that opens up pop culture to reveal surprising things and “aha!” moments, making it completely unique.
🎙️Anthropocene Reviewed has been such a delightful show where John Green reviews things he finds interesting with beautiful narrative. The last episode will be the last episode for awhile, and in it John reviews Anthropocene Reviewed itself. He gets completely open about what the show has meant to him and what he has put into making it. He also gets honest about what it has felt to be a famous person. It’s an incredibly vulnerable episode, but a sad episode for those of us who will miss the show, allowing us to appreciate the work he’s put into producing it.
🎙️Reply All ran an old episode about Perfect Crime, New York’s longest running play, and possibly the worst. The show has worse Yelp reviews than Rikers Island. Catherine Russell has been starring in it eight times a week for the past 30 years, and she isn’t bothered by the negative reviews. Why does this show endure, when so many people dislike it? And what kind of creative person can continue making art that is ridiculed? Catherine has a cheery opinion about the show, and her dedication to the project brings up so many questions about what drives us and why we care what others think of us. The episode is followed up with a round of Yes Yes No searches for the thread that ties together leg washing in the shower, Aperol, the Uber strike, and a messy divorce.
🎙️I went through my true-crime phase in my early 20s and was fascinated in the story about Ex-Green Beret Doctor Jeffrey MacDonald, who in 1979 was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters. A young journalist, Joe McGinnis, decided to write a book about Jeff’s case. And as the two became friends, Joe’s faith in MacDonald’s innocence changed, and the book ended up being different than MacDonald expected. (This led to Janet Malcom writing a book about journalism ethics, The Journalist and the Murderer.) It’s a wild, thorny story and although I’ve read about it, listening to the podcast Morally Indefensible and hearing footage from the case makes me feel like I’m hearing the story anew. Hosted by Marc Smerling, the creator behind The Jinx and Crimetown, it’s a well-told story that begs for further examination.
🎙️I love you!