🏄♀️4 powerful Podcast Movement moments 🕵🏼♀️ a true crime idiot's missing husband 🔍 Tlél Wudakʼóodzi Ḵaa Lʼóotʼ👅
🍭 👂 You're in for a treat! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, August 29. There are 37 days until I go on my next Disney Cruise. I was at Podcast Movement (or as my dad says, my “Gathering of the Juggalos”) this week, so did a little less listening and a little more embarrassing myself in front of my peers, so below you’ll see a little Podcast Movement section and fewer reviews. In case this email is too long, a true crime idiot’s husband is missing here, Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall together again here, I really just want everyone to listen to this.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Stefan Heck and John Cullen
Stefan Heck and John Cullen are the co-hosts of Blocked Party. Follow Stefan on Twitter here. Follow John on Twitter here. Follow Blocked Party on Twitter here.
Describe the show in 10 words or less.
John: A very stupid show about the internet that’s actually low-key smart..
What’s the best story on Blocked Party?
John: Oh, there’s so many. One thing about doing our show is you realize how many different TYPES of people can be insane online. It’s not all just unhinged, right-wing weirdos. Often it’s just people you know personally who seem normal otherwise. Or a known person we consider to be even-keeled but someone found their breaking point. Cait Raft vs. 300 Facebook Friends might be one of my faves. Cait fully pretended to be this different version of themselves, just completely falsified their entire life–fake boyfriend, fake pets, fake everything. A bunch of their friends blocked them over it, and it ruled. Another funny one that stands out and to me, sort of encapsulates the whole internet, is Ed Zitron v. Effin Birds, mostly for what happened after. So Ed gets blocked for shitting on the guy who writes the bird swear pictures, and then the guy who runs the company writes us this tweet saying, “wow, I am so disappointed. I really respect all of you and this really sucked to hear.” He also tried to say, “I didn’t even block Ed!” It’s like, man, you got rich off of putting “live, laugh, motherfucking LOVE” beside an illustrated bird. Leave us alone.
Why are you the perfect hosts for this show?
Stefan: I think the combination of an online freak (me) and a total normie (him) works really well. I think people enjoy that dynamic, and they tune in every week to see what depraved fast food reviewer I’ll be forcing John to watch. I think if it was two normal guys or two online freaks it just wouldn’t feel quite the same.
John: Haha, are we? Who knows. Someone once said that this show is not actually about being blocked online, but it’s about two best friends where one is an “internet weirdo” who shows his “normal” best friend the weird corners of the internet. I think it’s that push/pull beyond the obvious hilarity of our guests and their stories that makes us the right fit for the show. I think the show would still be really good if it was Stefan and someone else because Stefan is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, but if it was him and also another internet weirdo, it would be a completely different show.
Say you’re going to start another podcast…you have a one million dollar budget, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
Stefan: Well I’m bringing John on board immediately, because there is no fucking way I’m going to be able to figure out any of the administrative shit myself. Seriously though, he’s the brains, heart, and spine of Blocked Party, so if I’m doing another show, he’s gonna be there too. I think maybe it would be entirely dedicated to fast food review guys also. Sorry, John.
John: I think I am starting another podcast. It won’t have a one million dollar budget though. If I had a one million dollar budget, I’d see how many episodes of a show with Tony Hawk that would buy me and I’d just hang out with him once a week.
How has podcasting changed you?
Stefan: I find myself actively looking for stupid things to talk about on the show each week, which I think has probably caused harm to my mental wellbeing, but whatever. If talking about fan art where, like, the Brave Little Toaster gets sucked off by the talking vacuum cleaner is bad for my mental wellbeing, then so be it. That’s the cost of creating content.
How has the show changed since it started?
Stefan: I think it’s a smoother listen now. We know the pacing of the show much better, and we can tell if a bit is going long (and not in a funny way). It’s also become much, much stupider, which I think is mostly my fault.
John: It’s gotten better. I think comedy podcasts are kind of wild that way in that with almost no exception (at least in the pods I’ve listened to), they all get better with time. Maybe it’s because it’s somewhat similar to stand-up comedy? Most comedians continue to get better the longer they do it. But yeah, I think even though we’re approaching episode 200, we’re still getting better. That’s probably what makes it continually fun to do and prevents burnout, too.
What’s one show you love that everyone already knows about?
Stefan: I gotta mention our friends Jesse and Mike and their wonderful show Your Kickstarter Sucks here. I think they are the two funniest people in the entire world and I could listen to Jesse talk about going to the store for, like, 12 hours at a time.
John: Stop Podcasting Yourself has always been the best comedy pod, to me. Just two guys from Vancouver who started podcasting VERY early in the game and can make any guest good and funny on their show. I feel like anyone who knows comedy podcasts knows it, but yeah. It’s the pinnacle of the “comedy hangout” podcast genre for me.
What’s one show you love that not enough people know about?
Stefan: Howell Dawdy’s Fast Track is incredible. He gives you 30 minutes to write an entire song, in a genre of your choosing, and then a little while later you record your vocals and he produces something magical. I don’t know how he does it but it is incredibly funny. And also, both John and I have been on before and had a great time.
John: I’ve been mainlining 60 Songs That Explain the 90s by Rob Harvilla. It’s insane. He’s a music journalist who does a different song every episode and usually the first 45 minutes are just him monologuing about the song. Sometimes he’ll start the episode with a full 20-minute digression about another band. He weaves in a bunch of extraneous details about his own life and has a very weird sense of humour. But somehow it all works. And if you’ve never listened to a Jamie Loftus limited-run podcast, you gotta. I think she’s one of the most talented people I know.
Thanks, Stefan and John!
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I love what the Multitude team is putting out—podcasts feel completely original and alive. (A personal favorite: Meddling Adults.) There’s always an added layer to these shows that makes them not like other girls. On Head Heart Gut, they take an iconic set of three items from pop culture or the world and pit them against each other. Special guests fight with facts and pure adoration for their favorite things in different categories, like human organs and animal companions in pop culture. It’s not about finding the right answer, it’s about finding the best answer—who is able to make the best argument for why their pick should win? A final episode in the series is the judgment episode, where the winner is announced. Get full access by joining the Multicrew at multicrew.club!
In-depth Podcast Movement review
There’s a more comprehensive overview of Podcast Movement coming up, but here were my four proudest moments:
💥Within 30 seconds of hitting the floor I made eye contact with the people at PodcastersatSea.com, a podcast conference that takes place on a cruise ship. I had no intention on going on this cruise but spent more than twenty minutes nerding out about cruise culture with these people, who were trying me to sign up and if I got ten people to sign up I’d get $2,000 knocked off my fee and would get 20 minutes of speaking time on the big stage. Maybe I should reconsider. If you sign up, tell them I sent you?
💥(Many drinks in) at the iHeart party, I went up to Donald Albright, cofounder of Tenderfoot, and asked him what he did at Tenderfoot. (I am telling myself this is our "meet-cute.”)
💥Two minutes after my interaction with Donald (he was very kind) I left the party with Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn of Crime Writers On…, who promised me that we could walk back to the hotel, which we could see from the bar. Twenty minutes later we were stuck in a swap trapped between two highways, and as I pulled my foot out of some sort of bog, Rebecca screaming “we’re going to die out here!” and Kevin messing around with an orange safety cone that was actually there to protect us from falling to our deaths in what looked like an unmarked mass grave, I thought, this is what Podcast Movement is all about. If we had mysteriously died or gone missing, maybe Payne Lindsey and my new friend Donald Albright could make a podcast about it, and the remaining members of Crime Writers On…, Toby Ball and Lara Bricker, could cover it on their show.
💥I stole some key lime pie at one party and brought it in to a to-go box to Jack O’Brien at another party, and I think he actually ate it.
💎BTW💎
🎙️There are some really cool (and important) podcasts coming out of Anna Hossnieh’s UpNext program, including Tongue Unbroken (Tlél Wudakʼóodzi Ḵaa Lʼóotʼ), a podcast about Native American language revitalization and decolonization hosted by X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell. It’s tough to hear, but X̱ʼunei is a warm host who makes you feel welcome to the table. I loved hearing about the different ways we keep languages alive—do we talk to our grandmothers in them, dream in them, use them in our schools? In the same way that Dallas Taylor is archiving sounds that might be lost, X̱ʼunei speaks the language, which is something many people are hearing for the first time and might never hear otherwise. And if that’s you, congratulations—you too, are contributing to the death of Indigenous language! But again, X̱ʼunei wants you to be here, and I want to be here, too. The first interview is with his kids, whom he interviews in Lingít. I’m trying not to be too goopy about this but it was undeniably adorable. Listen here.
🎙️On August 15, 2021, the Taliban regained control of Kabul, and in an instant, thousands of Afghans were forced to leave their old lives behind and embark on a hellish journey for survival, making terrifying life-or-death decisions. On Kabul Falling, we hear Afghans who were there recount their harrowing stories of trying to leave. This show is pundit-free, a tapestry of some of the most unsettling stories you’ll hear, people who almost died in the streets and were turned away from the airport. It’s the flashy headlines we read fleshed out, and with immersive storytelling and interviews, we can begin to understand what it was really like, and why for us Kabul fell on that day in August, but for many, Kabul is still falling. Listen here.
🎙️Up to bat at Clown Parade is comedian Rekha Shankar, who has built the character of “true crime idiot” Bo Brimley, a woman running with a strong, false conviction that her husband has gone missing, for her show TOOK’D. To learn more about missing persons, she interviews her friend Jamie Cardelini, whose husband, a Donald Duck mascot, has actually disappeared. I mentioned I’m starting to notice more “true crime fiction” with Corked and Who Shat on the Floor of my Wedding? I guess this is “true crime improv comedy,” an idea that feels original. When I go to live improv shows, the cool thing is that you are watching something that can never again be experienced by anyone else. The cool thing about Clown Parade is that the improv is just really, really good . Listen here.
🎙️On Into It with Sam Sanders, Sam talked to Normal Gossip’s Kelsey McKinney about celebrities, whether or not they have family money, and how this shapes their decisions to do brand deals or cheesy ads, using Sydney Sweeney's Instagram as an example. Sydney doesn’t come from money, unlike her Euphoria co-host Maude Apatow, so there’s a reason her Instagram is full of promotion that might annoy fans who don’t understand how someone like Sydney could possibly be in need of money. The economics of celebrity is more complicated than I thought, and this episode made me rethink the brilliant teasing done over on Who, Weekly? Celebrities shilling weird shit is hilarious and I don’t want Who, Weekly? to stop, but this adds an extra layer to the jokes. Listen here.
🎙️Checking in on In Your Hands, the show where comedian Lizzy Cooperman’s fate is in our hands: Lizzy spent her birthday redeeming free food coupons, and now her Sourcerers (you) must decide whether she should visit the Party Queens camped out at Rainforest Cafe or go on a Christmas cruise. You know what I voted for. What part of the words free birthday food coupons / Party Queens at Rainforest Cafe / Christmas cruise is not totally enticing? This show is the definition of original, Lizzy is hilarious, and I’m inviting you to join the movement—listen and vote.
🎙️From the house of The Guilty Feminist comes Media Storm, a news podcast with the people—”migrants,” “sex workers,” “criminals,” who are usually asked last. Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia are acutely focused on what the media is ignoring, wondering through interviews whether the media reports on crisis or creates it. The news we consume is heavily curated, but Media Storm is cutting through the bullshit headlines that create falsehoods and give validity to stereotypes, taking evidence, not media conversation, to tell true stories and drive policy. On a powerful episode about refugees, we hear from a real, actual refugee Steve Ali, who discusses his experiences of seeking asylum and why he thinks the mainstream media reports on refugees the way it does. An episode about pedophiles interviews people struggling with it to explore pedophilia as a mental illness, a conversation most media outlets and researches wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. (There is even a conversation with one of the few out-spoken women pedophiles.) I’m seeing this theme alive in so many shows like First Person and Media Circus that are using the podcast medium to set media straight. But Media Storm is more than just an interview series. It feels more personal than First Person and more produced than Media Circus. It’s a look at an entire media story, episode by episode, told through the voices of many people, and with tons of research and context that makes these murky headlines seem a little more clear. Listen here.
🎙️In the 80s and 90s, Belgium was being shook by serial killer, pedophile, and kidnapper Marc Dutroux, and Le Monstre is telling the story of his string of crimes. It’s Belgium’s version of America’s Stranger Danger craze, a moment in which nobody felt safe, that has citizens still carrying the trauma. I’ve listened to two episodes, both totally felt like they could be standalones, both eerie as fuck and properly investigated. Each told using great detail and interviews with witnesses. The second episode tells the story of two women who were under a spell at a magic show and never came home. Listen here.
🎙️After two years of Maintenance Phase, we finally got a You’re Wrong About crossover episode with Michael Hobbes’ former You’re Wrong About co-host Sarah Marshall. The Scarsdale Diet Murder is a ‘forgotbuster’ story, something that was huge when it happened but has since been overlooked, so it’s a rare version of the story that explains what made Jean Harris snap when she murdered her husband, Herman Tarnower. “I don’t think I’ve ever called a murder victim an asshole so many times,” Sarah says. The fact that he was, and this entire episode, illustrates how complicated murder is, and that we never get the full story. I feel strange saying this about a murder story, but this episode was just so much fun. Hearing Michael and Sarah together again is a balm (Aubrey is there, too) and their magic sparkles as they look at this case in a new way and have fun doing it. Listen here.
🎙️Far Flung follows its nose to find the sweet, nostalgic smell of funky gym gloves, found in a boxing gym in Istanbul, which is the home to a large community of Uygher refugees. The gym is where they come to hit each other in the faces but also to connect about their shared past and missing loved ones. Saleem Reshamwala talks to a gym member who is collecting testimonies of those missing, which is more like a memorial. This episode is dangerous—in China, Uygher people have to hide their boxing gloves—if found with them they could be sent away to a camp or killed. But even in Istanbul they fear for their lives for speaking out. This is the story of sport and a rebellion in a boxing gym, which has turned into a place to bring people together and help them rebuild their lives, heal from trauma, and do something about the atrocities they’re facing at home. Listen here.
🎙️On Book Exploder (found in Hrishikesh Hirway’s Song Exploder feed) Susan Orlean talked to Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, about to her approach in writing a multi-generational story of a Korean family that moves to Japan that she thought nobody would ever care about. (She was way wrong.) She explains how with her corporate lawyer background, she is able to be kind to herself when she writes (iced coffee and chocolate!) and then go back as a ruthless editor to cut the fat and build her worlds and characters. Plus we get to hear her read and break down a passage of this beautiful book. Listen here.
🎙️If you can’t get enough of Missing Pages, you’ll like this episode of Cautionary Tales, which tells the story of Clifford Irving, who wrote Howard Hughes’ auto-biography without Howard Hughes’ consent, or even awareness of the project. The irony of Clifford being peeved when his ripped-off story was turned into a movie that he didn’t like, is, well, obvious. Listen here.
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Preconceived in her newsletter and podcast.
🎙️I love you!
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Jazzy T, a veteran radio personality and owner of JazzCast Pros, a podcast production company offering development, distribution and editing services to the next generation of podcasters.
The app you use to listen: Apple Podcast is my go-to, but sometimes I cheat with Spotify. Podbean is a really great app for interactive livestreams.
What speed do you listen to podcasts? 1X I like to listen to it the way the producer intended for it to be heard.
How do you discover new shows? I spend time in Facebook Groups like: the Black Podcast Support Network, Grow the Show for Podcasters and BIPOC Podcast Creator and now PodPeople Circle and support my fellow producer/editors.
One show you love that everybody loves. Grow the Show with Kevin Chemidlin.
One show you love that most people don't know about. Beauty Boss Millionaire with Falicia Fracassi, daily, on-the-go episodes to help you grow your business into a million-dollar empire.
Unpopular opinion: If you don't have an RSS feed, you do not have a podcast. YouTube videos are great for showing the behind the scenes of making your podcast, but unless you have that RSS, you are just a YouTuber. (Sorry not sorry.)
