😱Good podcasts that trigger me 🚨 The Alarmist's Rebecca Delgado Smith🔥
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
In 2016, two things and only two things happened: I was VERY unhappy at my job and Anderson Paak came out with a VERY good album, Malibu. I would listen to it on repeat all day, while filling out forms I hated, feeling useless, and responding to my colleagues’ never-ending panic. Years after I had left the job, I was unable to listen to Anderson Paak’s distinctive voice. This sux, because Anderson Paak is on a lot of good tracks with other rappers (I would often be enjoying a song and feel Paak-bombed when he would appear from nowhere.) Every time I heard his scratchy yet smooth, emotional, sorrowful voice, I’d start to feel sick. It really took me back to that desk and that feeling of UGH, that voice.
I found myself unhappy in another job last year, a time I was bingeing great shows like Couples Therapy, You’re The Worst, The Read, Unqualified, The Hilarious World of Depression, Dumb People Town, Nerdette. I can remember where I was in that terrible office during the intros of The Guilty Feminist, or where I was stress-walking home when I was listening to Friendshipping. Listening to these shows now brings back stress and unhappiness. These are good shows! That I’ve abandoned. I’m missing out.
I will tell you that recently my husband turned on Paak’s Malibu in the apartment. He wasn’t trying to torture me, I haven’t shared this secret with anyone before. But in 2020, four years later, I could listen. I loved it. I am healed.
This gives me hope. In four years I will have so many episodes of The Guilty Feminist to catch up on. Do you have trauma-inducing songs or podcasts, too? Have you been able to return to them? I wonder if I am listening to something NOW that will be difficult for me to listen to later, because of the pandemic.
xoxo lp
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The Alarmist’s Rebecca Delgado Smith
Rebecca Delgado-Smith is the host of The Alarmist, a comedy podcast that takes history’s greatest tragedies and disasters and figures out who’s to blame. Follow her on Twitter here. Follow The Alarmist on Twitter here.
Are you truly an alarmist in real life? How much of Rebecca on The Alarmist is YOU, and how much is a character?
Rebecca is the alarmist and the alarmist is Rebecca. Believe me, sometimes I REALLY wish it was a character! I’ve dealt with anxiety for as long as I can remember and I started going to therapy almost 10 years ago (bless the heavens for that!). One of the ways that my anxiety manifests is by catastrophizing, which then makes me prone to ringing ALL of the alarms, most of the time unnecessarily, but every now and again I’m right, which then gives me the validation I need to continue my alarmist ways. I sound super fun and chill. Wanna be friends?! I’ve always relied on my sense of humor socially and I thought I was doing an excellent job covering up my alarmism, until one day I ran into my friend Mary who told me she was on her way to eat a salad for lunch. Now, this was during the E. Coli Romaine Scare of 2018, and I politely told her that sounded delicious, but to make sure she got an arugula or spinach base. Mary laughed and jokingly said, “Oh, Rebecca. You’re such an Alarmist.” And that was the moment I realized my secret was out. From then on, I just let it ride. A few months later, I started developing the idea for the podcast. I’ve always loved history (I had a high school history teacher who taught history like it was gossip and I was hooked!) and so I took my interest in history and thought of the way I would like to explore it (through the blame game, obviously). My friend and producer Amanda Lund helped me develop the idea and the format — and that’s how we got The Alarmist. It’s probably the most natural thing I’ve ever created.
Has there been an episode that got people really excited or angry?
The episode that a few people have taken issue with is the Gender Reveal Disaster episode about a gender reveal party where a guy blew up a box that then ignited a 47,000 acre wildfire. Perhaps it’s because we sent Toxic Masculinity to the Alarmist jail? We knew some people would take issue with that, but after much thought and consideration, it was found guilty!
Women are constantly being criticized for their voices on podcasts. What is your relationship to yours?
I’ve been surprised by the amount of people who have reached out to compliment me on my voice specifically! A listener from Nepal recently wrote in saying most of the podcast there are hosted by men and that he was happy to hear one hosted by a woman. It was a nice email to get. Look, like many people, I’ve re-recorded my voicemail message a bunch of times and sometimes I hear myself and think, “Really? Am I always that high-pitched?!” That said, maybe it’s because I’ve been acting since I was a kid and I’ve experience a lot of rejection in my life, but I really don’t care what people think about my voice. Other than some vocal warm-ups (which I don’t do) there is very little I can actually do about it. I don’t pay attention to anyone who’s main gripe is “the tone of my voice.” If that’s our starting place, I don’t have time. I’ve got way too much research to do to deal with you. I’m grateful for the compliments though!
If you were going to start a new podcast, don't worry about whether or not anyone would like it or any of the logistics, what would it be?
If I didn’t have to worry about anyone being interested in it, I’d do a podcast where I voice my two dogs having conversations about them coming up with a plan for peace with the squirrels in the backyard. There are lengthy negotiations and the squirrels don’t make it easy. But I would like to give it a happy ending. Perhaps with a romantic b-story.
Can you recommend any other podcasts?
I really enjoyed season one of “Nice Try!” focusing on failed utopias in history and “Cocaine and Rhinestones” about country music history. Also, if you like murder mystery podcasts and haven’t already listened to “Root of Evil” I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Warning: it’s intense. For something lighter, my go-to is “The Big Ones” hosted by Amanda Lund and her Earios Network co-founder Maria Blasucci, where they take hypothetical moral dilemmas and discuss what they would do.
💎BTW💎
🎙️Chelsey Weber-Smith (American Hysteria) recommended I listen to Euphomet, a paranormal show (I guess) but within moments of listening I thought to myself: what is this? It isn’t like any paranormal show I’ve heard before. The writing alone is beyond what we expect to hear on podcasts, and add that to the excellent production and editing, plus host Jim Perry actually goes to these places to captures as much as he can…and you have some truly immersive story. I frantically began googling Jim to learn what is going on in his brain and he explains so well what I was trying to put into words, about what really sets this show apart: these are intimate portraits of humans dealing with paranormal events that have shaped their lives. It’s a paranormal show about the human experience, the paranormal part is really just the catalyst. Listen to Idol of Nightmares, an episode about haunted and cursed physical objects and the terrifying (and beautiful) things they bring to the people who interact with them.
🎙️If you haven’t listened to Heavyweight yet, you are very lucky because there’s a lot for you to catch up on. (If you haven’t listened to Skye Pillsbury’s episode, do it now. Or this episode, The Marshes!) On every episode, Jonathan Goldstein helps people try to resolve a moment from their past that they wish they could change. Sometimes the interviewees are dealing with something very serious, sometimes it’s rather trivial. But it doesn’t matter if this issue is huge or small, Jonathan’s hilarious and the writing on this show, and the editing, are descriptive and cartoonish. Joey is fun and light, but it had me laughing out loud. Jonathan is such a character in every episode, and I think you will fall in love with him immediately. It’s addictive storytelling with real heart.
🎙️Lory Martinez (❤️of Mija❤️) has been working on a multilingual, narrative podcast for the European dating app Meetic about love during worldwide pandemic, Amore e Quarantena (if you are listening in Italian, like I am) and it’s here! It was originally a show called Amour et Confinemen from La Toile sur Ecoute, produced in French by a woman who wrote sketches based on her own experience as a 30-something single woman living in quarantine. (Lory says, “think Phoebe Waller-Bridge-type comedy.”) Lory’s studio, Ochenta, adapted it to Italian, Spanish, and Dutch. I slow the episodes waaaay down to work on my language skills, so Lory, if you are reading this, know that if the Italian download numbers are exceedingly high, it is because I have listened to each episode approximately 18,000 times.
🎙️Girl you know I love Stories with Sapphire (I interviewed Sapphire here) and I have a new favorite episode. The Women in White features a story from my mom, Cookie Passell. (It starts around the 8 minute mark, but listen to the whole episode.) My mom tells a fucking chiller of a story about a woman who visited almost 40 years ago, and has never left her side. I have heard this ghost story from my mom a million times, but the conclusion that Sapphire draws about WTF is going on put chills on my chills. Oh god, please listen.
🎙️Cheryl Strayed (formerly of Dear Sugars) has launched a show Sugar Calling, where she seeks insight and advice from famous writers over 60 during this time of insecurity. The first interview is with George Saunders. I sent this episode to no less than eight people, demanding they listen. (Usually I proselytize podcasts via newsletter only, but this episode was so good I felt it was necessary to give it an extra push.) George reads a letter he sent his students about the pandemic, urging them, as creators, to use this time to create. Observe. Write things down. It is up to them to document this time—in one hundred years, we will be looking to their work to see what COVID was really like. There has also been a lot of chat in my circles about leaving NYC, something I have chosen not to do. I have never in my LIFE felt more like a New Yorker, and if you are wondering how a true New Yorker is feeling right now, read this wonderful interview with Fran Lebowitz. Cheryl says something that is sticking with me: “There is beauty in every day. Those who choose to be there to see it will get to see it.” It’s hard to be a New Yorker right now but I am seeing moments of beauty everyday, and look forward to watching the city bloom again. George also talks about how change has always been the only constant, it is the thing that is inevitable but makes us uncomfortable. Right now we miss our habits that have been upended, but these habits only brought us comfort because they assuaged our anxiety. YIKES I FEEL SEEN. As long as you’re not very sick or dying, this conversation brings so much light to our scary situation. “Storytelling allows us to strive and thrive,” Saunders says. Always true, now more so than ever.
🎙️The Lonely Hour is back! Julia Bainbridge’s beautiful inspection of solitude and loneliness is a show that’s particularly relevant now. (The new episode talks about how people living alone can have sex while social distancing, among other things.) Connecting to others feels like an essential human need during times of crisis, yet we can’t. How do we deal with loneliness, whether we are living alone or with others? What are the upsides? There’s a great interview with Jenny Odell, and my favorite episode is one with philosopher and poet David Whyte. The idea of loneliness is timeless, but listening to The Lonely Hour now, Julia is speaking to the moment.
🎙️I love the recommendations on The Waves (I highly endorse Slate’s Endorse-O-Matic, a tool that lets you search for all recommendations from Slate writers and podcasters.) On a recent episode, June Thomas recommended a podcast called Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics, and I have been bingeing it. On each episode Natalie takes a fresh look at the ancient world, creating stand-up routines about figures from ancient Greece and Rome. You have to be smart to come up with intelligent humor about the classics, and Natalie is so knowledgable and funny. Between her standup sets she interviews scholars who can give a nice cultural background. I don’t know any show quite like this. I would recommend starting with the first episode about Petronius, the father of satire. There’s an interesting conversation about comedy and satire then and now. This could be a show about a bunch of “smart” dead men, but Natalie is able to bring women in, and adhere to feminist commentary. Send this to a student you know trying to home-school themselves on the classics. It’s the most fun way I can think of to learn about the subject.
🎙️On Family Secrets, Dani Shapiro explores astonishing family secrets and uncovers the extraordinary lessons the truth can teach us. Now Dani is using her platform to launch a podcast that speaks directly to what we’re all experiencing as we try to navigate a world turned upside-down by COVID-19 with The Way We Live Now. It launches tomorrow but you can listen to the trailer now. Each week there will be four episodes, each 15 minutes long. Dani will be checking in with people like Anne Lamott, a nurse in the COVID unit at Mount Sinai, a Senator, a Rabbi, a grief therapist, and more. This show will be a great snapshot of how we all get through pandemic. Dani is a beautiful writer and interviewer, and she has such a soothing voice and demeanor! I look forward to it making each Monday through Thursday a little brighter.
🎙️Every Little Thing called up a bunch of essential workers to check in on them. I want to send this to all my friends who are complaining about staying indoors. Essential workers can’t. (Host Flora asks, “do you feel like you’ve been drafted?”) Lots of podcasts are interviewing essential workers, but this episode is unique. In a kind of pay-it-forward format, each essential worker names someone they are grateful for, then Flora calls up someone in that field. So even the people who are on the frontlines are thankful for someone else. Isn’t that amazing?
🎙️Rebecca Delgado Smith (I interviewed her above!) dropped my absolute favorite episode of The Alarmist this week, The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ: Who Is To Blame? The historical Jesus has long been my favorite thing to think and talk about. (In college, my roommate used to tell people when we had parties, ‘don’t get her started on Jesus, she’ll never shut up.’) The Alarmist is a comedy show, so this episode is hysterical, but it actually gets to the heart of a question that has rattled humanity for thousands of years. Do we blame The Romans? Pontius Pilate? God? Jesus himself. OUR OWN SINS? Judas? Obviously the answer is not cut and dry, but part of the charm of The Alarmist is that Rebecca is set on making that so. Because, as she says on every episode. “They say history repeats itself. Not on my watch.” If you can’t get enough of this subject (I can’t) listen to The Alarmist’s bonus episode on this subject: The Aftermath: Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
🎙️Together Apart is a new podcast from The New York Times hosted by Priya Parker that explores ways we can gather together when we can’t physically be together. The first episode on Passover was an absolutely perfect place to start. Passover was started because the place where Jews worshiped, the temple, was destroyed, so they needed to find a creative way to continue this ancient, sacred ritual. So in the time of Corona, the ritual must shift again, going digital. Passover always starts by asking all in attendance, “How is This Night Different Than All Other Nights?” This year, it seems obvious. Even if you didn’t attend a Passover Seder, there are so many things you will love about this episode. Surely you are gathering with friends digitally. Gatherings require those involved to participate and be actively engaged in the ritual, but this isn’t always easy to do on Zoom, where you can be checking your email or scrolling through TicToc while everyone else is talking. How can you make those gatherings special and sacred? What can you virtually bring? Is it a question, a beautiful background, the promise to listen?
🎙️I was listening to a most excellent episode about Verified that drifted off the traditional reporting of women who have been drugged and raped by a Couch Surfing host in Italy, to an episode all about Couch Surfing as a business. Listen to it even if you haven’t been following Verified. (But why haven’t you?) This episode would be a favorite for anyone who is interested in startup culture and disasters (WeWork, Theranos, Movie Pass, Fyre Festival.) Couch Surfing is problematic, asking people to DIGITAL TRUST each other with their safety and lives. Turns out this doesn’t work. Right now, digital trust is all we have. (But hackers are infiltrating our Zoom chats! And then this happened! If digital trust is false, how will this time change our sense of trust in the world?) Because I’m listening to the Burning Man season of The Intersection (<3), a show that investigates the setting and people of certain places, this made me think of burners and the trust they are required to have for one another at Burning Man. Things to go wrong, but in many ways it’s a utopia. But the trust is never digital, it’s extremely the opposite. (I recommend this episode about JESUS and Burning Man. I absolutely agree that Jesus would have been a Burner, and there is something very Christian about the idea of joining together to care for one another without money being exchanged.) And finally, I have been listening to Expanded, a podcast about manifesting, and was struck when host Lacey Phillips informed us that “the collective is going through so much right now…we are all going through this together.” And then, “necessity is the mother of invention. What is your new edge? What are you being pushed against? It is going to be the most valuable tool you will gain from the pandemic.” Thinking of us all as a collective, a system of trust, makes all this suffering more or less manageable, depending on how you want to look at it. There is something very Burning Man about this pandemic. Surely burners are more prepared for living without some things and getting creative in a) how they survive and b) what they can offer their communities based on the situation. Lacy is saying: the pandemic will help us realize what our struggles are and what our gifts are, and that will help us become stronger people, just like Burning Man does. During pandemic, the collective suffers together, but like at Burning Man, we have to trust each other, offer what we can, and get creative to survive.
🎙️On Six Feet Apart, Alex Wagner talks to people on the COVID frontline and asks them what it’s like to be IN DEEP of this defining moment. I wrote above that George Saunders pointed out that many of us are being thrust out of our habits and how that can make us stronger. But some of these “habits” are rituals, and there isn’t an attractive alternative. Think: funerals. More people are dying right now, but as an added kick to the nuts, we cannot mourn them in the way that we have been for centuries. (During the holiest week of the year.) In an episode about ritual, Alex talks to funeral director Mark Flower and Rabbi Sharon Brous, who explains how her community is adapting to a ban on religious gatherings in the middle of a spiritual crisis.
🎙️If you enjoyed Chris Garcia’s limited series Scattered, as I did, you have to listen to Chris on Neon Hum’s Telescope: Life in the Time of Corona. The episode Comedy on Lockdown interviews Chris about being a stand-up comedian during quarantine—the challenges it presents and what comedy can do for us all in this seemingly humorless time. Can you imagine doing stand-up not in front of a crowd, but alone in your bedroom? Comedians rely on feedback and validation, it is what feeds them. What I’ve loved about Telescope is how every story shows me how a slice of life, one I might never have really thought about, has been thrust into change. Listen to this show every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Looking forward to it is what gets me out of bed on those days!
🎙️Feminist Folklore, the show that asks how the myths and stories we tell influence today’s culture and how we view women, is back with a new host and a new name, Femlore. I love this show because it really drives home how insidious the patriarchy is! If it wasn’t already obvious enough! And tiny details about the stories we’ve heard our whole lives carry more than their weight when it comes to how they influence our culture and how we think about ourselves. The first episode of the new season covers Swan Princess, and if you think you already know how fucked up this story is, YOU’RE WRONG. THERE’S MORE. There’s always more.
🎙️Invisibilia wrapped up their sixth (!!!) season with The Last Sound, an episode about a man who studies nature sounds and what they can teach us about ourselves. More than a month ago, the hosts had solicited audio contributions for an upcoming episode: they asked people to send in the sounds of whatever they were hearing at the time. Because it was pre-COVID, many of the sounds are of busy coffee shops and people gathered in barber shops, etc. Hanna Rosin says that going through those submissions brought tears to her eyes, because they felt like a slice of the world that feels so alien now, it’s something we are nostalgic for. The end of this episode has a few of those sound clips, but I WANT MORE. You know we demanded to see The Butthole Cut of Cats? I am demanding we get a bonus episode of all the wonderful things Hanna got to hear, going through the emails. Maybe one just of all the people chatting in crowded places and going about their pre-COVID days. (I’m also a bit sad because I had recorded audio for this project when I was in Disney World but never sent it!)
🎙️I have to hand it to Trader Joe’s for creating a podcast, Inside Trader Joe’s, that people seem to go bananas for (it’s pleasant!) and also seems to work as a PR arm of the brand, or as Ashley Lusk pointed out to me, “it’s just native advertising.” The show SOUNDS like outside journalists reporting on Trader Joe’s spices, holiday specials, amazing produce, etc. But the call is coming from inside the house: it is completely run by Trader Joe’s. We’ve all been reading about how Trader Joe’s employees are being underpaid and underprotected during the pandemic (Alex Wagner interviewed a Trader Joe’s employee on the second half of this episode of Six Feet Apart, it is eye-opening.) But Trader Joe’s released an episode of Inside Trader Joe’s that assuages our fears. According to this hard-hitting piece, the employees feel protected! Lucky! Everything is fine! (Blink twice if you’re okay, you guys.) I’m constantly fascinated with everything Inside Trader Joe’s does, I feel like I’m looking at a museum exhibit. It’s interesting to listen to these two episodes and think about how Trader Joe’s is controlling the narrative, and exactly who they are talking to. (Many people who listen to Inside Trader Joe’s are probably Trader Joe’s apologists? And want to feel like everything is okay?)
🎙️I still think Still Processing’s best season was season one, and that nothing that came afterwards could compete. But a recent episode about Tiger King, Frosted Flakes, was thought-provoking. Jenna and Wesley talk about how gawking at Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin is akin to us watching our own zoo exhibit, and the unfairness that white people can get away with crimes with some laughter and finger pointing, while people of color don’t get the same pass. (Joe Exotic is hilarious, Michael Vick is a criminal who should be executed.) Jenna and Wesley go through the series pointing out many things we’ve all thought about before, if we’ve been following or watched the Netflix series, but they add some insight that is important consumption if you want to look at Tiger King critically.
🎙️Even people who hate parties wish they could attend one right now. Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast—friends create a story together, chapter by chapter, that everyone from seasoned players to true beginners can enjoy. If you’ve been enjoying Zooming Quiplash with your friends right now, Join the Party will make you feel less alone.
🎙️I love you!