🌫️ Magic blanket 🏰 pixie dust scammers ✨ dancing in a leather necklace 🕺🏻What “Na Na” Means 🎸
🍭 👂 TRUST ME! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, May 29. In case this newsletter is too long, this made me feel like I was on drugs, I listened to this twice, here’s something about an album that is so bad it goes past bad and back to good.
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xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Ellie Gordon-Moershel
Ellie Gordon-Moershel is the creator of Butt Out, Baby! A TRUE FAVORITE OF MINE!!! Follow Butt Out, Baby! on Instagram here.
Tell us about how the show began. How did you hurt yourself? Are you okay now?
I suffered a bad concussion in 2019 when I stood up under an overhanging rock and banged the top of my head. I’m still living with symptoms but by far the worst of it lasted from summer 2019 until Spring 2022.
BTW, I have to take this moment for a brief concussion PSA: a lot of us don’t enjoy re-telling the story of the injury to literally everyone we meet -- so keep that in mind, dear readers, next time you meet someone with a concussion :)
At the time of my injury I was teaching two podcast courses and doing sound design for a movie podcast, and one of the physios I saw misunderstood my podcast work with being a video editor. (I don’t think he was familiar with the medium)). In any case, this resulted in him being very determined to get me watching film again. I was pretty depressed at the time and didn’t question this rehab focus other than thinking, wow, this man is very devoted to me regaining my leisure activities!
But, I will forever be thankful for this intervention because it got me re-watching Dirty Dancing. I had to start with literally 2 seconds at a time because my brain was so easily overwhelmed by screens.
It took months to finish the film and I became a bit obsessed. When it was time for me to approach editing audio again this podcast seemed a natural progression.
Do you think injury recovery is a ripe time to create something? Did that fuel you in any way?
I want to be careful about how I answer this. On the one hand, it was absolutely essential for me to have little projects to work on to help cope through a period of suffering. On the other hand, I think it can be destructive for people to feel pressure to create some sort of poetic meaning out of their suffering. On a cultural level, it leads to romanticizing mental illness/struggle and on a personal level… it just makes you feel even more like shit if you’re not making some sort of groundbreaking piece of art out of your misery.
During the worst months of my recovery I noticed that I felt the tiniest bit of spark in my soul if I leaned into caring deeply about stories and music that was resonating with me at the time. There’s plenty of other little small projects I did during this time that I’ll never share publicly but were immensely helpful as a coping tool.
Were there any podcasts that stood as inspiration for But Out, Baby!?
I believe Star Wars Minute was the first podcast to do this kind of granular analysis. I remember first hearing about that podcast years ago and thinking, yikes, that’s way too nerdy! Then I listened to the first ep and was like nevermind, I get it.
I was more directly inspired by Xena Warrior Podcast and #WizardTeam. However, those shows are banter/conversation based whereas mine is mostly scripted. When I first listened back to ep 1 and 2 (which I worked on for sooooo long because of my capacity issues) I noticed myself mimicking a bit of the style of Sarah Marshall from You’re Wrong About, Alie Ward from Ologies, and ContraPoints from Youtube. It’s possible I’ve also internalized some Karina Longworth along the way.
Convince any readers out there (if there are any) who don’t think Dirty Dancing should be taken that seriously that they’re wrong.
If they’re a movie lover, I would ask them to think about the reasons why Casablanca continuesto have a spot in the canon. Perhaps it’s the juicy love story, universal themes, commentary on the times, superb actor chemistry, clear story arc with understandable stakes, memorable lines and music…
Well, my friends, that’s all in Dirty Dancing!
But, also, my podcast is for the fans so I don’t really care.
If you were going to do this for another movie, what would it be?
Thelma & Louise. I don’t have plans for this because it’ll probably take me years to finish Butt Out, Baby! (I’m sorry to say BOB does not have a release schedule. One of the things I promised myself when I decided to go ahead with the podcast was that, as long as it’s not monetized, I would not let it stress me out. It’s a hobby podcast and so I want it to stay enjoyable for me.)
Is there a scene you’re really excited to cover? Is there one you’re not excited to cover?
The seduction scene! I still get secondary vulnerability panic when Baby proclaims, “Most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you.” IMAGINE SAYING THAT OUT LOUD TO YOUR CRUSH YOU’VE ONLY KNOWN FOR TWO WEEKS.
The abortion scene will take a lot of preparation and research and while it feels like a worthy endeavor I can’t say I’m excited for it.
Is there anything we can help you with? Are you looking for voicemails or stories or anything like that?
Yes! I do a “dirty debrief” episode to follow every “scene” episode and those are where I read or play listener responses to the previous episode. Which, so far, have mostly been my friends critiquing me :)
But, also, I talk about craft issues and try to be as transparent as possible about the process and so I’m happy to receive any craft questions people have.
Self care tip: Take up a hobby you’re kind of shit at but still enjoy.
Hot take: Celebrity actors are not good at narrating audiobooks - except for Kate Winslet who did a superb job on Matilda.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
When I finished the ‘This Most Excellent Canopy’ episode of Threshold, I felt like I was on drugs. It was a like whoa piece about what the atmosphere is, this thing we cannot live very long without, that surrounds us, and is so fragile. It was a mind shift for me, it made me look at the world a little differently. But it’s not just that. This episode was so beautifully written that I took notes on my favorite words and phrases. “Underappreciated transparency.” “Simple magical substance.” “Magic blanket.” “Venus would smash you with pressure and burn you alive.” But it might not have been even that. The host, Amy, is bright and lyrical. She looks at the world through the lens of a scientists and poet, a person who is focused on the big and small at the same time.
hell yeah
✨Shreya Sharma (Shreya’s Audio Affairs) left Inside Podcasting two seconds ago but has already launched a new free, twice-weekly audio industry newsletter called Audio Currents. She’ll be covering facets of audio including, but not limited to, podcasts, streaming, audiobooks, music, and voice acting. Every Tuesday you’ll get audio news, interviews with industry experts, and resources for brands looking to invest in audio. Every Friday, she’ll highlight creators in the space with spotlights and new releases while adding value to the creators with an agony aunt column and poetry on sounds. I am so into it! Subscribe here.
✨Arielle and I had a great time in London at The Podcast Show—it was a beautiful event. We shared a hotel room and one morning I kissed her while she was still sleeping and she screamed and bolted out of bed, but my feelings were not hurt, don’t worry.
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✨🦀 The Little Mermaid / Aladdin Podcast Marketing / PR Edition Nobody Asked For 🧞 (Podcast Marketing Magic)
✨There are still available seats for my June 5 Podcast Marketing Radio Bootcamp class.
✨ I wrote about 3 unique ways to grow an interview podcast for Descript.
✨2023 applications are open for the Black Pod Awards, and the price for them goes up June 1. Black podcasters are invited to start their application/s at apply.BlackPodAwards.com. Completed and submitted applications are due no later than July 31. Submissions are reviewed and scored by volunteer judges. Winners will be announced in a livestream ceremony Sunday September 24 on at least Black Pod Awards' YouTube and Facebook Page.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Black People Love Paramore in her newsletter and podcast.
💎BTW💎
🎙️I love Bizarre Albums because Tony Thaxton (of Motion City Soundtrack—oh my god, how I used to rock out to The Future Freaks Me Out in my ‘88 Cabrio) is able to make us laugh at the most ridiculous albums ever but he doesn’t make fun of them. He doesn’t have to, he just presents the facts. (Episodes include Chipmunk Punk, Fabio After Dark, and The Fonzettes’ The Fonz Party, etc.) Bizarre Albums is a celebration of these albums, no matter how weird they sound, how nonsensical the concepts are. So let’s get to the latest episode, Clarissa (Melissa Joan Hart, of Clarissa Explains It All) And The Straightjackets—This Is What “Na Na” Means, which I loved for two reasons: 1) I grew up on Clarissa and somehow (?) completely missed this album release and 2) this album is good, like really good. Too good to be a Clarissa Explains It All album. Clarissa is not a good singer, which is really what makes this comedy gold. But the music makes it almost a solid rock-and-roll album. Obviously it was kind of a bust and technically shouldn’t have been made but god I’m glad it was. Listen here.
🎙️Jamie Bartlett of The Missing Crypto Queen has returned with another investigation, this time about Megan Bhari, whose bunk charity Believe in Magic (also the name of the podcast) wooed celebrities, drew political acclaim, and funded a Disney World trip (or more like live-in situation) for her and her mom. Yes, I was initially laughing, fantasizing about my mom and me pulling off a scam together where we take people’s money and live in Disney World. But Believe in Magic gets dark fast. Spoiler alert—Megan dies. And it’s not just a story of two scam artists covered in pixie dust, it’s a story of maybe FII (fabricated or induced illness, or Munchausen by proxy.) Much like The Missing Crypto Queen, this story feels like a live wire flicking and alive, and Jamie has invited us along for every twist, turn, and dead end. And much like The Missing Crypto Queen, I doubt this story is over. Listen here.
🎙️From Dan Schreiber (of No Such Thing As a Fish,) comes We Can Be Weirdos, where Dan interviews interesting people to uncover their wildest, most unfounded beliefs, ideas, and theories. After getting to know them a bit, helping us understand why they’re so interesting and where they’re coming from, Dan gives his guests The Batshit Survey, which determines if they believe in ghosts, déjà vu, telepathy, premonitions, and more. On the first episode Harith Akram (a scientist, a skeptic) shares a very funny story about something he cannot explain that occurred when he was dancing in a leather necklace, which included many weird, specific elements that I truly cannot explain either. (The “tell me about something you’ve experienced that you cannot explain” is being used to get others to participate for a series called “The Rough Corner.” Genius.) Listen here.
🎙️I listened to Moshe Kasher on A Good Cry twice. This is a show about grief, and Moshe’s episode is about losing his dad. But it ended up being one of the best conversations I’ve heard about Judaism. (When Moshe’s parents separated, his dad leaned into Orthodox Judaism.) Moshe is a great storyteller (it was his podcast, The Champs that got me hooked on podcasts in the first place) and he speaks about Judaism in a way I’ve never heard. For me it was a new way to see Shiva and think about hell. For this 64 minute podcast episode, religion made sense to me. This episode is a) very funny and b) must have converted at least one person, I would guess more. Listen here.
🎙️When I was at The Podcast Show in London, I was lucky enough to meet so many new people I’ve only spoken to digitally, and was really excited to meet Chiara Sagramola of Orecchiabile, one of the only podcast newsletters in Italian. I don’t just love it because I love Italian, Orecchiabile speaks to my soul. Great reviews of great shows. When I bumped into Chiara she recommended Expectant (something I believe she read about in Devin’s newsletter Podstack.) It’s a beautiful rumination about choosing whether or not to have kids during the climate crisis. The sound is crystal clear and doesn’t feel like a show at all, it’s an eavesdropping, a grapple. And it tackles issues everything that is gained and lost by having a kid, what having a kid does to the climate, and it considers the kind of world we are bringing kids into. It’s not judgmental, it’s wondering. This is a six-parter, but I’d love an update in ten years to see if Pippa has a kid or is still thinking. That is, if our planet is still habitable. Listen here.
🎙️The new season of Betrayal is about a woman who found her husband’s collection of child pornography, which I am so grateful for because pedophilia is something everyone is usually too scared to talk about, which is a huge, huge, problem. Both This American Life and Ear Hustle have great episodes about why nobody, including researches, will touch this topic with a ten foot pole, which makes pedophiles people who need so much help they’re not getting. Start the new season of Betrayal here.
🎙️Comedian Kiki Andersen is host of the new podcast Indecent, where she’s having not safe for Grandma conversations with experts about sex, politics, religion, etc. She’s a blast and I fell in love with her immediately for bringing up blue balls in her first episode. (Seriously, if I was president my platform would be educating young girls about blue balls. I was on Death Sex & Money about it.) Listen to Indecent here.
🎙️Mija (available in English, French and Spanish) is a beautiful podcast that will forever stick with me, it’s one of the shows I clearly remember loving as I was getting into podcasts, and it was probably one of the reasons why. In the first season, “Mija” is the narrator who spends each episode on a different member of her family to paint a picture of how people experience immigration differently. It’s back, this time featuring daughters of immigrants for “Mija on the Mic” episodes. Mija creator Lory Martinez had a really dazzling conversation with Saadia Khan of Immigrantly. Saadia is an immigrant herself and a mother of two children growing up in America. It felt like Lory and Saadia were connecting important dots. It felt like a conversation they both wanted to have and I really loved listening. Listen here.
🎙️It’s been one year since a white man murdered ten Black people in a racist massacre at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Buffalo Extreme (in the Embedded feed) is looking at the aftermath by talking to Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black cheer team whose community was upended by the shooting. The host is 19-year-old former team member Na’kya McCann, and she talks to the athletes and their mothers and coaches as they grapple to answer questions like “is everyone okay?” and “what do we do now?” It’s a slice of life look at the emotional aftermath that comes in the wake of a shooting and the way it tears apart and rebuilds a close-knit community. Start here.
🎙️Kimi Culp asked me to share some of my favorite podcasts on her podcast All the Wiser. It’s always hard when people ask me to share my favorite shows, but ooOOoo I thought of some good ones! Can’t believe I got to be on this beautiful show, I was so honored to be asked. Listen here.
🎙️Aakshi (one of my star Tink members) was on Podcast Bestie talking about setting up recurring podcast collaborations, and listening to her talk taught me something. Sometimes we get on this hamster wheel to set up as many podcast friendships as possible, but that really isn’t necessary. The reason we tell people to set up podcast friendships and not partners is because we want these friendships to last long past the time of our contract with the client. We want to introduce shows to each other so they can work together again and again. I think it’s smart to identify 3-5 solid friends and schedule recurring partnerships a few times a year. Anyway, it’s a great conversation and I love Aakshi (and Courtney) so so much. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
📦 From the Archives 📦
[From January 24, 2020] I tweeted that I get ridiculously excited when I hear that high-pitched 🎼Radio-top-i-a🎼 jingle at the beginning of every Radiotopia episode, because I do. It gives me goosebumps because I am so excited about what I'm about to get to listen to. Kate Chant (thanks, Kate!) responded in a tweet that there is a Song Exploder piece about how the song is made, and it's truly a treat. The 🎼Radio-top-i-a🎼 was sung at different pitches, and then blended together to create something beautiful. It's a short piece—listen even if you have no idea what I'm talking about. It's that good.
From the Desk of Tink
Today we’re talking to one of Tink’s clients, the (brand new) cohost of Unorthodox, West Wing and Scandal star Joshua Malina.
Who is the show for? Unorthodox is for anyone who is interested in exploring their own Judaism, and anyone who is chai-curious.
What do your parents/kids/family think you do? My kids are adults, so they know that I’m an actor. They have observed what a rollercoaster of fortune the profession tends to be, and have — blissfully — chosen other paths for themselves.
Do your kids think you're cool? Not particularly, no, but in fairness, they are correct.
Dream guest: Moses. I’d like to get a few details about the revelation at Sinai from the man himself.
If I could force one person in the world to listen to my podcast it'd be…Mel Gibson — not to change his mind about anything, just to torture him.
How did I not know about you and your company and your newsletter for so long?! SO happy to have found you!😃👏👏
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