🏆 Mr. Pulitzer 🚂 choo choo 👍 you got it dude 👯♀️ washboard weepers 🧼
🍭 👂Why is there deli meat everywhere 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, April 21, 2025. In case this newsletter is too long, season two of a Pulitzer Prize-winning show here, yummy yummy gimme gimme this, a two-part travelogue made courtesy of On Air Fest’s complementary mini influencer microphones, start here.
xoxo
lauren
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I remember season one of Suave being good the first time, but in anticipation for season two I relistened to it and loved it even more. You have to, have to, listen. It’s the he Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast tells the story of Luis "Suave" Gonzalez, a formerly charismatic man who turned his life around in prison, and his relationship with journalist Maria Hinojosa. ICYMI (please don’t,) Maria is so close to Suave she can’t possibly be the one telling his story. She is in the Suave story and the podcast is about her, too. The sound on this podcast is unique because it is years of taped recordings of their conversations, an audio documentation of the highs and lows of Suave both in and out of jail. Maria getting angry with him, him hurting her feelings. And in the end when Suave is out, we are left to wonder what freedom really means. That’s exactly where season two picks up. Suave is now “Mr. Pulitzer.” But life on the outside is very hard. He is still on parole for life. At one point he says, “I never had this much pain and misery in my life when I was in prison.” This time around, the conversations Suave and Maria are having are just as raw, they’re just at completely different stages. You feel the strain, the toll this all has taken on both of them. That they are far past that time in friendship when you feel like you need to be nice. I got to listen to the first four episodes and it feels like Suave the series has grown up in every way. But I do know, because I talked to Maria that things are about to get wild. (She mentioned Santeria and when I called Suave’s story “biblical” she said “funny you should say that without even knowing what happens in season two.”) So I’ll be back for more Suave write ups later. But relisten to the first season before you get into this. Suave is an unforgettable character, Maria is this journalist who seems so strong I think she could throw cars in the air to save her children, or Suave. The mother / son relationship is always present. Strong and weak because she is so emotional, so invested. These two are singing a duet this whole time that I’m glad is not over.
notes
✨I’m honored to be speaking in London at The Podcast Show in May! WITH two of my buds, Arielle Nissenblatt and Shreya Sharma. The Podcast Show London brings together thousands from the global podcast community under one roof with industry insight from award-winning creatives, PLUS there’s a week-long festival lineup of live podcasts from in venues across London. Learn more about it here.
✨I’m hosting a presentation on promo swaps for IndiePod. Join me!
❤️❤️❤️Katie and Caro of Diabolical Lies are redistributing 1/3 of their subscription profits toward repro justice orgs and Run For Something. Wish more pods would do this.
✨Arielle spotlighted Your Local Time Travelers in EarBuds.
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💎podcasts i texted to friends💎
👂This is me when Refinery29’s Money Diaries hits my inbox:
Also when I see an episode of Money for Couples pop. Also me when I got a press release for What We Spend, a new show that has people take us through, day by day and purchase by purchase, what they spend in a week. Conversations about money stress me out so much, and I’m not sure why I’m drawn to them. They make me worry that I’m not saving as much as the people featured, it makes me jealous of the people spending smarter or even wilder than me, living life better, or even just splurging more or spending money on different things. It makes me scared that someone is going to corner me on the street with a microphone and say, “you’re on an episode of What I Spend now, bitch! What did you just buy and how much did it cost?” It will be then that I have to confess I just bought $30 worth of Lip Smackers on my walk back from the park. Just kidding. That is the kind of CUTE embarrassing thing I’d havce to admit. Some of the things people admit on this show are much darker. Like…people are very scared about paying for a cat funeral. They fight with their partners. A 35 year olds asks her Dads to pay her bills for a month. That one actually happened in the first episode of What We Spend. What We Spend is about money but also it lets us rubberneck into the windows of homes, like we’re driving by them when it’s dark outside and all the lights are on. Episode one was a women who is truly living paycheck to paycheck, episode two was a religious studies professor / dad. Religion and money are mutually exclusive things that were his orientation points before kids. Then after kids, he says, everything is oriented around them. So that’s three things and he’s STRESSED. Reading the copy: If you want to be on What We Spend, we’d love to hear from you. Write us at: whatwespendpodcast@gmail.com. No thanks! I’ll be listening. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Audacy press release
👂Not a big chat show fan, here, reporting that the best one ever is Text Me Back with Lindy West Meagan Hatcher-Mays. Every word that comes out of their mouths is funny and surprising and…just so not the words coming out of other people’s mouths. They did kind of a two parter recently, each producing audio travelogs of their cross-country trips using tiny influencer microphones they received attending On Air Fest. (They actually give a short review of On Air Fest and it’s not exactly glowing, but it is hysterical.) Lindy took the train the whole way back to the west coast and we hear her musings from her multi-day, grueling passage. (She gets sick and shits her pants.) When I tell you what happened to Megan on her trip (she has a fight with someone who look like her aunt on the plane, she has mental turmoil over a salad order) you might be like, “that’s not even content, that’s not even anything!” But trust me. That’s how good these two are. They spin gold out of awkward salad orders. I was in this little bubble of happiness and joy listening to this. Listen here and here.
How I discovered it: I don’t remember, I interviewed Lindy and meagan awhile ago.
👂There are a few podcast subjects I flock to, will listen to immediately / no matter what. One of them is the film Dirty Dancing. That means I’ve listened to a lot of episodes about Dirty Dancing and I don’t care if they’re the same, I just want to bask in Dirty Dancing content. What Went Wrong (former Tink client) covers Hollywood’s most notoriously disastrous movie productions, so the approach was different and I heard stories I have never heard before. (Like how much Jennifer Grey did not want Patrick Swayze to be Johnny Castle, and how their friction might have led to surprising and perfect chemistry for the film.) There is also a story about Patrick Swayze getting mad at Jennifer for using a stunt double for the tree limb-crossing scene, then terribly injuring himself when he insisted on doing the stunt himself. I want a movie about the making of Dirty Dancing, but this episode will do. (Thank god I have the slowly emerging Butt Out, Baby.) It made me love the movie more, and Lizzy and Chris spent a lot of time talking about the logistics of the dancing and choreography, which made this Dirty Dancing episode unique. (I’m kind of a Dirty Dancing podcast content connoisseur.) If Dirty Dancing isn’t your thing check out What Went Wrong and pick a different episode. Lizzy and Chris are among my top favorite podcast cohosts. Listen to the Dirty Dancing episode here.
How I discovered it: Former client
👂Chicago’s Making series “Stories Without End” is giving us the history of TV soaps, which sounded so much fun to me. I love things that are considered lowbrow, absurd, flashy, trashy, because they usually aren’t. I love stories and drama. Soaps are all of these things. I didn’t know how deep their history was, or thought about how important they are to our culture and TV storytelling, financing networks for decades. Without soaps who knows what we’d be watching today. Natalie Moore,is taking us back, farther back than I thought she would, to explain soaps’ radio origin, to introduce us to Irna Phillips, “The Queen of Daytime,” who sounds like an incredible and erased woman. Like rom-coms, like “chick lit” and beach reads and guilty pleasures, and The Golden Girls and so many things, soaps are powerful things dismissed because they’re considered silly and girly. Which makes them secret, powerful agents. (Exactly what I hope to become more and more as I age into old ladydom.) Do you GET why I’m sensitive about this stuff? I named my smart company after a fairy. I am so glad we are getting this both history and love letter from Natalie. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Longtime subscriber
👂Sahaj Kaur Kohli (Brown Girl Therapy) has a new show, So We’ve Been Told, which focuses on the lives of children of immigrants. When you think about how many people this covers and how few shows there are about it, it’s like, what took so long? It’s a great name, too—what second generation people are told doesn’t always meet with the realities they face? To Sahaj, the word “American” was used as a bad word growing up by her parents, but she was American and wanted to fit in with kids her age. She is collecting personal stories from her Brown Girl Therapy community to flesh out these ideas with specifics. Episode one deals with these double lives, this biculturalism, and how often parents often alternate between them but their kids will balance them. Episode two talks about family secrets, the “we shouldn’t talk about this” stuff. I feel like this podcast is being listened to with a LOT of nodding from immigrants, their kids, or anyone who nows any of these people. This show isn’t just to make second gen people feel less alone, it’s offering a compassionate reframe for their parents. There are reasons for this divide these people feel. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Press release
👂Levittown brings us to the quiet suburb of Levittown, New York to tell a horrifying story about deep fake porn. For years a young man was taking photos from social media accounts of women he knew, when they were in high school and middle school, altering them to make them sexually explicit, and then posting them on a porn site. The story starts with a woman getting the text: You’re on the website. Parts of this story reminded me of The Retrievals in the sense that it feels like a chorus of voices telling their similar stories, reckoning with what has happened to them, the kind of weird and like new kind of harassment this is. Levittown is well reported, nicely made, and I think I remember with clarity every single moment of it because it kind of grabbed me by the collar. It’s not just telling a true crime story, it’s trying to make you feel what it’s like to have this crime done to you or jesus christ your daughter, and I think it does a really nice job accomplishing that. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Probably a feed drop, I can’t remember
👂I have been a fan of Tess Barker for a really long time (I have been listening to Lady to Lady since 2012.) She’s a comedian and journalist who doesn’t get enough credit for sparking the #FreeBritney movement (this all started as a podcast, you guys, Britney's Gram.) Through that and other reporting, she has become an expert in this particular niche of celebrity. She brought Guy Branum onto her podcast Pop Mystery Podcast for a two-parter about Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen. I would listen to Guy talk about leeeeterally anything and honestly had it not been for his appearance on this series I might not have felt invested enough in the Olsen twins for a two part episode. But how silly of me to not realize that the story of the Olsen twins is an incredible story about women and fame. (Why is it, they ask that it’s women are associated with these iconic, gigantic brands, like Beyonce and Taylor Swift? Is it because men can be geniuses while women can be exploited?) When Tess and Guy take us through their entire lives, from even before they took their very first steps on the Full House set (none of it with even a second of anonymity) you see how they ended up turning into such an interesting product of everything they did, from acting to empire building to enrolling in and then leaving college early then making real waves in fashion and style. I had this memory of them being kind of forgettable but they were not, and we were so, so mean to them. Yet somehow they came out of all of this relatively unscathed? What an inspirational story of unlikely success! Listen here and here.
How I discovered it: Longtime fan of Tess Barker
👂Gather round, children. Ask a Matchmaker’s Maria Avgitidis interviewed journalist Vera Papisova about going undercover on conservative dating apps during the 2024 election cycle to find out what creates their belief system. She even attends a neo nazi meeting with one of them. It’s a conversation worth hearing. Vera honestly reports back with a palatable tinge of fear, it’s like she’s back from war. I am sensing trauma. Which is funny because one of her many fascinating conclusions about these right wing men was that they are traumatized. She actually says that talking to them reminded her of talking to war vets with PTSD having trauma flashback from Iraq. Also…they’re extremely uncomfortable in their bodies and skin. She thinks they take these extreme and violent points of view to justify their own relationship problems. And for as much as they hate others, they hate themselves. But they really hate liberal white women. (We’re the betrayers.) In the right wing dating apps they felt safe to say terrible things about women, marginalized people, Jews, and fat liberals (they’re all fat and ugly!) I had no idea how many nazis there were in New York City, hiding in plain sight, afraid to admit to their liberal friends that they hate liberals. Almost everything Vera says is worth dissecting. For dudes terrified of being seen as gay, they seem awfully obsessed with the “emasculated” left. Do you hear they’re shaving their eyelashes now? I wish I could go back to the days where I had never heard the word ‘manosphere,’ but now that we know, it’s good to know. You know? BTW I could only find part one on YouTube? Part two is on the feed. (I feel like I’m losing my mind let me know if you see it.)
How I discovered it: Reddit
👂Niche to Meet you is an extremely high quality mini documentary show that focuses on niche communities. (I have written about the Santa Claus mini series.) Host Leslie Thompson enters them with her mic and finds so many wonderful things in each one. For Earth Day she dropped an episode about sticks and people who love them. There is a real community here, and Leslie dips in (she literally takes you into the woods to find her own stick and reviews it) and finds out what really is behind all the stick collecting—people wanting to be in nature and pay attention to things. I want to be in nature and pay attention to things! Stick collecting is a path to doing that. When I was listening to that episode I realized I had a two-parter saved from earlier, dropped right before the 5 year anniversary of COVID, about speed puzzling. Leslie attends a competition but finds a story much, much bigger, about not just the people who are connected by puzzles, but the history of puzzles and how they have been there for us in some of our hardest times. (Why this is really a COVID story.) The story of what happened to competitive puzzling during the pandemic is a beautiful analogy to puzzles themselves. People coming together to create a bigger picture. Leslie’s episodes feel handmade and she brings them to you with so much heart and curiosity. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Leslie emailed me awhile ago about a turkey series that she made, that I started but did not like for some reason I cannot remember. I have been listening ever since. Leslie has challenged me to relisten to the turkey series, it’s on my to-do list.
👂I love you!
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, professor, and the founder of Futuro Media Group. She is the host of Suave.
Who is Suave?
My first response to that question is, he is a man with an attitude, with a sense of, not like a “fuck you” attitude but more like…let’s say he’s present. If he's in a room you're going to find out he's in the room. He has presence, swagger, and a state of mind about himself and his place in history. It's pretty badass. Remember he is the kind of person who would come up to a woman journalist and step up to her, not in a violent way, and show up and say, “hey. Look at me.”
That comes after being in prison for less than a decade. By then he tried to take on the whole system, was fighting with guards. By the time I met him, he was in a different place in his life. That’s why he came up and asked, “what should I do?”
He wanted to be my eyes and ears. As he was settling into prison, what was once South Bronx swagger and bravado, “I’m tougher than you, you’ve got nothing on me,” then becomes an intellectual challenge. He needed to l learn to read and write. He tok the GED seven times. It took him sixteen years to graduate college, but he did it. He had to get his intellectual swagger to match the street swagger. I’m friends… I’m friends? I’m friends, I’m in touch with him throughout this entire period. There was a period of seven years when I didn’t hear form him a lot. After 9-11 I was a busy mother of small kids and he was in solitary confinement. I don’t remember if I missed the calls.
Then there’s the Suave now, who you meet in season two. Known as Mr. Pulitzer. He’s proud. He should be. It's important for Suave to have an ego. If he didn't have an ego, he wouldn't be able to do what he did. I celebrate his ego even though it drives me crazy.
At one point in season two Suave says, “I never had this much pain and misery in my life when I was in prison…” Did you see that coming?
Noooooo. I did not foresee this. I did not see it coming at all.
When you bring up the word biblical it's like “huh. We are not practicing religious people but there is a huge part of the story that involves santeria. That, for me, is for me the most revealing thing to me about the whole season. There was a lot of fucked-up-ness. My question was why. Why this person? I meet so many people.
OK so we listened to season one, why should we listen to season two?
Season one was a roller coaster. It was, from the conception, a bet. Is there a podcast here? Is there a story that's going to connect with anyone? Is this going to work? I struggled for years within my own company to get them to believe in this story. You have to fight for every story all the time everywhere as a journalist, you are forever pitching. All my staff knew was that someone was calling me from prison. They were like, ‘who is this person?’ I had to fight to convince them. We were a small nonprofit. I got Maggie Freleng to listen to the phone calls, and she said, “there is a story here but you can’t be part of it.”
Did you know that at that point?
No.
So season one was a literal roller coaster. Season two is an emotional one. It’s like when you’re sitting in a roller coaster seat, you know that little bubble you get in your stomach when you go over the mountain? That’s season two. And you’re holding on for dear life because you feel like you're going to fall out of the car.
The message of it is: this is what life on the other side looks like after 31 years in prison. Life is fucking hard. It's hard for all of us, we live in the United States in a challenging time. Add to that being in maximum security prison for 31 years. Add seven in solitary confinement. Of course he is going to have these deep emotional challenges. He has allowed us to document it. Is it hard? Yes. Iam so proud of the work. It is investigative journalism that reaffirms our commitment to journalistic consciousness in America.
And you know, there was the initial concern that we were not taking people to sufficient places, but in the end we do.
Do you know if there’s a season three?
No. But Suave is a ham and I do think a season three would be kind of a breath of fresh air.
Did you really offer him cannabis gummies when he’s on parole?
Yes! I knew i couldnt offer him a joint but I was like … he can just have a gummy! I’m a medical marijuana patient. For people who struggle with sleep, I’m Doctor Hinojosa.
How have you changed as a journalist since you started talking to Suave?
How have I changed as a human being?
I'll tell you this, it will say everything. In recording season two my son, who is now a working journalist, said to me, “there were times where I was having a conversation with you and Suave would call and you’d go take the call.” When your son says that to you 're like ‘oh snap.’ There are reparations. That is a theme that comes up in season two.
One lesson for me is to trust your gut when you feel like there's a story that needs to be told. Trust your gut and fight for it. There has been a lot of hell and insecurity throughout the entire Suave story, a lot of emotional toil. But there was a story that needed to be told. I would hope that young journalists get that message.
Yay What Went Wrong yay!! ✨