🦴Patch O’Furr 💼 Work dilemmas 🌭 George Banks says no! 👰 Ouija in a witch shop 👻
🍭 👂who would attack a Furry convention? 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, May 6. In case this newsletter is too long…this made me cry, this was fucking scary, and who would attack a Furry convention, a neo-Nazi?!
xoxo lp
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Tien Tran
Tien Tran (she/her) is an LA-based comedian, actor, and writer. She co-hosts Jockular alongside her dear friends, E.R. Fightmaster and Katie Kershaw, and most recently starred as Ellen in Hulu’s How I Met Your Father. You can find her on IG @hanktina.
Describe Jockular in ten words or less.
Comedy besties talking everything queer, trans, and women-forward in sports.
How did the three of you join forces for this?
Katie, E.R., and I met in Chicago while working at The Second City and immediately bonded over not being bad men in comedy. When the pandemic hit, we were all living in different cities, so to stay in touch we started sending each other women’s sports stories and memes. We're talking everything from inspirational documentaries about the 1996 USA Women's Basketball Team to ripped queers bench-pressing 700 lbs. We had the idea of pitching a comedy show all about women's sports to Hyperobject Industries, and they agreed to turn our little gay group chat into a podcast! It's truly a dream come true.
Who is this show for?
Jockular is for comedy fans who love sports and sports fans who love hot goss. And just to be clear, we won't be talking stats and numbers, so we'd love to be a home for people new to sports while also giving diehard sports fans the pop culture takes that you definitely won't get anywhere else.
What’s the queerest sport and why?
Women’s soccer. Doctors have told me that soccer made me gay. So, thanks for signing me up, mom and dad!
What’s the straightest sport and why?
All sports are gay. Even football. Men in tights overflowing with toxic masculinity? That’s a Kinsey 3 at least.
Who would you like to be power slapped by? (I stole this question from the show.)
Well just in case you’re not familiar with power slapping, it is a real sport where players stand across from one another and take turns slapping each other as hard as possible. I would like to be power slapped by Michelle Yeoh, specifically as the mother in Crazy Rich Asians. She looked like she really wanted to slap someone, but she never got to :(.
Fill in the blank: you will like Jockular if you like ________ (can be person, place, food, TV show, etc.)
March Madness, The World Cup, The Olympics, shows like the Queer Ultimatum, watch every episode of the L Word (both generations), or watch any movie because there’s a lesbian kiss.
Self-care tip: If you’re straight, try being gay for a little bit. You might like it.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Beyond All Repair, Amory Sivertson’s true-crime series about woman accused of murdering her mother-in-law, ended and it ended perfectly. It never missed a beat. Every episode of the series thickened the plot, made me second guess everything, and ended on a cliffhanger. Not to brag, but I know Amory and I was texting her my frustration with my questions throughout, dying to know where this all was going. I was so nervous it would end in an “I don’t know, what do you think?” It did not. Amory was going just as crazy as I was trying to figure out who was lying and what could have happened. She took us everywhere and in the end settles us into a non-toothless reflection on what she thinks has happened after chasing this story for three years. The last episode has a mic drop moment that won’t soon be forgotten.
hell yeah
✨Translating Movie Trailers to Podcast Trailers [via Podcast Marketing Magic.]
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted HUMO: Murder and Silence in El Salvador in her newsletter and podcast.
✨If you’re a podcaster with an interview show, you might want to listen to James Altucher’s Mastering The Art of The Interview interview with Polina Pompliano from The Profile newsletter on The James Altucher Show. They cover interview prep, how to ask the best questions, establishing rapport with guests, and a trick for getting big guests. James and Polina have different styles, so it’s an engaging conversation full of tips. Listen here.
💎BTW💎
🎙️On Dec 7, 2014, there was a major chemical attack at Midwest FurFest that to this day is unsolved. To nobody’s surprise, the police didn’t continue a proper investigation, and this was a laughable story in the media, even though it was a hate crime that sent 19 people to the hospital. Who would do such a thing? It’s been internet reporter Nicky Woolf’s white whale. And now he’s covering it on Fur & Loathing, a new podcast that’s both a compelling true crime and a comprehensive, humane look at the Furry community, the most tight-knit, creative, and as Nicky puts it, “nicest” community on the internet. Nicky is working with (and attending a Furry Convention with) Patch O’Furr to put a spotlight on this story, dig into the FBI investigation to correct some wrongs, and interview a likely suspect, someone in an “alt-fur” groups with links to far-right and neo-Nazi organizations. I loved the first episode and am glad this show is here. Listen now.
🎙️Wild Card, hosted by former Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin, is an interview show that will surprise both the interviewee and the interviewer. Rachel is having guests pull from a deck of cards full of really fun, thinkey questions about memories, insights, and beliefs. (There are two rules: guests get one skip and they can make Rachel answer the question first.) The first guest was Jenny Slate, someone who I have podcast stalked, listening to every one of her interviews that I can find. And these questions surfaced totally new things I’d never heard Jenny say before. It was delightful. This doesn’t seem like a show that’s going to get celebrities on press tours saying the same thing over and over about their upcoming movie. I love Rachel, her style feels both smart and cozy. And I can’t wait for the next guest, Issa Rae. Listen here.
🎙️Michael Lewis started writing his now best-selling book Going Infinite, about the genius of wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried and how he was bound to save the world with his brilliance long before his company FTX fell apart. When it did, Michael Lewis was in a pickle and in need of a pivot. The final book, Going Infinite, is still about Sam but about his rise and fall, ignoring the fact that Michael Lewis had been boosting up FTX for months and months, meanwhile still appearing pretty optimistic and convinced of Sam’s genius. If Books Could Kill had a chef’s kiss episode about the elephant in the room—that Michael Lewis went in hoping to write one book, and had to write an entirely different one. And maybe now he doesn’t know where to stand. Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri like Michael Lewis, we all do! In an If Books Could Kill first, they even liked the book, but acknowledge that Michael Lewis built his career talking about these financial scams (Moneyball, The Big Short, Liar’s Poker) and now it seems he is still defending one. Listen here.
🎙️One of my favorite shows of last year was Intrigue, which told the family drama of a wealthy 80-year-old and the unhoused, ex-drug addict she fell in love with, and how her family (and, like, everyone) totally disapproved. It sucks that that show came out so late in the year because I think it slipped through the cracks and was too late to make many best-of lists. Anyway the host, Sue Mitchell, is back for season two of Intrigue which is called Scorpion, and it’s a bit more dangerous. Sue and former soldier Rob Lawrie are hunting down Barzan Majeed, codename Scorpion and leader of the Scorpion gang, who is on international most-wanted lists for people smuggling migrants into the UK. I actually felt like I was settling in with a comfy blanket, hearing Sue’s voice again. But this stuff is terrifying, even just to listen to. It’s almost odd to hear her go from talking about a rich white woman having sex with some drug addict to hearing about one of the most dangerous men alive. Her tone doesn’t really change, she sounds comfortable and casual about it. (I would be crying if I was reporting on this.) I guess I will follow Sue anywhere. But this is a good story. Sue and Rob pick you up put you in their pockets as they spy on these smugglers and talk to migrants who made it over and survived to tell the tale. These stories are unbelievably terrifying. Listen here.
🎙️Uncanny, the BBC show that gets Danny Robins in front of real-life stories of paranormal encounters, is on a road trip in the US! (This show is HUGE in the UK but I rarely hear people talking about it here, and it is so well-done.) Danny starts in New Orleans to meet Marcus, who had an encounter with his Aunt Jean, who ran a witch shop before she died in Hurricane Katrina. It starts when Marcus finds her Ouija board, and his story was fucking scary. The storytelling is great but Danny has a real conversation with Marcus and his guests—could there be an explanation? Listen here.
🎙️I’ve been loving PJ Vogt’s Search Engine and his interview on Longform was not a peek, but like a roof-blown-off-the-building look inside the episodes he’s made so far, at…let’s be honest break-neck speed, considering the high production value of Search Engine. Search Engine has the potential to derail a crew for a long time—following a lead that amounts to nothing, getting too deep with interviews or obsessing over details. But PJ says his hit rate is pretty good when it comes to knowing what works. And he explains how. This is a great story about production—how to decide which episodes are right, how to make the show feel timely without always being stressed out, how to take us into a rabbit hole that will lead to interesting places. He also talks about his listening habits and gives so many very specific details about Search Engine episodes that it really feels like a behind-the-scenes special. Also there was mention of a Rick Rubin-inspired episode that I really hope happens. Listen here.
🎙️It’s not impossible for a podcast to make me cry, but it’s rare. However the Father of the Bride episode of Hollywood Gold made me cry. It’s just such a cozy conversation (with Charles Shyer, who directed with Nancy Myers) that takes you right back to the 90s with Steve Martin and Martin Short to get all the details about the funniest scenes and what made this movie so widely beloved. I love Hollywood Gold because of the movie selections, but also because of the host. Daniela Taplin Lundberg is talking to these huge names but in a way that I can follow. These conversations are down to earth and purely enjoyable for people who love movies for movies sake. No name dropping or inside baseball stuff that I, someone who did not go to film school, don’t care about. This was a comfort listen, it was interesting, and I think Charles Shyer had fun, too. Listen here.
🎙️Mortified is celebrating 20 years with a bracket-style competition that pits stories from different cities against each other. First off, Portland vs. Austin. Portland comes in strong with a really good story about a girl taking extensive notes about her crush named Matt. Not to be outdone, the Austin storyteller reads about his former alter-ego, a Medieval royal, who saves him from feeling like a loser. I vote for Austin. And you? Listen here.
🎙️The first time I listened to an episode of The Best One Yet I was not convinced I would ever listen again. It’s extremely high energy and doesn’t initially seem like a vibe match for me. (They call the show TBOY and their listeners Yetties.) Hosts Nick Martell and Jack Crivici-Kramer (they built MarketSnacks which sold to Robin Hood, and hosted Snacks Daily before going off on their own with TBOY) are highly caffeinated dudes who talk about finance with more enthusiasm that I do when talking about Disney World. But after that first day I listened the next day and the next, and now I’m an every day listener and self-proclaimed Yetti. They’re tackling what they call “pop biz” news, which I guess means making whatever is happening on Wall Street fun and exciting for people like me, or children, who need a little convincing. Each day they tackle three trending topics and explain what’s happening in the background and all around it, the context we need to know to go from “oh, whatever” to “this is really cool.” Nick and Jack are the kind of friends who are so close I feel like they meld into one person sometimes, they’re smart but not pretentious, and their fans love them. (When they begged their audience to vote for them to win a Webby, their audience delivered. They won, beating out Scott Galloway’s show.) So after the three topics they go through it all quickly once again so it really sticks in your brain, and then offer a few news items of shit that is just good to know. I love the format, the energy, and the way they make this stuff entertaining and memorable. Listen here.
🎙️Kim Lessing and Kate Arend, the women behind Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Production, launched Million Dollar Advice to give people help with their work related dilemmas. I love hearing about people’s dilemmas!, and these kind of shows have a tendency to make their way into my regular listening. Maybe it’s because of who I am and who these women are (geriatric millennial white woman, I think) but they seem to be struggling with some of the stuff I deal with, exactly—we are all traumatized by the grind-hard culture that we were steeped in when we were just entering the work force in the 2000s. These women are good friends, so conversations are fun to listen to, and so far they’ve had Amy Poehler and Mitra Jouhari on as guests to help with advice. It was exactly the kind of thing I’d want to hear from my smartest friends, and advice that follows the same thread throughout episodes. Women my age talk about the perils of toxic productivity, yet it has served us well. We’re hesitant to put something on someone’s to do list, but if we do that other person gets to do it on their own timeline. We can’t let our emotions get in our way—let something like your car breaking down get in the way. Almost everything made an insane amount of sense to me. (Almost. I don’t think letting go of the way you like to do things is “the scariest thing in the world.”) There is also an open conversation at pooping at work. Back when Kim, Kate, and I were starting our careers 20 years ago women didn’t even poop and now we’re talking about it on podcasts! Times have changed, and Kim and Kate acknowledge that too, spending some time talking about what it’s like working with Gen Z, which could be a whole separate podcast. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
Tink Spotlight
Daniel Alvarenga is a queer Salvadoran journalist and the host of HUMO: Murder and Silence in El Salvador. He was born and raised in Southern California to refugee parents who fled the civil war in El Salvador. Previously, he made viral news videos for AJ+, a part of the Al Jazeera media network. Daniel was also a reporter and producer for Telemundo's first English-language show Radar 2021. He covers issues pertaining to immigration, racial equity, and Latinx cultures – with a special emphasis on Central America and its diasporas.
Why did Sonoro decide to make this podcast available in both English and Spanish? Any story about the people of El Salvador is a transnational story. Due to migration, around one-third of El Salvador’s population lives abroad, mostly in the U.S. And Salvadorans are the 3rd largest Latino group in the U.S. too. Bilingual storytelling is more inclusive and means more people can listen and have more cross-cultural dialogues.
As a child of refugees from El Salvador, how did this story affect you personally? My mother lost two of her brothers to El Salvador’s death squads during the war. It’s one of the reasons why she migrated. This podcast in many ways deals with the legacy of that war, and how El Salvador is still struggling with its memory as the history of state violence repeats itself. The podcast helped me connect the dots between the past and present of El Salvador’s recent history and has led to deeper, more engaging discussions with members of my community, my elders and my peers.
What are you hoping listeners take away from Humo? I hope listeners learn to question people in power and come to their own conclusions. So much of what’s been circulating in the last couple of years about El Salvador has been government-sponsored misinformation – that it’s safer than ever, that it’s a crypto-coin paradise, and that the country is finally prospering after years of violence. HUMO turns these popularly-circulated beliefs on their head and reveals that El Salvador’s PR is a lot of smoke and mirrors and the reality is a lot more unsettling.
It’s hard to ignore the similarities between what’s happening in El Salvador and what could happen here in the United States. What are your biggest concerns about the state of our democracy here in the United States after working on the story focused on El Salvador? What happens in the U.S. influences what’s going on in El Salvador. President Bukele’s rise to power in El Salvador coincided with Trump’s presidency in the U.S. He said once in a meeting with the former U.S. President, “President Trump is nice and cool, and I’m nice and cool too.” And Bukele frequently goes on FOX News, has been interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). El Salvador is also a country with a total abortion ban, while the U.S. is currently on that path. The folks in the U.S. trying to clamp down on our rights are teaming up with similar groups elsewhere in the world to do the same. I think El Salvador is very much a cautionary tale and a product of so-called U.S. democracy through years of intervention. I think it's a disservice to think what happens in El Salvador can’t happen to us in the U.S.
Fill in the blank: You will like Humo if you like ___________. …crime podcasts with an educational and political edge.
📦 From the Archives 📦
[From August 10, 2020] Bizarre Albums reviews the weirdest albums ever made in a positive way. Host Tony Thaxton isn’t making fun of them, he’s glorifying them for all their weirdness. The episode on The Shaggs tells a fascinating story about three teen sisters forced into the music industry by their father in 1969, despite the fact they had no musical experience, or even interest in music. The album is so bad it goes past bad and back to good (Kurt Cobain called The Shaggs one of his favorite bands.) You really have to listen to this episode, to hear the story and the music. Because listening to the music without hearing the context is pretty puzzling, and the story is even better than the album.