🐍 Serpent handling 🤳Jeremy Renner? 🕵🏻♂️ missing purse 👛 The Magic Castle 🪄 meta advice 💬
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Bonjour.
Today is Monday, January 8. In case this issue is too long…a show tangentially connected to one of my favorite shows of 2022 is here, a story about an app that is so bad it goes past bad and back to good here, a long-due appreciation episode for a show I don’t mention enough, and a special episode recommendation here.
xoxo lp
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Lindy West & Meagan Hatcher-Mays
Lindy West and Meagan Hatcher-Mays are the hosts of Text Me Back.
What's your elevator pitch for the show?
Meagan Hatcher-Mays: How long is the elevator ride? .
Lindy West: I feel like people ask us that, and honestly, it's like, we're two best friends who are really funny. Is that a strong enough hook to get you to listen to our podcast? The advice we got is that it's really important to have a news hook and make sure that the podcast provides some kind of information to people. So we were pitching this kind of more news-based show, almost like an explainer podcast where would ask Meagan a question about how the government works, and she would explain it to me, and then we would use that as a vehicle to be goofy Then as we continued to work on it, and especially once we started recording stuff, once we started working with KUOW, the stuff that everyone liked the best was the stuff where we were just talking and goofing off. They were like, ‘can we do more of that? And less of the news?’ And we were like, ‘yes please.’
MHM: I think literally we were like, ‘oh, thank God.’ I think one of the best things about working with KUOW so far is that they really were like, ‘you know that part at the beginning that was five minutes long, where you guys were just talking to each other? The whole podcast should be that.’ And I was like, ‘exactly.’ So that's the premise.
LW: It really opened up to just the stuff that we're actually really interested in and none of the boring stuff that we're just talking about because we felt obligated I realized is that what I would love for this podcast to be is people's comfort listen, where you feel like we're your friends and you go tune in every week because it feels like sort of warm, fuzzy family.
MHM: Yeah. That's us.
LW: I have had relationships like that with radio shows and podcasts in the past, and certainly with TV shows, when there are things where you want to go back just to spend time with the people because you feel connected to them even if you don't know them. And that's what I hope people can get from this.
Can you tell me about your relationship? You were voted most likely to make you laugh in high school. Let's go back, I need to know about this. In high school, which table did you sit at in the cafeteria?
MHM: Well, first of all, I feel like our high school cafeteria was so unique. Nobody ever ate in it. I don't even think I knew where it was.
LW: Here's my favorite thing about our cafeteria, that nobody ever entered or left. Our high school mascot was the Bulldogs and then the cafeteria was called Dog Bone. It had a big sign over the door that said Dog Bone.
MHM: Our friendship was just really interesting. We had mutual friends all through high school, but we didn't actually meet until like second semester senior year. So it was like a lot of wasted time, a lot of wasted jokes. We met in the gym, registering for classes. I really wish I could remember what the joke was, but Lindy said something so funny and like, something that made me feel seen. Like she referenced a Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketch or something, and I was like, ‘hello. I video record that on VHS cassettes every night.’ So it was like some very dorky mind meld. And I was like, ‘this is very pleasant. This is really scratching an itch in my brain that had I'd not felt in some time.’
LW: I was like, ‘let’s be best friends. What are you doing for six months until I go to college? Let's hang out every day.’ And so we did. There was no like ramping up to being best friends. It was immediate. Like, let's drive around in your Volvo and scream laughing for six straight months. I think spiritually that is still very true of our friendship, even though we don't live in the same city anymore. I think that Meagan was more popular.
MHM: I don't think that's right. .
LW: It's not like either of us were getting bullied, but neither of us was prom queen. We were in the middle.
MHM: I made strategic friendships with people who lived in my neighborhood so I could get rides home.
LW: So then we got voted funniest. I do think that I'm very funny. However, I was on the yearbook staff. And so I did have insider knowledge, which is that there were like two other people that won, and they got more votes than me. But they were so cool and popular that they also won other categories. But Meagan won. She was the real deal. But it was also cute because we were brand new best friends.
MHM: And now we live in the memories of our peers as the funniest.
Do they know about the podcast?
LW: One of our friends from high school works at KUOW and she messaged me, she was like, ‘have you and Meagan ever thought about doing a podcast?’ I had posted some video of us being stupid. And I was like, ‘well, we've been trying.’ And then that's actually how we ended up doing it. I think in general, some people from high school are gonna be like, ‘this is great.’ And some people are gonna be like, ‘oh, Jesus Christ.’
Do you remember the first time you realized you were funny?
LW: I always made my parents laugh and I always thought they were laughing at me.
MHM: I remember it very specifically. I was in preschool and we were doing The Wheels on the Bus. And a teacher was like, ‘if you're tired, show me how you're tired.’ And I did like an exasperated look, and she loved it. And I was like, ‘that was fun. I should do that again.’ And then I proceeded to get in trouble. There were many classes I had to be physically separated from other people in the class because we just were laughing
LW: I remember that the summer after senior year of high school, when we were deep in our friendship, I was sitting in Meagan's basement and we were like, we should have a radio show. Can you imagine if we had a radio show someday? She was like, ‘no.’
MHM: I didn't have the vision.
LW: I think you were just trying to keep me grounded.
How are you different and how are you the same? Like what do you both bring to the show?
MHM: I think people might be surprised to learn that Lindy's pretty introverted. You are funny and good around people, but I do think it makes you really tired. You want to wrap yourself up like a burrito and read a novel. And I'm not that, I'm an energy demon. I require the laughs really bad. I gotta have 'em. But I think when you actually listen to the show, it ends up being really balanced in that same way. Our interests are very similar, but I do think our personalities are kind of different. Having a working relationship with Lindy has been really fun. She's a professional humorist.
LW: I feel like what you just described is like me being a thoughtful professional and you being a clown. But you are the only person on the show who knows anything. So much of the show is Meagan having actual professional expertise. Meagan's a lawyer. She went to law school.
MHM: I did. Isn't that weird?
LW: Meanwhile, I'm like, ‘there's a baby ghost that steals your farts.’
MHM: But you're so thoughtful about it. About the baby ghost and his his gas. I went to law school as a joke almost. That's not really what I care about. And I think you get that when you listen to the show. There are segments where Lindy will have a bit about an ancient Polish vampire boy that they dug up. And then mine will be like, is our government being negatively impacted by older people not retiring? I think either way it's like the nugget of something that is just an opportunity for us to talk to each other.
LW: Meagan teaches me to be a little bit more brave and confrontational, and maybe I teach Meagan to be a little bit more soft and forgiving.
MHM: That's true. I'm a real one strike and you're a three-strikes-you’re-out type of person. I’ll be like, ‘why wouldn't you just run this person over with your car? They hurt your feelings.’ And Lindy's like, ‘what if we thought about it for two seconds?’
Lindy, I read in Butt News that it's the best thing you've ever done.
LW: I think so. As I've gotten more successful and more established, I have been able to move closer and closer to what I actually wanna make, versus what other people want me to make. This is the purest expression of that where it is just me and Meagan talking, which is what I wanna do. I just feel like I started my career being a goofball at The Stranger in the newspaper. And then I got really sucked into this vortex of being serious and having to write about heavy stuff for a long time. And it was very exhausting. And I feel like it undermined my identity in this way where people started thinking of me as this very serious drag.
MHM: It was also because you became like a representative. You had to become like an avatar for this whole society-wide ill. That's a lot of responsibility for one person to take on.
LW: That work was super rewarding, and the stuff that I write about in Shrill and The Witches Are Coming is very personal and very important to me. But I also just wanna be a goofball. And so I've been very consciously returning to that place. When Meagan and I were in high school, I wasn't like, ‘I wanna be an essayist about abortion. I want everyone to examine every inch of my body and complain about it. I wanna offer my body up to be devoured by the masses who hate me. I wanna soak my laptop in tears about being fat.’ When I was in high school, I wanted be a clown on the radio. And before that I wanted to write fantasy novels. So maybe that's next.
MHM: We have never talked about this explicitly, but everything you just said I feel like in such a parallel way. I went to law school and I moved to DC and I've done a lot of policy work at different organizations over the last 10 years. And there's a lot of policy stuff I care about very deeply. My day job is working on democracy reform and the Supreme Court, and I care about that. But also it's really hard because the Supreme Court sucks a lot. And then you just kinda get to a point where you're like, there's so many wonderful people doing this work. I don't have to keep doing this. Other people can do this too. And now my passion about this is making me tired and making me hurt. I need to take a break from it. I'm in my forties and I wanna do something really fun, even if it's just for 12 episodes or even if it's just for a year. I just wanna be a clown 'cause that makes me feel good.
LW: Meagan, I don’t want to speak for you, but re: the introvert extrovert conversation, I feel like your whole life people, especially in professional settings, have been like, Meagan, can you tone it down?
MHM: That's what's been kind of crazy. We'll go into a recording session and our producer will be like, ‘you’ve got ramp up your energy.’ And I'm like, ‘are you serious?’ For someone to be like, ‘can you pick it up a few notches?’ instead of being like, ‘this is the House of Representatives. Can you be quiet?’ It's been amazing.
Do you listen to podcasts?
MHM: I do. I mostly listen to true crime podcasts, if I'm being honest.
LW: The Bill Clinton season of Slow Burn was great. I really liked it because you got to re-examine that time period from today's standards. But my favorite podcast ever only had one season—Mystery Show.
MHM: I loved that show. One of my favorites was about how tall Jake Gyllenhaal was. And she finally got to measure him on Conan O'Brien. And I was like, ‘this is the best day of my life.’
LW: I have some mysteries that I would like to solve on the podcast though. I've got some ideas. I feel like it would be funny to solve mysteries from our friendship.
Where’d you get the name Text Me Back? Were there any other potentials for the name?
LW: It was originally gonna be called ‘The Care Lords’ where we're talking about politics, but we care. We're soft girls who care. And then when we made the pilot it was called ‘Most Likely to Make You Laugh.’ That was too long. And then we had a big brainstorm and the result was Text Me Back. My vote was ‘Best Friend Party Phone,’ which no one liked except me.
MHM: it's possible that we could turn that into a segment. So I don't think that name is dead yet. But Text Me Back just stuck. Text Me Back is kind of like the function of our friendship now that I live in DC and Lindy lives in the woods. We text each other weird stuff all the time. She messages me like really horrible stuff on Instagram that I hate. I hate every single thing she's ever sent me.
LW: I try to ruin Meagan's Day.
MHM: She's got a hundred percent success rate. I'll send her something ridiculous like about how a congressman vaped on the house floor. We liked the vibe of sort of like a deranged longing to hear back from your best friend about the crazy thing that you just sent them. Lindy will do this thing where if I don't respond to her in a day, she'll question mark the thing that she sent me to be like, hello, to bump it. Like, what's your take on this ? You know? Like this dog…
LW: This dog was born with a short spine.
MHM: He doesn't have a neck. Those are the sorts of things that we'll text each other back and forth because we don't get to see each other.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
One of my favorite new shows of 2022 was Alabama Astronaut, a show that captures undocumented music about snake handling sung in the hills of the Appalachians. Marked for Life is tangentially connected, focusing on a name you will recognize if you listened to Alabama Astronaut, Cody Coots, who you’ll remember got bitten on his head by a big old venomous snake after snake handling during a sermon. (His father was killed doing the exact same thing.) Marked for Life is about the good, the bad, and the devastating impacts of being a fourth generation serpent handling preacher told by Cody. Cody also shares an unspeakable horror that happened to him as a child, unpacking the anger he feels toward his parents, his church, and his God. The narrative storytelling style here is completely different from Alabama Astronaut and anything I’ve heard. It feels personal and casual, it’s a memoir with great production. Cody is telling you his story as best he can, but the problem is with his memory, which hasn’t been deteriorating since the bite, and that puts a spin on everything you hear. I am giddy about this. Sign up for the newsletter here.
hell yeah
🎙️My dream of all dreams came true when Cerca asked me to make a Disney World podcast. I wrote it and host it. It’s made for people planning a trip and full of really helpful tips about what to see, how to book tickets, and how to manage the confusing Genie + app. A few episodes are out…more to come! Listen here.
🎙️Read my latest Lifehacker piece, Ten Podcasts That Dismantle Diet Culture.
🎙️Sign up for my next Podcast Marketing 101 Radio Bootcamp here—it has been rescheduled to February 12, 2024.
🎙️I’m also teaching a Radio Bootcamp class on podcast monetizing for anybody on February 26 at noon ET. The class is capped at 12. Sign up here.
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Stirring it up with Andi and Miquita Oliver in her newsletter and podcast.
💎BTW💎
🎙️I have heard about Jeremy Renner’s app and what a disaster it was. But there is a lot I did not know, thank god comedians Caroline Goldfarb and Sarah Ramos have invested their full selves to investigate what…how…why…why? Jeremy Renner made an absolutely stupid app for his fans that gets covered in the podcast The Renner Files. The show is funny because this is funny, but the story is tackled seriously—Caroline and Sarah treat this project like it’s a murder investigation. They brush us non Renner-heads up on who Jeremy Renner is, and why exactly this app made even less sense had it been for Beyoncé, or someone. And they interview people who found themselves wrapped up in the app—from heavy users to Renner haters (they interview Stefan Heck and Jamie Loftus) to get a variety of perspectives. Everyone can pretty much agree this was a terrible idea and a terrible user experience for anyone psychotic enough to pay Jeremy Renner for the chance to maybe have their messages seen by him. This is a really funny celebrity / internet story that I wish was more than 6 episodes. But then again, it’s perfect. The app is worse than you think. Listen here.
🎙️This is a Family Secrets appreciation review. I have been listening to Family Secrets for centuries. I was even lucky enough to have Dani as one of my clients. It’s so unfair because sometimes I neglect it—so many shiny new things pop up, and next thing I know I haven’t listened in awhile and have a huge backlist to binge. That is what happened to me over the holidays, I settled in and made my way through a dozen episodes. The stories on Family Secrets are incredible—because almost all of the guests are writers, the interviews are incredibly nuanced and literary. You’ll notice that Dani’s audio is crystal clear, but her guests call in with a landline. Their audio is a little scratchy. The result is that it feels like they’re whispering their secrets to you under the covers at a sleepover. The sound of Family Secrets is a whisper. Dani wrote a book about her family secret, and after all of these interviews, she has become somewhat of a secret whisperer. She can identify the tiny moments that only people with secrets can relate to, whether it be knowing the unknown or snooping as a child. In my recent binging, every single episode moved me. But if you’re going to listen to just one (and you shouldn’t,) listen to As Bad as a Lie. It’s a story of a woman with a grueling life, who figured out to talk about it in a poetic way that saved her. If you listen to it, I bet you’ll find yourself binging the other episodes like I did. Listen to As Bad as a Lie here.
🎙️Each episode of The Grawlix Saves The World is split up into segments—first, comedians Adam Cayton-Holland, Ben Roy, and Andrew Orvedahl assign each other self-improvement or wellness challenges, then they go back and do them, and finally, they report back to declare whether or not doing the challenge makes the world a better place. On the episode The Mystery of the Missing Purse, producer Ron brings a battered purse he found in his yard and everyone tries to track down the person who owned it. Hearing about what the guys think happened to the purse is hilarious, but then they actually find its owner to get the real story. Sometimes going the extra mile for a single podcast episode isn’t worth it, this time it was. Listen here.
🎙️I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it…a history of Scandoval in three parts? Who needs that? And also maybe something else I also tend to think…Ringer podcasts can be overwritten. I haven’t watched Vanderpump Rules in years, but Scandoval was so much a pop culture moment, I was paying attention. I felt as if I knew as much was necessary but not too much. Almost four hours of someone talking about it seemed like…too much. But hear me out—The Ringer’s American Scandoval (on The Ringer Reality TV Podcast feed) is pretty thorough, I binged it. I started it, and initially thought, yes yes I know all of this. But as the series continued, I realized the story of Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix is much more complex than I realized and had much bigger consequences, financially and culturally. You might think you know everything, but I doubt you do. This was a reality TV moment that not just won two Emmys, but became the very thing we have always wanted reality TV to be…real. Some anecdotes sound too crazy to not be fabricated, but American Scandoval has the receipts and has done the obsessive research and crowd-sourcing from the zillions of Bravo citizen detectives who caught Tom Sandoval red handed, and then watched his lies play out on TV in a season that Tom unsuccessfully tried to manipulate in his favor. Sure, the line “I want to tell you something now that even I find shocking despite knowing what I’m about to say” isn’t the best writing I’ve ever heard, and I though there could have been more social commentary on what this all means. (And as my friend and colleague Holly Brown pointed out, isn’t anyone going to stick up for Raquel?) The fact that it neglects the sexism surrounding the Raquel pile-on is interesting.) But if you’re looking for a complete run down of the batshit insanity that went down in one of the most explosive moments in reality TV, one that boosted sales and ratings for a show that seems totally unlikeable, you’ll get it. Start here.
🎙️For six months, Lauren Shippen has been making Breaker Whiskey, a solo daily podcast that shares voice notes from a woman who finds herself in some kind of apocalyptic event in rural Pennsylvania in 1968. (It made Tink Delicacies for 2023!) Lauren went in a total new direction with New Year’s Day, a once-a-year fiction podcast about two immortal rivals who meet up every 13 years to discuss the world, their lives, and the unique challenges of living forever. I love the idea of experimenting with this kind of endurance storytelling. There are a few chapters out now, which take place in 1890, 1903, and 1016. Listen here.
🎙️You’ve probably heard of The Magic Castle, Hollywood’s exclusive club run by the Academy of Magical Arts where only their members and guests are allowed in. Imperfect Paradise has a four-part series that takes us back to 2020, when The Magic Castle was forced to reckon with its sexist, boys’ club past. Carly Usdin, a filmmaker and an amateur magic enthusiast, takes us through their story, and what it was like to enter the Castle as a trans person, something that threatened everything these older white cis heterosexual men wanted to believe about not just their club, but the boundaries of magic. It was a frustrating battle about fighting for change from the inside. LAist’s Natalie Chudnovsky reports on Carly’s disillusionment in The Magic Castle, its allegations of racism and sexism, the promises it made, and the promises it broke. Start here.
🎙️I am obsessed with Reddit’s AmITheAsshole and my mom is obsessed with Carolyn Hax, and we spend a lot of time reading each other letters and debating the ethical situations they bring up. Advice columns, or AmITheAsshole-type things, are perfect conversation fodder. That is why Han and Matt Know Everything was the perfect podcast that I’m so sad doesn’t exist anymore, and I cannot believe it hasn’t been recreated by someone else. (Someone please do this.) On every episode, married couple Han and Matt would round up the best questions on advice columns and discuss and answer themselves. Han and Matt are wonderful human beings, who tackled the questions with kindness and empathy. They always made me feel like all problems were not insurmountable, that people are good and willing to help each other. Over the holidays I binged old episodes and was reminded how much I miss this show. (Han and Matt built up this wonderful Facebook community that was taken over by listeners, it still exists.) The show still holds up and I recommend you listen again or for the first time. If you want somewhere to start, I recommend maybe the worst episode of the show’s. history, the one where Matt let me and my friend (and co-host of our old show PodcastPodcast) Eric come on to answer some questions. We aren’t as good as Han, but it was a trip down memory lane for me to listen. (Around the 44 minute mark, we get into Eric’s famous “sternum bumps,” when I would run into Eric’s chest only to be flown across the room. It was an unusual ritual in our friendship and something that, now that Eric lives in another city, I miss very much.) You don’t have to start with that one, start anywhere. Listen here.
🎙️Bridget Todd had a really powerful episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet about Dr. Claudine Gay, her resignation from Harvard, and the intense campaign to get her fired led by right wing activist Christopher Rufo, the same right wing activist who created the moral panic over Critical Race Theory. It starts with that but ends up covering a larger problem—Black women being delegitimized in everything, but especially tech, something Bridget knows a lot about. This episode gets emotional, please listen to it. And if you know Jason Calacanis, pass it along to him. He gets a special shout-out. Listen here.
🎙️I am obsessed with both private equity and book publishing (I worked in publishing, and at Barnes & Noble, for years) and could not have been clinging to Nilay Patel’s Decoder interview with Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt any harder. Barnes & Noble spent years suffering—I felt it happening when I was there. As Amazon grew and indie bookstores vanished, Barnes & Noble stores suddenly went from the bad guys (like in You’ve Got Mail) to the good guys—for some communities, it was the only bookstores they had. And bookstores are important. When James Daunt took over Barnes & Noble, I assumed it would get merged with his other bookstores, Waterstones. But I had underestimated James Daunt, his respect for independent bookstores, books, booksellers, libraries, and the art of book browsing. James swept in to make Barnes & Noble stores feel more local, doing almost the opposite of what Barnes and Noble was doing before. This guy loves books, I basically fell in love with him. In the interview, he says so many things that are obvious to anyone who loves books, has worked at a bookstore or in publishing, and authors. But it’s stuff that felt like it was, for so many years, completely baffling to the higher ups at B&N. This made me so optimistic about publishing, reading, and yes…even BookTok. Listen here.
🎙️There has been a lot of talk about movies being way too long (ahem…Killers of the Flower Moon) and this has been a bee in my bonnet—I get personally offended when movies are more than two hours. 90 Minutes or Less Film Fest is all about the movies that are 90 minutes or less, which is the perfect length of a movie. Host Sam Clements recently dropped a special episode with director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, etc!) in which Edgar shares his top 10 under 90 minute watches from 2023, and somehow name checks over 107 movies in the process. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
🏆 The International Women’s Podcast Awards awarded Tracy Kaplan the Moment of Visionary Leadership award for The Ten News.
📦 From the Archives 📦
Imaginary Advice is one of the most inventive shows I’ve ever heard, breaking the mold for what a podcast “should be.” Ross Sutherland is a masterful storyteller and audio wizard, and lets his own imagination be the leader of his content. Without setting rules for himself, he is able to produce the absolute best stories. I listened to part one of Sex and the City: The Return more than a month ago and was so excited to listen to part two I thought I was going to faint. I then completely forgot about it, and when I saw that part two was released, I immediately passed away once again. I then listened to part one all over again, then part two, then became incredibly sad that it was all over. It’s a whirl-wind story about a fictional character getting entrenched in a vast immersive theatre show that is part Sex and the City, part Sleep No More. It's for anyone who feels like hearing a comical adventure story set within a beyond-bizarre world, but it’s especially for people like me who recognize the brilliant Sex and the City references. They’re funny and intelligent. I was laughing but at the same time fully aware that Ross actually had something important to say about the show and how sharp it actually was. Truly, throw away the rest of this newsletter and listen to this ASAP.
I listened to "Marked for Life." It is going to be wild.
Text Me Back is excellent and KUOW needs to keep it going! Meagan and Lindy are my parasocial besties