🗿Stonehenge, COVID ghosts, transgender bathrooms, a dead jockey who wins 🏇 Food 4 Thot's Tommy Pico 🍑
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Anna Phelan, who oversees marketing for TED podcasts.
Title: My official title is Podcast Programming Manager which I think is kinda vague, so it’s probably cleaner to say “oversees podcast marketing at TED” -- also I wouldn’t mind a shout-out to my strange little Insta project Podcasts & Porridge since there might be other podcasts + oatmeal-obsessed folks out there ;)
What app I use: Because my job is so focused on audience, I bounce between all the platforms to get a sense of how everyone listens. But my main two are Spotify and Overcast; Spotify for the miscellaneous things I want to listen to, and Overcast for my regulars that I listen to most episodes of (The Daily, Today in Focus, Today, Explained, Longform, Techish, The Cut). There’s a cool smart playlist feature that pulls in everything from a selected number of shows.
Speed: Regular speed; I see the appeal of speeding it up and I’ve considered it (it would definitely help me get through my queue) but it feels like it would turn my podcast listening into an exercise in productivity, and at the end of the day I want to experience something exactly as the producers crafted it.
When I listen: I live alone, so I pretty much have a podcast playing constantly when I’m not working. So while doing chores, cooking, exercising, cycling, running errands, etc. I save things I want to deeply pay attention to for when I take long bike rides.
How I discover:A million newsletters! I read this one, The Listener from Caroline Crampton, Podnews, Hotpod, and Inside Podcasting. I also follow the Podcast Brunch Club and am a member of my local chapter. I have google alerts for the word podcasts to keep on top of industry news and new show announcements. And I check the Apple Podcasts storefront a lot; I’ve been loving their collections lately.
To listen top 7
xoxo lp
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Food 4 Thot’s Tommy Pico
Tommy Pico is a poet, writer, and co-host of Food 4 Thot. Follow Food 4 Thought on Twitter here.
If I remember correctly, you were independent, and now your show is with iHeart. What fueled that decision and what was that process like? That's a dream many podcasters have, and I'm sure they'd appreciate insight.
Food 4 Thot started with a ton of goodwill and the sharing of resources. Our original producer, Julia Alsop, was a friend of mine who was working at LatinoUSA at the time. When they moved back to Canada, I put our call out on a podcast listserv thingy asking for a producer interested in making a slutty, queer show with a multiracial mix of writers. Basically I was like, “smart gay sluts.” Producer Alex(andra DiPalma) responded and it was pure, Dickensian coincidence. She was literally the perfect person at the perfect time and didn’t ask to be paid. She said it was an idea she adored and she was tired of only producing straight/white/male content (I hate that word btw). Tom Tierney and Alex Meade-Fox, a couple friends from college, had a studio in Brooklyn called Spaceman Sound where we were able to record high quality audio for hella cheap. Fran had a graphic designer friend and a photographer friend, Ben Wagner and Michael George respectively, who did all our branding and photos for free. It was truly a community effort and a labor of love.
We had an 8 episode first season that managed to garner a really devoted audience, I think because we rejected the idea that there is a distinction between “high” and “low” culture. We rejected the idea of respectability. We rejected the idea that education is the same as intelligence. You can be smart and talk shit and suck dick. Anything else is just homophobia, sexism, and white supremacy with a new haircut.
Then we were hosted by Grindr and Into, and literally Grindr would send a Push notification on Sundays when our episodes published and after that it was over for you heauxs. Then it looked like Into was folding or something like that, so we jumped over to Forever Dog, home of amongst other things Las Culturistas with friends of the pod Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang as hosts. Then iHeart. I think it worked partly because we worked so hard on something we loved with people we loved, partly because it was a community effort, and partly because there were a lot of scared queers at the end of 2016 and the top of 2017 who needed some kind of affirmation and light in the world. Before the pandemic I toured colleges a lot on my poetry and I got a lot of people who found my work through Food 4 Thot, who said in some way shape or form that the show saved them. I gotta say, I think the show saved me, too.
Describe your fans in 3 words.
Horny gay brats.
If you were going to create another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
Oooh but I did! With my friend Drea Washington we created Scream, Queen! last year: a podcast about scary movies by people not typically depicted in scary movies, also produced by Alexandra DiPalma and Domino Sound. Our third season is about to drop August 25th, and we’ve also been doing YouTube videos and shows on IG Live. I’ve known Drea over ten years, and within ten minutes of hanging out we were always talking about the latest scary movies we’d seen, sharing how our identities had been formulated around scary movies, despite never seeing ourselves (queer/indigenous/black) in them very often. The conversation evolved naturally into a podcast format, which I think the most enduring podcasts are.
I’d known for years that I wanted a podcast, but I did too much artificial handling of subject matters and formats and the results were always mangled, manufactured, messes. I think most times you don’t actually have to do much thinking when figuring out the right show for you. I think it should naturally evolve out of something you’re already talking about or doing. When I met Dennis, Fran, and Joe at a writing retreat thing, our conversations were so easy and went so quickly between books, Beyoncé, and butt stuff. It really felt like we had chemistry. Same with Drea. Stay tuned!
Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
There was a time in my adolescence and teenage years where I stopped talking altogether, or talked as little as possible, because people were always telling me I sounded “gay,” and of course would use that as a pretense for kicking my ass. It was particularly painful for me because I was a singer as a child and it was (and continues to be) the most sincere form of joy I experience. I can’t tell you how many times singing in my apartment has saved me from a full blown panic attack in the pandemic. Unlearning the fear that I associated with my joy took… a decade and a half? Of introspection and breath work and intense therapy, but now my voice is my superpower. I can make it do anything I want to. I got to come home.
Should podcasters read their Apple Podcast reviews?
Fuck no. But maybe I’m just fucked up because I can read 15 good reviews and one bad review and the bad review is the only one I can hear, see, or think about. It’s a no from me, dawg.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Into the Zone is a new show from Pushkin about the “grey areas in life,” telling stories about things that are more complicated than they seem. Take country music, for example, in this episode about its history, and how it managed to get so far away from from its roots in hip hop and Black culture. Host Hari Knzru goes back to find out how it split off, by studying the music’s twangy language, unusual instruments, and storied content. You’ll hear country that sounds like it’s being played at a luau and country music that’s been written by AI. Yodeling. Old Town Road. And music from long ago that makes country music feel less black vs. white than it is today. I listened to another episode, Druid Like Me, which includes a visit to Stonehenge on the solstice to get us to think about nationalism and the difference between being a native and a migrant (which he connects to his own story about growing up in Essex during the Thatcher years.)
💎BTW💎
🎙️I’m going to be running a panel for the Outlier Podcast Festival this week! Join me September 18 at 2pm EST—I’ll be talking about my favorite thing in the world…podcast newsletters! Register here. (It’s pay what you can.)
🎙️The Constant’s In The Air Tonight (I Can Feel It) is a lesson about the history of how we have learned about the way disease spreads. I’m pretty sure Mark Chrisler and Mark Chrisler only could make this history so much FUN. How did we go from believing that anything that smelled bad made us sick, to determining that water was the culprit? Mark has a knack for talking about disease in gory detail, and here his talent for that shines. This is a funny look at our past tied to the ridiculousness of the present, a time we aren’t much better at dealing with disease.
🎙️On 99% Invisible, Where Do We Go From Here? features a podcaster I love, Sandy Allen, host of Mad Chat. Sandy is nonbinary and transgender, and this episode is part audio diary of the trial and tribulations of trying to find a “gender neutral” (is that really the best word to describe it?) bathroom in New York City. Only following Sandy through their day are we able to empathize with how frustrating this must be. I kept thinking that I wish Sandy had texted me to use my bathroom! (But then the piece wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful, I guess.) This is a great website that tackles our problem with bathrooms, which aren’t servicing us as they should. What should the perfect bathroom look like? Why don’t more of them adapt these practices? You end this episode realizing that inclusive bathrooms are better for everyone, not just transgender people. Next please listen to the 17 minute mark of this episode from Short Cuts, where Arlie Adlington reads The Toilets at Home Are All Gender Neutral.
🎙️Ghosts in the Burbs has been producing spine-tingling fiction stories for years, and now Liz Sower has adapted the show to the times with an eerie COVID story. Listening to it (a family starts noticing simultaneously unwelcome visitors and a fox) I realized how much I crave COVID-themed scary stories. It’s a kind of spooky treatment that is new to my brain, and gosh it feels very real. This is one of those shows that feels like a comforting lullabye, a nourishing story time, and even with the modern COVID twist, this story maintained an old-fashioned tone that makes you feel like you’re walking alone under trees of changing leaves, some of them stuck to the pavement because of a recent cold rain, in a sleepy grey town full of old mansions. Wow I’m totally getting carried away. I think I’m ready for Halloween and all the scary stories my favorite podcasts will bring.
🎙️Another fun COVID story is brought to you by The Chronicles of Now, with Tommy Orange’s essay about a little boy going back to school too early during a pandemic that feels innocent, scary, and sad. We’re witnessing the beginning of COVID literature, with so many rich emotions and fears and dangers to explore.
🎙️Season one of The Promise was an eye-opening look at the history of public housing in the United States, masterfully zooming in on the lives of the people in one Nashville community. And season two is here, this time looking at a school in Nashville that’s been divided over race and economics, and aggressively resisting desegregation for years. On episode One, A Tale Of Two Schools, you could momentarily think you are listening to Nice White Parents—I think it would have been much more shocking had this show been released one year ago. But it’s a different school, a different story, and The Promise is steeped in journalistic excellence. It’s a show that’s able to humanize people so clearly you feel like you know them, which makes it different than Nice White Parents.
🎙️I just finished ten weeks of being engulfed in Unfinished: Deep South, the complicated story of a wealthy Black land-owner in the south, Isadore Banks. And I waited patiently for season two, which is set in Short Creek, a town on the border of Utah and Arizona, that is made up entirely of people in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. To bridge the seasons, Witness Docs senior producer Stephanie Kariuki sat down with Taylor Hum and Neil Shea of Deep South, and Ash Sanders and Sarah Ventre of Unfinished: Short Creek, to talk about what connects these seasons, and why they are the perfect stories for the Unfinished theme, which reminds me of the theme of The Promise. It’s all about how we deal with our histories, and promises we’ve made for ourselves and our failure to hold up to them. Deep South, and I assume Short Creek, forces listeners to confront the past unflinchingly, even when that leads to uncomfortable truths about our communities and ourselves.
🎙️You can now listen to the first two episodes of Short Creek and it’s EXCELLENT. We open with a story from Elisa Wall, who was forced to marry her cousin by Warren Jeffs. How did the people of the FLDS end up in the beautiful town of Short Creek? Episode two gets into the town’s history, and how Warren was able to gain complete power and control from his father Rulon and essentially tear Short Creek apart. (With a wonderful Weekend at Bernie comparison.) One thing that makes this season of Unfinished is the hosts. Ash Sanders and Sarah Ventre are not outsiders, they have spent years reporting from the region, and are from towns nearby. They’re close to the story of this town, which is already revealing shocking things about the church I’ve never heard before.
🎙️America, If You’re Listening (formerly Russia, If You’re Listening) is the Australian perspective about how Donald Trump changed the United States and the world, investigating Trump’s greatest achievements, disappointments and disasters. Even if you’re familiar with the content, it’s valuable because it’s not coming from an American media company. Episode one is about what Hurricane Maria taught Trump about being president and what we learned about Trump based on his actions. Episode two is about Trump’s messy relationship with the NRA, and how close we were to finally having gun control in America.
🎙️Local news is the best—I have my dad read me my small Ohio hometown’s police blotter every weekend. I live in Manhattan, and these small, personal stories feel big. One Strange Thing tells stories from the nation’s local news archives. But unlike the stories in the Hudson Hub (teenagers picnicking on a golf course, a local remodeler honored for his work) these stories are mysterious and hard to explain. The first one, about a class ring that goes missing and is found years later and thousands of miles away, isn’t so strange that it will give you nightmares, just a chill. And sometimes those small, subtle stories can feel bigger than stories of psychopathic murderers and con artists.
🎙️If you enjoy Ear Hustle, you’ll love Uncuffed, a show that lets San Quentin prisoners get vulnerable and open about their experiences and stories. On Unconfined, we hear the story of Chanthon Bun, who got COVID in prison but was released on parole. Chanthon is left to recover from COVID but also experiences survivor’s guilt, and the fear that ICE would put him back in a different kind of prison.
🎙️Oh man. The most recent episode of Relative Unknown is the best yet (and I super loved episode one)—it finally gets to the Witness Protection Program, something that has sort of been lurking in the background, something that I have been waiting for. I got emotional listening to Sure Gonna Miss You, where we hear audio of Butch and his last minutes with his children before he goes to jail. They have no idea. It’s also a sad story about how Jackie, Butch’s daughter and host of the show, was ripped from her home in Florida and plopped in terrible conditions in Montana, completely neglected by the government that promised to protect her. As Buck sits in jail, made helpless by being imprisoned, Jackie struggles to adapt to her new life. It’s rage-inducing.
🎙️The new season of Dissect is dissecting Childish Gambino’s Because The Internet. (You can only listen on Spotify now 😒.) I have always loved Childish Gambino and was excited to hear more about the person Donald Glover. But I must confess hearing his story isn’t encouraging my fandom. We get to hear just how highly Donald thinks of himself, which clears up questions we might have had about him (where did he go when he disappeared from the internet? Why would someone who seemingly has it all try to kill himself?) Donald is gifted with a sort of brilliance that fosters remarkable creativity, and one that is also dangerous to the psyche. In true Dissect form, the storytelling feels a little detached. Despite this all I know I’ll keep listening. Childish Gambino, and the world he has created, is beyond complicated.
🎙️American Shadows is a collection of tiny, dark histories, relying heavily on story. Glow opens with Marie Curie and goes on to document our idiotic understanding of how harmful Radium is (but who could blame us?), and the work that we were doing with it that caused horrifying physical side-effects. I also enjoyed Unbridled, which tells the story of Frank Hayes, the jockey who won a race despite being dead. It’s an unsettling look at the pressure on jockeys to stay pint-sized, and something that I’m sure isn’t solely in The Sport of King’s past.
🎙️The exposés of our presidents on Ashley Flowers’ Very Presidential are getting worse and worse (better?) and finally we get to Thomas Jefferson. Each time I listen to one of these things I think to myself, “aha! We’ve officially found the worst President of all time!” Only to be surprised the next week when I’m alerted to the stories of more. But seriously: we’ve officially found the worst President of all Time. I get so sick of Jefferson getting put up on a pedestal for being some sort of innovative genius who hated slavery. As you will learn in this episode, in case you don’t know, Jefferson was a spineless, lying, child raping hypocrite who blackmailed (and killed) people to defend his reputation. This isn’t the kind of show I am typically drawn to—one host reading a history that you suspect could have been pulled from Wikipedia. But I like Ashley’s reading style, and I’m truly horrified by the content. Not just because it’s horrifying but because I didn’t know about it before.
🎙️Meddling Adults is back! This show is truly a treat—guests compete to solve mysteries from our favorite children’s mystery series (like Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew.) I can never solve the mysteries for two reasons, I believe: 1) I am a dummy 2) I am so distracted by how funny this show is I’m not even trying to solve anything. As a bonus, money is raised from listeners for each episode that goes toward a charity of the winner’s choice. So you can feel very good listening to (and ahem, supporting) Meddling Adults.
🎙️The Truth is doing such a hard thing. Listeners press play to be dropped into a new, fictional world, unable to predict what they are about to experience. Think about how hard that is to do! How different the writing must be. But the stories are well-told, and the immersion is instant, satisfying, and cinematic. In a short amount of time, you are pulled into a story, aware of the environment, the characters, the stakes. Into the Hum is about a boy and his grandfather taken in by strangers to escape a danger outside, but it’s really about the difference between people who refuse fear and the people who stoke it. This episode kept popping into my mind, after listening to it. It’s about the bravery of refusing to be afraid.
🎙️An episode of Criminal, Kids on the Case, tells stories of precocious kids who have solved crimes. Each one feels like something I fantasized about when I was a kid—finding fingerprints, confronting robbers, setting out on search missions. There’s also a story about some kids who used their bodies to make an arrow shape, to direct a helicopter above to a suspect who was trying to get away. It proves that kids can be wonderfully creative problem solvers when it comes to cracking a case. The fact that they don’t think the way that we do gives them an edge.
🎙️Do you have a Disaster Kit? The Unnatural Disasters episode of How to Save a Planet interviews disasterologist Kendra Pierre-Louis about what one should contain (she literally unpacks her own, and it contains a lot of marshmallows,) and argues that you can’t just Google “Go Kit” and check the boxes, and you can’t just buy one. Putting thought into your own kit is part of the process of being prepared. Part of your Go Kit, Kendra says, is your community, and possibly even your Twitter following. Because in a moment of danger, your life may depend on your neighbor or friends who can lend you a hand. This episode literally inspired me to start creating my own kit.
🎙️If you like The Moth, you’ll love Story Collider, a storytelling series that is focused on science. Two storytellers in this episode talk about moments in their childhoods when they played with science and flirted with danger, well before they were the scientists they are today. The first one is adorable (a high school nerd pulls off an epic Senior prank,) and the second one is pretty shocking (two boys preform an experiment on their own only to realize the perilous power of scientific research.)
🎙️This weekend my husband had a movie and a podcast night, watching Ghost World together and then listening to The Bechdel Cast’s review of the film, with guest Julie Klausner (from Double Threat.) Julie loves Ghost World and identifies with the main character, Enid. But Jamie and Caitlin watch the film with the eyes of another generation, one that doesn’t accept jokes that are steeped in racism, sexism, and ableism. (And the “R” word.) Julie doesn’t back down, sticking to her argument that Ghost World is one of the most brilliant movies ever made, but is grateful for the perspective of two younger women. It’s three smart, funny women from two different generations outlining how we might watch a film differently now than we did in 2001. Caitlin and Jamie disagree with Julie, but everyone is kind and open. It’s fun to listen to women disagree without things spiraling into a dirty fight.
🎙️I’m loving this series from Motive, which is all about how recruiting kids is a big part of the neo-nazi agenda. This episode tells the surprising history of skinheads—their origins are miles away from how we think about them today. They were once a diverse group of people who cared about social issues. It only took a few racist people in Chicago to appropriate the skinhead movement and forever change the future of skin heads and punks.
🎙️I love you!