☂️ The Weather Twins 🛗 up down coffin ⛸️ kiss & cry🥈The St of Christopher Street🏳️🌈
🍭 👂 What the sigma? 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday June 16, 2025.
I’ve been working on a Podcast the Newsletter subscription box with Certified Crucial and ⭐️you can pre-order NOW⭐️. which is 🎂 Podcast the Newsletter’s 6th birthday.🎈Treat yourself to the COOL STUFF INSIDE.
⭐️The debut box features official merchandise from Proxy with Yowei Shaw, Judge John Hodgman, and Everything Is Alive plus a custom Podcast the Newsletter item and a free Podcast Trading Card pack. It’s really cool shit, you guys.⭐️
xoxo
lauren
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
You probably know the name Jacob Reed for working on The Tonight Show and making a viral Buzzfeed video about Japanese sodas. Or maybe you don’t because Jacob Reed is a very common name. This has plagued OUR Jacob, the Jacob Reed in question, for his entire life. He’s always getting packages intended for other Jacob Reeds, being mixed up with other Jacob Reeds. Imagine the nightmare! So plagued he was he started a huge spreadsheet of all the Jacob Reeds he could find, with a bit of information about them. During the pandemic when the entertainment business was dry he would dive into this document investigating the lives of each of the people on the list, Jacob by Jacob. Jacob Reed and Me is getting to know these Jacobs and his mission to understand what it means to be one. And sure it’s corny but he’s also trying to better understand himself. The first episode, which I got to see previewed at Tribeca, is Jacob’s Mystery Show-esque mission to find the Jacob Reed who has painted Sea Breeze II, a commercial painting that seems both uninspired and wildly popular. Tracking this person down is harder than you’d think, and the end of the story which I do not want to spoil is kind of a gut punch. But embedded deeply into the bones of this silly tale is a thoughtful reflection of art, why we make it, what it means to sell out and make money, and ultimately something that will interest many of you, how many podcast execs thought this show was a great fun idea but yet were unwilling to fund it. So here it is, live for you, anyway. The first episode just came out.
notes
✨See the Tink-curated Castbox carousel all about our favorite summer listening shows in the Castbox app and let me know what you think!
✨The CBC is accepting pitches for some of their ongoing podcasts! If you have a story to tell that you think would be a great fit for the illustrious CBC, you can see the podcasts with pitch openings and submit your pitch with this Google form!
✨Arielle spotlighted I Feel That Way Too in EarBuds.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Sahaj Kaur Kohli
Sahaj Kaur Kohli MA.Ed, LGPC, NCC is an award-winning individual and couples therapist and mental health educator. She is also the founder of Brown Girl Therapy (@browngirltherapy), the first and largest mental health and wellness community organization for adult children of immigrants, a columnist for the Washington Post’s advice column Ask Sahaj and author of the book, "But What Will People Say: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love and Family Between Cultures." Sahaj is the host and creator of the new podcast, So We’ve Been Told and has a Substack newsletter called Culturally Enough.
How would you describe So We’ve Been Told in 10 words or less?
A living, breathing community for those left out of wellness
Explain the importance of the show’s name.
We all have stories and beliefs we’ve learned to accept as Truth – about ourselves, about others, about our mental health, about our place in the world. And I firmly believe, as a narrative therapist, that we should interrogate where these come from. Who told us these stories? Who do these beliefs benefit? What would it look like to reauthor these to be different, more culturally-apt, or representative of us? Enter: So We’ve Been Told, the podcast that features real talk, practical advice, expert wisdom and stories from my 250,000-strong community, Brown Girl Therapy, to help you understand your past and unpack the present so you can thrive on your own terms.
This is especially important for those of us who are left out of mainstream wellness conversations. Boundaries don’t look the same for everyone. ‘Healthy’ and ‘close’ and ‘normal’ in relationships means something different to different people. And how we take care of ourselves or communicate with others is wholly culturally and relationally dependent. I want to challenge it all!
Fill in the blank, you will like So We’ve Been Told if you like_______.
Other people’s gossip/drama, hearing from under-represented voices, learning something new, and/or laughing and crying at the same time
Can you tease anything for us to get excited for, or tell us a great episode to listen to?
Every episode is great!!! If you’re getting started in learning about my work and the ‘bicultural’ feels like it represents you or your loved one, start with episode 1, on living a double life between cultures. If you want other people’s family drama, listen to episode 2 on family secrets. And if you are in a relationship with someone of a different culture, race, or background, listen to episode 3 on interracial and intercultural relationships. If none of this excites you wait for more upcoming episodes on narcissism in immigrant families, how duty is a form of love (and control), emotion regulation and guilt, and sex and pleasure! Wherever you start, don’t forget to rate, review, share ;)
What’s your biggest goal for the show?
Expanding my brand and the work I do. I have a larger Instagram community, a newsletter community for ongoing learning with others, I wrote a book called But What Will People Say?, and I offer speaking engagements and community workshops. I wanted to take all of this work and focus on the community. We are not a monolith, but we also have overlapping experiences we don’t think others can relate to. Hundreds of first- and second-generation immigrants have entrusted me with their stories and experiences and I wanted to handle them with care. That’s why the central point of the podcast is these voice notes each episode revolves around. I didn’t work with a production company so I could retain creative control and I just want this podcast to be seen and heard by those who need it. Now, if anyone wants to pay me to do this – please reach out!
Podcast Tink Loves: Movement with Meklit Hadero
Movement is a podcast, radio series and live show that tells stories of global migration through music. Hosted by Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero, the show is a meditation on the large-scale forces at play in individual lives. Issues of citizenship, identity, belonging, and borders are explored through the experiences of artists themselves: two brothers sharing one guitar, a daughter trying on her father’s shoes, the lineage of a drum, and the sounds of a grandmother’s backyard. Movement is hosted by Ethiopian-American singer-composer Meklit Hadero and was co-created by Meklit, producer Ian Coss and editor Julie Caine.
💎podcasts i texted to friends💎
👂Gareth Reynolds of The Dollop and We’re Here to Help has a new show, Next We Have, which bills itself in the description as a “pool of segments” and honestly while I think a segment pool is a great idea for a podcast, I really think they missed out not just calling the show Segment Pool. It’s almost like this show is a podcast playground for Gareth to test segments that could become their own spinoff shows. Like, the one that had me laughing out loud while I was working out (I almost injured myself with a kettlebell) was when a caller who had a bad experience at a Holiday Inn asked Gareth and his guest Lisa Gilroy to write a Yelp review for the establishment. It is hilarious and aggressive, and hopefully it was cathartic for the caller to go through the exercise of hearing it made. There is also a Heavyweight-ish investigation into whether or not Gareth’s childhood friend remembers barfing at a slumber party from when they were boys, just so he can confess that it was Gareth who barfed but blamed it on his friend.In episode two they get a much younger employee from the Headgum office, who also just so happens to work on Doughboys, to explain some Gen Alpha slang. (Ohio riz = bad.) I already can’t wait for another episode. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Browsing Headgum website
👂I sometimes wonder how many brilliant ideas Ross Sutherland has that he just doesn’t have time to do. There must be so many—so many great ones actually happen. His latest, a two-part installment for Imaginary Advice (that was also previewed at Tribeca) is a two-part installment he did with Joe Dunthorne called They Will / They Wont, and it’s really a chess game of creative minds. A game that they both seem to NOT want to win, because that would mean the game would have to be over. And it’s too much fun to ever be over. (I mean in a devastating twist, it does eventually end.) They’ve challenged each other to write a rom-com, taking turns writing chapters, but while Joe is trying to steer the story into a happy love story, Ross is gunning for a disastrous breakup. It’s the story of Jack and Iona, who meet at WizNation25. Joe and Ross are using every dirty trick in the book to try to manipulate the story to their own desired outcome. Every time one of them sets up story elements that they think will make it impossible for the other to win, the story will take a new outrageous twist. The music swings from perky and rom-comy to completely disaster-y. The writing is so good, I do want to read this, but hearing it is a treat. I’m glad that Ross had time to make this idea happen, now if only he and Joe had the time to expand it into a recurring show. Start here.
How I discovered it: Long time listener and Patreon supporter, please support so Ross can make more stuff.
👂This Sounds Serious was first produced by Castbox (and Kelly & Kelly) in 2018, which I believe falls in the era that people were spending lots of money on podcasts that they were not making back. (What a day! Will we ever have another Habitat?) This week I binged season one, and I also binged Goodbye to All That, both shows from years ago that might not get made today and it truly felt great to go back to this time. I want to go back to this time more, when good stuff was getting greenlit. Anyway This Sounds Serious is a true crime mockumentary and season one, featuring Paul F. Tompkins, tells the story of Chuck Bronstadt, a famous local weather man in Florida who was found dead in his water bed. If you were only sort of listening, you’d think this was a real true-crime. They weren’t kidding when they said this sounds serious. Gwen Radford is narrating her investigation into who killed Chuck, talking mostly to Chuck’s twin Daniel, the one who found Chuck dead and called 911. Daniel is so bizarre and immediately steals the show. He is the laugh-out-loud protagonist and Gwen is his straight-man, trying to take every hijinx (like becoming Chuck’s manager and locking in brand-deals that prohibit Chuck from saying the word “thunder” for his weather reports and having him warn people about a fake hurricane, nearly getting him fired) very…seriously. You’ll detect hints of classic murder mystery tropes and just plain vibes from Unsolved Mysteries, other podcasts, The OJ trial, and I’m sure so many more. I blew through this, laughing all the way. Start on season one here.
How I discovered it: Reddit
👂Sitting at the In the Dark event in a dark theater in Tribeca, Talia Augustidis brought us a collection of bite-sized audio, things so funny it made my face hurt from smiling for basically 90 minutes. The theme was funny sounds. One of the pieces from Nick van der Kolk's Love + Radio archives is one you might have already heard, and if you did it’s probably worth a relisten. And if you haven’t heard it yet, I am jealous of you. This was the one that had the crowd erupting in laughter. On Superchat, producer Julia calls a sex worker with a fake English accent and, well…remember the Britney episode of Mystery Show where Starlee Kine calls the customer service guy? It’s kind of like that but hysterical. The sex talk worker tries to be sexy, he really does, but it’s just so bad it’s funny, and the conversation ends up spilling into other more vulnerable, interesting topics. If I didn’t know any better I’d say these two ended up falling in love. That is the fan-fic I want to hear. Listen here.
How I discovered it: In the Dark
👂Goodbye to All This is the audio memoir of Sophie Townsend, who lost her husband to cancer. She had two children. Going in I didn’t know it was about cancer, something I usually avoid. (It just scares me too much to think about.) I didn’t turn it off, though. I couldn’t. It is an addictively beautiful yet simple meditation of life and loss. It begins before her husband Russell was sick, moves through him getting sicker and sicker and past his death to when Sophie’s daughter were a little more grown. I do wonder if Sophie wrote this as a memoir first, the writing is fantastic and some of the details are so so specific, like remembering how Russell would swirl spaghetti on his fork. It’s so goddam evocative. (Also spaghetti spinning on a fork is one of my favorite visuals.) And yet there are times while Russell is dying that Sophie seems to have complete distrust for her memory, I don’t think it’s accidental timing. I wrote in my notes “episode 5 19 min” and I’m pretty sure that’s when Russell is dying, when Sophie can’t seem to remember how it happened, who was there. She beautifully explains this completely blurry moment. This is a portrait of a family on fire. Sophie gets brutally honest with us. She is glad it is her husband and not her missing out on the moments, no matter how difficult to do alone, raising her children. She is angry at her daughter the day of Russell’s funeral. We find that after Russell’s death she is not OK, we aren’t sure if she’s feeding her children (it is reported the whole family is “existing on air”) and she goes into debt over a broken washer. I don’t know how someone can hold me so tightly with just their voice, a sad story, and beautiful music but Goodbye to All This has.
How I discovered it: Mentioned in a Reddit thread about audio memoirs.
👂On the newest season of Afterlives, Raquel Willis is doing a beautiful tribute to Marsha P. Johnson, an icon of the LGBTQ+ movement and one of the mothers of the fight for trans rights, and her almost unimaginable trajectory. It’s not just the sunny side of Marsha, it’s the complicated side, too, a very clear picture of everything from the revolutionary things she did (wearing a dress in public without shame!) to her voluntary and involuntary stints in psychiatric facilities. There is something so comforting in hearing about someone who just was exactly how she wanted to be. Though I was struck to hear that right before she died she was telling people that she was a dying queen, that she couldn’t stay in this life anymore. She seemed joyful but was in intense pain. We still don’t know how she died—she was found dead floating in the Hudson River near New York City's Christopher Street Piers. She could have killed herself or fallen in or maybe she was pushed. Even if you know the story of Marsha, or think you do, listening to this is an act of a vigil or holding up a candle to the “Saint of Christopher St,” although how odd to be the patron saint of a street that denies you human rights. Start here.
How I discovered it: Note from producer Dylan Heuer
👂"Olympic athlete turned dramatic monster" (I’m quoting his IG) Adam Rippon has a new podcast, Intrusive Thoughts, but that is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about his old podcast The Runthrough, an ice skating podcast he hosts with Ashley Wagner and Sarah Hughes (no relation to 2002 Olympic Champion, Sarah Hughes.) I am not a regular listener but from what I understand it can get pretty in-the-weeds, maybe too much so for someone who doesn’t know shit about skating. But Adam is running a multi-episode, indepth history on men’s figure skating, and it’s an enjoyable, informative treat. It’s a dishy, hysterical, and actually historical and well-thought-out overview of the people, the moves, and the shocking moments, all the professional and personal stuff. I like this for many reasons. First of all, I am learning a ton about how hard it is to put your hand in the air while you’re jumping (did you know that and can you tell I do not know how to write about ice skating?) and how the metrics for judging has shifted over the years. But I also think this is a great idea from a marketing and PR perspective. More shows should break the mold and do something that can be pitched, something to grab new ears, something to catch the attention of maybe someone who hasn’t listened in awhile, or maybe is subscribed but has never listened. (I can’t be the only one who does that.) This works especially well for Adam, who is easy to fall in love with. I can picture myself vibing with him so much dishing out skating gossip that I’d stick around for the more technical stuff. Start here.
How I discovered it: Reddit, but Adam was on Lovett or Leave It the next day and mentioned it too
👂Then Helen Zaltzman / Sex and the City movie episode of Vanessa Zoltan’s Hot and Bothered was one of those episodes I took so many notes on and had to rewind and relisten to so many times. Smart conversations about dumb things that are actually smart is my kink. First of all, they do a good job recapping the movie ICYMI which not all shows do, so if you haven’t seen the movie you will still appreciate the episode. They talk about the metaphoric meaning of Carrie’s different wedding dresses, why the vibe of the movie is just…off (more male writers than the show) and what the archetypes of these women—are you a Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, or Charlotte?—did to ourselves, our culture. I wrote down, in my lengthy notes, “16 minutes,” because that was the part I relistened to the most. Helen notes a scene in which the women are at an auction of stuff that someone’s ex gave them. About the auction, Charlotte says, “I thought this would be fun but it’s sad” which also applies to the film (which, they point out, seems on a mission to humiliate these characters for no reason.) At the end the two pull the “emergency stop button,” which means they get to talk about one red flag thing. Helen chooses the blue taxidermied bird that Carries wears to her first wedding, Vanessa the question: does this movie think Charlotte is ridiculous. Well, it’s as Helen points out: “At least they didn’t put Samantha in a fat suit, but they thought about it, and instead they just put her in some slightly too small pants.” Pair this with a really smart convo I just listened to on the Culture Study feed, “How 2000s Culture Messed Us Up.” Hear the Hot and Bothered episode here.
How I discovered it: Longtime listener
👂Allison Raskin is an author who writes about mental health (and creates a lot of great content about it, including a podcast Just Between Us,) and she’s started a new show about modern marriage with her husband John Blakeslee, a former undercover CIA agent called Starter Marriage. The word “modern marriage” sounds ancient, I didn’t think there is a way to make the word “marriage” sound modern. This podcast is helping move the conversation forward. Allison and John are having really honest conversations about what it means to be married today, mixing suuuuper personal stuff with interviews and research. The first episode is an autopsy of their marriage (that makes it sounds dead which it is so not) and how they already have weathered storm after storm. Episode two is about what to do if your partner is going through tough mental health stuff. Nobody is having honest conversations about marriage (not even most podcasters who seemingly have a podcast, or Instagram account about marriage), and while this show is documenting the evolution of marriage and grappling how it fits into our lives now, the nosy part of me really just wants to hear how people are doing it. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Press release
👂I love you!
~friend of the newsletter~
Tired of planning family vacations that feel more like a group project gone wrong? The Family Vacationer Podcast is here to help! Whether you’re wrangling toddlers, teens, or in-laws, we’ve got tips, destinations, and gear guides for every kind of family—special needs, multigenerational, all ages and stages. From beach towns to travel hacks, we help you trade stress for memories. Because family travel is for EVERY body…even Uncle Larry.