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Bonjour.
Today is Monday, April 24. There are 17 days until my next Disney cruise. (If you want me to send you a postcard while I’m gone, fill out this form.) In case this email is too long, this gutted me, this show starts with an “oh shit” moment and just gets better, and **Cue Lizzo’s “Cuz I Love You”** for this.
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xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
George Kareman and Dan Klein
George Kareman and Dan Klein are the hosts of Man Thinkers. Follow George on Twitter here, Dan on Twitter here, and Man Thinkers on Twitter here.
Describe Man Thinkers in 10 words or less.
George: A satirical podcast making fun of Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro etc.
What part of the show is serious and what part of the show is funny, and how do you balance that?
George: The entire thing is funny or rather, an attempt at being funny. About half the time we ask our guests “serious” or “real” questions that aren’t funny questions themselves but then we look for a way to respond to their answers humorously.
Dan: The topics are serious: the economy, artificial intelligence, politics, etc. And the guests are serious. They’re themselves. But the show is funny because our characters are doing our best to be grifters and opportunists and fail at that. We “accidentally” insult our guests and openly admit that the supplements we’re attempting to sell you are just capsules filled with sand. Specifically, sand from the beach that we took ourselves.
How much of the show is improvised and how much do you plan in advance?
George: All the stuff between Dan and me is improvised, like all the banter about our personal lives etc. The Big Question section is also entirely improvised but we come into it knowing what the Big Question is going to be and a general idea of our characters take on it but we don’t script anything out or follow an outline or anything, we just riff. With the interview portions, we usually have about 15-20 pre-written interview questions for our guests and then of course we improvise questions as well during the interview based on how it’s going / what we’re talking about.
Dan: The show is almost fully improvised. The format was originally based on talk shows, most specifically The Colbert Report, but that show had a team of Ivy League educated white people to help them write jokes, segments and guest bits, whereas we have literally nobody to help us write anything. We do have a producer who does some research on the guests, and even just that is helpful for us to deal with the workload. But yeah otherwise it’s just George and me coming up with takes, questions, and then improvising the hell out of it.
How are you two different as hosts, and how are you similar? What do you each bring to the table?
George: Dan’s character is more antagonistic than my character which usually leads him into asking more “uncomfortable” questions to some of our guests. My character is very insecure and has a strong need to be liked by whomever he is interacting with, a classic people pleaser. Both characters are idiots but for different reasons and we sort of straight man each other’s crazy at different points in the show. So, for example, my character is a spiritual seeker and has been duped by a bunch of cults in the past, so Dan’s character will sort of remind me “hey, what you’re talking about right now sounds like a cult” when I go off about how I recently met some friendly “community with attractive people who just want to help me” or something like that. And then my character will often check Dan’s character on his incel views and general misogyny, “Dan, what you’re describing right now is sexual harassment just to be clear.”
Dan: Yeah, I go for the jugular during interviews. I figure if I offend our guest so badly that they end the interview, that might work out to the show’s benefit. George seems to want to be liked because he has self respect or something.
You have really good chemistry. Can you talk about your friendship? I mean it really sounds like you can’t stand each other the show :) but I know that comes from a place of love and respect.
George: The characters have a love/hate relationship, they both claim to dislike the other one but clearly they are both very important to one another. In real life, Dan and I have been friends for a while. We became closer when I moved to LA in 2015 and ended up moving into the same building as Dan and his wife. We made a web series together around then called TWO GUYS WHO HATE EACH OTHER which sort of has the spirit of Man Thinkers in it.
Dan: In addition to what George said, we’re both east coast guys with one immigrant parent, and I think that informs the way we think about a lot of things. Fast-talking, rude people are just funny to us. We’re both sensitive emotional boys who grew up idolizing athletes and wanting to be cool and strong, but we were absolutely not that, so we’re both able to discuss traditionally masculine topics while poking fun at it too.
Can you each, in character, say something nice about the other?
George: Dan is punctual, I’ll give him that…
Dan: I like when George stops talking because it gives me an opportunity to talk.
If people haven’t listened to an episode yet, where should they start?
George: My favorite episode is prob the one with Nithya Raman as our guest but our most famous guest is probably Alan Dershowitz. The Dan Savage episode was good too.
Dan: Kevin Sorbo, the guy who played Hercules in a 90s Saturday morning kids show, feels strongly about wanting more guns in schools. That was quite a conversation.
How do you approach people to be guests? Do the ones getting kind of teased understand that?
George: Our producers do all the heavy lifting on getting guests but they never lie to anyone, they make it clear it is a comedy podcasts and we are playing characters but tbh, I don’t think the people being teased do much homework on it, they just sort of show up and it ends up being more of an Ali G thing bc once we all hop on the Zoom for the interview, Dan and I are in character and we stay in character until the person leaves.
Dan: I also think most people don’t read the emails explaining the show.
What’s the best way to grow a podcast audience?
George: We have no idea.
Dan: I thought this interview was going to do that. Are we rich now?
Are there too many podcasts?
George: No. The World needs more content! What would we do without content? Like actually talk to people? Go outside in nature? No thanks!
Dan: Sometimes I look at Netflix and don’t see enough shows I want to watch. That means we need more content. If we’re not constantly pumping out TV shows, podcasts, and TV shows based on podcasts, that means China is winning the content war.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
My first Tink client was Sophia Chang, “The Baddest Bitch in the Room” who used to manage Ol’ Dirty Bastard, RZA, GZA, D’Angelo, Raphael Saadiq, Q Tip, A Tribe Called Quest, and more. Years ago, I brought to her an apartment on the upper upper West side of Eric and Jeff Rosenthal for an interview on ItsTheReal, an interview podcast hosted by these hilarious white Jewish brothers who were walking dictionaries of hip culture, history and fandom. In a way, these interviews were preparing them for their new project The Blog Era (by Pharrell’s OTHERtone Media,) “a definitive oral history” of the period in the 2000s when the music industry and record label system was completely disrupted by niche blogs. The guys start with the story of Joe Budden, who fell and rebounded using the internet, and moves on to bananas interviews with DJ Drama and more in the first two episodes alone. Music is the third narrator here, the guys use it to set a vibe and even control the energy levels of the story. They can tell this story because they were there. They’re calling on big names but also the people who have kind of disappeared from most of the hip hop history books. The Blog Era is basically a niche hip history documentary hosted by two really likeable funny brothers.
oh hey
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✨Join me at the Grow My Podcast Summit, a completely free event bringing together 40+ industry experts in podcast discoverability and monetization.
✨Design your podcast growth engine with a workshop from Podcast Marketing Academy.
✨Listen to BEEF on Feed the Queue.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast in her newsletter and podcast.
April is Adopt-a-Listener Month
Adopt-a-Listener is a grassroots campaign where podcast lovers help non-listeners turn into listeners. Through resources, collaborations with podcasts, and even an “official” adoption process, we’re providing all the support we can to make this initiative move the needle.
We’re providing you all with a bunch of fun stuff to support Adopt-a-Listener (learn more here.) Check out these playlists we made to help you find the perfect show for your adoptee:
All lists here
We’re hoping you find someone who says “podcasts aren’t for me” and find them a show they’ll love. (Find one? Fill out this form and we’ll feature you in the newsletter.)
~sponsored content~
Full disclosure: Blair Hodges paid me to advertise for his show Fireside, but this review is truly in earnest. Blair interviews authors, historians, philosophers, and scholars to talk about unexpected things like the word “heathen,” joy, justice, rage, monsters, and more. Blair received a master’s degree in religious studies at Georgetown University, so his interviews are up my alley. Faith lies at the center of these conversations, but in only the most philosophical and academic ways. He’s interviewed Anna Sale, Ross Gay, and Vanessa Zoltan for an interview about sacred texts that I listened to twice. (A sacred text is “anything that gets you better at loving.”) (If you recognize Vanessa’s name it’s because I just wrote about her podcast The Real Question two weeks ago.) One Apple Podcasts reviewer said Fireside is “like a mix between NPR’s Fresh Air and On Being” and I agree.
💎BTW💎
🎙️Gregg LeFevre reached out to me with his podcast The Compulsive Storyteller and I didn’t know what to expect. It’s a collection of Gregg’s stories–he’s an artist who worked in the streets of New York City as a sculptor and installation artist, then as a street photographer. He’s a story collector. I clicked with him instantly, he’s a true New Yorker (and told me a really good New York joke…”How many New Yorkers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None of your fuckin business.” You know when someone starts to tell you a joke and you worry that you’re going to have to fake laugh? Readers, I chortled.) The thing is, it’s really hard to pull off a show like this, drawing from your own stories, making them entertaining without the flair of guests or specific topics or learning points. Gregg is a storytelling master. His episode Me Too Mom was a rollercoaster that gutted me. I actually could not believe what I was hearing, I had to scrub back and relisten to his words. And this episode is so reliant on not just his storytelling but his voice. It carries you through all of the emotions of his stories. He’s convincing and bringing his entire soul into what he says. If you like Rumble Strip, you’ll like The Compulsive Storyteller. Listen here.
🎙️It’s spring, which means we are all twitterpated. (Does anyone recognize this Bambi reference?) **Cue Lizzo’s “Cuz I Love You”** because Erick Galindo is back with WILD, this time bringing us a story about the wildest thing he’s done for love, which involves embarking on a road trip adventure across America with his girlfriend. Will the relationship survive? The first episode of the series I Think I’m falling In Love is full of humor and character, it feels warm as spring and is rich with a sense of place—Los Angeles. If LA was a podcast, this is it. Megan Tan joins to co-host and talk about the wild things we all do in the name of love. Listen here.
🎙️30 for 30’s The Bag Game, hosted by ESPN investigative reporter Paula Lavigne, is a college basketball story that centers around Billy Preston, a 5-star recruit to Kansas who was poised for the NBA. The series starts with a minor car accident that threw Preston into a criminal case and caused him to get benched due to NCAA eligibility questions and a years-long undercover federal investigation. Preston was punished for something he had nothing to do with, it was a story that involved assistant coaches, apparel executives, sports business managers, and Preston’s own mother, who was getting paid for Preston to play for them, unbeknownst to him. With exclusive interviews, wiretap recordings, firsthand accounts, and court testimony, Paula dives deep to explain what this small car accident had to do about the entire NCAA system and how the open secret of under-the-table pay-to-play and bribery in youth and college basketball gets young, often Black players caught in the crosshairs. This was one of those “this sounds like I won’t be interested but I trust 30 for 30 so I’ll listen anyway” series that I’m glad I tried. I was hooked from the very beginning. Start here.
🎙️In pop culture, Asians are either ignored, fetishized if they’re women, or completely made fun of. Asian men are depicted as meek and nerdy. Shoes Off is having conversations with Asians about sexiness, always kicking things off with the question: when did you first consider yourself a sexy Asian?—a question I find somewhat ridiculous but it’s fun listening basically everyone stumble over answering. Maybe that’s the point. You’ve heard Joel Kim Booster on mic, you’ve heard from Atsuko Okatsuka. But going in at this specifically sexy angle opens up the stars to things they aren’t always asked about, probably because this problem about sexiness is a specifically Asian thing. I love swinging from a convo with Joel Kim Booster, a young gay guy who has a totally different relationship with sexiness than say John Cho, who is more my generation and has more war stories from the days, not that long ago, that there were so few Asians on screen you could count then on one hand. John talks about Harold and Kumar, which had me basically drooling. It’s one of my favorite movies and my obsession with and unrequited love for Kal Penn has put me in so many embarrassing situations I don’t have time to get into it now. Looking back, it seems wild they even greenlit that movie at the time. (But John explains how it was specifically written so that nobody could be like “cool script. You know what’d be cooler? White people.” And swap in two white dudes.) I feel obligated now to send you over to this episode of Thirst Aid Kit (god I miss that show) about John Cho. Some hot fan fiction awaits. Listen to Shoes Off here.
🎙️Bodies is a collection of stories that start with a medical mystery and unfurl to reveal beautiful stories about how our relationships with our physical bodies lets us carry ourselves through the world. It’s been a special and intimate place on the internet for a long time. (So is the Facebook group.) It’s back for season four, with four stories all about touch. Each one feels like a little sound-honored poem that takes you to a different corner of the galaxy. Listen here.
🎙️Alone one day during the thick of the pandemic, Tonya Mosley thought to herself, “If freedom is a state of mind, I’m in control of getting there.” This led to a quest to understand the depths of what freedom and liberation could feel like for a Black woman in America. She’s going to plant medicines like psychedelics, which are known to have the power to help heal racial trauma. This new season of Truth Be Told is looking at how psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms are being used to help Black and brown people have life-saving conversations with themselves, commune, find a way back to themselves, grieve, and extend the range of what they are able to experience with their bodies. She’s doing the work and research…and fulling bringing herself into the work/inviting us along for the ride…to see if she can quiet the white voice to hear her own. Listen here.
🎙️Your podcast friend Arielle Nissenblatt was on Unorthodox to answer the question: is podcasting Jewish? You’ve probably heard Arielle on podcasts talking about promo swaps and social media, but this interview introduces you to what got her there, from working for a Jewish non-profit to why she fell in love with podcasts in the first place and why she started EarBuds. And why, due to its talmudic nature, podcasts are Jewish. Listen here.
🎙️Is it hot in here or is it just The Royals of Malibu? It’s the audio version of Euphoria, offering the same level of excitement…and discomfort…knowing these characters are underage. Royals does something interesting and hard—sex storytelling with audio only. Don’t worry, there’s no disgusting kissing or slapping noises, it’s much more craftful than that. Every episode ended on a cliffhanger that drove me nuts. I keep on Googling these characters before I remember they aren’t real. This show is exploding, so I guess they’re real to so many of us now. The fact that this show is doing so well is a good sign for the industry. People will listen to this kind of fiction. They’ll voraciously consume and want more, more, more. And they’ll want a screen version. Listen here.
🎙️In 2021, a new law came into effect in California allowing transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people to be housed in a prison that aligns with their gender identity. On Ear Hustle, Nigel and Earlonne talked to people at the California Institute for Women (CIW) who have been affected by the law, women incarcerated at men's prisons who were allowed to transfer, and men currently incarcerated at CIW who are eligible to transfer to a men's prison. But so far, no trans men have transferred. (Everyone seems to feel safer at CIW.) In a moment that didn’t make it into the episode but was included in Ear Hustle’s newsletter, one man explains how being in prison has made him feel free to be himself. Listen to the episode here.
🎙️Let’s Make a Rom-Com wrote a rom-com and it’s complete, you can now listen to the entire pitch and what went into making the season. It was fun to go episode by episode, getting to be in on brainstorms and how Maddy, Mark, and Ryan weighed their ideas and brought in their own lives into the writing. It’s fun to hear the magic of friends making something together. The story they came up with is marvelous, I absolutely want to watch it, but the show is so instructive I feel inspired to write a rom-com, too. (I won’t.) You could listen to this for pure entertainment or to learn what it’s like to put your ideas into something that’s ready to be greenlit. Listen here.
🎙️Violation starts with an “oh shit” moment…in 1986, while on a summer camp trip to the Grand Canyon, 16-year-old Jacob Wideman fatally stabbed his roommate, Eric Kane. Jacob confessed to the murder, but couldn’t explain why he did it. But what could have just been a podcast about that ends up being a rumination on the parole board process, what it is, what it’s like from everyone’s perspective, from the victim to the victim’s families to the board members to the people trying to make the system more fair to the person whose life hinges upon the decision of the board and their family, too. It almost reminds me of the Rashomon effect, we’re hearing about one issue through so many lenses, which gives us a multi-level look at a story and a broader issue at the same time. I don’t know any show that has done such a fine focus on parole boards, and using this heartbreaking story is a great way in. This will have you frustrated, sad, conflicted, and at the edge of your seat. Listen here.
🎙️It was a big deal for me to be on Bryan Barletta’s Sounds Profitable. (If you’re working in audio, you should definitely be subscribed to it. He has a great newsletter here.) Bryan interviewed Arielle and me about Adopt-a-Listener month and what we learned about podcast listener behavior during our fun day in the park. Bryan has lots of great ideas about podcast listeners himself, and this conversation was a celebration of podcast love and what Adopt-a-Listener month is all about. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
📦 From the Archives 📦
[From December 12, 2019] Written and directed by Mitra Jouhari, Fuck Hut Music School for Teens is a five-episode psychodrama about hot, hot sexy teens trying to break into the music industry. You'll hear the voices of Whitmer Thomas, Patti Harrison, Matt Rogers, Greta Titelman, Catherine Cohen, Ayo Edebiri, and more. Wow wow wow! Original Music by Henry Koperski. The writing is so sharp, it's like a well-produced table read of the funniest, most original script you've seen. And bonus: it is incredibly easy to FIND in your podcast app. Just search "fuck hut!" There are no other competing fuck hut shows. I never in a million years thought I would get to type "fuck hut" into my search bar. It's quickly become something my husband and I scream at one another across the apartment to mean anything from "have a good day" to "I'm feeding the cat."