Hey Handsome...🤵♂️
+The Best Band That Never Made It, Forever Chemicals & Top 5 with Just Added!
Hey Poddy People!
I’m starting a podcast with some friends. I can’t tell you what it is just yet because we are recording a couple of episodes before starting our pre-marketing to launch, but it’s a niche genre, and I will need to figure out the right balance between Great Pods and the co-producing and pushing out the podcast. I know from my peers in the industry, it can be done. From what I've learned, we’ll be doing our best to start our launch on the best footing possible. Let’s see if I have it in me. Until then…
LET’S GOOOO!
The Round-Up
As I was prepping this edition with some background videos playing, this gem of a clip from 9 years ago had a nice little foreshadowing. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog guesting on Conan’s TBS talk show collaborator making a podcast via Conan’s late-night show. Little did we know…
To Catch A Scorpion added a new episode after finishing the series. Authorities caught Barzan Majeed in Northern Iraq. Listen here.
iHeartRadio continues to grow its strong lineup of rewatch podcasts with actors from the series. Now we get Charmed and Melrose Place (Still The Place).
However, in sad news, Shannen Doherty (Beverly Hills 90210, Charmed) passed away from cancer last week. She did record 4 episodes for the rewatch podcast, The House of Halliwell: A Charmed Rewatch Podcast. A special intro was released filled with emotion. Listen here.
In addition to Shannen, celebrity fitness instructor and the subject of the Missing Richard Simmons podcast, Richard Simmons passed away as well. Listen to it here.
One of my favorite guest spots of Richard was on the improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Award Winning Podcaster, Dan Taberski (9/12, Missing Richard Simmons), has a new podcast called Hysterical. I met him for the first time at On Air Fest Brooklyn back in March for a brief Behind the Podcast content I was capturing. He briefly mentions a project he was working on, but could not talk about, which it turns out, was Hysterical. It’s out now on Wondery+ and everywhere else July 22nd. Click on the Instagram video and show GP some love! I’ll be sharing more as they present themselves. Hysterical trailer here.
After recommending Untold: The Retreat last edition, I wanted to get some hot takes from friends who did Vipassana and their experience. Here are just some of her thoughts.
My friend Ritu thought the story lacked closure. It was abrupt with no changes. Vipassana is 100% volunteer-driven and a pay-it-forward type of donation. Applications explicitly ask you about your past and if you have been a victim of abuse because that would act as a filter that this meditation would not be right for you and ultimately cause you more harm.
It’s good if you’re building up to something. Going to the extreme in anything is not good for your health. Balance is key. This sounds like a similar experience to The Guardian author who went through the meditation.
You know when you accidentally hyper-fixate on an object or word. Well, this is happening for me and Vipassana. Another friend over the week casually dropped that she did Vipassana and I sprang into action with the pod rec. Similarly, I landed on an Instagram reel with Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking star, Aparna, talking about Vipassana. Normally, I would ignore it, but because of these discussions, it piqued my interest.
Pod buddy, Salad With A Side of Fries is going live for their first ever live podcast show in NYC on July 25th. It will be a fun, educational, and inspirational event for both podcast enthusiasts and those who understand the importance of their health. Tickets can be purchased here.
Actor Owen Wilson (wow) is starring in a fiction mystery podcast based on true events, Tom Slick: Mystery Hunter launching July 18th. Trailer here.
A New Season of Movement with Meklit Hadero, stories of global migration through music, launched this week. Listen here.
Narrated by actor Mandy Patinkin, Exile, Jewish lives under the shadow of fascism, launched season 3 this week. I can so probably hear-learn a lot of parallels to today. Going to give this a listen. Listen here.
I mentioned last week that Scamanda was getting a TV adaption. ABC announced their fall release and this scamming true crime is set to air October 9th at 10 PM. Save the date!
LAist & Southern California Public Radio hired a new CEO, Alejandra Santamaria, who hails from Univision L.A. Read more here.
On to my picks this week…
Podcast: Even If It Kills Me
Genre: Music, History
Publisher: FANG Workshop
About: This is the story of the band that almost was. You won’t hear what this band sounds like. You won’t even learn their name. But you know this band, even if you don’t. Even If It Kills Me is a narrative documentary podcast, chronicling the lives of Jon, Ryan, Mac and Pete as they set out across the country and try to make it as rockstars in the bygone era of the ‘00s.
While I’m sad that I won’t be able to hear what the band sounded like, this is an easy-going podcast with archived audio from their beginnings. Aaron Joy pulls out archival audio (I’m assuming it was grabbed from a handheld camera) from behind the scenes and early tours, building the foundation of a band, but just not making it. Imagine how many great bands didn’t make it because of the tech revolution of the 2000s? As episodes get released, I am interested in how the band coped with not making it. What do they do now? I think there are some lessons for everyone encoded in something like this. So far so good.
Frank Racioppi • Ear Worthy
“Aaron Joy is an excellent scriptwriter and an engrossing narrator. Joy reminds us that the line between success in the music business and failure is not a straight one, but an ellipsis that can transform strengths into weaknesses in a blink of an eye.”
Podcast: Handsome
Genre: Comedy
Publisher: Headgum
About: "Handsome" is a podcast from comedians Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster, and Mae Martin. Every week, the handsome hosts field a question from a friend and attempt to answer it together, covering every subject you could think of. Along the way, Tig, Fortune and Mae tell plenty of stories and just generally have a ridiculous time.
This comedy podcast between comedian friends has been out for a minute. While there are buddy comedy podcasts that exist, Tig, Fortune, and Mae make up for a lighter affair than the male counterparts with hilarious takes. I don’t know much about Mae, but listening to a couple of episodes, they are just as aloof in a fun way about the outside world as Tig used to be. Fortune, to me, is the grounded one. A couple of months ago, a group of comedians were invited via Jim Gaffigan to visit The Pope at the Vatican and Tig went. Mae recalls her family visit to Rome as a kid and what made me lightly cackle was Tig and Fortune’s comments The Creation of Adam painting.
“You know the famous painting…” - Mae
“Finger to Finger” - Tig
“Who’s getting fingered?” - Fortune
A tad juvenile, probably. Funny to me. Yes.
Fiona McCann • Irish Times
“Handsome is as bright and jaunty as its barbershop-quartet jingle and as pleasing to the ear as the rattle of ice that ends it.”
Buried: (Season) The Last Witness
Genre: True Crime, Health, Society
Publisher: BBC
About: In a new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen to dig up a chemical secret. They inherit a box of evidence from a witness, with a warning.
From a deathbed tape to a witness in protection, Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history.
I believe we know about forever plastics, right? But, do you know adjacently about forever chemicals like PCBs? Buckle up and get educated on how a whistleblower, Douglas Gowan, decided to tell on Monsanto and how Wales has been affected by the toxic dumping. We know Monsanto in the States because of two things. Buying up swaths of farmland and bio-engineering crops. Evil corpos.
The US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents seen by the Guardian show. - The Guardian, 2020
This 2020 article stated that Monsanto would profit off of the losses the farmers would have with their crops because they would buy Monsanto seeds to save their fields. Evil.
We are also taken to a small town in Alabama that was also affected by the PCBs manufacturing. While the investigation finds that Douglas exaggerated some of his accounts, it was done to gain exposure to the underlying problem as it grew. We are being poisoned. The podcast also stars actor Michael Sheen who pops in and out of the series and was affected by these chemicals. Michael is from Wales.
Like other great podcasts, if I go google more information, it’s worth it to educate myself further. Turns out PCBs are still being produced although being banned as stated in this Guardian article from March 2024. Read here.
Now that the Supreme Court has dealt the American public with the overturning of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, get ready for more poison in our systems. An important listen.
Fiona Sturges • Financial Times
“Sheen’s connection to the area, and to Gowan, providing some emotional heft. There is much here that will make you gasp, not just at the human and environmental impact of PCBs but at the brazenness of those responsible.”
‘Top of the Pods’ in the past week on Great Pods
Beyond Recognition: The Ruxton Murders - Audio 99
You Probably Think This Story’s About You - Larj Media
Scamanda - Lionsgate Sound
Rachel Maddow presents: Ultra - MSNBC
Dangerous Memories - Tortoise Media
Just Added:
Dangerous Memories - Tortoise Media
Fingers On Buzzers - Fingers On Buzzers
Hysterical - Wondery, Pineapple Street Studios
Pack One Bag - Lemonada Media
Pull the Thread: The Wild Life - Luminary, DreamCrew Entertainment
How We Fix This - Spotify
George Orwell’s 1984 - Audible
Relojeros - Onda Cero Podcast
Murder on Music Row - The Tennessean
The Unmistakable Creative Podcast - Srinivas Rao
State of Play: Summer Games - Global Reporting Centre
Peer Review - Jonathan Marland
Shell Game - Evan Ratliff
Harry Hill's 'Are We There Yet?' - Keep It Light Media
Harry and Paul Are Devious - Stak
Make Me A Mixtape - BBC
The British Food History Podcast - Neil Buttery
Los Guardianes de La Espada - Del Viento Films
Stay safe, be kind, and do something nice for your neighbor…if you have one.
Listening with you,
Captain Ron
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