July 6, 2022 • 32 mins
Welcoming Noel King to The Pod Club! News fatigue is real. Constantly being reminded of the terrible things going on in our world is exhausting. That's why there's an art to delivering the news in a simple, honest, and entertaining way. Noel has mastered this art. She co-hosts Today, Explained, a news podcast that strikes the perfect balance: a sonic gem filled with topical information, on a daily basis, that doesn't leave you depressed and wanting to hide away from the world. For today’s episode, Noel takes a break from the persistent work of hosting a daily show to join Jo and talk about everything from how she fuels her brain, #awkward moments, and what she's listening to right now. Her recommendations are completely new to the Pod Club and include a variety of perspectives. Noel seeks out stories from many different angles—even ones she doesn’t agree with—and we can all learn from that. Because it’s not just about what you listen to, but also what you don’t.
Noel’s Show:
Today, Explained
Shows Mentioned:
EconTalk
Fall of Civilizations
Blocked and Reported
Honestly with Bari Weiss
For Colored Nerds (formerly The Nod)
The Read
Abortion Resources:
https://abortion.cafe/ - this is a collection of abortion resources
shoutyourabortion.com - this is a campaign to normalize abortion
https://donations4abortion.com/ - donate to support abortion funds by state
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/supportabortionfunds - donate to the national network of abortion funds (donations split between 80+ abortion funds)
https://usow.org/repro/volunteer/ - this is a list of abortion clinics across the country that need volunteers
https://dontbanequality.com/ - this is language for companies to use to stand against the ruling
plancpills.org/ambassadors - here are early abortion access pills you can store in your cabinet
https://prochoice.org/ - this is an abortion access hotline
https://natalist.com/products/early-pregnancy-test-strips - buy early pregnancy test strips
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control - get info on types of birth control
https://choice.crd.co/ - this is a collection of these above links and more. Managed by @starplanes - DM them on twitter to add more
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-policy-absence-roe - abortion policy by state as of June 1, 2022
-More in-depth version: https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I find awkwardness to be really, really compelling. Yes, me too.
It's great, It's really great. Hopefully we'll get one, at
least one awkward moment in this show. It's a podcast, podcast, podcast, Hello,
and welcome to the pod club. Do you recognize that voice?
(00:21):
Does it sound like your first sip of coffee in
the morning or maybe your morning commute. That's because it's
none other than Noel King From until pretty recently, she
was a host for nprs Morning Edition, and she has
been a very regular part of my morning routine. But
after a long career in public radio, no L is
(00:41):
entering the barade new world of podcasts. As the co
host of Box Media's Today explained, She's still coming into
your ears daily, bringing you all the important news that
you need to hear, just with a little more flair.
Not that NPR isn't flairy, but oh m, PR is
not always at flurry. Noel has this true talent of
(01:02):
bringing us the toughest news with a kind and curious
spirit that makes everything happening in the world a little
less scary. I got to talk to Noel about what
she listens to to fuel her brain so she can
do this kind of work in the first place, you know,
the stuff that really gets her gears turning, but also
gives her a break from the bleaker parts of being
(01:23):
a daily news reporter. I gotta say I'm in total
awe of how Noel opens herself up to so many
different perspectives through podcasts, and that is the best part
of podcasts. We can hear people who are absolutely nothing
like us, who believe in things that we don't believe in.
Doing that helps us find empathy in a very strange world.
(01:45):
This conversation with Noel actually inspired me to rethink not
just what I listened to, but what I'm not listening to. Hi, Noel,
how are you doing. I'm good, Joe, I'm really good.
(02:05):
How are you? I'm good. You guys do a daily
news show, which just blows my damn mind because I
I used to work for for daily newspapers for a
long time, and it's a lot of work to put
together a daily podcast, and you do it so well.
I think Today Explained is the best daily news show.
(02:28):
It is my go to every morning. But you it
just must be so much work. It is a lot
of work. Thank you, first of all for the kind
words about the show. We in general are very very
proud of it. The people who make it um it's
very highly produced. And there is one way of doing
a daily show, which is to just do a Q
(02:49):
and A and kind of leave it there. And the
thing that makes today explained special and the reason I
started listening to it that like the month it began
airing in a very crowded podcast field, was that it
sonically it was so different. Once upon a time, right
(03:11):
on the edge of the forest, if the golden haired girl,
this golden, yellowhaired girl's name was Goldilocks. Once upon a time,
that time being two thousand and nineteen, the U. S.
Economy was doing something very strange and very good. And
she came across the house of the Bear family in
(03:32):
between the trees. Two things were happening. Inflation was low
but not zero. There was growth, and unemployment was low,
but there were still out of work people to fill
new positions. She dipped her spoon into the smallest one. Mmm,
this barrige is neither call nor an't you hot? It
(03:54):
was just right. It's today, explained, I'm noel King coming up.
The air market is getting closer. The Goldilocks economy has
fled out a back window. What is coming next? You know,
my co host, Shaun Rama's firm has very firm ideas
about being an audio first audio show, And I was
(04:18):
coming from NPR, which does a daily podcast called Up First,
which is a very good show, a very popular show,
but it's sort of, you know, three short interviews with
three talented reporters and very little in terms of you know,
sonic distinction. And everyone who works on a daily show
is doing incredible stuff, right. You can't criticize any daily
(04:41):
show for falling down on the job because you can't
five days a week and it's really, really, it's a
hard job. But I'm very proud of this show because
it sounds different and as someone who spent seventeen years
now in audio, that just means a lot to me. Yeah, right,
seventeen years and audio that feels like nine lifetimes. Oh
(05:02):
my god, does it ever right? When you do feel
like the daily news is so much and a possible
recipe for burnout, what kind of audio do you turn
to to try to try to push that burnout away?
Do you listen to you listen to more news, or
are you going the complete opposite direction? It's such a
good question. For a long time, I listened to more news,
(05:25):
and then somewhere around January six one, I realized I
was I mean, I felt like I was on the
verge of a breakdown, and if I consumed one more
thing about, you know, the riot at the US Capitol,
I was just going to pack up my bags and
move elsewhere. Um. I was really, really, really exhausted. And
(05:45):
so I have moved in the direction of listening to
stuff that I think is really smart, but that is
not news e And so that is my refuge on
days when I get up and I'm like, oh, I'm
really tired, I'll put on something where I know it's
going to be a really good long form com versation,
but it's not necessarily going to be about what's happening today?
What are what are some of those things? Okay, I'm
(06:06):
going to betray my nerdiness here, which is fine. I
covered economics for six years, and I love economics when
it makes sense. Um. I worked for Marketplace, which is
a radio show produced by American Public Media, and then
I moved to Planet Money, which is a long form
show produced by NPR. So I maintained like a very
(06:28):
serious interest in economics. And there's a show called econ
Talk that's hosted by Russ Roberts, who is a professor actually,
I think today to be accurate, he is, uh. He's
the president of Shellem College in Jerusalem, but for a
long time he was an economics professor here in the US,
trained at the Chicago School of Economics, which some listeners
(06:49):
will know that means a very specific kind of thing.
He sort of has libertarian leanings. And what he does
is he will bring on a guest who has just
written a very interesting book, usually about the social science,
is sometimes about something really really nerdy, like constitutions, and
he'll talk to them for ninety minutes and he will
push them, and in areas where he doesn't agree with
(07:10):
his guest, he will say, you know, I think you're
actually really wrong about that, which I find awkwardness to
be really really compelling. It's great, it's really great. Hopefully
we'll get one at least one awkward moment in this show. Um,
but yeah, econ Talk is kind of my go to
because I will feel like I'm coming away smarter. Um.
But it but it doesn't it doesn't have to be
(07:32):
about what's what's in the news today. There's a couple
more if I can just shout him out, yeah yeah,
hold on, but but really really quick. I'm just I'm
looking through eContact because I think I want to play
a clip for our audience so they can they can
get a little little taste of it. I'm really curious about, uh,
the one where he talks to Maxine Clark, who's the
(07:52):
founder of the Build a Bear work Build a Bear.
I'm saving Build a Bear for a rough day. Like
That's how strongly I feel about this show. I'm like,
Bill the Bear is going to make me laugh. Last weekend,
I was having a very very chaotic Saturday, and I
decided to go out in my backyard and garden a
little bit, and I started listening to the one about
Loving and Loathing Kenny G. And the interviewee is a
(08:15):
woman who made a documentary about how Kenny G is
the most popular, one of the most popular musical artists
in the history of humankind, and yet everybody claims they
don't really like him, So what's going on now? Kenny
is a pretty successful recording artist, as we used to
(08:38):
call them, and some still do give us an idea
of just how successful. Well, actually, it's funny. When I
started this film, I really didn't get how successful he was.
I mean, I knew he was kind of ubiquitous in
the nineties, which is where I came to know him,
as many people did, But it wasn't until I got
into the research of it that I realized that he's
(09:00):
he's one of the top selling artists of all time.
If you look at a list of the top selling
artist he's like twenty five. He's higher than Nirvana, higher
than develot Underground, higher than I'm sure many of your
listeners favorite artists. Um. So, he really exemplifies a particular
era of the recording industry where you could sell a
(09:20):
ton of records like that was a particularly small moment
in history, and he came along at that moment and
took advantage of it. And at some point he sold
seventy five million albums and it would have a ton
more if people sell bought albums. Yeah, exactly. And he's
the most best selling I think, instrumental artists of all time.
(09:44):
He doesn't sing, he's not a band, he's just him.
Musicians play with him, but he's a he's a solo
act essentially, Um, he's got a Grammy, only one probably
irks him. We'll talk about that. He's got one Grammy. Uh,
and he's got a string of unbelievably successful albums and
he's just totally beloved and adored by the critical community.
(10:07):
To right, Yeah, exactly, that's what the films about. How
much critics love Kenny g. Yeah, there's a dope. They
can't stop gushing about him. Okay, all right, so tell
me tell me all of your other recommendations. These are good.
All right. So there's one podcast that I started listening
(10:29):
to on vacations. I like to go out to the
American Southwest and Mountain West, and I like to drive
with no particular plan. During COVID, one of my favorite
things to do was slap on a mask, or to
get on a plane, rent a car and just drive
through Arizona, drive through Montana. This show came to my attention.
I can't even remember how. It's called Fall of Civilizations.
(10:52):
It's hosted by a gentleman who I didn't look up
until I was about four episodes in. I thought he
was an elderly historian because his breath of knowledge seems
so incredible, is so incredible, and it turns out that
he is actually not. He's a novelist who has lived
in various places of the world that are very interesting,
including I believe, Sri Lanka, and so he does these long,
(11:15):
long episodes about how various ancient civilizations grew to their
peak and then how they descended into chaos. It's amazing.
I would say, I don't know what his background is
in audio, but um, it's just so well told that
even though the episodes are like three or four hours
(11:36):
long and they only come out once every couple of months,
I can listen on a hike and I can go
all the way through the episode for four hours. So
that's that's pretty rare for me. It's pretty rare that
I get obsessed enough with a podcast that I'm waiting
for it to come out. Fall of Civilizations is definitely
one of those podcasts. People of the city of Ashur
(12:02):
would soon become known as ashur Reya, but today we
call them Assyrians. Like many of the powerful cities of
this region. For the next millennium or so, the Assyrians
of the city of Ashur would make several attempts to
(12:22):
found their own kingdom, and a number of times they succeeded.
One great king named Shamshi a Dad ruled at the
end of the nineteen century BC, and he conquered large
areas outside of Ashur, bringing back great wealth to the city.
(12:43):
Under his reign, the people of Ashur built a grand
royal palace, and the temple to the God Ashur was
furnished with a zigarat, an enormous stepped tower that in
the Bronze Age was a statement of a city's membership
to an elite and powerful club. I think that that's
(13:07):
doing something different with audio, right, You're creating kind of
an event around the release of something and also releasing
something really good, something worth waiting for. It feels like
an experience exactly exactly. It's the obsession of a particular person.
And when a particular person is obsessed with something and
(13:27):
they know how to put it together, it's like reading
a perfect novel. You know, Um, there is just nothing better. Yes,
all right, I'm now on Paul Cooper's website. I love
I love that you had this image of him as
like an old yes, but he's not, like he's definitely
younger than me, but he's like a millennial dude, yep, yep,
(13:53):
who looks really smart. But yeah, surprising, surprising, amazing. Which
do you have a favorite episode of that show? Yeah?
I do. It is about the Empire of Gau in
West Africa, and I think the thing that I love
so much about this episode is that that's a part
of the world that I've always wanted to go to.
I worked in East Africa for a long time, Eastern,
(14:14):
Central Africa and North Africa. Never made it out to
West Africa. But the trajectory of that empire. He starts
so far in the past that you would think it
would be obnoxious. One of his episodes actually begins with
the words six hundred million years ago, and you're like,
come on, dude, You're not really going to do this,
(14:35):
are you, But then he does, and he pulls it off. Now,
the Empire of Gau is Um is so extraordinary because
he traces the empire's rise and fall through the leaders
of it, these these kings of Empire Um, all of
whom at some point made a crucial mistake, and then
that mistake kind of um had a ripple effect throughout
(14:57):
the rest of the empire's history. He brings it to
life in such a way that it is just a
riveting listen, even though we're talking about things that happened
thousands and thousands of years ago. So that to me
is real, is real talent. I think that's why I
admire him so much. Uh, what else you got for me? Um?
(15:38):
I like a couple of standard Okay, So I'm gonna
tell you something about myself, which is is it awkward?
I hope it's awkward. Maybe it's awkward? Yeah, I like Okay.
I am very much part of a media ecosystem, and
the media ecosystem that we are both in has started
to splinter to some degree. So there are people who
(16:00):
have very strong beliefs on one side, and there are
people have very strong beliefs on another side. And so
there are a couple of podcasts that I listened to constantly,
in part because the hosts of those podcasts don't seem
to like or agree on anything. All right, So I
have three. One of them is called Blocked and Reported.
It's two hosts, Katie Hertzog and Jesse Signal Single who
(16:25):
both of them got in trouble. There was a good
New York Times story about this. They were reporters. They
did stories that were considered in some quarters particularly controversial
about um transgender people and in particular about the issue
of de transitioning. They got a lot of flak, they
took a lot of pushback, and they ended up kind
(16:47):
of leaving their jobs in print journalism and starting a
podcast together. And I like it because they are Um.
There are people who I don't always agree with. Some
of the humor is uh to my taste, like it
goes too far, it's a little off pudding. But then
sometimes they will highlight they will highlight an author, or
(17:09):
they will highlight an idea, and I think, oh, that's
very interesting, and that's outside of the mainstream of things
that I listen to. They those two often make fun
of in a way that I don't appreciate. UM Michael Hobbs,
who was once a host of You're Wrong About, which
I think is a terrific, terrific show we had we
(17:32):
had Sarah Marshall on this show. Nice. I love that.
I love that, And um Michael Hobbs now is the
host is the co host of Maintenance Phase. So I
listened to Maintenance Phase Blocked and Reported and You're Wrong
About in part because these are different points of view
on issues that are consuming us all right now, what
(17:53):
is cancel culture? Is the right wing in this country
more responsible for it than the left wing? What is
Twitter doing to our brains? Bari Weiss Is, honestly is
another podcast in this vein. I don't it's really really good.
And I will say that if you are like a
if you are a progressive American, there are parts of
(18:14):
it that you will find to be really essentialist and
really kind of off putting. And that's the case with me. However,
I like listening to it. She's really smart. These are
all really smart people, and they are discussing things that
I find myself. I find my own opinions shifting on
things like what's Twitter doing to my brain? Is it
(18:36):
really a tragedy or is it really no big deal?
Who's really responsible for divisions in this country? Is it
the right? Is that the left? Is it all of us?
I used to have a pretty clear idea of what
the word liberal meant. It meant socially progressive, skeptical of
(18:57):
big business and of war on the side of the
little guy. It meant fans of whole foods and subarus
and cities. I also used to have a good idea
of what conservative meant. Skeptical or at least cautious of
rapid change, a believer in muscular foreign policy and free
market capitalism, fans of Brooks Brothers and Milton Friedman and
(19:18):
the Constitution. But those labels liberal and conservative, but also
Republican and Democrat are less and less meaningful right now
because they contain less and less actual information. That's because
we're living through a seismic political realignment. The parties and
the political movements that fuel them are being dramatically redefined.
(19:42):
They're up for grabs now in ways that would have
been unthinkable even two decades ago. I like to hear
that debate play out, and often you don't hear that
debate play out in the span of the same podcast.
So I find you have to listen to different people
(20:02):
who who have their own shows but disagree with each other.
I will say that I think Katie and Jessie are
very critical of Michael Hobbs in a way that I
don't think is entirely fair. But I think that's sort
of the point of the listening. I do is that
I don't always want to when I'm listening to something
that involves the political landscape, I don't always want to
agree with the people who I'm hearing. UM. So all
(20:24):
four of those shows sometimes give me things to agree with,
sometimes give me things that I disagree with. But I
would say I recommend all four of them because at
least once on all four of those shows I have
been compelled to buy a book and read deeper into
the topic. And that is huge to have that kind
of influence on your audience. To me, that's a great feeling.
(20:45):
And I think there's maybe a little too little of
that these days. Yes, there's way too little of that
these days. I think it is so important for us
to be able to listen to people that we might
not always agree with, because it's too easy to only
consumed media that we always agree with. And I actually
I think that's damaging for our brains. I have to
(21:07):
agree with you, And as a person who's curious and
as a person who's skeptical, I like to UM. I
like it when someone offers me a different perspective on
what exactly is going on and how we got to
this point. You know what, I also want to be
more uncomfortable me to write like I want to feel awkward.
I want to feel uncomfortable, and I want to think
about things, and that doesn't happen if I listen to
(21:29):
things that just agree with me all the time. That's
I think awkwardness is the unsung hero of audio. Um
there is Can I recommend one more show? And why
do you have to do a daily show? Okay? Just
just be on here. Um there are two podcasts. Okay,
so the do you know Brittany Loose and Eric Ettings? No,
(21:53):
you keep telling me people that I've never heard of,
which is all I want in life, all right. So
when they were this is going back six or seven years,
I believe I met Brittany at a podcasting conference of
all places, and she was at the time doing a
small show kind of out of the basement or out
of the spare bedroom, called for Colored Nerds, and she
(22:15):
told me it was funny, and she hosted it with
her best friend from college, Eric Ettings, and so I
immediately checked it out and it was such an it
was such an amazing show. It's a show about black
life and black culture, and it's so inclusive. I'm a
biracial black woman and there are times when I'm like,
(22:35):
I feel very I feel very lonely. I mean, I've
worked in predominantly white spaces, including NPR, for a long time,
and work is so much a part of our lives.
I don't feel lonely when I'm with my friends. But
so much of what I listened to is, you know,
white voices. It's from a white perspective. And so these
two are doing something that was really really smart, really
(22:57):
really charming, not at all exclusionary. They sort of were
always like And I talked to Brittany about this at
one point, I said, you know, I was interviewing her
for NPR and I said, is it Is it just
a show for black people? Do you think? And she's like, no,
we want everyone to listen. It's about black people, it's
about black culture, but we want everyone to listen. And
you get that sense as a listener. They're fun. They
(23:21):
are they're not snarky, they're never mean. They're always funny,
which is which is going to be the case when
you host a show with your best friend with whom
you have enormous chemistry. She and Eric then created a
show at Gimlet called The Nod, and then there was
some drama and the NOD left Gimlet and it's sort
of I was crushed because I had been listening to
them now for years. And then and then about a
(23:44):
year ago, maybe a little less, they went to I
Believe It's Stitcher. They started doing for Colored Nerds again,
and it came back, This show that I had loved,
you know, came back in its original form with these
two people who love each other and who approached things
in a really smart, really fun way. And um, whenever
(24:06):
I'm having a bad day, whenever I am feeling like
deeply alone and it's just me and like the puppy
and I'm starting to question everything, I put Brittany and
Eric on and I'm like, okay, my friends are talking
to my ear. And people talk about this. You know,
when when I was at NPR, we would always get
messages where people would say, I feel like you're my friends,
and I never really have that feeling. These two I
(24:29):
think are special because when I turned them on, I
feel like, well, first of all, we are friends, but
I feel like they've created a community where I can
almost imagine who else is listening. And I'll find myself
walking down the street, usually with the dog and I'll
bust out laughing and people will look at me like,
what's she up to? And I'll think, I'm I'm listening
(24:52):
to something that you should also be listening to. It's
that good. So anyway, I I love for Colored Nerds.
Do you have a starter episode that you think I should? Gosh,
you know what I would do. I would do this.
I would start with their most recent episode just so
you can hear how it goes. And then I think
what will happen is you will be so drawn in
that you will go and listen to their back catalog,
(25:13):
like the most recent thing they did is always going
to be, in my view, the most interesting. They're also
they're a show that like Evolves. They have done interview shows.
They have done shows where it's just the two of
them they play games with each other. They've done long
form stuff that's extraordinary, where they've highlighted some family um
(25:33):
that's divided over race, or some figure who has been
you know, who's largely beet ignored by the mainstream. Their
range is so extraordinary that I feel like it doesn't
make sense to recommend just one go to the most
recent one and then work your way backward and you
will end up. You will find yourself in a really,
really good mood. Many of our millennial and Gen X
(26:01):
listeners will know how this story begins. Seven strangers picked
to live in a house, working together to find out
what happened when people stop being play start Real World,
or or wherever that city is that comes after that.
You know it's true, It's true. Those are the words
(26:24):
that you hear at the top of pretty much every
single episode of MTVS genre Birthing. I do not exaggerate
when I say genre birthing. Reality show The Real World.
For those of you who don't remember or too young
to remember, I know it's painful. Take one for that.
It's painful, but it's true. There are folks who don't.
(26:45):
The Real World was one of the most groundbreaking TV
shows of all time. That is not an exaggeration. Literally,
it was the first reality TV series of its kind
when it debuted that whole just like put a bunch
of people together in how else to see what happens?
That thing started with this show. Without it, I feel
confidence saying there probably no Big Brother, no Surreal Life,
(27:07):
no I Love New York, no Bachelor, and probably hell
no Real Housewives either, And do we want to live
in a world without Real Housewives? Absolutely not. No, I
really could talk to you all day long. I have
one more, I have one more. It was the first
(27:28):
podcast I ever listened to. Okay, So everyone says that
Cereal was the start of the podcasting boom, and yes,
that that is true. The year that Cereal came out
two thousand and fourteen, I believe everyone was listening to Cereal.
So I went on my my podcast app and I
found the show called The Read that I'm sure you're
familiar with Crystal and Kid Fury. These two are just
(27:49):
so good and so funny again, really good friends, salty
about the world, but in the smartest possible way. And
the thing, the thing I can say, if you're an
NPR listener, you might remember Click and Clack, the Tappitt brothers.
They were the guys who worked on cars. But but
the but the genius of that show was that they
(28:10):
were constantly making each other laugh, and their laughter was
truly contagious. Okay, So the read is that it is
two people who are good friends, who talk about culture,
who make each other laugh, laugh, laugh so hard that
you cannot help. But howl along with them. So that's
another one where I'm like, okay, I need to I
(28:30):
will go through the whole periods where I'm like out
of the culture. I'm so busy doing news that I'm like,
what is going on in the movies, what's going on
in music? And then I will binge listen on a
weekend or on a weeknight episodes of the Read, and
I will find myself much more plugged in into like
what people what, what the culture is talking about. But
also I'll just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.
(28:51):
I don't like to listen to podcasts right before bed
because I'm one of those people who has a lot
of trouble sleeping, and I will get um, like any
any negative it is likely to send me, you know, spiraling,
and you know it's likely to provoke me to be anxious,
and then my brain won't turn off. I can listen
to these two right before bed because because of the laughter,
(29:14):
because I will I will bust a gut laughing, and
then I'll be so tired. I don't know. Again, it's
a particular kind of genius that I really really admire.
If somebody works mainly in the new space, this is
a kind of genius that I cannot aspire to. I
couldn't sit down with my very good friend and make
people laugh for an hour, you know what I mean.
I'll bet you could. I appreciate that, but I will
(29:37):
say I couldn't sit down every day and make the
kind of daily news podcast that you make. I guess
that's right. We all end up in the now that
the space has grown, the podcasting space has grown, We
all end up with um. We all end up doing
the thing hopefully that we're kind of meant to do, yeah,
that we're good at. We all find we all find
(29:58):
our lid. Right, isn't there some some kind of some
kind of line about every pot has its lid. We've
all got a lid. My awkward commentary on how we
all find our place in the podcast space A lot
my lid over here. All right, I'm going to let
you go because you have to make a daily podcast.
(30:21):
You're a lady. That's it for the pod club. I
love that Noel listens to so many things that widen
her perspective. We all need to be doing that these days.
But I also really appreciate the fact that she listens
to things that make her feel held and comforted, because
we also need comfort. We need to expand our brains
(30:44):
and then we need a nice, warm fucking path. That
is what I want for everyone right now. If any
of these shows got you excited, here's a little reminder
about what we talked about today econ Talk Fall of Civilizations.
Like to say, I'm very excited for this one, Blocked
and reported also excited for this one. I'm excited about
(31:06):
all of them. Noel King, You're like a recommendation goddess,
honestly with Barry Weiss for Colored Nerds formerly The NOD
and The Read. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
you for joining as always, and we will be back
next week with more for your ears and more ways
to dive into a warm fucking bath, a warm bath
(31:29):
of audio that is. The pod Club is hosted by
me Joe Pianza. Our executive producers are Me Again and
Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary Do and Darby Masters.
Our associate producer is Lauren Philip. Our theme and additional
music was composed by Aaron Kaufman. Aaron Kaufman is also
(31:51):
our consulting producer and special thanks to Nikki etre. He
was just a wonderful human being. I let the thank
at the end of episodes and st
I find awkwardness to be really, really compelling. Yes, me too.
It's great, It's really great. Hopefully we'll get one, at
least one awkward moment in this show. It's a podcast, podcast, podcast, Hello,
and welcome to the pod club. Do you recognize that voice?
(00:21):
Does it sound like your first sip of coffee in
the morning or maybe your morning commute. That's because it's
none other than Noel King From until pretty recently, she
was a host for nprs Morning Edition, and she has
been a very regular part of my morning routine. But
after a long career in public radio, no L is
(00:41):
entering the barade new world of podcasts. As the co
host of Box Media's Today explained, She's still coming into
your ears daily, bringing you all the important news that
you need to hear, just with a little more flair.
Not that NPR isn't flairy, but oh m, PR is
not always at flurry. Noel has this true talent of
(01:02):
bringing us the toughest news with a kind and curious
spirit that makes everything happening in the world a little
less scary. I got to talk to Noel about what
she listens to to fuel her brain so she can
do this kind of work in the first place, you know,
the stuff that really gets her gears turning, but also
gives her a break from the bleaker parts of being
(01:23):
a daily news reporter. I gotta say I'm in total
awe of how Noel opens herself up to so many
different perspectives through podcasts, and that is the best part
of podcasts. We can hear people who are absolutely nothing
like us, who believe in things that we don't believe in.
Doing that helps us find empathy in a very strange world.
(01:45):
This conversation with Noel actually inspired me to rethink not
just what I listened to, but what I'm not listening to. Hi, Noel,
how are you doing. I'm good, Joe, I'm really good.
(02:05):
How are you? I'm good. You guys do a daily
news show, which just blows my damn mind because I
I used to work for for daily newspapers for a
long time, and it's a lot of work to put
together a daily podcast, and you do it so well.
I think Today Explained is the best daily news show.
(02:28):
It is my go to every morning. But you it
just must be so much work. It is a lot
of work. Thank you, first of all for the kind
words about the show. We in general are very very
proud of it. The people who make it um it's
very highly produced. And there is one way of doing
a daily show, which is to just do a Q
(02:49):
and A and kind of leave it there. And the
thing that makes today explained special and the reason I
started listening to it that like the month it began
airing in a very crowded podcast field, was that it
sonically it was so different. Once upon a time, right
(03:11):
on the edge of the forest, if the golden haired girl,
this golden, yellowhaired girl's name was Goldilocks. Once upon a time,
that time being two thousand and nineteen, the U. S.
Economy was doing something very strange and very good. And
she came across the house of the Bear family in
(03:32):
between the trees. Two things were happening. Inflation was low
but not zero. There was growth, and unemployment was low,
but there were still out of work people to fill
new positions. She dipped her spoon into the smallest one. Mmm,
this barrige is neither call nor an't you hot? It
(03:54):
was just right. It's today, explained, I'm noel King coming up.
The air market is getting closer. The Goldilocks economy has
fled out a back window. What is coming next? You know,
my co host, Shaun Rama's firm has very firm ideas
about being an audio first audio show, And I was
(04:18):
coming from NPR, which does a daily podcast called Up First,
which is a very good show, a very popular show,
but it's sort of, you know, three short interviews with
three talented reporters and very little in terms of you know,
sonic distinction. And everyone who works on a daily show
is doing incredible stuff, right. You can't criticize any daily
(04:41):
show for falling down on the job because you can't
five days a week and it's really, really, it's a
hard job. But I'm very proud of this show because
it sounds different and as someone who spent seventeen years
now in audio, that just means a lot to me. Yeah, right,
seventeen years and audio that feels like nine lifetimes. Oh
(05:02):
my god, does it ever right? When you do feel
like the daily news is so much and a possible
recipe for burnout, what kind of audio do you turn
to to try to try to push that burnout away?
Do you listen to you listen to more news, or
are you going the complete opposite direction? It's such a
good question. For a long time, I listened to more news,
(05:25):
and then somewhere around January six one, I realized I
was I mean, I felt like I was on the
verge of a breakdown, and if I consumed one more
thing about, you know, the riot at the US Capitol,
I was just going to pack up my bags and
move elsewhere. Um. I was really, really, really exhausted. And
(05:45):
so I have moved in the direction of listening to
stuff that I think is really smart, but that is
not news e And so that is my refuge on
days when I get up and I'm like, oh, I'm
really tired, I'll put on something where I know it's
going to be a really good long form com versation,
but it's not necessarily going to be about what's happening today?
What are what are some of those things? Okay, I'm
(06:06):
going to betray my nerdiness here, which is fine. I
covered economics for six years, and I love economics when
it makes sense. Um. I worked for Marketplace, which is
a radio show produced by American Public Media, and then
I moved to Planet Money, which is a long form
show produced by NPR. So I maintained like a very
(06:28):
serious interest in economics. And there's a show called econ
Talk that's hosted by Russ Roberts, who is a professor actually,
I think today to be accurate, he is, uh. He's
the president of Shellem College in Jerusalem, but for a
long time he was an economics professor here in the US,
trained at the Chicago School of Economics, which some listeners
(06:49):
will know that means a very specific kind of thing.
He sort of has libertarian leanings. And what he does
is he will bring on a guest who has just
written a very interesting book, usually about the social science,
is sometimes about something really really nerdy, like constitutions, and
he'll talk to them for ninety minutes and he will
push them, and in areas where he doesn't agree with
(07:10):
his guest, he will say, you know, I think you're
actually really wrong about that, which I find awkwardness to
be really really compelling. It's great, it's really great. Hopefully
we'll get one at least one awkward moment in this show. Um,
but yeah, econ Talk is kind of my go to
because I will feel like I'm coming away smarter. Um.
But it but it doesn't it doesn't have to be
(07:32):
about what's what's in the news today. There's a couple
more if I can just shout him out, yeah yeah,
hold on, but but really really quick. I'm just I'm
looking through eContact because I think I want to play
a clip for our audience so they can they can
get a little little taste of it. I'm really curious about, uh,
the one where he talks to Maxine Clark, who's the
(07:52):
founder of the Build a Bear work Build a Bear.
I'm saving Build a Bear for a rough day. Like
That's how strongly I feel about this show. I'm like,
Bill the Bear is going to make me laugh. Last weekend,
I was having a very very chaotic Saturday, and I
decided to go out in my backyard and garden a
little bit, and I started listening to the one about
Loving and Loathing Kenny G. And the interviewee is a
(08:15):
woman who made a documentary about how Kenny G is
the most popular, one of the most popular musical artists
in the history of humankind, and yet everybody claims they
don't really like him, So what's going on now? Kenny
is a pretty successful recording artist, as we used to
(08:38):
call them, and some still do give us an idea
of just how successful. Well, actually, it's funny. When I
started this film, I really didn't get how successful he was.
I mean, I knew he was kind of ubiquitous in
the nineties, which is where I came to know him,
as many people did, But it wasn't until I got
into the research of it that I realized that he's
(09:00):
he's one of the top selling artists of all time.
If you look at a list of the top selling
artist he's like twenty five. He's higher than Nirvana, higher
than develot Underground, higher than I'm sure many of your
listeners favorite artists. Um. So, he really exemplifies a particular
era of the recording industry where you could sell a
(09:20):
ton of records like that was a particularly small moment
in history, and he came along at that moment and
took advantage of it. And at some point he sold
seventy five million albums and it would have a ton
more if people sell bought albums. Yeah, exactly. And he's
the most best selling I think, instrumental artists of all time.
(09:44):
He doesn't sing, he's not a band, he's just him.
Musicians play with him, but he's a he's a solo
act essentially, Um, he's got a Grammy, only one probably
irks him. We'll talk about that. He's got one Grammy. Uh,
and he's got a string of unbelievably successful albums and
he's just totally beloved and adored by the critical community.
(10:07):
To right, Yeah, exactly, that's what the films about. How
much critics love Kenny g. Yeah, there's a dope. They
can't stop gushing about him. Okay, all right, so tell
me tell me all of your other recommendations. These are good.
All right. So there's one podcast that I started listening
(10:29):
to on vacations. I like to go out to the
American Southwest and Mountain West, and I like to drive
with no particular plan. During COVID, one of my favorite
things to do was slap on a mask, or to
get on a plane, rent a car and just drive
through Arizona, drive through Montana. This show came to my attention.
I can't even remember how. It's called Fall of Civilizations.
(10:52):
It's hosted by a gentleman who I didn't look up
until I was about four episodes in. I thought he
was an elderly historian because his breath of knowledge seems
so incredible, is so incredible, and it turns out that
he is actually not. He's a novelist who has lived
in various places of the world that are very interesting,
including I believe, Sri Lanka, and so he does these long,
(11:15):
long episodes about how various ancient civilizations grew to their
peak and then how they descended into chaos. It's amazing.
I would say, I don't know what his background is
in audio, but um, it's just so well told that
even though the episodes are like three or four hours
(11:36):
long and they only come out once every couple of months,
I can listen on a hike and I can go
all the way through the episode for four hours. So
that's that's pretty rare for me. It's pretty rare that
I get obsessed enough with a podcast that I'm waiting
for it to come out. Fall of Civilizations is definitely
one of those podcasts. People of the city of Ashur
(12:02):
would soon become known as ashur Reya, but today we
call them Assyrians. Like many of the powerful cities of
this region. For the next millennium or so, the Assyrians
of the city of Ashur would make several attempts to
(12:22):
found their own kingdom, and a number of times they succeeded.
One great king named Shamshi a Dad ruled at the
end of the nineteen century BC, and he conquered large
areas outside of Ashur, bringing back great wealth to the city.
(12:43):
Under his reign, the people of Ashur built a grand
royal palace, and the temple to the God Ashur was
furnished with a zigarat, an enormous stepped tower that in
the Bronze Age was a statement of a city's membership
to an elite and powerful club. I think that that's
(13:07):
doing something different with audio, right, You're creating kind of
an event around the release of something and also releasing
something really good, something worth waiting for. It feels like
an experience exactly exactly. It's the obsession of a particular person.
And when a particular person is obsessed with something and
(13:27):
they know how to put it together, it's like reading
a perfect novel. You know, Um, there is just nothing better. Yes,
all right, I'm now on Paul Cooper's website. I love
I love that you had this image of him as
like an old yes, but he's not, like he's definitely
younger than me, but he's like a millennial dude, yep, yep,
(13:53):
who looks really smart. But yeah, surprising, surprising, amazing. Which
do you have a favorite episode of that show? Yeah?
I do. It is about the Empire of Gau in
West Africa, and I think the thing that I love
so much about this episode is that that's a part
of the world that I've always wanted to go to.
I worked in East Africa for a long time, Eastern,
(14:14):
Central Africa and North Africa. Never made it out to
West Africa. But the trajectory of that empire. He starts
so far in the past that you would think it
would be obnoxious. One of his episodes actually begins with
the words six hundred million years ago, and you're like,
come on, dude, You're not really going to do this,
(14:35):
are you, But then he does, and he pulls it off. Now,
the Empire of Gau is Um is so extraordinary because
he traces the empire's rise and fall through the leaders
of it, these these kings of Empire Um, all of
whom at some point made a crucial mistake, and then
that mistake kind of um had a ripple effect throughout
(14:57):
the rest of the empire's history. He brings it to
life in such a way that it is just a
riveting listen, even though we're talking about things that happened
thousands and thousands of years ago. So that to me
is real, is real talent. I think that's why I
admire him so much. Uh, what else you got for me? Um?
(15:38):
I like a couple of standard Okay, So I'm gonna
tell you something about myself, which is is it awkward?
I hope it's awkward. Maybe it's awkward? Yeah, I like Okay.
I am very much part of a media ecosystem, and
the media ecosystem that we are both in has started
to splinter to some degree. So there are people who
(16:00):
have very strong beliefs on one side, and there are
people have very strong beliefs on another side. And so
there are a couple of podcasts that I listened to constantly,
in part because the hosts of those podcasts don't seem
to like or agree on anything. All right, So I
have three. One of them is called Blocked and Reported.
It's two hosts, Katie Hertzog and Jesse Signal Single who
(16:25):
both of them got in trouble. There was a good
New York Times story about this. They were reporters. They
did stories that were considered in some quarters particularly controversial
about um transgender people and in particular about the issue
of de transitioning. They got a lot of flak, they
took a lot of pushback, and they ended up kind
(16:47):
of leaving their jobs in print journalism and starting a
podcast together. And I like it because they are Um.
There are people who I don't always agree with. Some
of the humor is uh to my taste, like it
goes too far, it's a little off pudding. But then
sometimes they will highlight they will highlight an author, or
(17:09):
they will highlight an idea, and I think, oh, that's
very interesting, and that's outside of the mainstream of things
that I listen to. They those two often make fun
of in a way that I don't appreciate. UM Michael Hobbs,
who was once a host of You're Wrong About, which
I think is a terrific, terrific show we had we
(17:32):
had Sarah Marshall on this show. Nice. I love that.
I love that, And um Michael Hobbs now is the
host is the co host of Maintenance Phase. So I
listened to Maintenance Phase Blocked and Reported and You're Wrong
About in part because these are different points of view
on issues that are consuming us all right now, what
(17:53):
is cancel culture? Is the right wing in this country
more responsible for it than the left wing? What is
Twitter doing to our brains? Bari Weiss Is, honestly is
another podcast in this vein. I don't it's really really good.
And I will say that if you are like a
if you are a progressive American, there are parts of
(18:14):
it that you will find to be really essentialist and
really kind of off putting. And that's the case with me. However,
I like listening to it. She's really smart. These are
all really smart people, and they are discussing things that
I find myself. I find my own opinions shifting on
things like what's Twitter doing to my brain? Is it
(18:36):
really a tragedy or is it really no big deal?
Who's really responsible for divisions in this country? Is it
the right? Is that the left? Is it all of us?
I used to have a pretty clear idea of what
the word liberal meant. It meant socially progressive, skeptical of
(18:57):
big business and of war on the side of the
little guy. It meant fans of whole foods and subarus
and cities. I also used to have a good idea
of what conservative meant. Skeptical or at least cautious of
rapid change, a believer in muscular foreign policy and free
market capitalism, fans of Brooks Brothers and Milton Friedman and
(19:18):
the Constitution. But those labels liberal and conservative, but also
Republican and Democrat are less and less meaningful right now
because they contain less and less actual information. That's because
we're living through a seismic political realignment. The parties and
the political movements that fuel them are being dramatically redefined.
(19:42):
They're up for grabs now in ways that would have
been unthinkable even two decades ago. I like to hear
that debate play out, and often you don't hear that
debate play out in the span of the same podcast.
So I find you have to listen to different people
(20:02):
who who have their own shows but disagree with each other.
I will say that I think Katie and Jessie are
very critical of Michael Hobbs in a way that I
don't think is entirely fair. But I think that's sort
of the point of the listening. I do is that
I don't always want to when I'm listening to something
that involves the political landscape, I don't always want to
agree with the people who I'm hearing. UM. So all
(20:24):
four of those shows sometimes give me things to agree with,
sometimes give me things that I disagree with. But I
would say I recommend all four of them because at
least once on all four of those shows I have
been compelled to buy a book and read deeper into
the topic. And that is huge to have that kind
of influence on your audience. To me, that's a great feeling.
(20:45):
And I think there's maybe a little too little of
that these days. Yes, there's way too little of that
these days. I think it is so important for us
to be able to listen to people that we might
not always agree with, because it's too easy to only
consumed media that we always agree with. And I actually
I think that's damaging for our brains. I have to
(21:07):
agree with you, And as a person who's curious and
as a person who's skeptical, I like to UM. I
like it when someone offers me a different perspective on
what exactly is going on and how we got to
this point. You know what, I also want to be
more uncomfortable me to write like I want to feel awkward.
I want to feel uncomfortable, and I want to think
about things, and that doesn't happen if I listen to
(21:29):
things that just agree with me all the time. That's
I think awkwardness is the unsung hero of audio. Um
there is Can I recommend one more show? And why
do you have to do a daily show? Okay? Just
just be on here. Um there are two podcasts. Okay,
so the do you know Brittany Loose and Eric Ettings? No,
(21:53):
you keep telling me people that I've never heard of,
which is all I want in life, all right. So
when they were this is going back six or seven years,
I believe I met Brittany at a podcasting conference of
all places, and she was at the time doing a
small show kind of out of the basement or out
of the spare bedroom, called for Colored Nerds, and she
(22:15):
told me it was funny, and she hosted it with
her best friend from college, Eric Ettings, and so I
immediately checked it out and it was such an it
was such an amazing show. It's a show about black
life and black culture, and it's so inclusive. I'm a
biracial black woman and there are times when I'm like,
(22:35):
I feel very I feel very lonely. I mean, I've
worked in predominantly white spaces, including NPR, for a long time,
and work is so much a part of our lives.
I don't feel lonely when I'm with my friends. But
so much of what I listened to is, you know,
white voices. It's from a white perspective. And so these
two are doing something that was really really smart, really
(22:57):
really charming, not at all exclusionary. They sort of were
always like And I talked to Brittany about this at
one point, I said, you know, I was interviewing her
for NPR and I said, is it Is it just
a show for black people? Do you think? And she's like, no,
we want everyone to listen. It's about black people, it's
about black culture, but we want everyone to listen. And
you get that sense as a listener. They're fun. They
(23:21):
are they're not snarky, they're never mean. They're always funny,
which is which is going to be the case when
you host a show with your best friend with whom
you have enormous chemistry. She and Eric then created a
show at Gimlet called The Nod, and then there was
some drama and the NOD left Gimlet and it's sort
of I was crushed because I had been listening to
them now for years. And then and then about a
(23:44):
year ago, maybe a little less, they went to I
Believe It's Stitcher. They started doing for Colored Nerds again,
and it came back, This show that I had loved,
you know, came back in its original form with these
two people who love each other and who approached things
in a really smart, really fun way. And um, whenever
(24:06):
I'm having a bad day, whenever I am feeling like
deeply alone and it's just me and like the puppy
and I'm starting to question everything, I put Brittany and
Eric on and I'm like, okay, my friends are talking
to my ear. And people talk about this. You know,
when when I was at NPR, we would always get
messages where people would say, I feel like you're my friends,
and I never really have that feeling. These two I
(24:29):
think are special because when I turned them on, I
feel like, well, first of all, we are friends, but
I feel like they've created a community where I can
almost imagine who else is listening. And I'll find myself
walking down the street, usually with the dog and I'll
bust out laughing and people will look at me like,
what's she up to? And I'll think, I'm I'm listening
(24:52):
to something that you should also be listening to. It's
that good. So anyway, I I love for Colored Nerds.
Do you have a starter episode that you think I should? Gosh,
you know what I would do. I would do this.
I would start with their most recent episode just so
you can hear how it goes. And then I think
what will happen is you will be so drawn in
that you will go and listen to their back catalog,
(25:13):
like the most recent thing they did is always going
to be, in my view, the most interesting. They're also
they're a show that like Evolves. They have done interview shows.
They have done shows where it's just the two of
them they play games with each other. They've done long
form stuff that's extraordinary, where they've highlighted some family um
(25:33):
that's divided over race, or some figure who has been
you know, who's largely beet ignored by the mainstream. Their
range is so extraordinary that I feel like it doesn't
make sense to recommend just one go to the most
recent one and then work your way backward and you
will end up. You will find yourself in a really,
really good mood. Many of our millennial and Gen X
(26:01):
listeners will know how this story begins. Seven strangers picked
to live in a house, working together to find out
what happened when people stop being play start Real World,
or or wherever that city is that comes after that.
You know it's true, It's true. Those are the words
(26:24):
that you hear at the top of pretty much every
single episode of MTVS genre Birthing. I do not exaggerate
when I say genre birthing. Reality show The Real World.
For those of you who don't remember or too young
to remember, I know it's painful. Take one for that.
It's painful, but it's true. There are folks who don't.
(26:45):
The Real World was one of the most groundbreaking TV
shows of all time. That is not an exaggeration. Literally,
it was the first reality TV series of its kind
when it debuted that whole just like put a bunch
of people together in how else to see what happens?
That thing started with this show. Without it, I feel
confidence saying there probably no Big Brother, no Surreal Life,
(27:07):
no I Love New York, no Bachelor, and probably hell
no Real Housewives either, And do we want to live
in a world without Real Housewives? Absolutely not. No, I
really could talk to you all day long. I have
one more, I have one more. It was the first
(27:28):
podcast I ever listened to. Okay, So everyone says that
Cereal was the start of the podcasting boom, and yes,
that that is true. The year that Cereal came out
two thousand and fourteen, I believe everyone was listening to Cereal.
So I went on my my podcast app and I
found the show called The Read that I'm sure you're
familiar with Crystal and Kid Fury. These two are just
(27:49):
so good and so funny again, really good friends, salty
about the world, but in the smartest possible way. And
the thing, the thing I can say, if you're an
NPR listener, you might remember Click and Clack, the Tappitt brothers.
They were the guys who worked on cars. But but
the but the genius of that show was that they
(28:10):
were constantly making each other laugh, and their laughter was
truly contagious. Okay, So the read is that it is
two people who are good friends, who talk about culture,
who make each other laugh, laugh, laugh so hard that
you cannot help. But howl along with them. So that's
another one where I'm like, okay, I need to I
(28:30):
will go through the whole periods where I'm like out
of the culture. I'm so busy doing news that I'm like,
what is going on in the movies, what's going on
in music? And then I will binge listen on a
weekend or on a weeknight episodes of the Read, and
I will find myself much more plugged in into like
what people what, what the culture is talking about. But
also I'll just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.
(28:51):
I don't like to listen to podcasts right before bed
because I'm one of those people who has a lot
of trouble sleeping, and I will get um, like any
any negative it is likely to send me, you know, spiraling,
and you know it's likely to provoke me to be anxious,
and then my brain won't turn off. I can listen
to these two right before bed because because of the laughter,
(29:14):
because I will I will bust a gut laughing, and
then I'll be so tired. I don't know. Again, it's
a particular kind of genius that I really really admire.
If somebody works mainly in the new space, this is
a kind of genius that I cannot aspire to. I
couldn't sit down with my very good friend and make
people laugh for an hour, you know what I mean.
I'll bet you could. I appreciate that, but I will
(29:37):
say I couldn't sit down every day and make the
kind of daily news podcast that you make. I guess
that's right. We all end up in the now that
the space has grown, the podcasting space has grown, We
all end up with um. We all end up doing
the thing hopefully that we're kind of meant to do, yeah,
that we're good at. We all find we all find
(29:58):
our lid. Right, isn't there some some kind of some
kind of line about every pot has its lid. We've
all got a lid. My awkward commentary on how we
all find our place in the podcast space A lot
my lid over here. All right, I'm going to let
you go because you have to make a daily podcast.
(30:21):
You're a lady. That's it for the pod club. I
love that Noel listens to so many things that widen
her perspective. We all need to be doing that these days.
But I also really appreciate the fact that she listens
to things that make her feel held and comforted, because
we also need comfort. We need to expand our brains
(30:44):
and then we need a nice, warm fucking path. That
is what I want for everyone right now. If any
of these shows got you excited, here's a little reminder
about what we talked about today econ Talk Fall of Civilizations.
Like to say, I'm very excited for this one, Blocked
and reported also excited for this one. I'm excited about
(31:06):
all of them. Noel King, You're like a recommendation goddess,
honestly with Barry Weiss for Colored Nerds formerly The NOD
and The Read. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
you for joining as always, and we will be back
next week with more for your ears and more ways
to dive into a warm fucking bath, a warm bath
(31:29):
of audio that is. The pod Club is hosted by
me Joe Pianza. Our executive producers are Me Again and
Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary Do and Darby Masters.
Our associate producer is Lauren Philip. Our theme and additional
music was composed by Aaron Kaufman. Aaron Kaufman is also
(31:51):
our consulting producer and special thanks to Nikki etre. He
was just a wonderful human being. I let the thank
at the end of episodes and st
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