Podcasters got da Power

/ Jeff Cann

I downloaded Episode One of Nothing Is Real, a Beatles podcast narrated by two Irish guys with thankfully coherent accents. Because this was their first episode, they faced a blank slate, a white canvas, they held the power, they could delve into literally any Beatles topic they wanted. They talked about the album Help!

Stephen and Jason didn’t have much nice to say about it: “Not in my list of top five Beatles albums, and since they only have twelve albums, that tells you all you need to know.”

So here’s my question for you dear reader: You’re starting a podcast about your favorite band, one of the greatest rock bands of all time, you hope to get listeners excited about your topic, you want them to return to listen week after week, year after year, do you lead-off with a review of their most mediocre album? 

I was thinking Abbey Road instead.  

The blurb above was written for GirlieOnTheEdge’s Six Sentence Story Link Up!

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Part 2

Nothing is Real is the third music podcast I’ve followed. The second, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is great, but three or four weeks typically separate each episode. I need something to fill the space in between. The first podcast I followed, Discord & Rhyme, ended ugly. I generally enjoyed it, but I was repeatedly put off by my perception that the podcasters made light, or even fun, of various musicians’ drug abuse. This led me to dive into one of worst my traits—direct engagement with strangers. This is somewhat encouraged on blogs, and I’m a chronic commenter. But is it acceptable in other entertainment media?

Last year I read Sarah Penner’s The Lost Apothecary. It’s a delightful historical fiction book about a feminist apothecary who offs brutish men. I loved it. But I also found a mistake in the book, so I helpfully sent Sarah an email to bring it to her attention.

The night Eliza and Nella spend outside gathering beetles, you describe a sliver of a crescent moon near the horizon. Fine, but that moon would be setting rather than rising as you’ve written. This is a topic I’ve fretted about my entire adult life and even wrote an essay in response to a similar mistake Dean Koontz made in one of his books. https://jefftcann.com/2017/08/04/moon-phases/

The rest of the email was about how much I enjoyed the book and expected Sarah to have a long and successful writing career. Sarah graciously replied to me, thanking me for my praise, but she didn’t mention my moon concern, and I don’t think she ever read my Dean Koontz story either. Like I always do after these lapses in judgement, I felt embarrassed. I wondered why I do this again and again.

Imagine how I felt when the library where I work invited Sarah to come give a speech last month at a fundraiser. As I met Sarah, as I shook her hand and passed her my copy of her book to sign, I waited for her to notice my library name tag and say “Oh, you’re the moon guy!” I would have deserved it.

With Discord & Rhyme, I also sent an email: I’m often put off by the disdain you throw at people with substance abuse problems. Many (most?) people with addiction issues also suffer from mental illness. Drug and alcohol abuse is often an attempt to self-medicate or to numb the pain of anxiety, depression and OCD. Rather than talking about the people as if they are losers, you could show some compassion or at least a bit of understanding. Like my message to Sarah, this also included some praise of their podcast. I guess I like to balance the bad with some good.

Regardless, the response pissed me off:  It’s bold of you to assume that we don’t know the mechanics of substance abuse. It’s a topic many of us are intimately familiar with, and that we would never be contemptuous of. Thinking back on the CSN episode, I believe we made some cracks about David Crosby’s drug use, but it was nothing he hadn’t said himself.

I forwarded this response to Susan with the comment “Her justification reminds me of when someone says, “My black friend uses the n-word so I can use it too.”

As if I’m able to punish a well-followed podcast, I stopped listening to Discord & Rhyme and cancelled my dollar-per-month Patreon subscription. But now I can’t figure out how to delete the podcast from my Spotify account. Every time I click on Spotify to listen to music, I’m reminded of one more stupid argument I started.

I’ve got a list as long as Santa’s of people I’ve corrected. People I thought made borderline racist/classist/ableist comments, made fun of OCD, Tourette Syndrome or depression, joked about alcoholism or other substance abuse, and of course those who screwed up a moon phase in their otherwise wonderful book. I know the urge to do this stems from OCD, but I also know it’s an urge I can resist. Lately as part of an effort to break my OCD habits, I’m trying to let things go. Sure, I’ll blog about it, but to directly engage someone for the sole purpose of starting a fight isn’t necessary, and it usually isn’t wise. It just makes me and someone else feel bad. It raises my blood pressure.

Some fights are worth starting. Some people’s actions are so egregious, I need to call them out. But usually, and always when encountering a confusing moon, my best course of action is to take a deep breath and let it go.

29 thoughts on “Podcasters got da Power”

  2. Letting go is an easy enough concept to grab hold of yet… even though I tell myself and remind myself constantly to do this very simple task… I often can not….but I do feel like when someone else brings something to me that it’s usually from a good place or wanting to educate me and I love that. But me when I venture a comment? I need help while trying to be helpful.

    Recently, a friend tried to make a wager about something I am absolutely positive about. He thinks I’m wrong. The wager was around Star Trek. He said, Captain Kirk kissed Eartha Kitt in one of the episodes. Now, I am nowhere near the trekkie my mom is but I do remember this episode in particular. And also a big fact that Eartha Kitt was never on Star Trek.

    He argued me up and down that I was wrong. I told him the burden of proof was on him. So he produced a video from a movie that he doctored. The actress that he believes is Eartha Kitt was actually France Nuyen. The episode is Elaan of Troyious. When I told him to check Eartha Kitt’s IMDB and Google filmography… he doubled down. I provided the proof I had.. the actress, the character, and an article about Captain Kirk’s famous kisses. Plus… both actresses credits. No Eartha Kitt on Star Trek.

    He says that we should agree to disagree. Fine…but I know what I’m talking about. He had to doctor a film clip to be right and it’s not even the right actress. 😆 I will let it go but man is it hard.

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    • I hear ya. Once, riding in the car with my girlfriend and *her* friends, one of the guys says “you know, this song was written by Patty Smyth.” (A pop act) I say, “no, it’s by Patti Smith” (a punk act) one of those things I knew as well as my own middle name. My girlfriend says to me “Ha, maybe you don’t know everything about music!” Shoulda broken up right there and taken the metro home. Sigh. Opportunity lost.

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  3. Music and the moon…two of my favorite subjects in one blog post! 🙂 This actually got me thinking to the point of doing a quick search on moon phases. I’ve written several pieces of poetry about the moon, and while a setting crescent moon in the evening is a glorious sight, I never knew exactly which phase produces this event. Now I do (waxing crescent, if I’m not mistaken). Thanks for spurring my curiosity about something I should have known but never got around to verifying. 🙂

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    • The moon is all over literature. So frequently it’s wrong. Now I’m going to ask the question i wanted to ask earlier today, but I didn’t think it was fair to string along comments in your blog… do you still get joy from song lyrics? They are really important to me, and I’ve blogged about song lyrics many times. I seems like a way you could still engage with ‘music’.

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      • One of the first things to start giving me trouble when my hearing loss began at age 18 was human speech, so understanding song lyrics became problematic at that point, and impossible later on. I’d have to look up lyrics on album sleeves or sheet music books or, later, online just to get an idea of what a song was about. For me, at least, human speech is much more complex than musical tones, so I was still able to figure out the music even after I lost the ability to understand the lyrics. Because of this, I began to focus primarily on the music (especially guitars) and sort of gave up on listening to the lyrics.

        In my “wanna be a rock star” early years, all my original lyrics were typical ’70s and ’80s hard rock fare. When I’d write lyrics for a girlfriend, they always ended up as ballads. Sappy love stuff, usually about getting dumped or unrequited love. Eventually, after too many terrible relationships, I decided I was done with love songs and started gravitating to bands that were more “serious” in their lyrical approach. Rush comes to mind, and I appreciated Neil Peart’s penchant for deeper lyrics with a very poetic feel.

        My hearing loss prevented me from being exposed to a wide variety of music, and my geographical location while growing up (very rural Four Corners area of the U.S.) held only a handful of radio stations, mostly Top 40 and country or adult contemporary, so I missed out on a lot of good bands and good lyricists.

        With all that said, good lyrics fascinate me and can certainly bring joy or tears or any other strong emotion to me all these years later. I only wish I could have experienced a broader palette of bands before I lost the ability comprehend music. I think my love for writing poetry nowadays is a direct extension of my love for music. It’s the closest thing I’ve got, at any rate.

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  4. As an English professor, I’ve been in the business of correcting people. It’s difficult to turn off when outside of the classroom. But I think I’ve made some strides in letting things go.

    I love how self-aware you are and how willing you are to be open about yourself.

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  6. I wonder if you would like either of my two favorite Beatles history podcasts: “One Sweet Dream” (start with the Breakup Series) and “Another Kind of Mind” (start with the Pizza and Fairytales series).

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  7. What an interesting variety of comments you’ve provoked. (Well done Mr C.)
    ~
    Using a variant on the ‘countdown’ strategy for albums seems a reasonable enough way to start a Beatles podcast. More importantly, did they say anything insightful or witty about Help?
    If they did fine.
    If not,
    ffft.
    ~
    Re your resolution ‘to take a deep breath and let it go’ I apologise for the deep breathing exercises I’ve caused you in the past and (hopefully) am likely to continue to inflict on you with my close-enough-is-good-enough editorial policy.
    ~
    Thanks Mr C.
    D

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    • I get what you’re saying about the countdown strategy, but they’ve got 150 episodes, so they aren’t limited to album reviews. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe the early meet up between the 4. The podcast worked, and I actually gained some new appreciation for Help! (an album I’ve ignored in the past) but seriously, as soon as they turned the mic on, they started trashing it. It just seemed weird and I wanted to write about it. You never make me breathe deep, DD. At least not in a bad way.

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  9. I hate podcasts that spend the 1st 10 or 15 or 20 giggling about what the show is about or some inside joke. I really only listen to interviews of authors because I like knowing THEIR story. I can’t wait til you discover ageism. Not the ageism about Joe Biden. The unconscious ageism that ignores you, your opinion, your work because THEY think you don’t count anymore. Or the doctor that subtly lets you know you may be too old to treat. I have a lot of sent but unpublished letters to the editor on ageism in the press.

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    • I think I’m on the opening cusp of ageism–mostly centered around my ability to switch jobs. About three years ago, I was battling pervasive dizziness. My doctor diagnosed O.L.D. Syndrome. I was so pissed off, I switched doctors. My father, 92, hears it every time he goes to the doctor, and he’s heard it so many times he’s internalized it as well. The funny/poetic beautiful irony about ageism is people who engage in it will one day get the opportunity to be the recipient.

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  11. Much to think about here, Jeff. I rather like that you engage and respond, though I’m not sure how I’d go if I was on the receiving end!

    The opening para was kind of close to my heart, however. I guess it makes people feel bigger to make a legendary work of art smaller, but personally, I have no time for it. I’d have turned off after a minute. As Tim Minchin once quoted, ‘Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody has one.’

    Yes, it’s fun to slag something off, to be clever in your put-downs and skewer a sacred cow for your BBQ, but really, why bother?

    Thanks for an stimulating read.

    PS. I must stop yelling at the television whenever anything related to the US’s Great Idiotic Pumpkin appears. Any advice?

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    • They ultimately had some nice stuff to say about Help! and the podcast in general swung my needle towards more appreciation rather than less. I’ll return to the podcast, if for no other reason, I liked their accents (shallow enough?). Re: the great pumpkin, when all the creators are dead and gone, I usually resort to letters to the editor of the local paper. My paper will print *anything* and no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be the biggest crackpot.

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  12. I can’t believe anyone would trash Help😲 I actually love the movie more than the music, but the music is good too.
    I’m a chronic commenter and corrector, so I understand how difficult it is to NOT do the thing.
    Like one of the others commented, I’d appreciate feedback, especially a correction on a mistake I’d made. I love learning new things, and anyone who noticed a minor detail in someone I want to have a conversation with. Small details are so often overlooked😉

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