The Pod Piper: May 13, 2021
We’re on the verge of playoff basketball season, and for the first time in a long time I have a rooting interest. My team, the Phoenix Suns, has clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2010, and I couldn’t be more anxious about it. Thankfully there are TONS of podcasts that allow me to stew in my existential fan angst, several of which are noted here. I neglected to touch on staples such as HORSE, The Bill Simmons Podcast (particularly the weekly Sunday night playoff pop-up pods he started with Ryen Rusillo last week), and the entire Ringer NBA Show family, all of which are required listening around these parts. But I’m guessing you are not really here to read about my long-dormant-but-always-present basketball fandom. You are here to read about my always-present-but-never-dormant-even-when-it-maybe-should-be podcast fandom. It’s just a matter of time before my daughter does irreparable ear damage when trying to imitate my near constant state of earbudness. Until then...
THE LIST
This was like a mashup between Spoiler Specials and Still Processing - a unique abridged listen-along experience with a movie. “Promising Young Woman,” the Oscar winner for best original screenplay, is at the center of the episode and the twists and turns of the gradually revealed plot is tantalizing in it’s own right. But with the aid of Jenna and Wesley, this episode of course takes on more substance than a compelling thriller. It’s a takedown of rape culture from the inside out, and made for a jarring listen as I walked the dog on a beautiful spring afternoon.
I can’t believe I’m admitting to this at all, let alone in such a public way, but I like a lot of Taylor Swift’s music. The culture that has grown up around her as an artist taking control of her intellectual property is fascinating (There is a whole Today, Explained episode on the re-recording push, which I also recommend), and it is becoming ever clearer to me that her songwriting is masterful. Would I call myself a Swifty? Probably not. But regardless it felt great to revisit this artist’s older work that I used to loathe, and to hear all those mid-2000s country songs...even if I didn't like them at the time and feel, at best, mixed about them now. As with any episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy’s calm and steady delivery from his encyclopedic cranium conveys some sort of scholarly nobility to pop music. The most compelling section was the bit covering Swift’s transition to pop and distancing herself from the country genre, along with the fallout from radio stations who seemed to draw a boundary around her crossover hits.
The first season of Invisibilia kind of blew my mind. It seemed like each story touched on something near-magical about the human experience and that listeners were being shown a peak behind the curtain of life. It was pop psychology in the form of non-fiction narrative audio, but it felt so much more intimate than that. (From the description accompanying the very first episode: "Are my thoughts related to my inner wishes, do they reveal who I really am?" Yeah, heady stuff.) Now in its 7th season, the show gets a facelift with two new hosts - Kia Miakka Natisse and Yowei Shaw, both former producers on the show - and some subject matter that might best be described as intersectional; race, politics, media, and the occasional bit of psychological framework sprinkled in. I have very much enjoyed the miniseries “The Chaos Machine” kicked off by this episode, following a media battle that dictates citizen action in Stockton, California. The show remains a guide for listeners to make sense of their place in the world, just in a way that is a little less personal and a bit more external. Which is nice, I think, since our coexistence as a species seems pretty tenuous these days.
This episode, the first in season 2, strikes the perfect tone for what the show is trying to be. The Scopes trial is presented here as a tipping point in American’s national consciousness, and it lead to me pondering how history will perceive things that have happened in my lifetime (particularly in the last year). The characterizations of the warring attorneys as stand-ins for ideologies is a great way to frame the trial, although part of me wonders if it was a bit of a reach. Are there really singular moments that can be earmarked as the moment a culture splits and takes off in new directions?
If you listen to this episode, you won’t be titillated. You won’t feel more informed about the world. But you will find a happy ending, and maybe - just maybe - this episode will restore some modicum of faith that sometimes things work out in a beautiful way. It delivers exactly what listeners have come to expect from TIL - a feel-good getaway with substance, breaking from pods that so often carry some amount of tension or frivolity to accompany your existence.
I log the podcasts I listen to with a 1 - 10 rating on four metrics - Fun, Novelty, Grip Factor, and Import. You know what is missing from this rubric? Enjoyment. That's sort of what Fun is meant to be, but that doesn't always feel right. Is the smallpox vaccine fun? Not specifically, no. I guess this episode was fun, but I really just enjoyed it. I like John Green’s writing, his narration, and the concept for this audio essay show. But if you’re reading this you probably already know that. Green recently published a book based on the show, and there is a small (4 episode) run of the pod that breaks up the 7 month hiatus (Fun fact: this episode dropped on 4/29, and the most recent episode before it debuted on 9/24. I give that [likely accidental] palindrome 5 stars).
HONORABLE MENTION
SOMETHINGS NEW
Takeline
Jason Concepcion, recently of The Ringer and acclaimed co-host of the incredible Binge Mode series, is now co-hosting this basketball pod from Crooked Media. The name is a nod to the bombastic Twitter takes Concepcion releases with a vengeance, and it’s perhaps a subtle reference to the broad range of coverage the show has to offer. The other co-host, Renee Montgomery, is no slouch - she’s a former WNBA star, current part-owner of the Atlanta Dream, and an activist who put in some major work during the 2020 presidential campaign. The duo rap about routine NBA/WNBA news, often touch on a smattering of current events in the realm of sports and sometimes beyond, and also interview people whose work is tangentially or not at all related to basketball. It’s neither 30 for 30 nor four straight hours of AM radio sports talk, but somewhere in between...plus the internet and also social justice? Oh, and don’t forget ‘Take Survivor’, the elimination-style gameshow at the end of an episode that pushes the limits of content on a sports podcast.
Spinsters
A cousin to Takeline (both shows feature a Ringer alum as half of the hosting combo), Spinsters is another alternative to the traditional talking heads of sports media. Sometimes it’s as straightforward as co-hosts Jordan Ligons and Haley O’Shaughnessy chatting about anything basketball or tangentially related off-court stuff, and sometimes there are longform pieces touching on topics ranging from what it’s like to be traded from a player’s perspective to sitting down with a tarot card reader and dissecting listener questions. Important issues get air time, but with a lot of lightness interjected and even some degree of silliness. In all honesty this show hits a lot of the same beats as Takeline, but the chemistry of the co-hosts (and a natural predilection to consume all basketball media in my eyeline) has kept my interest piqued thus far. It’s also a good listen for a fan who isn’t necessarily gifted in the finer points of salary implications but does have a passionate love for a team or player or the sport itself.
Phoenix Suns related podcasts
The following pods are all more along the lines of what you’d expect from a sports pod/YouTube channel. All of these connect me to the valley and the Arizona sports scene that I miss watching in real time. Curse you time zones! Each has something to offer and is slowly building a community of disparate Suns fans both new and long-suffering.
The Solar Panel - A slightly irreverent weekly panel of Suns fans and (at least one) former franchise employees, and the closest you can find to listening in on a conversation of (well-informed) average fans.
The Timeline - Brainy, analytical, weekly, most even-keeled amongst the group. Low on inconsequential banter, high on insight and dissecting specific play-calling moments. Most likely to feature a national media figure like Kevin O’Connor.
Suns JAM Session - A slightly inebriated live post-game experience, these pods are adapted from a YouTube channel live stream. Complete with segments and my reliable source to debrief each match-up - especially those that start after I’m already in bed. More genitalia related humor than most pods, but also more structured than a gabfest sort of approach.
Bottom line: I’m always down for more basketball pods, and it’s righteous when that #content is doing something new and different. Check out these shows as you let yourself breathe in the sweet nectar of inevitable disappointment and anxiety-filled hours of standing too close to the TV.
Jason Concepcion, recently of The Ringer and acclaimed co-host of the incredible Binge Mode series, is now co-hosting this basketball pod from Crooked Media. The name is a nod to the bombastic Twitter takes Concepcion releases with a vengeance, and it’s perhaps a subtle reference to the broad range of coverage the show has to offer. The other co-host, Renee Montgomery, is no slouch - she’s a former WNBA star, current part-owner of the Atlanta Dream, and an activist who put in some major work during the 2020 presidential campaign. The duo rap about routine NBA/WNBA news, often touch on a smattering of current events in the realm of sports and sometimes beyond, and also interview people whose work is tangentially or not at all related to basketball. It’s neither 30 for 30 nor four straight hours of AM radio sports talk, but somewhere in between...plus the internet and also social justice? Oh, and don’t forget ‘Take Survivor’, the elimination-style gameshow at the end of an episode that pushes the limits of content on a sports podcast.
Spinsters
A cousin to Takeline (both shows feature a Ringer alum as half of the hosting combo), Spinsters is another alternative to the traditional talking heads of sports media. Sometimes it’s as straightforward as co-hosts Jordan Ligons and Haley O’Shaughnessy chatting about anything basketball or tangentially related off-court stuff, and sometimes there are longform pieces touching on topics ranging from what it’s like to be traded from a player’s perspective to sitting down with a tarot card reader and dissecting listener questions. Important issues get air time, but with a lot of lightness interjected and even some degree of silliness. In all honesty this show hits a lot of the same beats as Takeline, but the chemistry of the co-hosts (and a natural predilection to consume all basketball media in my eyeline) has kept my interest piqued thus far. It’s also a good listen for a fan who isn’t necessarily gifted in the finer points of salary implications but does have a passionate love for a team or player or the sport itself.
Phoenix Suns related podcasts
The following pods are all more along the lines of what you’d expect from a sports pod/YouTube channel. All of these connect me to the valley and the Arizona sports scene that I miss watching in real time. Curse you time zones! Each has something to offer and is slowly building a community of disparate Suns fans both new and long-suffering.
The Solar Panel - A slightly irreverent weekly panel of Suns fans and (at least one) former franchise employees, and the closest you can find to listening in on a conversation of (well-informed) average fans.
The Timeline - Brainy, analytical, weekly, most even-keeled amongst the group. Low on inconsequential banter, high on insight and dissecting specific play-calling moments. Most likely to feature a national media figure like Kevin O’Connor.
Suns JAM Session - A slightly inebriated live post-game experience, these pods are adapted from a YouTube channel live stream. Complete with segments and my reliable source to debrief each match-up - especially those that start after I’m already in bed. More genitalia related humor than most pods, but also more structured than a gabfest sort of approach.
Bottom line: I’m always down for more basketball pods, and it’s righteous when that #content is doing something new and different. Check out these shows as you let yourself breathe in the sweet nectar of inevitable disappointment and anxiety-filled hours of standing too close to the TV.
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