Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, it's Maddie. Welcome to Access podcast, the podcast
Speaker 1: about podcast, And I gotta be honest with you. There
Speaker 1: are a couple podcasts that I am a total geek. Four.
Speaker 1: These are the podcasts that when a new episode comes out,
Speaker 1: whatever I'm doing stops and I go listen to them.
Speaker 1: One of those podcasts is thirty for thirty. So I
Speaker 1: was really excited when I got a chance to talk
Speaker 1: to Jody Avergan, who hosts and executive produces thirty for thirty.
Speaker 1: Jody has been telling audio stories for years, including his
Speaker 1: time at w n y C and for five eighty sports.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the show, we're gonna talk to him
Speaker 1: about the art of audio storytelling, plus how his daughter
Speaker 1: became a meme seam around the world, and don't forget.
Speaker 1: After the conversation, producer Morgan will be in and we
Speaker 1: will be telling you about three podcasts that you should binge.
Speaker 1: But right now, let's check out a little bit from
Speaker 1: thirty for thirty. There are many levels of professional baseball.
Speaker 1: There's the Big league's Major League Baseball, then there's Triple
Speaker 1: A that's one step down. Then there's Double A a ball,
Speaker 1: rookie ball, Winter League, and you keep going down all
Speaker 1: the way towards the bottom. There are the independent leagues,
Speaker 1: technically professional and that players get paid something to play baseball.
Speaker 1: But those leagues exist several planets away from the show,
Speaker 1: as they call the majors, and most of the players
Speaker 1: in those leagues will never come close to putting on
Speaker 1: a big league uniform. They'll play in tiny parts in
Speaker 1: front of near empty bleachers until reality finally sets in
Speaker 1: and they hang it up for one summer. Though, there
Speaker 1: was someone very different among them, one of, without question,
Speaker 1: the greatest baseball players and personalities of all time. Jody.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Access podcast, and I have to ask you
Speaker 1: a very important question to start. What is it like
Speaker 1: to wake up every morning and just piss podcast excellence? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing I do every morning is drink a
Speaker 1: glass of water, Honor, and then I go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: So you know I can't answer that. I try and
Speaker 1: ingest podcast excellence. First, you know you've worked at w NYC,
Speaker 1: which I think is basically the grace Land of podcasts
Speaker 1: and audio storytelling. What initially drew you to audio storytelling?
Speaker 1: You know, I won't give you the fullback story, but
Speaker 1: you know in college, I did uh film and I
Speaker 1: did documentaries and film. My parents to journalists, and so
Speaker 1: I've always sort of thought about news and documentaries and
Speaker 1: so forth. My start in radio was not necessarily in
Speaker 1: the documentary storytelling world. It was it was at w NYC,
Speaker 1: but it was really in the daily talk show mold.
Speaker 1: So I landed at the feet of Brian Larr, who
Speaker 1: is the post of the Buying Larror Show, which is
Speaker 1: on its hand every day on the is a you
Speaker 1: know your local public radio talk call in show. So that's,
Speaker 1: you know, really where I got my start, and I
Speaker 1: spent seven years there as my home base. And then
Speaker 1: I at w n y C. I was able to
Speaker 1: sort of dip around and spend a month in the
Speaker 1: newsroom here and there, you know, spend some time working
Speaker 1: with the various shows. So I got a little taste
Speaker 1: of the longer form stuff. But I don't know, I
Speaker 1: really I've always liked to talk and I've always felt
Speaker 1: like my metabolism is more akin to like a daily show.
Speaker 1: I like making stuff and moving on and coming up
Speaker 1: with ideas and executing on them pretty quick. And so
Speaker 1: it's been a little of a challenge and an interesting
Speaker 1: transition and just like really sort of a fun challenge
Speaker 1: to go then now towards stuff that we're doing at
Speaker 1: thirty for thirty, which takes months and months and months
Speaker 1: to put together. So it's been nice to kind of
Speaker 1: exercise those two those two years and almost come full
Speaker 1: circle back to doing documentary stuff like I started doing
Speaker 1: and thinking about when I was in college, and then
Speaker 1: a couple of years thereafter when you were at w
Speaker 1: n y C. I I've found some of your old
Speaker 1: stories which were awesome, especially the toilet training method by Charles.
Speaker 1: So I did a piece for Studio three sixty about
Speaker 1: how Charles Mingus, one of my favorite musicians, greatest jazz
Speaker 1: basis of all time, and one of the stranger figures
Speaker 1: in the history of music, had toilet trained his cats.
Speaker 1: In particular, one of his cats called Nightlife to use
Speaker 1: the toilet, and he not only kind of developed a
Speaker 1: method on his own to toilet trainer cat, but then
Speaker 1: he came up with a basically set of instructions, and
Speaker 1: you could throughout the sixties and seventies send effectively a
Speaker 1: self addressed stant avelope to Charles Mingus at a p
Speaker 1: O box, and he would mail you back his Charles
Speaker 1: Mingus catalog for toilet training your cat, so you could
Speaker 1: do this for your cats at home. I happened to
Speaker 1: have a cat that is toilet trained. My cat was
Speaker 1: not trained using them. Yeah I know, my cat was
Speaker 1: not trained using the Mengus method. But it got me
Speaker 1: interested in this world, and so I pitched this story
Speaker 1: to a studio three sixty. They were very, very skeptical,
Speaker 1: I would say, at first. And we worked it for
Speaker 1: a while and we found a cat to try and train,
Speaker 1: and we sort of told a story about Charles Mingus
Speaker 1: himself throughout it, and I don't know, kind of combines
Speaker 1: a lot of the things I like in journalism, which
Speaker 1: is kind of sneaking your way into a serious story,
Speaker 1: telling something that is hopefully just like engaging to listen to,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you're learning about bigger stuff,
Speaker 1: and in this case, you know, really learning about Charles
Speaker 1: Mingus in addition to cats psychology. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: I will say he was onto something when he developed
Speaker 1: this homespun method. It actually really does fit in to
Speaker 1: a lot that we now know about how cats operate
Speaker 1: and how and how to go about to treat one
Speaker 1: thing I did love about it the most was the voice.
Speaker 1: Ever you had Charles Mingus voice, and that's the kind
Speaker 1: of like little touch that makes the story really it
Speaker 1: comes to life even more. Yeah, I mean, so we
Speaker 1: got a voice actor to be the voice of Charles Mingus,
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, one of the things. And
Speaker 1: just working with that piece and working with Studio few sixty,
Speaker 1: it was it was very fun and I had a
Speaker 1: kind of vision for the piece and they helped me
Speaker 1: work towards that. But they did that through really intense editing,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was this piece took months and
Speaker 1: months and months. It started out as many pieces do,
Speaker 1: probably like thirty minutes long, and then came down to
Speaker 1: thirteen and tons and tons of revisions. And so to me,
Speaker 1: it was, you know, a fun piece to work with.
Speaker 1: It was great to work with the Studio V sixty
Speaker 1: team and have a piece on a show that I admire.
Speaker 1: But it was also a really good lesson for me
Speaker 1: relatively early and doing this kind of stuff in the
Speaker 1: editing process when you're at a place that takes stuff
Speaker 1: really seriously. And I have continued to learn this lesson
Speaker 1: and it's kind of the only lesson I feel like
Speaker 1: I learned over and over which is the difference between
Speaker 1: a good piece and a great piece is editing and
Speaker 1: story editing, a line editing and then editing in you know,
Speaker 1: in a session of the actual audio. And so that's
Speaker 1: something I've tried to carry with me is just give
Speaker 1: stories time and give them the sort of ruthless editing
Speaker 1: because they that will that will take it to that
Speaker 1: next level. I think that is when a lot of
Speaker 1: folks never understand how much time goes into doing a
Speaker 1: good podcast in audio, and I work with companies, I
Speaker 1: work with radio talent, and I'm always amazed that, you know,
Speaker 1: people don't understand the amount of effort that goes into something.
Speaker 1: So when you're picking out a story, you know, you
Speaker 1: know you're devoting a certain amount of time to you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of time to something. So so how's the
Speaker 1: process of deciding, Okay, this is a story worth me
Speaker 1: investing a couple of months of time into. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you're hitting on something really important which we've
Speaker 1: thought about a lot at thirty for thirty, which is
Speaker 1: story selection is really huge because you know, our goal
Speaker 1: with thirty for thirty. But I think just in general,
Speaker 1: you want to find a story that is very specific.
Speaker 1: In our case, you know, it's in the world of sports,
Speaker 1: and we don't do like bio picks. We don't do
Speaker 1: sort of a profile of a person. We try and
Speaker 1: pick a specific moment that has bigger themes, and so
Speaker 1: we really try and vet our stories on is this
Speaker 1: something that will sustain big ideas and then does this
Speaker 1: have a natural arc? Is there a natural evolution of
Speaker 1: this story from A to B to C twod that
Speaker 1: we can follow and then have the big ideas kind
Speaker 1: of gloma on top of them. And I've just learned
Speaker 1: that if you pick the right story and it's got
Speaker 1: a natural momentum, and it's got big ideas that come
Speaker 1: into it naturally, and it's got characters who are good talkers,
Speaker 1: and it's got good archival, I mean, those are all
Speaker 1: really hard things to find. But if you find that,
Speaker 1: then you're almost just like getting out of the way
Speaker 1: of the story as you're making it. You know, your
Speaker 1: job is to just kind of collect it and let
Speaker 1: it do its thing. Whereas the flip side of that,
Speaker 1: and we've done that is you know, you've picked the
Speaker 1: story and some of those things aren't there and the
Speaker 1: whole time you just feel like you're fighting against the story.
Speaker 1: And there's no worse feeling in the world than feeling
Speaker 1: like you're fighting against the story that you picked and
Speaker 1: you want to do but it's just not there, and
Speaker 1: you're just killing yourself and trying to make it happen.
Speaker 1: And so we've done some of those, and you find
Speaker 1: a way to make it happen. But I would much
Speaker 1: rather spend a lot of time developing a story and
Speaker 1: making sure it's one that feels like it inherently has
Speaker 1: all those things we're looking for, so that our job
Speaker 1: is to really just sort of help nurture it to life.
Speaker 1: When the Beak from series came out that Julia did,
Speaker 1: I was interested, but I was like, wow, is this
Speaker 1: you know, this is pretty daring to decide to devote
Speaker 1: a season to this story. How did that come about?
Speaker 1: And deciding, Hey, this is something we're going to do
Speaker 1: all these episodes on for this. So that was originally,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was one of the first ideas we
Speaker 1: ever had, was we should do an episode on Vicram yoga,
Speaker 1: and in particular the sexual sought allegations against the founder
Speaker 1: of Vicram. You know, good Vicram Choudry, and we and
Speaker 1: Julia Henderson, one of our reporter producers, took it on
Speaker 1: um and she had a background in Vicram and so
Speaker 1: she was always interested in this story and we were
Speaker 1: going to do it as just one episode in a
Speaker 1: regular season. I had from the very beginning of the
Speaker 1: show in my mind thought, well, we do this model
Speaker 1: where we do two seasons a year and they're about
Speaker 1: five episodes each. I would love to find every once
Speaker 1: in a while a story that could just be one
Speaker 1: season and just do a serialized story. So I had
Speaker 1: it in the back of my head. I had set
Speaker 1: you know, the team knew that, like we should be
Speaker 1: on our looking out for these And a few months
Speaker 1: into reporting Victram story, Julia sent a really long email
Speaker 1: after after a big reporting trip and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I just think there's more here. I think that this
Speaker 1: is this could be multi part. And the specific things
Speaker 1: that felt like, okay, this will let us, this can
Speaker 1: sustain is one finding out about his backstory and he
Speaker 1: has a really fascinating kind of rise and how he
Speaker 1: came to America and became a sort of sensation in
Speaker 1: America before he even started to you know, how he
Speaker 1: accumulated his power before he abused this power was a
Speaker 1: big one. But we also realized that there's a story
Speaker 1: of kind of fitness in America as part of this too.
Speaker 1: Bickram was was a craze, was a fitness craze and
Speaker 1: one of the first fitness crazes, and it helped us
Speaker 1: understand how those kinds of things take off and get
Speaker 1: franchised and get a bunch of people doing them. But moreover,
Speaker 1: we just felt like we could focus on his behavior
Speaker 1: in the last ten years, last seven years and the
Speaker 1: sexual assault allegations, but the most compelling thing is to
Speaker 1: take our time to understand how we got there, because
Speaker 1: it wasn't just that this was an awful person who
Speaker 1: did awful things. It was this was a person who
Speaker 1: built systems around him and accumulated power, a lot of
Speaker 1: it power that was you know that he accumulated because
Speaker 1: he was doing things that were really positive in people's lives.
Speaker 1: And then once he had that power around him, why
Speaker 1: was there a culture and why was there why was
Speaker 1: there a sort of system him that allowed him to
Speaker 1: abuse that power? And that's not a thirty minute story, right,
Speaker 1: You need the time to be able to tell that.
Speaker 1: So that's so we just kind of made the call
Speaker 1: and said, okay, we think this is going to be multipart,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, all of these other avenues
Speaker 1: opened up for us. It's funny. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of folks involved with Bickram and I did it for
Speaker 1: a few years, and I don't think anyone was shocked,
Speaker 1: you know, by a lot of things that came out
Speaker 1: in the podcast. But I'm a p one, as we
Speaker 1: say in radio. I've been listening to thirty from the
Speaker 1: very first podcast came out. But I found a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who I would talk to because everybody wants
Speaker 1: to ask me, you know what podcast am I listening
Speaker 1: to and and all of that, who I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: would be somebody that would seek out thirty for thirty,
Speaker 1: who sought that one out and just fell in love
Speaker 1: with that podcast and also with them, went back and
Speaker 1: listened to the old episode. So I think it was
Speaker 1: it really was a build a bridge for a lot
Speaker 1: of folks too. Yeah. I mean that was strategic on
Speaker 1: our part of and something the only reason we do
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But we realized, okay, we're ESPN,
Speaker 1: We're thirty for thirty and thirty for thirty has always
Speaker 1: been as a film series, and then we've tried to
Speaker 1: sort of inherit that as a podcast series. The Bridge.
Speaker 1: You hear all the time from people, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't like sports, but I like thirty for thirty. I
Speaker 1: love hearing that. You know, we always have thought of
Speaker 1: our show as a show that is not for sports people.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's good stories, and our lens happens
Speaker 1: to be sports. That said, I realized that, you know,
Speaker 1: there is for some people. I have many thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: For some people kind of block for sports and they
Speaker 1: just aren't that interested. And we did realize that the
Speaker 1: Bickram series might break out in that way, both in
Speaker 1: terms of subject matter and sort of themes, but also
Speaker 1: in terms of format. It's just kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's something interesting going on here. Let me let me
Speaker 1: check this out. A five part series. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we thought of like, some of our straight ahead sports
Speaker 1: stories are going to get the es the core ESPN crowd,
Speaker 1: and we're going to keep them, hopefully, and they'll stick
Speaker 1: around to listen to the Bickerm thing. And then the
Speaker 1: Bickerm thing is going to reach out and get some
Speaker 1: maybe more this American life type listeners in and then they'll,
Speaker 1: as you said, go back and listen to our stuff.
Speaker 1: And we're just trying to kind of accumulate different audiences
Speaker 1: as we go and hopefully keep them around. I think
Speaker 1: in general, you know, sports are positive and bring people
Speaker 1: together in a lot of ways, and sports stories have
Speaker 1: all the elements of good storytelling that you know, you've
Speaker 1: talked about having a story arc. A game. A sport
Speaker 1: is a story arc from the beginning to the end,
Speaker 1: and there's a story in every game, and I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that you almost have unlimited
Speaker 1: amount of content to go find and and I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's a little overwhelming, it sounds with the amount of
Speaker 1: stuff that you probably want to do. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: will say, I mean, going back to what I was
Speaker 1: saying earlier about what we really feel like, it's a
Speaker 1: very high bar in terms of picking a story. We
Speaker 1: get a lot of pitches that are like, oh, that
Speaker 1: game was crazy, and that's not enough. You know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of crazy games, and we go we
Speaker 1: rarely do games, both on the film side and on
Speaker 1: the podcast side. There's episodes that we do were like
Speaker 1: it was hardly any actual game or action on the
Speaker 1: field or on the court or whatever. You know, it's
Speaker 1: about the people, and it's about the game cause someone's
Speaker 1: life to change or our society to change. You know,
Speaker 1: those are the bigger themes we're looking for now. That said,
Speaker 1: to your point about the natural arc of sports, I
Speaker 1: will say yes, obviously, Like you can point to a
Speaker 1: game or a season or a career and kind of say, oh,
Speaker 1: someone is going to win and someone is going to lose,
Speaker 1: and that's always, like, you know, nice thing to have
Speaker 1: in terms of keeping a narrative going. There's also another
Speaker 1: thing we think about a lot. You know, any storyteller
Speaker 1: thinks about steaks. There's always a moment at which you
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself, what are the stakes of our story?
Speaker 1: Our steaks, I think are the same as a lot
Speaker 1: of other shows that aren't about sports. You know, it's
Speaker 1: about someone's life or about someone at an inflection point,
Speaker 1: or society the inflection point. But then there are also
Speaker 1: moments where the stakes are literally like there's a big game,
Speaker 1: someone's gonna win or someone gonna lose, or we've done
Speaker 1: a couple of gambling stories. You just get to say,
Speaker 1: there's literally a million dollars on the line, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you can tell that the audience is
Speaker 1: a little perked up or whatever. So, yes, there are
Speaker 1: some of those nice elements in sports stories where you
Speaker 1: just get to kind of refer to winners or losers
Speaker 1: or steaks, and you know that that's going to be
Speaker 1: a hook. What have liked? You know, between seasons, you've
Speaker 1: been putting up some past audio from other documentaries. I
Speaker 1: just feel like every time I listen there are stories
Speaker 1: that I go in thinking I'll look at this show
Speaker 1: description and I'll be like, I don't know English soccer,
Speaker 1: I don't really care about that, And then I listened,
Speaker 1: and then by the end of it, I love it
Speaker 1: when I'm sad when it's over because I just I
Speaker 1: enjoyed that one so much. And then the documentary. I'm
Speaker 1: a w VU fanatic. I went to West Virginia University,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know that story about the first dunk
Speaker 1: happening at w VU. It's got to be fun to
Speaker 1: be able to present those and surprise people. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I almost wish we could get to a point where
Speaker 1: we don't have to put an episode description in because
Speaker 1: I know some people look and say, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: into football, I'm not into this particular athlete or team
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, And our goal is really the
Speaker 1: telling a story. There is a universal appeal and is
Speaker 1: going pretty quickly past a lot of the specificities of
Speaker 1: what sport it is or what athletes it is, you know,
Speaker 1: by three or four minutes. And I hope that everyone,
Speaker 1: when they're listening to us, just realizes, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a good story, and I'm invested in these characters and
Speaker 1: I'm along for the ride. I obviously recognize that some
Speaker 1: sports are more high profile than others, some athletes are
Speaker 1: more high profile than others. But I've been really heartened
Speaker 1: actually to see just in the reception and in the
Speaker 1: download numbers, that people are generally listening to all of
Speaker 1: our stories. And we hear from people all the time
Speaker 1: and say, I don't you know, like you said, I
Speaker 1: don't really care about soccer, I don't really care about
Speaker 1: poker and what I was into that, And so you know,
Speaker 1: our goal is just there's a good story almost everywhere,
Speaker 1: and we just need to find them. Well. Great podcasts educate, entertain,
Speaker 1: empathetic experience. I call it the three es, and that's
Speaker 1: what is. It covers all of those things. The thing
Speaker 1: I love about podcasting the most is I feel like
Speaker 1: it is the one time in people's lives where they
Speaker 1: actually do focus on one thing and they come out
Speaker 1: feeling better. At least I think with a good podcast
Speaker 1: they do. I just wanted to talk to you, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about for folks that have been
Speaker 1: in You know, I've been in podcasting for eleven years
Speaker 1: and it's just the last couple of years seeing the
Speaker 1: surge and people listening, it makes me feel better about
Speaker 1: society in a way. Do you feel that too? I
Speaker 1: generally agree, and I think podcasting it's a cliche, but
Speaker 1: it's true. Podcasting is intimate and it's empathetic. I think
Speaker 1: it is a healthy kind of thing to to engage in,
Speaker 1: so more people listening to podcast are generally a good thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say to your point about where
Speaker 1: this industry has exploded in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: I think it's only been I will confess, in the
Speaker 1: last maybe a year or so that I really feel
Speaker 1: like the quality of work had gone to a new level.
Speaker 1: You know, if we had been talking eighteen months ago,
Speaker 1: my mindset was kind of like, we're in the podcast revolution,
Speaker 1: but what's good out there? Like that? You know, I
Speaker 1: felt this weird disconnect and hasn't been that long, but
Speaker 1: in the last year, I just feel like I've been
Speaker 1: really inspired and by a lot of new, really impressive work,
Speaker 1: and so now it feels like a lot of other
Speaker 1: industries were just like growing up a little bit and
Speaker 1: most talented to people who have the most important stories
Speaker 1: to tell, and the resources for those people to tell
Speaker 1: those stories are finally starting to come to bear. You know.
Speaker 1: I've just been especially inspired in the last six months
Speaker 1: or a year. I tell talent when I'm working with
Speaker 1: new folks in podcasting that, you know, the days of
Speaker 1: two guys telling dick jokes on bad mikes for two hours.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not the world we live in right now,
Speaker 1: and that's not the kind of podcast people are consuming
Speaker 1: and they really want good quality podcasts. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: still a home for those, and man, maybe about but
Speaker 1: I think there's still power in a great interview show.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, we have Terry Gross and Mark
Speaker 1: Marin and so we don't need any more good interview shows.
Speaker 1: Still there are still a new interview shows that come
Speaker 1: along that are the simplest format in the world. You know,
Speaker 1: two people talking to each other, but I still love
Speaker 1: them and they still feel fresh. And then there is
Speaker 1: of course the whole world of documentaries and talk you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if there's an understanding that there's more out
Speaker 1: there and that it's should be thought of as almost
Speaker 1: a different medium. And I've always thought that word podcast
Speaker 1: is just a little unsatisfying because it can mean everything
Speaker 1: on a really wide spectrum. I mean, you rarely hear
Speaker 1: people say I like television, right, they go a little
Speaker 1: further than that and they say I like comedies, or
Speaker 1: they you know, they talk about a specific show or
Speaker 1: the specific type of Like we're reaching that point where
Speaker 1: someone says I like podcasts or I want to make
Speaker 1: a podcast. I think that that requires a little more
Speaker 1: interrogation and to say, like, well, there's a wide spectrum
Speaker 1: of what that means, and all of that can be good,
Speaker 1: but we need to develop a better language or some
Speaker 1: more understanding that there's a huge spectrum of what a
Speaker 1: podcast could be. I follow you on Twitter. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would consider us Twitter friends. It's how I actually
Speaker 1: reached out to you. About the interview. I had no
Speaker 1: idea until I got ready to do this interview. How
Speaker 1: famous you are, not for thirty, for th not for
Speaker 1: podcasting at all, but for a picture of your daughter.
Speaker 1: Oh god, yes, this may be my legacy. I mean really,
Speaker 1: like no, if you look your name up, it's a
Speaker 1: hundred articles about that picture. I tell people like, how
Speaker 1: did that happen, and just exactly what it was. So
Speaker 1: I have a daughter she just heard two actually a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, but when she was just shy
Speaker 1: of turning one. You know, my wife and I kind
Speaker 1: of came to an understanding pretty naturally when she was
Speaker 1: born that we weren't going to really put ost many
Speaker 1: photos of her online, or I wasn't going to talk
Speaker 1: about her on the podcast you know that I host
Speaker 1: or whatever. So we just kind of laid low. But
Speaker 1: we obviously would take fifty pictures a day of her
Speaker 1: for our consumption. And we were out, decided to go
Speaker 1: get pizza, and it was the first time my daughter
Speaker 1: had eaten pizza, and she had just this euphoric reaction
Speaker 1: to it, and I took a photo of it, and
Speaker 1: we were looking at the photo later and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a really good photo like this is this
Speaker 1: is a good photo. What do you think about just
Speaker 1: this once breaking our sort of packed and posting it online,
Speaker 1: we agreed, we shared it with the world, and it
Speaker 1: immediately just went like hyper viral. I mean I could
Speaker 1: see it just happening almost in the all time I
Speaker 1: was on the subway, and so yeah, I got like
Speaker 1: millions and millions of views, and it became a meme,
Speaker 1: and it had that sort of natural life cycle of
Speaker 1: a meme, and we were sort of in the meme
Speaker 1: via the storm for you know, maybe a week or
Speaker 1: ten days, and the photo was getting ripped and used
Speaker 1: in other contexts and people were sending us screenshots of
Speaker 1: it and stuff, and it was it was kind of wild.
Speaker 1: We laid low after that, like we had a lot
Speaker 1: of decent number of offers to like do follow up
Speaker 1: interviews or go on TV or whatever, and we just
Speaker 1: kind of said, we're just gonna let it ride out.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting experience. Well, it's also what you wrote,
Speaker 1: You've given her pizza for the first time and she
Speaker 1: had this ecstatic look. I saw probably five different languages
Speaker 1: of articles too that really went large. I got to ask,
Speaker 1: did it help with the podcast at all. Did you
Speaker 1: see a little bump there? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I don't know. I mean, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: recognized that it was big, it was a legit viral moment.
Speaker 1: I also recognized that they are like two of those
Speaker 1: a week, you know. And I recognized pretty quickly like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're the like cute baby of the moment, and in
Speaker 1: three days, four days, the world will move on. And
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like this lasting level up in terms
Speaker 1: of fame or audience or whatever. It was just this weird,
Speaker 1: weird bum. Once she's able to tell stories, she'll have
Speaker 1: a story to tell. It will be a fun little thing.
Speaker 1: It might be a podcast one day, it might be
Speaker 1: a podcast US one day. So again, like and I
Speaker 1: was just looking at something this morning, like there's this
Speaker 1: video of the super cute kid and it's going super viral,
Speaker 1: and then in two days there'll be another kid, you know.
Speaker 1: So she's one of twenty five kids that went viral
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand eight teen. So I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not leaving myself as to just how big of
Speaker 1: a deal it was. But you just gave me an
Speaker 1: idea for new podcast The Famous Babies coming soon to
Speaker 1: Apple podcast Joenny. Before we Go, I was in Everything
Speaker 1: with my three killer questions. Okay, question number one, if
Speaker 1: you could listen to anybody living or dead do a podcast,
Speaker 1: who would be on the podcast? Is this a host
Speaker 1: or or a round table? Whatever you want? However you
Speaker 1: you know, who would you like to listen to sit
Speaker 1: around the room and talking microphones. I gotta think about
Speaker 1: this for a second. Um, Okay, I'll give you anager here.
Speaker 1: Someone I wish we're still around is Studs Turcle. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of audio of Studs Turcle, who
Speaker 1: was a labor activist and sort of or a host
Speaker 1: sri Um. But I think like the podcast format would
Speaker 1: have shaken him out of a mode and I just
Speaker 1: think he's one of my favorite characters of all time.
Speaker 1: More contemporary, there's a musician Billy Bragg, who I think
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite musicians last I think one
Speaker 1: of the best storytellers in the world. And I've always
Speaker 1: wondered what he doesn't have a podcast, And I've always
Speaker 1: got someone should chat with him and get him the podcast.
Speaker 1: So those are the two answers that are coming off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. I wish I could reach
Speaker 1: deeper into history, but those are the two that are
Speaker 1: coming to find. No, that's good. I haven't thought about
Speaker 1: stud stark on a while, so thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 1: Question too, What was the first piece of technology that
Speaker 1: you got and said this right here is changing my life? Well,
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you that I started out doing film documentaries,
Speaker 1: and you know, my dad was a news cameraman for
Speaker 1: many years, and so he always had camera equipment lying
Speaker 1: around and audio equipment as well. And I mean this
Speaker 1: was of a generation where there was still like real
Speaker 1: to real recorders and good mike. So I just remember,
Speaker 1: like in high school getting very much into the machinery
Speaker 1: of recording both philm and video and audio on tape
Speaker 1: and then audio digitally when you know, and I was
Speaker 1: just I'm just at that age to sort of have
Speaker 1: bridge that gap. I'm not like a super gear head,
Speaker 1: but I've always felt like being really interested in the
Speaker 1: gear and the technology has been really helpful throughout because
Speaker 1: it just gives you a capacity to learn new systems
Speaker 1: and learn new software and kind of be interested in
Speaker 1: kind of new piece of equipment as they come along,
Speaker 1: which I think is just that's the heart of it.
Speaker 1: It's like, at some level, if you're making this stuff,
Speaker 1: you are interacting with software hardware, and you kind of
Speaker 1: have to have a capacity for tinkering and learning that
Speaker 1: stuff and making it work for you. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a There was an old real or real tape
Speaker 1: recorder that my dad would use for sinking when he
Speaker 1: was on film shoots. And that was like the first
Speaker 1: piece of equipment that I just got really like intrigued by.
Speaker 1: And finally, what's the last podcast that you binged? I
Speaker 1: listened to the latest series of Headlong. It's called Running
Speaker 1: from the Cops. Dan to Versky's latest season. Dan Tversky
Speaker 1: did Missing Richard Simmons, and then he did a series
Speaker 1: and Y t U K. And now he's done a
Speaker 1: series on Cops, the TV show. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's stunning. I think he's someone who every project I've
Speaker 1: heard of his gets better and better, and so I'm
Speaker 1: just like really inspired and impressed by his work. And
Speaker 1: this series on Cops I thought was just really brilliantly
Speaker 1: put together and really important. And the final two episodes
Speaker 1: of that, and I say this in a good way,
Speaker 1: like enraged me in a way that journalism hasn't in
Speaker 1: a while and got me really both thinking deeply but
Speaker 1: just really kind of asking some big questions about justice
Speaker 1: and policing and media and all these sort of big,
Speaker 1: weighty things that I like to think about. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I you know, I can't say enough good things about
Speaker 1: his work, and in particular this season. Speaking of seasons,
Speaker 1: you got any tease for us of what's going to
Speaker 1: be coming up in the In the next few weeks,
Speaker 1: we have big series coming out and actually we're gonna
Speaker 1: put it out sort of into the summer a little bit.
Speaker 1: Um We're gonna try and hit in the in August
Speaker 1: with that, but it's actually another multi part season, so
Speaker 1: it is a story about sketball and real estate and
Speaker 1: racism and sort of a soap operaty story based in
Speaker 1: l A. Maybe listeners can put together the clues from that.
Speaker 1: And then we are already working on our season for
Speaker 1: the fall winter, which will be back to individual episodes,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I was doing it right before we
Speaker 1: talked that, I'm going to go back to it. Right
Speaker 1: we're done talking, and I'm like working on a piece
Speaker 1: for that and cutting it, and I'm I'm at that
Speaker 1: moment where I'm like, oh, this might be really kind
Speaker 1: of a great story, and so I'm very excited for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's still six months away, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: excited about some of these stories that we have coming
Speaker 1: for the winter. So and we're already planning stuff for
Speaker 1: twenty and beyond. So you know, it's a big, big
Speaker 1: part of our job is to just try and get
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff into productions so that we can
Speaker 1: have vines in the fire and then you roll them
Speaker 1: out when they're ready at Jody Abragant. If you want
Speaker 1: to follow them on Twitter, highly recommend it. You're a
Speaker 1: great following on Twitter. If you haven't binged it, just
Speaker 1: go back. Listen to all the episodes of thirty on
Speaker 1: the radio app Apple podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Jody,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on Access Podcast. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having that. Well, that was fun. Did I
Speaker 1: sound like a geek talking to Jody, because I'm really
Speaker 1: I am a big fan, a huge fan. No, it
Speaker 1: didn't really come across that way. It's very very naturally.
Speaker 1: You sounded not nervous at all. That's that's funny. I've
Speaker 1: been listening, you know, since they launched thirty for thirty
Speaker 1: and I just think Jody's amazing. It's a great podcast.
Speaker 1: And I remember even like watching thirty for thirties in
Speaker 1: school and like journalism class and stuff. There's so much
Speaker 1: to learn from that type of journalism. You make me
Speaker 1: feel old every time you open your mouth, young lady,
Speaker 1: and in me to add that part in there, I
Speaker 1: just meant to say I watch it sometimes. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but Jody was great and I've tasted you. Was finding
Speaker 1: three podcasts that if people like, they may also like
Speaker 1: these podcast What have you found for us this week? Morgan? So,
Speaker 1: first one I found is Fantasy Footballers. This one is
Speaker 1: all about fantasy football. I've tried to play fantasy football.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that great, so I stopped. But they break down
Speaker 1: the whole world of fantasy football with their opinions. It's
Speaker 1: an expert trio of three guys and they give you
Speaker 1: this type of expert advice that you can't get anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Let me say something about this podcast. I love these guys.
Speaker 1: They've been on the show before you were here. They
Speaker 1: came on the show and we actually sat at a
Speaker 1: table together at the I heart Radio Podcast Awards and
Speaker 1: they won Best Sports Podcast, so I'm really excited for them.
Speaker 1: I love them a lot. So we support this podcast fully.
Speaker 1: On this show, I hope you guys check it out.
Speaker 1: But here's a clip, right, yeah, here we go. You
Speaker 1: want to know what the fantasy footballers are about. We're
Speaker 1: about accurate information get fantasy football picks. Right, let's win,
Speaker 1: let's grin. Let it begin number two entertaining we're three
Speaker 1: buffoons and we there's tom foolery, there's buffoonery, all sorts
Speaker 1: of shenanigans happening, and we're all about that high quality production.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at these cameras, Look at this. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: They're fun guys, and man, did they have an army.
Speaker 1: I mean they have an army of listeners. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: So all your footies out there please support this podcast
Speaker 1: as well. What else you got? Next one? I listened
Speaker 1: to this podcast a lot, actually, parton my take so
Speaker 1: I gotta admit I'm kind of not on the part
Speaker 1: of my take train for no other reason that I
Speaker 1: just never have gotten time to listen to it. But
Speaker 1: I know people love it, especially young folks. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: I only listen to it when I'm going to bad
Speaker 1: so I'll put it on at night and I'll fall
Speaker 1: asleep to it, so I never actually hear the whole episode.
Speaker 1: Seemed like a podcast to fall asleep, it's not. It's
Speaker 1: really not Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. That's a podcast you
Speaker 1: fall asleep too, right, And that's another one that I've found.
Speaker 1: But that's just something weird that I do. It says
Speaker 1: nothing about the podcast, but is it. So it's a
Speaker 1: comedic sports podcast and they released three each week, created
Speaker 1: by Barstool Sports, and actually debuted number one. It's so popular,
Speaker 1: especially with like the younger crowd, and they deliver what
Speaker 1: they say is the loudest and I'll quote most wrecked
Speaker 1: sports takes in the history of spoken word hot takes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's check it out. As you all know
Speaker 1: who everyone who's listening to the podcast knows, Brooklyn has
Speaker 1: the best things in the world just across the board,
Speaker 1: correct barbecue, racehorses, big Cat. They have the best Big
Speaker 1: Cat And hey, Kadi and Kyrie, you shouldn't have done
Speaker 1: it because the city sucks. It sounds like, you know what.
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if they started their own podcast, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: That's what you have to do when you move out there.
Speaker 1: All right, that's it. I'm gonna start listening, gonna try
Speaker 1: it out. Don't listen to it before. But the truth,
Speaker 1: I only go to sleep to history shows really, or
Speaker 1: on TV or podcast I've heard It'll soak into your
Speaker 1: brain and you get a little bit smarter. And here's
Speaker 1: the problem. Sometimes I'll be talking to somebody about a
Speaker 1: historical event and I'll be like, did you know? And
Speaker 1: then as I'm saying did you know? I think, first
Speaker 1: of all, did that really happen? Or did I dream
Speaker 1: that that happen? And I also like to read like
Speaker 1: the history of the Targearians, So I at one point
Speaker 1: I was telling some buddy about the Targarians and I'm
Speaker 1: listening to myself and I'm like, I sound like I
Speaker 1: really believe that this is real history. I'm like, well, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the dragon you gotta do it. Yeah, So the whole
Speaker 1: another world history stuff. All right, what else you got?
Speaker 1: All Right? Finally We've got gladiair the Aaron Hernandez and
Speaker 1: Football Incorporated. This is a Boston Globe spotlight team podcast.
Speaker 1: They are best known for investigating the sexual abuse scandal
Speaker 1: inside the Catholic Church. But now they're taking this podcast
Speaker 1: to dive deep into the whole crisis that football went
Speaker 1: through when Aaron Hernande's life took a turn. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of podcasts that I will put on a pedestal.
Speaker 1: Was like just amazing shows that you need to to
Speaker 1: listen to. As Town is one. This is one if
Speaker 1: you're a sports fan. This was amazing this podcast and
Speaker 1: you learn a lot each episode they dive into, like
Speaker 1: this whole different world of something that the news didn't
Speaker 1: even talk about. In the case, you know, good storytelling.
Speaker 1: Here we go. I was at that Super Bowl as
Speaker 1: a sportswriter for the Boston Globe. I remember thinking, here's
Speaker 1: another showboating foot ball player. But this wasn't just another
Speaker 1: spectacular athlete. This was Aaron Hernandez, a man who earned
Speaker 1: a millions as a star of the New England Patriots
Speaker 1: and who would be accuted of murdering three people. I said, Aaron,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing some things about you know you and this
Speaker 1: murder a man who spiraled out of control. Well, good job, Morrigan,
Speaker 1: thank you. I really appreciate you doing that this week,
Speaker 1: of course, and thank you for listening to Access Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Maddie Stout and you can reach me at Maddie
Speaker 1: Stout m A T T Y s t A U
Speaker 1: d T on all the social media platforms. You can
Speaker 1: also follow Access podcast at access podcast one. Some dumbass
Speaker 1: has Access podcasts and never uses it. Morgan, what if
Speaker 1: some some people want to stock you? Anybody stalk you?
Speaker 1: You can do that. My handle on all social media
Speaker 1: is at Morgan Victory. Oh that's fun. Why why is
Speaker 1: that Morgan Victory? My middle name is Victoria. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: so when I got my first Twitter account to good
Speaker 1: one though, Yeah, it's a really good one. Thank you.
Speaker 1: We want to thank everybody at I Heart Radio, Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Conad Burne, Darren Davis. Let's thank Bob Pittman today. Bob Pittman,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bob, thanks for just being you. Access Podcast
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. Thanks for listening.