Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Welcome back. It's season three of Access podcast,
Speaker 1: the podcast about podcast. If you're a brand new listener
Speaker 1: and this is your first time, we'll welcome. I'm Maddie Stout.
Speaker 1: Eleven years ago, I left the number one morning show
Speaker 1: in San Francisco to jump into podcasting and join the
Speaker 1: startup team at Stitcher. Currently, I work as vice president
Speaker 1: of Podcast Programming fried Heart Radio. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I just love podcasts. I love listening to podcast, I
Speaker 1: love talking about podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast. I've had a
Speaker 1: dollar for every time I said podcast during the day,
Speaker 1: I would be so f and rich. You have no idea,
Speaker 1: but anyway, my job is to help you find new
Speaker 1: shows and also get to know some of the hosts
Speaker 1: that you already love, including this week's host who I'm
Speaker 1: really excited about. She's the author of seven critically acclaimed
Speaker 1: books and a former editor and columnist with Yahoo, Current
Speaker 1: TV and The New York Daily News. Her work has
Speaker 1: also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times,
Speaker 1: New York Magazine, Glamour, l Time, re Claire, The Daily Beast.
Speaker 1: If it's a good obligation, Joe Piazza has been in it,
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend you read anything that she's written.
Speaker 1: She's such a good writer. She's also a great podcaster.
Speaker 1: Her show is called Committed. Let's check out a clip
Speaker 1: and then let's talk to Joe. A few things bring
Speaker 1: a couple closer than fighting off a starving grizzly bear.
Speaker 1: But by the time the bear came along, Patent Caroline
Speaker 1: were used to confronting danger and discomfort together. They love
Speaker 1: the outdoors and for adventure has shaped their entire relationship.
Speaker 1: It's to find them. They've checked thousands of miles over
Speaker 1: the most rugged terrain on Earth, testing their bodies, their minds,
Speaker 1: and each other. Joe Piazza, thanks for coming on Access podcast.
Speaker 1: I think you are in Philadelphia right now. I am. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we just moved here. I've just fled the Bay Area
Speaker 1: as well. I moved to l A. Congratulations. I don't
Speaker 1: want to slag on it, but I'm every time I
Speaker 1: go back, I'm grateful that I'm not living there anymore.
Speaker 1: It really has changed a lot from the fifteen years
Speaker 1: when I moved there. My husband moved there twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: when it's a completely different city. It really is. Somebody
Speaker 1: tweeted you and made a comment that it was like
Speaker 1: a downgrade to move to Philadelphia, and your comment back was, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: not stepping over needles and poop anymore, yep, yep exactly.
Speaker 1: And I found I found affordable, wonderful childcare in like
Speaker 1: an hour. Podcasting is definitely a world that a lot
Speaker 1: of journalists are thriving in. And you coming from print
Speaker 1: journalism into podcasting, what was the first thing that made
Speaker 1: you go, you know, I want to get into this
Speaker 1: and do this. One is that I think the Internet
Speaker 1: has ruined good journalism in a lot of ways. We
Speaker 1: are living We're living in an age where some of
Speaker 1: the best journalism ever is happening, but we're also living
Speaker 1: in an age of content spam, bullshit, um, where it's
Speaker 1: harder and harder to discover real and authentic and great storytelling. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I was having a really hard time with a
Speaker 1: lot of the crap that was just being produced by
Speaker 1: every single even even legitimate news websites in the world,
Speaker 1: and podcasting felt like a real opportunity to do good
Speaker 1: storytelling again. And I tell people this all the time
Speaker 1: when I'm interviewing people or what I'm trying to convince
Speaker 1: other journalists to do podcasts. This is the most fun
Speaker 1: I've had in journalism in ten years. I mean really
Speaker 1: since social media took hold and ruined good journalism. So
Speaker 1: I think podcasting is absolutely the best medium to be
Speaker 1: telling great stories right now. You know, kind of a
Speaker 1: recurring theme when I talked to guests is that I'm
Speaker 1: a personal believer that podcasting is part of a movement
Speaker 1: to make people smarter. And also, you know, we look
Speaker 1: at stats at like people twelve to listen to podcast
Speaker 1: That kind lets me think, well, maybe we aren't raising
Speaker 1: a group of illiterate, Instagram hungry kids that they're actually
Speaker 1: caring about stories and they want to hear good storytelling.
Speaker 1: I think we are. I really think we are. It's
Speaker 1: that's actually interesting that you say that, because we were
Speaker 1: just living in Tahoe for six months, in between San
Speaker 1: Francisco and Philadelphia. We had this like Tahoe breather, and
Speaker 1: we had this wonderful babysitter who was nineteen, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't do social media, and none of her friends do
Speaker 1: social media. They're not on Instagram, they're not on Facebook.
Speaker 1: They even refused to Venmo because there's a social component
Speaker 1: to it. But there, I know, And which means they're
Speaker 1: all awesome and yes, they're also avid podcast listeners. So
Speaker 1: that and I had these long conversations with her about this,
Speaker 1: and it gave me so much hope for the next
Speaker 1: generation that I think that they're genuinely hungry for real
Speaker 1: and authentic connection and good storytelling. And I think another
Speaker 1: part of that is also when you look at the
Speaker 1: hosts of podcast, they look different than the host of
Speaker 1: traditional media. We see a lot more women, we see
Speaker 1: a lot more people of color. That's another thing. I
Speaker 1: work at a university. I teach, and I also train
Speaker 1: a lot of young radio talent, and I like cringes
Speaker 1: when I talked to someone who's a young lady in
Speaker 1: radio and ask them what they want to do and
Speaker 1: they tell me they want to be a co host,
Speaker 1: And I immediately like, no, you don't, you want to
Speaker 1: be a host. But in that world, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what the career path has always been. We're in podcasting.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of really strong women who were
Speaker 1: doing amazing podcast and being uh celebrated for them, No
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. I mean, I feel like women in podcasting
Speaker 1: are really are being celebrated for having strong voices and
Speaker 1: strong opinions in a way that I think just wasn't
Speaker 1: always possible in traditional radio before. I just listened to
Speaker 1: this episode of Longest Shortest Time where they interviewed Terry
Speaker 1: Gross of Fresh Air about her decision not to have kids,
Speaker 1: and she had a lot of reasons for it, but
Speaker 1: one was that she did not see women hosting their
Speaker 1: own shows in radio who could juggle a family and
Speaker 1: the amount of work it took not just to create
Speaker 1: a great radio show, but to be a woman creating
Speaker 1: a great radio show. And I think that that's changing
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, I have I'm working on two
Speaker 1: podcasts right now. I've got a toddler and another one
Speaker 1: on the way, and thinking about developing a third one.
Speaker 1: And I think that podcasting is welcoming all genders, it's
Speaker 1: welcoming all colors, and it's welcoming people who may be
Speaker 1: in a different part of their career but still want
Speaker 1: to create great content. I've got to find that and
Speaker 1: read that as someone who doesn't have children but has
Speaker 1: been happily married for thirteen years. And you know, met
Speaker 1: my wife. She was a fan of my radio show
Speaker 1: and sent me an email, and you know, we're just
Speaker 1: best friends, very much in love. The one thing that
Speaker 1: I find is that people have no problem asking me
Speaker 1: why we don't have children, and they do it all
Speaker 1: the time, but it's she doesn't get that question as much.
Speaker 1: It can be a kind of a taboo thing for
Speaker 1: for some people and for other beliy have no problem
Speaker 1: at all saying, Hey, what have who have kids? You
Speaker 1: should have kids? That's that's It's really funny that you
Speaker 1: bring that up, because ever since I got married, I've
Speaker 1: been asked when are you having kids? And then when
Speaker 1: I had one, all I got asked was when are
Speaker 1: you having another one? Wow, get on it. Well you're
Speaker 1: doing it, so maybe they'll quit asking or do you
Speaker 1: think that they're totally gonna ask me if I'm having
Speaker 1: a third I'm gonna be like, no, my husband's getting snapped.
Speaker 1: You know. I think it's it's changed a lot. Just
Speaker 1: made a decision not to have children. You know. I
Speaker 1: find it more when I talked to like my neighbors
Speaker 1: who are not from the United States, they tend to
Speaker 1: ask us a lot. They have no problems like almost
Speaker 1: like wagging their finger at my wife for not having children.
Speaker 1: And you know, but it's definitely a life choice is
Speaker 1: becoming more accepted, at least I think it is. But also,
Speaker 1: people who aren't from the United States have no problem
Speaker 1: saying anything to you, Like my my friends who aren't
Speaker 1: from the United States have no problem saying, why did
Speaker 1: you get so fat? Oh my gosh, that's not nice.
Speaker 1: It's not nice, and it's it's The answer is because
Speaker 1: I eat a lot of cheese. Yeah, I like cheese too. Hey, Keto,
Speaker 1: I'm on that you can do the cheese. It's great.
Speaker 1: So what are your favorite stories to tell? Because you know,
Speaker 1: reading your articles, you've told a lot of different stories,
Speaker 1: everything from the bro culture of Silicon Valley too. By
Speaker 1: the way, if I had daughters, I would be like,
Speaker 1: you're reading all of Joe's Ship right now because you
Speaker 1: just have a lot of uplifting and things that I think,
Speaker 1: you know, women, especially young women, should read. But what
Speaker 1: are the stories that you like telling? Thank you, um,
Speaker 1: And we're actually we're having a daughter, So that makes
Speaker 1: me feel really good that you said that, because now
Speaker 1: I'm excited for her to read it. On Good Morning America,
Speaker 1: they were introducing one of my books, Miss Junkie Wants,
Speaker 1: and they called me a feminist adjacent writer. Uh, and
Speaker 1: I kind of liked that. I mean, I've thought of
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that I write as feminist
Speaker 1: but kind of feminism in like a hide feminism, feminism
Speaker 1: and act and so writing about how being a woman
Speaker 1: affects me and affects other women, but through real, everyday circumstances.
Speaker 1: And I like to tell the stories that aren't being
Speaker 1: told in the stories that are a little difficult to tell,
Speaker 1: but through the lens of a human experience. So how
Speaker 1: how is an actual person experiencing this as opposed to
Speaker 1: just a great snappy headline. And that goes back to
Speaker 1: what I was saying before about how I think the
Speaker 1: Internet has ruined a lot of journalism because the Internet
Speaker 1: really only cares about great snappy headlines and click baity tweets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think to kind of morph into your podcast Committed,
Speaker 1: where do you find them good stories that people need
Speaker 1: to hear, but definitely not going to see a quick
Speaker 1: clickbait headline on you know, a Republican marrying a Democrat
Speaker 1: unless it's some horrible, you know version of that, right
Speaker 1: of course, of course, I mean, unless like one of
Speaker 1: them beheads the other one. Uh. Well, so with committed.
Speaker 1: It came out of when I got married. I got
Speaker 1: engaged at thirty four, which isn't geriatric. That's not young either,
Speaker 1: And both my husband and I had lived a life
Speaker 1: before we got married, and we had no idea how
Speaker 1: to be married or join our lives together. And people
Speaker 1: tell you that marriage is hard, but they don't tell
Speaker 1: you why exactly. And I'd also been a celebrity journalist
Speaker 1: for a little while, which is both the best and
Speaker 1: worst job in the entire world. And when you're a
Speaker 1: celebrity journalist, you cover weddings and you covered divorces, but
Speaker 1: you never cover the in between. You never cover the
Speaker 1: mundaneity ees or the messy parts of an actual day
Speaker 1: to day marriage. So we traveled around the world because
Speaker 1: I was a travel journalist for Yahoo when we got married.
Speaker 1: Um so God bless them and their deep pockets, uh,
Speaker 1: and interviewed people about what it means to be married
Speaker 1: and the stories turned into a book called How to
Speaker 1: Be Married, And that book then got optioned as a
Speaker 1: podcast where we explore different couples stories of how do
Speaker 1: you do this? What are the messy parts of your
Speaker 1: marriage that you don't instagram but you don't hashtag, hashtag
Speaker 1: date night uh. And I know that I slag off
Speaker 1: on social media a lot. I slag off on social
Speaker 1: media almost as much as I slag off on San Francisco.
Speaker 1: But I do it because I think it is a
Speaker 1: problem on social media. Everyone's relationship looks perfect and we're
Speaker 1: held we're held to a standard that's not true or
Speaker 1: real and uncommitted. We want to talk about what real
Speaker 1: commitment looks like. So in the beginning, we were we
Speaker 1: were tracking down couples. I would hear stories, I would
Speaker 1: ask people for interesting stories. And now we had twenty
Speaker 1: nine episodes for season one, and you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of million downloads, I think, and now people are coming
Speaker 1: to us. We we get dozens of emails a day
Speaker 1: with people saying, listen to my story. And those are
Speaker 1: actually better than the ones that have been written about
Speaker 1: in the press before, because they're real people. They're real
Speaker 1: people who aren't media trained, who are really open and honest,
Speaker 1: and the has have been some of my favorite episodes.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things I teach my students is
Speaker 1: that one of their assignments is they have to go
Speaker 1: find somebody they interact with in their daily life. But
Speaker 1: don't know very well and wouldn't think have a good
Speaker 1: story and to get a good story out of them,
Speaker 1: because everybody's got great stories. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that's great about podcasting. And when I
Speaker 1: talk to people, you know, people listen to podcasts, they
Speaker 1: don't really want to hear a celebrity tell the same
Speaker 1: story that they've told on entertainments and I fifty times
Speaker 1: they'd much rather hear, uh, somebody real that they've never
Speaker 1: met who's got a really cool, interesting story that is
Speaker 1: educational and entertaining. I mean, that's the first thing that
Speaker 1: I tell younger people who want to be journalists too.
Speaker 1: I'm like, everyone has a story, and everyone wants to
Speaker 1: tell that story. It's just figuring out what it is.
Speaker 1: One of the best packages that the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: ever let me do was on the people behind fashion
Speaker 1: Week because I've covered the glitzy, fancy part of fashion
Speaker 1: week for years um and then I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to do a story on the guys who roll
Speaker 1: out the carpet that the models walked out, or the
Speaker 1: guys who have to spray Tanna model's body before they
Speaker 1: can walk down the runway, and the or the guys
Speaker 1: putting up the tents that that year there happened to
Speaker 1: be a ton of snow during New York Fashion Week,
Speaker 1: and so they had to call in all of these
Speaker 1: unionized construction workers to get the snow off the tents
Speaker 1: to get them up. And I did a story about
Speaker 1: those guys, and those were the best Fashion Week stories
Speaker 1: I've ever done. And I've interviewed every cool designer in
Speaker 1: New York City and they weren't nearly as good as
Speaker 1: those people. Absolutely, you kind of inspired me. I was
Speaker 1: just thinking thinking back to something you said a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier about you know, how people live the Facebook
Speaker 1: them and nobody lives the Facebook life or the Instagram life.
Speaker 1: That's that's the best version that they can come up with.
Speaker 1: I'm recovered, and I do speeches for groups once in
Speaker 1: a while, and one of the things I tell people
Speaker 1: is that you have to understand that everybody has got
Speaker 1: a lot of issues and it's okay to admit them
Speaker 1: because you're not seeing any of that because you're only
Speaker 1: seeing the Instagram in the Facebook. You But how interesting
Speaker 1: is it to think about maybe a social media or
Speaker 1: even maybe it is just through podcasting of having people
Speaker 1: be the real them somewhere, because they're just not. We're
Speaker 1: just kind of raising a whole society right now. That is,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole thing is based on look, how
Speaker 1: good I look and how good I'm doing instead of
Speaker 1: you know, I'm had a bad day. I don't look
Speaker 1: good today. Yeah, exactly exactly. And that's what scares me
Speaker 1: about it because life isn't perfect, life isn't messy, and
Speaker 1: I think the unhappiest people are probably the people that
Speaker 1: are posting the most on social media and that are
Speaker 1: that are looking the most at social media. And I've
Speaker 1: really tempered my social media use. I'm completely off Facebook. Um.
Speaker 1: Except for the occasional odd work post. Most of my
Speaker 1: Instagram is either baby stuff because it's easier than texting
Speaker 1: my mother fifty pictures a day or um. I mean,
Speaker 1: and she really likes it too, like she really just
Speaker 1: gets a kick out of like in those pictures on
Speaker 1: my toddler, or there are things for work. It's my book,
Speaker 1: so this is my podcast, this is what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and I also do try to be honest and like
Speaker 1: I had a bad day. The baby woke up at
Speaker 1: four thirty m puked and I kind of don't like
Speaker 1: my husband very much today, and I like him again
Speaker 1: this afternoon, but for right now, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to punch him in the face. And I just I
Speaker 1: think we do need to be more authentic and honest,
Speaker 1: because if we're not, what kind of little people are
Speaker 1: we raising? You know, not to just speak to a
Speaker 1: bigger social ill, but one of the number one reasons
Speaker 1: people don't get help when they're depressed, where they have addiction,
Speaker 1: you know, have other things that if they just reached
Speaker 1: out for help, they could, you know, get it. They
Speaker 1: don't because of that because they feel like, well, everybody
Speaker 1: else has got their ship together. It's just something I'm broken.
Speaker 1: It's my fault, you know, and everybody's going to think
Speaker 1: less of me if they find out totally. And it's amazing.
Speaker 1: When I was pregnant last time, I had really bad
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety while I was pregnant, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: even postpartum. It was just like part of depression and
Speaker 1: feeling like ship all the time. Uh. And I wrote
Speaker 1: an essay about it, and then I wrote another essay
Speaker 1: about feeling the same way after I finished breastfeeding, and
Speaker 1: I've written you know, got thousands of articles in my
Speaker 1: life right for for everywhere, for giving outlets from the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal to Marie Claire to Glamour everything, And
Speaker 1: those articles are the ones I get emails about on
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis. A woman who's going through that,
Speaker 1: who says, you know, I just look at these images
Speaker 1: of perfect, happy, pregnant women and mothers all the time,
Speaker 1: and thank you for sharing the fact that you felt
Speaker 1: like crap. And so I think that that that's really important,
Speaker 1: and that's part of what Committed does. Every episode of Committed,
Speaker 1: I feel like it does bring you some hope, but
Speaker 1: people also get honest and they get real about the
Speaker 1: times that were hard and the things that hurt them,
Speaker 1: and the times where they wanted to walk away from
Speaker 1: their marriage and they didn't, and the reasons that they stayed.
Speaker 1: And we just need more of that in the world.
Speaker 1: You're right. Martha Quinn, who is one of our radio
Speaker 1: talent and somebody I'm friends with, and and she had
Speaker 1: did a podcast one day and she talked about postpartum
Speaker 1: depression and she made a statement of it was that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to kill myself, but I just some
Speaker 1: days I just didn't want to live and as somebody
Speaker 1: who had suffered and gone through, you know, years of depression.
Speaker 1: It was the first time that I understood what postpartum
Speaker 1: depression was because I was like, yes, I know that
Speaker 1: feeling exactly. I used to have that feeling all the
Speaker 1: time back when I was really suffering. Really made me
Speaker 1: feel closer to her and also just closer to women
Speaker 1: when I read about postpartum depression. Now I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're kind of we're in the same family. I understand
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah. I interviewed Um Maddie Corman, the actress,
Speaker 1: yesterday for an upcoming episode of Committed, and she's doing
Speaker 1: a one woman show called Accidentally Brave that's absolutely incredible
Speaker 1: in New York right now. I really can't say enough
Speaker 1: about it. And it's a what women show about her
Speaker 1: husband being busted by the FBI with child porn. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean that, and that tends to be the reaction
Speaker 1: to find out, Um, what that shows about. And it's
Speaker 1: a show about how that all went down and how
Speaker 1: she survived it and how her marriage survived it. And
Speaker 1: so that's what this episode of Committed is about. And
Speaker 1: it was such it was it was a beautiful interview
Speaker 1: because it was messy and it was the really it
Speaker 1: was the messiest parts of the marriage that you could
Speaker 1: possibly ever imagine, but then also the strongest parts of
Speaker 1: a marriage. And every everyone's crying at the end of
Speaker 1: the interview. I'm crying, our producer Ramsey's crying, and Mattie
Speaker 1: was telling me, She's like, you know, at the end
Speaker 1: of every single show that I do, people come up
Speaker 1: to me and say thank you because they have Everyone
Speaker 1: has a story. Everyone has something. It may not be
Speaker 1: as extreme as her story, but everyone's got something that
Speaker 1: they need to get off their chest, and they just
Speaker 1: want to hear other people talk about their own ship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm a heart on the sleeve kind of person. And
Speaker 1: I had something happened last week that was I just
Speaker 1: made a faux pau. I said something that was I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have said to somebody, and I was nervous to
Speaker 1: talk to other people about it. But when I did,
Speaker 1: everybody was like, come on, guy, give yourself a break.
Speaker 1: Everybody does this, and then they wanted to unload their
Speaker 1: story of what they had done, which you know, made
Speaker 1: me feel better because I was like, damn, you really
Speaker 1: did say something stupid. But I do feel like that
Speaker 1: is a good kind of give back kind of thing.
Speaker 1: When you give out, people want to give back. It is.
Speaker 1: It is, And I think just people telling their own
Speaker 1: stories and being honest and being open, it's really the
Speaker 1: only way that we're going to connect as humans when
Speaker 1: we're all staring at screens all day long. Who are
Speaker 1: your favorite storytellers? Oh my gosh, does everyone just say
Speaker 1: Ira Glass? I imagine everyone says Ira Glass. I don't
Speaker 1: ask everybody that. Can I sell you a quick Ira
Speaker 1: Glass story? I think yes, and and then I have
Speaker 1: a quick eye re Glass, and let me hear yours first. Mine.
Speaker 1: Mine's not that exciting. It's exciting to me. Though. I
Speaker 1: was in Denver for a religion newswriter's conference. I actually
Speaker 1: weirdly have this masters in religious studies and wrote a
Speaker 1: book about ten badass feminist nuns. It was like this
Speaker 1: alter ego I was living while I was a celebrity journalist.
Speaker 1: I would be like chasing Britney Spears while she hid
Speaker 1: in a closet and shaved her head, and then interviewing
Speaker 1: nuns on the side. It's my dirty little secret. But
Speaker 1: so I was at this religion conference and I guess
Speaker 1: there was a public Variety of conference in town at
Speaker 1: the same time, and both conferences were at a baseball game,
Speaker 1: and I just heard this guy at the concession stand
Speaker 1: in front of me ordering French fries, and I knew
Speaker 1: that it was Ira Glass, and I don't think I
Speaker 1: hadn't I'd never watched the TV show, so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have recognized him in person. And I just got so
Speaker 1: weird star struck that he turned around and like I
Speaker 1: had like big soda and beer in my hand, and
Speaker 1: I just ran right into him and like, build the
Speaker 1: build this junkle over me and then and then like
Speaker 1: couldn't even say anything because I was just I was
Speaker 1: so audio star struck just by hearing his voice. That
Speaker 1: voice is the minute you hear it, it is uh,
Speaker 1: it's powerful, It's incredible. Um. You know, This American Life
Speaker 1: is what inspired a lot of what I wanted to
Speaker 1: do with Committed And I'm sure every podcaster says that too.
Speaker 1: They're like, I'm just We're the next This American Life.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to do a straight up interview show.
Speaker 1: I wanted to create a kind of a beautiful narrative
Speaker 1: storytelling podcast around the idea of commitment and marriage. And
Speaker 1: I was really inspired by by This American Life. See,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just saying all the all the
Speaker 1: ones that everyone's like me too, Like David Sedaris is
Speaker 1: has been one of my favorite writers and essayists for
Speaker 1: as long as I can remember. Sloan Crosley as well,
Speaker 1: who I actually have the honor of knowing in real life,
Speaker 1: has also been this huge storytelling inspiration to me. I
Speaker 1: have a dog named Mumbles, and he's named Mumbles because
Speaker 1: of a David Sadari's essay that was done on This
Speaker 1: American Life where his mother says the line, we don't
Speaker 1: like Mumbles, do we? It's called Dogs If anybody wants
Speaker 1: to go listen to it. Uh, And it's good. It's
Speaker 1: really good. It's one of my favorites. And I'm as
Speaker 1: a dog person, I love that. One. My quick Ira
Speaker 1: Glass story is when we started Stitcher, you know, we
Speaker 1: were reaching out to content providers to try you know,
Speaker 1: this is eleven years ago and there wasn't that many
Speaker 1: podcasts out there, and I somehow got a phone call
Speaker 1: with Ira to try to explain to him what our
Speaker 1: app was and why he needed and back then back
Speaker 1: then that what must have been a confusing conversation. I
Speaker 1: was confused, is well, I mean I was. I just
Speaker 1: left morning show on a radio station and was like
Speaker 1: in this new world and and I'm talking to him
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to explain it, and I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: turning into a battling it because A I'm nervous to
Speaker 1: talk to him, and be I can tell right away
Speaker 1: he's just not that interested. And then out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: he just goes, it's hard starting a new business, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And I immediately just gushed and told him yes, and
Speaker 1: like unloaded everything and I'm like, that's why you're the
Speaker 1: best man. Yes. Yes. That reminds me of this time
Speaker 1: that I was interviewing Julie Andrews when I was a
Speaker 1: celebrity journalist and I was like, I think I was
Speaker 1: just like thirty one at the time and like kind
Speaker 1: of like miserable and single and living in New York
Speaker 1: and I wasn't Carrie Bradshaw and that sucked, and um
Speaker 1: like Julie Andrews like put her hand on my knee.
Speaker 1: I was like, how are you doing, dear? And I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not okay, and She's like, I believe
Speaker 1: that love is waiting for you right around the corner.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm like Maria
Speaker 1: slash Mary Poppins and it was so, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you get tired of answering this question,
Speaker 1: but I'm always anxious to hear your most interesting celebrity
Speaker 1: encounter doing the job that you had. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: had many, but I guess I'm I'm looking more for
Speaker 1: the stuff like that. I love that story. No, and
Speaker 1: I love that story too. I mean, my my answer
Speaker 1: is the unpopular one. I mean, the truth is, I
Speaker 1: was so bored in a lot of ways being a
Speaker 1: celebrity journalist. Um because I was just so sick of
Speaker 1: the canned answers and canned responses. I started doing it
Speaker 1: because I graduated from Columbia j School and it was
Speaker 1: the recession, and people told me, oh, you're going to
Speaker 1: have to go out to the middle middle of the
Speaker 1: country and work a local news beat and go to city, county,
Speaker 1: little town council meetings. And I wanted to stay in
Speaker 1: New York and the only job that I could get
Speaker 1: was as a gossip column assistant at the New York
Speaker 1: Daily News, and I knew absolutely nothing about celebrities, so
Speaker 1: much so that I talked to Jay z for like
Speaker 1: an hour one night and had no idea it was
Speaker 1: jay z Um. I was just like, he was just
Speaker 1: this really smart guy and we had this great conversation
Speaker 1: about politics, and my boss almost fired me the next day.
Speaker 1: So I created flash cards to show me who the
Speaker 1: celebrities were. And it was more interesting back in two
Speaker 1: thousand three when I started, because social media didn't exist yet,
Speaker 1: and because the Internet Internet news was just kind of starting,
Speaker 1: celebrities were less guarded and still more interesting when you
Speaker 1: interviewed them. And then just came the age of the SoundBite,
Speaker 1: and the interview has just got to be so damn
Speaker 1: boring because everyone said the same thing and everyone gave
Speaker 1: the same interview over and over again. The most interesting
Speaker 1: celebrities have always been to me, true actors and actresses
Speaker 1: um and people who don't seek that kind of celebrity
Speaker 1: tabloidy spotlight. Meryl Streep obviously like one of the best
Speaker 1: celebrity interviews I've ever done, because she's a person who,
Speaker 1: I mean, Meryl Streep like does not give a funk
Speaker 1: what you think about her and I loved that and
Speaker 1: that was absolutely incredible. I can't say enough terrible things
Speaker 1: about reality stars. I really can't, Um, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just it's hard to do an interview with someone that
Speaker 1: so desperately wants to be famous. Yeah, you know, part
Speaker 1: of my job is that I take pitches and I
Speaker 1: work with people podcast ideas, and it's a lot of
Speaker 1: my job. And I have to like get over the
Speaker 1: fact that I have such a distaste reality show folks
Speaker 1: that you know, when they come in, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: my first thought is what do you have to say?
Speaker 1: And why do you think that you could do what
Speaker 1: I do? You know what I mean, And you know,
Speaker 1: write a lot of time. But you know, sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm completely off base and wrong, and I had
Speaker 1: to be open minded. But there is something to be
Speaker 1: said for this culture of I'll do anything in my
Speaker 1: life to be on TV, anything to be famous. And
Speaker 1: I have been proven wrong a couple a couple of times. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm usually proven quite right, and you know I was.
Speaker 1: I was working in celebrity journalism during I wrote this book.
Speaker 1: My first book ever was called Celebrity inc How Famous
Speaker 1: People Make Money? And I keep telling myself that I'm
Speaker 1: going to write the sequel because everything that was happening
Speaker 1: ten years ago when I wrote the book is just
Speaker 1: you know, to the tenth degree now of madness. And
Speaker 1: the book, the book second chapter was on the rise
Speaker 1: of Paris Hilton and how Kim Kardashian was the Paris
Speaker 1: Hilton two point oh. She was her Apple to my
Speaker 1: Paris Hilton's Microsoft and just did everything better and smarter
Speaker 1: and to the tenth degree. But that was the very
Speaker 1: beginning of Kim Kardashian's rain. And I also I blame
Speaker 1: myself and my fellow celebrity editors for even letting it happen.
Speaker 1: A lot of it also, how to do with the
Speaker 1: writer's skills strike at the time. Yes, Like we could
Speaker 1: have a whole podcast talking about because now and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it now with everything that's going on
Speaker 1: with the w g A now and I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this first round, this first battle lead to
Speaker 1: reality television. What's going to happen next? Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know how much further it could sink, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I could. I think we have to do a second
Speaker 1: podcast where we can swap stories. I'm anxious to hear
Speaker 1: some more. I'm in l A a lot. Next time
Speaker 1: I'm in l A. We could just like go and
Speaker 1: eat like a lot of cheese together and swap stories.
Speaker 1: I would love that. I would love that. I want
Speaker 1: to be your friend so bad. Well, now you've got me,
Speaker 1: let's be friends, so Joe, before we go, I always
Speaker 1: wrap up with a little thing. I'm a radio guy,
Speaker 1: so I have to do, you know, kind of radio
Speaker 1: segments once in a while called three killer questions. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you three questions and let's see what
Speaker 1: you have to say. Question number one, if you could
Speaker 1: listen to a podcast featuring anybody living or dead, who
Speaker 1: would be on that podcast? Jesus, Jesus, you're saying Jesus
Speaker 1: or Jesus would be the person you want to hear
Speaker 1: on the podcast. I want to I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: Jesus on the podcast. Anybody with him? That's interesting? Um.
Speaker 1: Courtney Love, Oh my god. I interviewed Courtney Love once
Speaker 1: on the phone, and I told somebody was like listening
Speaker 1: to a homeless person name drop for two and a
Speaker 1: half hours. I just let her talk. We talked for
Speaker 1: two and a half hours. You're not the first person
Speaker 1: that I've talked to that's had that experience, because I've
Speaker 1: had that experience to. Joanna Malloy was one of the
Speaker 1: like big names on the column when I went to
Speaker 1: the Daily News, and she she was a great listener
Speaker 1: and had developed this relationship with Courtney, and Courtney would
Speaker 1: call her and sometimes, like I would have to take
Speaker 1: Courtney's calls, and it was just it was like two
Speaker 1: and a half hours of the craziest rambles you've ever
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just us. I think it was like
Speaker 1: every journalist, like around the turn of the century was
Speaker 1: getting these calls with Courtney Love No. I got it.
Speaker 1: And I remember at the time she was telling she
Speaker 1: started the phone call off by saying that she doesn't
Speaker 1: drink anymore, but she has one glass of wine. And
Speaker 1: then in two hours in it, you know, she told
Speaker 1: us that the one class was a big golf cup. Uh.
Speaker 1: And let me say this off the bat. I love her,
Speaker 1: I love her, I love her. I was listening to
Speaker 1: Celebrity Skin on the car this morning. I love that.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I that's one of my all time
Speaker 1: favorite albums. I mean, I love whole, I love the
Speaker 1: way Jake Brennan did his Curt and Courtney story on
Speaker 1: Disgrace Land so good, and he gives her the props.
Speaker 1: I think that that she deserves that everybody maligns her.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if you had to deal
Speaker 1: with fucking Kurt Cobain all the time, I mean, he
Speaker 1: was a disaster to deal with a disaster, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's true, like everyone turns Corney into the demon
Speaker 1: and I mean he yeah they were, they were both
Speaker 1: terrible heroin addicts, but yeah, he was the one overdosing
Speaker 1: all the time. She's the one having to like poke
Speaker 1: the pin into his testicles to wake up up. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: I have Jake coming on the podcast in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, and I'm so excited, fantastic. I really want
Speaker 1: to meet him. I love what he's doing with Disgrace Land.
Speaker 1: Our new podcast is a storytelling podcast about fierce wimmen
Speaker 1: that history has forgotten scarce and I I just look
Speaker 1: at Disgrace Landers such a model for that. So I'm
Speaker 1: he's like my storytelling hero right now. Yeah, He's definitely
Speaker 1: one of mine. And I'll tell you one of the
Speaker 1: cool things is, as our company has morphin from radio
Speaker 1: into podcasting. A lot of the radio hosts who were
Speaker 1: not you know, some of them weren't into podcasting, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them, like Jake has been one of
Speaker 1: their first introductions into podcasting and they love it and
Speaker 1: now they're really into podcast And I'm like, he is
Speaker 1: a that's a good one to get introduced to podcasting too,
Speaker 1: because he is so good and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really safe gateway drug. Yeah, exactly. Question number two, You
Speaker 1: get to give a newly wed couple one piece of advice.
Speaker 1: Go on vacation without each other. The best advice I
Speaker 1: give I give to new couples, and I heard it
Speaker 1: a bunch from couples, not American couples, because American couples
Speaker 1: are terribly codependent, but from couples around the world. It
Speaker 1: spend time away from your spouse having your own adventures,
Speaker 1: because it makes you a more interesting person, it makes
Speaker 1: you more mysterious, It gives you things to talk about,
Speaker 1: and it makes you miss them. So take big and
Speaker 1: exciting vacations without your spouse. Nick and I actually went
Speaker 1: on separate baby moons before Charlie was born. I went
Speaker 1: to like this wine country spa with my best girlfriend
Speaker 1: and he went kayaking in the Channel Islands. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think about that. My wife and I do
Speaker 1: do that. We do a lot of stuff apart, but
Speaker 1: we're very codependent that we love each other. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I mean we're still totally codependent. Yeah, it's great. I
Speaker 1: always tell everybody that if everyone in the world died
Speaker 1: except for her, I'd be all right, Okay, I mean
Speaker 1: now I'm kind of into my kid. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the kids new, but you still know, you still know
Speaker 1: he's still in the ass a lot of time. Uh
Speaker 1: And finally they you might have already told us, but
Speaker 1: what is the last podcast that you binged? It really
Speaker 1: was disgrace land. Um, Like, I just finished up that
Speaker 1: Kurt and Courtney episode, which is why I was driving
Speaker 1: this morning listening to Celebrity skin Joe. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the podcast. You're delightful and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to talk to you again. I know we're gonna
Speaker 1: eat so much cheat time. I'm in l A. I
Speaker 1: can't wait. Oh, and I'll take you to the cheesiest
Speaker 1: of the cheesy shops. All right, it's my favorite time
Speaker 1: of the show. It's when our producer Morgan comes in
Speaker 1: and tells us about three podcasts that we should be
Speaker 1: listening to. Morgan, this is your second time being on
Speaker 1: the show. You feel good about the last episode? I do.
Speaker 1: I feel better than I was expecting to on my end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so pretty strong start. But I feel like we can
Speaker 1: only get better from here. And you're learning how to
Speaker 1: produce a podcast with me looking over your shoulder and
Speaker 1: bothering you a lot. Yes, and you hate me yet
Speaker 1: or by annoying you yet? Not yet? But we're on
Speaker 1: episode to Maddie, here we go. Buckle up. I like
Speaker 1: that attitude, all right. So we just had a great
Speaker 1: interview with your Piazza, who I love. If you are
Speaker 1: anyone who has a daughter, you should have them read
Speaker 1: Joe's stuff. She is m amazing. I love her. You
Speaker 1: don't have time to read every article about somebody that
Speaker 1: you're doing, but I just got I went down rabbit
Speaker 1: holes of reading her stuff. So, Morgan, your task was
Speaker 1: to find me some podcasts that I might go in
Speaker 1: line with somebody who might listen to committed. What did
Speaker 1: you find? Yes? I found some good ones. First one
Speaker 1: is called help I Suck at Dating. This is a
Speaker 1: popular one amongst some of my friends, and it's hosted
Speaker 1: by some people that were on The Bachelor. The Bachelor,
Speaker 1: I I, I don't get that show. I don't either,
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of podcasts being done by folks
Speaker 1: from the Bachelard and people love them. They love them,
Speaker 1: So what is what is the hook? Why do people
Speaker 1: like this podcast? People like this one because who knows
Speaker 1: how to date better than people that were rejected on
Speaker 1: national and television. Right, So they were like, oh, if
Speaker 1: we all can't figure out how to date on our own,
Speaker 1: let's put our three minds to other. And they feel
Speaker 1: like if there's three of them, they have a better
Speaker 1: chance of finding the secrets to relationship success. All right,
Speaker 1: let's listen to three people who are so beautiful they
Speaker 1: got on TV. Tell you how about dating. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's just l A. I mean, I'd love
Speaker 1: to what you think. But I feel like every guy
Speaker 1: here is just like you know, I could sleep with
Speaker 1: any any girl, and they just wait for girls to
Speaker 1: come up to them because they know they will. So
Speaker 1: the other thing is, if you're getting guys like that
Speaker 1: and you're looking for an actual high quality guy, he's
Speaker 1: not probably out you know at a bar. All right,
Speaker 1: that's that's a fine show, not for me. But this
Speaker 1: is the point of doing this. You're telling me about
Speaker 1: shows that I might not listen to it, and it's
Speaker 1: one of our shows, so I support them. But I've
Speaker 1: been married for thirteen years, so and I did a
Speaker 1: relationship show for ice, hosted one for seven years. So
Speaker 1: you figured it out. Tell me, your straight male friend.
Speaker 1: Here's what I learned doing a relationship show for seven
Speaker 1: years on Serious XM. And as a podcast, you get
Speaker 1: the same five questions all the time. People ask you
Speaker 1: the same question all the time. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: right now, here's how you answer anybody if you're hosting
Speaker 1: a relationship show, tell them go to a mirror and
Speaker 1: look at yourself and ask yourself that question. And then
Speaker 1: if you don't think you have the right answer, and
Speaker 1: then you're wrong. I mean you have the answer. You
Speaker 1: just want someone validated or to convince you that what
Speaker 1: you're thinking is is wrong. And here's the thing. You're
Speaker 1: not going to listen to what I tell you anyway.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go do what you want and then you're
Speaker 1: gonna come back next week and call me and go
Speaker 1: I just don't know what happened. Again, So that one
Speaker 1: answer applies to every relationship question. Go to a mirror,
Speaker 1: look into it, and ask yourself the question, and you
Speaker 1: will know the answer. There you go. I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. I just invalidated all relationship podcasts.
Speaker 1: So if you're listen, looking for other ones to listen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's find some more. The next one I have is
Speaker 1: called d t R. It is the official Tender podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I this This one, I believe was up
Speaker 1: for an i Heeart Award this year. It was the
Speaker 1: Winner Radio Podcast Award for Best Branded Podcast. I love
Speaker 1: branded podcast because they branded with Tinder. But it's hosted
Speaker 1: by Jane Murray, who is a writer. She's worked for
Speaker 1: like Cosmopolitan, a few other ones, and she goes into
Speaker 1: everything that's good and bad about dating, like what you
Speaker 1: should say when you were responded to someone for the
Speaker 1: first time, very millennial things. I love that, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like what's awkward about it? What's funny about it? She
Speaker 1: dives deep until the uncomfortable. I'm not I haven't been
Speaker 1: on Tender in a few years. I always wonder if
Speaker 1: I would be on Tinder if I was. Yes, I would, well,
Speaker 1: if you're single, why not, why not have fun? It's
Speaker 1: just an app that you're swiping. Hey man, you only
Speaker 1: live once. But yeah, so this is a good podcast,
Speaker 1: and like I said, Brandon with Tinder, and it's what
Speaker 1: it's like to meet new people in an internet obsessed world.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. You've heard Julia this season forcing other
Speaker 1: daters to bear their souls, and it turns out it
Speaker 1: can be a special kind of hell to be single
Speaker 1: going on first dates. While working on a pod cast
Speaker 1: about single people going on first dates, Julia is drowning
Speaker 1: in it all day at work and then actually living
Speaker 1: it in her free time. Now I would listen to
Speaker 1: that just for research. I have a friend who is
Speaker 1: recently single in his late forties and he's on those
Speaker 1: apps and oh it's ridiculous. So this is for people
Speaker 1: like us that aren't on Tender but want to get
Speaker 1: the experience of it. Yeah, alright, what you got? Last one?
Speaker 1: All right? Last one? This one is from my heart
Speaker 1: as well. By the way, we're not out to like
Speaker 1: promote just our shows. But here's the thing. We're the
Speaker 1: biggest podcast company in the world, so we have a
Speaker 1: lot of them. So invariably some of the best ones
Speaker 1: are ours, so we talk about them. Which one is is?
Speaker 1: This one is called Mating Matters and is made in
Speaker 1: the same studio that we're recording in right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love this podcast. It is Dr Wendy Walsh and
Speaker 1: it's produced by Brooke Peterson. I think one of the
Speaker 1: best produced podcasts in the world. It really is. It's
Speaker 1: such a good podcast. So much research and time and
Speaker 1: really thoughtfulness goes into this and you can tell because
Speaker 1: if you listen to an episode, you're going to learn
Speaker 1: so much. And their whole goal is that you understand
Speaker 1: yourself better by diving deep into the biological, the psychological
Speaker 1: and all this all the underpinnings of love, attachment, and gender.
Speaker 1: Let's check it out. I believe that we've pretty much
Speaker 1: evolved to do most things in our life, and the
Speaker 1: reason why most human behaviors exist is to increase our
Speaker 1: reproductive odds. Some of our cultural systems were all designed
Speaker 1: to increase survival. Good, good choices, Morgan, good job, weak
Speaker 1: two in the books. I appreciate you coming in, Thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you, all right, thanks for listening, you the listener,
Speaker 1: all five of you. I enjoy you. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear past episodes, It's really easy. We're on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app. You can also listen to us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to podcasts, send
Speaker 1: us a tweet. It's at Access podcast one because we
Speaker 1: can't get at Access podcast still, but tell us what
Speaker 1: you want to hear and you can follow me as well.
Speaker 1: I'm very entertaining on social media at Maddie Stout m
Speaker 1: A T T Y S T A U d T.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on all of the socials, all
Speaker 1: of them. All of them shows produced by Morgan, Thank
Speaker 1: you Morgan. Music by Casey Frankie, and special thanks to
Speaker 1: Robin Berta Lucci and Oscar Ramirez who hook us up
Speaker 1: with the studios here at k f I and Beautiful
Speaker 1: Lovely Los Angeles. Will Pearson, thank you. And thanks to
Speaker 1: the Godfather Podcasting, our president of I Heart Radio podcast,
Speaker 1: Condel Byrne Conald. You're the man. See y'all next week.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.