Lately I’ve been binge-listening to
The Jackie and Laurie Show, a Nerdist-network podcast by comics
Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin about women in comedy. I’ve seen Kashian
perform locally a bunch of times, including once in someone’s backyard. A thing
I love about both of them is that they love comedy so much, and are so eager to
hone their material, that any shred of diva behavior goes out the window. At
the same time, they’re both refreshingly honest about their envy, ambition and
exhaustion, three major motifs in my life that are often swept under the rug by
artists when they talk about their work.
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| "Standup is making fun of podium culture." |
The general mood of the podcast is “I want to do gigs and
learn things and think and make people think, and also goddamn it I’m tired and want
to just sit in my favorite chair.” That’s how I feel pretty much all the time.
Kashian and Kilmartin are both
about ten years older than me. As a
pigeon mom/writer seeking viable role
models for my middle years, I have big admiration crushes on these women.
(Kashian talks about perimenopause sometimes, referring to it as “middle-aged
lady time”; even though I
ripped off the menopause band-aid a few years ago, I
like that there are people making the next era in my life cool and funny
instead of cringe-worthy.) They are scrappy. They are realists. They talk about
what it was like to come up in comedy during a time when most lineups featured
one woman, but they’re also sufficiently tuned in to the youngsters; their take
on the Lena Dunham/Odell Beckham Jr. thing was the closest I’ve heard to my
own. They’re open-minded, they question themselves, they’re too old to put up
with shit and they are hilarious. I do a lot of literal lol-ing.
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| Their take: This is what it sounds like when you've always been told that everything you say is really special. I agree, although I also generally like Lena Dunham and think the overall backlash against her is weirdly hateful. She's talented and thoughtful and seems like a nice person who's willing to learn from her mistakes. So let's not act like she's Johnny Depp. |
When I run out of episodes and return to my regularly scheduled programming, here is what I will listen to:
99% Invisible:
Exquisitely produced, this is a podcast about “the built world” that folds
ample doses of history and social justice into the realm of architecture,
planning and design. From gentrification in East New York, to the woman who
photographed the Bauhaus, to the man who designed “the worst smell in the
world,” this podcast will give you lots of weird but relevant tidbits to talk
about at parties. Plus host Roman Mars has a beautiful voice.
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| Check out the episode about Floyd McKissick, the civil rights leader who built America's first (only?) city by and mostly-but-not-exclusively for Black people. |
Keith and the Girl: One
of the oldest podcasts out there, this one has a simple format. Keith Malley
and his bestie/ex-girlfriend Chemda Khalili shoot the shit about current events
and invite other New York comics on to do the same. Imagine a morning
radio show that wasn’t sexist, racist and annoying, and you’d have
Keith and the Girl. Chemda especially
does an amazing job of calling out people’s ideas about gender, pulling no
punches but never lacking humor. They’ve introduced me to a diverse group of
up-and-coming comics that a West Coast girl who doesn’t get out much would
never encounter otherwise.
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| Chanel Ali (top left) is one of the funny people I've discovered thanks to KATG. |
The Longest Shortest Time: Hillary Frank’s
This American
Life-esque parenting podcast is going through some growing pains. Most
notably, it spawned a huge Facebook group that proceeded to implode as an
alleged casualty of the so-called Mommy Wars. You can Google it. The show
switched networks and lately has been short on fascinating interviews with parents of
all stripes (a multi-part series called “The Accidental Gay Parents” is one its
best) and long on shows about placentas. I know I’m biased as an adoptive
parent, but I really couldn’t care less about placentas. That said, I admire a
show that takes risks, and the beauty of the world outside network television
is that there is time and space for a show to find its way. I’m hanging in
there to see what’s next. Oh, and check out the episode in which W. Kamau Bell
interviews his mom about her dating life as a single parent.
Mom and Dad Are Fighting: Hosts Allison Benedikt and Dan Kois are both Slate editors; they
are smart, thoughtful people who are not especially spectacular parents, nor do
they express ambition to be the “best,” which is part of the show’s secret
sauce. The show is one part journalism (I especially liked their interview with
Nikole Hannah-Jones about school integration and gentrification) and one part
real-time memoir. They open each episode with a parenting triumph or fail, from
rescuing a daughter’s birthday cake from ants to fighting with a spouse in
front of the kids. I especially like Dan, a book nerd dad of two daughters,
whose blend of practicality and sensitivity is kind of aspirational for me.
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| Except in Dan's story, the ants weren't chocolate. |
The Mental Illness Happy Hour: Paul Gilmartin’s deep dive into mental illness is my old
friend. It’s gotten me through some tough times. As a host—interviewing fellow
comics, celebrities and
regular citizens like yours truly—Gilmartin is
simultaneously gentle and sincere and also funny and dark. He’s had guests who
have survived horrific abuse and others who struggle mundanely toward a sense
of self-worth. On this show, they’re all equally deserving of love.
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| London "match girls" who went on strike in 1888. |
Stuff You Missed in History Class: This show is the opposite of
99% Invisible in terms of production values. Its hosts are two
women with non-radio-friendly voices who read their stories from the page. But
the stories are great: Harriet Tubman’s career after the Underground Railroad;
the British tradition of trashing brothels; a female serial killer who poisoned
a series of husbands in the 19
th century; an experiment with
importing hippos. Periodically the hosts get emails from listeners complaining
that they “only cover women,” to which they respond that no more than fifty
percent of their episodes have ever centered on women, and thanks for the
feedback, here’s another episode about a woman. The big takeaway from this
podcast is the stuff you missed in history class was
all the good parts.
What are your favorite podcasts?
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