Tag: podcasts

audio, not a book

Not a Book: Unicorn Girl

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope everyone is making the most of the weekend, and that it hasn’t turned too-too cold and wet where you are. I’m back with another podcast today, which is the next series from the presenter of Scamanda, the podcast that inspired the documentary series that featured in a previous Not a Book.

Unicorn Girl is about the rise and fall of Candace Rivera, a divorced single mum in Utah, who built an online community based around her successes as a nurse and a CEO of multi-million dollar companies. But as you can probably guess, all wasn’t quite what she wanted you to think it was. Over the course of nine episodes, Charlie Webster tries to work out what was actually going on and who Candace really was. The first episode of this dropped into the Scamanda feed in mid-August, I listened to it and then went straight over to the Unicorn Girl feed to listen to episode two. And then I got Apple Plus so that I could listen to the rest of the series straight away rather than having to wait for a new episode each week.

Now that was partly because I have poor impulse control, but also because early on Charlie says that there’ll be times when you’re listening when nothing seems to add up, but by the end of the series it will all make sense. And that’s a brave thing to say (in my opinion!) when you’re trying to get people to keep listening, but it also intrigued me. And she’s not wrong. Candace’s con (so to speak) is a lot more complicated than Amanda’s was. In Scamanda, Charlie jumps backwards and forwards in time a bit but Amanda is really just doing the same con more than once. But Candace has got a lot of things going on and is juggling a lot of balls and that all makes it a lot more difficult to follow.

It must be really hard to follow up a series as successful as Scamanda, because so much is depending on finding the right story – the world of podcasts is littered with attempts to follow up something great that haven’t quite come off. It needs to be similar enough that your previous audience will still be interested, but not so similar that it feels like a total retread. And Candace’s story has got a lot going for it on that front, not least interviews with loads of the women who were working for or friends with Candance as well as Candace’s own voice from her social media posts. But there’s just so much going on. However, without wanting to give too much of a spoiler, this has more resolution to it than Scamanda did when I first listened to it (although no more than the documentary series had by the time that it came out).

I hope that doesn’t sound too negative – because make no mistake, I binged this podcast – listening to all nine episodes in less than three days as well as obviously signing up to a subscription service to be able to do that. I do think Scamanda is better, but if you’re interested in the same sort of Utah/Mormon-adjacent/religion-adjacent sort of things that I am (and I’ve written about enough of them at this point) then it’s worth a look. I’ve even held onto this post for a few weeks so that almost all the series is available without having to subscribe to anything! You’re welcome.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: The Plot Thickens

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Happy Sunday everyone, and I’m back with another podcast recommendation for you today. Regular readers will know that I’m really interested in stories of Old Hollywood and the latest series of The Plot Thickens is a really good one of those from an interesting perspective.

The Plot Thickens is TCM’s official podcast, and is now in its sixth season. In previous series host Ben Mankiewicz has looked at director Peter Bogdanovich, the making of the movie Bonfire of the Vanities, the careers of Lucille Ball, Pam Grier and John Ford. But it’s the sixth and most recent season that I really want to talk about because it’s about the making of the movie Cleopatra. Now the production of Cleopatra was legendarily troubled – with budgets ballooning, timelines expanding and stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s scandalous affair.

So what is different about this look at it I hear you say. Well the difference is that Ben Mankiewicz is the nephew of Joseph L Mankiewicz, the legendary writer and director who directed and co-wrote Cleopatra. Ben Mankiewicz has access to the family archive, including his uncle’s diaries and unheard interviews with cast and crew, as well as interviews with film experts. I’ve read about the production of Cleopatra as it has come up in the books about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton that I’ve read, but they’re not really covering the film production itself, more as the catalyst for their love affair. So I learned loads from this, because as well as the production of the film and the difficulties on set, it looks at how the film affected Joseph Mankiewicz. And as a hint: Ben says early on that the family used to joke that Joe’s brother Herman wrote the best movie of all time (Citizen Kane) while Joe directed the worst. It’s also got a lot about the economics of film production and dying days of the old studio system.

All the parts are out now and as well as finding it on all the usual podcast platforms, it’s on YouTube too. And if you want some of my other recommendations for Old Hollywood, I’ve written about a pair of Liz Taylor documentaries, the Liza Minelli documentary, the podcast You Must Remember This, actor memoirs, Judy Garland, books about Hollywood to name just a few.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: You Must Remember This

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Here we are, another Sunday and I have a podcast recommendation for you this week.

I’ve mentioned Karina Longworth before – her book was a BotW pick back in 2019 and I mentioned this podcast in passing then as well as in my post about Glass Onion. But the podcast has just turned ten and so I thought it deserves a proper post. Over the course of the last ten years Longworth has worked her way through what she calls the “secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”.

In practice what that means is seasons about the Blacklist, Joan Crawford, the rise and fall of Louis B Mayer and the portrayal of sex in movies in the 80s and 90s and many more. I think I have now listened to every episode except this remastered first episode. It’s one of the podcasts that I used to save for when I was out running, except that I played Him Indoors one of the Erotic 80s episodes on holidays and suddenly it was our holiday podcast. Karina has a very deliberate style of delivery, which is based on radio announcers and voice overs from that Hollywood golden era which can grate a bit for some people – and in the early episodes she’s editing her own voice which is hard and she does too much. So it’s not a podcast I would say to start from the beginning – but pick a series that interests you and go from there. That’s what I did – I actually left the series about Charles Manson til quite late on because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to cope with the murdery aspect of it – and when I did it certainly made me run faster!

If you’re interested in classic Hollywood (which you know I am) it’s a really good listen. You can find You Must Rmemver this wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have any other podcasts in a similar area of interest please do hit me up in the comments.

Happy Sunday everyone!

audio

Not a Book: Think Twice

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I’m back in podcast land for this week’s Not a Book – with Wondery’s series about Michael Jackson.

It’s nearly 15 years since Michael Jackson died – which felt really shocking to me, even though I know logically that it must be that long ago because of where I was living and what I was doing when the news happened. It would be understating it to say that Jackson’s legacy is complex, and for those of people who can remember parts of his career there probably some complicated feelings. But there’s also now a whole generation who don’t remember Jackson at all. And I think Wondery’s Think Twice does a really good job of setting out the whole story – the child stardom into solo supremacy and beyond but also the accusations of child sexual abuse.

Obviously the content of this is pretty grim at times so bear that in mind before you listen – it has a lot of graphic details from the court transcripts when you get to the abuse allegation episodes. The presenters are Jay Smooth, who presented a hip hop radio show in New York for nearly 30 years and is now a cultural commentator, and Leon Neyfakh, who did the Slowburn series on Watergate and the Clinton Impeachment and then went on to present Fiasco (all for Wondery). So it’s got a mix of music expertise but also investigative journalism that works really well. I think everyone of my age or older has an opinion on Michael Jackson, but I think this is a pretty even handed series – it doesn’t minimise his musical impact and legacy, but it also doesn’t minimise the allegations. I learned some stuff – despite having watched Leaving Neverland back when that came out and Janet Jackson’s documentary about her career – which also touches on what growing up in that family was like and having also read a bunch of stuff about Jackson over the years.

It’s a ten part series – if you’re not a Wondery plus member the final episode drops today (the 17th) on all the usual podcast platforms. If you do have wondery plus (which I do) you can get the ad-free versions – and you could have binged it already like I did!

Have a good Sunday everyone.

Surviving the 'Rona

Surviving Coronavirus: Podcast edition

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Welcome to the latest in my occasional series of things that have been helping me through the Quarantimes. I listen to a lot of podcasts, even in normal times, because I do a lot of walking as part of my commute and I like to have something to listen to. But they’re mostly topical news and politics podcasts, and you don’t need my recommendations for that. I’ve always had some podcasts that I *only* listen to while I’m running – because it gives me an incentive to run to hear the next part – but during the various lockdowns, this has expanded so I have some podcasts that I’m only allowed to listen to while I’m out walking and getting some exercise. And now, even though lockdowns are easing, I’ve moved jobs so I’m working from home rather than in the office, so having a reason to go out and exercise is really useful! So that’s the list I’ve drawn these recommendations from – stuff that’s so good that it’s worth leaving the house to listen to! All of these are available to listen to for free – and although there are premium options available for some, the series are all complete so there’s no waiting to binge.

Unfinished: Short Creek

The second series of Witness Doc’s Unfinished podcast focused on the town of Short Creek, on the Arizona/Utah border, which is also divided by religion. It was the epicentre of the branch of the fundamentalist Mormon sect led by Warren Jeffs and the residents are a mix of FLS members – and ex-members. It’s the story of how the current situation came about – the history of the group and the circumstances surrounding Jeffs’ conviction and imprisonment for sex crimes but it’s also an examination of Freedom of Religion and freedom from religion. There are 10 parts available (and a bonus AMA) available without a premium subscription, and I found it fascinating. And not just because I read a lot of early Mommy bloggers who were Mormon and have watched a fair few episodes of Sister Wives. You may have seen Under The Banner of Heaven on my reading list the other week  – and Short Creek features in that too, but that book has a different focus – and is also more than a decade old now. But if you’ve read that – you’ll probably like this. More info about Unfinished here. And if you like this and enjoy it, then my next stop was Heaven’s Gate – another series about a cult, this time one that ended in a mass suicide. And just this week, Wondery have dropped a trailer for a new series about Jerry Falwell Jr called In God We Lust which is going to be next on my list to listen to.

Wind of Change

From Crooked Media (a group of ex-Obama staffers who started a media company, you may know them from Pod Save America) and Pineapple Street Studios (the company who produced Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill podcast), this is an investigation into whether the CIA had a hand in writing the Scorpions’ song ‘Wind of Change’ which became an anthem across Eastern Europe just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s got music history and spying but it also says a lot about how America used its culture to spread power, and how Western culture got behind the Iron Curtain. If you like spy thrillers and John Le Carre, this should be on your playlist. I listened to most of this podcast while plodding around my local park in 30+ degree heat back in summer 2020, which feels like so long ago now, but it says a lot about how engrossed I was in it that I was prepared to turn out for a run in a heatwave so that I could keep listening to it! And it’s just been nominated for a Webby Award as well. More info here.

Boom/Bust  

Logo of Boom/Bust

This one is firmly in the spectacular business failures section of my wheelhouse – see also Bad Blood and Billion Dollar Loser – Boom/Bust, as the logo suggests covers what on earth happened to HQ Trivia which was briefly the hottest thing in mobile gaming and allegedly the future of TV. If you didn’t come across it at the time, it was a live trivia game with big money prizes. For a few weeks (maybe months) here in the UK I’d see some of my coworkers on the late shift logging on to their phones to try and win some money. But as quickly as it started, it was over and this podcast from the Ringer looks at what happened and why. The story is actually somewhat longer than I expected – because it was around for longer in the US – but it’s another story of The Next Great Idea – where it got massively popular without a sense of how to sustain it long term. Find out more here.

Bunga Bunga

Logo of Bunga Bunga

So if you’re my sort of age, Silvio Berlusconi was a fixture of European and world political life for a long time. In fact, my first foreign trip was to Italy to see relatives right at the time his first successful election campaign was in its closing stages – I remember seeing the Forza Italia song on the evening news while we were there. And I knew it had been a hell of a story since that 1994 election win through to the Bunga Bunga party scandal that saw him eventually banned from holding public office. But as Wondery’s Bunga Bunga  demonstrates, it’s actually even wilder than you could imagine. Even if you’re not that into politics, the story of how the child of a middle class bank employee and a housewife became first a media mogul and then one of the most important figures in modern Italian politics is a fascinating one even before the many controversies and scandals that came along the way. You can find more info (and a trailer) here.

What am I listening to next? Well I’ve already mentioned In God We Lust, but that only has the trailer out so far, so I’ll have to wait for that. I’m also looking at Spy Affair (about Maria Butina) and The Lazarus Heist (about North Korean hacking) but again neither of those series are complete yet so I’m still looking for my next series binge. If you have any recommendations please put them in the comments – nothing too violent though please. In the mean time there are a few new episodes of Real Dictators that have been dropping over the last few weeks- but I’m not sure I’m in the right headspace to listen to five (so far) episodes about Hitler. I’ve listened to previous episodes while running and find that the awfulness makes me run faster – I think I’m trying to get away from it (this also happened when I tried listening to Simon Sebag Montefiore’s biography of the Romanovs. So much death, so much torture, so very gruesome). I’m also a few episodes behind in Greg Jenner‘s latest series of You’re Dead to Me but laughing while running is not the best idea for me.

And as a final note, my original “only listen to it while you’re running” podcast was Hit Parade from Slate – which is a examination of Billboard chart music trends. It looks at why some songs become mega hits and how some artists (or music types) came to dominate the airwaves. Early in the pandemic they moved the whole podcast behind the Slate plus paywall and I love it so much that I joined up just so I could keep listening to it. As the situation with coronavirus has changed, it’s rememerged slightly – so there is one full episode every month which everyone can get (although non-subscribers get it as two parts with a couple of week gap in between) and a bonus episode for Slate plus subscribers. The latest episode is about Taylor Swift – although with the news in the last 24 hours about the death of Jim Steinman their October episode is all about his career in music and would make a great listen instead of reading an obit, but it’s one of those podcasts where you can go back to the beginning (an episode about the Beatles) and just work the whole way through. I did. It might change your views on some groups (I’m a lot more pro BeeGees than I used to be) or it might not (I still hate hair metal, but so does the host so it’s fine) but you’ll learn a tonne of stuff.  

Happy Listening!