Jo Piazza

love talking about podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast. I've had a dollar for every time I said podcast during the day, I would be so f and rich. You have no idea, but anyway, my job is to help you find new shows and also get to know some of the hosts that you already love, including this week's host who I'm really excited about. She's the author of seven critically acclaimed books and a former editor and columnist with Yahoo, Current

TV and The New York Daily News. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New York Magazine, Glamour, l Time, re Claire, The Daily Beast. If it's a good obligation, Joe Piazza has been in it, and I highly recommend you read anything that she's written. She's such a good writer. She's also a great podcaster. Her show is called Committed. Let's check out a clip and then let's talk to Joe. A few things bring a couple closer than fighting off a starving grizzly bear.

But by the time the bear came along, Patent Caroline were used to confronting danger and discomfort together. They love the outdoors and for adventure has shaped their entire relationship. It's to find them. They've checked thousands of miles over the most rugged terrain on Earth, testing their bodies, their minds, and each other. Joe Piazza, thanks for coming on Access podcast. I think you are in Philadelphia right now. I am. Indeed, we just moved here. I've just fled the Bay Area

as well. I moved to l A. Congratulations. I don't want to slag on it, but I'm every time I go back, I'm grateful that I'm not living there anymore. It really has changed a lot from the fifteen years when I moved there. My husband moved there twenty years ago,

when it's a completely different city. It really is. Somebody tweeted you and made a comment that it was like a downgrade to move to Philadelphia, and your comment back was, yeah, no, not stepping over needles and poop anymore, yep, yep exactly. And I found I found affordable, wonderful childcare in like an hour. Podcasting is definitely a world that a lot

of journalists are thriving in. And you coming from print journalism into podcasting, what was the first thing that made you go, you know, I want to get into this and do this. One is that I think the Internet has ruined good journalism in a lot of ways. We are living We're living in an age where some of the best journalism ever is happening, but we're also living in an age of content spam, bullshit, um, where it's

harder and harder to discover real and authentic and great storytelling. Uh. And I was having a really hard time with a lot of the crap that was just being produced by every single even even legitimate news websites in the world, and podcasting felt like a real opportunity to do good storytelling again. And I tell people this all the time when I'm interviewing people or what I'm trying to convince other journalists to do podcasts. This is the most fun

I've had in journalism in ten years. I mean really since social media took hold and ruined good journalism. So I think podcasting is absolutely the best medium to be telling great stories right now. You know, kind of a recurring theme when I talked to guests is that I'm a personal believer that podcasting is part of a movement

to make people smarter. And also, you know, we look at stats at like people twelve to listen to podcast That kind lets me think, well, maybe we aren't raising a group of illiterate, Instagram hungry kids that they're actually caring about stories and they want to hear good storytelling. I think we are. I really think we are. It's that's actually interesting that you say that, because we were just living in Tahoe for six months, in between San

Francisco and Philadelphia. We had this like Tahoe breather, and we had this wonderful babysitter who was nineteen, and she doesn't do social media, and none of her friends do social media. They're not on Instagram, they're not on Facebook. They even refused to Venmo because there's a social component to it. But there, I know, And which means they're

all awesome and yes, they're also avid podcast listeners. So that and I had these long conversations with her about this, and it gave me so much hope for the next generation that I think that they're genuinely hungry for real and authentic connection and good storytelling. And I think another part of that is also when you look at the hosts of podcast, they look different than the host of traditional media. We see a lot more women, we see a lot more people of color. That's another thing. I

work at a university. I teach, and I also train a lot of young radio talent, and I like cringes when I talked to someone who's a young lady in radio and ask them what they want to do and they tell me they want to be a co host, And I immediately like, no, you don't, you want to be a host. But in that world, that's kind of what the career path has always been. We're in podcasting. You've got a lot of really strong women who were doing amazing podcast and being uh celebrated for them, No

exactly exactly. I mean, I feel like women in podcasting are really are being celebrated for having strong voices and strong opinions in a way that I think just wasn't

always possible in traditional radio before. I just listened to this episode of Longest Shortest Time where they interviewed Terry Gross of Fresh Air about her decision not to have kids, and she had a lot of reasons for it, but one was that she did not see women hosting their own shows in radio who could juggle a family and the amount of work it took not just to create a great radio show, but to be a woman creating a great radio show. And I think that that's changing

a lot. I mean, I have I'm working on two podcasts right now. I've got a toddler and another one on the way, and thinking about developing a third one. And I think that podcasting is welcoming all genders, it's welcoming all colors, and it's welcoming people who may be in a different part of their career but still want to create great content. I've got to find that and read that as someone who doesn't have children but has been happily married for thirteen years. And you know, met

my wife. She was a fan of my radio show and sent me an email, and you know, we're just best friends, very much in love. The one thing that I find is that people have no problem asking me why we don't have children, and they do it all the time, but it's she doesn't get that question as much. It can be a kind of a taboo thing for for some people and for other beliy have no problem at all saying, Hey, what have who have kids? You

should have kids? That's that's It's really funny that you bring that up, because ever since I got married, I've been asked when are you having kids? And then when I had one, all I got asked was when are you having another one? Wow, get on it. Well you're doing it, so maybe they'll quit asking or do you think that they're totally gonna ask me if I'm having a third I'm gonna be like, no, my husband's getting snapped. You know. I think it's it's changed a lot. Just

made a decision not to have children. You know. I find it more when I talked to like my neighbors who are not from the United States, they tend to ask us a lot. They have no problems like almost like wagging their finger at my wife for not having children. And you know, but it's definitely a life choice is

becoming more accepted, at least I think it is. But also, people who aren't from the United States have no problem saying anything to you, Like my my friends who aren't from the United States have no problem saying, why did you get so fat? Oh my gosh, that's not nice. It's not nice, and it's it's The answer is because I eat a lot of cheese. Yeah, I like cheese too. Hey, Keto, I'm on that you can do the cheese. It's great.

So what are your favorite stories to tell? Because you know, reading your articles, you've told a lot of different stories, everything from the bro culture of Silicon Valley too. By the way, if I had daughters, I would be like, you're reading all of Joe's Ship right now because you just have a lot of uplifting and things that I think, you know, women, especially young women, should read. But what

are the stories that you like telling? Thank you, um, And we're actually we're having a daughter, So that makes me feel really good that you said that, because now I'm excited for her to read it. On Good Morning America, they were introducing one of my books, Miss Junkie Wants, and they called me a feminist adjacent writer. Uh, and

I kind of liked that. I mean, I've thought of a lot of the things that I write as feminist but kind of feminism in like a hide feminism, feminism and act and so writing about how being a woman affects me and affects other women, but through real, everyday circumstances. And I like to tell the stories that aren't being told in the stories that are a little difficult to tell, but through the lens of a human experience. So how how is an actual person experiencing this as opposed to

just a great snappy headline. And that goes back to what I was saying before about how I think the Internet has ruined a lot of journalism because the Internet

really only cares about great snappy headlines and click baity tweets. Yeah, and I think to kind of morph into your podcast Committed, where do you find them good stories that people need to hear, but definitely not going to see a quick clickbait headline on you know, a Republican marrying a Democrat unless it's some horrible, you know version of that, right of course, of course, I mean, unless like one of them beheads the other one. Uh. Well, so with committed.

It came out of when I got married. I got engaged at thirty four, which isn't geriatric. That's not young either, And both my husband and I had lived a life before we got married, and we had no idea how to be married or join our lives together. And people tell you that marriage is hard, but they don't tell you why exactly. And I'd also been a celebrity journalist for a little while, which is both the best and

worst job in the entire world. And when you're a celebrity journalist, you cover weddings and you covered divorces, but you never cover the in between. You never cover the mundaneity ees or the messy parts of an actual day to day marriage. So we traveled around the world because I was a travel journalist for Yahoo when we got married.

Um so God bless them and their deep pockets, uh, and interviewed people about what it means to be married and the stories turned into a book called How to Be Married, And that book then got optioned as a podcast where we explore different couples stories of how do you do this? What are the messy parts of your marriage that you don't instagram but you don't hashtag, hashtag date night uh. And I know that I slag off

on social media a lot. I slag off on social media almost as much as I slag off on San Francisco. But I do it because I think it is a problem on social media. Everyone's relationship looks perfect and we're held we're held to a standard that's not true or real and uncommitted. We want to talk about what real commitment looks like. So in the beginning, we were we were tracking down couples. I would hear stories, I would

ask people for interesting stories. And now we had twenty nine episodes for season one, and you know, a couple of million downloads, I think, and now people are coming to us. We we get dozens of emails a day with people saying, listen to my story. And those are actually better than the ones that have been written about in the press before, because they're real people. They're real people who aren't media trained, who are really open and honest, and the has have been some of my favorite episodes.

It's one of the things I teach my students is that one of their assignments is they have to go find somebody they interact with in their daily life. But don't know very well and wouldn't think have a good story and to get a good story out of them, because everybody's got great stories. And I think that's one

of the things that's great about podcasting. And when I talk to people, you know, people listen to podcasts, they don't really want to hear a celebrity tell the same story that they've told on entertainments and I fifty times they'd much rather hear, uh, somebody real that they've never met who's got a really cool, interesting story that is educational and entertaining. I mean, that's the first thing that I tell younger people who want to be journalists too.

I'm like, everyone has a story, and everyone wants to tell that story. It's just figuring out what it is.

One of the best packages that the Wall Street Journal ever let me do was on the people behind fashion Week because I've covered the glitzy, fancy part of fashion week for years um and then I was like, I want to do a story on the guys who roll out the carpet that the models walked out, or the guys who have to spray Tanna model's body before they can walk down the runway, and the or the guys putting up the tents that that year there happened to be a ton of snow during New York Fashion Week,

and so they had to call in all of these unionized construction workers to get the snow off the tents to get them up. And I did a story about those guys, and those were the best Fashion Week stories I've ever done. And I've interviewed every cool designer in New York City and they weren't nearly as good as

those people. Absolutely, you kind of inspired me. I was just thinking thinking back to something you said a little bit earlier about you know, how people live the Facebook them and nobody lives the Facebook life or the Instagram life. That's that's the best version that they can come up with.

I'm recovered, and I do speeches for groups once in a while, and one of the things I tell people is that you have to understand that everybody has got a lot of issues and it's okay to admit them because you're not seeing any of that because you're only seeing the Instagram in the Facebook. You But how interesting is it to think about maybe a social media or even maybe it is just through podcasting of having people be the real them somewhere, because they're just not. We're

just kind of raising a whole society right now. That is, you know, the whole thing is based on look, how good I look and how good I'm doing instead of you know, I'm had a bad day. I don't look good today. Yeah, exactly exactly. And that's what scares me about it because life isn't perfect, life isn't messy, and I think the unhappiest people are probably the people that are posting the most on social media and that are that are looking the most at social media. And I've

really tempered my social media use. I'm completely off Facebook. Um. Except for the occasional odd work post. Most of my Instagram is either baby stuff because it's easier than texting my mother fifty pictures a day or um. I mean, and she really likes it too, like she really just gets a kick out of like in those pictures on my toddler, or there are things for work. It's my book, so this is my podcast, this is what I'm doing, and I also do try to be honest and like

I had a bad day. The baby woke up at four thirty m puked and I kind of don't like my husband very much today, and I like him again this afternoon, but for right now, I kind of want to punch him in the face. And I just I think we do need to be more authentic and honest, because if we're not, what kind of little people are

we raising? You know, not to just speak to a bigger social ill, but one of the number one reasons people don't get help when they're depressed, where they have addiction, you know, have other things that if they just reached out for help, they could, you know, get it. They don't because of that because they feel like, well, everybody else has got their ship together. It's just something I'm broken. It's my fault, you know, and everybody's going to think

less of me if they find out totally. And it's amazing. When I was pregnant last time, I had really bad depression and anxiety while I was pregnant, so it wasn't even postpartum. It was just like part of depression and

feeling like ship all the time. Uh. And I wrote an essay about it, and then I wrote another essay about feeling the same way after I finished breastfeeding, and I've written you know, got thousands of articles in my life right for for everywhere, for giving outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Marie Claire to Glamour everything, And those articles are the ones I get emails about on

on a weekly basis. A woman who's going through that, who says, you know, I just look at these images of perfect, happy, pregnant women and mothers all the time, and thank you for sharing the fact that you felt like crap. And so I think that that that's really important,

and that's part of what Committed does. Every episode of Committed, I feel like it does bring you some hope, but people also get honest and they get real about the times that were hard and the things that hurt them, and the times where they wanted to walk away from their marriage and they didn't, and the reasons that they stayed. And we just need more of that in the world.

You're right. Martha Quinn, who is one of our radio talent and somebody I'm friends with, and and she had did a podcast one day and she talked about postpartum depression and she made a statement of it was that I didn't want to kill myself, but I just some days I just didn't want to live and as somebody who had suffered and gone through, you know, years of depression. It was the first time that I understood what postpartum depression was because I was like, yes, I know that

feeling exactly. I used to have that feeling all the time back when I was really suffering. Really made me feel closer to her and also just closer to women when I read about postpartum depression. Now I'm like, oh, we're kind of we're in the same family. I understand what it is. Yeah. I interviewed Um Maddie Corman, the actress, yesterday for an upcoming episode of Committed, and she's doing a one woman show called Accidentally Brave that's absolutely incredible

in New York right now. I really can't say enough about it. And it's a what women show about her husband being busted by the FBI with child porn. Um, I mean that, and that tends to be the reaction to find out, Um, what that shows about. And it's a show about how that all went down and how she survived it and how her marriage survived it. And

so that's what this episode of Committed is about. And it was such it was it was a beautiful interview because it was messy and it was the really it was the messiest parts of the marriage that you could possibly ever imagine, but then also the strongest parts of a marriage. And every everyone's crying at the end of

the interview. I'm crying, our producer Ramsey's crying, and Mattie was telling me, She's like, you know, at the end of every single show that I do, people come up to me and say thank you because they have Everyone has a story. Everyone has something. It may not be as extreme as her story, but everyone's got something that they need to get off their chest, and they just want to hear other people talk about their own ship. Yeah.

I'm a heart on the sleeve kind of person. And I had something happened last week that was I just made a faux pau. I said something that was I shouldn't have said to somebody, and I was nervous to talk to other people about it. But when I did, everybody was like, come on, guy, give yourself a break. Everybody does this, and then they wanted to unload their story of what they had done, which you know, made me feel better because I was like, damn, you really

did say something stupid. But I do feel like that is a good kind of give back kind of thing. When you give out, people want to give back. It is. It is, And I think just people telling their own stories and being honest and being open, it's really the only way that we're going to connect as humans when we're all staring at screens all day long. Who are your favorite storytellers? Oh my gosh, does everyone just say Ira Glass? I imagine everyone says Ira Glass. I don't

ask everybody that. Can I sell you a quick Ira Glass story? I think yes, and and then I have a quick eye re Glass, and let me hear yours first. Mine. Mine's not that exciting. It's exciting to me. Though. I was in Denver for a religion newswriter's conference. I actually weirdly have this masters in religious studies and wrote a book about ten badass feminist nuns. It was like this alter ego I was living while I was a celebrity journalist.

I would be like chasing Britney Spears while she hid in a closet and shaved her head, and then interviewing

nuns on the side. It's my dirty little secret. But so I was at this religion conference and I guess there was a public Variety of conference in town at the same time, and both conferences were at a baseball game, and I just heard this guy at the concession stand in front of me ordering French fries, and I knew that it was Ira Glass, and I don't think I hadn't I'd never watched the TV show, so I wouldn't

have recognized him in person. And I just got so weird star struck that he turned around and like I had like big soda and beer in my hand, and I just ran right into him and like, build the build this junkle over me and then and then like couldn't even say anything because I was just I was so audio star struck just by hearing his voice. That voice is the minute you hear it, it is uh,

it's powerful, It's incredible. Um. You know, This American Life is what inspired a lot of what I wanted to do with Committed And I'm sure every podcaster says that too. They're like, I'm just We're the next This American Life. But I didn't want to do a straight up interview show. I wanted to create a kind of a beautiful narrative storytelling podcast around the idea of commitment and marriage. And

I was really inspired by by This American Life. See, I feel like I'm just saying all the all the ones that everyone's like me too, Like David Sedaris is has been one of my favorite writers and essayists for as long as I can remember. Sloan Crosley as well, who I actually have the honor of knowing in real life,

has also been this huge storytelling inspiration to me. I have a dog named Mumbles, and he's named Mumbles because of a David Sadari's essay that was done on This American Life where his mother says the line, we don't like Mumbles, do we? It's called Dogs If anybody wants to go listen to it. Uh, And it's good. It's really good. It's one of my favorites. And I'm as

a dog person, I love that. One. My quick Ira Glass story is when we started Stitcher, you know, we were reaching out to content providers to try you know, this is eleven years ago and there wasn't that many podcasts out there, and I somehow got a phone call with Ira to try to explain to him what our app was and why he needed and back then back then that what must have been a confusing conversation. I

was confused, is well, I mean I was. I just left morning show on a radio station and was like in this new world and and I'm talking to him and I'm trying to explain it, and I'm just I'm turning into a battling it because A I'm nervous to talk to him, and be I can tell right away he's just not that interested. And then out of nowhere, he just goes, it's hard starting a new business, isn't it.

And I immediately just gushed and told him yes, and like unloaded everything and I'm like, that's why you're the best man. Yes. Yes. That reminds me of this time that I was interviewing Julie Andrews when I was a celebrity journalist and I was like, I think I was just like thirty one at the time and like kind of like miserable and single and living in New York and I wasn't Carrie Bradshaw and that sucked, and um like Julie Andrews like put her hand on my knee.

I was like, how are you doing, dear? And I was like, I'm not okay, and She's like, I believe that love is waiting for you right around the corner. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm like Maria slash Mary Poppins and it was so, oh my gosh. I'm sure that you get tired of answering this question, but I'm always anxious to hear your most interesting celebrity encounter doing the job that you had. I'm sure you had many, but I guess I'm I'm looking more for the stuff like that. I love that story. No, and

I love that story too. I mean, my my answer is the unpopular one. I mean, the truth is, I was so bored in a lot of ways being a celebrity journalist. Um because I was just so sick of the canned answers and canned responses. I started doing it because I graduated from Columbia j School and it was the recession, and people told me, oh, you're going to have to go out to the middle middle of the country and work a local news beat and go to city, county,

little town council meetings. And I wanted to stay in New York and the only job that I could get was as a gossip column assistant at the New York Daily News, and I knew absolutely nothing about celebrities, so much so that I talked to Jay z for like an hour one night and had no idea it was jay z Um. I was just like, he was just this really smart guy and we had this great conversation about politics, and my boss almost fired me the next day. So I created flash cards to show me who the

celebrities were. And it was more interesting back in two thousand three when I started, because social media didn't exist yet, and because the Internet Internet news was just kind of starting, celebrities were less guarded and still more interesting when you interviewed them. And then just came the age of the SoundBite, and the interview has just got to be so damn boring because everyone said the same thing and everyone gave

the same interview over and over again. The most interesting celebrities have always been to me, true actors and actresses um and people who don't seek that kind of celebrity tabloidy spotlight. Meryl Streep obviously like one of the best celebrity interviews I've ever done, because she's a person who, I mean, Meryl Streep like does not give a funk what you think about her and I loved that and that was absolutely incredible. I can't say enough terrible things

about reality stars. I really can't, Um, I mean, I just it's hard to do an interview with someone that so desperately wants to be famous. Yeah, you know, part of my job is that I take pitches and I work with people podcast ideas, and it's a lot of my job. And I have to like get over the fact that I have such a distaste reality show folks that you know, when they come in, it's like, you know, my first thought is what do you have to say? And why do you think that you could do what

I do? You know what I mean, And you know, write a lot of time. But you know, sometimes I'm not I'm completely off base and wrong, and I had to be open minded. But there is something to be said for this culture of I'll do anything in my life to be on TV, anything to be famous. And I have been proven wrong a couple a couple of times. Um, I'm usually proven quite right, and you know I was. I was working in celebrity journalism during I wrote this book.

My first book ever was called Celebrity inc How Famous People Make Money? And I keep telling myself that I'm going to write the sequel because everything that was happening ten years ago when I wrote the book is just you know, to the tenth degree now of madness. And the book, the book second chapter was on the rise of Paris Hilton and how Kim Kardashian was the Paris Hilton two point oh. She was her Apple to my Paris Hilton's Microsoft and just did everything better and smarter

and to the tenth degree. But that was the very beginning of Kim Kardashian's rain. And I also I blame myself and my fellow celebrity editors for even letting it happen. A lot of it also, how to do with the writer's skills strike at the time. Yes, Like we could have a whole podcast talking about because now and I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it now with everything that's going on with the w g A now and I'm like, oh my god, this first round, this first battle lead to

reality television. What's going to happen next? Yeah, well, I don't know how much further it could sink, So yeah, I could. I think we have to do a second podcast where we can swap stories. I'm anxious to hear some more. I'm in l A a lot. Next time I'm in l A. We could just like go and eat like a lot of cheese together and swap stories. I would love that. I would love that. I want to be your friend so bad. Well, now you've got me, let's be friends, so Joe, before we go, I always

wrap up with a little thing. I'm a radio guy, so I have to do, you know, kind of radio segments once in a while called three killer questions. So I'm gonna ask you three questions and let's see what you have to say. Question number one, if you could listen to a podcast featuring anybody living or dead, who would be on that podcast? Jesus, Jesus, you're saying Jesus or Jesus would be the person you want to hear on the podcast. I want to I'd like to hear

Jesus on the podcast. Anybody with him? That's interesting? Um. Courtney Love, Oh my god. I interviewed Courtney Love once on the phone, and I told somebody was like listening to a homeless person name drop for two and a half hours. I just let her talk. We talked for two and a half hours. You're not the first person that I've talked to that's had that experience, because I've

had that experience to. Joanna Malloy was one of the like big names on the column when I went to the Daily News, and she she was a great listener and had developed this relationship with Courtney, and Courtney would call her and sometimes, like I would have to take Courtney's calls, and it was just it was like two and a half hours of the craziest rambles you've ever But it wasn't just us. I think it was like every journalist, like around the turn of the century was

getting these calls with Courtney Love No. I got it. And I remember at the time she was telling she started the phone call off by saying that she doesn't drink anymore, but she has one glass of wine. And then in two hours in it, you know, she told us that the one class was a big golf cup. Uh. And let me say this off the bat. I love her, I love her, I love her. I was listening to Celebrity Skin on the car this morning. I love that. Oh my gosh, I that's one of my all time

favorite albums. I mean, I love whole, I love the way Jake Brennan did his Curt and Courtney story on Disgrace Land so good, and he gives her the props. I think that that she deserves that everybody maligns her.

But at the same time, if you had to deal with fucking Kurt Cobain all the time, I mean, he was a disaster to deal with a disaster, and I mean it's true, like everyone turns Corney into the demon and I mean he yeah they were, they were both terrible heroin addicts, but yeah, he was the one overdosing all the time. She's the one having to like poke the pin into his testicles to wake up up. I mean, yes, I have Jake coming on the podcast in a couple

of weeks, and I'm so excited, fantastic. I really want to meet him. I love what he's doing with Disgrace Land. Our new podcast is a storytelling podcast about fierce wimmen that history has forgotten scarce and I I just look at Disgrace Landers such a model for that. So I'm he's like my storytelling hero right now. Yeah, He's definitely one of mine. And I'll tell you one of the cool things is, as our company has morphin from radio

into podcasting. A lot of the radio hosts who were not you know, some of them weren't into podcasting, and a lot of them, like Jake has been one of their first introductions into podcasting and they love it and now they're really into podcast And I'm like, he is a that's a good one to get introduced to podcasting too, because he is so good and it's a it's a really safe gateway drug. Yeah, exactly. Question number two, You get to give a newly wed couple one piece of advice.

Go on vacation without each other. The best advice I give I give to new couples, and I heard it a bunch from couples, not American couples, because American couples are terribly codependent, but from couples around the world. It spend time away from your spouse having your own adventures, because it makes you a more interesting person, it makes you more mysterious, It gives you things to talk about, and it makes you miss them. So take big and

exciting vacations without your spouse. Nick and I actually went on separate baby moons before Charlie was born. I went to like this wine country spa with my best girlfriend and he went kayaking in the Channel Islands. Wow. Yeah, I just think about that. My wife and I do do that. We do a lot of stuff apart, but we're very codependent that we love each other. Oh no,

I mean we're still totally codependent. Yeah, it's great. I always tell everybody that if everyone in the world died except for her, I'd be all right, Okay, I mean now I'm kind of into my kid. But yeah, you know, the kids new, but you still know, you still know he's still in the ass a lot of time. Uh And finally they you might have already told us, but what is the last podcast that you binged? It really

was disgrace land. Um, Like, I just finished up that Kurt and Courtney episode, which is why I was driving this morning listening to Celebrity skin Joe. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. You're delightful and I can't wait to talk to you again. I know we're gonna eat so much cheat time. I'm in l A. I can't wait. Oh, and I'll take you to the cheesiest of the cheesy shops. All right, it's my favorite time

of the show. It's when our producer Morgan comes in and tells us about three podcasts that we should be listening to. Morgan, this is your second time being on the show. You feel good about the last episode? I do. I feel better than I was expecting to on my end. Yeah, so pretty strong start. But I feel like we can only get better from here. And you're learning how to produce a podcast with me looking over your shoulder and bothering you a lot. Yes, and you hate me yet

or by annoying you yet? Not yet? But we're on episode to Maddie, here we go. Buckle up. I like that attitude, all right. So we just had a great interview with your Piazza, who I love. If you are anyone who has a daughter, you should have them read Joe's stuff. She is m amazing. I love her. You don't have time to read every article about somebody that you're doing, but I just got I went down rabbit holes of reading her stuff. So, Morgan, your task was to find me some podcasts that I might go in

line with somebody who might listen to committed. What did you find? Yes? I found some good ones. First one is called help I Suck at Dating. This is a popular one amongst some of my friends, and it's hosted by some people that were on The Bachelor. The Bachelor, I I, I don't get that show. I don't either, But there's a lot of podcasts being done by folks from the Bachelard and people love them. They love them, So what is what is the hook? Why do people

like this podcast? People like this one because who knows how to date better than people that were rejected on national and television. Right, So they were like, oh, if we all can't figure out how to date on our own, let's put our three minds to other. And they feel like if there's three of them, they have a better chance of finding the secrets to relationship success. All right, let's listen to three people who are so beautiful they

got on TV. Tell you how about dating. I don't know if it's just l A. I mean, I'd love to what you think. But I feel like every guy here is just like you know, I could sleep with any any girl, and they just wait for girls to come up to them because they know they will. So the other thing is, if you're getting guys like that and you're looking for an actual high quality guy, he's not probably out you know at a bar. All right, that's that's a fine show, not for me. But this

is the point of doing this. You're telling me about shows that I might not listen to it, and it's one of our shows, so I support them. But I've been married for thirteen years, so and I did a relationship show for ice, hosted one for seven years. So you figured it out. Tell me, your straight male friend. Here's what I learned doing a relationship show for seven years on Serious XM. And as a podcast, you get the same five questions all the time. People ask you

the same question all the time. I'm gonna tell you right now, here's how you answer anybody if you're hosting a relationship show, tell them go to a mirror and look at yourself and ask yourself that question. And then if you don't think you have the right answer, and then you're wrong. I mean you have the answer. You just want someone validated or to convince you that what you're thinking is is wrong. And here's the thing. You're not going to listen to what I tell you anyway.

You're gonna go do what you want and then you're gonna come back next week and call me and go I just don't know what happened. Again, So that one answer applies to every relationship question. Go to a mirror, look into it, and ask yourself the question, and you will know the answer. There you go. I'm going to keep that in mind. I just invalidated all relationship podcasts. So if you're listen, looking for other ones to listen, Yeah,

let's find some more. The next one I have is called d t R. It is the official Tender podcast. Oh yes, I this This one, I believe was up for an i Heeart Award this year. It was the Winner Radio Podcast Award for Best Branded Podcast. I love branded podcast because they branded with Tinder. But it's hosted

by Jane Murray, who is a writer. She's worked for like Cosmopolitan, a few other ones, and she goes into everything that's good and bad about dating, like what you should say when you were responded to someone for the first time, very millennial things. I love that, Yeah, and like what's awkward about it? What's funny about it? She dives deep until the uncomfortable. I'm not I haven't been on Tender in a few years. I always wonder if I would be on Tinder if I was. Yes, I would, well,

if you're single, why not, why not have fun? It's just an app that you're swiping. Hey man, you only live once. But yeah, so this is a good podcast, and like I said, Brandon with Tinder, and it's what it's like to meet new people in an internet obsessed world. Let's hear it. You've heard Julia this season forcing other daters to bear their souls, and it turns out it can be a special kind of hell to be single

going on first dates. While working on a pod cast about single people going on first dates, Julia is drowning in it all day at work and then actually living it in her free time. Now I would listen to that just for research. I have a friend who is recently single in his late forties and he's on those apps and oh it's ridiculous. So this is for people like us that aren't on Tender but want to get the experience of it. Yeah, alright, what you got? Last one?

All right? Last one? This one is from my heart as well. By the way, we're not out to like promote just our shows. But here's the thing. We're the biggest podcast company in the world, so we have a lot of them. So invariably some of the best ones are ours, so we talk about them. Which one is is? This one is called Mating Matters and is made in the same studio that we're recording in right now. Yes, I love this podcast. It is Dr Wendy Walsh and it's produced by Brooke Peterson. I think one of the

best produced podcasts in the world. It really is. It's such a good podcast. So much research and time and really thoughtfulness goes into this and you can tell because if you listen to an episode, you're going to learn so much. And their whole goal is that you understand yourself better by diving deep into the biological, the psychological and all this all the underpinnings of love, attachment, and gender.

Let's check it out. I believe that we've pretty much evolved to do most things in our life, and the reason why most human behaviors exist is to increase our reproductive odds. Some of our cultural systems were all designed to increase survival. Good, good choices, Morgan, good job, weak two in the books. I appreciate you coming in, Thanks, thank you, all right, thanks for listening, you the listener, all five of you. I enjoy you. If you want to hear past episodes, It's really easy. We're on the

I Heart Radio app. You can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to podcasts, send us a tweet. It's at Access podcast one because we can't get at Access podcast still, but tell us what you want to hear and you can follow me as well. I'm very entertaining on social media at Maddie Stout m A T T Y S T A U d T. You can follow me on all of the socials, all of them. All of them shows produced by Morgan, Thank

you Morgan. Music by Casey Frankie, and special thanks to Robin Berta Lucci and Oscar Ramirez who hook us up with the studios here at k f I and Beautiful Lovely Los Angeles. Will Pearson, thank you. And thanks to the Godfather Podcasting, our president of I Heart Radio podcast, Condel Byrne Conald. You're the man. See y'all next week. Thanks for listening.