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SN2:EP2 “Walking to an Audition”
For better or worse, this episode is likely one of the first podcasts ever to provide an audio chronicle of the day before a colonoscopy. Today my walking companion is Katina Corrao. Much has been written about her positivity, but what is sometimes left out is just how much loss she has experienced in her life. We bond over the grim and I marvel at the horsepower of her attitude. I hate the word “attitude,” but she helps me accept it again. This episode was recorded on January 27, 2016 and February 22, 2016 and is one of the longer ones I’ve done with a guest. And for good reason. Hang on until the end, or just treat it like two back to back episodes, maybe. Check out Katina’s album Hot Date that debuted at #1 on iTunes or stream the live performance here. I enjoyed having her part my clouds for a while. Music this week by Aaron Campbell, A guy drumming at the West 4th Stop, and Direwires. -
SN1:EP8 “The Sacred Struggle of Bedtime”
It’s one thing to be invited into the home of a comic, but to see them in the thick of motherhood is, to me, like the spotted owl of documentary conversation. Today’s episode is a sort of extreme form of eavesdropping. An audio portrait of the sacred struggle to get a kid to bed with comic, mom, and brilliant facebook satirist Julie Kottakis. AKA Madge the Vag.
I first saw Julie perform at the New York Fringe festival last year in her solo show “Does This Dress Make Me Look Alone” which she called an “Alone Woman Show. She did address the circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of her daughter, what it’s been like to care for her on her own, but I hesitate to bring that up because there’s a danger in thinking this was just a mom doing a one-woman-show about being a single mom. That sells it way short. Her performance spanned the range of comic and tragic registers and she laid out some rawness in a way I don’t remember seeing before. Not tell it like it is stuff. Afterbirth type stuff. Literal and metaphorical. Frankly, I wish more comics packaged their jokes less and did more of what Julie is doing.
As you’ll hear in this episode she offers her life with abandon and pushes nothing. Frankly, I was surprised she allowed me to put some of this audio in here. Having wireless mics on people makes them forget they’re on tape sometimes and that yields some very candid moments. The moments people don’t talk about like a 5-year-old kid that still asks to breastfeed sometimes. Take a listen. I’ve received permission to use all of it. And I’m so grateful to Julie for that because it’s stuff people need to hear I think.
It’s a very real, very earthy, and absolutely beautiful and generous look at something a lot of us who don’t have kids take for granted. And if you don’t laugh at this, rot in hell.
Friend her on facebook (Julie Kottakis) if you can because that’s where the really good stuff happens. Also @theweirdjulie
Music this week:
“When the Saints Go Marching In” – Marysville Marimba
“Glockendoodle” – Aaron Campbell (@banjoporkchoppy)
Technical Help from:
Vince Fairchild at WNYC (@vincefair)
Doug Shugarts at WBUR in Boston
Consulting Producers:
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SN4:EP1 “Clip Show”
Preview of Andy’s new standup album. Roundup of where WtA has been the last few months and where it’s wandering next. This is a mini-episode clip show of: your refurbished host; the cinching of some bows on the past; and a sigh of hope for an amazing and stable new one. Highlights of a profound experience with Adrian Lambrinos, my ambassador to a sweat lodge ceremony which will air in its entirety soon.
SN2:EP4 “Emotional Graffiti”
@TimRacine and I on: cats that try to separate us from our lovers; frozen gummy bears; and lying about Pantera. Also, former NPR reporter Athena Desai ties a bow on a 14-year-old audio clip mystery I’ve been trying to get my head around since I left WBUR in 2002.
