Grateful For Some People I Don’t Know
I have a lot of folks that are directly in my life to be thankful for. But I’ll take care of them on texts, with gifts and with love. I want to give some public love to the people who have helped me get through this year with tremendous lows and only modest highs.
Larry Mizell Jr. from KEXP
I’m a radio DJ, that’s what I do for a living. A couple years ago I realized I wasn’t doing the research I should be to try to get better at my job. When I was making a living as a bass player I studied other bass players and I would’ve done well to study more. I didn’t dig in deeply enough to my craft, instead, I was focused on making my band successful and partying. Fair enough. But I want to make legendary moments happen on the radio. I want to listen and study the folks that are doing elite programming in the spoken voice space (I know that’s clunky, but I study plenty of podcasts when trying to get strong at radio). Larry has the midafternoon spot if you live in Seattle, but in Central time he’s 3-6. In the middle of the summer of 2020 I was knocking out some work and I flipped on KEXP in my pursuit to have some radio on. What I found was a conversational DJ who was still incredibly economical with how long he talked (I think most DJs are one or the other, either conversational or brief). But Larry is both. He’s got tremendous knowledge of music, but frankly, that isn’t that rare. What he has is knowledge and favorites! Though he knows the landscape, I can hear a deeper affinity for Parliament Funkadelic, for MF DOOM, for Thin Lizzy. Does it help that some of these are my favorites as well? Absolutely. But, he’s got favorites that aren’t mine. He gets me excited for house music in a way that I can’t create naturally without him. He keeps track of the birthdays, he makes Thursdays and Fridays more fun than the rest of the week, cause they are.
(Larry’s producer is Charlize. Like most great radio shows, I have no idea where Larry starts and where his team begins, from every indication I get from the outside, the whole crew is on point, delivering great research and awesome music).
Listening to the Afternoon Show lifts me up, it makes me feel like I’m in a room with a bunch of friends picking out records and talking about the goings on of the day. It’s what radio should be, and I’m studying.
It’s hard to know if you’re doing the job well when you’re a DJ on the radio. You can get some feedback from listeners but let’s be honest, the grand majority of us are not contacting radio hosts, whether they are doing a good job or a bad job. The amount of time I’ve been absolutely floored by a DJ and not reached out to them. . .there’s plenty. So realizing how much The Afternoon Show matters to me helps me imagine how maybe what I do on the Current could matter to somebody else. I’m proud of the music I play, the artists I feature, the collaborations I have with Sani, my co-host on the Message, and others. I can imagine what I do having an impact on how good of a Saturday people have, because of how much Larry' and his crew matter to my afternoons.
Political Gabfest from Slate
Every Thursday three friends and influential journalists/journalist adjacent folks get together to talk about a couple big stories of the week and a little bit of bullshitting about lighter news stories. It’s magical because it has the informative qualities of a scripted show, but it also has the human connection qualities that I really only find off of unscripted shows. I have no qualms about saying it’s the best podcast ever. In the final three episodes of a well constructed whodunit I will briefly forget about a show like Political Gabfest, but week after week, I come to this show and get something really rewarding.
The Right Time with Bomani Jones on ESPN
I don’t watch football. I don’t understand basketball but I love it. But I love Bomani Jones. He’s what I think everyone who talks for a living wants. . .when something happens in the world I’m curious what Bomani thinks about it. His angle is always interesting and I might not agree with every take, but I see the path, I get the idea. I also find him to be crazy fast with digesting a moment and predicting how it might look a few months out. He’s got great vision for sports, for music, for the world in general. There’s one particular episode where Dominique Foxworth and Bomani Jones talks about what it takes to do jobs like theirs well and it floored me. Such an inspiring conversation.
Trivia Mafia Thursdays with Chuck and Co on Twitch
Do I own Trivia Mafia? Yup, 50% of it. Do I know Chuck, yup! Am I comfortable telling him how much his weekly trivia night means to me? Nope! That’s why I blog. I’m not super involved in the day to day for Trivia Mafia. I bet if you ask the day to day people they’d say “he’s super not involved”. But here’s the deal, we had to make a big ass pivot for the pandemic. And friends, we did it. We aren’t where we once were, but we are making our way back and we have a new identity as an online trivia company. We’re awesome. People use us for parties et cetera. Our calling card in the digital space is our Thursday night on Twitch. It was handled for more than a year plus by Chuck, the other owner of the company. It is now hosted by a rotating cast, but it’s always magic. Maybe about 200+ viewers, representing more players than that come together and play on their screens. There are inside jokes, there’s alliances, there’s special offerings. Basically, it’s a magical weekly trivia night, online or otherwise. I got together with my wife, neighbor, colleague, old friend and a couple friend of friends and we forged this bond that now lasts into the real world. It gave me something social, something fun and something awesome to get through.