I’m not even remotely a Tom Cruise fan, but Meeting Tom Cruise is one of the most stupidly entertaining podcasts I have ever mindlessly listened to at work.
This particular episode has been on my Spotify “Bizzy work flow” playlist since it came out— but I apparently didn’t recognize Marc Blucas’ name or I would have listened sooner.
Why should I recognize the name? Why would I have listened? Because Marc Blucas played Riley Finn on the television version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Riley was Buffy’s college boyfriend. I didn’t care for him much at the time (season four of Buffy that is) and then later watching the series with my husband and barely school-aged child.
Riley was All-American, tall, athletic, a psychology grad student and secret army hero hunting demons, which in the Buffyverse made him boring.
So when he appeared on this podcast I listened as a nod to my Buffy fandom days but did not expect to be impress.
He turned out to be a gifted story teller who has lived, as he humbly said, a “charmed life.” Marc grew up in western Pennsylvania in a small town where he got a basketball scholarship to I believe Wake Forest. He had a scholarship to go to law school but after making something like the final four division one shooting challenge he got recruited to play professional hoops in Europe.
Hall of Fame basketball player Tim Duncan was the best man at his wedding.
He had a business with Dale Earnhardt.
He landed a role sinking the three point shots in Pleasantville (another favorite of mine) and worked on First Daughter with Katie Holmes and then got cast in Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.
I don’t think he ever made it to law school but he certainly returned to his roots on a 15-acre farm in Pennsylvania, complete with 300-year-old farmhouse.
I realize now that the various people telling their individual stories is what fascinates me about this podcast.
My neighbor Sarah asked me to listen to the episode of Ezra Klein’s podcast featuring Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco. The journalist and the musician were discussing creativity.
Tweedy talked about writing first thing in the morning before anything else— no news, no email, no thought. Just words on a page.
Ezra said when he tries that all he ends up with are to-do lists.
Their discussion got me thinking about my own regular journaling practice which I started 30 years ago. In recent years much of what I have noted is done bullet style with occasional deep dives into the events of my life.
But what if I phrased anything I put in my journal as poems? Horrible terrible poems but poems.
For instance, instead of writing “Foster cats Khloe and Louise are getting closer to liking each other every day. They now sleep on the same bed at the same time with only a foot or two between them” it could be something like…
The fleet foot one is moody, The clumsy one timid. The who among them that starts the throaty snarls varies from time to time. Slowly, their soft warm bodies draw closer to each other, ignoring the other princess drifting to slumber in the soft blankets. When we find them, these insecure beasts of opposing kingdoms, their paws might almost touch.
To learn more about the Ezra Klein Podcast from the New York Times, click here.
I thought today would be a laid back day doing little things around the house getting ready for the week ahead and maybe resting.
I woke from what should have been a good dream drenched in sweat and saddened— what was the dream? A friend gave me a hug. It’s been so long since someone I wasn’t related to gave me a hug that in the dream I started to cry.
And that made me wake up feeling isolated and alone.
And then my roomba tried to crawl under the bed and die— it was clogged up with so much cat hair the wheels and spinning parts had made thread out of it.
The cockatoo pooped on me. The parakeets flew out of their cage when I gave them food and water. The fluffy kittens are climbing curtains and managing to get to the top of the window molding to chase the budgies.
And now I need to take the fluffies to the vet to have them be given the all clear to be adopted. These are precious, cuddly kittens with gorgeous long hair and I fear that every day they are not listed on that web site is just detrimental to them.
So I started to cry.
I can’t even leave my bedroom until I get the parakeets safely in their cage but Boo-boo is being stubborn.
I have a headache because it’s past noon and I haven’t had any water or food yet today. a chicken finger basket from DQ would sure make my feel better but I lost four pounds with the new job and gained five this weekend.
So to distract myself, I want to tell you about podcasts.
The Actual Part that talks about Podcasts
Of course, the type of day it has been I totally forgot I had already started this blog post, and now I did it over. Sigh.
From my first attempt at this…At work, we are allowed to wear one earphone and listen to music or podcasts on our phones. In the first week, I just listened to the very random music on the speakers overhead in the warehouse.
Then I asked the teenager if I could borrow the generic AirPods she bought at the dollar store (if the kittens hadn’t eaten them). I also bought my own pair at the dollar store, so now I could experiment.
I signed up for every random podcast… after catching up with my friend William Prystauk’s podcast The Last Knock, once listed in Entertainment Weekly as one of the best horror movie podcasts out there.
I’ve rediscovered my old favorite Car Talk, which is always enjoyable regardless of your connection/experience with cars. My neighbor recommended some like The Indicator (snippets on economics) and Ted Talks Daily. The range of topics on both make it very thought provoking. Ted Talks allows me to be introspective and The Indicator gives me a chance to gain more insight into capitalist American society.
I’ve started following Netflix is a Joke because I love stand-ups comedians. I subscribed to the Daily Show with Trevor Noah because I am a huge Trevor Noah fan.
I rejected the Duncan Trussell Family Hour. I thought it would be fun since it’s new agey and edgy but the final straw was the opening song they wrote about life as an earbud singing about being thrust in the pubic hair of your ear. I also rejected Comedy Bang Bang, content and interviews were fine but it just seemed too long and not funny enough.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first episode of Seeking Witchcraft as they discussed Alex Crowley. I learned a lot and their broader discussion of building oneself and spirituality meant a lot to me.
My other favorites so far are American Innovations, where on a recent episode I learned about Alexander Graham Bell’s life and the science behind the telephone. I listened to several parts of the Do No Harm series which followed the plight of several families who wrongly had their children removed by the state.
Wondery has a magnificent program called This Imagined Life where they tell a second person account of a famous person’s life trying to get “you” to guess who “you” are. I learned about Jackie Robinson and Nora Ephron so far.
I still have many more to try, and if you have a recommendation let me know as I can listen about 7 hours a day.
I’m very excited to announce that my dear friend and colleague, Darnell Davis, from Aspire to Autonomy, Inc., “appeared” on George Wacker’s Lehigh Valley with Love.
George and I worked together at Lehigh Valley News Group in 2006, when he served as editor of the E… oh dear me I am old and senile… I know it was East Penn/Emmaus area, but I can’t remember what the newspaper’s name was… East Penn News sounds right because each paper was named after the school district and it’s the East Penn School District and Emmaus High School.
Sorry to babble like that but it was almost 15 years ago. My teenager was younger than his daughter is now.
I served as managing editor when those papers launched and George always had a certainty creativity and a penchant for thinking outside the box. We had a weekly entertainment column shared by all six of our papers and if I remember correctly George pitched most of our concepts.
So I was not surprised when George developed his own media company and that he’s scooped the main media outlets in town and created some phenomena— google “Lehigh Valley Snow Camel” and know that George broke that story.
Now, like George, Darnell has a big creative energy, vivacious speech, and will not shy away from what needs to be said.
So I wanted to get these two together. And George put a call out for potential guests on his podcast.
Today George shared with me the link for that final podcast. And I’ve very excited to share it. The content may get heavy at times but these guys kept the conversation going in a natural organic manner.
They reference some of the Valley’s food— I won’t spoil it here. But when it comes to cheesesteaks I vote for Joe’s Steak Shop in Phillipsburg and hot dogs would have to be from outside the Lehigh Valley and go with Hot Dog Johnny’s in Belvidere, N.J. A few years ago it would have had to be Charlie’s Pool Room in Alpha, N.J.
Angel Ackerman 