Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 3
Two decades of reality dating shows, new music, QAnon, NBA Playoffs, fresh tomatoes, and lots of words about Joe Rogan
Hello, and welcome to Micah’s Read of the Week.
If you want more information about this newsletter, check out the introduction post here, Vol. 1 here, and Vol. 2 here.
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Read of the Week
Here’s the story featured on this week’s Mind of Micah podcast: The revealing and disturbing story of America, told through 20 years of reality dating shows
This is a fun and insightful look at a different dating show- hits and misses included- from each of the past 20 years. Of course, all roads lead back to “The Bachelor.”
If watching “The Bachelor” makes you feel ill, that’s fitting: Creator Mike Fleiss told Vanity Fair that a vision for the show appeared in his head when he had a 104-degree temperature.
This 2-decade long examination made me ask a lot of questions about our society, and one really big question: why the hell would anyone go on any of these shows.
Note: I was quite disappointed that “The Cougar” didn’t make this list. A friend of mine was on this show. He was eliminated (and humiliated) the second night after reading a poem for the Cougar. The other suitors laughed and openly mocked him. The Cougar unceremoniously sent his ass home. Unsurprisingly, she was later exposed as a fraud, and the show never made it to a second season.
Mind of Micah returns Tuesday. Click to listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just read the whole thing right now.
What Micah’s Listening To
Kathleen Edwards, Total Freedom
Haven’t heard that name in a while. Wanna know why? Her last album, 2012’s Voyageur, coincided with a dark bout of depression. From Rolling Stone:
“Kathleen, you’re fucking so unhappy,” Jim Bryson, her friend and longtime collaborator, said to her, half-jokingly, around that time. “Just quit music, go home, move back to Ottawa, and open up a coffee shop called Quitters.”
That’s exactly what she did.
Edwards returned to Ottawa, signed a lease on a storefront, and began getting her cafe off the ground. She played a few local one-off gigs (“I realized, ‘Holy shit, I make a lot more money playing music than I do selling a cup of coffee’”), but she had mostly stopped thinking about songwriting.
She’s back. The album is good. Listen to it.
Some thoughts about Joe Rogan
Whenever I meet someone and talk about my podcast business and experience, the conversation invariably gets to Joe Rogan. “Do you listen?” “Is your show like his?” “I’ve heard about Rogan, but I don’t know how to listen to podcasts on my phone.” (That happens a lot actually. Normally that statement comes from a boomer, but I also had the exact exchange in 2020 with a fraternity brother, so you never know…)
Anyway, I like a lot about Joe Rogan. He is an excellent UFC commentator. He’s a skilled and talented stand-up comedian. He called out Carlos Mencia. Here’s what I don’t like, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Look, I get it. It’s the biggest podcast in the world. He has an enormous platform, and he sold his show for a ton of cash. By all metrics, JRE is a resounding smash, and I could work in podcasting for another 10 lifetimes and never sniff his level of success. That being said, Joe is a terrible interviewer who allows his guests to say anything without pushback. In my mind, there’s two types of talk show interviewers: Larry King and Charlie Rose.
We’ll start with the (very) problematic Rose. Extremely prepared. Dove deep. Asked insightful questions and was always ready with a follow up. Rose was a journalist first. He put guests at ease with his manner and allowed for a very deep conversation. He didn’t play to the audience and didn’t dumb down the conversation or otherwise insult the viewer’s intelligence. It was just him in a dark studio with a guest. One night could be an actor, the next a politician or a scientist. Charlie always knew about his subject.
King is totally different. A legend who’s still working, (and occasionally unwillingly shilling pro-China propaganda) King is the everyman interviewer. He is a broadcaster, not a journalist. He famously does not prepare for interviews and speaks to guests as if he knows nothing about them or their work. He once asked Jerry Seinfeld if the network had cancelled his show. Jerry did not appreciate this line of questioning.
Anyway, this style of broadcasting does have some appeal. Since I know nothing about astrophysics, basic questions can be useful. However, since King doesn’t know much about the subject, there’s a possibility the guest can say things that are untrue without being challenged. He was also on CNN, so he had an army of researchers to fact check the conversation in real time and he had producers to keep each segment topical and impactful.
So where does this leave Joe Rogan? That’s a big question.
Rogan is not a journalist. He’s a comedian. But JRE isn’t a comedy show and is rarely funny. It’s a long winded, meandering conversation. He often speaks with compelling and entertaining guests, and he allows them to say whatever they want. He’s naturally curious, but ins’t necessarily searching for facts or demonstrable truths. Based on his social media, he isn’t very media literate— he’s quick to amplify stories from dubious sources. This distrust of institutions like the government and the mainstream media heavily flavors JRE. That’s a problem for me.
Rogan has ascended by talking to people on the fringe of American life. Unlike King or Rose, he’s only talking to people that he wants to talk to. His passion for some subjects is obvious.
However, like King, Rogan never challenges his guests on facts. He doesn’t have a big production support team to fact-check and or frame conversations. With no time restraints, he can get REALLY deep, but I find the show frustrating as there’s seemingly no beginning, middle, or end to his conversations— just a series of unstructured tangents interrupted by google searches and YouTube videos.
I have no time for conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. And when you give those dangerous characters a platform, you have an obligation to be prepared to seriously question them. You must push back on dangerous and serious falsehoods. Rogan doesn’t do this. There is no reason for anyone to speak to Alex Jones or Eddie Bravo without pushing back on their insane and dangerous lies. Rogan has the largest podcast in the world. He isn’t a journalist and doesn’t want to be one, and that’s fine. But he is a member of society. Amplifying conspiracy theorists is bad for society and I can’t get past it. So I just can’t fuck with Joe. Sorry.
Speaking of conspiracy theories: How QAnon rode the pandemic to new heights — and fueled the viral anti-mask phenomenon
QAnon has been in the news a lot recently. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a proud QAnon supporter. She’s also likely to be the next Congresswoman from Georgia after winning her GOP primary last week.
Remember this video?
A woman named Melissa Rein Lively went on this viral tantrum after falling down an online conspiracy theory rabbit hole. The NBC News report linked above details how QAnon has now become the melting pot for a wide variety of conspiracies:
While QAnon bubbled on the fringes of the internet for years, researchers and experts say it has emerged in recent months as a sort of centralized hub for conspiracy and alternative health communities.
Users like Rein Lively who started off in wellness communities, religious groups and new-age groups on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the pandemic were then introduced to extremist groups like QAnon, aided by shared beliefs about energy, healing or God — and often by recommendation algorithms.
Read the whole thing. Conspiracy theories, alternative health communities, wellness, healing, energy… sounds a lot like the Joe Rogan Experience.
Happier News: The NBA Playoffs start today!
Merry Christmas everybody. Four games a day, everyday during the first round. Like March Madness but with high quality basketball.
The return of playoff hoops means the return of mundane NBA-related stories like this one: Kevin Durant responds to critic by following and liking all of his girlfriend’s pics
There’s also this excellent piece on the end of the Spurs 22-year playoff streak from the San Antonio Express News: As a run for the ages ends, a city remembers
The longest playoff run in major professional sports did not burn out as much as it faded away, and by the time what was left of the dynasty drew its final breath on Thursday, the city it transformed thought it was prepared.
But how do you prepare, really, for the absence of what’s been a constant since before your children were born, or before you surfed the Internet for the first time, or before anyone dreamed a championship river parade was possible?
The last time an NBA began a Spurs-less postseason, a French kid named Tony Parker was 14 years old. Frank Sinatra and Mother Teresa were still alive. And more than 500,000 current San Antonians had not been born.
I love the bubble so much. Want more of my hoops takes? Check out my sports podcasts: Back Door Cover & Too Much Dip.
Here’s a great way to save all of those in-season tomatoes
How to Freeze Tomatoes Without Totally Changing Their Texture
First, set your oven to 225° F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and place a wire cooling rack over the top.
Next, slice a bunch of tomatoes in half. I like to use cherry or grape tomatoes because they dry out more quickly, but you can do this with any variety of tomato. Keep in mind, the bigger the tomato, the longer it’ll take to cook.
Arrange the tomatoes cut side up on the cooling rack and season them.
Cherry or grape tomatoes will take about three hours to dry out. You’ll know they’re done when they’re pruning up and have shrunk to about half their original size. Allow the tomatoes to cool completely.
Once cool, dump them onto the parchment paper and place the entire sheet tray in the freezer. Once they’re fully frozen, place the frosty tomatoes into a ziptop bag and put them back in the freezer.
I can’t wait to have a BLT this December with some farmer’s market tomatoes from mind-August. Let’s go!
My favorite piece I read this week
No handshakes. A bad economy. These car salesmen shifted tactics — and succeeded.
This WaPo day-in-the-life story of car salesmen navigating a new, socially-distanced world is legitimately edge of your seat reading. A taste:
Just to survive, car salesmen had to try something new. The dealership started to emphasize online sales and delivering automobiles to customers. That helped find new potential customers and ease some concerns about the pandemic. But the deals still needed to be closed, the paperwork and keys secured in a yellow folder that signified a pending sale. And that’s where McVeigh came in, an old-school salesman with reading glasses trying new ways of making it work wearing a face mask.
“I didn’t know this was even possible,” he said. “But I’m never going back to the old way.”
Where else can I find Micah content?
Podcasts: Mind of Micah, Back Door Cover, Too Much Dip
Twitter: @micahwiener & @producermicah (Why two twitters? It’s a long story)
Instagram: @micahwiener
LinkedIn: @micahwiener
Another solid week