What’s new in SS’s world is an obsession with podcasts. Podcasts
have been around years, but it seems just recently that SS has decided to
devote all of his free time to the very diverse world of podcasts, even foregoing
music in the pursuit of always listening to a tale or a tidbit voiced by
someone who knows much more about something that I ever will.
I was kind of
surprised about it, to be honest, because SS was always someone like me when it
came to music. No matter how old the two of us get, we still try to stay
current with new music. He attended concerts like a promoter, not a casual fan,
always discovering some new artist before the mainstream did.
Now he doesn’t know any of them. We drove to get coffee
together, and not only did he not recognize any of the songs on my playlist, he
didn’t even recognize the band names. That has never happened in the over quarter
century of our friendship.“What the hell has happened to you? Who are you? What are you even listening to?” I asked him.
“Podcasts. That’s where it’s at," he said.
Rather than judge him too harshly for his choices, I felt
I should at least give a listen. I decided to go with Serial, a twelve part
podcast that was a spinoff from This American Life, is a staple on public
radio. Serial, hosted by Sarah Koenig, is an exceptionally popular podcast that was number one on iTunes
before it was even released. The first season, which ended in December, examined
a murder trial from 1999 to see if the evidence warranted the guilty verdict in
that case.
Spoiler alert: There is no spoiler alert. I am not going to spoil it for you. Listen to
it if you haven’t or if you want to. What do I care? You waste plenty of time on less
interesting things. You know you do.
From the first episode, I was hooked. Sarah Koenig’s
mesmerizing voice, the level of detail, the constant struggle with being
objective. It was the kind of investigative reporting from days gone by, when a
reporter could really delve into the facts and examine them and present them. She
had a whole team to devote to the task of scrutinizing testimony and evidence,
and with every episode, she would speak about it, sounding like she was
speaking to only me.
I listened to Serial the way most people watch Netflix or eat Oreos,
one big binge. I started carrying ear buds with me so I could continue an
episode while I ran errands. I began to drive with my glove box open, plugging my iPhone directly into the USB port in my car so I listen to it through
the speakers. I turned it on while I soaked in the bathtub, and turned it up
extra loud so I could hear it over my sonic toothbrush as I got ready for bed
in the evening.
I wondered, was this kid guilty? Was he wrongly convicted? Reasonable
doubt, reasonable doubt as far as the ear could hear. I would think of a
question, and then next episode, bam! Sarah would ask it. It was so validating.
I was critically thinking in a way that reality television shows like Honey Boo
Boo and Gypsy Sisters never seem to challenge me to do.
As soon as I couldn't live without Serial, I finished it. Season one was over. Twelve episodes might seem like a lot, but not when I listened to them
during the many hours I spend driving my kids around in the car. I texted SS,
desperate for a replacement to fill the podcast void my life now had. He texted
me a few ideas, but so far, none of them sucked me in the way Serial did.
And then, one night while waiting for my daughters to finish
their showers, I sat down to check my email, turning on the television for
background noise. Dateline NBC was on, and Lester Holt was laying out the case
for that evening’s episode. As I listened to his voice, I realized that the
Serial podcast is just a longer and cooler version of a regular old true crime
television show. The case they covered could have been the same one from Serial, a murder, a convicted killer maintaining his innocence, a sense of disbelief, some jury members that weren’t entirely comfortable with the decision or the sentencing. It was the same damn thing, and man, was I disappointed. I had spent a good twelve hours of my time and what limited brain function I had left to a podcast that was in essence no better than an episode of Dateline, which really is just a half step up from Judge Judy. My disillusionment was profound.
The next day, I went back to listening to music.
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