c_n_anderson

Besser raises good points about the importance of positive and constructive feedback in this week’s coaching episode (Using a famous guest: Day One). It’s a shame, then, that day 3 of the challenge only features phone calls to contestants in the bottom 3 and not to contestants that “succeeded” in their challenge. I was brainstorming questions that I thought Besser could ask during the day one coaching session, and among the questions included: “What specific change have you made to your podcast in response to a judge’s note? What judge’s note do you feel that your podcast is still struggling to address?” Then I realized that, the little dum dum club, because they have never been in the bottom three, have never received a judge’s note (at least it has never been told “to their face”). The only way they can find out what PFT, Marc Maron, Howard Kremer, Matt Gourley, Kulap Vilasak, etc. thought of their “Challenge” submission is to go back and listen to the Day 2 episode from the week they were judges. If, as for the vast majority of the season, the episodes are “in the can” – then they are literally “flying blind” with response to how their podcast has been received by anyone other than Besser (who can offer an assessment during day one of the coaching challenge). I don’t know what the solution is to this problem – is it too much of an imposition to ask the judges to call all the podcasts during the day 3 segment? It certainly seems less of one now that there are only 4 podcasts left, but early in the competition that is a lot of phone calls. That many phone calls could get boring and repetitive. As has been suggested before, I do think a “winner” of the week would be a good idea, and the judges could at least call the “winner” during the day 3 segment. Maybe the day one coaching session could feature an audio clip of how the judge’s reacted to the specific podcast submissions from prior day 2 episodes. I don’t think that would get too repetitive for the listener, and it would give both Matt and the podcasts a “jumping off point” for further coaching. . Oh, I really like the idea of a “bonus ep” called “tell it to my face” featuring interactions with forum commenters and I’d be interested in potentially participating. My twitter handle is c_n_anderson so feel free to DM me. Or I'll just wait for an announcement saying how to sign up to participate.

I just want to point out that I have no problem with conflicting notes (for what it is worth, I don't think that lack of consistency is a problem with the show). Conflicting notes are perfectly acceptable, even expected, if you realize that each finished product is the combination of 1. a choice. and 2. execution of that choice. You can make two different choices and still fail in execution of both. Or the same choice can be made by two different podcasts and one succeeds and the other fails because of differences in execution. For example, in the sketch week the little dum dum club created a podcast agent character. This is very similar to a character from one of my favorite podcasts from another member of the UCB: Matt Walsh's very funny Bear Down: The Chicago Bears Podcast. Bear Down has a character called Doug Mandel who is a Blog Podcast Agent (https://twitter.com/DougMandelBPA). I think Doug Mandel is hilarious while the little dum dum character was just ok (I also think that the similarity is almost certainly a coincidence). . My point about the F+ was not to complain about their elimination, but to point out that at least they had something to say during the "defense" segment of the show. I am hard pressed to remember any other defense from the 6 weeks of the show. Maybe it's a bad idea, but I wonder if the podcast contestants were prep'ed in some way prior to the defense (without scripting the interaction or ruining the surprise) the give and take would make for a more interesting listen. F+ could choose to separate the reading and the commentary or commentate (?) while they read the material and either choice may work. I think the choice they made that doomed them was to have like 5-6 different people read in one voice AND comment in another, thus asking the listener to follow 12 different points of view. The execution would have to be really, really, great for that to end up as anything other than confusing. . I think the choice/execution perspective also allows for flexibility in interpretation of notes. Thus, the note "don't do meta humor" or "don't do fake teasers" really shouldn't be thought of as a blanket ban - but rather, as: if you are going to make that choice you better make it really funny because it could easily fall on its face. . Finally, should I be abbreviating microphone as "mike" or "mic"? "Mike" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me (kind of like how Peg as a shortened name for Margaret makes no sense to me either), but "Mike" seems to be in dominant use (it's the selection of the wikipedia entry).

Sean says: "Brett seemed to be very non-responsive to any and all feedback". It seems as if that is what Besser wanted from Brett considering that his last time in the bottom 3 he got nailed for "too much push-back". I didn't really think Brett was non-responsive anyways. The podcasts ought to be judged on what they submit, rather than how quickly they establish a rapport with the host and guest judges.

-To respond to this statement: "I don't ever get the feeling the judges/hosts are treating anyone with less respect than they deserve". -I dunno - one of the "notes" Brett got was basically "rather than hating your character you made us hate you". Brett doesn't get angry after this, responds in a totally professional manner, and then gets lectured on how to "take a note", not only for this podcast but also as a life lesson. Give me a break. Besser said that it made him "bristle" that Brett didn't even listen to the note. It makes me bristle that Besser is just assuming that Brett wasn't listening. This wasn't like a rehearsal where Brett got to do additional material after getting feedback and keeps on making the same mistake over and over again. Basically, he got one shot to do the assigned challenge, critiqued on it, and then "judged" for too much push-back on the critique. -That said, I will repeat my sentiment that I think a healthy give and take is likely to be more interesting to listen to than everyone too worried about offending someone. I really don't want Day 3 of the podcast challenge to turn into sports interviews with athletes, where they respond with the most boring platitudes possible, because there is only a downside to saying something the least bit controversial.

Rocking the Suburbs is really good. I am also a huge fan of "The unauthorized biography of Reinhold Messner", though I just call it "Messner" for short. What did you think about the whole Ben Folds/Shatner collabo in '04? I mean the cover of "Common People" is great, but that song stands on its own. I just wiki´d Ben Folds and it turns out that he has been married four times. FOUR times!

I'd love a Westerns themed show. Hopalong Cassidy was big in the 1930's and 1940's, Will Rogers was dead by 1943 (he never met a man he didn't like, but was conspicuously silents on women). Howard Hughes would be great also.

-I can’t believe Besser’s criticism that Brett can’t take a note and that there was too much “push-back” on the criticisms. Re-listening to the comments for Brett, it seemed like he barely got in a word edge-wise with Jesse’s comedy-del-arte anecdotes and weird hat-lady comparison. Were some of Brett’s responses edited out? Because, when he agreed that “it was clearly a bad choice” that doesn’t sound like he wasn’t listening to the note or being confrontational to me. It’s also really duplicitous to ask someone to “defend themselves” and then rail on them for making “too many excuses”. -Perhaps the most relevant interchange with regards to “push-back” is Besser’s claim that Brett was “acting like we didn’t get the joke when we did get the joke”. But Besser’s first critique was that “making fun of hacks is kind of hack”. Brett subsequently clarified that the target of the joke wasn’t the hack, but the critic. This clarification was a totally reasonable thing to say given the intial critique. If this is what qualifies as “too much push-back” then I am afraid that the Day 3 of the Earwolf challenge will turn into everyone just saying “yes sir, yes sir” to all the critiques. I think it would be more interesting for people to more rigorously defend their choices, but I guess that won’t happen because future bottom 3 dwellers will be too scared to be accused of "not being able to take a note".