I STILL MISS “SERIAL”
I was twenty when I decided to prove wrong the haters who said I couldn’t go a week without showering. Yes, I had my doubts. Many of which had to do with the management of hair—I’m pretty particular when it comes to that facet of my personal hygiene. Even when I’m broke, I get a wax. I’ve never gone more than three days without shaving my pits; four for legs. I am very, very kind to my mane, too. I would do anything to keep it looking and feeling healthy, including flying to Denver to get it done, buying expensive shampoo, and taking all manner of precautions before using a blow dryer. So, one of my biggest concerns as I drove to Bonnaroo in 2003 was the sink-bath-at-best conditions. I had no clue what my scent would become after I was drugged up, beer soaked, sunbathed and walking around in dirty pastures without a proper commode for a week. But college is for experimenting, so off I went.
We road-tripped from Colorado to Tennessee, driving 21 hours straight to the festival grounds. This was the early aughts, boys and girls, before Dave Matthews Band was a main attraction of Bonnaroo and before festivals were more about social media and fashion than music. Acts in 2003's lineup included Widespread Panic, Neil Young, James Brown, Mixmaster Mike, RJD2, The Wailers, The Roots, The Flaming Lips and the festival headliner—The Dead.
We saw many bumper stickers on our way to Tennessee—ideological bumper stickers are statement pieces that I’ve never understood. There are just so few sentiments I would want to permanently adheeeeeeeese to anything, especially something as expensive as my car. Words represent ideas, and ideas should change over time—that seems so obvious. And so I stick no stickies.
We saw the Coexist-ers and the Jesus fishys. We saw the Calvin-pissing images and the political-party affiliations. The only bumper stickers that made any sense to me were the ones that said, “How’s my driving?” and offered a 1–800 number for reporting misconduct. Need-based and practical—I like that in a bumper sticker. After we’d parked and set up camp (at Camp Loch Ness Mullet, no less) and walked ourselves over to Centeroo (the name of the makeshift village for the festival) and perused Shakedown Street (every festival has one — or maybe they don’t anymore, actually), we encountered many, many more bumper stickers—“Thank you, Jerry,” “I miss Jerry,” little Dead bears parading around, skulls and roses, lightning—the whole shebang. And then finally, one spoke to me. It read: “I still miss Jerry.” Ugh, I thought it was so cute. I couldn’t buy it, though, because of the tremendous integrity I possess. I was introduced to The Dead right before Jerry died, so claiming the long-term longing the still implied didn’t feel authentic. But, it did transcend my idea about thoughts evolving — I knew at 20 what I still know to be true: Jerry will be missed forever and that “still” will become more and more load-bearing.
Here’s something I feel entitled to claim, more so than the late joiners of podcasts in general and especially more so than the late joiners to one particular podcast: I still miss Serial. If that was a bumper sticker and if I had a car to stick it to, I might consider it. (But no I wouldn’t. I’m stressed just thinking about having to make sure the damn thing goes on straight and doesn’t stick onto itself before I get it on the car, and then, I think about Future Laura and I don’t really know her, so I don’t want to make choices for her, etc. and etc.).
Now, since Serial’s close (and the end of the second season of Startup and with Mystery Show on a break and Invisibilia coming back god knows when after an incorrigibly short first run, despondent, I look down at my list of podcast subscriptions, the little red notifications indicate new episodes of You Made It Weird, Professor Blastoff and WTF and I think, “Dearly beloveds, Serial stole so much of your urgency from me…”
What is this life without Serial?
I’ve spent a ton of time analyzing how to tell a story. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if spending so much time analyzing how to tell a story has made me a better — or worse — storyteller. I mean, I talked about bumper stickers for the first few paragraphs of this post just so I could justify the title I was hellbent on giving it. Maybe I’ve silenced my internal editor a little too much.
A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that, often times, in order to take steps forward, you first have to break old habits—or at the very least, you have to stop relying on your old habits. And while you’re trying to do that, you are inherently required to step back. You have to. If, for instance, you want to stop making a certain kind of joke, or you realize you say “sorry” all the time, or that you write in purposeless fragments, the first step is to simply watch yourself doing it. Notice the habit when it’s happening. Why am I doing it? What am I try to communicate? Where does the impulse come from? But, eschewing practices that have come to feel essential to your being is like simulating the shutdown of a critical organ. Because really, without the stuff that operates automatically, I feel like I have nothing. Or rather, I feel like I’m obliterating my personality. Shouldn’t some things just run wild and free?
I found a silver lining: The moments when you have nothing at the ready are the ones meant for growing. “You know more than you think,” my friend told me, after I explained how naked the rewiring process makes me feel. I think he’s right, especially as it applies to writing and storytelling. You don’t actually have nothing, even when you’ve stripped yourself bare.
It can feel bleak, though. As if by examining a thing and cracking it open and studying its insides, you’ve taken away the ability to just be natural. There’s got to be a balance to strike. Simply: I want to be really good at writing and storytelling and engaging with others and being a human, not just a natural. No one really good at anything is just a natural.
Since beginning work at a big ad agency, I’ve become increasingly connected to my spirit animal. Stop rolling your eyes, and listen to me for one second. My coworker, but really she’s now a top-tier essential friend, Rabbit, can identify a person’s spirit animal — that is, his/her natural, base, primal energy. That is, she is really good at making the type of energy you bring to a room analogous to that of an animal. The practice exacts one’s essence, dumbs it down, and despite the reduction inherent in summarizing a person, I feel known, holistically, because of it. She crowned me a herding dog. She pinpointed Australian Shepard (I resist this specific breed somehow; somehow being the category of dog — and not a specific type — is much more comforting to me).
My nature is to gather people together. I have teeth, sure, but generally, I just want to lie my head in your lap and be pet. I want to play. I need to be affirmed and I need to do a job and make the people around me happy. I have a tremendous amount of energy to expel each day. I’m organized, disciplined and loyal. I’m very good at doing a thing for the sake of doing a thing. I’m curious and smart but happy to just goof off, too. So yeah, Rabbit nailed it.
Why the sudden interjection of this hippie mambo-jumbo, you ask? Because I was reading Rumi the other day (thank you, Aubrey), and I came across a poem that tied up my struggle to both grow and accept myself for who I am.
THE DOG IN THE DOORWAY
This is how it is when your animal energies,
the nafs, dominate your soul:
You have a piece of fine linen
that you’re going to make into a coat
to give to a friend, but someone else uses it
to make a pair of pants. The linen
has no choice in the matter.
It must submit. Or, it’s like
someone breaks into your house
and goes to the garden and plants thornbushes.
An ugly humiliation falls over the place.
Or, you’ve seen a nomad’s dog
lying at the tent entrance, with his head
on the threshold and his eyes closed.
Children pull his tail and touch his face,
but he doesn’t move. He loves the children’s
attention and stays humble within it.
But if a stranger walks by, he’ll spring up
ferociously. Now, what if that dog’s owner
were not able to control it?
A poor dervish might appear: the dog storms out.
The dervish says, “I take refuge with God
when the dog of arrogance attacks,”
and the owner has to say, “So do I!
I’m helpless against this creature
even in my own house.
Just as you can’t come close,
I can’t go out!”
This is how animal energy becomes monstrous
and ruin’s your life’s freshness and beauty.
Think of taking this dog out to hunt!
You’d be the quarry.
—
The light you give off
did not come from pelvis.
Your features did not begin in semen.
Don’t try to hide inside anger
radiance that cannot be hidden.
So what I hear from Rumi is this: you have to tame yourself. You can’t let your essence dominate you. You got the cards you got, but you are the one who plays them. Double down on that for the natural goodness a writer brings to the page.
I think about what made Serial so successful in its format. It was sexy, right? That’s the obvious part—the content. There was a murder, star-crossed lovers, bad boys, an exhibitionist — and of course, I don’t care how many critics roll their eyes at this — always at the center, the question of truth. (Screw the haters of that subject. That’s like saying stargazing has lost its luster. Very few umbrella topics are as endlessly enchanting as the Truth. Like fire, ocean, beauty, death, god—people will always feel spellbound by these subjects.) And of course, everyone involved in Serial was good looking, pretty much. The content and its subjects were incredibly seductive. But that’s not what I wonder about. I mean, we all know what sells or should sell, in theory. And frankly, what sells would never be enough to justify the success Serial had in podcasting. So, what pushed it so far beyond other podcasts?
It was not formatted like a book with chapters and a plan for resolution, but it was episodic (in case you didn’t get the reasons why it’s called Serial). In hindsight, I’m sure Sarah Koening & Co. would have restructured the whole damn thing to be much neater and tidier with fewer phony leads if it wasn’t unfolding before our eyes. When all of the information is on the table after the final episode aired, it became obvious that some of the first episodes placed far too much emphasis on red herrings and pulled the trigger much too early on certain facts of the case. It was basically just live journalism, live research. But since when did such a thing appeal when applied to a cold case and in long form no less?
We had access to a second round of Koening’s discovery phase, for one. But an author, upon completing his or her research, would go back and chuck the discovery-phase info that didn’t seem relevant or was actually misleading. A documentary filmmaker would too. Although, the loose and open-ended aspect of Serial works for blogs because they’re ongoing and for certain TV series, too, because they are so low stakes. It works in sensationalist journalism: analyzing every piece of discovery material is the driving force for Nancy Grace, for instance. So, is Serial just an elitist version of all of that?
I think about what I liked about the show. I liked the characters—always. I liked how they changed the light in which I saw the other characters, especially. I liked that it was a true story and the wonderful humanity revealed in airing interviews—you could hear the excitement, reservation, tone, etc. It was a fuller experience than reading a transcript. But like in books, you had the opportunity to imagine what everyone looked like if you didn’t Google ’em (which I didn’t until after it was a wrap). That’s what I like about books — meeting the writer half way there with my imagination, and Serial offered space for me to do that.
I liked that the show was transparent — or at least, purported to be. Of course I liked that aspect. Our whole culture is interested in pulling the curtain back. I, too, work to make myself and my writing transparent.
Why do you think Serial took off? Nobody I talked to thought that Adnan would be released from jail in the finale episode, or that DNA evidence would reveal his or anyone’s lies, or anything even close to something that dramatic. What kept us coming back? More details? More specifics? I mean, again, I know consumers are seeking out more and more depth, but...
Here’s what I know: I know I miss whatever gap in my entertainment portfolio Serial filled. I am pretty sure that there will be more podcasts, in time, that will identify the success of the phenomenon, name it, bottle it, sell it and mass produce it. I know that the success of Serial will generate more money for the form—which I think is a really big deal because without some cold hard cash, long-form journalism and storytelling will no longer exist.
“A single-subject narrative” is what my agent originally wanted to call my work (update on the book’s progress coming for my next post). And then she decided that my “voice could carry a memoir.” That was a huge compliment to me (it’s also technically much easier for me to do—no clue if it would be for other writers. But I want to add essayist flourishes to my memoir — essay-writing in general is my biggest aspiration, but I’m not sure I’m smart enough to do it. I may have a lemon-brain as far as that genre is concerned.). Anyway, I think Serial was a single-subject narrative that had essay-style overtures; it followed its own train of thought and teased out those thoughts. And I think we like that, because we are all living out one or many single-subject narratives in our own lives. Koening’s teasing could be our own teasing. The process became reflective. Koening’s thinking mirrored my own pattern of thinking — and despite not being an investigative journalist or a detective or even all that interested in crimes or unsolved mysteries, seeing that someone’s brain works just like yours is validating. It makes me think that I don’t have all that many habits to rid myself of in the first place.
Despite the second season of Serial coming at some mysterious and undisclosed time this year, I am really happy with many, many a podcast these days. I’ve updated my listen lists — podcasts I like and specific episodes I dig. But if you don’t want to look at that, listen to these two episodes of Mystery Show (Source Code and Belt Buckle), all of season two of StartUp, and the one I’m currently binging— Mortified.
