Weekly Recap — 2/26/21
Stitcher has a plethora of podcasts worth listening to. Each week, we’re giving you new episode recommendations from some of our top shows to help keep you up to speed and ease the pain of the pod discovery process.
If/Then—“Tracy Drain: ‘Yeah, NASA. That’s Where I’m Going’”
Can you still remember the wonder or excitement that learning brought you as a kid? For most of us the answer is probably no. But that’s the main goal of the new Stitcher podcast, If/Then, where hosts Gillian Jacobs and Diona Reasonover aim to restore your childlike curiosity and remind listeners that learning is a lifelong adventure if you want it to be.
You probably know Jacobs from her starring roles in hit TV shows like Community and Love, and Reasonover as forensic scientist Kasie Hines from NCIS. But on their new podcast, the duo step off set to go on tangents with innovative, interesting and exciting personalities in science, tech, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As Jacobs says in the show’s premiere episode, the show presents “STEM for those of us who lost our graphing calculators a long time ago.”
We begin with Jacobs and Reasonover recounting their mutual interest in science growing up. Jacobs says because her mother worked in a natural history museum when she was very little she became “obsessed with dinosaurs” and went so far as to dress a T-Rex for Halloween in kindergarten. Reasonover’s dad was a pilot and taught her, maybe at too young of an age, the inner-workings of an airplane. “We never understood what he was talking about ever. But he did spark some curiosity in me,” she says.
The episode then moves into Jacobs’s interview with NASA engineer Tracy Drain. Drain is responsible for making sure that the many different systems and components of a spacecraft all function properly together, troubleshooting and honing in on any issues as they arise. She says the most important part of the job is having “problem solving skills” and being able to “spot a problem and work with a team of experts to figure out what to do about it.”
Unlike many podcasts that have a usual intro, interview, and closing segment, If/Then presents the interview, but jumps back to the hosts sporadically to get their reactions to what the interviewee just said. Reasonover fittingly compares Drain’s job description to the character Monica from Friends, due to her being so organized and basically functioning as the glue-of-the-group. “She’s the Monica.” Jacobs agrees, although she admits that she’s never actually seen Friends. “It’s an oversight on my part.”
Drain is a fascinating guest who details how her mom’s influence and frequent assistance (she would stay up with her until 3 a.m. to help finish homework assignments due the next day) shaped her career aspirations.
One of the most emotional parts of the episode comes when Drain is moved to tears upon reflecting on the first time she was able to see stars clearly at night. “I had no idea that the human eye could see the Milky Way.”
A valuable lesson about learning from your mistakes comes as she recounts working on the Juno spacecraft mission to Jupiter. “We don’t just say, ‘What happened? And what can we do to fix it? Now let’s move on and move on.’ It’s ‘What happened? And what can we do to fix it? Why did that happen? Is it there anything else remotely like that, that the same thing can happen?”
Listen to the rest of the episode to hear how Jacobs handled her own failure of getting a bad acting review at 16, one of Drain’s most awe-inspiring moments at NASA, and the case for the importance of future space exploration.
The Suga — “From Threenager to Teenager with Tichina Arnold”
This week’s episode of The Suga opens with hosts, Tika Sumpter and Thai Randolph, releasing some stress from the “craziness” of the outside world. Sumpter admits she had a therapy session recently because she was “done.” She told her daughter, Ella, who she calls a “Fournager” (combination of four-year-old and teenager), she would put her “out” and her daughter responded, “out where?” “We are not going to be able to use the stuff our parents used on us,” she says. “Those threats are so empty.” While she says she’s grateful for her daughter, she’s also been struggling to deal with her daughter’s constant pokings, the pestering she does to see if it will make her mom react.
Randolph, however, is holed up, recording at a hotel. “I had to get out of there,” she says, referring to her house. She’s dealing with a pinched nerve and says she hit a wall from the pain along with the exhaustion from work, travel, and raising a child.
“I have your hand, you have mine,” Sumpter reminds her co-host.
The hosts may share the stresses that come from raising small kids, but they have yet to reach the experience of raising a teenager. Enter this week’s guest: Tichina Arnold. Arnold is an award-winning actress who’s appeared on Martin, Everybody Hates Chris, and The Neighborhood. Arnold says that motherhood took over her life for the better once her daughter was born. But it hasn’t been easy. When asked what advice she has for how to be a good mother? “You wing it,” she says. “There’s no book. There’s no formula.”
One of the best moments of the episode is Arnold recalling the moment she realized how much motherhood changed her life. “I got out of the limousine one time. I was going to an event.” She was wearing her favorite Gucci blazer, paparazzi snapping photos. She says she got out of the car and when she looked down and saw she had breast milk stains all over her jacket. “And that’s when I realized this shit is over. It’s over. There’s no more looking cute.”
“I am the queen and what I say goes,” Arnold says about parenting. She rules with an iron fist, and says once a kid understands that concept, parenthood gets easier. She always makes sure to remind her daughter that her rules and disciplinary measures come from a good place and that she’s ultimately always trying to do what’s best for her.
Listen to the full episode to hear more wise parenting advice from Arnold, the character she’s most enjoyed acting as, and what her dream role would be.
Spanish Aquí Presents — “Yum Yum, Food (w/ Eddie Zamora)”
This week on Spanish Aquí Presents the crew kicks off the episode with a discussion on who will be getting the vaccine next. Right off of the bat, they agree that improv groups are likely at the bottom of the list.
Up next, they promptly dive into the discussion of dating your friends’ exes. Are they off-limits? Tony Rodriguez says that in the queer community, for “Older queers, I’m going to say like over 30, 40, I think there’s a mentality of, ‘well there’s fewer of us around.’ So you can’t be as choosy or picky. With younger queers I think they’re more precious.”
They agree that no matter your sexual orientation, the smaller the community, the more likely people will end up overlapping in who they date. The wider the community, the more options. Raiza Licea admits: “I don’t wish upon any of my best friends to date anybody I’ve dated.”
Spanish Aquí Presents is a consistently enjoyable listen, as episodes tend to mix it up with a lively off-the-cuff opening discussion, followed by insightful and funny interviews.
This week the crew interviews food blogger Eddie Zamora, also known as The Yum Yum Foodie.
Zamora recalls how he was once a picky eater when he was a kid, so much so that when he went with his family on vacation, they needed to bring him his own soup to eat. But his pickiness subsided when he went to Spain in college and discovered how much he’d been missing.
Hearing Zamora discuss his unexpected and often unpredictable career turns can be inspiring for any listener. He climbed his way up in the food and entertainment industry. First, working small jobs in restaurants and catering, until suddenly one day he was told to cook steaks when a chef didn’t show up. He was later hired as a spokesman for a car, leading him to meet Lance Armstrong and allowing him to go viral on Twitter from a post about the cyclist. Zamora made fun of Armstrong after their encounter and says once the post did well, a light bulb went off. He realized he should hone his voice and try to build an audience. This ultimately took the form of starting a food blog.
Zamora realized that the best option for success comes from ignoring what you think other people want for you, and instaed listening to how you feel—even if it means changing your mind and quitting what you thought was your passion.
Listen to the full episode to learn about Zamora’s favorite meal, how a duck lips meme led to a major career milestone for him, and to hear why the crew says exes are pretty much “all the same zombies.”
— Ian Goldstein
