In 2012, I was a guest on The Feast of Fun podcast hosted by Marc and Fausto when they were in Austin for SXSW. They reached out to talk about 33 Teeth, my first short film about a gay teenager that screened at Slamdance - and then every little gay film festival imaginable.
After recording, they invited me to join them for a baked chicken breast and steamed broccoli lunch. They had recently started a weight lifting regimen. I remember them as very nice, very generous, very buff podcast hosts.
I can’t recall our conversation (it’s currently behind a paywall) but I do remember talking about the first “podcast” I made years ago with friends. It was called “No, Seriously!” and my pals Greg and Jamie were the co-hosts. I loved the whole process and wanted to make more but my friends had cold feet and so “No, Seriously!” was abandoned.
Fausto said: “Everyone has one of those, we call them orphan podcasts. “
My brain has never forgotten this term because over the years, I’ve created many orphans. My hard drives are filled with little blue folders that are little blue gravestones to various projects that made it to a rough first draft… only to cough a speck of blood onto a white hanky and die young.
Since they won’t see the light of day anywhere else - and as part of my process of not being too much of a perfectionist here at Don’t Be Precious, Darling - I’m debuting clips from a selection of my orphaned podcasts here.
I hope these clips of unfinished work will inspire you to share or revisit unfinished work of your own.
No, Seriously!
Greg was an Opera Queen getting his phD in Musicology. Jamie was a smart-ass pop-culture-obsessed chatterbox who loved Madonna unironically.
When we sat down in my bedroom to record, I had just one mic for both of them, and I remember holding it and trying to anticipate who would speak next. We had one piece of paper with a list of things to talk about scribbled on it in pencil.
At the top of the list was Britney Spears’s Toxic.
“It’s fresh, it’s dewey, it’s Swedish.”
The opening minutes of No, Seriously!
Also on our list was Madonna’s Hung Up, the book Everything Bad For You Is Good For You, Brokeback Mountain and Match Point.
It was this segment about Match Point that really made me fall in love with this idea of listening to smart people dissect and interpret interesting works of culture - such as Woody Allen’s use of opera in the film.
The Use of Opera in Match Point:
Next, they riiiipped apart the Oscar-winning score from Brokeback Mountain (plunk plunk plunk) but we finished off strong with a love letter to Anne Hathway’s campy blonde wig.
“Meanwhile, in Anne Hathaway’s Head!”
There’s a lot here that feels like a pop-culture podcast that I would listen to today… but alas, this is truly the orphan that no one has adopted since 2006.
She basically runs the orphanage now.
Please vote! Would you shelve this pilot, or would you bring it to series?
During the pandemic, my pals Adam and Eric were throwing around joke ideas for podcasts we could make while the world had slowed down.
Our first idea was The Nancy Jews, a short investigative comedy show where they - both gay and Jewish - would be Nancy Jews (get it?) solving mostly gay mysteries like:
Is Ben Wishaw a future daddy?
Curling: Olympic sport or just annoying?
For real, why do Penny Farthings exist?
What ever happened to the tenth dentist who didn’t recommend Crest?
We settled on a second idea, a show called TEXT OFFENDERS, where we read people’s text fights and judge their subTextual communication skills.
We solicited for anonymously submitted screenshots of text fights and found one willing participant who had regrettably started a fight with his neighbor.
The person in blue is the one who sent us the screenshots.
Then, I had friends read both parts of the fight.
Re-enactment:
Then, Judge Eric Sottomeyer and Judge Adam Bader Ginsburg listen to the full text fight - with breaks for clarification and shade throwing.
Before the judges give their final thoughts, the person who sent in the fight gets to send in a sealed affidavit that is unsealed by the bailiff (me) during closing remarks. Additional context is revealed in real time to the judges - including a new twist in an otherwise open-shut case.
Text Offenders Intro:
The entire show ran long and would have benefited from more rounds of recording with the hosts and general bafoonery.
In the end, we felt that the barrier of finding enough juicy text fights might prove too difficult, and paying for professional actors to bring the texts to life was cost-prohibitive.
So, the case of the Text Offenders Podcast was thrown out of court.
Our third Orphaned podcast is a rewatch show called Looking @
The first season was going to be a re-hashing of each episode of the HBO TV show “Looking” - which told the stories of a group of gay men living in the Bay Area.
Co-hosts Beti and Dela grew up in the Bay and both loved this show and its portrayal of Bay Area queers.
Future seasons would have tackled other shows and movies that were set or filmed in the Bay Area like “Blindspotting”, “Medicine for Melancholy” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”
Dela: “We’re not doing the think piece here”
Beti: “Was Richie beautiful? Is he too precious for this earth? That’s my content”
Beti and Dela have incredible chemistry and I really think if we had more time to prepare and figure out the core concept, it could’ve been a contender.
Looking @ Rough Trailer
There are so many funny moments in this rough trailer...
Beti: “Have you seen the Weekend, Dela?”
Dela: The one with Sasheer?
Dela: “Oh, y’all still trying to get me to watch some British stuff.’
Beti: “Listen, the Brits give us blessings.”
Beti: “Come thru Richie with your beautiful brown eyes.”
And at the end when Dela’s Postmates arrive and we catch her eating food.
I’d rate this one high for the host chemistry and Bay-Area-themed premise. I’d love a place where I can learn and think deeply about all the movies, books, and TV that this beautiful place has inspired.
Thanks for your votes and for listening!
I have a few more orphaned podcasts I will share at another time - and many more that have yet to be created. It’s all part of the process of getting ideas out of my head and into a tangible form to play around with. And being OK with where things land.
Lemme know if you’d like to share some of your own unfinished work!
I’d love to talk about it.
xo
Evan
PS.