If you missed last week’s newsletter, this month I’m having some fun with my friend Lauren Passell, the writer of Podcast The Newsletter. As lovers of podcasts, we are entrusting four friends at the Bello Collective to recommend something to us, for each of us to review. Will they come through for us?
For Week 2, Erik Jones, writer of the Hurt Your Brain newsletter has offered up Death, Sex & Money’s ‘I Killed Someone. Now I Have 3 Kids.’
Sidenote: I’ve known Erik for over a year and he is one of my favorite people that tries to draw pictures. I mock him because he makes me think harder than I sometimes want to.
Here’s a snippet of Lauren’s review:
“My mind was being tugged back and forth between feeling so sorry for Lawrence, who seems like a wonderful person who was in a terrible situation when he was young, and feeling sorry for the family of the man he killed. It strengthened a thought I have all the time, that I wish we had a different system of putting people in jail.”
But don’t stop there. Learn how we agree/disagree on this episode. Read the rest of Lauren’s review and while you’re over there, subscribe to her amazingly comprehensive newsletter.
Here’s my full review
If you know Erik and his newsletter, you know that he likes to make you think and also marvel at his drawings. Therefore, his recommendation of Death, Sex & Money’s ‘I Killed Someone. Now I Have 3 Kids.’ was not something I was expecting.
I feel I need to once again provide some backstory because some of you haven’t been around for a year. I have been off true-crime stories, specifically those that deal with killing. I believe that a lot of shows that have come out in the last year are only doing it to be sensational and not caring enough about the victims.
Death, Sex & Money is not sensationalistic. I trust what they do. Very early on, you find out the protagonist’s horrible crime and I found it hard to get past that. Yes, I want to hear how people have changed for the better and although you do feel his remorse, I struggled with my own empathy. I was warned that I would need tissues but I was surprised that I didn’t need them.
What stood out to you the most?
That I didn’t cry. Seriously. I was just talking about this to my friends. As I’ve gotten older, I cry a lot. I began to well up over some silly commercial during the Giants-Jets game on Sunday. Or maybe, that was just the residual effect of watching the Giants fight(?) for the number one draft pick. Again. But this didn’t hit me like that.
I know that may make me come off as some heartless unsympathetic soul and I admit that it surprised me as well. I grew up and lived almost my entire life in an affluent NJ community that shared a border with Newark, one of the worst cities in the country. I’d like to think that I have a small understanding between the haves and have-nots. So what’s missing for me here?
How was this different or similar to what you usually listen to?
I don’t perceive this episode as true-crime. It’s much more about one man’s change over time and how his life and thoughts have changed ever since committing a senseless murder as a 17-year old. So it’s something I’m all in on.
Who would you recommend this show to?
As far as the show (not episode) goes, I’m not sure many people who wouldn’t like DS&M. It covers a lot of ground. Who doesn’t like sex? Who doesn’t like money? Ok, maybe death isn’t a favorite of most people unless it’s yet ANOTHER true-crime podcast that people can’t seem to get enough of these days.
Will you be adding this show to your listening library?
I’m not going to be adding Death, Sex & Money to my podcast app mainly because it won’t let me subscribe to a show twice. I have had many episodes recommended to me in the past but the show is not on regular rotation because I don’t have the time. But it’s rare that I don’t enjoy their episodes.
Are you on the fence about giving this episode a listen? Don’t forget about Lauren’s review which may tip the scale one way or another.
Podcast: Death, Sex & Money – I Killed Someone. Now I have 3 Kids (38 mins)