February 11th – National Make a Friend Day with Jenna Spinelle

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Today’s National Day is Make a Friend Day and thankfully, I had a friend I could count on in my time of podcasting need. 

Thanks(?) to my friend Jenna Spinelle, one of the hosts of the Democracy Works podcast, for challenging me to find a podcast episode related to this day. 

Check out the Behind The Scenes of this podcast. 

The Podcast Gumbo podcast playlist, made from love, will include almost all the episodes mentioned in this podcast going forward to make it easier for you to enjoy all these recommendations. 

Do you want more podcast recommendations? Sign up for my Podcast Gumbo newsletter which recommends 3 podcast episodes every Wednesday. 

You can also find me on Twitter at @paulkondo.

Thanks for listening,

Paul

Transcript

Hey. This is Paul Kondo. This is the Podcast Gumbo podcast and I’ve got a rhetorical question for ya.

Are you like me and find those things we call National Days, like Cheeseball Day or worse, Moldy Cheese Day, amusing? Yeah, me too. So each week, I’ll have one of my podcast friends challenge me to find an episode related to one of those days and I’ll be releasing it on the actual day it occurs.

So, let’s get to it. What is today’s National Day?

Hey Paul, it’s Jenna. And today is National Make a Friend Day. I am so excited that we get to celebrate this day here on your podcast because you and I have become friends over the past year through our various intersections in the podcast world. I know that my podcast can stress you out sometimes but I really appreciate your support and your friendship and I look forward to growing that friendship even more in 2020.

As Jenna said, February 11th is National Make a Friend Day.

This day couldn’t be more apropos for my guest. You see, I was in a huge jam with this episode and Jenna stepped in at the last minute and bailed me out. I owe you, Jenna!

I could get all mushy about this day but I’ll spare you. But here’s a little story that I’ve never forgotten. A long time ago, I heard an interview with filmmaker Kevin Smith. He was talking about making Clerks and that if he ever made a movie, he wanted to make it with his friends.

This podcast is a by-product of that same line of thinking. One of the earliest thoughts when I decided to make this podcast was to have any random person on the internet send me a voicemail asking me about a national day. Beside being a bit of a logistical pain in the arse, that left me a bit empty.

And then it hit me.

I could have my podcasting friends be my guests. No offense to any randos out there but I liked this idea much better.

So on this National Make a Friend Day, celebrate by going out and making a new friend. Who knows, maybe you’ll start a podcast and you’ll already have one friend you can call when you do. Once you do, shout out your new BFF by using the National Make A Friend Day hashtag.

Today’s themed recommendation is from NPR’s Life Kit podcast. The episode is called Make New Friends (and Keep Them). I didn’t actually have to find this as Jenna sent it to me. Perhaps, a hint?

In the episode, I learned what a puddle relationship is versus an ocean relationship. I also learned that there are people that use Microsoft Excel to track their friendships and it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

This week’s suggestion comes from Jenna Spinelle, who is one of the hosts of the Democracy Works podcast. We first met virtually through the Bello Collective and then we got to meet I-R-L down at Podcast Movement 2019. Little did she know what she was getting herself into.

The first episode I ever listened to and recommended in my newsletter is called What Is Democracy? A Conversation with Astra Taylor. I had never thought about that question before so it was quite enlightening. But if you continue listening to Jenna’s show, which you should, beware of the episode on How Conspiracies Are Damaging Democracy. You may get completely triggered by it like I was.

And now, for our third recommendation, Jenna recommends Timothy Olyphant’s interview on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. (Did you catch what Jenna wittily did there?) I’m a huge fan of Justified, Santa Clarita Diet, The Girl Next Door and many other things Mr. Olyphant has done so I dropped this episode in my queue immediately.

Well, that raps up this week’s recommendations. However, I do have some items to note.

Firstly, unless you weren’t paying attention, I now have some fancy new music. You all owe a huge thanks to my friend Jim for making this podcast a lot more tolerable. If you like it, tell me by using the JimMakesAwesomeMusic hashtag.

Secondly, if you want to get some behind the scenes of me creating this podcast, I’m writing a weekly journal in the spirit of shareyourwork2020. A link to it is in the show notes.

Lastly, the next episode drops tomorrow. That’s right. Tomorrow.

As always, take a look at the show notes for links to all the podcasts mentioned in this episode as well as other life-altering information. To make it easy for you, there’s also a link to a podcast playlist that will contain all the episodes ever mentioned in this show.

See you next week sometime for another round of recommendations.

Are you still listening? Do you still want more podcast goodness? If so, get on over to podcastgumbo.com and subscribe to my newsletter today.

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