This week we have a letter to a culinary listener, a postcard asking about clown procedure, and I attempt to learn about a group I haven’t interacted much with.
Letter Talk is a short (~10 minutes) comedy podcast where a I write letters to anyone about anything, and I’d be honored to write one to you.
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- Letter Talk is written and produced by me, and my sister Amy edits my writing. This episode features music from Kevin MacLeod.
Letters
Hi Ammon,
It was so nice to hear from you, and allow me to extend a very belated congratulations on your nuptials. Please send my regards to your wife.
I think it’s very sweet that you’re thinking about creating a podcast with your wife. I’m a bit biased here, but I think podcasting is a very fulfilling experience. The first podcast I ever had was a show where a panel of my sister, me and a few rotating friends shot the shit, and talked about news stories and pop culture. And before you say, “Bleh, that sounds like every podcast,” yes, it totally was, but also it was 2010 and we were almost not super rip-off like yet?
I didn’t really expect it to go anywhere — I just loved making it. I thought it was good editing practice (even though, real talk, I could have edited way more). More importantly it was a time capsule of my friends during that time period. I actually have a friend who passed away last year, and I still have a few recordings with her and I’m truly thankful for that.
I’m not sure if this is too presumptive, but I’ve taken the liberty to brainstorm some podcast ideas for you:
The Baker Gang
A show where you and your wife start a gang of incredibly talented bakers and try to take over a local bake shop by force.
Macaroon 5
A true crime podcast where you help the band Maroon 5 find out who really stole the macaroon box out of their dressing room on October 1st, 2013 at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Marysville, California. Rozzi Crane, the opening act, has been in jail for the crime ever since. New evidence suggests that she may be innocent.
A Podcast to Pie For
A baking podcast where you try out a new recipe every week and, if you or your wife don’t like it, you get to smash it in the face of who made it like what they do to clowns.
A Monopoly Podcast
There’s only one episode and it lasts an entire Monopoly game. It’s you and your wife (extra friends optional) and you can’t stop playing until the game is over. You can call it Ammonopoly.
The Pot Roast
You guys just roast pot roast recipes. Somebody needs to take those recipes down a peg. Stupid smug recipes. They think they’re better than me? They think they’re better than me?!
I think those are a few ideas that might work out. You’ll have to let me know how it goes! As for the social media component of it, I don’t really know what to tell you there. The truth is, I’m not very good at it. In fact just recently I was trying to do outreach on Twitter, and I was liking tweets where folks were talking about the podcast “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” I happened upon a tweet that I didn’t read thoroughly and I was the only “like” on a tweet about someone throwing out their back out. Person A asked Person B how they were doing, and Person B said, “Terrible, Thanks for asking” and mentioned something being in the hospital. After some random ass podcast liked that tweet, they both turned their attention to asking why I was being an asshole. I quietly unliked it, responded explaining the situation in a likely Frasier-esque “OMG what a wild misunderstanding”-type way, but decided on deleting the response. I find that sometimes it’s best to crawl quietly out of situations, in real life and online.
I actually tried to crawl out of using Instagram in the past … I’m not particularly good at it. I never really feel like taking selfies, I guess? Once somebody told me I didn’t use enough hashtags. Of all the weaknesses in my character, I never imagined the most grotesque and obvious one is that I fail to hashtag enough.
It seems to me that the key to doing well on any social media platform is to post often and as meaningfully as you can. Sometimes if you’re just out for follows, it’s hard not to seem like a spam bot. For example, I’m pretty sure at this point, people only want to see posts about Ray Bans for sale from the actual Ray Bans account. I curse spammers every day that they made it difficult for those brave souls who work at Ray Bans stores, who care only about selling their friends wonderful sunglasses at amazing deals.
It helps if you actually like social media platform, or if you know that one specifically works best for your purposes. It also helps if you have a pet. Do you have a pet you can put on Instagram a bunch? That seems to help. If you don’t, consider getting a guinea pig or something to take pictures of.
Personally, when I stalked your Instagram account, I was taken by the scenery shots and all the pictures of the stuff you’re baking. It all looked delicious and amazing, and I will always appreciate food pictures a lot more when the picture taker created the food. I can dig a good “look at this thing I created” post.
Ammon, I wish you the best if you decide to create a podcast and put it out in the world. We can always use podcasts that are run by nice people. If you decide not to, I still wish you the best, and I hope you keep baking the most of it!
Sending hugs to your household!
Love,
Alyssa
Clowns get pastries thrown in their face a lot, but my question is: do they get to keep it? I’d be more than happy to get stuff thrown at my face if I got to keep it. What do you think?
Dear Detroit Metro Times,
I’m writing to you because a few years back I saw that you had a column called “Ask a Juggalo,” and like all good things, I took it for granted. I had so many questions to ask a juggalo but I never got to. There are so many things I wished I had said to the juggalo. I checked back on that column and it had vanished, like a face behind clown makeup.
That leaves me with ya’ll. I’m hoping you can point me in the direction of another juggalo source I can talk to instead. Or maybe you can help me with some of the stuff I’m trying to find out. Forgive me if these questions are elementary juggalo knowledge, I’m not very well versed with the culture and I’ve never been to Michigan.
Here are a few things I hope you can clear up for me. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask a question about the makeup. Is this something that juggalos and juggalettes wear every day like what many women do with makeup? Or is it a special occasion type thing? Like, oh I haven’t seen him in makeup since junior prom! There’s a pro wrestler named Finn Balor, and he used to wear all sorts of fancy makeup all the time, but now he only does it on special occasions. So he used to be a scary demon guy half the time, now he’s just a guy dressed in tiny underwears and a jacket.
Are you familiar with Jughead from Riverdale and Archie comics? I’m under the impression that Jughead is short for Juggalohead. Can you confirm or deny?
I also heard that J.Lo is short for “Juggalo.” Does anybody plan on suing her?
If you guys are juggalos, then what are we supposed to call the people who collect and play jugs in a musical sense? I’m sure everyone’s got an aunt somewhere who goes to Burning Man every year and collects different kinds of jugs because depending on the size, they make different noises. What should I call my aunt Beatrice? I wanted to call her a Jughead, but I didn’t want to do that if it meant something different. We have to hurry, because Burning Man is coming up, and her jug band is still brainstorming names, and they want to have something before they head out to the playa.
I read on Wikipedia that every year there’s a “Juggalo Day.” I had to look it up elsewhere. It’s February 17th. I can’t believe I missed it this year. How come I don’t see it as a hashtag on Twitter and Facebook like I do with every other designer holiday? I knew it was National Best Friends day, and I saw people post pictures with their best friends. I\’m now disappointed that I have never seen any Juggalo Day posts where my friends post pictures in the clown prom makeup.
Is there a limit to the facial expressions you can paint on your face? I assume it’s like normal makeup where sometimes I see people paint some really strange expressions onto their faces just by doing something slightly wrong with their eyebrows. But I guess I ask, because I’m wondering if people can have too happy an expression and it just ruins the hatchet vibes and stuff.
I just found out there’s an online currency called juggalocoin. This isn’t a question, but I plan to get very well versed in the juggalocoin market so that if anybody starts talking to me about bitcoin, I can start telling them about juggalocoin instead. I don’t anticipate this will come up soon, but I like to have this ace in my pocket just in case.
Thanks for reading this juggaletter. And I know this is an odd request, so if you’re unable to give me the juggalow-down, please feel free to pass this on to a better source of knowledge in this particular field.
Keep it jugular, and I’ll see you juggalater!
Alyssa