Episode #3
The Mortified Podcast
With Hosts Neil Katcher and David Nadelberg
Note that transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and are checked by over-worked and under-paid interns. So, please excuse any inaccuracies. Thank you.
Original Release: Monday, August 31,2020
Zack 00:00
Yeah.
David Nadelberg 00:01
The letter is very pretentious and begins like this, “Hello, Leslie”… Again, I did not know Leslie maybe had spoken to her twice. So I was going to give her this letter that began, “Hello, Leslie. How is your day today? Mine's quite well, I must admit, I do hope that your day is a good one. Because what you're about to read may or may not add an extra color to the rainbow at the days end. And so I was trying very hard to impress this person.
Neil Katcher 00:28
I mean, I’d say yes. That's beautiful, David.
Zack 00:30
That and much, much more on this episode of the Pod Spotter.
MUSIC INTRO TO BREAK
00:53
Zack: You're listening to the Pod Spotter. I'm your host, Zach Robidas. There are a shitload of podcasts out there. Believe me, I've counted and it's way too many for one person to sit down and sift through which is why we are here. We're here for you guys. We're going to do the heavy lifting and we are going to find the little diamonds in the rough those little nuggets of quality podcast entertainment, and every Monday, we're going to talk to their creators and their hosts and we're gonna have a few laughs and play a couple clips and hopefully you guys learn something in the process and if you like what you're hearing then please subscribe to our little pod and visit us at the podspotter.com and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @thepodspotter for extra content and information on upcoming shows. Thanks y'all.
01:45
MUSIC OUT OF BREAK
02:02
Zack: Pod people we all have that box in our parents basement filled with old yearbooks, and trophies and love letters from a different time and in many ways, a different person, a record of who we were before we became the people we are today. Our guests today have taken that box and they've dumped it out. And they've sifted through it. And they found the key moments of vulnerability. And they now broadcast them for all the world to see. The mortified podcast features adults sharing the embarrassing artifacts they've held on to since their youth. Creators Neil Katcher, David Nadelberg joining us today to discuss the business of snooping through diaries publicly. Welcome, gentlemen, Dave, Neil, how are you? Thanks for being here.
David Nadelberg 02:45
Great. Thanks for having us.
Neil Katcher 02:46
Thank you very much.
Zack 02:48
Ah, we're either of you big Snoops as kids. I just want to start there. Did you – did you have siblings that you could snoop or parents? Were you big snoops?
David Nadelberg 02:58
I'll answer that because there's a fun fact about the title of mortified that relates to this, which is I used to snoop in my older sister's diary when she went off to college. And what stopped me and there was nothing really that interesting. But what stopped me was she, her name is Debbie. And she wrote this entry that was actually out about concern for me. And so I was such an asshole for doing it. And the original one of the original titles for mortified, there was a bunch, but one of them was Debbie's diaries. And if you look closely at our logo, our new logo, which just launched, what a few weeks ago, as of this recording, or a week ago, as of this recording - the book - there's a diary in the new logo, and if you look very closely, our graphic designer unbeknownst to me, I guess I had told him this story. And he, Morley, put this in the artwork.
Zack 04:05
Oh my god, a little easter egg. I love it. Do you - what was the – do you remember the character adjustment she wanted? Like cuz? Are you sure it wasn't a plant? Are you sure she didn’t know you were snooping?
David Nadelberg 04:14
It wasn’t a character adjustment. I'm not I'm not an actress. I'm not a role in a play. She was telling me she was like, worried about I don't know, I was probably depressed or something.
Zack 04:25
okay. It was - it was broad. It was a general Dave. I'm worried about Dave. Are you sure she didn't know you were snooping and just put it in as a plant?
David Nadelberg 04:34
Oh - she is smart. That's true. It's possible. Did you snoop in your older sister’s stuff, Neal?
Neil Katcher 04:44
Yep. But I was only looking for entries about myself and my sister was very verbose in her journals. And I was just like, flipping through journal after journal like through just like seas of texts. Just looking for any reference to me and I think the only thing I found was her concern for me as well. So I was like, really annoying because I was hoping to find something better but I'm not sure what I was hoping to find.
Zack 05:12
You both have wonderful older sisters that are just concerned for your welfare and I have two older sisters and they didn't give a shit about - there is nothing in there about poor Zach. But similarly, Dave, I did have a stop now experience of snooping when I was pretty big snoop, I went through a pretty big snoop phase. And then I found the box in my parents bedroom that no child is ever supposed to find, you know that box, that’s a different box.
David Nadelberg 05:35
Oh, I found that box.
Zack 05:38
Never snooped again after, never snooped a day in my life. Of course...
David Nadelberg 05:41
I found a turkey baster that wasn't, it turns out, a turkey baster.
Neil Katcher 05:46
What? What do you mean?
Zack 05:48
Oh, no, no. Your mind just saw it and was like -
Neil Katcher 05:51
Wait - a turkey baster is generally used for fertility. So what is it used for in this situation?
David Nadelberg 05:59
Kinda..
Neil Katcher 06:00
Maybe they were just making Thanksgiving in the bedroom. Like I don't know how -
David Nadelberg 06:03
Look, here's the good news. Podcast audience tolerances are generally high. And also my parents are dead. So I can I feel entitled to say this. It was in my dad's drawer underneath sweaters. I don't know why it was in my dad's drawer that brags lots of other questions. And, but there was it was a large, like beige object or something. And it looked like a turkey baster, that's what I associated it with.
Neil Katcher 06:36
It sounds like a penis enlargement machine, for sure.
David Nadelberg 06:38
Maybe it wasn't a dildo, maybe it was a penis enlargement machine. Either way -
Zack 06:45
You know, you can probably answer that question you know, genetically, you probably follow your father's - was it a penis enlarger?
David Nadelberg 07:00
We don't even know anything about this podcast and we're getting right into penis size here.
Zack 07:03
I'm having a little fun with the word snoop. Obviously, you don't Snoop you solicit the moments of vulnerability from people's childhood and early on while I was listening to this podcast, I was like these people are, I was like, I'm on to these guys. They're getting performers. They're getting people, people are reaching out to David Neal who have a history of performing. Everyone is so good on stage that I was like, I'm pretty sure these are – these are plants. These are people that have some experience on stage. And then really early on, I heard Collins story. Let's listen to a little bit of Collin’s story real quick:
Cut to Excerpt:
Collin 07:38
Jessica, before I start this letter, and we need to know that this letter in everything said in it is completely and truly confidential. I like you, Jessica. I am awed by your beauty and friendliness. In my eyes, I believe you're the most cheerful and funniest girl in our school. My troubles and worries fade away for a moment. Whenever you smile at me or pass my way. Thank you for being so friendly to me and everybody. Your beauty of your radiance dominates my every waking moment.
Zack 08:19
Ah, dominates. Only something a child would say. Only it's such a like, what's the most powerful thing that I could say, Colin, you listen to him. And he's overcoming not only speaking in public, you know, he's also he talks about the speech impediment, which you hear him fighting against while he's delivering his very emotional sort of testimonial, his diary entry, and you're like, oh my god, these are real people still dealing with some very real things. Could you talk a bit about Collin coming to you and wanting to share and open up his story?
Neil Katcher 08:54
So, the way Mortified works is, I should back up and say, that prior to the podcast, mortified started as a live event where people get on stage and share their embarrassing journals and childhood writings in front of a live audience. And so Colin is actually part of our Portland chapter, he was a participant who performed in Portland, reading letters and journal entries that he wrote when he was in middle school or high school. And so for him, it was really an act of bravery to get on stage. I can't imagine trying to get on stage and having to like, read journal entries, like verbatim like that with a speech impediment. He spent weeks like unlike other people who get on stage in our show, and I should back up and say that every person who gets on stage, we work really hard with them to figure out what they're going to share. And we help them we prepare them to actually get on the stage. So they're not necessarily reading cold, like it's not an open mic where they just show up, open up their journal and hope something is interesting to a group of strangers. But what makes Colin different and really interesting is that he spent weeks memorizing and reading, like reading his entries over and over again in front of a mirror, because he was so afraid that his speech impediment would stop him from being able to get all the way through the piece. And because I, sometimes when he gets caught on a word, he might be caught on that word for a while, like, well, the longer he's caught, the harder it is for him to sort of get out of that. You know, get out of that it because it brings up all of his all of his nerves. So, you know, he really had overcome a lot to get on stage. And so I was always in awe of everything he did.
Zack 10:48
It's a great episode to start with guys. It's Episode 35 if you're interested in hearing Collin’s story, and thank you for setting the table there for me, Neil, a lot of times I have been interviewing podcasts that have like seven or eight episodes are new or interesting, and people don't really know about, and it's about focusing the light on these new and interesting ones. And I'm assuming that audiences are bringing a little more to the table with this one mortified, you guys have been doing the stage shows for 17 years, they're in over 20 states, they're international. I mean, the mortified brand is out there. So I this is more about just like, hey, if this isn't in your library, it should be required listening, this is a good podcast for all of us, especially right now I've had a good time just listening to it to be reminded of a simpler time when problems were, you know, seemed so big, but we're actually not, you know, my biggest problem was, you know, who am I going to date was really nice.
David Nadelberg 11:41
But one of the fun things for me about the show is that, you know, we do, I think as adults, we think about the past as simpler times, and all that kind of thing. And in some ways it is but you know, I do think it's always really important to remember like to these kids, these are huge problems with huge stakes, they haven't lived the amount of years we've lived. So they don't know that these things don't kill us. They don't know that these things ultimately, don't matter in certain ways. And so we actually try to approach the show with, I don't know, with reverence for that, that these are complex things, and that these are big things, even though to us in some ways, they're, they're not like getting rejected for prom, or
Zack 12:27
You made a pretty big discovery out of that process, out of the Mortified method. Right, David? Do you want to speak to that about you know, it just being, there are clues to these passages to what kids are writing about.
David Nadelberg 12:40
Basically, the sort of artifacts of our past these excerpts that you don't think are that interesting, or meaningful, I should say, even if you do find them interesting, that is to say, your old poems, your diary entries, even a song lyric, or even honestly, just a photograph of you, from when you were like 14, that we think of these things as fun, fluffy nostalgia. But when you look at them in the right way, and you ask the right questions about them, like what did this kid want? Why did that kid want it? and things of that nature. The stories start to unfold, and these things become teenage angst tea leaves that reveal so much about who that kid is, but also who that kid is going to become. So you know, knowing any, anything that you could know about Zach, which I know very few things about us, Zach, but I know you are a good public speaker. I know you apparently like books in the background. And..
Zack 13:40
These are fake. These are fake books.
David Nadelberg 13:42
fake nooks. Oh, yeah. Because we're seeing each other on Zoom.
Zack 13:44
This is a virtual.
Neil Katcher 13:45
And he doesn't like using his mugs for, like, drinking.
Zack 13:48
No, no, these are display mugs. No, no.
David Nadelberg 13:48
And I learned in our pre interview, that you cut your own hair. So there might be things by looking at your childhood artifacts that we could learn about, like his level of comfort with certain things or his interest in certain things. And like, for instance, you work in advertising, typically, is that correct?
Zack 14:10
Yeah, I work in advertising. I do. I'm an actor. So I do, I do commercials and voiceovers. So yeah, I work in advertising indirectly.
David Nadelberg 14:18
So there might be so that means like, you have a knack for communication you have a knack for sales and creativity on both of those fronts. And the seeds of that you will see pretty quickly when you start looking at even just seemingly innocuous things that are not about that
Zack 14:35
There's a pretty clear example of that sort of childhood link from the childhood to who we are in the Tengwar episode. That's Episode 148. Where, well let's listen to this listen to a bit of Tengwar then we'll discuss
Cut to Excerpt:
14:51
Speaker: So there was no one that I could confide in, at home. Nobody. And so a diary seemed like a natural thing. But I didn't want anyone to find out about it. And so the obvious thing to do is to write a code.
David Nadelberg 15:05
Enter JRR Tolkien
15:07
Light bulb went off in my head literally saying I'm gonna write a diary and Tengwar, in Elvish. No one can read it, it'll be totally mine forever.
David Nadelberg 15:15
So he wrote, and wrote for an entire year.
15:19
I think in total, I wrote 30 or 40 entries in Tengwar. one page probably takes an hour to write it probably takes an hour to write, it's taken me all day to decode two pages. Five April to Saturday 1981 AD, I guess AD is important. Melanie all year, I have been totally confused whether to love her or let her go. My mind told me I should, I should wait until I had some money, my heart told me don't let go. We were holding hands yesterday. That was a whole page by the way.
Zack 16:00
So this gentleman he to disguise his diary writes and codes it in Tengwar and he will grow up to be, doesn’t he do that now? He's a coder, right? In life, we later find out. And I think it’s a really nice example of that sort of phenomenon that you're talking about that when we do go back, you will find breadcrumbs of who you are now you'll find the seeds often planted of who people are now.
David Nadelberg 16:25
Yeah. And if you're if you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, that's it that winds up being a really fun episode.
Zack 16:31
Oh great episode. Episode 148. If anybody's interested in the Tengwar episode,
Neil Katcher 16:35
One of the other interesting things that comes out of working with folks, is that unless like there are certainly there are some people that come to us and have a very good grasp on what is interesting about their own lives, or their own childhoods. But a lot of times people don't necessarily know, what is interesting about their own lives, like about like, what's going on. Like, they think like, there'll be lots of things in their journals or things that they wrote that they just go “Oh, yeah, that's, nothing.” And they'll just sort of put it aside. And we'll be like - no, no, you need to read that you need to share that. And then they'll share that thing with us. And then we'll be able to expose certain things about their personality that is actually unique to them. And that's sort of the thing that it makes the show universal, is those very unique sort of quirks that we all have, the more specific we get in someone's personality, the more universal their story becomes. It's not the other way around. We're like - oh, I had a crush too. That means my story is universal. Well, everybody's had a crush on someone in their life. But people really just don't have a grasp on what makes them fascinating.
Zack 17:48
And probably want to conceal it probably want to hide it away, like subconsciously don't want to reveal that thing and might take some prying on your part. What isn't that room like? We hear the finished product. We hear them on stage, you know, after some talking to in some coaching, but if you wouldn't, I'd like to hear more about that room when folks come to you in a very raw state. And they have this diary entry, and they're dealing with life and death, and sex and these big things. And it's just you in this room with them and their emotions. What's that?
Neil Katcher 18:18
It starts with tension of almost like an audition or a casting session. Because they come in with a preconceived sense of like, I have to impress these people. Like the people who come to us with their journals, but rather quickly, it somehow eventually turns into a group therapy session. It's healing not just for them sometimes to share, like things in their life that maybe they've never shared with anyone, let alone a couple people they met seven minutes ago. But also, it's healing for us. Because the nature of someone you don't know sharing personal stuff with you is really cathartic. And it's one of my favorite parts of the process is getting to meet people and having them without knowing them opening up their journals and just start sharing something from their childhood, something that they thought was so personal that they could only keep it in their private diary. And now here they are sharing with us
Zack 19:15
Did you have to take any sort of like guidance counselor class or anything to deal with like, people in some baggage -
Neil Katcher 19:22
Sadly no, we’re very unprofessional
Zack 19:24
You're just good listeners because you do you know, we learn something throughout the course of the pod, guys that haven't heard it, you'll hear you know, the podcast is based on the live show. But then Neil and David also catch up with those performers. And there's a bit of a post mortem and oftentimes a preamble to expand on the world of the story. And you're not just putting these people on display. Often we're learning something about their journey and learning something from their story. But you guys are you're digging, you know, you're digging through some stuff, some repressed stuff, some stuff that people haven't, you know, dealt with since they were kids, and I'm wondering how you so definitely navigate those tricky waters?
David Nadelberg 20:04
Well, I think that the goal of kind of doing all that digging really is, is, it's less about like, that people should know about this person's life. It's more when you just hear, you know, take the person who's obsessed with Lord of the Rings, that is not something I grew up being obsessed with. But I did grow up being obsessed with other things. And so when I can hear, and that particular clip you played, deals with shame, and it deals with other darker things, that eventually it stops being funny and starts getting pretty heavy. And, you know, whatever is underneath those surface things is I think, what we're always just trying to get it because then that's how anybody else is going to relate. That's how somebody in Tulsa is going to relate to somebody in New York City. Despite growing up in very different types of places. We have a show on Netflix miniseries called the Mortified guide, and one of the episodes features, the song lyrics written by this kid who grew up in Puerto Rico, and he and it's all in Spanish, and then he translates it, and on many, many levels, you would think it would be relatable to people from that specific situation. And it's not, it's not at all because and so that, you know, everything comes out through interview and through just little bits of context.
Zack 21:30
Sure. And also multi generational binding here from your podcast, you hear from people whose adolescence hadn't happened since 1941. And oftentimes, their experience is very similar to something that tween is going through right now, you really learned from this podcast that we are all connected, and we all do have the same shared experience. And generally everybody thinks they were picked on in high school, that's what we all can identify with. No one really thinks they had it like aces throughout.
David Nadelberg 22:03
That's one of our cliches that will sometimes make fun of, we might get somebody saying something about, they get on stage, and they say - so growing up, I was a total nerd. And sometimes we will keep that in. But very often, we will cut that out because we're like, not everybody can claim that or say that.
Neil Katcher 22:24
There's nothing more upsetting to someone who was a nerd. Like legitimately inescape-ly nerdy, when somebody like gets on stage, and they look like they could be like, you know, on the cover of a magazine, and they're like, I was a total nerd, you're like
Zack 22:44
Nerd-em and Geekdom in general, has been co opted by just like passion for some, you know, within like, last 15 years. Like, no, no, you're not a tech nerd. You're just really smart. Or you're not a Princess Bride nerd. You just really liked the movie. And it's fine.
David Nadelberg 22:59
Well, yeah, Star Wars is the number one movie of all time by many fold. And for that to ever get credit as being nerdy.
Zack 23:07
No - your main stream, bro.
Neil Katcher 23:09
I will say that one of the things that to get back to your other point before, you know, one of the things that like became clear and sort of working with different people over the years who like had vastly different experiences in high school, whether they were the captain of the football team, or like, they were the kid who was shy and getting picked on is that, like, every kid has, like the worst moment of their childhood. Sometimes that's like legitimately something we can all agree on. It was a really terrible moment. And for other kids that like worst moment, might be something that almost feels like innocuous. But the way that those two kids may have felt in those worst moments are almost identical, like whatever your worst moment is, you're gonna feel the same way, no matter what, like you're gonna feel terrible, no matter what
Zack 24:00
It’s all relative. Your problems are your problems.
Neil Katcher 24:02
You're always able to relate to whatever someone's going through, no matter how bad it was.
Zack 24:07
Has anyone ever come to you with that moment? And either of you been like, maybe we shouldn't share this. This is. So someone saw murder, and maybe you want to keep that off the stage for now.
Neil Katcher 24:23
Well, I think one of the things that we are very careful with isn't so much like what it's like, it's not so much about like what the event was. But it's like, what is that person's relationship to the thing that happened to them? Where are they at with it? Are they over enough where they could get on a stage in essentially a comedy show and feel like they could share that and feel like it's okay for other people to laugh?
Zack 24:45
Is there enough distance between?
Neil Katcher 24:48
Yeah, and so we're protective of people. If we feel like they're not there we don't want to subject them to that situation.
Zack 24:55
How do you let them down? How do you let them know this probably isn't right.
David Nadelberg 25:01
We have a very, very, very good line for rejection. Which is, first of all, no one has ever rejected from Mortified. They just haven't been cast yet. W haven't, we haven't found enough minutes yet. And I say that because it's actually also true. Like, if we found if we met with you, and we only found two minutes of funny stuff. We probably can't put you on stage, there's sort of some chances we could, but for the most part, we can't. And so we're like, well, if we could find seven more minutes, please keep digging. And we'll give them tips for how to dig and all that stuff. But, and but we'll give them things to look for. And if we feel that they're too close, if they are, let's say they're 22 years old, they're on the younger side of our participants, and the material they're giving us is from when they were 18. I don't want that in the show. But if they're 22, and they give me something from when they were 10. That's totally fair game.
Zack 26:04
And how is it organized if you are requiring all of this? What is the shame bank look like? Is it by person? Is it by event? Because you're aggregating these and thematically putting together shows from 17 years of live shows. So what is that library like? I'm curious.
David Nadelberg 26:21
Insane.
Neil Katcher 26:23
There’s quite a lot of diary entries lodged in my head.
Zack 26:29
Yeah, is it by like mommy issues, daddy issues, camp things like, how do you physically go through all of this material?
Neil Katcher 26:37
It's a good question. Because it's something that we always still wrestle with, well, because no matter how you catalog all the material, like with keywords, and different things like that, you know, I'm always searching for something so specific every week. Like if two things come up out of like, hundreds of stories, I'm always like, well, that's not the right word.
David Nadelberg 26:56
Let's walk him through an example of that with either the episode that's coming out this weekend, or one that you're searching for right now that we're trying to like a theme. So we start with a theme, like breakups, which is a pretty generic theme. But uh, and then we search in our search engine of audio, we have a bunch of audio that's been tagged with keywords by interns or us. And, you know, like, each, each performance might be like, this is x performance, and he talks about mothers and anger issues and Christmas, and there's a letter to John Travolta in there. And like, we hopefully if it's been logged, well, it'll say all those things
Neil Katcher 27:38
Well, so we have an episode about to come out, which I'm really excited about, because it's really fun. So sort of, we've been doing a lot of episodes more recently, that is sort of inspired by current events. So like, we're all sort of, many of us are still mostly stuck in our homes. We've been stuck in our homes for months. And then also, there's been lots you know, there's also Black Lives Matter, movement and all the protests. So there's been a lot going on that's been really on the front of people's minds. And it's for us in some ways, like being stuck in your home a lot, specifically, is actually something that teenagers, and kids know very well, because they spend a lot of time in their childhood stuck in their house or in their room. And so in some ways, it's been great creatively for us, but it's allowed us to do episodes, creatively approach lots of themes in new ways. So like, we have an episode coming out all about pen pals. But the concept behind pen pals is actually, you know, we're in this period where we're all on zoom calls, or, you know, facetiming. And we're not really getting to necessarily be with the people that we emotionally rely on the most. And given that I thought, would it be great to do an episode about the idea of, of kids writing letters to people, because whatever support they need, they're not getting it in their home or in their life in their, in their direct surroundings. And it just feels very relevant to what we're all going through right now. It’’s one of those episodes that makes you laugh, but also may give you the feels a little bit.
Zack 29:22
Most do and I do appreciate the amount of support that comes from Mortified podcast, you guys usually like to find a cause or something to support no matter what the issue is that you guys are discussing, You find the organization or the support group out there to help folks deal with whatever the topic that you're covering is, which we appreciate, for sure. I mean, that must take a whole other extra human to find those resources for you. How big is your staff at Mortified?
Neil Katcher 29:40
The core team is three people.
David Nadelberg 29::45
The podcast is the two that you're speaking to and Hadley Dion who is an amazing producer. Sometimes she has a voice on the podcast.
Zack 30:02
So you guys are just freak workaholics. You're in 20 cities, you're overseas, there's a game, there is Epcot ride, Mortified. There’s a cereal. Like you guys are everywhere, how do you do that just the three of you?
Neil Katcher 30:17
That makes you feel terrible in the morning,
Zack 30:20
Filled with shame, don't start your day with that cereal, you're just going to be crying.
David Nadelberg 30:25
Morti-flakes, shame O's.
Zack 30:32
Let's take a quick break.
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David Nadelberg 31:26
We are actually right now working on a second podcast. And it's a really great show. It's for tweens. It's called “Ooh, you're in trouble”. And it's all about kids breaking rules. And, kind of getting mixed up in sort of, you know, violating whatever they're told to do. They're doing the opposite. We also have a game. We're on zoom so I'm going to show it to you but I'll explain it to the audience. It's called I can't believe I did that. It comes out September 29 in America, I don't know if it'll be available beyond in Canada or so.
Neil Katcher 32:06
What’s the game about, Dave?
David Nadelberg 32:08
The game is kinda like Mortified meets Cards Against Humanity. It's a game where you and your friends are prompted to share hilarious and embarrassing stories about your past. And the person with the most unforgettable story wins.
Zack 32:25
Oh well we like games. We like games on this podcast.
David Nadelberg 32:31
I have some cards. I can ask you. I can get you some sample questions.
Zack 32:35
I’m just the host, I don't participate.
Neil Katcher 32:37
You're the only one who is allowed to answer.
David Nadelberg 32:41
Let's see. I have three cards in my hand. Now I do. I'd like you to tell me. Pick card one, two or three. This is gonna be like, let's make a deal here.
Zack 32:55
Let’s do that one that wants to get away, the one that wants to jump. Let's do that one. He wants to play the most. Yep, far, your right hand.
David Nadelberg 33:01
Okay, so this card says, tell me a moment when you were a bit of a stalker, biggest creeper wins. And so you and your friends would be answering these questions in a group. If you don't have an answer to this one, you would just sit out the round. But I feel I trust Zack, I know you well enough in these 30 minutes, that once upon a time you were obsessively stalking something or someone.
Zack 33:31
I’m going to have to think on this one. Neil, do you have anything that jumps out at you?
Neil Katcher 33:33
That’s my entire childhood. I'd have to pick one, that's the problem.
Zack 33:41
We should mention, this might be a good time to talk about your offerings, your poetry offerings, when you participate in
Neil Katcher 33:49
There's a few there's a few that would fit just in that. So my mortified piece, the thing I share on stage is a collection of poetry and love letters that I never actually sent - thank god - to girls and I was a very desperate child. And so there is one love letter that I wrote to a girl when I was working at - I was working at the State Park. I was in my late high school life or maybe the sorted sands of high school. And so I was old enough to know not to do this. But there was this girl who also worked at the park and her job was to go out into the park and just basically pick up garbage. You know, like with the steak, you know, like, drive it through and put it in like, and she would and I worked at the concession stands and she would come by sometimes.
Zack 34:43
Was she in juvie, or she just did this?
Neil Katcher 34:45
I think juvie.
David Nadelberg 34:48
No one has ever asked that question before and very astute question.
Neil Katcher 34:52
I'm pretty sure. Possibly
Zack 34:55
That's not a job. That's a punishment.
Neil Katcher 34:58
Those are the kind of girls that I was really attracted to at that age.
Zack 35:01
Now we're revealing something about you, got it.
Neil Katcher 35:03
And so I really liked girls that seemed to have been through something. So she would come by this concession stand that I worked at. And maybe I had a conversation in total, maybe I'd spoken to her for a grand total of like three minutes in my life. But I somehow knew her name, enough that I decided that I was madly in love with her and I was going to express my deepest feelings for her in a love letter. And it is a very overdramatic love letter. If you happen to have a clip of that you can play it but it is amazingly melodramatic concerning how little I knew her.
David Nadelberg 35:43
I bet you know some of that off the top of your head.
Neil Katcher 35:47
I do but, so much that I will just say this, that when I found this letter years, years later, hmm. And I saw the name at the top, which is Andrea. I was like, Andrea? I never liked a girl named Andrea? It took me forever to remember who this person was. And I finally remembered it because I found the next note, there was a note after the letter I saw I wrote this letter, I was planning to give this girl this love letter. And then when I went to give it to her, she was like walking with this very good looking like, guy with a six pack.
Zack 36:25
Yeah, competition.
Neil Katcher 36:27
So I was so upset that I went home and then wrote this note of defeat on the back of that poem. And then I eventually piece together like, ah, that's who Andrea is.
Zack 36:39
Yeah, well, also you revealing that story, you share that you share some of your poetry. And that leads to an even bigger story. You share your poetry at one of the lives right and then your now wife was in attendance at the audience. Is this right?
Neil Katcher 36:56
Yes. So yeah. And so, and I will just back up and say we recently shared some audio of me reading that Andrea letter. Dave, I don't know if you know what episode it was, it was like from the last two or three episodes, I feel like we use it as a cold open in one of our recent episodes. And so the audio that we use in that episode, is me reading that letter at a live show at Mortified in San Francisco, back in 2006. And sitting in the audience of that show, and I didn't know her yet. And she's probably like laughing on the audio. Like in the audience. Is what became this woman who then came up to me after the show, really connected to how terrible my poetry was, how desperate I was, and how horrible of a writer I was, and basically introduced herself to me. And, lo and behold, over the course of, you know, the next little while we start hanging out and fell in love and got married.
Cut to Excerpt:
Speaker:
This is only the tip of the iceberg of my feelings for you. But do not fear because I will respect and treat you like the Queen of England.
The other part that happened was that eventually she shared her own poetry with me that and things that she wrote when she was a kid. And her poetry is just as equally as horrific as mine is in a very similar way. And so at our wedding, we actually had our parents, like you know, normally at weddings, there's a moment where somebody comes up and they read some amazing poem by some poet and everyone's like, that's the most beautiful thing about love I've ever heard.
Zack 38:50
Yeah, gotta go Corinthians.
Neil Katcher 38:52
Exactly. And in our wedding, those poems were our childhood homes that our parents read.
Zack 39:01
Mortifying. So and you just find it. It's so beautiful that you found your now wife, your family was born out of this Mortified podcast, which got its start and the other on the other side and the sort of spectrum with Leslie Isn't that right, David? The Leslie story is now famous. And the whole thing started from rejection. It's almost as though David's path had to happen in order for Neil to find love in a weird way. David, do you want to share the Leslie story?
David Nadelberg 39:34
Basically, I wrote a love letter to a girl I never gave it to that girl. I found that letter years later in my adulthood and shared with friends and that's what sparked Mortified. That's the quick version of it. Yeah, the letter is very pretentious and begins like this. “Hello, Leslie”. Again, I did not know this is like Neil had Andrea. Right. I did not know Leslie. I maybe had spoken to her twice. When I was writer forr the school paper, I made up excuses to interview her. But anyway, so I was going to give her this letter that began “Hello, Leslie, how is your day today? mines quite well, I must admit, I do hope that yours that your day is a good one. Because what you're about to read may or may not add an extra color to the rainbow at days end” and so I was trying I mean, very hard to impress this person.
Zack 40:27
That’s beautiful David.
David Nadelberg 40:28
Yes. That's how I spoke all the time to0, that was just very, very normal casual conversation.
Zack 40:34
It was 1600 when that letter, yeah. And that was the letter that launched 1000 shame stories. The letter to Leslie, has Leslie reached out?
David Nadelberg 40:43
So, fun fact. Um, Leslie probably does not know that she has started Mortified. She doesn't know who I am. As far as I know. It is possible that Leslie has heard of Mortified. It's also possible that she is attended mortified or listened to the Mortified podcast. It's possible, but had no idea that she created it.
Zack 41:10
Wow, Leslie doesn't know. Is her name. Leslie or is that a fake name?
David Nadelberg 41:12
Okay. No, no, her first name is Leslie. And that's all but you know, she doesn't have a last name. She's just like Cher. Well. And
Zack 41:21
Speaking of Cher, I been racking my brain and trying to think of a stalker story. And I can't find one to share. Because I was just very, I was just very persistent. I would just I don't know, I guess persistence and stalkery. There's a fine line there. But I will share this is very stalkery, right when I was 10. And I was going to you know probably share this later as my, we do a segment on our show called “go ahead no one's listening” where we reveal a secret or tell off a former boss and I'm just going to go ahead and share mine because it definitely is stalkery - when I was 10 I went through a bit of a peeping tom phase had the binoculars, you know, for the baseball game right by the bed and the neighbors right across the street. Maybe every night with lights on would you know participate in acrobatics, and so I just popped the binoculars 10 year old me would be like what are they doing tonight? This is crazy. And that… legally frowned upon and very dangerous and stupid can definitely be considered as stalkery for sure. And luckily I've never been, I never got caught and until this moment sharing it with you guys.
David Nadelberg 42:38
I am pretty damn sure if we were to vote right now on who won that round of I can't believe I did that, Zack would easily win, not all the questions in the game are as intense as that I probably should have just given you three or four cards and just said to pick one but there could there are other questions where it's like tell me a more you made a daring fashion choice growing up.
Zack 43:04
Did you did you give your stalker story, David? Because you could still.
David Nadelberg 43:09
I didn't know well technically Mortified that the love letter that started Mortified is that. Mortified is based on obsessing over a stranger. Stranger who I thought would change my life because I maybe I get married to her and the whole thing. And you know, she's going to be my first girlfriend and, and the fun twist is she did change my life.
Zack 43:25
Well, I'm happy to have won your game. But I'd like to give you now a game that you could win. Because we play for pretty high stakes around here at the pots.
David Nadelberg 43:35
Nice segue.
Zack 43:36
Yeah. Well, you've already noticed my mugs. And these are all you know, previous podcasts that have been on the pod and they've answered their trivia questions correctly on a segment called “How well do you know your baby?”. Answer two of these three questions correctly about your baby. And we will probably display some pod swag. The Mortified podcast - right here I have some pod swag. Look at that. That’s the Mortified flask selling in stores.
David Nadelberg 44:06
You can drink your troubles away.
Zack 44:07
That's it. Reveal your story of shame and embarrassment and snooping and peeping. And so this is where it could live in perpetuity. Should you get these answers correctly. I'm gonna play for you three clips from your pod and let's see if you can remember these human contributors to your pod – these Mortif-ees?
David Nadelberg 44:29
Sure.. Mortifiles?
Zack 44:31
Mortifiles. I have three Mortifiles for you.
Neil Katcher 44:34
As long as you don’t ask us to name the actual episode that no,
Zack 44:36
No, no, no, no, just talk about it and then extrapolate on it if you if you so choose. Let's get to the first one. Here's a sound cue number one. Can you remember this Mortifile?
Cut to Excerpt:
Speaker
Alright, so this is a high school play. Let's just get started right there. This is a high school play and they ran a full page review of this play. I mean right away. It looks great. Until you read the title of the review. “If the butler did it, he should have been fired.” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the city papers sent a full on professional reviewer to see a bunch of 15 year olds and just really lay into them.
Zack 45:33
I love that one. Go ahead. Who's the mortarfile?
Neil Katcher 45:37
Do you want to say it Dave? This one we got easily. Sure you go. You got it instantly. Will Seymour.
Zack 45:41
Oh, it's so good. This episode so fun to listen to Will and his journey.
Zack 45:46
He is actually in our brand new episode that I don't know when this is coming out. But episode, the pen pals episode, which is going to be episode number something 195 maybe? I don't know. 195. He appears once again in that episode.
Zack 46:05
Beautiful. That's 119 Will Seymour’s journey of escaping bullies only to find them at the local newspaper. Let's play sound cue number two
Cut to Excerpt:
Speaker 46:16
DD (Dear Diary) - Hi, today is November 211995. I got my period today. And you know what's weird? Today's my mom's birthday.
Zack 46:30
Can you name either the episode or the contributor?
Neil Katcher 46:32
I don’t think Dave can do it. But I want to, I think I know. So I want to like give him the opportunity first, or I don't know if I'm putting you on the spot, Dave.
David Nadelberg 46:40
You are but I know the voice. I'm not placing the name but I have a few names in my head that I'm gonna but I'm not gonna go for him. But I think I think I actually think it's a period episode.
Neil Katcher 46:50
I think it's Aaron Drew, but I don't know for certain.
Zack 46:54
Two out of three. There it is. Aaron Drew Confessions of a Catholic school girl. Being a Catholic school boy. I think I jumped on this pod this episode first. It's a really funny one. You listen to Aaron. Oh, good. Is she a performer? She an entertainer?
Neil Katcher 47:10
She is not. She's actually not. She lives in the I think she's a part of our Washington DC, Chapter.
Zack 47:19
All you Catholic school kids. Start at #151. That's a good place to begin digesting this pod. Guys, you already got it. Let's go for a clean sweep here. Three out of three and the flask is a top shell flask. Top shelf pod. It's going up – Mortified forever. But let's hear the sound cue number three just for kicks. How well do you know your baby?
Cut to Excerpt:
Speaker 47:39
I have some of the qualities that would make me quite a good actress. If there are any parts in any new animated Disney features to come that require a young teenage girl's voice, I'm available. I have a very good singing voice which could be helpful. And my speaking voice is very attractive from what I hear from people all around me.
Zack 48:06
Who is the motorafile?
David Nadelberg 48:08
That one I got nothing on.
Neil Katcher 48:09
I know the exact piece this is and I'm blanking on her name. But it is an episode where she writes a letter to Disney about where it starts off where she's upset that there's not enough representation about - and eventually it turns into you should cast me as the next Disney Disney Princess.
Zack 48:33
That was Jane Co and “I'm No Princess” Episode #142 ,another very fun contribution from a very funny mortafile. Guys. He did it two out of three. You know your baby very well. You've talked about 195 coming up. That means 200 is right around the corner. Have you put any thought to Episode 200? For 100 the mortarfiles went in house and they turned the mirror on the staff. You all contributed something personal. What do you have in store for 200 years?
Neil Katcher 49:02
We were gonna have you on and just talk to you for 200 minutes
Zack 49:03
Peeping Toms and being a horrible 10 year old. Okay, perfect.
David Nadelberg 49:10
No, we should we should do 200 minutes or 200 seconds of just people saying Dear Diary, dear journal..
Zack 49:17
You probably could. My goodness, there's so much.
Neil Katcher 49:20
We haven’t given it a ton of thought yet.
David Nadelberg 49:22
The only thing we've kind of spoken about is actually if you do listen to our 100th episode there is a woman at the beginning of that episode who is 99 years old, she was turning 100 at that time, she is still alive. She is 103 and recently contracted COVID and went into hospice and use I am saying this with an upbeat voice because she recovered well from COVID. Is exiting hospice and just celebrating I think birthday 104 last, like three days ago. So I think we are going to air. What I'd like to do is air an extended version of that original interview and celebrate the life of Celeste because holy shit.
Zack 50:16
Wow. Well done. Cheating death, for Celeste. That's great for Celeste. I can't wait to hear that. Are there any? Do you have a little like, with all of this? Are there little nuggets that you just don't know where they go yet? We're like, I mean, obviously, you have a ton. But can you tease anything coming up anything else coming up? That is just like, I have this awesome piece of audio. I don't know where it goes. But I know that it needs to be heard.
David Nadelberg 50:42
Several years in the making. We have an episode that is daring to come out soon. It is like 80% done. It is a fascinating, fascinating story of a man named John, who locked himself away in his bedroom in the early 1980s, no, no in the 70s. And even a little bit in the 60s, and basically gets obsessed with television and writes, and imagine it doesn't make sense, but he writes a an imaginary. He pretends to be a network, president of a TV network, and basically invents, writes memos and corporate documents for this imaginary TV network that exists to save all the shows that he loves from being canceled. It makes no sense.
Zack 51:36
Is he at all successful?
Neil Katcher 51:41
He actually became a TV critic.
Zack 51:44
Wow, the Mortified method once again, that worked. That’s awesome. That's fantastic. So what you say, we're almost out of time here, I won't keep you any longer. But I do have to, you know, I have to see if I can get anything from you as the proud father of a now seven-month, year old baby girl, I've been thinking a lot about how to better equip myself with dealing with shame. And dealing with these big heavy issues with my daughter will inevitably, you know, have to go through and she's going to feel like the first person ever going through these things. What have you learned about shame and about, you know, tweens and just how to guide. Your a father Neil, how to guide these young people through these. Now, these troubled waters.
Neil Katcher 52:35
The best thing I can tell you is that at the same time, your daughter will be going through things for the first time, you will be too as being he first-time parent. And you will just know that you're not alone and being in many situations that you do not know how to handle and you will not handle it correctly in the moment. But you can always correct it. I mean, that's what therapies for.
Zack 53:02
Sure, or that’s what Morrtified is. She’ll just create more content for you guys.
Neil Katcher 53:07
The hardest part for me is once because I have this weird lens of seeing Henry's childhood through like, I kind of see it as this very long Mortified piece that I have a hard time like, like when something happens to him. I have a hard time containing my laughter in the moment, because I just sort of seeing it as like it's happening in real time. I can't believe he's doing and saying this. So like, years and years ago, when he was in preschool. He started, I don't know why he started thinking about sex for some reason, but I remember on the car ride to school one morning, he was like, how does a man take his penis off to go inside of a woman?
David Nadelberg 53:57
Turkey baster!
Neil Katcher 54:03
And I just thought it was the greatest thing I've ever heard, and immediately told everyone about it. I did not try to correct it, entirely.
Zack 54:09
Yeah. It's so funny how these moments, these discoveries, these sayings, these mortified moments, you know, the thing that you are terrified, most of the thing that you're most passionate about it are the defining moments of our lives. And it's just so funny, you know, thinking about rejection and thinking about you know, all of these moments of frustration. We've been taught to poorly, you know, to, we haven't been instructed properly, I think, in how to deal with these bumps. These are the moments that define who we are. And so what is seemingly a disaster like Leslie will lead, could lead, to something like Mortified. And, you know, I'm just thinking a lot about this lately. We just did the Dead Eyes podcast about Conor Ratcliffe, who was fired from a TV show and then started a podcast and now has a very successful podcast based around being fired from that TV show. These moments in our lives of rejection are our badges of honor. They're metals, they should be celebrated as much as they should be run from. Yes. Would you agree?
David Nadelberg 55:14
I think failure and rejections and mistakes are, you know, they're all just weapons for us. They're all just sort of, they're all just fuel for us, to make us better people. And I think we have an unhealthy relationship with shame in this culture. And that, that basically makes us feel bad about all those things. And we're right to feel bad about those things. And I, I'm not somebody who believes in the eradication of shame, but I do think we spend a lot too much time focusing on making people feel bad about these mess ups, and it feels pretty good to celebrate them. Because then you realize, like, oh, yeah, that was I did that too.
Zack 56:02
Do you? Did you find that shame is pretty much universal amongst the sexes? You have a, you know, I think that there is the misconception that, you know, girls experience it and, and, and differently, and that and that boys will manifest it in ways of like acting out and frustration, girls will go inward and write more in their diaries, but you guys have a really good cross section of guys and gals. Is that deliberate? Or do you think that everyone experiences the sex is sort of experience shame?
David Nadelberg 56:33
Well, I mean, our show is a little bit skewed towards not just who experiences something because that is everybody. It’s who wrote something about it. And then who saved that for a decade at least? Yeah, and that does tend to be women. That also tends to be white women. And but everybody does experience all of those things.
Zack 57:01
Yeah. We don't always just write them down and keep them for 20 years. Yeah. Got it. Anything else to plug gentlemen? Anything else coming up? Anything? Cereals, Morty Flakes, anything.
David Nadelberg 57:16
I think the best thing to tell people is if they're interested in Mortified if they think this sounds fun, if this sounds interesting. They should go to our website which is getmortified.com, and our game which is not called Mortified. So that's a little confusing but our game you can find out about it at getmortified.com/game but you can buy it right now on Amazon even if you're hearing this before September 29. Because it's available for pre order.
Zack 57:41
For now you have a nice bank of material to last you for a while.
David Nadelberg 57:45
We have a nice bank to last us for a while and we're hard at work on the “oooh you're in trouble” podcast at the same time and working on releasing the “I can't believe I did that” game.
Zack 57:56
You know what you've we've all shared so much here today. Can I just share my absolute favorite piece of audio?
David Nadelberg 58:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zack 58:04
I just love the band Sylvan Esso and I couldn't believe Amelia Meath stopped by and gave you the original two songs that she worked on, the very first lyric she ever sort of thought up.
David Nadelberg 58:18
And it was beautiful.
Zack 58:21
It’s amazing! I've listened to so many interviews with her. I've never heard her talk about these lyrics or do these before and I just thought it's amazing piece of audio. And so we'll leave with this moment of mortification and thank you gentlemen for stopping by and sharing your baby with us because we've loved it here at the bar.
Neil Katcher 58:38
Thanks for having us. It's been really fun.
Cut to Excerpt:
Amelia Meath 58:40
My two first songs was just a hook, which is called I don't want to be arm candy, which I wrote when I was eight.
I don’t want to be arm candy.
There were no other words, it was just my first hook. I was like, I did it. I'm good. I’m eight, I'm done. That was in reaction to getting the tiniest weird beginnings of breasts just connected right from like, half nipple boobs to feminism. That was where I went. And then my second song I ever wrote was also called “I’ll be in the kitchen”, which it's really it's a really mean song. The chorus was:
I’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll be in the kitchen when you get the itchin’ to do what you got to do. Doo, doo. I’ll be in the kitchen when you get the itchin’ to do what you got to do.
David Nadelberg 59:45
That's kind of great, actually.
59:47
Thanks, I was happy with it.
MUSICAL ENDING
Zack 1:00:01
This has been The Pod Spotter where we showcase the pods that you need to know about. If you have one that you think we should know about, let us know via thepodspotter.com or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram @thepodspotter. Thank you.
This has been Zack Robidas, The Pod Spotter is created by the Price Brothers, produced by Only Ink Radio Associate Producer Tori Adams and is recorded and produced at Baker Sound in Philadelphia.