Rumble Strip
Thursday, May 1, 2025
I remember a time in high school (the 1980s) when I picked up The New Yorker in the school’s library and leafed through it. I didn’t read the articles, but I attempted to understand the cartoons. I didn’t understand any of them. I was honestly perplexed why they were even included.
The very next time I picked up The New Yorker, I understood each cartoon
. What a weird transformation. I am not claiming to have grown to some big-brain levels, but I did grow up more in the time between. I guess the third time I picked up The New Yorker I started reading the articles and, like many, subscribed. I only unsubscribed when the stack of unread issues caused overwhelming shame.If anyone who didn’t know what a magazine was, I’d hand them a small stack of issues of The New Yorker. To me, it best represents what a magazine is.
Which brings me to my long-winded point: Rumble Strip is the best representation of a podcast. I guess I came to it from 99% Invisible, but I can’t really remember now. Don’t get me wrong, 99PI is a great podcast. So why am I not using it as the quintessential example of a podcast? Maybe I have qualms about its founder accepting a big pile of money for his hard work? I guess that says more about me than Roman Mars. We all have our foibles; that’s mine.
This week, Rumble Strip’s founder and host, Erica Heilman, has been treating us to examples of what she thinks is a radio show by replaying what inspired her. I never heard of who she considered her mentor, Larry Massett
. But it’s a job to hear his stories. The two I’ve heard so far are great.I listen to a lot of tech enthusiast podcasts, and it’s time for me to cut those back. So many episodes (and so many tech articles) seem to only exist to place ads next to them. I’m not a dummy
, I get that folks need to put food on the table, but I don’t need to listen to more orifices say words just to get to the next sponsor read. And now so many are also doing video podcasts on YouTube. And while you usually don’t need to watch the video portions, I worry that’s the direction more and more will go.That’s why I think Rumble Strip stands out. It’s storytelling done right. I hope you’ll listen to Erica’s work. It’s wonderful.