âPEOPLE ARE OUT PROTESTING a lot in Portland, so I feel bad telling âem to stop protesting and come to my show so just, you know, follow your heart.â This was Doug Bensonâs invocation to Portland comedy fans on the most recent episode of his podcast Doug Loves Movies, as he made his âDoug plugs,â announcing his upcoming touring schedule to a giggling crowd in Sacramento.
It was a gracious little verbal high-five to Portland, and the laughter that followed felt like a tiny miracle beaming through my earbuds.
Like any good millennial, I subscribe to more podcasts than I can keep up with, and listen to them all the time. But after Tuesdayâs heartbreaking shitshow of an election night, I found I wasnât ready to distract myself from what had happened, and I didnât really want to, anyway. Grief is important. We should give it the space it requires.
So I skipped past chatty programs that didnât acknowledge the bleak state of things. In an unfortunate convergence between the infrequency with which some podcasts are updated, or perhaps a misguided idea that distraction was possible and necessary, too many podcasts simply carried on as if nothing had happened. A few did notâAnn Friedman and Aminatou Sowâs post-election episode of Call Your Girlfriend is essential listening, and Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstarkâs normally true-crime-focused My Favorite Murder surprised me with its hostsâ unabashed disappointment and Hardstarkâs comparison of living in America under a Trump regime to being brainwashed into joining a cult (âYouâre in a cult, call your dad!â).
Bensonâs podcast is one of these too, surprising though that may be for a show thatâs dominated by stoner jokes and movie-trivia games and circuitous conversation that avoids boring tangents thanks only to Bensonâs delightful, magnanimous presence as a moderator. Doug Loves Movies is kind of like NPRâs Wait Wait... Donât Tell Me!, if that show was as funny as it thinks it is, or Leonard Maltinâs weird preface to Star Wars, if it was funny at all.
Doug Benson is someone youâre going to want to hang out with this week. Because we donât need comedy to distract us from the state of the world. We need it so we can laugh about it, or see it differently, or at least understand that we arenât alone in our sadness. So am I recommending that you attend a podcast recording scheduled at 4:20 pm stoned so you can cozy up to the horrors that surround us, the better to change them?
Yes, yes, I am doing exactly that. Or, you know, go to a protest. Follow your heart.