BRITTANY LUSE: Hi, I’m Brittany Luse and welcome to Sampler If this is your first time listening, or if you’re the type who doesn’t mind a gentle reminder, Sampler is the show where we play you carefully picked moments from podcasts that you just have to hear. Sometimes, I’ll have a co-host. This week, again, Gimlet producer Chris Neary. Hey Chris! Welcome back.

CHRIS NEARY: Hey Brittany.

BRITTANY: Oh, we should, uh, we should give the warning again.

CHRIS: Yes. This episode contains adult language and themes, so if you’ve got kids listening, now’s the right time to pause.

BRITTANY: Ok, so we’re going to feature three very different shows on the podcast today.  We’ll start with a podcast that Chris, you and I both really like - “The Combat Jack Show.”

CHRIS: Yes. Combat Jack is actually Reggie Ossé, a guy who used to be a lawyer for some of the biggest hip hop artists, and now hosts a podcast where he often has guests from the hip hop world, people like Russell Simmons, and Damon Dash, and LL Cool J. But the show is much more than that. He’s a really great interviewer, and basically, if Combat Jack is interested in something, he’ll do an episode on it. Besides hip-hop figures, he’s talked to civil rights activist DeRay McKesson and sports journalist Bomani Jones.

BRITTANY: He really just like follows his curiosity and The episode we want to play for you today is Combat Jack’s interview with Raymond Santana one of the Central Park Five." Some background: The Central Park 5 were five teenagers who were convicted in 1989 of a brutal rape and assault. It was a huge, huge case in New York at the time and a lot of the press made the five teenagers out to be monsters. Raymond Santana served about six years in prison but several years after his release, his sentence, along with the rest of the Central Park 5, was ‘vacated’ after another man confessed to the crime. The five won millions of dollars in a settlement against the city after proving that they were wrongly convicted.

CHRIS: I’d heard Santana interviewed a few times, usually about the night of the attack, or his time in prison. but I’d never heard anyone ask him what Combat Jack did: What were you like as a kid, before this all happened?

BRITTANY: You’ll hear a third voice in this clip, that’s Combat Jack’s producer, Premium Pete. Alright here is Combat Jack

———————CLIP————————

COMBAT JACK: What you want to be man? What were your aspirations at 14? I know you said you were trying to coming into your own. We really don't know what we wanna be …

RAYMOND: We really don't know. At 14, I used to love to sketch. I used to love to draw.

COMBAT JACK: You read comics?

RAYMOND: I loved comics.

COMBAT JACK: What comics were you reading?

RAYMOND: X-Men was my joint.

COMBAT JACK: JOHN BYRNE!

RAYMOND: Yeah, you know.

COMBAT JACK: That was a golden era.

RAYMOND: Yeah, yeah. Wolverine, you know. Spiderman. I was a big Marvel head. I had boxes. I remember buying Ninja Turtles, the first issue, back then. I had boxes of comics and that was my thing. And I used to love to sketch.

COMBAT JACK: So you were in a sense also kind of like a nerd?

RAYMOND: Yeah, almost. Almost… I jumped over the fence here and there. A nerd with some swag. A nerd with some swag.

COMBAT JACK: A lot of us was. One of the things I'll never forget when we had Maino on the show, Maino says a lot of us come from the hood, but all of us aren’t necessarily hood. You know what I’m saying?

RAYMOND: That’s right.

COMBAT JACK: The climate was, you know you’d read your comics, and then when other cats got on the train you just slid them away just so that you wouldn't get tested.

RAYMOND: Yeah. Or you kept them in the book bag until you got home. You know, that's what I used to do. I read them in the crib. So I had stacks of them in the crib. So I had stacks of them in the cribs. And that's where I read all that stuff at.

————————————

BRITTANY: As the interview goes on, we hear about Santana’s life in prison. Being convicted of rape made him the target of attacks, attacks that started on his very first day. Combat Jack does a really great job of making his guests feel comfortable – which allows them to share the tiny specific details that really bring their stories to life for the listener. One part where that really comes through in this interview is when Combat Jack asks Santana what his life was like after prison. He got out in 1998, and, as a registered sex offender, he had a state-mandated curfew of 7 p.m.

——————CLIP——————

COMBAT JACK: How had the neighborhood changed, man?

RAYMOND: The neighborhood was totally different. You know. That 7 years, some kids were like this now. They were older. Lot of people were gone. It was totally different. You know it wasn't changing as far as with the different cultures yet. You know, but crack era was slowing down. There wasn't that much people out there. It was still those lingering effects from it. Um, but it was rough.

COMBAT JACK: And you talk about how your situation changed you. Like how you wanted to stay in like small rooms—

RAYMOND: Yeah, oh definitely. That’s all the effects that come from prison, that I was feeling comfortable. I would sit in my room because it was the size of a cell.

COMBAT JACK: Right.

RAYMOND: And I would close the door and it wasn’t ‘til my father said, “Yo, why you always staying in your room?” and I’m like, “What are you talkin’ about?” and he’s like “You’re always in your room” and I’m like “Oh, shit!” You know, and, I would go in the shower with my boxers on, and I would wash them in the shower and hang them shits up.

COMBAT JACK: Right.

RAYMOND: And then I had this pent-up aggression, you know, if I’m in a room with a crowded bunch of people, I watch everything moving and I put my back against the wall and I scan the whole room. I see what’s going on.

PREMIUM PETE: That peripheral.

RAYMOND: That’s right. I’m always on point.

COMBAT JACK: Were you going out, like, to clubs now or…?

RAYMOND: Nah. None of that. There was none of that.

COMBAT JACK: Never?

RAYMOND: There was none of - there was no clubs, none of that I mean my boys and me, they took me out the first time-- yoooooo-- but after that, it was done. I had a seven o’clock curfew.

COMBAT JACK: Yeah, but you didn’t like it either, right?

RAYMOND: Nah. And, I didn’t know where to turn. I didn't know what to do and that's when I started to stumble. You know because there was no transitional programs.

COMBAT JACK: You had no money.

RAYMOND: No money.

COMBAT JACK: So you could - were you buying comic books?

RAYMOND: No I couldn't

COMBAT JACK: That was just done. Gone.

RAYMOND: That was gone. But you know it would resurface. Like say I'm by the store. Oh, shit I used to read that. I'll pick one or two up. But overall I couldn't get back to that. That drive was gone.

———————————

BRITTANY: The thing that sticks out most to me about this part is how much you can tell prison changed Santana. You’d think that after being there, uh, he’d enjoy leaving his room, or showering privately. But he got so used to his surroundings, that he just didn’t know how to be once he got out.

Today, Raymond Santana works with the Innocence Project and Justice League NYC, a group focused on juvenile justice.

BRITTANY: OK, I fell in love with this next story we’re featuring the moment I heard it. It’s from this podcast called The Heart. And The Heart is a show about love, and relationships and intimacy, told through provocative, oftentimes poignant little narratives. But it’s also very much a show about sex— how we have it, and, sometimes, how we don’t. The episode I’m going to play for you today is my favorite and it revolves around a woman in her late twenties named Gina Gold, who was, much to her dismay, a virgin. Now this was not for lack of trying. She had boyfriends and sexual relationships, but she was just never able to go all the way. Every time Gina tried to have sex with someone, she felt a wall inside her vagina— a wall she felt like was impossible to get through. In the episode, she talks about the pain of losing her first boyfriend, who dumped her after she wasn't able to have sex with him. After years of repeating this pattern, she finally went to a doctor: 

———————CLIP——————

GINA GOLD: I said I think there is a wall in my vagina, and she laughed and I said no seriously.”

There's a deformity. You need to take me seriously. And she said let's do an exam. And I said I can't. I cannot have you put the speculum on. I cannot. No. And so she said OK, let's try putting you out. So we actually had this whole big thing where I went to UCSF, got put out, thousands of dollars and it’s just to have a fucking exam. I woke up and I was like tell me about the wall. And she was like as I told you there is no wall. You are totally normal. Everything down there works and I was shocked. She told me that the wall was in my mind. That my body had clamped shut - that the mind is so powerful that it can create a wall that's not there and that because I felt fearful and apprehensive I created a barrier that in my mind became a physical barrier and that this condition is called vaginismus.

————————————

BRITTANY: Gina now had a name for her condition, but there was still the matter of what to do about it. Her doctor of course wanted her to go to a sex therapist to ease her anxieties, but she also suggested that Gina try a less traditional type of therapy: a sex surrogate.

——————CLIP ——————

GINA: The sex surrogate is the one that actually has physical contact and ultimately may have sex with you. And all this most sex surrogates were women. I said I don't want a woman. That's not going to help me. And she said well there's only one man in the Bay Area that's available. I go to Berkeley to the guy's house. I knock on the door. He opens the door. He's this older red-faced red-necked gentleman with a really bad Massachusetts accent, like Charlestown. And he had a Donald Trump combover and I was like I don't want to fuck you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Maybe you have something else you can do. And he said OK, would you be willing to get undressed. I would be willing to get undressed but don't touch me. Don't fucking touch me. Don't look like you're excited about me being naked. So I got undressed. He had a big king-sized bed that had satin sheets and then a very New England quilt on the top. I opened up my legs which is a very vulnerable thing to do on his bed on that quilt. He just said can I put the mirror in between your legs. He put the mirror in between my legs and he paced around the room. Alright Gina do you feel yourself in the room. Do you feel yourself naked. Do you see your legs. Do you see your vagina. Do you see your labia. Do you see your clitoris. This is my labia. This is my clitoris. This is my outer labia. This is my inner labia. This is my vulva. As I said the words I heard this is my like this is my part. I was like this is my body. And there it is and there's really nothing mysterious about it.The whole thing had been demystified. I knew that I couldn't have sex with the sex surrogate but I had been going to Bank of America across the street from the barn which was my house for quite some time and there was this young guy, short, he had glasses. And I slipped him a note while I was making a deposit and I asked him if he would like to come to my house for dinner.

————————————

BRITTANY: I don’t want to give too much away— there’s more to Gina’s story and you should definitely go listen to the whole thing— but you should feel optimistic!

CHRIS: Yes— this tiny bank teller is definitely promising.

BRITTANY: Honestly, anything that starts with propositioning a Bank of America employee in the middle of the afternoon is heading in, at a minimum, an interesting direction. I think a cliff hanger is a good way to end the first half show.

BRITTANY: OK Sampler will be back in just a moment. After the break, a man losing his sight and his wife losing her patience.

——————CLIP——————

DUSTIN: I appreciate that.

JOY: Don’t tell me you appreciate that.

DUSTIN: No, what do you want me to say.

JOY: I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say to you.

——————AD BREAK——————

BRITTANY: This episode of Sampler is brought to you by Audible.com. Audible.com provides over 180k audio programs from the leading audiobook publishers. Audible.com is offering our listeners a free 30-day trial membership and one book I would recommend that people check out is the Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. So one of my very best friends in the entire world used to be one of the messiest people that I had ever ever ever known until he read this Marie Kondo book and so then he read the book. It was life-changing and now he has like special individual relationships with every single one of his personal items and he's now become pushing the gospel of Marie Kondo onto Marie and everyone else that we know and we're like, 'Dude, we knew about cleaning. We knew about cleaning 10 years ago.' But you know Marie Kondo gave him a framework and for that I am ever grateful. It's called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and it's by Marie Kondo and you can get it now at Audible.com slash sampler. Show your support for Sampler and get a free 30-day trial at Audible.com slash sampler.

This episode of Sampler is brought to you by Casper. Casper makes obsessively engineered mattresses at a fraction of the price. Casper combines two technologies. Latex foam and memory foam to make it so you can have a good night's sleep and then also have a good day the next day. And when it comes to mattresses there are politics involved. My producer Rose and I got to talking about claiming sides.

ROSE: I really want to be clear about the sides like starting off because when I wake up in the middle of the night I just feel enraged if I wake up and they're in the middle of the bed starfish - sleep on your side. It's obvious.

BRITTANY: I am that person. I am the starfish. I want my side and your side also. So like I have citizenship, citizenship on my side. I have a passport to your side.

ROSE: I don't think we could share a bed. I've got a lot of rules too.

BRITTANY: You do?

ROSE: Yeah no phones in the bedroom and I sleep on the side with the lamp.

BRITTANY: Wait the other person can't have a lamp?

ROSE: I only have one lamp right now. Times are hard.

BRITTANY: [laughter] No matter which side you're on you can try Casper. Try sleeping on a Casper for 100 days with free delivery and painless returns. Get $50 towards any purchase by visiting Casper.com/sampler and using the promo code Sampler at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

——————END AD BREAK ——————

BRITTANY: Hi I’m Brittany Luse and welcome back to Sampler -- I’m here with my co-host for the day, Gimlet producer Chris Neary. He’s got something he wants to share with the class. What have you got, Chris?

CHRIS: I’ve got a podcast hosted by a comedian where he tracks his rapidly failing eyesight. It’s called Going Blind Sucks. Which is a solid name. I think. The comedian is Dustin D’Addato and he has Retinitis Pigmentosa. And that has left him with roughly nine percent of his peripheral vision - which is kind of like looking at the world thru a paper towel roll. What’s really great about the podcast - what sets it apart, is a couple things -- for one -- it’s funny. That’s not surprising for a comedian. But I also love the show because Dustin doesn’t host it alone … it’s him and his wife, Joy. Here's a clip from the show where Dustin and Joy talk about an unusual side effect from the medicine Dustin was taking...

——————CLIP ——————

DUSTIN: And there is a list of side effects that is there. The list of side effects was all that ‘Don’t operate a car, unless you know blah blah blah and may experience frequent peeing and blah.’ You know.

JOY: Just constantly leaking

DUSTIN: But the one side effect that just seemed to just pop out was affecting taste. But the thing is it only changed the one thing tasted.

JOY: Nothing else.

DUSTIN: Nothing else. And for those of you who know here is me one thing is very true, I eat to not die. I don’t eat like out of enjoyment. There are only a handful of things that I really enjoy. I love Coca Cola.

JOY: You having it running in your veins.

DUSTIN: Yes. And it made me hate coca cola.

JOY: That’s cruel.

Dustin: It made coca cola take like medicine.

JOY: Oh my god.

DUSTIN: Yeah and I was like look, you are already taking my eye sight.

JOY: Leave me my Coca Cola. Why god, why?

DUSTIN: Like I just like soda, can I just have my soda?

——————

BRITTANY: [laughing] Oh my god. God, that’s like adding insult to injury.

CHRIS: Right like the only thing that gives him enjoyment, a kind of food that like makes you feel up and happy is just ruled out for him.

BRITTANY: God. That’s like he doesn’t even have, he doesn’t even have that little, like that creature comfort that he can turn to, like, during this whole period.

CHRIS: Yeah. What’s your Coke, what would be devastating to lose?

BRITTANY: You know. Oh god. All of Mexican food, if all of a sudden Mexican food started tasting terrible, I would not be long for this world. I wouldn’t.

CHRIS: So it sounds like you would stop taking a vital medication to say to be able to eat Mexican food?

BRITTANY: Absolutely. That is like not even a question in my mind. That’s not even a question.

CHRIS: [laughing] Alright, So you’ve got those kind of really funny moments in the podcast, but you have to keep in mind happening to Dustin is really traumatic and really scary and there are times in the podcast where the humor fades away and you get sort of raw, unvarnished emotion. I mean there is a thread through the whole podcast where Joy wants him to get more treatment and Dustin doesn’t. And he sort of feels guilty about it at times but you get the sense that it’s a way that he is maintaining control. Like, I will experience this and help myself at my own pace.

The next thing I want to play for you, Brittany, is one of those arguments between Dustin and Joy and just a note he says “RP” in the clip - that’s just an abbreviation for his disease.

————————CLIP———————

JOY: And I just feel like because you haven’t been given any concrete evidence that someone can help make your eyesight better. So that you're like well then nobody else knows so why continue doing this. Whereas I'm thinking eventually perhaps almost that you know what actually, I just figured this out or I just know that this is the gene that does something and then if we do something to it maybe it will make it better. Like I think it can happen but I think you have to keep looking and I feel like you're like well, so far nothing so screw it.

DUSTIN: Not it's not so far nothing screw it. It's like I don't always like trying to always be at the forefront of it is heartbreaking.

JOY: Yeah it's heartbreaking watching you stop.

DUSTIN: I'm not stopping. I've made so much damn progress. I'm doing this podcast for goodness sake. It's my way of trying to deal with it you know? I've started using the cane almost all the time. It's my way of trying to deal with it. I've accepted a lot of things and I went to the genetic testing because people wanted me to. If I'm getting more from being on the RP list of emails than I can be from going to a doctor then why shouldn't I do that instead.

JOY: I don't have an answer for you. Sorry.

DUSTIN: I don't mean to be disappointing.

JOY: You're not disappointing me. I'm sure - I'm upset just because I want to make things better for you and if I hear you cutting off an avenue there's less hope. It feels like there's less hope. So that's all.

DUSTIN: Thank you - no no I know you're doing it because you care.

JOY: I'm hopeful that some time in the future, they will figure it out. And if we've done everything that we can ahead of time, maybe you can be first in line for whatever they've figured out will fix it.

DUSTIN: And I appreciate that but I don't think—

JOY: Don't tell me you appreciate that.

DUSTIN: No well what do you want me to say?

JOY: I don't know. I don't even know what to say to you. But saying thank you, like thank you patting me on the head that's so nice of you little person.

DUSTIN: Well because I do appreciate it but I don't necessarily agree that doing genetic testing right now is going to be the thing that's going to make it easier.

JOY: When? Well then OK, then don't do it. We'll just agree to disagree. Don't do it. I'm not going to make you do it.

DUSTIN: I'm not saying you're making me do it. I'm just saying if they figure out something that cures it tomorrow you're still three years out from my possibly being able to do it. But everybody's adding this urgency to it like I'm disappointing them by not doing it. You know?

And I don't want to disappoint everybody. I don't want to take everybody's fears and concerns on my shoulder on the time and make it so that they feel good about what I'm doing to fight this.

JOY: I'm not asking you to do this to make me feel good.

D: I'm not specifically talking about you in this scenario.

J: OK, well you're yelling at me right now.

D: And you're right. 100 percent that if the situation was reversed I would want you to fight 100 percent of the time all the time because I would want it to be gone. I wouldn't want you to have to deal with it but I know that you couldn't. I only know that now but so when I say I appreciate it it's not meant to be condescending, patronizing or anything like that - I just don't know what else to say back.

————————————————

BRITTANY: That was umm, that was very tough. Obviously they are like dealing with him having with RP, but there are I would imagine as an unmarried person that there are a lot of situations that you can’t foresee… like having disagreements about how to handle a health problem because you are both so invested in the other person’s life that like you don’t have a say but you also kind of do. And so I think it’s cool they put that out there because that’s I don’t know if I would do that. You know what I mean? I don’t know that I would do that.

CHRIS: No, and as a married person, I have to say hearing it even though there are no stakes that high in my own life right now you do get kind of like you do get a chill of recognition. Of like, this would be like what an argument in my own life would sound like. Just lower stakes. But still as contentious. You can hear resentment and kindness and anger in really quick succession.

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly. In like 30 seconds.

CHRIS: So you know Brittany I got really invested in this couple and then for 3 years they just stopped doing the show and I wasn’t sure whether he’d gone blind more rapidly than they thought or it just got too hard to have arguments like we just heard, on tape. I almost forgot about it and then the podcast miraculously started back up again late last year. So I called up Joy and Dustin to figure out where they went and why they’re back.

————————

CHRIS: So you took about a three year break from the podcast and for me it was like losing touch with a couple friends who I know way more about than my actual couple friendsWay way more and so why did you decide to start the podcast back up?

DUSTIN: If finally felt like a time where there was enough new stuff to say as opposed to before where the conclusion we'd gotten to was just ask for help more and now I think that we're dealing with things that I can't overcome that help isn't going to ever come for me.

CHRIS: What kind of things are you experiencing that you feel like the cavalry is not on the way.

DUSTIN: I used to feel confident that I could see enough and I could get around places if I had the cane, I could kind of keep it all together. Now I'm in a situation where even with a cane and a flashlight sometimes I'm still lost.

Now I'm realizing that there are just places I can't go anywhere. Maybe I have to take a cab every single place that I go. I can't just walk someplace. There's a very strong part of me that's maybe I just don't do that anymore. So even when Joy's there and she's helping me sometimes it makes it better but I still get into panicked situations whereas I think before as long as I had a hand to hold I could just do it.

CHRIS: You guys are good about really addressing hard things and kind of hashing it out in front of other people so you've come back with the podcast. Has that helped your relationship.

JOY: [laughs] Silence.

DUSTIN: It hasn't harmed it.

CHRIS: Wow. Please you have to go on after saying that.

DUSTIN: I went back and listened to a couple old episodes and I realized that it's a very weird experience because I don't think we necessarily fight on the podcast but we--

CHRIS: Oh come on you guys fight sometimes.

DUSTIN: Yeah we fight. OK. It's very rare that you have a fight with your wife that you record and you listen to later. When you're in a fight you're defending yourself. But when you look back at it later you're like oh I get what they were trying to say. Maybe they had a point. Maybe the podcast as a whole is good for our relationship because somehow the microphone makes it easier for us to sort of cut to that thing. We can't beat around the bush. Joy is great at that. I give her all the credit. She's the best at like not backing down.

JOY: You make me sound like a pit bull.

DUSTIN: No not at all.

JOY: Well I believe that our relationship is really good. I supposed everybody feels that way about their marriage.

CHRIS: No they don't and I'm not talking about my own experience but also one of the best things about the podcast is that yes it does seem like a healthy relationship even under a particular unusual kind of stress but go on.

JOY: Well I'm glad that comes across. So I think that sometimes when I listen back I'm just like oh, I don't know about that. Do I really want people to know about this intimacy we have and all these sort of things that most people don't record and put into the world so I don't think that that's bad. It's just that there are times when I'm like should we do this? Is this OK that we're doing this? So I don't think it really hurts the marriage but there are times when I'm not sure who it's helping other than us.

CHRIS: And so why do you do it?

JOY: I do it for Dustin for sure and I think it helps him a lot and it does help me.

DUSTIN: It's one of the few meaningful thing that I do in my life. You know work is great and it helps but it's not me. We weaved a podcast like super exhausted and super emotionally drained and not sure if we want to share that with the world - the more we don't want to share with the world the more we should probably share it with the world.

CHRIS: So I remember from the first season when you got your diagnosis it was from a comically old doctor who did not see very well himself and when you asked him so well at what point will Dustin be blind, he was like you're 32 now, let's call it 52 and I wonder Joy for you have you allowed your mind to drift into a time when your husband is blind.

JOY: I try not to. Sometimes I do and that's when I fall to pieces and I need a Xanax but at his age increases and we closer to that arbitrary magic number it's getting a little more scary for me.

CHRIS: Can you imagine doing the podcast when you are blind.

DUSTIN: I want to say yes but I'm not sure because I think part of what makes the podcast work is hope. You know? That like if I was fully blind then I would just have the rage, the fear and the anger. Now I have the fight you know? Now that I have the like I'm not going to be this - I'm not going to give into it and somehow maybe I just rationalize or argue or discuss it enough I can mentally beat it and I think if I was totally blind I don't know that I could do that as well.

CHRIS: Joy, can you imagine doing the podcast when Dustin is blind?

JOY: I can imagine it. I think it would be a bit darker but I think it might actually be good for him because this has helped through this stage of it I think doing it at that stage of complete darkness would also be helpful. And especially if he's going to stay inside more.

DUSTIN: Yeah and have more free time. Why not?

————————

BRITTANY: So something that I didn’t notice as much in the two previous clips as I did in this one, is how afraid Joy like is. Even though in the second one, I felt a lot of like sadness I guess, this last one, it almost seems like on some level Dustin is accepting the fact that he’s going blind. Do you know what I mean?

CHRIS: Yeah he has some awareness.

BRITTANY: Yeah because it’s happening to him. But I think that hearing her fear I felt like I heard more of that and maybe that's like maybe her being afraid in a different way is what makes it easier for her to not shy away when they're having conversations like on the microphone. Maybe because like you know I think he said he is not sure if he'd want to do it when he goes completely blind but I could see like for her it still being something that she might need.

CHRIS: Right, and like that’s why it’s so cool they’re doing the podcast together. Because it's actually the person that's not going blind that gives you like a more concrete sense of how bad it would be. So the other thing I liked is you know this is a show about podcasts so it's really good to hear that this guy doing his podcast it's the most meaningful thing in his life.

BRITTANY: Yeah and also like it serves this purpose that I never knew that podcasting could serve which is like relationship mediator in a sense? We listen to a lot of things. We listen to a lot of things here but like I said relationship mediator was not what I was expecting. It wasn't even what I was expecting to get out of listening to this show so thank you.

CHRIS: Cool.

BRITTANY: This week’s show was like an emotional journey. We went through a lot together you guys so thank you so much for listening.

CHRIS: The shows you heard featured this week were the Combat Jack Show which come out every other week on the Loudspeakers network. We also listened to part of an episode from The Heart which is part of the Radiotopia Network.

BRITTANY: And the clips you just heard are from Going Blind Sucks which is back up and running after a three year hiatus. Links to all of those shows will be featured at our site. Gimlet media dot com slash sampler. Also as always we want to hear from you. This week we are looking for moments from podcasts about people doing things for the very first time. You can find us on Twitter at “@Samplershow” and you always shoot us an email at Sampler at gimletprod.staging.wpengine.com

This episode of Sampler was produced by Chris Neary, Matthew Nelson, Rose Reid and myself.

It was edited by Alex Blumberg, Peter Clowney and Caitlin Kenney and this episode was mixed by David Herman.

Our theme song was written and performed by Mike Avellian.

Original scoring was done by Peter Cocoma. And our ad music is by Build Buildings.

Sampler is a production of Gimlet Media.

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BRITTANY: We’ll be off next week but tune in in two weeks to hear me play a podcast playlist for a very special guest, Molly Ringwald.