Okay, WOW, look, babes, elephant in the room, I haven’t written one of these shits since February and that was WRONG of me and NASTY. But why dwell on the past (be accountable for my actions) when we could move on to a brighter future (you tell me you like my dress)??? What matters is that I’m back, and I’m leaving again.

Meagan and Producer Alli and I are taking the month of August off, but lucky for you we spent all of July recording extra episodes so you’ll get through our vacation with barely a whisper of an interruption (there will be two reruns). And boy are these episodes insane. Not normal! Lock us up! Keep us separated! Pretty fly for a white guy!

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I’m hearing good things about last Thursday’s episode, in which we simply list Animals We Saw for an hour:

But truly I cannot wait for you to hear the episode coming out this Thursday, which features the most cryptic and corpse-interfering Snake of the Week my research team has ever uncovered. Not to mention the week after that, in which Meagan confesses to a totally new crime that as far as I can tell SHE INVENTED. Or the week after that, an episode dominated by the exciting new segment Lindy Got a Pamphlet, where I read a pamphlet out loud.

Wait, I have a question. When did we stop calling pooping and throwing up the “stomach flu”? I get that it’s not technically the influenza virus (calm down, nerds), but I need a catch-all that’s less pretentious and pedantic than “gastroenteritis.” Every time I say “gastroenteritis” I feel like I’m going to get beat up! Now that “stomach flu” is banned, my only options are saying “norovirus” or “rotavirus” or some other specific poop/barf virus, the invocation of which implies that I’ve traveled to a doctor and submitted my fluids and gotten some sort of diagnosis, which would be LYING. You want to make a liar out of me? “Stomach bug” is too cutesy and doesn’t convey the magnitude and therefore shortchanges me on the sympathy I deserve. “Food poisoning” elicits the appropriate horror levels, but it isn’t always accurate and feels needlessly litigious! I’m trying to heal—I don’t have time for the Blame Game! It leaves me in this bind where, for lack of a better option, I’m forced to tell people—strangers and lovemaking partners alike—that “I have violent diarrhea and am belching sulfur and I vomited so hard I broke all my ribs,” and I think making me say that is a HIPAA violation.

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Anyway, whatever you call it, I had it last week. Here’s a voice note I sent Meagan about it:

I hope you’re all having a better summer than me! I don’t know if I’ll manage to keep up with the newsletter while I’m on vacation, but I’m going to try. A classic Lindy cliffhanger that we can experience together! Write in (deartextmeback@gmail.com) or call the Best Friend Party Phone (that’s P0D-TAX-000F the Os are zeros) and let us know how your summer is going, and/or what you call it when you’ve got The Bad Symptoms!

XOXO LYLAS HAGS

Lindy West

GUTEN TAG, fair Text-Me-Backolytes!

It’s a great big brave week over here at the TMB factory. Meagan and I are hard at work banking extra episodes so that you don’t have to go a single INSTANT without us while I’m away on my book tour (March 1 - April 5).

But one thing’s for sure—the stress ain’t keeping us from PUMPING OUT BANGERS:

If you like the parts of the podcast where we absolutely lose it laughing for an unprofessional length of time that should definitely be edited out, make sure to check out the David Archuleta section in the outtro of this episode!

How many of you are watching the full length YouTube episodes, by the way? Did you know those exist? Did you know that everything we do is on video? That Meagan makes a world record 499 incredible faces per second and Guinness is GAGGING? Something to consider!

Also, have you listened to the first episode of Adults in the Room yet??? It’s a podcast by our friends Isolde Raftery and Ella Hushagen about a bunch of really bad, traumatizing shit that happened during our senior year of high school:

Not to brag, but Isolde and Ella are our real actual close deep beloved precious friends—not, like, internet friends or people we kind of used to know (Ella and I were also housemates in college)—and Meagan and I have been waiting for this podcast to come out literally for YEARS. Ella and Isolde will be on next week’s Text Me Back (March 5) to talk about it, so make sure you’re caught up on Adults in the Room by then! Follow/subscribe!

Bittersweet business: Due to book tour, I will be taking a month or so off from Newsletter Me Back. But the podcast itself will keep going, like I said, and you’ll also have the opportunity to come see me in person:

A lot of these stops feature classic Friends of the Pod, such as Guy Branum (NYC), Big Ron (DC and Winston-Salem), Samantha Irby (Royal Oak and Chicago), Kelsey McKinney (Pittsburgh), and Franchesca Ramsey (LA)! Eagle-eyed Backolytes MAY be able to spot a certain Ms. Hat-Germaize in the crowd at the NYC and DC stops. Blind item! Sources are saying!

If your town isn’t on the list, please bug me about it and then I will have evidence to point to when I bug my publisher. They’re ultimately the ones who decide where I go. Also, Canada is a whole separate thing, and I don’t have any details on that yet. But I’m working on it!

In conclusion, please have a safe and peaceful month, please don’t forget about me while I’m gone, and please follow my road trip antics and ATTEMPTED TRAVEL VLOGGING over on Instagram.

I hate to say goodbye but I love to watch you leave,

Lindy

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Glad tidings, fair backolytes!

I (Lindy) have returned from frigid Boston, and let me tell you—I didn’t learn a THING about American history, because attention is earned, and that bitch (America) deserves none of mine (attention) until she gets her act together smdh!!!! But I did do two important things: 1) talk to the children of Emerson College, and 2) sit in my room and make social media content while staring at the graves of old forgotten soldiers. Two equally important and valuable pastimes!

The best thing I ate in Boston was a dim sum sesame ball filled with a molten butter custard at Dynasty Restaurant. But I ask you this: WHERE ARE THE BEANS? I didn’t see a single one all week. How am I supposed to become a Bonafide Bean Woman (BBW) in these conditions?

Anywayz, have you listened to this week’s episode yet? I’m on kind of an adventuring jag lately, so hold on to your butts for my latest tale of spontaneity and derring-do. Has Indiana Jones ever gotten drive-through Panda Express in a suburb of Indianapolis? I don’t think so! My rented Kia Sportage belongs in a museum!

Also in this episode: I’m in a bad mood, we discover a heretofore hidden mutual love of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Meagan is betrayed by the two people she thought she could trust: Mother Nature and Jingleheimer Stephen. Get inTO it!

Furthermore, have you read the new Swamp Person about the Supreme Court’s latest toilet water chugging contest (expected ruling)? Well get ur eyeballs’ asses over there! Meagan is clear and insightful, as usual, and if you don’t believe me, just look at what they’re saying in the comments:

As an average layminion/laypiggy myself, I couldn’t agree more!

Thanks for supporting Text Me Back Podcast! We love you every day.

Lindy (and Meagan)

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[Text Me Back is a wholly independent production. Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive bonus clips (and much much much more), buy our merch to peacock for the hotties at the bar, and tell your friends about Text Me Back Podcast!]

Greetings from snowy Boston!

I’m here for the week speaking to writing and film students at Emerson College, and I just sat down to write by the window and realized that my room overlooks an ancient and haunted cemetery known as the CENTRAL BURYING GROUND, wherein lie many restless ghosts and ghouls who are still mad about the Boston Tea Party, which they were at!!! Will any of them visit me in the night, rattling chains and hooting? If they ask me how things are going with the whole separation of church and state thing, and the whole separation of powers/checks and balances thing, and the whole resisting a tyrannical government thing, should I tell them it’s NOT GREAT? Or lie and let them rest/fat in peace?

By the way, I’m really trusting you freaks by giving out my coordinates—if any of you live in Boston, please don’t do anything weird. If you run into me organically we can hug, but DO NOT COME FIND ME. I am very cold and stressed!1

Why am I stressed? Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because in this week’s episode Meagan and Ronald both FORGOT what, to me, is the funniest and most important Text Me Back lore of all time, and also a core memory of Lindy/Meagan/Ronald friendship, which is of course ERIC FROM THE SEWERS ERIC WHO WORKS CONSTRUCTION ERIC IS DEAD??????? I tried to reference this foundational text—in an extremely elegant and ingenious way that some are calling radio genius—and these fake friends treated me like a piece of DOG CRAP THAT GOT UP AND STARTED WALKING AND TALKING.

Don’t believe me? Let’s roll the tape:

If you enjoyed the now infamous segment “Lindy Has a Secret,” can you let me know in the comments? What is the appropriate punishment for my “friends” Meagan and Ronald, who not only wiped their memories of our best inside joke, but then gaslit me about how funny it is??

In other news, we are entering a season in which I am gone all the time due to book tour. Basically old girl (me) is out on the road from March 1 through April 25. So Meagan and I are recording as hard as we can, twice or thrice a week, to bank enough episodes that there won’t be any gaps in your Text Me Back feed! And I think you’re gonna like what you hear. The fun thing about recording in advance is that nothing can be about the news, which means that everything is about weird dumb crap. There’s so much funny stuff already in the can that I’m DYING because you can’t hear it yet.

My book tour dates should be announced this week (I’ll send out another Newsletter Me Back when that happens!), but here are a couple of other items you can put on your calendars!

• If you live in the middle of the country, I will be doing my one-woman show, Every Castle, Ranked, at the Oklahoma City Rep on April 10-19! Eight shows! Tickets HERE.

• If you live in the northeast of the country, Text Me Back’s Czar of Sound Force Ahamefule J. Oluo is performing their solo show, The Things Around Us, next week here in Boston at the Paramount on Feb 20-22. Tickets HERE.

• If you live in the southeast of the country, Text Me Back’s Czar of Sound Force Ahamefule J. Oluo is ALSO performing their solo show, The Things Around Us, at the Ringling Center in Sarasota, FL on Feb 28-Mar 6! Tickets HERE!

Now I have to go talk to the children again! Wish me luck! They are even scarier than the ghosts!

Love,

Lindy

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Hello, my angels!

Here with another Newsletter Me Back, just a quickie this time because as my book tour approacheth I become more and more of a ragged wraith with only the wispiest tether to sanity!!!

I know in my heart that this week’s episode (more like last week’s episode, as a new one drops tomorrow morning) is really funny, but I don’t remember WHAT ON EARTH we talked about, since unfortunately I have had to overwrite the data with price comparisons of various companies that manufacture large custom magnets for automobiles. In that vein, I have also been doing some graphic design:

But enough about me! I’m here to talk about Lindy and Meagan! If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, or watched our YouTube video, you’d better hop to it, brother:

Other things I am enjoying this week:

• going to a perfume store and smelling 1000 perfumes, a forbidden fruit because Ahamefule is allergic, but nonetheless an opportunity to find a “signature scent” that evokes “me” and helps me to feel “known” even to my “self,” not historically my forte (conclusion: Diptyque’s Philosykos, which perhaps someday I will own, if Dr. Oz cures scent allergies)

• playing Core Keeper, a pretty fun time even though I am afraid of even the lowest-level enemies

• when’s the last time you really sat down and enjoyed an Airhead? and NOT one of the spin-offs!!!!!!!

• putting clean sheets on the bed, taking a shower, then going to sleep at 10 pm? have you heard of this????????

Anyways, that’s it for now! Don’t miss tomorrow’s brand spanking new episode, featuring TMB heartthrob BIG RON!!

Love you forever and ever,

White Mystery

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Hi, my friends!

First off, I love you so much. What a time. I love to laugh with my friends.

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Second off, have you listened to this week’s podcast yet? It’s yet another super-group collab with our besties Luke and Andrew over at Too Beautiful to Live, a.k.a. TMBTL of the Dog.

It was so fun and cathartic to just goof off with friends for an hour during the bleakest of winters. We hope it’ll bring some warmth and lightness to your week, as it did to ours!

Third off, has anyone else watched His & Hers on Netflix? I finished it last night with my friend Dwayne Kennedy who is visiting and BOY WERE WE SCREAMING AT THAT LAST EPISODE. As a grizzled veteran of the thriller wars, it’s not often that one of these thrillers manages to get me anymore, but this one did it! I got gotten hard as hell! Or as Dwayne put it, “JEEPIN!!!!!!!”

(BY THE WAY, if you’re in Seattle, you should come see Dwayne do comedy THIS WEEK at the Black & Tan Hall on Thursday January 29!!!! I will be there, and TMB Tsar of Sound Force Ahamefule J. Oluo will also be there, playing new original music with our former landlord, Skerik, who wasn’t in Temple of the Dog but he was in Mad Season, and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready was in both, which means it kind of comes FULL CIRCLE back to this week’s podcast!!! It’s all connected, man! Tix here!)

Fourth off, have you read the new Swamp Person? Meagan is so good at talking about this and I’m so grateful for her I could puke:

In more encouraging news, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced that Senate Dems will block that funding bill if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees ICE. This is good and should be encouraged! But we also know Dems fold fast and easy and with glee, so if you have a Democratic senator, call or email them and tell them to hold firm on this.

Here’s a good resource from Indivisible on what to say when you call your senators: NO MONEY FOR ICE.

DEMS FOLD FAST AND EASY AND WITH GLEE. What a line!

In conclusion, here’s a video that made me feel something today:

Can’t stop thinking about the fact that human beings are just sweaty little animals who are obsessed with each other and make big mistakes and write absolutely WILD poetry and songs about it in the hopes that their truest selves can someday be known! I don’t understand why rich dicks have to make life so fucking complicated and horrid, when it could just be nice, but it’s a relief to be reminded that the world is good and worth fighting for. Thanks, France!

We love you so much and we’ll be back Thursday with a brand new episode.

In conclusion, one more CTA drop from Swamp Person:

For starters, there are a ton of good options on this list put together by Minnesotans for how can help the people of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities, including: Donate money; Donate food, diapers, and other necessities; Donate blood; Volunteer; Contact your own reps; Boycott businesses and corporations supportive of ICE.

Hope to see you out there. Hang on and keep going.

Love,

Lindy

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I’ve been sitting and staring at this blank page for a WEEK, because wtf do you say about January 2026 in January 2026? Nothing good, that’s for sure! We’re all on the same social media seeing the same bad stuff (ICE, Greenland, Gaza, Iran, toxic Heated Rivalry fandom) and the same hopeful stuff (ice, the people of Minnesota, people everywhere, Heated Rivalry in its purest form), so I’ll just say keep linking arms with your neighbors and keep calling your reps and keep your heart open as much as you can. As friend of the show Ronald Young Jr. advised me the other day, in the words of his beloved mother, “Keep going.”

SOME NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR YOU:

1. You’ve probably already noticed, but this week’s podcast is coming out a day late, because it is a collab with our beautiful boys over at Too Beautiful to Live. We discuss Andy Rooney, parking garages, Richard Sherman, and HAT. Meagan was so funny on this recording that I almost retired from podcasting altogether. You better listen tomorrow! Why I oughtta!!!

2. If you’re one of our beautiful Patreon subscribers, tune in Sunday at 3 pm PST for a brand new Text Me Back After Dark! We’ll be chit-chattin’ about everything and anything on our minds: probably stuff on the TV, which crackers are best (Cheez-Its Extra Toasty Cheddar Jack—it has the toastiness AND THE FLAVOR POWDER), and whatever is going on with Karamo? Possibly the Peltz-Beckham wedding(s)? Those are the kinds of pop culture events that I need Meagan to explain to me, so this should be educational as well. These After Darks are REALLY FUN, so if you’re not subscribed to the Patreon and you want to get in on it, smash that $3/month button! The livestream is fun because you can ask us questions in the chat, but if you miss the livestream it stays up on the Patreon so you can watch it later. We are heroes and masters of technology!

3. I have made a purchase.

They’re refusing to make these in my prescription (due to progressives), so I ordered them JUST PLAIN GLASS. Purely decorative fashion glasses. This is the deepest into the abyss that I have ever sunk, and I’m loving it. Abyss is just another word for rabbit hole, and a rabbit hole is my HOUSE, INNIT???

4. This entry is completely sincere and there is no joke coming, so don’t get excited. I got served this video on YouTube today and now I find myself hankering for some good old-fashioned pointing and clicking. Point-and-click adventure games are what kicked off my xxxtreme gamer girl lifestyle back in the 80s, and lately I’ve been doing some light CPR on my childhood dream of WRITING a point-and-click adventure game of my own, a dream I abandoned when I took one coding class in high school and it was so boring I died. But in 2026 I don’t have to do the coding myself because I can just hire a genius to do it. Right? Even if I can’t find anyone who wants to do the computer part of my computer game, I can think of worse ways to give my psyche a rest during the collapse of empire than sketching out a little magic adventure. Either way, it feels like time to do some research in the field. Have you played any of these games? I’m leaning toward the one where Sherlock Holmes tries to throw a gay picnic to distract Watson from his PTSD.

5. I hate to constantly use this space for self-promotion, but the main thing I’m doing right now is getting ready for the release of my new book Adult Braces, coming March 10, so I just don’t have that much else to talk about!!! I hired my friend Franchesca Ramsey to be my social media consultant/professor, so I’ve been dipping my toe into Young Person Influencing (see here and here), and our main goal right now (in addition to being so charming that Donald Trump gives ME “his” Nobel Peace Prize) is to DRIVE PRE-ORDERS because pre-orders are what get you on the bestseller lists. Have you pre-ordered? You can do it here!
   
   I will also be going on a month-long book tour in March (details coming soon!!!), and I want to reassure you that there will be no interruption in your Text Me Back Podcast. Meagan and Producer Alli and I are working tirelessly to bank enough episodes that you won’t even know that I ever left my desk. Plus, these episodes are very funny because they have to be evergreen, which means that all the segments are like “Man Hits Head, When He Wakes Up He Can Speak Monkey.” So get ready for THAT.

In conclusion, we hope you’re hanging in there. Sorry if this levity feels off, tonally—we are sad and scared but also trying to distract ourselves so we can stay focused, if that makes any sense. Really grateful to all of you out there who never stop fighting for the world that we know is possible. Keep going.

Love,

Lindy

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What was that? Did I hear somebody say that auld acquaintance has been forgot and never brought to mind????? Not on my watch!

That’s right. It’s the Text Me Back Podcast Year in Review, baby. They’re saying it’s our most auspicious year yet, due to being listed as one of Lifehacker’s 20 Most Essential Podcasts of 2025!

But before I start with all that, I wanted to let you know that if you’ve been skipping our December episodes because they’re reruns (what’s a rerun??), we did record bespoke little intros for each one, which are kind of fun! Worth a listen! Also, for the episode that comes out tomorrow (1/1), we are rerunning last year’s New Year’s Resolutions episode, HOWEVER, the new intro we recorded for it is extremely long, almost like a mini episode itself! So make sure you don’t miss that! And we’ll be back next week (1/8) to check in on how we did on our 2024 resolutions (NOT GOOD).

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Without further ado, here are our Top 20 Most Favorite TMB Podcast Moments of 2025. (Leave yours in the comments, I’M BEGGING YOU!!!!! I’m sure I forgot some! I would forget my own name if it wasn’t tattooed backwards on my forehead!)

20. When we introduced and then solved the Iconic and Upsotting Jingle Bells Missing Second Verse Mystery and then learned the secrets of Schlittenfahrt.

19. When, after much sleuthing and mild humiliation, Lindy added “CHONKAY” to the media board.

18. When Meagan wouldn’t stop mailing boxes of beneficial nematodes to her non-consenting neighbor: “I don’t want these buggies, Meagan.”

17. When Lindy HAT.

16. When the Jingleheimers received their trophies.

15. When Kelsey McKinney helped Lindy and Meagan figure out the Gen-Z shrimp fingers.

14. When we gallivanted around New York City with Thorgy and Big Ron.

13. When Connor Blades and his friend Justin “found” a tiny snake that had been “missing.”

12. When Meagan met the Sapphic and her twink son.

11. When the Seattle Mariners didn’t choose a bloody adult baby as their mascot (!?!??).

10. When a sitting U.S. senator agreed to come on our bloody adult baby podcast?????????

9. When Meagan piloted the instant classic, “Meagan’s Journey.”

8. When we successfully rehabilitated Lindy’s Wikifeet score (good) but then a stranger uploaded TOO MANY photos of Lindy’s feet that they had TOO READILY AVAILABLE (unsettling) and then we discovered that Meagan has a Wikifeet page of her own (sensational).

7. When Luther took us to Gino’s.

6. When Lindy didn’t like it when people ask her how Meagan is doing.

5. When we gallivanted around the Gaylord Texan and didn’t even care that the water park was closed because friendship is the greatest gift of all, actually, and then we still didn’t care about it the following week or any of the weeks after that.

4. When Lindy threw up and shit her pants at the same time on the train from Chicago to Seattle.

3. When Ahamefule J. Oluo produced the famous and well-named segment “Dong Exploder” feat. the Puppies.

2. When we did our incredibly successful BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive that made us cry so much because we love you all so much! My angels!

1. And I’m letting Meagan pick our #1 moment of the year, in this week’s Question Quorner! Take it away, diva!

That’s a wrap for Text Me Back Podcast 2025! We can’t wait to get back to recording next week. Endless thanks to all of our Text-Me-Backolytes, old and new, for your support this year and every year. YOU MAKE THE PODCAST HAPPEN.

As usual, if you like what you hear, subscribe to our Patreon, follow us on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, buy our merch, and tell your friends about us!

Goo goo ga ga,

Baby New Year 2026

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Happy Thursday, turkey people!

Here is a photograph from my wedding, featuring a mere fraction of our Garfield High School classmates who were in attendance. Is it weird and stunted to stay friends with 37 of your high school friends for the rest of your life? Or is it cute? Sound off in comments! Anyway, the point of this photo is MEAGAN. Pop off in comments if you enjoy MEAGAN.

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I didn’t manage to send out a Newsletter Me Back last week, so it is my duty to remind you to listen to LAST week’s episode if you haven’t.

It’s our two year anniversary episode, featuring a new segment in which alleged “political columnist” Lindy West fails to name even ten sitting US senators!

And here is this week’s episode! If you are a person who hates when we talk politics and only loves when we are weird idiots, then this is an episode for you. Please enjoy:

Now, the reason for the season: You may remember a month or two ago when we asked everyone who’s submitted a jingle for Text Me Back Podcast to write in and give me their addresses. I am overjoyed to finally reveal Lindy’s Secret Top Secret Personal Project, which is THE OFFICIAL JINGLEHEIMER TROPHY AWARD!!!!!

Every hero/shero/theyro who has submitted a jingle to this podcast has been sent a bespoke golden pig-person trophy to honor their contribution the fine arts. Said Jingleheimers include but are not limited to:

Jingleheimer Robert, who not only alerted us to Handel’s banger “Glad Tidings,” but then put together an entire choir to record it for us so we don’t get sued for copyright infringement!

Jingleheimer Hal, who vowed neither to eat nor sleep nor go to school until Text Me Back Podcast had a Normal News jingle worthy of even the normalest news!

Jingleheimer Ahamefule, who despite composing and recording all of our beloved interstitial music, our sacred theme song, our almost-too-funky Professor Doctor Freek Vonk Funk Blast, did not technically qualify for Jingleheimer status until he BLASTED the doors off the TMB jingle hall of presidents with the BBW theme song! B-b-b-business!

And finally, not a Jingleheimer but a KINGLEHEIMER, it’s Kingleheimer Stephen! The mastermind behind not one but TWO seminal Text Me Back jingles—Segment P.U.B.E.S. and Normal News (Not Hal Edition)—Kingleheimer Stephen is also a singer in the Tidings choir. I had the trophy engraved before we invented the Kingleheimer designation (denoting any Jingleheimer who heimers more than one jingle), so he got a crown instead.

Not pictured: Caitlin and Patrick of Snake of the Week fame (we slither before you in awe!), Chelsea of Dog Thoughts fame (Czar of HOUND Force!), and Krista of I Can Fix Her fame (we are fixed by the song itself!). If any of you want to send in pics with your trophies for inclusion in a future edition of NMB, please do!

As always, we are so grateful to our Jingleheimers and ALL of our listeners, because Meagan and I are truly kept alive by the IV drip of pure love generated by this podcast. What would we do without you?

Us imagining doing without you:

Talk to you jabronis next week!

Love,

Lindy

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Glad tidings, my darlings!

It’s been a real political week here on planet earth! First we had a surprisingly non-diarrhea-inducing election for once, and then Lindy and Meagan convinced UNITED STATES SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY to appear on Text Me Back Podcast?? So in honor of Politics Week here on TMBPTOP, please consume the above photograph of Meagan having the time of her life at Dayjob, LLC, circa 2015. The public service is SERVICING, diva!!!!!

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If you haven’t yet listened to our interview with REAL human not-a-hoax United States senator Jeff Merkley, sworn by sacred oath to protect the republic for which it stands, one nation, under Jeff, whom we did NOT kidnap or blackmail into being here, consider checking out the YouTube video! My favorite part is when Meagan and I do a little hand motion when we say, “JEFF!” and then Jeff does the hand motion too!!!!! You can’t get THAT audially!

It’s been a while since we’ve done our “weekly” feature, Question Quorner, so I made sure to ask Meagan a real ring-a-ding-dinger for you this week. Per listener request (and also JEFF request), Meagan, could you please rank your top three candle snuffers in your collection, plus the one candle snuffer that you find to be the most dark-sided? (She opted not to answer that last part and now I can see that I am the one who is dark-sided for besmirching the snuffers of Marvin!)

Up next, it’s our Accolades of the Week, awarded to these two YouTube commenters under our Jeff Merkley episode:

Two stunning beauties who are better than we think? That genuinely got me!

And now, HOUSEKEEPING BUSINESS:

• Many of you have been asking when the HELL we’re going to get back on our Shrill rewatch series. Well, we finally have an answer for you! It’s January! Season two will be extra fun because Meagan, my “BEST FRIEND,” has never seen it. So really from here on out it’s half rewatch/half watch. Thank you for being patient with us!

• If you earned a free BBLs for BBWs tote bag during our September pledge drive, first of all, thank you again!! And second of all, congratulations! The totes are finally here! One small whoopsie-daisy: as one perspicacious listener pointed out, you do have to pay for shipping on your “free” tote, as they are coming straight from our merch fulfillment center to your doorstep. This is not ideal, and no we did NOT think about the shipping costs when we set up the “free tote” fulfillment system, and yes we ARE embarrassed about it, but unfortunately this is the only possible way that anyone will receive any totes at all. Because if Lindy West is in charge of taking 93 tote bags to the post office and mailing them to 93 different individual addresses, well, baby, that’s Lindy West staring at a pile of 93 tote bags festering in the corner of the TV room for the rest of her life! If it’s unbearably irritating that your “free” tote costs $5, send me a DM and I’ll Venmo you $5. Really. (Also, if you didn’t qualify for a free tote, you can still buy one on our merch page while they last! I don’t think we’re restocking them!)

  

• Speaking of our merch page, we also have an extremely elegant and powerful BONUS SURPRISE piece of merch, which is the Text Me Back Podcast Little Items Trinket Dish! This bad boy holds your favorite earrings. It holds the coins of the realm. It holds three lemon drops. It holds the One Ring. It holds a tiny feather. It holds drinking water for a mouse. There is no way your boudoir is staying organized without one of these guys on the vanity! Featuring the signature TMB wiggly doodle snake by earth angel Corianton Hale.

  

• It’s time again for Lindy, Meagan, and Producer Alli to take a little breaky-break from the podcast, to catch our breath and regenerate some brain cells. Our last new episode of 2025 will come out on December 4, and then we’ll be back, refreshed, with brand new episodes in January! And we’ve got some little sharts and farts planned to entertain you during the dark times, so don’t worry too much. You can always re-listen to the back catalog! And if you’re a Patreon subscriber, the Discord is popping off 24/7/365 with all kinds of TMB-coded chitter-chatter.

In conclusion, I’m thinking about buying a van. I was going to wait to see if my book (about a road trip I took in a van) is a success before I decide if I can afford to buy a van (plz buy the book), but on the other hand yolo? If I buy the van now then I can USE the van for my BOOK TOUR promoting my VAN BOOK. It costs $5,000 to rent a van for a month and $15,000 to buy a used van to own forever. Am I absolutely crackers for thinking I should ask the bank to loan me some van money???? Please let a girl know!

Okay, bye!

Love and kisses,

Lindy

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Ahoy, gentle Text-Me-Backolytes!

Well, it took a week or three for us to recover from five straight days of live-streaming, which was incredibly fun but also we died. But now that I’ve defibrillated my single brain cell, I need to acknowledge how hard you all showed up for Text Me Back Podcast, because that’s what they’re saying!!!!!! You busted all of our blocks! We were hesitant to set concrete goals because we had no idea if this pledge drive idea would work, but we held secret goals in our hearts and you blew them all out of the water. So THANK YOU. WE’VE NEVER BEEN LOVED SO MUCH.

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In case you missed the livestreams, you can watch them all here:

Day 1 - Samantha Irby

Day 2 - Guy Branum

Day 3 - Alice Wetterlund

Day 4 - Ronald Young Jr.

Day 5 - Just Lindy and Meagan

All of our guests were PERFECT and we PRAISE THEM.

There’s also a 2025 Pledge Drive Greatest Hits Blitz compilation in this week’s episode, if you don’t have the stamina to watch OVER FIVE HOURS OF LINDY AND MEAGAN VAMPING LIVE.

Anyway, what else is new?

• I finished my book for REAL real, and published an exclusive excerpt from the cutting room floor over at Butt News. Just because it didn’t make it into the book doesn’t mean it isn’t good! In fact, a lot of the stuff that gets cut is the weirdest, most ME stuff, because the editor goes, “You can’t have a 600-word footnote about George Foreman’s InventHelp commercials in this chapter about your eating disorder, it makes no sense,” and, you know, I can’t pick every battle. Come to think of it, I tell a very spoOoooOOOooOooky story about this exact phenomenon in the podcast episode coming out Thursday. So tune in!

• Last night I watched This Is England (the movie) because I’ve got Stephen Graham on the brain, and because it felt relevant, and, guess what? It was! NOT US never solving any societal problems so they just come back over and over and over again and we act surprised and confused even though all we ever do is the same thing! COULDN’T BE US pretending that there is anything new under the sun!!!!!!!!!!!!

• It’s finally the correct temperature for me to do the kind of #PigDNA indoor/outdoor living I like to do, which is working on my laptop in the yard while wearing a light sweater and encountering not a single yellow jacket! Sixty degrees rules! Eighty degrees brools! Here was my workspace today:

• Cozy season is upon us, thank GOD, so I am once again swaddling myself in the United Kingdom’s most charming murders. Yesterday I finished Death Valley, which I loved, and which reminded me of Ludwig, a show I loved last cozy season. Speaking of light sweaters, I may have to write an entire newsletter about the knitwear in Death Valley!!!!! Anyone else? DS Janie Mallowan’s vest hive, rise up????????

• Has anyone played Chained Echoes? It’s been going on forever and I can’t tell if I have 40 minutes or 400 hours left, but I’m generally liking it! Pros: turn-based combat, zooming around, having conversations with pigs, upgrading my stuff. Cons: I’m getting a little bit bored.

• I can’t remember if this was on Discord or Instagram, but someone asked whether the suffix on “Text-Me-Backolyte” is like “electrolyte” (as in a salty podcast you drink to survive) or like “Seattleite” (as in you are a tax-paying denizen of the podcast) and the answer is neither! The etymology of Text-Me-Backolyte is Text Me Back + acolyte (as in PODCAST IS UR GOD). It’s weird that we never explained that! Sorry!

This week’s episode is extremely funny, so gird ur loins for tomorrow! Meagan brought a Tik-Tok Digest segment that made me laugh so hard I barely survived the edit notes.

In conclusion, if you listened to the lore drop from Friday’s livestream, here is me “having some jam” at the 2012 family reunion with one of the supermodels to whom I am allegedly related:

That’s what they’re saying! TALK SOON! LYLAS!

Lindy

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Comin’ atcha from the sewers below Fraaaaaance!!!!!! Your star soprano and her backup (you decide who’s who) have somehow made it, not dead, unlike Erik who works construction, to the final day of the Text Me Back BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive! So far we’ve done four consecutive nights of livestreams, featuring four phenomenal and beloved guests: Samantha Irby, Guy Branum, Alice Wetterlund, and Ronald Young, Jr. We praise them! Please clap!!! And if you missed out on any of them, they’re all up on our Livestream page!

We have one very special live episode left in the pledge drive, streaming tonight (9/26) on the Text Me Back YouTube channel. There’s no guest—it’s just going to be your classic 100% pure and uncut Lindy and Meagan primordial brainestrone sewer sludge gumbo! Join us! We promise not to kidnap you and force you to marry us, but we WILL make you behold our hideous skull-like visages.

Now let me tell you something huge: the Big Beautiful Listeners have come out HARD to support these two Better Business Women. This pledge drive has been more successful than our wildest dreams, and we are truly moved. Not satire! We are actually crying! Meagan is crunching the numbers as we speak and soon we’ll have some data about just how many of you subscribed, upgraded, donated, and phoned a friend, but I’d say we’ve done at least 20 shout-outs per night, each one of them a sparkling gem of support for Text Me Back Podcast the only podcast.

We’ve never been loved so much, and it feels so good!

Seriously, thank you thank you THANK YOU for all your support, attention, and funny comments this week. The live chat has been popping off, and the Patreon bucks have been exploding! We can’t wait to take those funds and put them back into the podcast!

As Text-Me-Backolyte Gina V said in last night’s chat, an annual subscription at the Freekaconda level is just 1.5 DoorDash orders:

Amazing point, Gina! And did you all know that if you upgrade to Freekaconda this week you get a FREE and EXCLUSIVE pledge drive tote bag? I don’t have a mockup of it yet but the design looks like this:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Since this week has been such a blockbuster already, we thought we’d reach for the stars and add a brand new stretch goal on the last day. We’re currently wallowing at 589 ratings on Apple Podcasts. Do you think by the end of the pledge drive tonight we could hit… 600? Preferably via 21 new five-star reviews?? I SAY LET’S GO FOR IT. Rating and reviewing the podcast is a great way to help keep us going even if you can’t contribute financially!

We hope you’ll tune in tonight and celebrate with us, whether you’re able to donate/upgrade/subscribe or not! We love all of our children equally, and, speaking of our children, we’ve got some special treats up our sleeves tonight. Did I hear somebody say… Pet Parade???

Thanks again, and by the way if you want to see the video that Meagan referenced last night in her Surprise Micro-Segment, it’s here! Lock her up for enjoying it? Or not? Pop off in comments!

OKAY SEE YOU TONIGHT, MY ANGELS OF MUSIC!!!!!!!!

Loooooooove,

Lindy (and Meagan)

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Hello, sweetie babies!

Lindy here with another reminder to tune into our third consecutive night of LIVE Text Me Back episodes over on the old YouTube! Tonight we will be visited by threeeeee ghooooooosts: the Ghost of Christmas Lindy, the Ghost of Christmas Meagan, and most importantly the Ghost of Christmas Alice Wetterlund! We will be appearing in your bedrooms in nothing but rags and chains to teach you a heartwarming lesson about how not to be miserly [with your Patreon dollars]! We have exclusive merch for people who upgrade to the Freekaconda Patreon tier, shout-outs for anyone who upgrades or joins the Patreon, and the terrifying rictus smiles of two women who do NOT know what they’re doing! God bless us, every one!

On this particular hallowed eve, Alice will be joining us for two of our most beloved segments, Snake of the Week and Two Minutes Hate. Do we think it’s Two Minutes Hate as in Two Minutes [of] Hate, or Two Minutes’ Hate as in minutes plural possessive? Pop off in comments! Anyway, I’m going to tell the class about the snake I met in Florida and the high-quality NPC who popped out of the woods to teach me about it. Then Alice is going to tell us about something she hates. And perhaps Meagan and I have hate in our hearts as well that we will share! You’ll have to tune in to find out!

As always, if you aren’t able to tune in live, the episodes are immediately available on the “Live” tab on our YouTube. If you missed Monday with Samantha Irby (in which Sam vows to have sex with a wolverine) and/or Tuesday with Guy Branum (in which Guy dishes the traumatic details of a violent assault he recently suffered on a plane), here they are!

Monday with Sam:

Tuesday with Guy:

Both episodes are soooooo funny and special and MIRTHFUL in different ways, and I am feeling extremely lucky to have friends like these, especially this week. I hope you’ll tune in tonight for Alice, tomorrow for Ronald Young Jr., and Friday for me and Meagan and a couple surprises!

See you soon!

Devotedly,
Lindy

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Good day, gentle backolytes!

It’s finally here! Today we’re kicking off our most death-defying stunt yet — FIVE DAYS OF LIVE SHOWS known as the Big Beautiful Listeners for Better Business Women Pledge Drive!

Tonight on the show we have a bona fide superstar: it’s author, TV writer, Michigander, and Dave Matthews appreciator Samantha Irby! Sam will be joining us for a couple of classic TMB segments—I Can Fix Her (Sam Edition) and Extended FMK (Pure Michigan Edition). Plus, Meagan and I will update you with our Tidings, and bombard you with requests for eternal devotion!

We’re doing it all LIVE on our YouTube channel (6 pm PT/8 pm CT/9 pm ET), so who knows what kind of chaos will ensue in a brainestrone type manner! Send yourself a calendar invite and tune in to find out!

See you there!

YOURS ALWAYS,
LINDY AND MEAGAN

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Hello, my sweet little raisin dumplings!

It’s ALMOST TIME for the first ever annual Text Me Back BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive, a big beautiful week of LIVE episodes over on our YouTube channel! Just a reminder: the show will run DAILY all week long from 6 to 7 pm PST/9 to 10 pm EST. And don’t worry—if you miss an episode, they’ll be immediately available in our videos!

The most important part of the Pledge Drive (other than PLEDGING1) is our extremely special guests, and I have sensational news for you, because welcome to your Big Beautiful Guest Reveal E-Mail! You’re reading it right now! You’re about to get the goods!

On Monday, September 22, we’ll be sharing Glad Tidings™ and more with…

The future Mrs. Judge Mathis, Samantha Irby!!!!!!!

On Tuesday, September 23, bringing us a Segment P.U.B.E.S. for the ages, it’s…

Emmy-winning comedian Guy Branum!!!!!!!

On Wednesday, September 24, discusssssssssssing the Snake of the Week, it’ssssssssssssssss…

Star of stage and screen Alice Wetterlund!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Thursday, September 25, celebrating the grand tradition of Text Me Back Surprise Micro-Segments, it’s…

Podcasting royalty Ronald Young Jr.!!!!!!!!!

And what will happen on Friday, September 26??? Who can say!?!!? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Please do because it is going to be so fun all week and we truly madly deeply cannot make the podcast without you.

Also, huge news, in honor of BBLs for BBWs Week, all our merch is 30% off! And if you already get a merch discount because you’re a Patreon subscriber, the discounts STACK! Can you believe us? Go nuts, por favor!

SEE YOU ON MONDAY

LYLAS

Lindy and Meagan <3

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Good day, gentle Text-Me-Backolytes!

Lindy here (it’s always Lindy, FYI), writing to you from sunny Mayo, a town of ~1,000 people in the rural Florida panhandle, a strange place to be during the week when all of America learned what “decorticate posturing” is. But one thing about the South is that it’s diverse and a second thing about the South is that people are nice to you even if they vote bad. Yesterday when we were swimming at Royal Springs, two tiny boys who talked exactly like this informed us in a chivalrous manner that the snake sitting on top of a nearby rock couldn’t hurt us but the snake poking its head out of the crack in the rock might be able to hurt us1. A few minutes later, three evil teenage boys showed up and vowed to kill the snake poking its head out of the rock, and I had to summon all of my Mommy Authority to stop them. I lamented how in just a few years my tiny snake-respecting gentlemen might age into unremorseful, toxically masculine killing machines. (One of the teenagers also tried to drown his friend “as a joke.”) But who knows! Perhaps talking about snake appreciation with some obvious alphabet-mafia Antifa Yankee freaks will divert those kids’ course a few degrees! It could happen!

Anyway, here’s what’s really on the agenda today:

1. If you haven’t already, mark your calendars for our first annual BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive next week! Meagan and I will be streaming LIVE on our YouTube channel FIVE DAYS IN A ROW (September 22-26) from 6-7 pm PST/9-10 pm EST. We’ll have special guests, special merch, and special segments! You can also interact with us in real time via the chat, and there might just be special prizes for people who tune into all five episodes. (They’ll be available to watch later if you can’t make it live.) This is going to be extremely fun and insane and only a huge snake-murdering jabroni would miss it!

2. Have you listened to this week’s podcast episode with Big Ron yet? People are saying it’s one of our best episodes ever. We do a deep dive into Netflix’s Biggest Loser documentary, we stop being polite, we start getting real, we want to be on top, and we aren’t here to make friends. And if you aren’t watching our episodes with full video on the YouTube, you’re missing out! Look how cute we are!

3. This brings me to our Accolade of the Week, from noramke on our Discord: “This episode should be nominated for a Podcast Oscar.” We agree! HELLO??? PODCADEMY??????

4. I don’t have any pop culture recommendations this week because ALL I am doing is swimming. I traveled to Florida with the knitting celebrities to swim in the natural springs and see the manatees and those are the only activities. We’ve been here for five days and we have been to six different springs and today we are going to two more. Best swimming in the world. We also swam in the Gulf but I immediately got stung by a jellyfish and we realized the whole ocean was a rich jellyfish broth so we left. Anyway, it’s still summer! Raise your boys to be kind! And don’t let the snake stop you from swimming—it’s just a lil banded water snake, can’t hurtcha none!!!!!!!!!!!!

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK, LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Lindy

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Aloha, Text-Me-Backolytes!

Here with a hot, juicy announcement for you! In our efforts to defeat every other podcast and become the rightful King of Podcast, we’re pulling a VERY SPECIAL STUNT in just two weeks! For the week of September 22-26, Text Me Back will be streaming live on our YouTube channel EVERY NIGHT from 6-7 pm PST/9-10 pm EST. That’s five nights in a row of Meagan and Lindy doing all your favorite segments such as Lindy’s Surprise Micro-Segment, and other segments, responding to comments in real time, being silly, and welcoming some very special friends of the show. There might also be EXCLUSIVE MERCH, depending on if/when the merch company ever e-mails me back!

We’re your Better Business Women and you’re our Big Beautiful Listeners, so we’re calling this the BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive!

I know everyone hates a pledge drive but this is not even really a pledge drive. We just hope that if you love the show you will consider supporting us financially, and if you already subscribe to the Patreon you’ll consider upgrading your level. And if you want to make a one-time donation we do have a Venmo if you feel like tipping us (say, for instance, you heard a really amazing Surprise Micro-Segment that changed your life???). Actually, you know what? It’s ACTUALLY JUST A FRIENDSHIP DRIVE, FOR FRIENDS TO HAVE FUN. Our macro goal is to increase our Patreon bucks so we can use said bucks to bring you even more deranged content and convenient special features (such as how YOU made it possible for us to bring back the full-length YouTube videos!), but our micro goal is just to hang out and be stupid for five nights in a row LIVE.

So mark your calendars and tune in to the BBLs for BBWs Pledge Drive, please! We love you sooooooo much!

In other news:

1. I know I’m a couple years late, but after we finished season two of The Rehearsal last week, Aham and I jumped into The Curse with basically no context, and it changed me??? As I was watching it I was like, “This is really good but it’s so slow and uncomfortable that I can never watch it again,” but now that it’s over I think I can and will and MUST watch it again. I feel… inspired to work? I know Nathan Fielder isn’t for everyone, but idk, I kind of think he should be? Grow up question mark??1 The Curse is the smartest, subtlest, most brutal and precise indictment of our present cultural moment that I’ve seen ANYONE make, and to call it “cringe comedy” is just goofy. It’s a level of reflection/analysis that usually never comes out contemporaneously because it requires a godlike degree of perspective! They should screen The Curse at the UN(??) to teach the world why capitalism is a rotten ouroboros that will never save us, and why even the “good” white people are structurally incapable of doing anything but harm. Everything we do turns to destruction and the consequences fall upon the most marginalized while we fail upwards! Something to think about!

2. I finally started watching Resident Alien, starring beloved Text-Me-Backolyte Alice Wetterlund, and boy is THAT perfect entertainment!

3. The other day I didn’t have a cookie but someone left a Pillsbury pie crust in my freezer so I defrosted that baby and put butter, cinnamon, salt, and sugar on it and cut it into little squares and that was my cookie. You should do this as well.

4. Coming up this week on the podcast, we do a deep dive into Fit for TV, the Netflix Biggest Loser Documentary, with our friend Ronald Young Jr. I honestly think we’ve never done an episode with so much emotional range? One minute we’re screaming laughing roasting these jabronis, and the next minute we’re crying because Ronald is dropping truly beautiful personal affirmations?? Tune in Thursday! It’s special!

5. I mentioned our YouTube earlier, which raises the question of have you checked out our YouTube yet? Producer Alli puts together the full-length video each week and they’re sooooooo fun. People say they love it when I jade-roll my jowls! And I can’t say I disagree! Here’s last week’s ep:

And that’s Newsletter Me Back!

Talk to you Thursday, sweeties!

Lindy

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Hello, Text-Me-Backolytes!

First of all, I must acknowledge that I broke my promise and took two weeks off of the newsletter. The problem was that I got addicted to vacation (and Love Island) and couldn’t stop vacationing (watching Love Island in the smallest, darkest room of my house while outside the sun shone gloriously in the rare, precious PNW summer). Laziness pulled me for a chat and, what can I say???, I was open to exploring that connection.

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But now I’m back, and the podcast is back, and you know what else is back? Fascism! You’ve probably heard that Washington, DC, where Meagan lives, is currently under martial law because Republicans have to pretend they’re afwaid of cwime so that rural racists will keep voting for them, I guess. This is a very scary turn of events, so I’m going to switch up the usual order and put Question Quorner right up front.

This week’s question is: MEAGAN ARE YOU OKAY?

It’s tough to follow that with a bunch of jokes—especially since there are about 900 other tragedies unfolding on 900 other fronts—but this is Newsletter Me Back. It’s part of the mission to give you a little chuckle to lift the spirits (will to live) no matter what! To that end, since the mainstream news is so heinous today, how about some… NORMAL NEWS?

For your pleasure and edification, here are three news stories that I forwarded Meagan on Instagram to which she did not respond:

1. “Scientists discover new tarantula species with enormous genitals.” That’s a headline from National Geographic, and while it certainly got my gears turning, when I actually started researching this story (query: “show me the new tarantula’s dick!!!!!!!!”), friend of the show SCIENCE-ALERT-DOT-COM took me on a journey into the beating heart of poetry itself: “Meet the ‘Genital King’ Tarantula and Its Record-Breaking Sexual Organ.” The Genital King????? What system of governance is that? (And can America switch??)
   
   I’m being told that science has discovered not one but four new species of long-dong tarantulas breaking hearts all across Somalia and the Arabian peninsula. These magnum sex freaks are so unique that scientists had to invent a whole new genus to contain their girth1, and they named it satyrex, which science-alert-dot-com interprets thuswise: “They're named after satyrs, male nature spirits from ancient Greek mythology known for their bawdy behavior and prominent packages. The end of it, rex, is Latin for 'king', as popularized by the likes of Oedipus and Tyrannosaurus.” Therefore, science-alert-dot-com extrapolates, the scientists “essentially named them the ‘genital king.’” SURE!!!!!! And my first act as Genital King of America? Pulitzer for science-alert-dot-com!
   
   My other favorite detail of this story is that science-alert-dot-com admits “spiders don’t really have penises, in the traditional sense,” but instead they have two long sperm-spoons that they use to here-comes-the-airplane scoops of sperm into the girl-spider’s opening. But I don’t want to read about that! I want to read about huge spider penises, whether it’s precisely “TRUE” or not, and science-alert-dot-com gets it. And that’s Text-Me-Back-coded. 10/10 Normal News.
   

2. From the New York Post: “Killer orcas filmed French-kissing for the first time: ‘Gentle, face-to-face oral contact.’” I don’t like this!

   Unsurprisingly for me, I enjoyed the headline of this much more than the video. The way these orcas kiss (wide mouth, fast-moving tongue) is exactly how they kiss on Love Island and the way they kiss on Love Island is so disgusting that it’s turned me into a consecrated born-again virgin. Kissing is now illegal, for human beings and for these orcas!!! 7/10 Normal News.
   

3. “This ancient ‘penis worm’ had spiky teeth and a retractable throat.” This National Geographic article is paywalled, but I was able to screengrab this much of it, and that’s all the penis worm I need, baby!

   

   You know how other podcasts and media empires offer branded cruises and guided excursions to their followers? What if we took a Text Me Back trip to the Grand Canyon to look for penis worm fossils. Something to think about!! 11/10 Normal News.

And that’s all I’ve got for you today, angels! I hope everyone’s hanging in there and taking care of each other in your part of the world. And if you’re a NIMBY, consider stopping!!!!

Yours in YIMBY,

Limby

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PS A little bonus swamp gossip from our actual texts:

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Hello, pod-children! I’m writing to you from a coffee shop in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where I am drinking an iced tea into which I put too much simple syrup whilst attending the 71st annual Williamstown Theatre Festival! Text Me Back Podcast’s Czar of Sound Force Ahamefule J. Oluo’s show The Things Around Us was selected as one of only EIGHT shows in the entire festival, which seems P VENERABLE 2 ME, especially considering the other shows include the premiere of Jeremy O. Harris’s new play Spirit of the People starring Amber Heard in her return to acting after being masticated by the next-gen misogynist war machine, Camino Real starring Pamela Anderson in HER return to acting after being masticated by the previous-gen misogynist war machine, and a three-hour Tennessee Williams play about prison starring William Jackson Harper which I am skipping!!!!!!!

Ahamefule has been breaking hearts and blowing minds, of course, and by the way if you want to hear the music from The Things Around Us—which could soon be tickling the ears of Pam Anderson herself—you can listen to it here! Stream it! Love it! Maybe even BUY IT??? There’s also a brand new vinyl pressing, which isn’t for sale online yet, but watch this space if you’re into vinyl!

Last night we went to Spirit of the People and it was sprawling and crazy and brilliant, more a glimpse into the process of a sensitive genius than a polished work (portions of the script were finished just days ago), but clearly a draft away from being a modern classic. I have bruises on my hips from the theater seats, but it was worth it—the whole cast was great and Amber Heard couldn’t have been better and my life was changed forever by how fucking funny Brandon Flynn is??????? He PROBABLY doesn’t need my help with his career, but casting directors, if you’re listening, this kid has got the goods!!!!!

Due to mental illness I am terminally out of my depth in showbiz situations. As discussed in “Lindy and Meagan Bring Unsettling Energy to the Hype House,” I turn into a twitchy, insecure freak when interacting with successful comedians, unless I have rock hard evidence that they don’t hate me, which isn’t the kind of thing that exists because feelings are intangible and live on the inside. So currently I am spiraling after running into Julio Torres while wearing my King’s Quest V hat and saying, “I am Lindy West and you were in my show but I wasn’t on set that season because of Covid and I wasn’t going to bother you but then I remembered you were in my show so I wanted to say hi and thank you.” Julio was so nice but I think I stayed too long, looming stinkily over the table (pig DNA), and then I said, “I recognize you from the internet” to Spike Einbinder and he said, “Do you recognize me from inside the store?” and mere moments earlier I’d been involved in a line-cutting snafu inside a nearby market with a very confusing dual-counter system where you order breakfast burritos at one counter and coffee at the other counter but the lines blend together inside a hug box made of granola bars and I was just trying to buy tampons (a woman was like are those an emergency [points to tampons]? and I had to be like… no… I am successfully plugged), so I took this to mean that maybe I had cut Spike in line? Which, as a Seattleite, is against my religion? Also, I probably stunk up the place because I know I have B.O. because we’re staying in the Williams College dorms and I’m afraid to use the showers because we have to share bathrooms with nine beautiful dancers and I don’t have a towel. So I just said, “yes,” even though I didn’t remember seeing Spike in the store, and then Spike said, “I loved your show,” and I said “IT’S OKAY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOVE MY SHOW.”

Also counter-spiraling (double helix) about how it’s actually narcissistic to go into every interaction assuming everyone hates you because why would anyone be thinking about you in the first place??

So that’s about how the festival life is going for me!

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But really, this festival isn’t about me, and I am sooooooooo proud of Ahamefule! THE SHOW IS A MASTERPIECE. If you live in Boston, Sarasota, Leeds (UK), or other places TBA, go see The Things Around Us, you silly goose! It’s also at Williamstown for the next two weeks, if you’re Susan Sarandon who allegedly has a house here!

Oh, here’s some fun podcast news: Meagan and I applied to do a panel at a podcast festival(?) called Podcast Movement and they said yes??? Your girls are legit! I think this is more of an industry conference than a festival, so DON’T fly to Dallas to try and see us (also our panel is only…30 minutes?), but definitely come see us if you’re already going, and DO e-mail us your Dallas food recommendations! And get excited to hear our field reporting! Will there be piles of loose meat? Will Reggie Watts be there guarding the meat? Also we will be figuring out who shot JFK.

No Question Quorner this week, sweeties, because I’m traveling and I couldn’t get it together. Maybe next week we’ll do two? lol, idk. Do you like those? Do you want to submit questions? Pop off in comments!

Oh, and speaking of next week, a magical bird told me there might be a VERY SPECIAL BAG OF BIRDSEED dropping into your feeds on Thursday! I don’t want to give too much away, but it rhymes with “the Blecret Blistory of Glopeye the Dailor Dan”! I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a podburger today!

OKAY BYE GONNA GO SINK INTO A MARSH SO I DON’T ENDANGER ANY MORE CELEBRITIES

Your Rat Czar,

Wimpy West

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Good afternoon, beloved Text-Me-Backolytes!

I’m back with another edition of what’s on Lindy’s mind this exact minute—the content you’ve all been craving. I hope you’re doing okay during our month off from podcasting! Personally I am killing it. Last night I read a physical book, possibly the first time I’ve cracked one of those since Obama! Mainly I listen to audiobooks while also playing games on my phone—anything to keep even one single brain cell from engaging with the outside world. It’s healthy and my doctor1 agrees.

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Anyway, here’s the content!

FOOD:

They’re bringing back the Snack Wrap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t think about the McDonald’s Snack Wrap that often, but when I do think about the McDonald’s Snack Wrap I think, “I want one.” If you’re not familiar, it’s basically one chicken tender wrapped in a tortilla with some cheese and lettuce and either ranch or spicy mayo and it lived from 2006 to 2016 and it was GOOD. People Magazine fed some of the resurrected Snack Wraps to their employees and here’s what they said:

PEOPLE staffers taste-tested the wraps one day early, commenting on the "crispy" chicken and noting that the wrap tastes "exactly the same" as it did nearly a decade ago

NOW we’re wrappin’ with snack!

Also don’t eat random factory-farmed chicken and also don’t give your money to evil corporations, but I will be wrappin’ with snack at least one time.

BOOKS:

Oh, I don’t know, how about a little book called MY NEW BOOK THAT’S FINALLY ON PRE-ORDER??

CAN YOU BELIEVE HER!?!?

More info (and why pre-orders are important for authors) over here!

MOVIES:

This week I watched Tombstone for Butt News, an enduring classic.

And then I watched Problemista for pleasure, a new classic! This movie is soooooooo sweet, funny, smart, silly, weird, whimsical, handsome, beautiful, magical, and weirdly grounded and topical as well! There’s a line that made me, Aham, and Roya all SCREAM.

ACTIVITIES:

I’m sick of my muscles atrophying and my back hurting so I asked Ahamefule to give me a strength training pep talk, and they suggested I make a five-song playlist and then assign one activity to each song, and then after 20 minutes my workout is done. Easy! And when I get bored of the playlist I get to make a new one! This idea has been outrageously effective, because the main things that keep me out of the gym are 1) feeling like I don’t have time, and 2) getting there and standing perfectly still for an hour because I can’t remember any exercises and I can’t decide what to do. But I definitely always have 20 minutes, and now there’s just a piece of paper on the wall that says this:

“Something to Talk About” (Bonnie Raitt) - stretching
”Common People” (Pulp) - medicine ball
”What’s Your Fantasy” (Ludacris) - kettlebell squats
”B.O.B.” (Outkast) - dribbling the heavy basketball
”Que Sera, Sera” (Sly & The Family Stone) - stretching part 2

A ten-minute shower and I’m back to work! (Baldur’s Gate 3.)

ITEMS:

Help me, I paid US dollars for this.

FEELINGS:

Sore! From kettlebell squats!

QUESTION QUORNER:

Update: I have investigated the Costco Chicken Bake and, boy, I DONE DONE IT AGAIN. I could not be more wrong about the anatomy of the Costco Chicken Bake. It is NOT a chicken-cordon-bleu-adjacent stuffed chicken pocket! It is, in fact, a fancy hot pocket with a POCKET as the pocket, and inside is chicken, bacon, cheese, and CAESAR DRESSING. This is precisely what I most crave every day on a daily basis and the hot dog can kick rocks. I am sorry for the error and as a gesture toward repair I will be making a large financial donation (to Costco in exchange for chicken bakes).

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Okey dokey, huckleberries, that’s about it!

Have a daisy of a week and we’ll see you in a few. <3

Lindy