StereoForest Comedy & Fiction Podcasts · StereoForest Podcasts

8 - The Grackleton Gazette's first interview (ft. Pastel Pumpernickel)

·24 min

TOG Chesterfield opens on 101.7 FM The Grack. He says this is one of his first interviews for the Grackleton Gazette and frames himself as someone trying new things while picking up the pieces after hitting rock bottom. Pastel Pumpernickel is the guest. TOG says she was in one of his first shows on the station and that he took a class from her to learn sourdough and sourdough starters, then notes that she met him early at the coffee shop where she works baking bread and pastries. The conversation begins with onions. Pastel says an onion chopper feels like cheating, and she treats the way she cuts onions as tied to self-worth, which is why a rougher chop told her something was wrong. TOG asks how depression felt. Pastel answers with an image of living underwater, where everything slows down and muffles and the surface seems far away, then tightens that into a guppy in water that is too deep or in the wrong place to thrive. She keeps returning to that image. The guppy logic gives the conversation its shape, turning a kitchen task into a signal that her life had gone off course. TOG stays with her. He asks, listens, and lets the details settle without forcing the conversation into something cleaner. The station frame stays visible. TOG still sounds like someone on a commute, or at dinner, or in the middle of lining up a picture on the wall until it sits exactly perpendicular. The ending loosens up. TOG moves toward the close, says he will close the door there, and points ahead to Mailbox. Talks decor, with Marianne Foote and an intentional omission of bedazzling. The credits come after that. The episode is credited to Jen DeHaan as writer, director, editor, producer, and voice performer. The whole piece stays small and odd. Bread, onions, depression, guppies, a coffee shop, and a station signoff hold the hour together.

As heard by us

A coffee-shop interview turns onions, depression, and guppy imagery into local comedy.

TOG Chesterfield's first Grackleton Gazette interview gives Pastel Pumpernickel a coffee-shop stage while she bakes bread and pastries in the early morning.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

TOG's first Grackleton Gazette interview turns bread talk, onions, and depression into a life report.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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