Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Some of life’s inevitable problems are big and some are quite small. But no problems are too small to complain about.
Welcome to the first installment of Problems…a periodic radio drama about…problems. Joel and Pam’s problems.Pam and Joel, who you’ll hear from in this show, are old friends and they support each other through their problems, and even if you don’t think their problems are very problematic, for Pam and Joel…they are.
In this first episode, we hear about Pam’s daughter, River, who’s having a hard time getting her needs met at school. Also, this Friday is the contra dance school benefit at the grange hall, and Joel’s facing some challenges with his bathroom renovation.
Welcome.
Thanks to Sarah Miller.
Music: The Aurora Principle, by Chris Wortmann, Enough Records
It strikes me that these kinds of conversations are closely associated with below zero temps and big snowfalls after the calendar implies that it’s Spring. Most people around here love Winter, but at some point one does think about warmer days ahead. Obviously life’s annoyances are a year round distraction but we all seem to hear more about them in weather like this.
i love this story
I so appreciate the concept for this subversively humorous addition to Rumble Strip and so relieved it’s called, “Problems,” and not “First World Problems,” the catch-all for anything not worthy of comparison to the god-awful things happening in this world at any given moment. I just watched Brad’s Status, which admittedly is a bad movie starring Ben Stiller, about a middle age dad who is ashamed of career in the non-profit world as compared with his college buddies’ financial success stories. And when he speaks honestly about his loss of idealism to a beautiful Indian student at Harvard, whose goal is to work for Amnesty International, she predictably makes some reference to poor Indians living on two dollars a day and tacks “First World” onto his problems, devaluing them like a rotten cantaloupe. But Pam and Joel’s “whining” about failing bathroom grout and classroom snack buckets is a refreshing glimpse into all the not-worthy-for-prime-time, daily, fundamentally important stuff that make up our lives, conversations, and relationships. And yes, being behind a slow driver who won’t pull over. It’s the stuff of Seinfeld. And I for one can relate.
This is a cunning riot. I adore how these two friends “help” each other with their problems, until they both just get tired of it and peter out. What petty miseries will they chew over next? And please, a cameo from feral River: no one is listening to River!
This is genius. I have so many problems.
Totally legitimate problems. It’s true.
I love this installment of RumbleStrip. In listening to this, I felt like I was on the phone with them. I hear them on all of their problems and found it all amusing, real, raw and totally personal and relatable at the same time.
I too feel like biting when I’m not being heard and have also called grout “fucking grout!” .
Problems is a harpoon in my white whale of perspective gone awry.
Problems is genius.
My actor’s nightmare used to be the standard…onstage, lost lines, naked.
Now it’s that I’ll listen to an episode of Problems and I’ll hear some echo of myself,
as if recorded, slightly edited and displayed for all to hear.
God Bless you Patrick. So many people hate Problems but i LOVE Problems and I will never stop making it. Never I say!! And my ongoing nightmare is how easy it is for me to be Pam….