Waterfalls

Guy makes amends, gets interrupted but handles it like a pro.

Transcript

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Welcome to the one-hundred-and-twenty-ninth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 28th of July 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. 

My therapist, Laura Kelly’s, hero is David Milch and so he’ll provide today’s quote. Open. The question that one asks oneself is whether they’re so alienated from their own inner lives that their lives are living them. Their fear is that they can’t develop a predicate understanding of themselves and so they find themselves driven without any comprehensive understanding of what’s moving them. End quote. Laura quoted this to me in our last session because I was trying to explain what The Undercover Intern podcast meant to me and all the things I’d lost trying to make it the most globally successful intern podcast - my left lung, my left little finger, what’s left of my family. Laura kept asking me about my inner life and the only honest answer was podcast listener numbers and The Interns’ Choice Award. Eventually we came the conclusion that I’m almost entirely extrinsically motivated and have almost no intrinsic motivation whatsoever. Apparently this is a problem because it means that I am so far removed from my true desires and compelled to act on external stimuli, hence the Milch quote. I’m the fly chasing the excrement that is our planet in 2025.

I’d say Adolf Hitler is top of the list of those I’ve harmed because of my past podcasting addiction. At least Eloise is still alive and doctors say she should be able to live a reasonably normal life. Step nine of recovery is making direct amends to the people we have hurt. I obviously cannot do that with Adolf, but I can at least set the record straight and I’m delighted to do that today. During episode 106 in February I appeared to sack my producer Robert Barnes live on air. In reality this was the start of our plan to finally win The Interns’ Choice Award. I knew that Adolf would employ Robert after I sacked him, he was vindictive like that, which I forgive, and within weeks Robert was indeed perfectly positioned to swear Adolf up, for want of a better term. When you think about a producer of a podcast you’re probably imagining somebody who deals with sound volume knobs. That’s a big part of it, but good producers do so much more than that. Robert had access to all of Adolf’s passwords, for example, and was able to cancel Adolf’s criminal insurance. This allowed us to put the full plan into action. First, I anonymously sent Adolf a loaded gun with his initials etched into each bullet along with a note saying, “you might need this.” Scary, right? And there was nothing he could do - police aren’t going to investigate something like that if you don’t have decent criminal insurance. In the meanwhile, Robert conducted micro-actions to put Adolf in jeopardy. Nothing serious, just hiding possessions, arranging for non-metal objects to fall on his head sporadically, momentarily kidnapping his daughter and slightly poisoning his coffee with methamphetamines. In episode 123 I detailed Adolf’s torrid affair with his dentist. Well, none of this was true, his teeth were rotting because of the meth so he needed regular treatments and Robert had a crush on Adolf’s dentist so from there it was easy to arrive at a story about an affair. Robert got such a kick out of making the fake photos of their anal relations. I leaked everything to the Daily Mail just as voting for this year’s Internship Podcasting Awards was hotting up. But in the throes of G-PAD that still wasn’t enough for me, was it? I had to hint to Adolf during episode 123 that suicide was his only option. This is what podcasting addiction can do. It’s truly the cruelest disease.

I need to put on record that I did nothing to encourage Adolf to murder his immediate family before ending his own life. That was entirely his decision. I hate it when people say that suicide is selfish. It isn’t. But I agree with those who say that murdering your wife and kids prior to suicide is pretty selfish. And there was no need to bludgeon the dentist to death too, I think it’s fair to say that Adolf was an anti-dentite. I mean, I’m no big fan of dentists, especially that one who gave my niece sepsis, but you’d have to be an extreme anti-dentite to do what Adolf did.

I cannot change the past. But I can make amends in the present, through the twelve steps. So Adolf, I am sorry that you took my advice and I vow to make The Undercover Intern podcast better than ever. I’m not going to make every apology live on this podcast as the list is rather long, but I would like to add Aunty Gwen as another I wronged who is now dead. She was almost 60 when I murdered her and so would almost certainly be dead by now anyway, but I am still sorry. Podcasts weren’t around in 1995 but Aunty Gwen and I would listen to Wake Up to Wogan together, so you know, radio absolutely was the podcast of the 20th century, maybe I had the disease even then. Wogan was on as Aunty Gwen lay dying. I just stared at her foaming at the mouth and gasping for breath throughout Waterfalls by TLC and just after the end of the song she died. I hate to describe it as beautiful, but what I will say is that to this day I don’t chase waterfalls. I listen to that song every single morning after I wake up and I still love how it just fades on repetitions of the chorus, like the song goes on forever just really quietly in the background of my day. It’s the song that refuses to end, just like a really big waterfall. Look at my Spotify Unwrapped for 2024 and there at the top, as ever, is Waterfalls by TLC. It’s my karaoke song, and I do all three parts myself including the dancing. It’s just the most special tune and demonstrates the power of music, I guess. I’ve actually thought of recording it and releasing a charity single to raise money for old and lonely people like Aunty Gwen. In doing this, I can turn the pain of the past into something beautiful in the present.

I’m tempted to transition The Undercover Intern into a self-help podcast for podcasters because I think a lot of us are feeling overwhelmed. The whole world feels anxious and unstable, especially for podcasters, and I want to help the world heal, as well as myself. I am not powerless, and can make a difference. I won’t let fear and lethargy hold me back any more. I want to help you look for the moments of joy in amidst all the madness; to notice the good just as well as we notice the bad. My therapist thinks that because I’m unemployed and no longer undercover I should rename my show as The Intern Milch Podcast. She’s obsessed by David Milch, like I say, but I do like her idea because ‘milch’ means milk in German and what better than allowing interns of all nationalities to drink the milk of my podcasting teat? We’ll see.

I’m still looking for a Power that is greater than myself. I’ve asked my sponsor if it would be OK for an animal to be my Higher Power, like an owl or a dolphin. I’ve also recently become a vegetarian. I still eat chicken and bacon, but nothing else. Very occasionally beef. I mean, squirrels, hamsters and greyhounds too, but mainly only at parties. 

[Perpetual alarm clock]. Sorry, I don’t normally do this podcast so early and it must be noon. Yep, it is, right on time. What a product. [muffled] You can’t hear it if I keep my mouth closed but I can’t have dead air. I know, I’ll keep my mouth shut while entertaining you all. Hold on a sec. [Irish] I’m Terry Wogan. It’s 1995, I’m on the radio and this is TLC’s latest.

Rest in peace Aunty Gwen. Leave those waterfalls alone everyone, there are so many lakes and rivers to keep you sufficiently wet. Also, don’t make videos while you’re driving. It’s dangerous.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.

['Singing']