Pass The Mic - To Somebody Else
Waiting for my podcast? You'll be waiting for a good, long while
Editor’s Note: Have a question that needs answered so that you can be inspired, entertained, or enlightened? Ask somebody else. Don’t ask Matt at askmattlabash@gmail.com. He’s busy. (Reverse psychology.)
Dear Matt,
Why are you so camera/microphone shy? After dozens of minutes of Googling, I couldn’t find any audio clips – no podcasts, no TV interviews, no K-Tel compilation called “Labash Sings The Blues” – and few pictures other than the one that adorns this Substack. I sometimes like to imagine the words I read in the author’s voice. (Is that weird?) Especially when I take the time to really enjoy a particularly good bit of writing – like the SPF-25/melanoma part in this article. Since your picture looks very vaguely like Pedro Pascal, that’s the voice I hear when I take the time to really enjoy some of your best sentences. I mean, a man could sure do a lot worse, but I’d like the real thing to be an option. So, go on some podcasts already, wouldja? There have to be a dozen people here on Substack alone who’d gladly host you. Extra points if it’s one I already subscribe to – I’m very interested in having everything be easy for me when it’s an option. 😊
Chris R.
Well Chris, I generally try to steer clear of questions with emojis in them. As a professional dealer of nouns and verbs, emojis make me 🤮. But I’ll take this question since it comes up a lot. Far be it from me to second-guess your Googling skills, but perhaps you missed me performing with my crew:
Or wait, I am a lot of different things to a lot of people – a son, a brother, a sensitive yet forceful lover, a highly decorated combat veteran (I’ve pulled three tours in The War On Illiteracy). But I am a Rastafarian dancehall artist to exactly none of them. Turns out, wrong Labash. That was King Labash. My sincere apologies to King. I don’t make egregious mistakes often, but when I do, I’m not too proud to run a correction.
Has it ever occurred to you, however, that there’s a dearth of images and sound on me because maybe I’ve been cancelled by Google? Because I’m an upsetter of Beltway Insiders and Establishment Elites who can’t handle the truth? Or at least not “my truth,” which strictly speaking, might sometimes be lies? Like the alternative facts I’m spewing now? Because the real truth is I haven’t actually been cancelled. I’ve just heard that being cancelled is good for goosing subscriptions. It seems to have worked wonders for thriller-novelist-cum-COVID-epidemiologist Alex Berenson. So if you want to believe I’ve been cancelled, as you keep the eternal flame of liberty burning bright with a Slack Tide subscription, far be it from me to quibble with your truth.
But all untruth aside, there are actually some very real reasons why you nearly never see me or hear me anywhere but on the page. And they are these: