Audie Cornish & Ari Shapiro On Ambition, Purpose, Poetry
The Sam Sanders Show
KCRW & Sam Sanders
4.9 • 709 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
EVENT ALERT! Join us LIVE on June 28 at Dynasty Typewriter in LA. Get tickets here
Let’s have a life-affirming party with Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro!
The longtime friends and journalists join Sam to explain the latest entry in the pop lexicon: Blue Dot Fever. It’s not a disease, but the terminology behind a recent wave of cancelled concert tours. From Post Malone to the Pussycat Dolls, tickets aren’t selling like they used to. They break down what the phenomenon says about our current economics and culture.
Plus, they share their “Modern Scriptures,” the pieces of pop culture they can always count on to boost their spirits. Including a rapper’s inspiring message and a vintage poem that will bring all the feels.
Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro’s new podcast from CNN is called Engagement Party.
Sign up for Sam’s Newsletter to get behind the scenes stuff from every interview each week.
The Sam Sanders Show is a production of KCRW and Sam Sanders Productions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey y'all, Sam here. Thanks so much for checking out my show with KCRW. |
| 0:09.8 | Got to tell you, I am honored, delighted, downright giddy to have two of the best in the business on my show this week. |
| 0:17.9 | Adi Cornish and Ari Shapiro, veteran journalist and longtime friends, they have launched a new |
| 0:23.8 | pop culture podcast together called Engagement Party. I wanted to use that occasion to break down |
| 0:30.3 | some pressing pop culture news with those two, but I also wanted to turn the tables on them |
| 0:35.4 | and ask Ari and Adi about the pop culture that makes them tick. |
| 0:40.0 | Their pop culture, modern scriptures, as I call them. |
| 0:43.8 | And that conversation ended up being really life-affirming. |
| 0:47.6 | It's very easy to let things go for your life to like, for you to be an NPC or whatever. |
| 0:54.0 | What is the term? |
| 0:54.9 | Non-playable character. |
| 0:56.6 | Yes. |
| 0:56.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:57.3 | In your own life. |
| 0:58.6 | Yes. |
| 0:59.6 | Yes. |
| 1:00.0 | And every once in a while just having something that you can touch, remember, look at and be like, |
| 1:06.6 | yes, wait a second, wait a second. |
| 1:08.1 | We're doing something here, I think, is probably a healthy thing. |
| 1:12.5 | Now I feel like I'm going to church. |
| 1:14.7 | We did it. |
| 1:15.3 | And I'm Jewish. |
... |
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