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Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Connor Ratliff's Dead Eyes

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Yowei Shaw

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.8589 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An Emotions Beat episode about Dead Eyes, Tom Hanks, and why proxy conversations work.

Yowei is still trying to answer a basic question about her own show: why would talking to a stranger who wasn’t there help someone get unstuck?

So she calls Connor Ratliff, the actor and comedian behind Dead Eyes — a podcast about the time Tom Hanks fired him from Band of Brothers for allegedly having “dead eyes.”

Before Connor finally talked to Tom Hanks himself, he had dozens of proxy conversations: with actors who had their own rejection stories, showrunners who had fired actors, and people who could help him understand the tiny show business nightmare that has haunted him for years.

In this episode, Yowei and Connor investigate the difference between talking to a proxy and talking to the real person — and why sometimes the stranger who wasn’t there can still tell you exactly what you needed to hear.

  

From the episode:

— Connor Ratliff – host of the podcasts Dead Eyes, Tiny Dinos, and The George Lucas Show — on Instagram @connorratliff


New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic Proxy case, or Psychodrama: The 2nd Oldest Therapy You've Never Heard Of, But Have Definitely Tried for another emotions beat episode about how conversations can create closure, even when they aren't with the "real" person.  


For episode liner notes, show gossip, and dispatches from the emotions beat, get our free newsletter File Under Feelings at proxyhq.org.

Proxy is an independent show, supported mostly by listeners. Paid members get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, live Proxy hangs, and the satisfaction of keeping emotional investigative journalism alive 🍏

Follow us on Instagram — @proxypodcast @yoweishaw

Visit — proxypodcast.com

Get in touch — proxythepod@gmail.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Ever wondered why some trends are just suddenly everywhere?

0:05.1

Newsflash, nothing gets popular by accident.

0:09.0

I'm Brittany Luce, and on the It's Been a Minute podcast, I take the things you and I are both obsessing over

0:14.3

and show you the invisible forces behind the scenes that make us love it or hate it.

0:19.8

Be smarter about what you're consuming. Listen to the

0:22.8

It's Been a Minute podcast today. Hey, it's Yo-A with a quick note. So last episode, we shared the

0:31.6

good news that if we get to 1,000 paid Patreon members by August 22nd, we unlock funding to support season one of proxy.

0:40.7

And since that announcement, we've gotten a bump in Patreon members, which is awesome.

0:46.3

Thank you to everybody who signed up at $5 a month, $10 a month.

0:51.2

The proxy team salutes you.

0:53.6

We're getting closer, but still have ways to go.

0:56.6

As I record this message, we've got a little less than three weeks till the deadline.

1:01.8

If you want to help us make the show, consider going to patreon.com slash proxy podcast and become a member to get exclusive monthly bonus episodes.

1:10.2

If even a fraction of all the people who are listening signed up,

1:14.3

we'd reach our goal and be able to get season one sooner to you.

1:18.1

Okay, now to the show.

1:27.2

Welcome to Proxy. I'm Yo-WeiShaw. Proxy is a show about investigating niche emotional conundrums through conversations with strangers who have shared experience. And this is part two of my quest to explore my own niche emotional conundrum. How do I explain my show to people who don't get it?

1:45.6

Why would talking to a proxy who's not directly involved in your dilemma help answer your

1:49.8

questions, give you closure?

1:52.7

For the last year, I've been having trouble answering this question.

1:56.3

But there is one podcast I sometimes bring up as a model.

1:59.9

There are people who hear about the podcast and their first reaction is,

...

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