The John Robins Vibemail - Issue #28

Current Mood: Lump

Oh hello there! It is I, Johnny JR of the digital realm! I’m afraid you find me in irregular circumstances. Usually when I write these Vibemails / Nobel Prize For Literature Long-List Candidates I have no small amount of spring in my step, being as I am, braced against the bitter winds of world events by some amount of excitement in upcoming projects. However today you find me composing from the midst of a slump, no less excited about upcoming projects you understand, but from a slump nonetheless.

Regular listeners to Elis and John will know I’ve moaned about getting some kind of lunch-related blues, whereby after eating my trademarked Megasalad© or equivalent (GloboSoup© OmniCrisps© InfiniSandwich©) I find myself in something of an emotional pit. Despite reading some intriguing but potentially irrelevant graphs about glucose spikes, I’m none the wiser in my quest for emotional perfection, and have just had to settle for accepting that some afternoons I get very down. I have two patented aces up my sleeve for when this happens: Shame Yoga© and Lying In Bed For Hours And Hoping It Goes Away©. Whilst folding and unfolding with the breath does provide better results, I’m afraid to say that today I have opted for the latter. So I come to you from bed on a Sunday afternoon with exciting info to share but feeling like a rock solid lump who just wants the storm to pass.

And pass it will! Godspeed that passing!

So, down to business!

All New How Do You Cope?

Brought to you, by Wondery. (In my very best Alan Partridge voice)

Yes! Oh the irony! The in bed lump man has a new mental health podcast! (Well, a nearly new mental health podcast.)

Because I am tremendously hard work you may have heard me whining about not being able to plug non-BBC projects on The Elis and John show. This is not JUST because I’m a grumpy little prince who wants his porridge just right, but also because it does give rise to a rather frustrating narrative that I don’t actually do anything else save spend all day in bed feeling bored and/or gloomy (ok ok today’s not the best example). Whereas for the past couple of months I have been diligently researching and interviewing some wonderful people about how they cope when life deals them unexpected cards for a game they haven’t played before.

BEING SILENCED BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA is also annoying because I want to tell people all about a podcast which I think is genuinely helpful. So I am grateful for this newsletter and having something resembling a rooftop from which to shout about it*.

The new iteration will be available everywhere and is being made by Audio Always for Wondery. The first episode is with Justin Hawkins of The Darkness and it drops on the 24th February. You can see a little trailer for it right here! I’m sure you can agree I look really chilled and natural and not at all like I’m concentrating really hard on an autocue.

It’s just Johnny JR on the new show as Elis, God love him, has c. 48 podcasts at time of going to press and also a Welsh-Language Stand-Up special that I’m reliably informed is a *superb* read. I’ve recorded half a dozen interviews so far and there are already many moments that I’m very proud of. Credit, as always, must go to my incredible guests for their candour and insight. And both the Audio Always team and the folks at Wondery have really given their all (including literal hours of steaming studio curtains with an inferior hand steamer) in order to make these podcasts happen with as pleasant a set of curtains as was humanly possible.

Today is announcement day and then on the 24th it will be coming online at slightly different times depending on your podcast platform of choice but there are links to follow for when we start releasing them here

https://wondery.com/shows/how-do-you-cope/

It would be fantastic to hit the ground running so if you could subscribe wherever you get your podcasts that would give us the biggest chance of reaching the most people. And if you like what you hear do leave us a review or a like wherever possible.

*Farewell Fascist Platform

Over the years I have discussed and even shared with you on here a rotating bag of gripes, frustrations and amusing thoughts about social media. Whether it’s updates to software that leave me shouting “WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE!” or bewildered reflections on algorithms that recommend me reels of women with large chests explaining things to camera whilst walking faster than a stroll but slower than a jog. Throughout all those low-level annoyances I’ve always felt tied to social media because it allows me such an efficient way of communicating about new projects and providing links to tickets and things that I think you might be interested in.

Well it turns out the fastness of those ties does have a limit and that limit, as I’ve always suspected, was promoting fascism, hate speech, misogyny, racism, transphobia and homophobia. And not just promoting it, but, due to the way these platforms operate, being part of a digital ecosystem that results in me inadvertently funding it myself.

Regardless of what you may think about me as a man, podcaster or comedian, at the very least I do hope you would say “That Johnny JR, I tell you what, he doesn’t fund fascism, hate speech, misogyny, racism, transphobia and homophobia”. But I’m increasingly aware that by simply being on Twitter / X, I am part of a machine that funds and promotes those things. So it has now been removed from my tool kit of rooftop shouting.

This is a very verbose way of saying I’m no longer on Twitter. Nor will I ever be again. The main reason I haven’t slunk out slowly into the night is to emphasise most vehemently that if anyone, for whatever sordid or seemingly innocuous reason, contacts you on Twitter pretending to be me, looking just like me, or even, somehow, replicating my award-winning turn of phrase, IT IS NOT ME.

It was a great relief to delete it and play no further part in that dangerous plaything of the rich and hateful. I felt a small part of a defiant haemorrhaging! Long may it continue!

The last thing I read was a tweet from Kanye West’s appalling volley of offensive hate speech. I’m repeating it here because I think it unintentionally provides some insight into the dystopian version of masculinity which I have no doubt will one day finally do for us all. He wrote

I’M LETTING EVERYTHING OUT BUT MY TEARS

Is there a better description of why people (men) in power go so horribly horribly wrong? Out with the tears guys! Maybe then we can all get on with our lives. Anyway, perhaps lying in bed like a lump isn’t such a bad coping mechanism after all.

ELIS & JOHN & DAVE LIVE!

Yes! Tickets are still available for SOME of the dates for the upcoming That Feels Significant: Live! Tour. You can get them here

https://elisandjohnmerch.com/

And please please remember, if it’s showing as sold out, check both the direct venue links (above) and also the Ticketmaster links here.

Any Other Business

If you haven’t heard the debut album by Daryl Johns then I suggest you listen to it now. I’ve not been so blown away by an album for decades and I hope he is going to continue to make music for the rest of my life. I’m assuming he’s young and so has more than enough time left for that.

I’m still writing a book which I can’t talk about on the BBC. I hope you like it when it comes out in about a years time. Writing it is very challenging, and may play a small part in these afternoon mood-plummets. But there are also already passages that I can point to and say “That’s it! That’s what I mean!”, which is very pleasing.

The dear Lou Sanders is shortly about to go on tour, and as not only a stalwart Johnny JR apologist, but also a joyful stand-up in her own right, it would be remiss of me not to provide a link to tickets. Here they are! Lou has also bowed to my near constant pressure and joined Cameo, so you can get your very own message from the brightest ray of sunshine in the dawn. And due to kindly using my referral code if she films just one million cameos this year then I can retire from my 5% commission. Godspeed those million cameos!

That is all. Crikey I hope it warms up soon.

John