Ep 016 - Dan Felton

Right in Front of My Face

As still a bit of a rookie podcaster, I’ve tried to listen to a bunch of different genres as homework to learn the trade. Per usual, I’m drawn to the podcasts that I can learn something from - produced by truth-tellers. I found the podcast Assorted Goods through Twitter, the motherland of podcast promotion. What I first liked was the style of the tweets from this podcaster - funny, but sensitive in tone - so I started listen to the podcast. The writer and host, Dan Felton, basically writes one long-form research paper per episode and delivers it like he’s talking to you over beers. He distills complicated information into palatable, understandable lessons and I became a fan.

A couple of months ago, Dan put out an episode in which he began speaking about his privilege and his run-ins as a Canadian white man with the police. His tone resonated and his experience like mine have been with the law - resulted in some funny stories and mostly getting away with things. We couldn’t relate to the experience of so many Black people marching in the streets. But he was so honest about it and his feelings so much like my own, that I DM'd him to thank him for putting out something so vulnerable into the world. I appreciated his raw emotion and brutal honesty.

Then, he put out an episode about Amazon. Dan you’re cutting me deep. I am currently receiving multiple packages a week with Prime because I’m luxuriously imprisoned in my own home. I reluctantly listened, and dammit if Dan didn’t give me an education that I never wanted about tax evasion. But, given that this company is almost literally in my backyard, I wanted to talk to him about it. The following is a Canadian man dissecting an American company right in front of my face. Enjoy.