Napping Cheat Codes 7
Sleep With Me (the podcast!)
In early 2016, Gimlet Media, my favorite former podcast network,1 released a show called Sampler, hosted by Brittany Luse. At that time, I spent a lot of time in the car and loved Gimlet’s other podcasts, so I was excited. On their first episode, Brittany introduced me to the Sleep With Me podcast, which quickly became an early sleeping cheat code for me, and I’m going to spend the next two posts telling you about the pod and its creator,
,2 who was kind enough to spend an hour chatting recently.
Since 2013, Scoots has recorded over 1000 meandering stories for people with insomnia, minds racing, worries keeping them up, trouble falling asleep, or trouble staying asleep. He has a history of insomnia and used to stay up listening to late night radio shows, which he found soothing because he knew other people were listening. This experience, along with a love of storytelling and interest in voice acting, led him to create the podcast in the wake of ending a creative partnership.
Scoots speaks in creaky dulcet tones. Each episode begins with an introduction from Scoots and a song by Jonathan Mann,3 some announcements/ads, and a meandering story that can cover just about anything: from reading random stories to live narrating episodes of Star Trek TNG or The Mandalorian.4 You’re not really missing anything if you lose track of what he’s saying — that’s actually the point.
So what does Scoots think about napping?
Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber founded Gimlet Media in 2014. In 2019, they sold it to Spotify, who shut it down in June 2023.
A.k.a. “Dearest Scooter,” “Scooter,” “Scoots,” et al., his chosen moniker to help him get to the point of first publishing.
Holder of the Guinness World Record for Most Consecutive Days Writing a Song (every day since January 2009, in case you were wondering).
He describes himself as the Mandaborian. I agree in the best way possible.