Paul Giamatti’s CHINWAG with Stephen Asma

I really enjoy your podcast. I hope at some point you will check out the series about the Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch and interview one of the scientists on that show.

Although I am a late arrival to your podcast, I find it very informative and fun. Your guests are usually really awesome and we appreciate you. Thanks, erik rusch. I find it hard to believe in ghosts and monsters. I want to believe!

I love Paul Giamatti and really want to love this podcast. As a fellow podcaster with over 500 episodes under my belt, I’ve learned a great deal about conducting interviews over the years. Unfortunately, Giamatti makes countless amateur errors as an interviewer. At times he responds with so many “mm hmmm’s” “uh huh’s”, “yeah, yeah’s”, etc that it becomes distracting and overbearing. He also interrupts his guests far too many times, often using the terrible conversational strategy of saying the same word or phrase over and over again until the guest finally gives up trying to finish their thought and acquiesces to his interruption. He apparently feels so strongly that his comment is so crucial that he cuts off his guest in order to have his say. As I said, I so much want to love this podcast, but Giamatti’s conversational style is just too much to bear. Hosts need to give their guests the floor, not constantly interject and cut them off at every turn. Giamatti is a consummate actor, but he has a long way to go as an interviewer.

Well… I’m watching the Twilight Zone, Again! 😂