Lauren Spohr
Appearances
Criminal
Five Stars
Where I was, it was the Christmas of my first year of college. And I was home in Jacksonville. And I think I was just hanging out with my friends from high school. We were all back in town. And if I'm remembering correctly, we were just driving around. And I remember there were fireworks. So it was a sort of suburban... Seems dangerous to be driving on New Year's Eve.
Criminal
Five Stars
But also sort of classic, if you can picture like a 90s movie. You just drive around with your friends and that's how you spent the past evening. Probably went to a gas station and got a stranger to buy you some Miller High Life and then just drank it in the car. And I was all by myself in the middle of a frozen lake. So if aliens had come down on Y2K, you were ready? Oh, I mean, I was a beacon.
Criminal
Five Stars
I do like to cook tempeh and tofu. I think I just don't cook... I'm going to revise the question to say my favorite meal to eat at home that I think is better at home than at a restaurant is a beautiful small steak and a really beautiful kale salad. And having those things prepared for me by someone else in the home environment, that's my number one.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I could eat it, you know, seven nights a week. I really, I think it's wonderful. What about when you go to a restaurant, Phoebe?
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah, I think I would – I like to go out for dumplings. I also really like to go out for, like, fancy Neapolitan-style pizza. All right.
Criminal
Five Stars
It's all about just the salt. I think if you really like salty foods, the simplicity of that tomato sauce and bread is so perfect. Phoebe, what from Donna, a question from Donna, what's your process for adding music to the episodes and who's responsible for picking the tracks? And then she's specifically curious, Phoebe, about your role in the final package.
Criminal
Five Stars
And another producer joins at that phase also who's totally fresh to it and knows nothing about it.
Criminal
Five Stars
But sometimes they're more ephemeral. Like, this song is kind of depressing under this funny moment in the story. Like, does it feel dissonant to anyone else? So you end up with sometimes five or six pages of time-stamped notes. notes. Some are really small technical and some are more big picture.
Criminal
Five Stars
Often, even at this stage, we'll say, listening to it all put together, I got kind of bored here or I got confused here. And we'll go back to the drawing board and have to like write new copy for Phoebe or, you know, maybe we'll have to like read some legal document that we hadn't located before because we have uncovered some question that we didn't know we had yet.
Criminal
Five Stars
And one of my favorite things that happens even and can happen at any stage of the process and is one of my favorite things and one of the things I'm most proud of about how we work is that at any stage, if the producer has any kind of funny feeling like, hey, just putting this, these two ideas next to each other, you know, create some sort of sense of correlation that we didn't intend.
Criminal
Five Stars
Like, I feel like people can bring... questions at any phase and that's super encouraged and that that's my favorite part about this work is that there's never a sense of like well you should have thought of that a few weeks ago and how dare you bring it up now you know like we always want to sort of talk through um any little worries any questions at any phase
Criminal
Five Stars
There's like some really subjective moments where I'll be like, Phoebe sounds grumpy.
Criminal
Five Stars
I think this is Morgan who has, if I'm correct, this is Morgan who's a longtime listener and who we met at our live show in Austin years ago. And I think who attended this tour twice. So hello, Morgan. Thank you for listening. I hope you're right. I think I am. Lauren, what's your answer? Mine's kind of embarrassing, but it is. Is it the blanket? Yes.
Criminal
Five Stars
The thing that I think about, like if there was a fire, the only thing that I would be sad to lose in a fire is I have this small piece of my baby blanket from when I was a kid. And occasionally I will remember that I have it and I don't know where it is and I'll go looking for it and I'll find it in some box and then I just feel comfortable knowing I still have it.
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah. We've joked about your bracelets getting on my nerves, but it's kind of a non-negotiable. You're attached to them. There they are. Do it louder.
Criminal
Five Stars
I think we talked about this in the first episode, and here we are back to 1999, full circle.
Criminal
Five Stars
I can actually think of a lot for you now. There's a clock in Phoebe's dining room that was her grandmother's, and it's a beautiful antique clock, but the ticking sound is very loud, and I am really sensitive about repetitive noises. So I'll be in Phoebe's dining room, and I'll just be like, can I please stop the clock? And she'll say, why don't you stop my grandmother's heart?
Criminal
Five Stars
You have to hand wind it. Yeah, that I like. But you have a number of sort of family pieces that you're particular about. And you have a bottle of your mother's perfume.
Criminal
Five Stars
5 in the bathroom. It's just in the bathroom. If there was hand lotion in the bathroom, I would expect it was for me. And so I just thought, oh, I haven't smelled that perfume in a long time. I knew it was your mother's, but I assumed it was like... I thought you were trying to fold it into the tapestry of daily life. I didn't know it was a do not touch object. You were really mad at me. Yeah.
Criminal
Five Stars
That's a good question because I never thought of you as sentimental, but I think you are. Yes, here we are. Oh, this is a nice one from Kim. She says she's been listening from the beginning and enjoyed every episode. She also has a blanket that was gifted to her that says, My Criminal Podcast Listening Blanket. And then she says,
Criminal
Five Stars
Your bonus episodes show you have a comfortable relationship with each other that is admirable, and I'm curious on how you make that work.
Criminal
Five Stars
And so to be— And I think that stresses out some listeners sometimes, which I understand.
Criminal
Five Stars
You know, the formalness of what you... You're supposed to act this way, or you're supposed to, you know... And I think that... Yeah, like, I think we're... There's, like, some strange level of, like, comfort with conflict between the two of us that I don't have in other relationships in my life. But I'm not afraid of offending you. Yeah. Yeah. Is that trust? I don't know what that is.
Criminal
Five Stars
I feel that no matter what happens, even if we get in a really bad disagreement, I could call you five minutes later to tell you about some funny thing I saw on Instagram and you would answer and we would be fine. It's just extremely compartmentalized into 50 compartments or something.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I think I've said this before, but I also think that's because we weren't hired to make this show. We decided to make this show. I'll speak for myself. I feel a great sense of pride and a great sense of partnership with you in that way. We built this thing. People have come to listen. They've stayed to listen.
Criminal
Five Stars
I think that's a specific type of bond that you don't have with a typical coworker or something or even a friend. We've We've had a real project together for more than 10 years now that we both care about maybe too much, you know?
Criminal
Five Stars
All right, Phoebe. Jolene from South Dakota would like to know, what is your favorite non-essential invention? Not like computers or antibiotics, just small inventions you would not want to live without. And she says for her, it's Post-it notes and Kleenex.
Criminal
Five Stars
What about you, Lauren? Hmm. I mean, all that I could think of, and this is kind of embarrassing, is I have an aura ring, one of those rings that like tracks... But it's certainly not essential. It's like absolutely useless. But it gives me pleasure every single day and pushes me to go to sleep earlier. So I get a kick out. I've had it for more than two years, and I get a kick out of it every day.
Criminal
Five Stars
It's a real look. It's a strong look. It's ugly. It's embarrassing. When I see other people wearing them, I'm like, okay, right, right. I'm participating in this. But I do love it. And, you know, you get a little fever. It tells you, like, it really detects.
Criminal
Five Stars
And if you're exercising a lot, which you are, Phoebe, I think you would really enjoy keeping up with, like, how quickly your body recovers, how quickly your heart rate goes down. Can I have my Apple Watch? Sure, sure. Kiera wants to know, what is your very first memory? Wow, that's so hard.
Criminal
Five Stars
Oh, gosh, I don't know. I do have a memory of like playing with kids on my street. I lived in this cul-de-sac. And I remember that, you know, there's like electrical transformer boxes. Yeah. Those green boxes. I remember this girl, this neighbor who was older than me saying, Smurfs live behind there. And I think that might be my earliest. I don't know how old I was.
Criminal
Five Stars
I can remember the ceiling fan in my room had a chain that would like rub on the glass of the globe, but I liked the sound. Like it was a sort of soothing. So I can remember it still being light out. I'm trying to go to sleep and the sound of the ceiling fan and like staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Okay, we have a voicemail.
Criminal
Five Stars
Maureen is asking about the status of your plantar fasciitis. How do you pronounce it?
Criminal
Five Stars
The next question comes from Beth, and it's for me. As a fellow FSU alumna, what was Lauren's favorite part of being a student at FSU? Did you jump in Westcott on your first birthday there? That was a fountain. This is Florida State. Florida State University. There's a sort of a famous fountain. Well, Beth, I never jumped in the fountain. I never attended a football game.
Criminal
Five Stars
I really, I would say my first birthday, I was probably crying. I was really, it took me like a full year to figure out what was going on at Florida State University. I remember I got there and my dorm was Brian Hall, which is a smaller dorm. And I was excited about that. It was also one of the newer dorms, so it was pretty nice. And then-
Criminal
Five Stars
I remember I had made the decision that I wasn't going to rush for a sorority before I got to Florida State. I was very involved in theater, and that was what I was looking for. And then when it was time for everyone to go, I guess, to fraternity and sorority info sessions, I was the only person in my dorm. Every single person in my dorm was going to participate in Greek life.
Criminal
Five Stars
And that was just a real wake-up call. And I think it took me a little while to find my footing there. at Florida State, but I did eventually find it by taking creative writing classes, which was amazing, and also by becoming a DJ at WVFS, the college radio station there, where I met amazing friends who I still talk to every single day.
Criminal
Five Stars
So I was a late bloomer at Florida State, but thank you for asking. Okay, I think we are going to have to not get to all of our questions today, Phoebe, but I will. Here are two more from Angela in Cleveland. One, you guys discuss meat a lot. Would you ever consider becoming a vegetarian or a vegan?
Criminal
Five Stars
Yes, and I think that I... If I were, you know, living my best life, I would not participate in any dairy products or meat products. But I do, I just really like hamburgers. And so at this exact moment, I'm going to keep eating them. But I do, in the future, when I get everything organized, I would prefer not to. And Phoebe, Angela also wants to know if your running routine changes for the winter.
Criminal
Five Stars
Okay, well, we didn't get to everyone, and I apologize, but I think we have to move on to three favorite things because then we have to go to an edit. We have to go back to work.
Criminal
Five Stars
Okay, something I've been enjoying is double blankets. Instead of, you know, in the winter, I think I pull out a down comforter. But instead of doing that this year, I've been doing two heavy blankets. And it's much cozier. Highly recommend. Simple thing. Anyone can do it. Double blankets.
Criminal
Five Stars
All right. Circling back to our 1999 theme, when I was in high school, I listened to a ton of jazz. And I would go to Barnes & Noble and buy the CDs and then drive around listening to them. A real theme of me spending time driving around. But this week I've been listening to this old Miles Davis record called Sorcerer. And I just want to put a plug in for this as an alt Christmas album.
Criminal
Five Stars
I think it's really doing something for me. It's kind of chaotic, but it's not too chaotic. And I think it's really a perfect record.
Criminal
Five Stars
Okay, my last thing is a simple, a great simple pleasure that I forgot about, which is making grilled cheese sandwiches. And I bought this bread, I think Phoebe, because you had it, this like thin, thin slices of Dave's killer bread. Did I get that from you? Yeah. And then if you want, you can make two grilled cheeses back to back with this bread.
Criminal
Five Stars
And last night I had grilled cheese and tomato soup and I thought, this is ingenious. How did I ever forget about it? So that's my pitch for cozy late December dinner.