EAR•WAX Newsletter 001 | July 2026

In This Issue:

• Welcome to EAR•WAX! Jeff wrote an editorial on AI. It’ll be the first and last time we talk about it in detail.
• Who would you choose as your dream sperm donor? Adam Cecil writes about Robyn’s Sexistential and how Adam Driver gives Robyn a boner. 
• A short excerpt with Jeff Van Dreason’s interview with Lauren Shippen on why audio fiction podcasts are still trying to break through to a wider audience. 
• Coming Up on the Flipside: Check the bottom of the newsletter for more information 
  • Wednesday, July 22nd: EAR•WAX Magazine Volume 1, Issue 1 - Podcast
  • Wednesday, July 29th: Issue #2 of the EAR•WAX Newsletter
  • Wednesday, August 5th: Infinite Mixtape - Introduce Yourself (Opening Tracks)
  • Wednesday, August 12h: Drama Club, Episode 1: Loudness
  • Wednesday, August 19th: Any Major Dudes: Episode 0

AntI: The Curse of Human Intelligence 

An editorial by Jeff Van Dreason

Welcome to the inaugural issue of EAR•WAX; a celebration of all things ears - including music curation, independent audio fiction reviews, weird sounds, insightful interviews, soothing tones, and real people making art.

The real people part is important to us. I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing about AI as much as I am. Smarter people than I have already told the truth about this MLM disguised as LLM’s. If it was so great, they wouldn’t be selling it to us so hard. 

It’s true that people are imperfect beings, but despite - or perhaps because of our imperfections - we’ve been driven to create and represent our humanity artistically, since cave drawings and oratory legends. In some ways this is the curse of humanity. How can we encapsulate what it means to be human in a way that will resonate widely with others? We constantly strive to tell stories, make music, sing songs as we yearn to connect further with as many people as possible. But it’s not as if that’s an easy thing to accomplish, right? How does one even go about it in 2026?

There’s a Ted Leo song I’m sharing in my introductory mix for Infinite Mixtape called Biomusicology. In the bridge, Leo references TS Eliot’s The Wasteland (which itself references the Opera Tristan and Isodole). The references are intentional - art nestled inside art inside art.

'Oed und leer, das meer
But look beneath the glassy surface.
All the songs you hear,
Down there they have a purpose.

Translated, ‘Oned und leer, das meer means “black and empty, the sea.” Leo encourages us to look deeper than the seemingly vast and dark endless ocean. Whales sing to communicate and connect with others of their kind. I learned years ago that whale songs travel around the oceans, thousands of miles at a time, like radio waves. What a beautiful thought.

I can’t sing but it doesn’t stop me. My family hates it. When a song comes on in the car, I belt it out. Trapped in a confined traveling space, they endlessly complain about it, but I strongly feel that this is part of what life is about, and I always encourage them to always sing because it’s good for the soul. Singing a good song makes you happy, even if you suck at it. 

When you boil art down to its bare necessities, there’s one thing that stands above all else about the relationship between an artist and what they create. It can be difficult at times, downright excruciating and exhausting. But you can’t take shortcuts with them. I’m talking about choice. Or more accurately, choices. Even if I’m a bad singer, I chose to sing because the expression feels good. Without the choice to sing, what else matters? What else is left? 

It’s hard to sing well, just like it’s hard to make things, and harder yet to get people to care about what you make. So of course it’s tempting to rush to modern tools like AI to help one feel creative in the creation of art, and while this is not a unique argument, I’m here to tell you that AI is not art. In fact, it’s the antithesis of art. If art had an antichrist, it would be AI, precisely because it removes the creative choices from the creator. 

A few months ago on Bluesky, brilliant writer Mac Rogers kicked around the idea of listening to an AI audio drama just to understand what he was up against. Some people responded with suggestions. I listened to one I will not name directly because this isn’t about dunking on the specific show or its creator. Let’s say it’s called The Curse.

I am not condemning the creators for using AI to make The Curse. I am only positing that what they’ve done is not art and is harmful. It’s harmful to the environment in all the ways AI is, it’s harmful for the art form of audio drama, and it’s harmful to the creator themselves because it posits them as not a creator at all. In an attempt to create something using AI, the creator of The Curse is circumventing what it means to be human and a human artist specifically. 

What makes the Curse so galling is how obviously bad it is. It’s a black hole of choices, from the writing to the sound design to the voice acting, which clearly uses AI voices, so poorly reflecting human interaction that the cliched dialogue not only gets mispronounced, but the meaning of the words get lost due to poor inflection, misplaced emphasis, and a frightening lack of energy. It’s possible the creator wanted to use this as a warning to others, framing AI as a curse in and of itself, a Pandora's Box that once opened can only produce lackluster click content. I think what’s more likely is that the creator was not interested in the aspect that makes art worthwhile, which is the struggle.

That is the artist’s curse. It’s hard to make things. It’s hard to “get it right.” It’s hard to “make it work.” And even if you do, it’s hard to get anyone to care, harder than ever to connect with a community who gets your point of view, is on your wavelength, understands what you’re trying to convey. Every element of The Curse feels like a void of that human struggle. The choice was made as soon as the creator decided to use AI. The sound design of the titular device doesn’t completely loop correctly. The music feels audibly airbrushed in from generic 90s horror thrillers. The writing is beyond generic; at least something like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room had human emotion behind its bizarre choices. Even if the acting is hammy, over-the-top, and nonsensical, it’s still undeniably human. 

The Curse may have been made and produced and released, but it barely feels like it exists. It’s just there, content to consume for souls without discerning taste—automatons, I’m guessing. There’s no interaction to be had, no thought to apply. It’s just digital waste taking up digital space. There’s not much more to say about it. Perhaps the creator hoped that by using AI he’d have instant access to a promotional hook. “Look at what I did—it was easy.” Well if it’s easy, what’s the point of you, then? What makes you so special?

Using AI is a bigger problem in music. As people tune out to whatever playlist they’re listening to, Spotify can slip into an algorithm wormhole that matches sonics on a playlist to those that weren’t actually created by people. Artists not appearing on platforms are being replaced with AI replicas. Some huge streaming numbers belong to bands or artists who you can never see live because they don’t exist. Music is easier to rip off because there’s an absence of choice happening with modern listening. The algorithm takes care of it and suddenly you’re not in the driver’s seat. What’s the point of listening if all you’re doing is having background content playing while you fill in the spreadsheet?

This is a genuine problem I don’t have the answer to beyond pushing for more active listening. All I know is that as a writer, sound designer, editor, creator, and human being, I am not worried about AI replacing me because it literally cannot. My writing may be imperfect, and it may not resonate with someone. It may take years to produce, and I might fail in getting it in front of eyes and ears. But it’s mine. And that struggle, hard as it might be, is something I feel compelled to do and always have. There is something inside of me that’s always trying to come out. It’s hard to get it out sometimes, and often I’m not satisfied with what is produced. That is my curse, but it’s also my gift to myself and my contribution to humanity. I am not taking shortcuts. I am not compromising my mistakes, errors, struggle or drive. I am human. Watch me screw up and fail. Maybe even like my f’ups a little. 

This is the cornerstone of what EAR•WAX Magazine is about. We are striving to connect with others like us, form a community of people who recognize the humanity in others, and especially strive to connect with auditory art. We reject the lazy use of AI in creating content. We celebrate those artists out there working hard to tell their stories, uplift other voices, and connect with other people. Because it’s hard. We know it is. We see you. We want to listen to you. And we want others to listen too. 

I challenge readers to listen to at least one new thing in every issue and let us know what you think. It’s all real pain, effort, sweat, and human energy. That is worth celebrating and promoting. 

The last verse in Biomusicology sums it up best.

All in all we cannot stop singing
We cannot start sinking
We swim until it ends
They may kill and we may be parted
But we will ne'er be broken hearted

Until next time, keep listening. Keep singing. And keep making. 

-JVD

Robyn’s Boner
by Adam Cecil

Robyn’s deeply relatable lyrics—whether she’s lamenting her crush kissing another woman or encouraging a new beau to leave another woman—made 2010’s Body Talk the kind of mainstream hit album that can be impossible to top. But nothing on Body Talk comes close to her confession on the title track from her new album, Sexistential, that “Adam Driver always did kinda give me a boner.”

Anyone who’s ever seen Adam Driver knows that he exudes raw sexuality, which is to say, he is very tall. I came to understand this intimately after a not-so-chance encounter at the Girls season four premiere after party at the American Museum of Natural History, a full eleven years prior to the release of Sexistential. It was there, under the blue whale, that I brushed past Driver, standing almost a foot taller than me in a tuxedo, as he rushed to talk to a party guest who actually belonged there.

Despite not talking, touching, or really having anything that might reasonably fit the definition of an interaction, that moment burrowed into my subconscious, morphing into something living between memory and fantasy. I tried to write about the encounter, filling notebooks with variations on a poem that saw Driver and I swimming in the heart of the blue whale, not drowning but unable to speak, hugged by warm red ooze as the other party guests faded away from us.

He started popping up in dreams, in memories, and in more poems. He killed a bird in my bathroom with a baseball bat. He dosed his coffee with powdered creatine and laughed as I pulled a long black horse hair out of my throat like a string of hot mozzarella cheese. I was never really happy with any of the drafts, rarely submitting them for publication and never succeeding.

Could I have gotten published if I simplified it down to “Adam Driver did always kinda give me a boner”?

I saw Adam again, years later, in our shared neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. He was walking with his wife and children, just past that off-putting Alice in Wonderland themed coffee shop. He was still quite tall, even as he hunched over to listen to his wife.

What would Robyn make of the scene? Would it put her ovaries into hyperdrive? Would she lament seeing the father of her imaginary children with his real family? Or would the banality of it take some shine off of Driver, his image and the boners fading from her psyche like partygoers in a sea of whale blood?

EAR•WAX Editors here:
The lyrics in question in Sexistential by Robyn are as follows:

So I was about to go have a kid on my own
And then my doctor said, "Now, Robyn, who would be your dream donor?"
Well, Adam Driver always did kinda give me a boner
She like, "Yeah, wasn't he great in Don't Mess With The Zohan?"

Contest idea: Submit revised lyrics to mailearwax@gmail.com describing Robyn’s updated reaction upon seeing Adam Driver with his family like Adam Cecil did. The best lyrics will be printed in a future episode and will be eligible for a drawing to win a special prize.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT: Lauren Shippen

Lauren Shippen is an award-winning creator, writer, director, actor, and producer. She is the creator of The Bright Sessions and subsequent spin-off series, The AM Archives and The College Tapes. In addition to Passenger List, Bridgewater, the Stranger Things spin-off audio fiction podcast Rebel Robin, and audio fiction podcast adaptation of Marvels, and even more originals with their production company Atypical Artists, such as Breaker Whiskey, Maxine Miles, and most recently, Two Thousand and Late. Lauren was named one of Forbes 30 under 30 in media and one of moviemaker magazines and Austin Film Festival's 25 screenwriters to watch.

A couple months ago, I sat down to interview Lauren Shippen about her work as a writer, the state of audio fiction, and how creators can get their art heard in a changing landscape. Here’s a brief video excerpt where Lauren and I discuss why there has yet to be a big audio fiction breakthrough to more general podcast audiences. 

You can hear the full interview if you subscribe as a paid contributor to the EAR•WAX Patreon. An unedited version will also be featured in the EAR•WAX Magazine podcast, coming soon. 

Album art of the month: Jeff Van Dreason

I want to focus on some good and not-so-good album art, this time from 2026 releases. First-up, here’s one that really works for me.

Mandy, Indiana - URGH

Not only is it a striking and colorful visual, it also somehow manages to look like how the album sounds - visceral, noisy, experimental, and bright. 

On the other hand, here we have one that I just can’t get behind. 

Aldous Harding - Train on the Island

Great lyrics in this indie folk effort can’t save the album cover for me. All I can think about is David Cross on Arrested Development saying “I Blue myself!” 

Coming Up on the Flipside:

That’s it for Issue 1. Subscribe to EAR•WAX Magazine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or your podcatcher of choice and check out our upcoming releases:

• Wednesday, July 22nd: EAR•WAX Magazine Volume 1, Issue 1 - Podcast
• Wednesday, July 29th: Issue 2 of the EAR•WAX Newsletter
• Wednesday, August 5th: Infinite Mixtape - Introduce Yourself (Opening Tracks): A music discoverability podcast where Jeff Van Dreason and a guest make a mix for each other based on a theme, share it with each other (and you) and then talk about it. The first episode will feature Jeff flying solo though, introducing himself by talking about opening album tracks. 
• Wednesday, August 12th: Drama Club, Episode 1: Loudness: Four audio fiction creators talking about getting their voice out there.
• Wednesday, August 19th: Any Major Dudes: Episode 0: Oliver Morris and Jeff Van Dreason geek out about Steely Dan before launching their discography deepdive celebrating the band’s masterpieces.

Until next time, happy listening.