DoT EP109: Sue Costello On Staying Positive, Sexism, CBS, and Simmah Down, Plus New Music From Rebecca Turner

The Department of Tangents Podcast

Sue Costello is someone I saw early on in Boston, specifically playing a show organized by Jimmy Tingle that featured Costello, Patrice Oneal, and Steve Sweeney. She has always been tough, and she wears her Dorchester roots with pride. We got into some thorny topics here, including pervasive sexism in the entertainment industry and her dealings with CBS as the Les Moonves scandal was breaking. She has survived sexism in comedy and in the television industry and come out of it trying to find a way to get people to communicate more productively, to get to a truth. As she says, the empaths need to grow some balls, because the bullies are winning. That’s part of the philosophy behind her new talk show pilot, Simmah Down with Sue Costello. She wants people to be real about the ugly things in their lives and not be afraid to talk about them. The show is in a pilot stage now, but it’s up on YouTube now. Watch it here: You can keep up to date on news from Costello at www.suecostello.com, and find her on Twitter and Facebook under Sue Costello and Instagram under iamsuecostello. She’s also filming a new movie called Mow, which you can find on the social medias on @mowmovie. Our featured track this week is “Living Rock” from Rebecca Turner, from her upcoming album The New Wrong Way, out November 6. This will be Turner’s third album, and her first since 2009’s Slowpoke. Since then, she has continue to write and play, but family and work concerns kept her from finishing a new album. The New Wrong Way is a culmination of ten years of writing and tweaking the songs, which were recorded starting last winter. The featured track is the opening song from the album, a riffy roots-rock tune called “Living Rock.” Find out more about Rebecca Turner at https://rebeccaturner.net.