San Francisco Chronicle

Podcast from San Quentin goes on even after host is freed.

- By Peter Hartlaub

For the first few months after Earlonne Woods was released from San Quentin in November, his “Ear Hustle” podcast cohost Nigel Poor kept receiving photos of ice cream on her phone.

“When Earlonne got out, he got a better phone than me, so he has a really good camera, and he was always sending me photos eating ice cream” by the beach, Poor said. “He’s like, ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’ ”

Woods, as is their conversati­on custom, completes Poor’s thought, then takes it in a new direction.

“You appreciate the small stuff,” Woods says. “The crazy part is, when you’re in San Quentin … everybody’s like, ‘Why are they on the bay? Why do they get to enjoy the water?’ We don’t even see the

water. They’ve got 30foot walls. You don’t even smell the seaweed. You’ve got to go to specific spots in the prison to look out and see the water, and even then you only see it from a little window.”

“Ear Hustle” experience­d one of the biggest changes imaginable in podcasting at the end of season three, when Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Woods’ life sentence. The cohost of the popular prison podcast, who had been working on the inside while Poor traveled in and out of the prison, now lives in the East Bay.

Now in the middle of season four, the scope of the show has expanded, but the dynamic hasn’t radically changed. The podcast has added new collaborat­ors inside San Quentin but continues to focus on honest stories about everyday life inside the prison, with very little emphasis on crimes or policy.

Arriving at The Chronicle in San Francisco to record a “The Big Event” podcast, Poor and Woods act as if they’re in a whirlwind, even eight months after Woods’ release. They’ve been working in the Center for Investigat­ive Reporting offices in Emeryville. Woods’ visit to The Chronicle included his first solo ride on BART.

(The review was mostly positive. “I wanted to go to sleep,” Woods said. “I just didn’t want to miss my stop. I would have ended up at the airport.”)

The pair met after Poor volunteere­d to teach photograph­y in the prison, later offering a class in audio journalism. Woods was an early student.

“Earlonne was really quiet. He didn’t talk a lot, so it took a while to get to know him,” Poor says. “But very quickly I realized he would be a great person to work with, because he’s a very good listener and a very good observer. And not everybody has that quality.”

When podcast network Radiotopia ran its 2016 “Podquest” contest for a new show, the cohosts persuaded San Quentin officials to let them enter. “Ear Hustle” won, and it was an instant hit, with millions of downloads. Early episodes include an inmate named Rauch who takes care of animals he finds on the prison grounds, and inmates who complete a San Quentin marathon by running endless laps in the tiny yard.

The show was cruising along nicely in the middle of season three, when the news about Woods broke. Loyal listeners were thrilled for Woods, who had been serving a life sentence since 1999 for an attempted robbery conviction. But they wondered about the future of the program.

So did the show’s creators.

“When Earlonne got out, I started thinking, ‘We can do almost anything we want now. Is that going to be good for the show, or bad for the show?’ ” Poor says. “I think that’s what we’re trying to figure out this season. How far can we cast the net, and still keep the stories really personal.”

Listeners have heard mostly subtle changes in season four. The biggest added element is new cohost Rahsaan “New York” Thomas (familiar to “Ear Hustle” listeners from the marathon episode) and new producer John “Yahya” Johnson. With Woods conducting interviews on the outside, there are more stories about postprison life, and more female voices.

The July 3 episode, “Kissing the Concrete,” was one of the most emotional in the podcast’s history, profiling a drug user who has returned to his home but can’t get the rehab services needed to fight his addictions.

The new dynamics strengthen one of the mostly subconscio­us but pervasive themes of the podcast — that inmates have more potential when they have a sense of purpose, and support inside and outside the penitentia­ry.

“One of my other goals with the project is just to show that people that are inside prison and people that are out can work together as profession­al colleagues,” Poor says. “And I think that really will help demystify what happens in prison if more people who are incarcerat­ed go and find projects to work on.”

As for Woods, he seems to be adjusting to life outside San Quentin just fine. He’s in a relationsh­ip (covered in the July 17 episode “I Want the Fairy Tale”), and greatly enjoying working on the podcast outside of San Quentin.

“Well, I wake up every day and enjoy my life,” Woods says. “And like countless other people, I head to work in the morning. And when I get there, we figure it out. And when I leave, we’re done.”

Poor and Woods have traveled to New York, Chicago and Milwaukee. After their hourplus at The Chronicle, recording the podcast and looking at old San Quentin photos in the newspaper’s archives, they were headed to the Italian Consulate to learn whether Woods can travel to Italy for a conference.

Even with the incredible changes in the past year, Woods is the same chill presence in person that listeners heard on air in the early episodes. Whether it’s recording in the prison yard or eating ice cream on the beach, his approach to life hasn’t changed.

“My philosophy in prison was, I’m going to live my life to the best of my ability every day,” Woods says. “Because I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t even know if I’m going to wake up tomorrow. But if I do wake up, I’m going to have fun.”

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 ?? Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle ?? Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor, cohosts of “Ear Hustle,” record a podcast at The Chronicle. They started their popular podcast while Woods was a prisoner in San Quentin.
Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor, cohosts of “Ear Hustle,” record a podcast at The Chronicle. They started their popular podcast while Woods was a prisoner in San Quentin.
 ?? Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle ?? Nigel Poor snaps a picture of her “Ear Hustle” cohost, Earlonne Woods, as he goes through San Quentin photos from The Chronicle’s archives.
Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Nigel Poor snaps a picture of her “Ear Hustle” cohost, Earlonne Woods, as he goes through San Quentin photos from The Chronicle’s archives.

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