I have tried to discuss podcasts in other threads, and it inevitably turns into a dogpile for people anxious to declare how much they hate podcasts. So how about just ONE omnibus thread for podcast discussion? If the haters don’t threadshit all over this one, I promise not to start any other threads based around podcasts. Deal?
Okay, so: to start off, I adore Mike Murphy’s “Radio Free GOP”. His winking, 1950s-style jingles are slickly produced and very funny. And Murphy himself is wonderfully snarky. The main idea of the podcast is to try to reclaim the GOP from what one of his audio samples describes as a “madman”; but he hits the progressive left with some well-aimed and very entertaining barbs as well. Case in point: he laments AOC’s* successful effort to scuttle the Amazon HQ in NYC, and wryly notes “and now, hopefully, a wonderful new intersectionalist poetry center can be opened there, and I’m sure that will turn into 25,000 green jobs or whatever the current fantasy will be.”
Who were part of the same movement AOC was the most prominent advocate of. (I actually hate Amazon for killing the IMDb; I just thought the image of a “intersectionalist poetry center” was funny.)
On the treadmill, I like the beersmith or brewstrong.
I LOVE the NYTimes “The Daily”. If you like the Times, you’ll probably find it fascinating.
I listen to podcasts in the airport, and also as a sleep aid on the plane.
Other than the above, I don’t really listen to podcasts. So, to me, podcasts have their time and place, and are the right tool for the job in those instances.
I do love the NYT, so I was primed to love this one. But I can’t stand Michael Barbaro’s way of speaking. He talks incredibly slowly (which at least can be ameliorated by going up to, say, 1.7x), and he shares a tendency with NPR’s David Greene of belaboring the same points by essentially giving “followup questions” that are recapitulations of what the interviewee just said:
GREENE/BARBARO: What is your top priority for 2019?
INTERVIEWEE: Well, I’ve got Project X all ready to ramp up–we just need funding from Source Y, as long as Administrative Agency Z gives us the greenlight.
GREENE/BARBARO: So as long as Administrative Agency Z gives you the go-ahead, and Source Y provides the funding, you’re ready to get started on Project X?
INTERVIEWEE: Yes, exactly.
(I always hope, in vain, that they will respond “Isn’t that what I JUST SAID?”. Maybe they sometimes do, and those comments get edited out.)
My hypothesis in both cases is that both Morning Edition and The Daily are intended to be listened to in the morning while people are getting ready and might not be paying the closest attention. But it drives me nuts.
There is a NYT podcast I really like, though: The Argument, from the op-ed section.
The only ones I really listen to are:
WTF with Marc Maron (depends on who Marc is interviewing)
Penn’s Sunday School
&
Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast
I always check the Guild of Sommeliers Podcast to see if the topic is interesting since it touches on my job but they only release one about once a month.
And my primary listening is done when I’m driving.
I get exposed to enough political stuff without listening to an explicitly political podcase.
Ignoring the arguments, and seeing value in discussing Podcasts, I’ll post a few.
I started listening to them because I was doing a lot of work fixing up a house for my brother. At one point, I had to get electricity from the house to the garage, and had to dig a trench to bury two 3/4" conduits at least a foot deep, and it was 40 feet long. Since I was going to be doing mindless work, I wanted something to think about rather than listening to music. So here are my favorites:
The Rialto Report. It’s a history of the early adult film industry, mostly centered on NYC in the Seventies. The folks who create it interview actors, directors and the like, and it’s absolutely fascinating. Some of these stories are almost too strange to be believed, like the one about the woman who was a girl in WWII Berlin, emigrated to the US, dated mobsters and wound up as the owner of Circus Circus - before she ever did porn.
Sodajerker on Songwriting. Two Scottish songwriters interviewing their favorite songwriters.
Revisionist History. Malcolm Gladwell. The episode “A Good Walk Spoiled” is a wonderful rant about the essential unfairness of golf, and how a bunch of rich people have manipulated the tax system to have the only large area of parkland in Los Angles for their exclusive use, and are paying taxes on billions of dollars worth of real estate at 1940s valuation.
This podcast reviews early 20th century Hollywood stories from Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon, many of which were embellished, and attempts to set the record straight.
