Saturday, June 5, 2010

Favorite Podcasts thus far

I started listening to podcasts about two years ago, I guess.  They are especially good for either shorter trips through traffic jams or longer ones to Ottawa or to family events down south.  My favorites are an eclectic bunch, with none too serious.
  • My favorite is the BS Report with Bill Simmons, ESPN's Sports Guy.  I would follow Simmons even if he did not major in Poli Sci long ago.  He mixes up sports (he is a fan of Boston teams) with pop culture (he has Chuck Klosterman on semi-regularly along with some of the folks listed below, he is a very avid fan of stuff I don't watch--reality TV). 
    • I also follow the 30 for 30 podcast which covers the ESPN documentary series with which Simmons is involved.
  • Firewall and Iceberg.  Two east coast TV critics: Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg chat about TV each week.  They are reasonable, insightful (agree with me a lot), and have some good repartee between them. 
  • The TV Talk MachineTim Goodman, a TV critic for an San Francisco newspaper, meets semi-regularly with three other people or so, with imitations ranging from poor to semi-good of dead and living celebrities and TV people (Walter Cronkite, Bill Walton, French existential woman, and now Al Gore).  It is an extraordinarily silly podcast that occasionally discusses TV.
    • I look forward to their next one as they hinted in the current one that they will respond to my email about Hogan's Heroes, reimagined.
    • I also follow Goodman's appearances on KFOG--a much shorter but still interesting listen.
  • The Adam Carolla Show.  Carolla's stuff varies, but he has great guests, the conversations go everywhere and he does some recordings of his live appearances at comedy clubs.  Definitely not safe at work or for the kids.
  • The Poker Edge.  Phil Gordon, who has taught me much about poker via his books and his old Celebrity Poker show, hosts a show on ESPN with Andrew Feldman.  It covers poker news and has interviews with many different folks in the poker universe. 
  • The Moth Podcast.  The Moth is a story-telling group and they post stories that are about fifteen minutes and are always true.  Some funny, some sad, always interesting and always well-told.  
  • The Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast.  We are big fans of the RSC.  Their original show was to present all of Shakespeare's works in about 90 minutes.  They went on to do the Bible, American History, the Great Books, the Millennium, and, most recently, Sports [They even reduced all of Lost into 15 minutes].  Their podcasts not only plug their own shows but also usually have interviews with folks in the theater business.  So, I have learned about auditions, booking, transportation, and more.  Fun and fascinating stuff.  If they would only tour in Montreal, the entire Spew family would be most pleased.
  • Roland Paris turned me onto Fresh Air, a National Public Radio interview show with Terry Gross.  She has a good sense of humor and asks good questions for interesting people.
I used to listen to the Lost podcast, which I found late in the game; and to the Geek Survival Guide.  The latter is no longer posting new episodes but was most instructive in how to survival all kinds of science fiction challenges, like Zombie outbreaks, Vampires, robots and more.

Any suggestions?

1 comment:

Steve Greene said...

Maybe you don't like science enough, but I absolutely love the Radiolab podcast. Give it a try!