Podcasts

I can’t recommend this highly enough. Ivan Maisel and Bryan Curtis on The Press Box speaking about Maisel’s book about his son’s suicide. There are easier listens but well worth it.

https://www.theringer.com/2021/10/2...van-maisel-on-his-son-max-fatherhood-and-loss

 

I think I want to start a podcast network called alternative universe where we just talk about things and the world as we'd like it to be - no matter how factually innacurate it may be.

And it wouldn't just be one show - its a potential empire!

TRUMPLAND - What's the latest from the White House as Ol. #45 gets ready to announce his nomination to replace Breyer on the Supreme Court and did Putin really name a city in Ukraine after Trump due to his steadfast support while Russia was forced to save Ukraine from itself?

THE TRUTH ABOUT COVID - Joe Rogan and Jamie Sele talk about the latest discoveries and myths about COVID-19 propaganda. Plus, the latest on the breakthrough discovery that Axe Body Spray repels COVID and the secret healing powers of Mountain Dew.

TOMMY FOREVER - Jim Gray continues to host his weekly podcast with Tom Brady, who never lost a Super Bowl and is on a quest to win his 10th this week with the Patriots against the Rams.

 

Anyone listen to the new one from the Serial/S-Town team? They are certainly selling it hard (like S-Town). Not sure it's worth the time investment yet.

 

I know it was cross promoted on This American Life. It seems like they are pushing really hard.

Two that I have enjoyed recently are Alligator Candy and Chameleon S3: The Wild Boys. The first is a man reflecting on the murder of his brother in childhood. It’s poignant but not maudlin. Wild Boys is in progress and about two boys who emerged from the woods in BC with a strange life story.

Both are short episodes (30-40) minutes and pithy. I find most podcasts have a lot of filler.

 

I worked through it all this weekend - I'd say it's around a B- to a B+. The best episode - I think it's 5 or 6 - features an interview with a couple that seems reasonable at first, but then as they dig in and investigate them, things take a turn, and they parallel this with clips from the interview, where they're confronting her with this. You can hear how the game of "telephone" evolves, how the rough edges of a story are sanded off.

The worst part of the series are the multiple "struggles" that the reporters vocalize about what it means to be a reporter, and, how green Hamza is. Serial S1 had a lot of this too, and I think since then, it has been included in all of the podcasts under that umbrella, but I kind of doubt that most of the audience is interested. The shows would be leaner, tighter and better if you just cut it out.

ETA: Poking around for reactions on the web, it doesn't seem like a ton of people have listened yet. But this review on Slate aligns with my thoughts on the series.

 

I was bored to tears by S-Town. No idea why it got the first bit of praise.

 

I think I got two episodes in and concluded that I hated everyone involved and didn’t care what happened to them.

 

I didn't get the point of S-Town. I listened to the whole thing and was left with a "so what" feeling.

I was in the car a lot over the last two weeks and listened to two fantastic podcasts from Texas Monthly: America's Girls, where writer Sarah Hepola went through the history and interviewed the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and Tom Brown's Body, which Skip Hollandsworth investigates a boy's death from a small Texas Panhandle town. I know the story because my parents live in Cowshitistan, and it was all over the news there. But after listening to the whole thing, I still don't know if it was accident, suicide or murder. The whole story was full of super sketchy characters.

Some here might like Cocaine and Rhinestones: a podcast about the history of country music, its songs and artists.

 

Tom Brown is a great one. (Mild Spoiler) I feel like Skip have Klein lots of rope and waited patiently for him to show his ass in the recent update. I originally thought accident but I could see suicide. I think the mom had the phone and that’s hinky.

I’m picking off some of the C&R episodes. Not a big fan of the narrators voice, but the content is rich.

 

Agreed on Tom Brown’s Body. Klein seemed like an absolute fraud and the sheriff wasn’t much better. It seemed clear from the last episode that the potential criminal charges had to do with the phone, so if you work your way backwards from there, the conclusion which makes the most sense is that the family discovered the body, there was something on the phone which was embarrassing and the coverup spiraled

 

My intuition is that Tom was at the very least, struggling with his sexuality. He searched on his phone the night he died for a suicide hotline. His grandfather also died by suicide. If it was a straight-up suicide situation, why would he walk 12 miles from his truck, dumping his backpack along the way, instead of just leaving his truck somewhere around Lake Marvin Road? But if he did it, say, in his truck in his mom's driveway, and she found him and/or discovered he did it because he felt he was gay, and she felt it was a 'sin' (because she pretty much said so on the podcast that if her son had come out, she would have looked at him differently) and covered it up?

Just a very strange story all around. But the Klein theory of the gambling ring around the high school football team is a lot of hooey.

 

Bump! "Against the Rules" with Michael Lewis is back - three episodes so far. As usual, they're excellent. The most recent one is about Bill James, and gets more into why he gravitated so much toward baseball, and how he regrets that some of his work has caused thoughts to "narrow" instead of expand when it comes to baseball.