What podcasts are you listening to?

[Simple Torture]

Missing Richard Simmons is great.

Ooo this is in my "to-listen" pile. Very intrigued.

It's weird. There is a bit of an ethical problem to the piece (if the guy doesn't want to be found, shouldn't we respect that and leave the poor guy alone) but it's such an entertaining deep dive. Looking forward to your thoughts.

I'm one episode in now, and yeah, I'm intrigued. I understand the ethical dilemmas it raises (my wife, for one, is horrified that I'm listening), but I'm also just interested in Simmons as this cultural icon who just disappeared. He's only been off the map for three years, but I would bet money that his stock as a recognizable figure has fallen off a cliff--I may even poll my students next week to see how many of them know who he is (they're aged 19-22). I'm trying to avoid all media surrounding the pod until I catch up, but I can't imagine it can go on for much longer without the host being sort-of shamed out of it.

[Simple Torture]

I'm glad that Embedded is back--it's an NPR podcast, and their schtick is that they take stories from the news that you may have heard of and dig in deeper to get at the underbelly of them. In Season 1 there were a number of stories about the opioid crisis, but then there was a great one about what it's like to play in the NBA D-League, one about a biker brawl in Texas, the reason for suicide rates in Greenland...really interesting stuff. However, my excitement is tempered a little bit, since every episode this season is going to cover a different police-involved shooting from the past few years and look at the before and the aftermath, the stuff that isn't covered on the news. Still interesting, I just wish it'd be a bit more diverse in its topics.

Was really looking forward to their return. Bummed to hear they're sticking with a single topic.

I'm happy to report that week two of this season kept things fresh and interesting. I was a little worried that the whole season would be a reflection on race and policing in America--not that I think that stuff shouldn't be reflected on, but I do enough reading and studying up on it that I want to spend my podcast time learning about something else. Week 2 spent more time thinking about the human cost of these stories, the people who are left behind and how they deal with the aftermath. I'll post a bit more under the bump in case people want to listen.

Spoiler: show

Instead of being the all-too-familiar "unarmed black man acting weird, so cops shoot him" situation, this week's story focused on something that was a little bit more cut-and-dry: a cop responds to a domestic disturbance, and when interviewing a guy, the suspect pulls a gun and shoots they cop, killing him--then kills himself (this was all caught on camera). The man was obviously depressed and had had suicidal thoughts before, but the cop didn't know, and up until the moment the gun was drawn the dude was acting normal. There were interviews with the cop's family, friends, and colleagues, and while you get the boilerplate statements of the guy being a hero and an awesome dude and a credit to the community, his dad (also a cop) shares his thoughts about the mistakes his son made that day (letting the suspect out of his sight so he could retrieve a gun, not searching him immediately), and that part is real honest and what you don't usually hear. The family/friends of the shooter are also interviewed, and while they're mostly still sad and shaken up (years later), the part that really got to me was the guy who talked about how it burns him up every day that he can't have a public memorial or do any grieving in public for his friend, who did a bad thing but was obviously sick, because he's the "bad guy." I think Embedded does a great job of shooting down the middle and finding honest, human stories on both sides--I'm warming up to this one-topic season after two weeks.

[washing machine]

Just listened to the preview for S-Town. Sounds intriguing. I wish it wasn't being released all at once, though.

[epilogue]

Just listened to the preview for S-Town. Sounds intriguing. I wish it wasn't being released all at once, though.

I'm so glad they're releasing it all at once. I think it's the right call.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[washing machine]

Just listened to the preview for S-Town. Sounds intriguing. I wish it wasn't being released all at once, though.

I'm so glad they're releasing it all at once. I think it's the right call.

I'm probably wrong here. It is only a seven episode arc, after all. Waiting each week for such a short story would probably be overkill.

I've just always been sour on the whole binge culture in general. I've always loved the communal aspect and the suspense that serialized stories give us. Nowadays it feels like if you don't binge something all at once, you're excluded from the conversation and you sometimes forget to savor the really good stuff.

[epilogue]

Just listened to the preview for S-Town. Sounds intriguing. I wish it wasn't being released all at once, though.

I'm so glad they're releasing it all at once. I think it's the right call.

I'm probably wrong here. It is only a seven episode arc, after all. Waiting each week for such a short story would probably be overkill.

I've just always been sour on the whole binge culture in general. I've always loved the communal aspect and the suspense that serialized stories give us. Nowadays it feels like if you don't binge something all at once, you're excluded from the conversation and you sometimes forget to savor the really good stuff.

I don't disagree. When Serial returns, I'll be THRILLED to have that one week at a time experience again. Somethings I like to binge, some things I like to savor. This seems like the kind of thing I'll be glad to have all at once and listen to at my own pace. We'll see if I feel the same way once it's out.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[washing machine]

A humblebrag if there ever was one. Something needs to be done about you indeed.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[washing machine]

A humblebrag if there ever was one. Something needs to be done about you indeed.

If humblebragging entails me driving 12 hours both ways become I'm deathly afraid of flying, then yea, I guess.

Feels kind of appropriate, thematically, for someone to be afraid of flying to a radiohead show. Then again, killer cars...

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[washing machine]

The humblebrag was contained in 1. boasting about binging a whole podcast series in one gulp and 2. seeing radiohead.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[washing machine]

The humblebrag was contained in 1. boasting about binging a whole podcast series in one gulp and 2. seeing radiohead.

I'm also gonna get to see 'snatcher, eat a bunch of oysters, and visit with family. It's a much needed escape from the early spring doldrums of Big Sky.

That sounds delightful. Puget sound oysters are some of the least familiar to my palate. Please take an infamously awful Seattle Uber ride with bodysnatcher and report back.

[washing machine]

Not in this thread, though. This thread is about podcasts.

[bune]

I'm to the point where I feel like it's a chore to listen to some of the podcasts that are on my list. The hosts are still funny but the shows are pushing 3 hours and the topics don't interest me enough to listen to the whole thing just to hear some pithy bon mots scattered here and there. So then I'm like, well this is the last one and they broach a subject that has me doubled over laughing. sigh.

[Simple Torture]

25-55 minutes is the sweet spot for podcasts for me--it's about 50 minutes from home to work and 50 minutes from home to where the baby spends the day, so I can listen to 4, 5 podcasts a day of varying genres and types depending on how many trips I have to make. When I see that a podcast is over the hour mark, I start to get wary, because I know I'll have to split it up over trips (like 80% of my podcast listening is in the car). There are very few podcasts that I listen to that are longer than an hour and a half.

[bune]

Most of the ones I listen to are around that length. The ones that go a little longer - Doug Loves Movies or How Did This Get Made? - are still OK because I know the episodes are almost always great.

Also I listen at 1.5x speed so the hour long episodes are 45 minutes. Sometimes I can get up to 2x but that's for the ones where the show is just that slow, like Welcome to Night Vale. Listening to that at 1x is like listening to your grandma talk.