Constant Chatter

For fans of the art of spoken word (radio/media style anyway), nothing beats podcasting! I love how I can listen at my leisure, totally portable, commercial-free, and there are hundreds if not thousands of choices to customize my interests. They let my mind continue to feed while I'm doing mindless work like cutting the grass, cooking, painting, or hauling construction materials.

I first gave podcasts a try when Bethany got a small iPod a few years ago. I wound up hogging it much of the time, taking it everywhere, and that eventually bit me when I ran it through the washing machine. I recently dropped $20 on a non-Apple mp3 player, which works just the same as an iPod with downloaded mp3s, as well as for music put onto our computer directly from CDs.

Here are the best ones I subscribe to, perchance you are up for checking one out.

- The Adam Carolla Podcast: Hands down the best guy I've ever heard on the radio is Adam Carolla, formerly of Love Line, TV's The Man Show, and several other incarnations. Having recently been one of the victims of a format change at an LA FM talk radio station, Adam has launched a daily podcast with great success. I believe it became the #1-downloaded show on iTunes in a matter of days. He basically sits on a couch at his house and bullshits with whoever is available on a given day. It could be a celeb like his long-time partner in crime Jimmy Kimmel, it could be a hilarious rap session with his non-famous friends taking a trip down memory lane, often he'll have a touring comedian on, or it could be a fictional character like Jack in the Box (probably my favorite episode so far). This unrestrained, uncensored format fits Adam like a glove.

- Hardcore History / Common Sense: Dan Carlin is another guy who's made the transition from radio to podcasting. He seems to be a history expert, and likes to tell tales of history's most vital periods by pulling together his sources and giving us a sort of everyday Joe's perspective. I'm not doing it justice -- suffice to say I've never heard history recounted in such an engaging way. His recent two-part episode on the Eastern Front of WW2 is just awesome. The latter show I mention, Common Sense, is an indie take on current events -- more like you might hear on the radio. In both his productions, Dan will sometimes do an interview: Gwynne Dyer and Jesse Ventura jump to mind as really good recent episodes.

- Movies You Should See: I discovered this one while geeking out in anticipation of the new Star Trek movie several months ago. I searched iTunes for a Trek-themed podcast, and came up with this British crew who record just such a show. Turned out they produce a bunch of other different series focused on movies, music, books, games, TV shows, cooking, general ranting and others. Hearing them talk about these everyday things with their British accents, cursing and all, is weirdly entertaining. Movies You Should See is the best one I've tried, and I haven't listened to all their offerings yet -- they are prolific podcasters, working off the website Simply Syndicated.

- PTI / Around the Horn: This one's for sports fans. ESPN has a one hour block of sports talk shows each afternoon, which is picked up and repeated by TSN from 2-3pm our time. I've found this a great way to keep up on sports from the American perspective. PTI's regular hosts are two sportswriters with great chemistry and energy, who contain their loud rants within a strictly-timed show format. You may have seen it -- the show with the red graphics, cutouts of famous athlete's heads in the background, and the rundown list of topics on the right part of the screen. Around the Horn is also sports talk of the day, except it's sort of a game show -- they have a panel of four writers and a host who awards scoring points for strong debating points. Again, wonderful interaction between the participants, full of good-natured trash talk and often informative. Anyhow, both these shows work just as well in audio-only format as they do on TV.


And there are always daily news podcasts put out by many of the big-time networks. BBC does one twice a day, and the CBC puts its daily 6-o'clock radio newscast in podcast format. Come to think of it, both companies offer plenty of their radio content this way, not just the news. This is a great way to keep up on things without sitting at a computer or TV screen. Trouble is they expire quickly, if I don't listen to them right away.