This American Life anyone?

[theartlessmonster]

Hi!

Anyone listen to the This American Life podcasts? 

I found this last one interesting especiallly the last story about the NYC cops, I wondered if people had a similar reaction as me.

Anyways, maybe if we have a lot of listeners here it would be fun to discuss the episodes!

[Thermofusion]

Last weekend on a long drive I heard a repeat of their show on breakups.  The first segment was pretty priceless -- TAL contributor who just got dumped by her long-term boyfriend calls up Phil Collins asking for advice on how to write a torch song.  The resulting song (written with the assistance of an ex-Psychedlic Fur) is astoudingly awful.

My favorite TAL episode of all time is the one about convicted violent felons putting on a production of Hamlet, they've aired it three or four times I think.

I've never heard a TAL podcast...is it something different from the radio show?

[Ignatius]

My favorite TAL episode of all time is the one about convicted violent felons putting on a production of Hamlet, they've aired it three or four times I think.

I've heard that they were turning this into a film.

[dieblucasdie]

I can't believe there's not a snide pollo comment in this thread yet

you're slipping dude

[Greg Nog]

He knows which side of the bourgeois narrative his toast is buttered on.

My favorite episode, by far, is Twenty Acts in Sixty Minutes, which contains the best dog's name I have ever heard.  (at 22 minutes in)

artless, if you're in the mood for something more sciencey, New York Public Radio's Radiolab has a pretty This American Life kind of feel.

[Illest Waffle]

The Audacity of Government.



Best. Episode. Ever.

[crystalcakes]

the podcasts are the radio shows, put on the internet for people to download. 

i heard excellent things about the breakup one.  i am weeks behind though. 

[elpollodiablo]

He knows which side of the bourgeois narrative his toast is buttered on.

You got that right; I love this show and pretty much everything on NPR/PRI

[Thermofusion]

Awesome public radio shows:

This American Life
Whaddya Know
Diane Rehm
Talk of the Nation
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
Car Talk

Not-so-awesome public radio shows:

Woodsongs Old Time Variety Hour
Magnolia Fatback Folk Hour (our locally-produced knock-off version of the above program that's even worse than the original)
Says You
The Treatment
Thistle & Shamrock

[dumbfish]

Wait Wait is so much better than Whaddayaknow. It's funny, and the other is not.

Seems like the People's Pharmacy and the Splendid Table are on anytime I wanna listen. The former is all about naturopathic homoheuristic medicinalistic  (= ineffective) shit they sell at the local co-op. Count the number of times per show they refer to unspecified "toxins." The latter is for people who dislike eating but still want to brag about something, so they settle on food. Also, I'm pretty sure the accent Fiona Ritchie (Thistle and Shamrock) puts on is fake. Bitch is from Iowa, I just know it. Fuck 'em all.

Prairie Home Companion is great, tho. The ketchup... ketchuuuuuuhp bits still get me, and the appearance by Willie Nelson a few years ago was hilario.

Favorite This American Life bits: The Sedaris story in Cruelty of Children and Ira Glass talking about his obsession with Poker.

Weekend America is fine, sorta like if This American Life quit the band, got married, had kids, made some coffee, and realized life was pretty great. I have a wee crush on the  voice of the woman who co-hosts (Barbara ???).

[Thermofusion]

Wait Wait is so much better than Whaddayaknow. It's funny, and the other is not.

Re: Whaddya Know...I just really like Michael Feldman's mellow-dry sense of humor and the ambling, laid-back flow of the show (it's maybe the least-organized show on public radio).  Plus their in-house jazz band is ace. 

Meanwhile I continue to enjoy Wait Wait in spite of their continued employment of Paula Poundstone and Mo Rocca, our nation's two virtuosic masters of the unfunny.

[diesel_powered]

Say what you will about Paula Poundstone (who?), but Mo Rocca is perfectly hilarious when he wants to be.

[Thermofusion]

I trust you, I really do, but that man has seriously yet to make me crack even a reluctant grin and I have embarrassingly low comedic standards.  I want to like him, because apparently there are people who like him enough to give him work.  Maybe I've just caught him on his off days?  Like 150 or so of his off days? 

Between Mo Rocca's attempts at deadpans on Wait Wait and Brian Unger's painful commentaries on Day to Day, I'm convinced public radio is where unfunny ex-Daily Show correspondents go to die. 

Meanwhile, the unjustly forgotten A. Whitney Brown probably lives in a Salt Lake City homeless shelter now, shivering to himself, crooked glasses bobbling lightly on a busted-up nose, yellowing teeth chattering incoherently like a broken xylophone mumbling "I'mma kill you, Winstead" in a fake 70s jive voice.  That is unfair.

[diesel_powered]

Okay, regardless of my opinions on Mo Rocca, I'm with you on A. Whitney Brown. It's a sin.

[Greg Nog]

The Audacity of Government.

Yeah, that episode was fucking stellar.  As far as another one that was good in a straight-up news story way, I was also really impressed with The Giant Pool Of Money, which explained all the mortgage crisis stuff I'd only been understanding vague unconnected details about.

[theartlessmonster]

The Audacity of Government.

Yeah, that episode was fucking stellar.  As far as another one that was good in a straight-up news story way, I was also really impressed with The Giant Pool Of Money, which explained all the mortgage crisis stuff I'd only been understanding vague unconnected details about.

I know, I could not believe they gave 23 loans to DEAD PEOPLE, come on people!  The greed and self-interest of people never ceases to amaze me.  Live by the greed, die by the greed that's what I say.

[Greedo]

Any thoughts on the TV version? I only saw a couple of the episodes but it was entertaining.

God bless the podcast though.

[elpollodiablo]

I liked the one about the bull. That was the only episode I saw.

[diesel_powered]

The TV show was -eh. It didn't go into as much depth as the radio show does. Although I did get a nerd stiffie when I read that they use the same camera I usually borrow. If only I could get my work to look that good...

[Thermofusion]

Why, when it comes to today's contemporary radio programs making that great green frog-leap from your family's Philco Model 90 onto that cold, eerie grey spectre box we call Tele-Vision, for every Dragnet there are one hundred Fibber McGee and Mollys, The Bickersons and Great Gildersleeves!  But those mule-minded shined-shoes at NBC Blue won't listen to me!  They won't listen to me I tell ya!

[Illest Waffle]

Some of the TV episodes are luke warm, but there are a few that are fucking fire, like the John Smith episode from the current season. It is a show that would never work on radio, but on TV it will make you shit thyself.

[Ignatius]

The audacity of government...want to bring down a hard thing on cold guys.. what are we gonna do for these people?