So, this doesn’t really fit in either of the trafficked podcast threads we have, and I know that these other podcasts do exist because I’m listening to one right now that’s kind of pissing me off a little, so here I shall mention them.
Please stop making me hate you Rikki Lindhome. Seriously. If you don’t shut up about ACIM I’m going to have to fly to Los Angeles and end your life with a rusty length of pipe. It’s just self-help bullshit and it makes me ache in all sorts of uncomfortable places to hear you and Chris Hardwick furiously masturbate each other over your own particular brands of pablum.
Apart from that unfortunate bit of mess, Making It with Rikki Lindhome is pretty excellent. Between this and the Nerdist Writers’ Panel and about half the guests on the main Nerdist podcast I’m learning all sorts of crazy crap about showbiz that I would never have learned before.
What else is good in the not-specifically-dedicated-to-being-funny, not-related-to-video-games family? It’s about time for me to sweep through my podcast list and cull out the weak, and there’s a lot of stuff in there to drop.
This American Life of course. Similarly, if you can tolerate the production style, Radiolab.
I listen to an awful lot of science podcasts - Science Friday, the Guardian’s Science Weekly, Nature’s and Science’s podcasts, The Naked Scientists, Astronomy Cast, The Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe, Little Atoms. They’re all good in their own ways.
Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews
Philosophy Bites
The BBC World Service Documentaries and From Our Own Correspondent
The Guardian’s Media Talk (probably only good for journos and other media types)
Nerdist ran that Rikki Lindhome podcast as their own a while back and I couldn’t listen to it for more than 10 minutes. Actresses talking about classes, auditions and what parts they got? I had enough of that in grad school until I realized that most actresses are crazy, which is why they’re actresses.
I liked the old-timey radio show podcast they put up around the same time (I guess Hardwick was too busy to do his own podcasts), but I think that one qualifies as comedy.
I tried the Retroist podcast for awhile, where the guy goes in depth on something mostly from the 70’s or 80’s. Like Teddy Ruxpin, or Space Invaders, or a movie from then. I think he was trying to do a low-key NPR voice thing, but it started creeping me out, like this was a guy showing you stuff in his basement that he knows absolutely everything about and you start wondering if you’re ever going to get out of the basement.
The Thrilling Adventure Hour. It’s a monthly (or it was - I’m a little bit behind on my podcasts, but the last time I heard it talked about it was a monthly stage show in the pattern of old time radio) and I believe it is designed to be funny. Written by two very confusing Bens - Ben Acker, who I know comparatively little about, and Ben Blacker, who writes for Supernatural and also hosts the Nerdist Writers’ Panel.
Making It is certainly…a thing. If you’re not particularly interested in how a person gets to be an actor or what goes into the production of entertainment, I imagine that it’ll be boring as hell. Of the two Gettin’ Entertainment Shit Done podcasts, it’s the weaker of the two.
Tom Scharpling, he of the mighty Best Show On WFMU, has a great new podcast called Low Times. There’s only been a couple so far, and it consists of three interviews (one long one with Tom, and two shorter ones with his cohorts) with indie rock musicians. First one was with Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), and the second was with the dude from Titus Andronicus.
What I like about Low Times, aside from Tom himself, is while they talk to indie rock guys and gals, it isn’t specifically about their music per se - it’s more conversations about their influences, road stories, where music fits into their lives, etc. So you don’t need to like or even have heard of any of the people to find it interesting.
Neil Degrasse Tyson has a weekly 1 hour science radio show / podcast called Star Talk that is usually pretty awesome. Sometimes I think I could listen to that guy talk forever and not get bored.
I love Stephen Tobolowsky’s podcast - it’s just him telling stories of his life and career much like in the movie he made, Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party. That guy has had some crazy experiences.
From ESPN I listen to BS Report, PTI and College Gameday
I subscribe to the Grantland feed but only listen to Jalen Rose and Solid Verbal (though I think I’m about done with that one, too brosephy for me).
Wrestling podcasts - I listen to way more wresting podcasts than I watch wrestling, even with RAW and Impact DVR’s I only speed though them one in every three or so. That being said, I love listening to the business of wrestling and whenever possible to hear wrestlers talk about wrestling.
The Art of Wrestling - hosted by Colt Cabana, think of it as WTF for wrestlers.
PWTorch Livecast - daily bitching about how bad wrestling is these days from the PW Torch writers. They have started doing a Friday interview show where they interview one person, so far they guests have been really interesting.
The Wrestling Observer - pretty much only listen to the Brian (Alvarez) and Vinny show, which now only appears once every three weeks.
I Want Wrestling - former WWE writer Dave Lagana has other former WWE wrestlers and writers on to bitch about how crazy Vince McMahon is. He has stopped doing these since he started working for Ring of Honor.
The guiltiest of these guilty pleasures is In Your Head Wrestling - two chunky southern goofballs do an interview and then spend a couple of hours cracking each other up.
From Slate
Slate Spoiler Specials (movies)
Slate’s Culture Podcast
Slate’s Political Podcast
Slate’s Hang up and Listen (sports)
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History - rarely updated but the backlog is “evergreen” (its history!)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/ Planet Money, a podcast by some people who know a lot about the economy, some people who focus more on human interest stories, and informative & entertaining for all. They to deliver in depth reports on very specific issues that still fit in with the themes of current events, with fantastic on
location reporting and interviews.
I used to catch This American Life, but once their iPhone app came out I generally use that instead of active grabbing their podcast.
Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe keeps me sane in a world full of superstition and wilful ignorance.
The Guardian’s Football Weekly (and Football Weekly Extra) are informative and humorous, but unlikely to be interesting to anyone who’s not a fan of European soccer.
I used to catch This American Life, but once their iPhone app came out I generally use that instead of active grabbing their podcast.
Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe keeps me sane in a world full of superstition and wilful ignorance.
The Guardian’s Football Weekly (and Football Weekly Extra) are informative and humorous, but unlikely to be interesting to anyone who’s not a fan of European soccer.
I love Radiolab but they’ve steadily dropped from a new episode every two weeks to a new episode every month to a new episode every month but only for a ‘season’ of five episodes to a new episode every three or so months. Did they just run out of topics?
Of their recent episodes, I found the Games episode to be pretty unimpressive. When you come the conclusion that games are the meeting of rules and story and then decide to demonstrate this by talking about baseball, I feel like maybe your episode should have been called Sports And A Brief Discussion Of Chess.
I’ve been finding that podcast quality has really dropped lately. I still listen to TWIT every week, but it’s just a habit really. It’s become “Leo talks about his pals” for an hour and a half. Not much news or analysis I can’t get a hundred other places.
Filmspotting was my go-to movie podcast, but it seems like Adam can’t keep a co-host for longer than a hundred shows, and the guest host every week thing is really variable in quality.
And like Bahimiron said, Radiolab has gone from many shows to very patchy releases. This American Life has picked up in number of shows since the end of their TV show, but I’m kind of getting the feeling that Ira’s heart isn’t really in it anymore. Since those awesome recession shows, the quality has dropped off.
It can be good, depending on the guest. I listened to an older one last night, with K.C. James that was funny and an interesting view of what a WWE aspirant goes through (with some slightly off-mic comments from Cabana’s buddy C.M. Punk).
It is interesting in that I think Cabana is trying to figure out what he wants to do with himself now that he is heading into his 30’s and the WWE is probably not going to give him another shot. At least that is the vibe I pick up in some of these interviews.
