Saturday, September 15, 2018

What I'm Listening To

I spend a lot of time in the car.  And I've found there are two types of people regarding their time in cars.  Those who prefer music and those who prefer conversations.  Growing up, I would never have imagined myself a talk radio person, but for me, the best way to break up the long drive is with long-form interview conversations.  Generally in the form of podcasts.  Thankfully the car has an option to connect to my iPod, so I can select the podcasts and go.  (This also enables me to switch to my music should I be in the mood).  When my iPod is not available, the go to is NPR - KERA 90.1.  But when I'm all connected as I like to be, these are my favorite things to listen to:

Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! -  The NPR news quiz.  I love this show.  It helps me keep up to date on current events, with a wonderfully sarcastic streak which I love.  I always apprecite Peter Sagal and Bill Curtis (rest in peace Carl Kasell) and am a fan of so many of the panelists.  I wish I would have known about this in preparing for UIL Current Events (and it does surprise me that it is twenty years old this year).

Word Balloon with John Siuntres - The comics conversation show.  John Siuntres is a former sports radio guy from Chicago who engages in in-depth interviews with comic creators and other geek culture related people.  I love that John is interested in the conversation, not looking for sound bites but truly looking to capture the creative stories.  And I appreciate his development of a great catalog of older creator interviews.

The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith - I came to this podcast in a little different way.  Goldsmith recorded conversations from the TCM Film Festivals and I first noticed those.  I've since listened to some of his conversations on more recent films with the creatives involved and appreciate his style.

ID10T with Chris Hardwick - I listened to a lot of podcast interviews by Chris Hardwick from the Nerdist and through ID10T.  I appreciated his style of interview, again preferring the longer conversation style and letting the guest cover the topics they desired to explore, not just a series of soundbites.  Further, I genuinely appreciated his outlook on life (as I remembered him from the Singled Out days and noticed the turn around).  The variety of guests that he has been able to interview is amazing.  I'm a little conflicted on this one due to his own #metoo allegations from his ex and he has not posted any new interviews since that time.  Still working through my own feelings on listening any further or to old podcasts, but wanted to include for completeness.

All of these have a long enough runtime to be enjoyable on my drive.  And I generally learn a lot about the creative process from people I admire and respect (plus make some new discoveries and learn to appreciate a few things I had written off before).

If you listen to podcasts, what are you listening to?  What are your go to genres?


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