In my haste to hurry up and post that overdue jazz for why I haven’t bothered, I forgot to plug Marc Maron’s WTF show along with all the other stuff I have buzzing through my skull via headphones.
I still catch On the Media most Saturday mornings. I have a degree in Communication from Marquette, I kept my active interest in the subject. Maybe one day Brooke & Bob will come to Austin to do a live show.
Currently I am pushing through a rather great backlog of Sound Opinions. For a pair of Chicago-based blowhards whose tastes in music tend to suck (it “shines” through most often with the Rock Doctors segment), their album dissections have been insightful: Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, The Clash’s London Calling and Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps have definitely made me rethink the content. The more addictive parts have been their guests near the end of 2011: Bootsy Collins, Bob Ezrin (Kiss and Alice Cooper fans know him), Cut///Copy and Brian Eno. Once I’ve listened to these gems, I know I can blitz through the host’s terrible choices on what were the records of 2011.
Sadly, I gave up on Coverville and Astronomy Cast. The latter I could probably get back into because Science is important. The former was impressive yet it became overwhelming. By the time I bailed on it, the host cranked out three shows/week plus let’s be honest, not all covers are good, especially the steaming turds I’ve been subjected to from Glee.
I am digging out with ONN and Mr. Deity. Visual podcasts are trickier since they require more of my attention. ONN you can often get through by listening to them only due to their humor being mostly audio-based. I’m seriously swamped on Mr. Deity but I feel I have cleansed my conscience with its host Mr. Dalton (another former Mormon, seems their disaffected numbers are starting to compete with Jews and Catholics), I finally remembered to send the guy some money.
Now to the new things I will have to find a way to squeeze into 24-hour days…the comedians.
I’ll start with the comedian who I’ve met twice and has always been nice to me (actually, all of them have been friendly in person)…Dana Gould. His show is The Dana Gould Hour. It’s a great mix of discussions with Dana’s guests about a topic, comedy snippets (a dramatic reading of a letter from Brian Wilson’s dad was hilarious) and anecdotes from friends. There’s only two episodes so I would recommend you jump in now if you enjoy comedy. As soon as he has a donation button, I’m putting my money where my mouth is to chip in.
The second podcast is the 800-pound gorilla in my opinion, WTF with Marc Maron. I guess there are other comedians who may have beaten him to the punch and/or have more shows. When Dana Gould make a joke about himself, saying he was no Marc Maron, I felt a little vindicated by my statement. However, Marc’s approach is completely different and proves their room for both hosts. Marc’s show is more along the lines of NPR’s Fresh Air without censorship. Not just the occasional profanity, more often the topics and/or the frankness. It’s no secret that stand-up comics frequently suffer from substance abuse, depression, anxiety and failed marriages but with Maron you’ll hear the more unedited version of the events. Fear not, this topic is less frequent than I may be making it. Conversations tend to be recaps of the guest’s career, funny anecdotes and not much schtick. Not every guest is a comedian neither. Maron has hosted actors (the Bryan Cranston episode was awesome, the man is a great storyteller) and musicians (I’m stoked about the Nick Lowe bit when I get to it). No signs of authors, scientists or politicians yet. Maybe they’ll come in time as Maron’s reputation continues to grow. On the Media has mentioned him and even had him on about joke-telling after the 9/11 attacks. I’m glad to hear he hasn’t lost his edge or spark. Maron was a great co-host during his stints with Air America, the boneheads who ran the network into the toilet were fools to give more air time to Randi Rhodes, Jerry Springer and Rachel Maddow; I’m not against female hosts, Laura Flanders was pretty skilled. Anyway, I threw a few shekels his ways (his choice of word for money). I’m stoked about his upcoming appearance next week. Fingers crossed I can give him a pineapple to ward of the T-Rexes.
Any suggestions from you all? Or should I be ready for the din of “Internet” crickets?
