I'm four eps into Serial season 3, this time they deal with the court system. It takes place in Cleveland, apparently because this is the only place they could find that would let them record inside the building. It's a great look at the inner workings of the criminal justice system from street level, shows how prosecutors overcharge in order to secure plea bargains and how sooooo many people wind up pleading to charges of which they are completely innocent simply because they do not have the means to fight. Also holy **** does Cleveland have some biased judges (well, at least one biased judge who also happens to be a blatant racist but no one cares).

If you lost favor with Serial after season 1 I urge you to give it another shot. FWIW I've read that season 2, which dealt with the Bowe Burgdahl case, is also very good but I have not (yet) listened to that one.

I subscribed the The Bruenigs. I'm a bit disappointed because it would have been nice to roll the podcast into the People's Policy Project, but instead they split it into it's own podcast on Patreon.

It's a pretty low key podcast from the perspective of two low key leftists with Midwest sensibilities. Their first few podcasts were just them riffing on the news, and the intra Democratic fighting that goes on between them as leftists, and the Democratic centrists. They're now starting to get some guests on.

I like the podcast mostly because I like their kind of basic non doctrinaire leftism and the way they discuss things is pretty easy going. They do have interesting takes and insights that are missing in The Discourse.

I wouldn't recommend subscribing to them monthly though as they just don't put out enough to really justify it unless you just want to support them.

+1, listened to Going Postal and Crack Babies this morning. CB was eye opening - it's easy to infer that the term is used as a racist wink, but I didn't realize that studies had debunked it entirely and that the policies were doing more harm than good, naturally disproportionately impacting PoC.

Looking forward to the rest of them

Agree on the "You're Wrong About..." podcast being good so far. The only problem is that I'm already reflexively contrarian and inclined to be the "Well, ACTUALLY..." guy, so this is going to do nothing but strengthen that bad tendency of mine.

The "You're Wrong About..." podcast passed my smell test for 'explanatory content about a subject I'm quite familiar with' by having pretty good Columbine and Satanic Panic episodes. Was disappointed the Jonestown ep did the thing of overcorrecting and stating that it was only Flavor-Aid (there was some Kool-Aid there, too, just not as much), but that's small beans. Couple of episodes where in the end I wasn't really sure what I was meant to have been wrong about (ie Jeffrey Dahmer), but mostly very solid.

Gotta say I was really disappointed with how The Dream podcast ended. The interview with that spokesfellow from Direct Marketing Association or whatever went about as expected, he lied and dipped and dodged and filibustered as I figured he would. But there was no payoff, no closure. It should have been longer. It almost felt like a cliffhanger ending, only we know there won't be another episode. If nothing else I figured they would squeeze at least another episode's worth of phone messages about MLM horror stories.

Didn't love You're Wrong About on D.A.R.E. or Alpha Males. I'll try them again at some point for The Godfather (and possibly get furious depending on whether they blame the audience or the director for failing to convey his point) or others that catch my interest, but I'm not sold.

Try Crack Babies, I listened to 4 of the earlier ones and I think that was the most interesting.

New Ezra Klein show on political correctness is good.
https://www.vox.com/ezra-klein-show-podcast

I thought Stranger Danger on You're Wrong About... was great as well.

Here's a good starter episode of Michael & Us: https://soundcloud.com/michael-and-u...ft-of-the-dial

They discuss 2005 documentary "Left of the Dial", an HBO movie about Air America, the failed liberal talk radio station (starring Franken, Maddow, Maron, Garofolo, Seder, etc.). It doesn't matter if you haven't seen the documentary, I haven't.

Most of the time is spent dunking on liberals, whose idea of radical talk radio was yelling at Ralph Nader.

Will only listen if they played the live action Winnie the Pooh "Too Smart for Strangers" song (skip to 15s):

The Zone is expanding and growing more unstable by the day.

This will be good. No one has Ryan pegged better than Matt Y.


https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...16313762312194

CTH gonna be the Dennis Rodman of U.S.-Iran foreign affairs.

My problem with Chapo is their jokes are unfunny a significant amount of time. Or they keep making the same joke over and over.

This episode sounded a bit like jilted exs who got duped by a guy running the same con coming together and commiserating, except it's a party instead of a guy.

I still think Yglesias' take that you can assume that Republicans will cut the taxes on the rich and make it easier for companies and you won't be wrong regardless of what Republicans say is by far the most accurate. His contrarian "Paul Ryan is actually a very brave man" is still one of the best.

The jokes often require a bit too much in-depth knowledge of a topic whether it's politics, sci-fi, or some other nerdy stuff on the internet. Most of them are also made up on the spot and it's hard to kill every time based on improvised commentary. Not like they're stand-up comedians.

They're funny people, not professional comedians, and even the two (Felix and Virgil) who have done comedy work have done it in written form. That's why I think their live shows tend to be not-so-great, because they feel the need to add value or w/ever by doing bits, and the bits are never that great. But in the course of their normal schtick of just talking about stuff, they can be quite funny - though I maintain that their main appeal is that hardly anybody tries to be funny about these things in that way.

I'd question the idea that most of the jokes are made up on the spot, also. Following them on twitter is often a minor spoiler for zingers in upcoming shows.

And high-volume comedic output is just necessarily hit-and-miss, and there's always taste. I've never found James Adomian's GORKA bits all that funny, honestly, which I realise puts me in a minority. I could listen to him read the phone book as Chris Matthews, though.

Seriously the next "live" podcast I find enjoyable will be the first. The PSA ones one HBO were cringy beyond description. Even Preet's live ones fell flat for me.

Chris Hayes' live show with Ta-Nehisi Coates was very good imo

The dollop live shows have the answers you seek.

They're still worse than the non-live versions, which is kinda the point. I'm gonna go to one of the live ones soon, so I'll report back on whether it's any good in person.

Something about the cheering crowds and laughter takes me out of the flow of the conversation, hard to put a finger on it. They just seem less idk, prepared? in the live shows as compared to the recorded ones which allow for editing.

Dude. I get through like two words of them before dissolving into laughter.

I find the Chapo live shows unlistenable aside from if they're doing a reading series. I think it's partly that the shows are just worse and partly that you have to be there to be attuned to what's happening. Like, stuff that comes across as dead air in audio wouldn't if you were there.