When I was growing up, there were random encounters with Dr. Demento, a crazy show with satire and pre-Wierd Al like music, mostly in the back of a van or in hotel room with the seniors of the Math team. (yeah, yeah, suck it up. i'll factorialize you, beeotch.) It was, for me, sort of like a three-way crash between a clown car culture of the '60's, my parents' Ambassador culture, and whatever smoke-filled senior's car high school culture I grew up with. Luckily, my exposure was short, just long enough to retain some smell molecules so that when similar things pop up, a sense memory is triggered. When I started looking through
Podcast Alley for this podcast phenomena (what's a podcast? it's an audio blog posting, essentially, but really any downloadable mp3), I got a shudder and a chill. What is it about car crashes that makes one stare? I dunno, but the soma and schadenfreude of listening to - not just reading, a la blogs - other peoples thoughts is a meta-layer of creep above the insanity that's out there. The time people "waste," geez.
Podcat is a 50 minute podcast of excerpts of other podcast in a icky audio montage that somehow appeals to people. It's painful to listen to the intro, the transitions, etc. but this is the contextually appropriate way to get an overview of what's out there (reading about podcasts seems like cheating). It's character building, I keep telling myself, the cat screech segues and the psychedelic hyperdramatic "host." I don't really want to listen to
Adam Curry (yes,
that Adam Curry, of MTV - who already seems to wax nostalgic about podcasts) or Dave Winer (no link, on ethical grounds; i'm a little ill even typing the name) or the highly talked about
Dawn & Drew Show (which I've subsequently downloaded via the
iPodder rss software). If only it wasn't so painful to listen to the summaries and the transitions of Podcat.
Here are some of the podcasts I've downloaded:
- Podcat - gross. Like, I'm sure I'm supposed to say that I appreciated the exposure to other podcasts and not snip at the production quality, but that's literally what triggered my Dr. Demento memories. It's grating. I hate that I haven't found an appealing way to be exposed to podcasts, it's simply hackneyed and offputting. Podcat, stop it.
- Dawn & Drew Show - The snippet I heard on Podcat (again, why I do it to myself, I have no idea) plus the reviews I've read made me think it might be fun to listen to.
- Two Rights: Conservative Political Discourse - searching on Podcast Alley came up with this and I want to check it out because I'm starting with the assumption that people that're out there are whiney liberals. Maybe these guys'll be whiney conservatives. Reading about their latest podcast, they're commenting on Dave Winer (I just threw up a little in my mouth) ... sad to see these podcasters eating their own poop (and yes, i can smell it on me).
- Reel Reviews - some guy's film reviews. Not bad; informational, some opinion, doesn't piss me off, doesn't piss me off about the genre.
... here are the
Top 50 Podcasts from Podcast Alley.
Can't wait for the commercialization of the indie which always happens with this (an under-the-table podcast sponsored by McD's or Sony or whatever PR firm for whatever new teen movie blitz; not to mention an "updated" version of
Pump Up The Volume).
Oh, yeah: "why?" Well, because I thought "hey, i have a bunch of free space on my iPod" and this seemed like a good idea. Right, why a good idea. A while back, I thought it would be the hottnoos if Dan, Jack, Ian and I got a radio segment on the
local liberal station and basically sat around for half an hour or an hour and jabbered about politics. Maybe even some call ins and it'd be hillarious. Sounds like commercial radio, nay traditional radio, is dying dead in the street smack dab in the middle of a triple-car crash. Sorry AirAmerica. Even
BBC piddles on you guys.
[edit: just like that:
Heineken podcast, 12/07]