New Thing #322: The Figgs

Once again we have one of my podcasts to thank for an idea for Music Monday. And an Astoria connection certainly helped its chances.

Marc Maron had The Figgs on his show last week.

Needless to say, since it's the case with many of the music guests on WTF, I had never before heard of The Figgs.

I gave the podcast a chance though. (Not that it's a stretch for me - a podcast would have to be the worst thing in the world for me to turn it off before listening to it from beginning to end.)

And not only did I find the members of the band likable, but there were two connections that really piqued my interest.

The first of the connections is that one of the band members (there are three of them, I didn't really do much research on them besides listening to a bunch of their songs online. I figure if you're interested enough you can look up the info as easily as I could have.) spent a lot of time in Astoria, my hometown.

Maron spent some time in the early 2000s living in Astoria. (He gave the exact location - also last week - when Ileana Douglas was on the show. I think he said 37th Street and 30th Avenue. Douglas, by the way, also has an Astoria connection - she spent a lot of time there as a kid with her grandparents. She was on the Ditmars end, very near to where I grew up, but she was talking about the late '70s as when she was there. A lot of Astoria talk on my podcasts last week.) Maron told the story last week of how he kept running into one of The Figgs at the grocery store in Astoria, because he was living in the area too. Maron was a fan of The Figgs…the band didn't know who he was other than some stalky fan.

Anyway, I like that there's an Astoria connection. (For what it's worth, one of the band members also currently lives just outside of Boston. They're like me!)

But then they talked about how they had hit it big in the last year or so because a song one of them had written was used in a popular Lexus commercial. I couldn't for the life of me think of what that was - as far as I knew I had never heard of The Figgs before in my life. Then they played the song, Je T'ador , and it sounded vaguely familiar, but I still couldn't place it. I looked it up and I remember the commercial, but the song didn't really stand out to me. I included that video at the end of this post for you to remember, and to get a taste of The Figgs. (Pun not intended. I swear.)

I listened to a lot of The Figgs' music last week. (Though I'm sure not anywhere close to all of it - by a long shot, I think.) I liked most of what I heard. I don't quite know how to describe it - a little rock, a little punk, a little grunge? There was a Foo Fighters feel to some of the songs…but that's not quite a good description. They also talked about Elvis Costello as an influence, if I remember correctly, on the podcast. I can see that too.

I liked, too, that many of the places they've been captured on video on YouTube are some of the same places my brother has played in recent years. It gives me hope that another little-known act with roots in Astoria will catch fire and get greater exposure.

New Thing #320: Contributing To A Kickstarter Campaign

Every so often, if I can, I try to contribute to the fundraising campaigns for my favorite podcasts. I paid for an app subscription to WTF a while ago and caught up on all of the episodes using it.

I plan on doing one of those texting donations to This American Life the next time one of those rolls around.

The winner of my most recent philanthropy is 99% Invisible, which is running a Kickstarter campaign to increase the number of episodes it puts out as well as its staff…as well as to provide benefits for its staff.

It was a cause I really wanted to contribute to.

I really like 99% Invisible. You should listen to it. It gets me to look at everyday things in a different way. And it's a short podcast, relatively speaking. There's no reason not to listen to it, really.

But this isn't really an advertisement for the podcast. It's about how I was able to contribute to something I really enjoy.

The deal was, if the podcast got 10,000 backers on Kickstarter (at any denomination), one of its sponsors, Mail Chimp, would kick in an extra $20,000.

I figured, I have some money in a Pay Pal account that I don't have designated for much, and I would love to give it to this cause.

So I created my Kickstarter account, popped onto the 99% Invisible page, and saw that Pay Pal was not an option. It actually all runs through Amazon.

But I still gave my money. (I'm even going to get a gift - a little notebook - thrown in, which is totally unexpected.)

I was donor number 9,028 or so - somewhere between 9,028 and 9,040, best I could tell.

I gave on Wednesday night - by Thursday night, less than 24 hours later, they had hit 10,000 backers.

I'm really glad to be a part of that.

New Thing #315: Booker T. And The MGs

In recent months, I've heard Booker T. Jones on a couple of my favorite podcasts. Not too long ago he was on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, and then late last week he was on WTF with Marc Maron.

In both cases I came away awed by his immense talent at such a young age, his story, and his career.

And I realized that besides Green Onions, I knew very little of his work.

So this weekend I set out to fix that.

I downloaded 'The Very Best of Booker T. and the MGs', because I figured that was as good a place to start as any.

I should tell you that when I was growing up, we listened to the oldies station almost exclusively, so a lot of the songs from the era when Green Onions came out is very familiar to me.

And a lot of the songs on which the band probably played backup or which Booker T. Jones contributed to in any number of ways was probably stuff I knew. But I was less aware of him other than having heard the name "Booker T."

The only song I recognized at all from this 'Best Of' album besides Green Onions was Soul Limbo. I'm pretty sure that got some radio play too.

Besides the fact that I've come to like Booker T. Jones a lot through a couple of extensive interviews, I'm glad to now know more of his music.

As I discovered listening this weekend, it's great Sunday morning, getting-ready-for-the-day music.

And Jones isn't done - he's 68 years old, but is still putting out music, or collaborating - there's a lot he still wants to do.

Which means I might have some more Booker T. Jones interviews to look forward to.

New Thing #259: Radiohead

A few weeks ago Thom Yorke was on WTF with Marc Maron. I really enjoyed the interview, and it occurred to me as I listened that I didn't know very much about Radiohead, the band for which Yorke is the lead singer.

The extent of my Radiohead knowledge, I think, is their OK Computer album, which came out in 1997.

There are a few possible reasons for this:

1) I was confounded by what "OK Computer" meant when that album came out. Those two words didn't really go together in my brain.

2) The video for Paranoid Android, one of the singles off that album, was on MTV constantly. I'm sure you've seen it. It's a cartoon - I must have seen it come on 1,000 times that year...and I'm not sure I watched it all the way through once.

3) Karma Police, another single off that album, was on the radio a ton through my college years.

For this Music Monday, though, I listened to their album Pablo Honey.

The album was suggested by my friend Justin, who, when I texted him for Radiohead suggestions offered this: "I don't really like them much anymore. I have the first 3 albums. I happen to love Pablo Honey, which is their very first album. It's a great pop album before they decided to just make weird ambient noise." (This is why Justin is a great resource for my Music Mondays - I couldn't quite put my finger on why Radiohead didn't much interest me. That last comment kind of sums up what my impression of them was.)

Before they made 'weird ambient noise', though, I wasn't much of an album buyer. I was familiar with Creep, because that was on the radio constantly in the years leading up to college, and then while I was in college - I feel like WBCN in Boston (which was always on at the Boston University gym where I exercised and was also the preferred station of one of my college roommates) played it once an hour. Until I listened to it on the album I never knew there was such an explicit-language lyric repeated so often.

I liked Pablo Honey - I'm not positive I knew any of the other songs on the album, but a couple sounded vaguely familiar. It could have been just that they reminded me of what I expected songs on a Radiohead album to sound like - or maybe I have actually heard the album somewhere before.

As I investigated Radiohead a little more I discovered other songs they had done which I didn't realize was them - I'll categorize them as "Songs You Hear On The Radio And Don't Really Realize Who Sings Them"...which I suppose makes them somewhat generic and is probably not a real compliment to the artists who record them: High and Dry is the main one I didn't realize was Radiohead...and in a brief listen to a bunch of the songs on Best of Radiohead it occurred to me that I could have heard any of those songs on WBCN in the late '90s and not been able to tell the difference. (I would never have associated Radiohead with a band like the Gin Blossoms...but as I listened to Pablo Honey there were times I thought they could have been any '90s band, and Gin Blossoms was one that came to mind.)

Anyway, if the early albums are similar to Pablo Honey, I might try them out at some point. But like Justin, I don't think I would enjoy the later stuff either - partly because I know for a fact I don't much enjoy the stuff from OK Computer.

New Thing #255: The Peter Schrager Podcast

If you're a football fan (and I'm sorry for this past week or so if you're not), you'll love this New Thing. My friend Justin texted me last week to tell me his brother had a podcast.

Now, this is not like if I started talking about the Jets and Mets and recorded it and my brother went around telling people his brother had a podcast.

No, Peter Schrager is fast becoming one of the most respected football guys in the business.

So if I hear that he has a podcast, I'll check it out...and I'm sure thousands of others have been doing the same thing.

Let me quickly catch you up on my football podcasts. For a year-plus I listened to the Rich Eisen Podcast. I figured the guy was on NFL Network, and if there was anyone who had the inside track on the National Football League, it would be him. Turns out I was right...but it also turns out that Rich Eisen is insufferable. I couldn't stand it. I'd listen and then complain.

Then I decided, I'll just stop listening. (This is a bigger step for me than you might realize. Or, perhaps after reading 9 and a half months' worth of reading about me, you're not the least bit surprised.)

Then Peter King started a podcast. That's what I listened to all last year, and it wasn't about him - it was about the football - it was perfect. This year it's the MMQB Podcast - I still listen to it.

After two episodes, the Peter Schrager Podcast is getting added to the list. In the first edition, Schrager had a good football talk with Pete Prisco and in the second one he spoke with Scott Fujita - a good storyteller - and Kevin Burkhardt.

The Burkhardt interview was awesome, talking about his rise through the industry to get to where this year he's doing play-by-play on TV for FOX NFL games. (As an aside: Burkhardt did the Jets-Buccaneers game Sunday. There were a couple of rough patches, but overall he and John Lynch were excellent. Here's how I know: When a broadcast is bad, I obsess over it. Case in point: Dick Stockton. Holy heck was he bad doing the Rams-Cardinals on Sunday. Hang 'em up Dick. Watching the Jets, though, I barely thought about the broadcasters. That's a sign they're doing it right.)

Back to the podcast: There's a really contagious enthusiasm in the way Schrager talks about the NFL - he strikes a real balance between being a fan and an analyst, as well as in the way he can really schmooze with his guests and also ask some pretty deep questions about them and about the game.

Justin and I often joke about the success of our younger brothers. I have to admit, though, that while I often heard Peter's name in various places, I didn't see his work all that much. (Which is becoming harder to do - he wrote a book with the Giants' Victor Cruz and soon a new one he wrote with OJ Brigance of the Baltimore Ravens will be coming out.) I just don't watch very much FOX Sports. (I'm working on doing more.) With this podcast, though, I now have the opportunity to listen to Peter without other elements of Fox that I might not care for.

So, finally, after all of these years of Justin supporting my brother's music, I can throw a little brotherly love back his way.

New Thing #142: The Memory Palace

This is a unique time for me: I'm all caught up on my podcasts.

This includes the newest addition to my podcast subscriptions.

It's called The Memory Palace.

It's hosted by a guy named Nate DiMeo, who according to the show's website, co-authored a book about Parks and Recreation.

He's been doing this show for a bunch of years, I guess, and recently he was picked up by the Maximum Fun network of podcasts.

And that's how I found out about it.

You remember the Maximum Fun network...I mentioned it when I told you about Bullseye back in January.

The Memory Palace is a history podcast, but it's history told in story form.

Which is a huge strength...but also a weakness of this podcast.

It's a strength because it's cool to hear some of these stories which I've never heard before. The best episodes are ones that remind me of Paul Harvey stories - there's a little twist and you expect to hear, "And now you know....the rest of the story." Man, I loved those.

But it's a weakness because some of the stories I've heard a version of on some other storytelling-type podcast. And when I've already heard the story and you can see what's coming, well, that's not The Memory Palace's fault, but it definitely takes away from that particular episode.

Here's the type of episode I loved: A story about the first elephant to touch American soil. I never would have thought about that, but obviously there had to be a first of every non-native species. That was a cool one. There was a good one about the Otis family - as in the Otis elevator family. (Otis didn't invent elevators...he invented the braking system!) And another story about Roger Babson, which doesn't seem like it would be interesting, but it was.

And, oh man - Episode 44 (distance) - that one's amazing. Start there if you're interested. I won't even give you a summary, because it's almost a near-perfect example of the form.

If you're interested in PT Barnum, he pops up every so often...and is probably rivaled by only the Civil War in the 'most mentions' category.

The podcasts come out about once a month these days, and they're pretty short. I caught up on the whole catalog that's available in about a week. (I don't think the first 10 episodes were available, so I still need to listen to those - I need to see if they're available on the website.)

But perhaps the best thing about this podcast? It's good for kids. I've already played a couple in my classroom - the elephant one, one about Henry 'Box' Brown, and I plan on playing one about 'Crazy Bet', a woman who helped spy for the Union Army in the Civil War. I'm always on the lookout for podcasts that I can bring into the classroom, but most have something that makes it tough for me to have fifth graders listen to. Most of these episodes are OK.

And now that I'm caught up on this - and the rest of my podcasts - it's time to try a new one. I'm thinking of exploring education - some podcast about education and teaching, not necessarily an educational podcast.

I'd be happy to take your suggestions.

New Thing #130: Maron

Warning: Adult Content. I feel like I need to preface this one with that warning because I know what I'm about to write about won't be for everyone.

And usually I go out of my way to avoid anything that isn't family-friendly.

(I always think about my kids approaching an age where they will find this and read it, and I don't want there to be anything embarrassing. Same with work - I don't want to offend anyone. I do work with children, after all...and I'm aware someone will stumble across this site eventually.)

But the host of one of my favorite podcasts now has his own TV show and it would be wrong of me to not write about it.

It's called Maron, and it airs Fridays at 10pm on IFC.

Marc Maron is a comedian. He's been around for a while, and I remember him from the late 1980s (or maybe early 1990s) when we used to watch Stand Up Stand Up or shows like that on The Comedy Channel.

(I came to this realization last year when Maron appeared on Louie C.K.'s show Louie. In that show there were clips from 20 or so years ago of Maron and Sarah Silverman doing stand up. I recognized Silverman easily, and then had a huge flash of recognition of Marc Maron as a young man. I used to see him doing stand up all the time on The Comedy Channel. I had zero memory of C.K., for whatever that's worth.)

Anyway, if you've ever listened to his podcast you know what happened in the past 20+ years. He fell into drugs, got sober, married, divorced, married, divorced, did some radio work, hit bottom, then found new fame with a podcast where he talks with other comedy folks (and, lately, musicians) about their lives. It's called WTF, and it's probably my favorite of the podcasts to which I subscribe.

The podcast has been so successful it's led to other opportunities, hence, Maron on IFC.

For months I worried about what I would do when May 3rd rolled around. That was the show's premiere, and I really wanted to see it, and I didn't think we had IFC in our cable package.

On May 2nd I finally got around to checking out the channel lineup to see where IFC fell, and lo and behold, channel 234 - IFC! So that problem was easily solved.

Like Louie, this is a 'me' show...not an 'us' show. It's not one of those where I feel compelled to wait for my wife to watch it with me. It's not her cup of tea...though last week's pilot episode was surprisingly clean.

Some of the ads I saw for the show made me laugh out loud. I don't think that exactly happened with the first show, but that's not to say I didn't think it was funny - I liked it. I just wasn't rolling on the floor or anything.

If there's anything I've learned from a lifetime of watching TV it's that it's very hard to draw conclusions from one episode of television.

I think Maron has an initial run of 10 episodes here. That seems like a pretty good sample size from which to draw a conclusion. I'll be watching all 10.

But I'll also say this - I'm biased because I love the podcast so much. It would have to be a terrible show for me to not watch all 10...or any future seasons.

And that's the other thing about WTF - Marc Maron is so honest and open that you just want to root for him to do well. So I doubt I'm alone among fans of the podcast who, no matter how good the TV show is, are just rooting for Marc Maron to have success.

New Thing #67: A High Profile Retweet

I'm having quite the Twitter week. I've been doling out some compliments.

Early in the week I sent a note to Josh and Chuck of the 'Stuff You Should Know' podcast because their TV episode about time travel was so fun to watch. (The show is no longer on once a week - now it's on in bunches every other Saturday afternoon. The last episodes air this weekend...no word on a second season. I suspect the '365 New Things In 2013' TV show jinx is now a thing.)

Then on Thursday evening I tweeted Buster Olney because I liked an interview from his podcast.

And he retweeted me.

This is worth writing about for a few reasons. One is that this is the biggest retweet I've ever gotten. Buster Olney has 658,200 followers.

Secondly, I really liked the interview. Or part of it, at least. The part I liked was when Jason Motte of the St. Louis Cardinals talked about being on the mound to close out Game 7 of the 2011 World Series. He talked about the precise moment the wave of crowd noise washed over him on the mound during the game and how he enjoyed the moment - anyone who has ever pictured themselves in a Game 7 situation had to have appreciated the picture he painted there.

Third is the result of the retweet. It drew a lot of attention to my tweet. (No new follows, it should be noted.) It might sound insignificant compared with more than 650,000, but I got retweeted 6 more times (all by followers of Buster, not me), favorited once, and then got 4-to-5 more replies (again, not my followers but Buster's followers).

I never really understood why guys like Olney, when they received tweets laced with vitriol, retweeted and engaged those people rather than just letting them sit there. Well, now I have a better idea. It's tempting to do something. Because the 4 replies were all somewhat pointed. (Well, one was more of an insult directed at Motte than me.)

All I meant by my tweet was that, being a Mets fan, I don't like the Cardinals. I didn't want a reason to root for any Cardinals, but I like Motte after listening to him speak with Buster Olney. The replies seemed to interpret that as me usually hating players on other teams. I never used the word hate. I just don't root for them - so I don't like them.

But here's the last notable thing: I think a few years ago those replies would have sat with me and ate me up inside. They didn't really do that this time. Maybe it's because writing about them is a good outlet. I don't know. But I have an idea now of what people are talking about when they talk about internet trolls - it's hard when people engage with you in a harsh manner. I can only imagine what happens when more than 50 people are following you.

So that was my Thursday night. If you want to get in on the Twitter fun, follow me @jsucich. Just be nice.

New Thing #58: Baseball Tonight Podcast

The trouble with school vacation weeks is I start getting into a different routine than my school routine. Meaning, I have a lot more time on my hands.

And this February break, I spent a bunch of that time listening to podcasts.

In addition to my usual rotation, I've now added a couple more.

One of them is the 'Baseball Tonight Podcast with Buster Olney.'

And, to be honest, I don't know that I'm going to be able to keep up with it.

Actually, I don't know what its official schedule will be. All I know right now is that during spring training they're popping out a podcast a day, and of course I feel like I have to listen to all of them. (I'm proud of myself for picking up on the day I decided to start listening, and I didn't do my usual thing where I go through all the archived episodes. I figured I had enough work moving forward.)

So maybe they'll tail off to a couple of times a week during the regular season...or who knows? They'll go at a breakneck pace all season long.

If there's any possible podcast I could listen to all day every day, though, it's one about baseball. And I really like Buster Olney - whereas most writers who get the chance to go on-air in some fashion eventually wear on me, that hasn't happened (yet?) with Olney. I used to love when he filled in for Mike & Mike in the Morning when I listened to that show. (Aside: I need to find out how Olney does everything he does. I know he grew up on a farm, so maybe he keeps farmer's hours and is up at 4am reading papers and writing...but I don't know how you do that and watch baseball games at night. Either he has a team of interns posing as him writing on-line while he catches up on some z's, or he never sleeps.)

So it remains to be seen how much of this podcast I can keep up with. But I do enjoy it - I've been looking for a couple of years now for a good baseball podcast and hadn't been able to settle on one I liked. I don't know if I missed this last year or if it was in a different form and not with Olney.

Most of my ability to listen depends on when the podcast is published - If I can consistently get them downloaded before I leave school (they're not available before I leave for school), I can then listen to them on my way home. That's worked for me so far the first Monday and Tuesday back.

And then once summer hits I can get back into a more leisurely schedule. But by then, as with every vacation, my problem won't be being able to listen...it will be trying to avoid listening to too many new podcasts.

New Thing #54: 99% Invisible

I stumbled into something interesting the other day. One of the guests on 'Bullseye' was Roman Mars, a radio producer who does a show called '99% Invisible'.

It was an interesting enough interview that I subscribed to that podcast and, since they're relatively short, started tearing through a few of them.

Who would have thought 'design' could be so interesting?

Yes, design. Architecture. It's a show, according to its website, that's about "the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world." It's sponsored by architectural institutes and centers.

And actually, I'll start with the website - it's a great companion to the podcast. I'm not the type of person who always checks out the accompanying website (I don't know that I've ever checked out the 'This American Life' website, for example), but when I went to 99% Invisible's site the other day I realized I'd need to check back every time I listen.

The audio of the podcast is fine, but since the show is about such visual pieces, the website provides visuals to help illustrate the little stories.

That's the next point - they're little stories. The first few are less than 5 minutes, then they range from 10-to-20 minutes, which for me are very manageable chunks.

And they're interesting - one of the earliest got me hooked - it's about the subtle line between 'sound' and 'noise', and how even the softest sound can come across as too loud if there's no background noise. (I heard this the day after my wife woke me up simply by clicking her computer mousepad - a noise that if not for the absence of every other sound I never would have noticed.) That's why, the podcast said, parks sometimes have fountains - not just because they look nice, but because they provide a little background noise so other annoyances - like traffic or machinery - aren't punctuating total silence.

That story about my wife is one of two coincidences about how I stumbled into this show at an interesting time. The other day I think someone re-tweeted something from Roman Mars across my Twitter timeline. I have no idea what the tweet was or who re-tweeted it, but the '99% Invisible' logo in his avatar stuck with me.

Then I heard the 'Bullseye' interview.

Mars himself sounded interesting - I liked the interview. '99% Invisible' is a good show, but I get the impression this is just scratching the surface of Mars' talents. (How's this for accessible - Mars mentioned on one of his podcasts that sometimes he gets too much mail to respond to everyone looking for advice about podcasting/producing, etc., so he is setting up "office hours" - a couple of hours a  month at a Kensington, California coffee shop. He feels badly he can't give everyone a response, but he's offering this to try to make up for it if people can get out there. I like it.)

I'm glad I discovered the podcast (and the website) on vacation, when I had the time to explore it a little more deeply. I hope once school starts up again I can keep up with it all.

New Thing #20: Stuff You Should Know (The TV Show)

I can't remember the first podcast I listened to. I do know that "Stuff You Should Know" was among the first.

I went to iTunes with the express purpose of finding a podcast that would help me learn something new.

I saw "Stuff You Should Know", from a website called HowStuffWorks.com, on the Top 10 list and tried it out.

I quickly got hooked, and like I do with all things that hook me, I had to go back and listen to all of it.

Luckily there wasn't much that I had missed and it didn't take me all that long to catch up (although I probably spent more time on it than I should admit), and I've listened as it grew from a podcast to, now, also a television show.

Saturday night "Stuff You Should Know", the TV show, debuted on the Science Channel.

Here's a quick rundown of the podcast - Josh (pictured, left) and Chuck (pictured, right) tackle a question that was researched on their site, and banter as they talk about the research.

The podcast went from 4-5 minute tidbits with Josh and a couple of other different people before Chuck became the permanent co-host and the show extended to 18 minutes to 40 minutes per episode.

It's all so simple, but it's very, very good. A lesser man might get jealous because of how simple the formula is and how successful that formula has been...but Josh and Chuck are so likeable  that you root for them to succeed with whatever venture they're involved in.

And now it's a TV show.

My biggest fear going into the show was how the podcast would translate - in other words, there's a loyal following of the podcast, but I'm sure for a TV show like this to succeed it needs to develop a larger following. So does the TV show cater only to the existing fans, or is it universal enough so that anyone can watch and be entertained?

After two episodes, I'm leaning towards the latter. (Although I think that remains to be seen, because I'm looking at it through biased lenses.) I hate to admit it, but I wasn't expecting the show to be great - I thought it would be cringe-worthy at times. It wasn't.

The theme song was somewhat cringe-worthy. At the very least it may be a verse too long. But everything else was pretty good - the shows were funny, the plots were well-written - true to the podcast and drawn out into a half-hour episode, and Chuck and Josh were really good actors. Surprisingly good. That was my biggest takeaway.

If I've sold you on it, "Stuff You Should Know" now has its own website, with all kinds of extra information. The Science Channel airs "Stuff You Should Know" Saturday nights at 10pm. The episodes will also be available the next day on-line...and the first show, a funny one about Alien Hand Syndrome, is being offered now for free.

New Thing #4: 'Bullseye' Podcast

I enjoy a good podcast. There are 9 I listen to regularly right now; I'm open to adding more, but I definitely won't be subtracting.

I love the ones I listen to.

The latest on my list of favorites is "Bullseye with Jesse Thorn".

I've actually been listening to the show for about a month, but it's still new enough to qualify as 'new' for 2013.

I think I first learned about Jesse Thorn and "Bullseye" through Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, another of my favorites. If I'm remembering correctly from his early episodes, Maron credited Thorn with coming by, setting him up with the appropriate podcasting equipment, and getting him started on what has become one of the most successful podcasts out there. I think Thorn was even a guest on Maron's show at some point. I don't remember the details from that interview, but maybe I should look it up again. I think Thorn has roots in comedy (at the very least he's a huge comedy fan), but I'm not sure about very much of his story.

Back then, though, Thorn's podcast (well, this particular one of his podcasts - the man has a ton of them and I'm interested in giving each a listen, but I'm afraid I'll get sucked in and have to listen to every episode of each of them and....well, I just don't have time for all that) was called "The Sound of Young America". At some point there was a brand change. I've been catching up on some past episodes from when it was "Sound of Young America" and I've been listening to the most recent episodes when it's been "Bullseye", but I haven't yet hit the point where the name changes or why.

Anyway, I've digressed. What I look for in a podcast is a feeling that when I'm done listening to it I've either been simply entertained, or I've learned something, or I've been entertained while learning something, or I'm listening to a compelling interview.

"Bullseye" meets all of those criteria. Each episode features a great interview with someone I'm interested in hearing from. (Or someone I didn't know who it turns out I should have been interested in hearing from.) Each episode also features some kind of pop culture review - there are experts who talk about the fields of music, comic books, television, movies, books - and Thorn weighs in at the end with his outshot, where he talks up something that's a favorite of his and that's usually new to me. (I'm sure I'll be drawing on some of those for some of my '365 New Things in 2013'. )

The latest episode of "Bullseye" is from New Year's - it's a roundup of the show's favorite comedy clips of 2012. It's great. I'll be writing much more about my enjoyment of - and hopefully participation in - stand-up comedy this year, but for reasons I'll probably explain at a later date I haven't been watching too much stand-up recently. This was a great round-up of the comedy I've missed in the past year.

In the episodes I've listened to so far Thorn has also conducted great interviews with Ice-T, R.A. Dickey, Demetri Martin, and Dolly Parton, among others.

It's a great listen, and clearly, despite my lack of knowledge about him, Thorn is a giant in the podcasting industry. He's the proprietor of maximumfun.org, which is the home to all of those other podcasts I alluded to. There was also news in the last couple of weeks that there are changes in the works, among which, I think, was the fact that "Bullseye" would no longer be affiliated with Public Radio International. I'm not sure how that will affect it in the future...but as long as it's around anywhere close to its current form I'll be a listener.