The Pod Piper

THE LIST 1.  The Bill Simmons Podcast  - "NBA Hall of Famers, KD’s MVP Potential, and Messi vs. Ronaldo With Steve Nash" There is never a bad time to remember the supreme awesomeness that was Steve Nash on a basketball court. With a new NBA season just around the corner (media day starts today with training camp and the preseason following quickly thereafter), bask in the glory of a sports icon dishing on basketball and his forays into the world of pro soccer.  2.  Scene on Radio  - "Warriors (MEN, Part 6)" Hi-Phi Nation  host Barry Lam guest stars in this episode breaking down some seemingly inalienable truths tied to gender in the military. We accept that men are dominant physically, as a whole, but this does not acknowledge the end of spectrums overlapping. Is the strongest woman really weaker than the weakest man? Newsflash: the patriarchy damages men, too. 3.  Serial  - "A Bar Fight Walks into the Justice ...

THE LIST 1. 99% Invisible  - "The House that Came in the Mail" Sears was a progenitor to Amazon...and IKEA. I knew the company once had a well-regarded catalog, but I did not know that it operated campuses in multiple US cities and even bought its own radio frequency. Also, as this episode highlights, Sears actually sold assemble-it-yourself property. For adults. Like, seriously, life-size homes. And a surprising amount are still around! While some of these unique products have stood for over a century and retained the purpose for which they were built, many of the giant regional Sears buildings have since been repurposed as the mail-order business waned. This episode is a fascinating entrypoint to a rabbit hole of googling. Even if you don't have a chance to listen the show, the 99PI website has some excellent photos to peruse (both on the link above and in this additional article focusing on the large plants left dormant after Sears vacated). 2. The New Y...

THE LIST 1. The Dollop  - "Ferguson" This episode was released back in August 2014, but it feels just as relevant and informative four years later. Not surprisingly, this is one of the less humorous Dollop episodes...and probably still the funniest Ferguson-centric piece of media that respectfully considers the origins and manifestations of institutional racism.  2. Hidden Brain  - "Bullshit Jobs" There are jobs that just don't need to exist. Like, a lot of jobs. But isn't a mediocre daily grind better than an overly stressful one? TLDL: psychology says no. Please do L, though, and revel in how good you’ve got it or begin plotting how you can wring purpose out of the superfluous career you’ve chanced upon.. 3. Flash Forward  - "Spawn of Sponcon" Advertising creep is real, and promotional content may soon become nearly indistinguishable from interactions with peers. Would that be so bad? Listen in for a taste of the legal and et...

THE LIST 1. Slow Burn  - "Cred" Paula Jones is a name I've heard many times in relation to Bill Clinton. But I'll be honest, I never really knew how they were connected. This episode tells the story from a couple perspectives, and highlights anti-Clinton players who had complex and evolving ties to the former president. 2. Futility Closet  - "Grover Cleveland's Secret Surgery" Presidents do things in secret. Like have surgery. On a boat. This sort of secret goings-on maybe happens all the time, but the tale of the coverup and the tarnished reputations of those involved were what made this bit of history compelling. 3. Criminal  - "Palace of Justice" The immense scale of World War II has the potential to congeal into one large bygone conflict in the minds of today's youth (including my own flirtations with the past). The Nuremberg Trials, like Paula Jones, were a thing I'd heard a lot about - and for the record I knew...

THE LIST 1. On The Media  -  "Twitch and Shout" When media outlets step outside their wheelhouse to cover content that is beloved and obsessed over by a community, even uninitiated spectators tend to collectively sigh and indulge in knowing, eye-rolling judgment about the failed attempt to decipher a hidden world. It's like the Facebook trial all over again, where learned professionals make fools of themselves as they betray their utter lack of knowledge of a given subject. While comparing On the Media to some provincial CBS affiliate's nightly news team would teeter on the brink of blasphemy, I certainly did not expect Bob and Brooke to cover the world of e-Sports. It's possible that my admittedly outsidery perspective is missing some glaring oversight here (and Bob does unfortunately utilize the label 'newbies' during the episode, squandering maybe the best opportunity WNYC has ever had to use 'n00bs' in a journalistic context). But gen...

THE LIST 1. Slow Burn  -  "Deal or No Deal" The critically acclaimed Slate podcast is back with it’s second season! This time around Leon Neyfakh will be taking us down the rabbit hole of the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings, and this first episode about Linda Tripp setting up Monica Lewinsky and the fallout thereafter was completely mesmerizing.  2. Radiolab  -  "Sex Ed" Kids say the darndest things, and Mississippi educators model condom application using a sock! The concluding (live) chapter in the Gonads miniseries from Molly Webster is equal parts mind boggling, hilarious and insightful. In other words, Radiolab at it’s best. 3. Criminal  -  "On the Run" White collar crime stories don’t inherently have the same dramatic appeal as crimes of passion populated with lurid details and unspeakable acts. But what if a white collar dude is actually a seriously subversive international criminal mastermind? You’ve got a plot for a criti...

THE LIST 1. This American Life  -  "ICE Capades" This episodes casts a broad and surprising picture of the infamous agency that continues to dominate headlines. There is definitely an emotional hook, natural for a story ostensibly about separating families, but the amount of nuance sets “ICE Capades” apart from the well-meaning cries to abolish the agency. Politics, human interest, and a longform journey into a multi-year scam preying on people backed into a corner..  2. The Anthropocene Reviewed  -  "Googling Strangers and Kentucky Bluegrass" Perhaps the most impactful chapter of the John Green-hosted podcast, this matchup of disparate forces in the human driven world lays bare an incredibly personal story from the author’s past. Each episode seamlessly imparts tidbits of universal human connection, but these two subjects are especially rife with commentary on what it means to be alive in our modern world. 3. Planet Money  -  "The Po...