Tribute to discontinued Podcasts

I've subscribed to a lot of podcasts over the last 3 years via iTunes. I feel like I got in on the early stages of the form. There was a time when people were making their own, and it had a very non-commercial individual peer-to-peer feel to it. While I've listened to quite a few podcasts that were not well thought-out, well researched, or well rehearsed, I've also lucked into many that were excellent, and some of those were discontinued. This posting is a review of some of the best of those podcasts.

One of the more notable accomplishments was a high school student named George Hageman. He did a podcast called Military History Podcast. There were 120 episodes in July 2008 when he announced that he graduated High School and would be going to Harvard, so he was discontinuing the podcast. George also posted all of his podcasts on a blog at http://www.militaryhistorypodcast.blogspot.com/. The one cool thing that I learned about George was that his grandfathers fought in WWII on opposite sides, one being Japanese. I wrote to him once and suggested that he do a podcast on General Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Civil War, and he wrote back, but did not do the podcast. I can appreciate it, I know he did scripts that were submitted to him, but even so, he put out about one a week for at least a couple of years through High School, which is quite a feat. You just know this guy is going to pop up as an author one day, with that much energy to burn.

Another favorite podcast was Brain Food by Kyle Butler. Kyle was a Canadian college student, studying engineering. He actually was a guest on the Naked Scientist Podcast, by the Journal Nature in the UK, answering a question about the amount of fuel soccer fans were wasting through extra drag by flying flags on their cars. Kyle had a great way of explaining things, and it would be great if he got his own television show some day, making science and engineering fun for the masses. He had a girlfriend that he popped the question to and they graduated and got married at some point, and the podcast just stopped.

One of the funniest podcasts I ever stumbled on was Logically Critical by some guy that never did give his name. He put out these diatribes for about a year and a half, and then begged off due to time constraints. His website is www.logicallycritical.net, which is still up as of the writing of this posting. He claimed that he would break issues down logically without extensive research. He had hilarious sound effects and lots of spot-on information that sounded off the cuff. Several of his episodes were about religion, which he claimed he wasn't attacking, but that it wasn't very logical. Some of his "Wacky Bible Stories" were hilarious. All he did was paraphrase sections of the Old Testament, and that was funny enough. He did great voices and sound effects. I got the impression that this guy didn't finish college and worked hard, possibly in a blue collar job, but was a lot smarter than he was "on paper". It sounds like he was capable of whatever he put his mind to, but didn't buy into bullshit organizational structures.

Another great podcast was the President's Weekly Radio Address. This was a spot-on parody of the actual President's weekly radio address done by the folks that produce The Onion newspaper and podcasts. The problem with this podcast was that they didn't even have to change Bush's words much, or make up anything to make him look like an idiot. I think they got discouraged and depressed because the podcast was too close to reality. It also wasn't changing anything. Making fun of Bush wasn't causing anyone to rally around the cry of "Our President is an Idiot!" So they shut the podcast down around the time that gas prices maxed out and during the maximum period of hopelessness in Iraq, just before the surge got underway. Whoever read the podcast had Bush's voice down pat.

There was a political podcast called CallBox 7 which was put on by Daniel Brewer out of Florida. He was an IT type guy, so he really had the editing down cold. He spoke openly about being gay and considered himself not a liberal, but a progressive. He was pointing out some very on the mark flaws with politics in this country and I was writing in to him from time to time (I actually got read on his podcast a couple of times, which was pretty fun). The problem was that Daniel did such a professional job that trying to keep up with a weekly podcast was killing his social life. So he took on a co-host, I think with the intention of splitting the load and not having to work as hard, but it ended up still being the same amount of work, but now with this other guy plugged in. Will Radik was from San Francisco, and they did it via a Skype connection, I think. I liked Will, but Daniel & Will had such different styles that it completely changed the character of the podcast. It wasn't better or worse, just less focused. Will was like the lighthearted comic relief to Daniel's laser beam rage at the machine. I left the podcast on iTunes and noticed that Daniel started podcasting again around the time of the conventions. The most recent format involved 3 guests that watched the first Presidential Debate together and then commented on it. It's always fun to listen to a Daniel Brewer podcast in whatever format it's in.

The last podcast I wanted to mention is Strong Bad Email. This is the only video podcast I'm mentioning here, and since I have always had iPod Shuffles (no video), I don't do too many video. Now this is basically a cartoon, but it's pretty creative and funny. My nephews and cousins like it, from ages 8 to 16, so it plays on two levels, funny for kids and funny for adults (similar to Toy Story movies or Bugs Bunny cartoons). This podcast stopped for a long time and recently started back up again, but it doesn't have the feel of something that will last, only because it looks like it would take a lot of effort and time and podcasters typically don't get paid for their efforts.

While many podcasts are produced by the BBC, Slate, NPR, Nature, Scientific American, or Science (big established organizations with large staffs), there is something to be said for individuals making their own podcasts. A definite democratization of broadcasting that gives you all kinds of viewpoints, unfiltered and un(self-)censored by any corporate masters. Long live the free voice of independent podcasters!