FOT Forum
The Best Show on WFMU => Show Discussion => Topic started by: Spike on April 24, 2009, 09:41:15 AM
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The NPR shows Tom was complaining about are the ones I happen to like: Car Talk, Wait, Wait and Prairie Home Companion .
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Yes, Car Talk is so great! How can Tom not like Car Talk? What's better than two hilarious brothers making jokes and telling you how to fix your car?
I'm trying to sound sarcastic so that no one knows how serious I am.
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NPR is why iPods were invented. It's not even that good at the news.
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Jesse Thorpe had some interesting things to say about public radio's deficiencies (http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/04/jesse-thorn-on-the-future-of-radio-and-the-benefits-of-being-small/)... basically any listener under 50 is considered 'young' and most public radio programming is extremely expensive to produce. When I'm not listening to my iPod, NPR's my usual background noise, and I enjoy some shows like Only a Game, Radiolab and Studio 360, but since the individual stations don't want to take any risks, the format is getting stale, just like the rest of radio.
WFMU's Blog also has an amusing entry on 'Ten Things I Hate About NPR (http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/04/ten-things-i-hate-about-npr.html)'.
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I don't care for NPR programming all that much. I mainly listen to NPR for the jazz music, although, the jazz they play isn't that great either.
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I listen to it whenever I forget to bring cds with me and when I don't have satellite radio.
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Whenever I turn on my NPR station, a cloud of smug comes out of my AC and I have to pull my car over :(
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NPR is boring most times. I can stand car talk, and Prairie Home, but if there was ANY other sort of non news talk radio options I would probably listen to those. I use to listen to wait wait, but it all just sounds like the same episode over and over to me now.
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Car Talk is great. Why does Tom have to be so mean to these two nice old guys who have been helping people with their car problems for 30 years or however long they've been doing it?
Tom I love you buddy but you're wrong on this one.
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He must have received some bad legal representation from Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.
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Patton Oswalt's bit on NPR pretty much nailed my own feelings about it.
I feel like 99% of NPR is produced by and for 12 adjunct professors at a tiny liberal arts college in the woods of Vermont.
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Whenever I turn on my NPR station, a cloud of smug comes out of my AC and I have to pull my car over :(
This is precisely how I feel about NPR. "This American Life" and "A Prairie Home Companion," in particular, strike me as being ridiculously smug shows.
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While I think the Car Talk radio show sucks, the cartoon is great.
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Whenever I turn on my NPR station, a cloud of smug comes out of my AC and I have to pull my car over :(
This is precisely how I feel about NPR. "This American Life" and "A Prairie Home Companion," in particular, strike me as being ridiculously smug shows.
I forgot about This American Life. I think this show although sometimes it takes itself too seriously, is usually pretty good whenever it is on. Also there's a short story show that is pretty good most times.
RadioLab though, which is on some NPR stations is an awesome show which I highly recommend, although I usually just listen to the podcast.
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Some of you NPR detractors may get a kick out of The Onion article linked below.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/this_american_life_complete
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Some of you NPR detractors may get a kick out of The Onion article linked below.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/this_american_life_complete
That link is broken.
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Sorry. Here's a corrected (I hope) link.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/this_american_life_completes (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/this_american_life_completes)
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I think This American Life, RadioLab, and Studio 360 are all PRI shows. If that makes a difference
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Whenever I turn on my NPR station, a cloud of smug comes out of my AC and I have to pull my car over :(
This is precisely how I feel about NPR. "This American Life" and "A Prairie Home Companion," in particular, strike me as being ridiculously smug shows.
I'm mainly thinking about "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered." Those guys that play folk music on Saturday nights are alright.
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I would enjoy Car Talk if the one guy could tone down his grating nasal laugh.
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Whenever I turn on my NPR station, a cloud of smug comes out of my AC and I have to pull my car over :(
This is precisely how I feel about NPR. "This American Life" and "A Prairie Home Companion," in particular, strike me as being ridiculously smug shows.
I'm mainly thinking about "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered." Those guys that play folk music on Saturday nights are alright.
I've never heard "Talk of the Nation," but I actually don't think "All Things Considered" is all that bad. There's also a show on the NPR station here that plays Indian music that I enjoy.
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I like Car Talk.
Praire Home Companion is one of the worst things ever created.
This American Life is also incredibly bad, and they have what, seven contributors that are all buddies? It's like if the Decemberists ran a radio show. Makes me want to kill myself.
I think Warren Olney rules though. Is that the guy's name? To The Point is a great show.
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I think that a lot of the local NPR shows that I've heard are actually better than the nationally produced ones.
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I think that a lot of the local NPR shows that I've heard are actually better than the nationally produced ones.
Except not better than Car Talk. That show is really funny.
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I think that a lot of the local NPR shows that I've heard are actually better than the nationally produced ones.
Not mine, by a long shot. I listened to their pledge drive for a few minutes, and these goofballs were doing amateur PHC skits.
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This American Life is also incredibly bad, and they have what, seven contributors that are all buddies? It's like if the Decemberists ran a radio show. Makes me want to kill myself.
I like it, but diff't strokes, etc. Regardless of how you might feel about "whimsy", I think they've done some really fine military/war reporting in the last few years.
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No, Bryan, Diff'rent Strokes was on NBC, not NPR. But that's an easy mistake to make.
Whatchoo talkin' bout, Bryan?
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BBC World News is my jam. I also like On Point with Tom Ashbrook some of the time, except when Jane Clayson fills in. She has that horrible non-regional, fake-sounding news broadcaster voice that sounds so unnatural and it doesn't work well with On Point. Tell Me More is always good, but I usually forget it's on. My wife NPR much more than I do; I'd rather listen to music.
Overall, NPR = BORING
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Radiolab is fantastic
The best part about Wait Wait is the guests, who frequently turn out to be much funnier than you would have ever expected.
I unapologetically listen to All Songs Considered, and Live Concerts from All Songs Considered, just because you never know. The Leonard Cohen concert I listened to last night was very enjoyable, and I am looking forward to the Antony concert I will hear later today.
I say this all the time, but I once asked an online acquaintance named Gilmore a question, and his answer has stuck with me like glue now for over 15 years. (For Internet old-timers, Gilmore was responsible for one of the earliest "viral" websites. the Exploding Heads page, on which luminaries such as Rush Limbaugh and Ted Hanks talked and talked in cartoon panels, until their heads exploded a-la Scanners. It earned him a visit from the Secret Service, who, shockingly, turned out to be be friendly and even entertained by his page after they assessed that he was not a threat to anyone in the government.)
Anyway, Gilmore was a musician, and I once asked him "What do you hope for in music?" His response was "To be surprised by beauty." That resonated with me so strongly (and I will probably be thrown under the smug bus for using the word "resonated") that it's a big part of my personal music philosophy.
You can't be surprised by beauty if you don't occasionally listen to something you don't already know.
What was the topic? Will Tom PRETTY-PLEASE review Harry Shearer's music CD "Songs of the Bushmen"? That brings it back to topic, doesn't it? You know, the key to story-telling is the level of detail.
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It's funny because I'm listening to Car-Talk in the other room while I'm doing dishes. I seriously enjoy almost every NPR show. I'm really shocked that you all don't care for it. You guys don't like information delivered in a clever commercial free and sometimes folksy format? You don't like stories?
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I like Car Talk and I like it better than ALF!
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While I do tend to enjoy This American Life, I have been known to shut it off when the failed attempts to be witty get out of control. This, of course, is a small price to pay for the joy of hearing Friend Of The Show, John Hodgman, do a segment from time to time. Top notch.
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John Hodgeman was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me a week before he was on The Best Show. He made a perfect score on the segment "Not My Job" ensuring Carl Castle's voice on someone's home answering machine. Come and get on the nerd-train folks! Whoo-woo!
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I had a higher opinion of NPR before I started being able to listen to BBC/CBC/etc shows. CBC's Quirks and Quarks is a better science show than anything on NPR, and Radio 4's In Our Time is a better egghead show than anything on NPR. The BBC, as far as international coverage goes, is much better than NPR. They're not even in the same league. NPR has better coverage of DC. Big whoop.
My NPR name is Jodhn Mondovi.
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I think This American Life, RadioLab, and Studio 360 are all PRI shows. If that makes a difference
I was screaming this in my head while reading this thread. I'll save my comments on PRI shows for another thread.
I loved the Best Show commentary on the smug laughter of Wait, Wait's audience. I'd just started listening to that show again and I got excited when they talked about Twitter novels, but was deeply let down when there was no mention of FD. I'd love for Tom to be a panelist on that show.
Also, Terry Gross of Fresh Air is on somewhat of a hot streak. She's had a good month.
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One of the worst feelings ever:
Driving home from a weekend excursion that was maybe not as fun as you anticipated, or maybe just "over". You and your thoughts in a silent car. Eh.
What do you have to say for yourself radio? Scan-scan-scan: praise music. Scan-scan-scan: evangelical sermon. Scan-scan-scan: oh, hey, NPR. OK. Maybe, maybe... Wait; fuck. Praire Home Companion. Give it two seconds (maybe this time). No! All it took was that one moment of hope for the joyless washboard voice to wring your guts, rinsing out the memories of twenty other weekend-ends.
Bloop, radio OFF. But there you are, steeping in a silence of weak nostalgia and weekender traffic. Singularly alone in this life and destined to never have fun again.
I hate him/it so much. So much. He is a true Villain.
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One of the worst feelings ever:
Driving home from a weekend excursion that was maybe not as fun as you anticipated, or maybe just "over". You and your thoughts in a silent car. Eh.
What do you have to say for yourself radio? Scan-scan-scan: praise music. Scan-scan-scan: evangelical sermon. Scan-scan-scan: oh, hey, NPR. OK. Maybe, maybe... Wait; fuck. Praire Home Companion. Give it two seconds (maybe this time). No! All it took was that one moment of hope for the joyless washboard voice to wring your guts, rinsing out the memories of twenty other weekend-ends.
Bloop, radio OFF. But there you are, steeping in a silence of weak nostalgia and weekender traffic. Singularly alone in this life and destined to never have fun again.
I hate him/it so much. So much. He is a true Villain.
This is the saddest story I have ever heard. Possibly made sadder by the fact that I have had nearly the same experience.
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I like Car Talk and I like it better than ALF!
Harry Shearer hates Car Talk. Therefore, I hate Car Talk.
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BBC World News is my jam. I also like On Point with Tom Ashbrook some of the time, except when Jane Clayson fills in. She has that horrible non-regional, fake-sounding news broadcaster voice that sounds so unnatural and it doesn't work well with On Point. Tell Me More is always good, but I usually forget it's on.
I'm loving Tell Me More since I discovered it a while back. Michel Martin is a mighty fine broadcaster. I have the same problem: it's on my station literally in the middle of the afternoon, so whenever I catch the show, it's usually by accident.
Longtime Fresh Air fan too. And Prairie Home Companion, while it's kind of directed at people like my parents, well, it's hard for me to brook much criticism of it. My feeling about PHC is much like that of NPR in general. So listen up, haters: if you don't like it, don't listen.
Aren't there much better things for you to pick on, like Fox News or CNN, or any one of dozens of syndicated talk-show blatherfests? Or most of the crap spewing from commercial radio? Of course there are.
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Wait, I just re-read Trotskie's post above. Does Trotskie have a point? I think so. Umm... I've been on the road on a Saturday night only to realize there's nothing much on the radio besides Prairie Home Companion, which I'm not always completely thrilled about. But since I live in New York, there's always WFMU, or something else on NY public radio. But when I'm out in New Mexico or upstate New York? Probably nothing else worth listening to, so I'd choose silence. Sad indeed.
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What grates me is the pretention some of its listeners carry around. Like, listening to NPR puts them in a special club or something.
NPR is as mainstream as it gets. Morning Edition's audience is larger than the Today Show's, second to Rush Limbaugh. ATC isn't far behind. NPR is seeing major growth while radio is flatlining, and sure, they earned it. There are some really innovative people working there.
But please, NPR fans, dial it down a notch.
(Had to modify spelling of "pretention." Thanks, Karma, I get it.)
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NPR shows are incredibly hit and miss, with mostly miss.
But calling it smug? Ugh. Thats both the laziest criticism a person could make about NPR and the exact criticism that people would make of WFMU, The Best Show, it's fans, and the fans of many of the things that are Best Show and this board approved.
You have to take things on their merits and just because a show is conscious that its a smart show doesn't make it good or bad. Some of the smartypants shows are good and some aren't.
p.s. in 100% agreement about Prairie Home Companion. Its aggressively boring.
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This show Wire Tap. I know it's a PRI show, but it bugs me every time it comes on. Have you heard it?
Yeah, the schlemiel/schlemazel bit is tried and true, but this show is such a direct rip-off of the unique Scharpling and Wurster rapport, it sickens me. It's very much like two Ira Glass clones straight out of broadcast college just turned on The Best Show, said "Hey, we can do that", then got themselves a show on PRI. It is also (not surprisingly) smug beyond words.
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I haven't heard Wiretap for a while, but I used to love it. The one I'm thinking of is a CBC show hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, who is a TAL alumnus, and the show definitely has that vibe, but I never thought it came across like a S&W copycat - at least it didn't used to.
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You have to take things on their merits and just because a show is conscious that its a smart show doesn't make it good or bad. Some of the smartypants shows are good and some aren't.
Similarly some showypants are smart and some are not.
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Similarly some showypants are smart and some are not.
What now? Is this a spoonerism?
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An observation about the vagaries of fashion trends, perhaps?
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Fair enuf-- but doesn't Tom want Liz from Chicago to get him in there?
I say Tom doth protesth too much!
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I retract any negative statements about NPR. I think I just get burned out on it every once and a while. The RZA's on On Point right now. I think Tom Ashbrook's Friday round table should include Tom, Ted, PFT, Hodgman, and Wurster.
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This American Life, I really dig for the most part. Their "Giant Pools of Money" podcasts are the best, most accessible features on the causes of the global credit crisis that I've come across.
Going back through the backlog of podcasts and finally heard Patton on Fresh Air to talk about Big Fan. That's a great interview and he talks about TBSOWFMU as being inspiration --- Tom is a "Fringe Magnet" (this had to have been mentioned on other posts - so excuse any repetition...)
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I thought this was about New Port Richey. I am crestfallen.
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I retract any negative statements about NPR. I think I just get burned out on it every once and a while. The RZA's on On Point right now. I think Tom Ashbrook's Friday round table should include Tom, Ted, PFT, Hodgman, and Wurster.
If it wasn't for NPR, how would white septuagenarians find out about RZA? They wouldn't. I rest my case. Good day.*
*Quoting the late great antediluvian broadcaster, Paul Harvey
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Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.
This thread is making me angry.
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Except "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me", which I can't stand.
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Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.
This thread is making me angry.
Calm down. If I wrote a check to NPR, would that quell your rage?
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Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.
That just shows how shitty most radio is. I liked NPR more before podcasts made it largely obsolete. The best public radio shows I know of are In Our Time (BBC Radio 4), Global News (daily 1/2 hr. podcast of news from the BBC), Quirks and Quarks (CBC), and Philosopher's Zone and Lingua Franca (ABC). I actually get most of my news from listening to the audio edition (not the podcast, the actual full text of the magazine, read by actors) of the Economist.
NPR isn't bad, it's just that I don't really like most daily "news" shows that are mostly filler, predictable punditry, and vapid "important issues of the day" bloviation like you'll find on shows like Meet the Press.
I agree that This American Life's shows on economics are pretty good.
(Relatedly, the best TV news station is Al Jazeera, in my opinion. Mostly because when I rarely watch any TV news it's always a picture of someone's head, talking. Why does that need to be a TV show? Al Jazeera shows more actual footage. I basically agree with this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/al-jazeera)
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95% was an exaggeration... There is a lot of good non-commercial radio on the FM band below 92.0. I lump it all together as "public radio".
But seriously, don't beat up on the stuff that is way, way better than the bad shit on the radio.
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(Relatedly, the best TV news station is Al Jazeera, in my opinion. Mostly because when I rarely watch any TV news it's always a picture of someone's head, talking. Why does that need to be a TV show? Al Jazeera shows more actual footage. I basically agree with this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/al-jazeera)
That's an interesting article, but I really don't get his point of view at the end, where he talks about the flaws of BBC, CNN and Fox News, then says:
Thus, we are left with the insidious despotism of Al Jazeera: and it is despotism, because we have really no other serious news channel to turn to.
[...]
Because its cause is that of the weak and the oppressed, it sees itself as always in the right, regardless of the complexity of the issues, and therein lies its power of oppression.
So: Al-Jazeera is despotic because its competition is shitty, and it's a powerful oppressor because it takes the cause of the weak and oppressed. Huh? Either the author needs to think a little harder about this stuff or I do.
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I wouldn't think too hard about it, as the author is a known loon. I just took him to be saying that "Al Jazeera is very influential because it's very good, but it's dangerous that it has no serious competition in many parts of the world, because it's very sure of its positions." I'd agree that there needs to be another global, non-western news source.
I like it, not because of any editorial slant, but because it covers parts of the world ignored even by the BBC, and because it actually shows a lot of pictures of the world, instead of one talking head after the other. (I don't know why cable news even has to be on TV. They don't take advantage of it, and just show old people in boring clothes talking all the time.)
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I wouldn't think too hard about it, as the author is a known loon. I just took him to be saying that "Al Jazeera is very influential because it's very good, but it's dangerous that it has no serious competition in many parts of the world, because it's very sure of its positions." I'd agree that there needs to be another global, non-western news source.
Thanks - that's much more clear.
I think CNN is actually worse when they try to be more visually exciting - holograms, electoral maps, proto-fascist graphic effects... I dunno if it's the medium itself, but I think news on tv is almost always terrible. I like the radio for news. CBC's As It Happens is pretty good. It's done magazine-style, with lengthy interviews, but it succumbs to the vile folksiness that infects almost all of CBC's programming.
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I agree that news commentators need more interesting clothes.
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I like the radio and print for substantive news, but then I'll see something on TV, like video from a small village somewhere, that is so much more interesting than radio's usual "play some ambient sounds and a few seconds of untranslated speech" routine. I also like travel shows.
Newscasters should wear clothes like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkT54BetFBI
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My vision of Hell is having all of my limbs restrained while Ira Glass reads aloud from the Huffington Post archives - FOREVER.
Or, Michelle Malkin reading from anything for any length of time.
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I heard maybe 14 seconds of Prairie Home Companion yesterday and felt like driving my car into a ditch or something.
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I heard maybe 14 seconds of Prairie Home Companion yesterday and felt like driving my car into a ditch or something.
You mean you didn't find Guy Noir highlarious?
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Did Al Jazeera ever win his Quixotic races for public office in New York? He was great as Grandpa Munster.
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Did Al Jazeera ever win his Quixotic races for public office in New York? He was great as Grandpa Munster.
Ahem. That's Dr. Al Jazeera to you.
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I unfortunately missed Tom's rant but the sound and tone of Garrison Kellior's voice actually makes me physically ill and I'm not exaggerating..
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I know what you mean, actually...I can hear every lip smack and salival bubble when he talks. If he were to have a discussion with Click and Clack the world might collapse in on itself.
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I know what you mean, actually...I can hear every lip smack and salival bubble when he talks. If he were to have a discussion with Click and Clack the world might collapse in on itself.
That would be a lot of phlegm.
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I know what you mean, actually...I can hear every lip smack and salival bubble when he talks. If he were to have a discussion with Click and Clack the world might collapse in on itself.
That would be a lot of phlegm.
It might not be so bad, since Keillor's dumb stories would be drowned out by Click and Clack laughing themselves silly at everything the other one said.
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I know what you mean, actually...I can hear every lip smack and salival bubble when he talks. If he were to have a discussion with Click and Clack the world might collapse in on itself.
That would be a lot of phlegm.
It might not be so bad, since Keillor's dumb stories would be drowned out by Click and Clack laughing themselves silly at everything the other one said.
All served on a fluffy cushion of This American Life bed music. Any track from a Boards of Canada album would do it.
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tom's impression of ira glass throwing a tantrum at an intern is one of my most cherished moments of the best show.