This American Life

Last week on my morning walk and drives into and out of Washington, DC, I found myself unimpressed with what passes for radio anymore. I tried to listen to my old standby, sports radio on the WTEM and found local hack Steve Czaban engrossed in golf naval gazing and 80’s musical mash-ups—this just days before the NFL draft. I quickly switched to the Tony Kornheiser show. As long as you are entertained by his endless yammerings on American Idol or his grossly out of touch take on the world, politics, bloggers, the environment and life in general then it’s really good listening. Otherwise, Mr. Tony’s show jumped the shark ages ago.

So, I turned off my radio, turned on my computer, fired up iTunes and found some real radio programming. I fully understand that I am way behind the curve on this. Something as good as “This American Life“ cannot possibly be a secret to most people. I downloaded and have listened to three of these shows and will probably never again listen to Kornheiser or Czaban. The first thing that struck me about these programs is the quality of the program; the subject matter is often quirky but always approachable, the style of storytelling is totally engaging and the production values are really excellent. In short, they are a pleasure to listen to. The “Image Makers” program on the Michigan State library system’s re-branding effort is absolutely hysterical, clever, educational and one of the best things I’ve listened to in a long, long time. Farewell, Steve, vio con dios Tony and AMF. Do yourself a favor and check out This American Life on iTunes. For the cost of your Starbucks morning fill up, you can get some interesting, thought-provoking listening material. I can’t recommend TAL enough!