This weekend, the one podcast I have religiously listen to since…I can’t remember. Let’s just say when iTunes (now divided into Music and Podcasts) first added the ability to subscribe to podcasts. Checking the Internet, iTunes 4.9 which was about July 1, 2005. No. I think I stumbled upon OTM in that medium at least a year later because I first heard it via KUT on Saturday mornings, 9 AM Central when the show was permanently added on June 2, 2005. Given the irregularity of my work shifts, I probably missed it often and I don’t think KUT would do a rebroadcast on Sundays for a while. When OTM did make the jump to include a podcast, I’ve never missed a week…I’ll give it plenty of error and hang my hat on the beginning of 2007 when iTunes offered it. This worked out pretty well in the modern format because I worked Saturdays until I was promoted in 2009.
However, my relationship with the show was off to a rocky start when its debut on KUT featured this load-of-crap story. The truth is, Parker and Stone are really typical, wealthy douchebags who believe in whatever is convenient to their tax bracket. They’re very similar to the founders of Reason or PJ O’Rourke, Hippies who suddenly got rich and then decided they don’t want to pay taxes. Walt Disney was the same kind of asshole when his animators unionized. Nevertheless, I wrote a polite e-mail to OTM saying, good luck staying on the air by giving right-wing pricks oxygen to push their views during the Bush Restoration. And until they collapsed, they seemed to have a hard-on against Air America, the short-lived Left-Wing based radio network; its’ sad legacy was giving the fact-impaired Rachel Maddow a career.
Despite being annoyed and unimpressed that Saturday morning, Brooke and Bob along with the numerous producers kept my attention by focusing on all forms of Communication be it political, technical or historical. They tapped into what I went to university for. They’ve turned me on to new authors which have been reviewed on my site. They’ve gotten to me to rethink certain movies. They’ve had unusual guests I never thought’d bother with: Marc Maron (twice), the gang at Rifftrax (love ya’ Kevin, Mike and Bill); people who were a waste of time: Glenn Beck, anyone who works at Reason magazine and the guy who went to prison for the revenge-porn site. They brought up how the Madden videogame influenced a new generation of college/pro quarterbacks with plays that were never formulated by previous coaches.
Years ago, they foolishly bothered to have message boards. One thing you don’t want to finance if you’re NPR is free place for people call each other names. Oddly, they read my comment criticizing an interview they did with Sci-Fi writer Jerry Pournelle; he’s dead now and anyone familiar with his work will know, he and his frequent partner, Larry Niven, hate democracy. I was thrilled! I even let them go on mispronouncing my surname (I did give Bartleby instructions).
When Orange Foolius was made president, they had a post mortem show comprised of just Bob, Brooke and their main executive producer Katya. It wasn’t so much a mea culpa on getting the outcome wrong, they had an argument about which direction should they go (how I understood it). Especially being New Yorkers, they already knew how much this asshole hated the Media for pointing out his hundreds upon hundreds of lies.
Sadly, the show has been getting gradually shorter by a minute every few years since commercial free (my ass) public radio is squeezing in more underwriting and sponsorship plugs…which are commercials. They’ve also lost their focus on the World of Communication. There are too many long-ass pieces in the last 20 minutes I just stop with because they’re not terribly interesting, they’re axe-grinding tirades about how White People ruined the world (even as a Leftist, the people of color bitching is getting old) or some intern’s boring-ass pet project involving (c)rap music. I do hope they keep plugging away. Disagreements and all. I also hope WNYC, the show’s home, have successors in training as Brooke and Bob are getting on in years. The more important concern, is getting On The Media back on to its main point: the stories behind journalism and communication be it print (dying), broadcast (dying), cable (dying), streaming, podcasts, video games, movies, so on and so forth.
Maybe when the show turns 30, it will just be injected into our brains. By then, Disney will probably own everything, including PBS and NPR.