the end of the slate culture gabfest

So, I don't really know why this has happened but the Slate Culture Gabfest has come to an end, apparently without acrimony amongst the three hosts who have been doing it for 18 years but also, apparently, in a rather rushed decision (and presumably no will on the part of Slate to experiment with a new team, for instance, though they have had plenty of fill-ins over time, in a way that made me wonder whether they were planning a personnel transition). 

Insert generic nameplate here. Oh, I just did! 

My response when they announced the death of the show, a few weeks ago, was typical denial - I just stopped listening! So there are a couple of recent eps I haven't heard, and that is after loyal listenership since at least 2013, surely earlier. But if they have been tired or uninspired, the team of Steve, Dana and Julia absolutely haven't shown it. The program is as fresh now as ever, IMO. I have long really enjoyed it.

A listener phoned in to say that one of the things they really liked about the Culture Gabfest was that it showed how to educate/enlighten without talking down to someone, and that's really true. I wonder if I can say that the CG has changed my approach in any way. It may have. It's been a bit of a beacon, and certainly most of the things discussed have not really been in my wheelhouse (though more than the films usually talked about in the Filmcast, about which I could not give two shits) but I have enjoyed the way they've been analysed. 

Now, my only Slate podcast is the Political Gabfest (there are other podcasts and they're good but it's impossible to get them on my phone). I think it's time to give up on Slate, cuz the whole thing is a subscription headache every year and it's too American for me, overall. Lots of American things are. 

things i like right now

I have been hoeing a few disparate rows at the moment, in-between doing my tax and occasionally playing the Our Daughter's Wedding album and walking Perry. I finally got into the show known everywhere but Indonesia and Australia as The Morning Show but here in Australia as Morning Wars, I assume because there's already a show called The Morning Show in Australia but I don't know, I should check. I have to say that the first season is really well done, and the acting is rad. The second season is a bit 'difficult second album' but still has its high points. Good intelligent use of music. Billy Crudup operates an incredible character who quite often doesn't talk but the camera lingers on his face and he communicates anyway. Right now I'm watching episodes with Valeria Golino who I think is also really tremendous. 

I think I have mentioned in the past that I enjoy Giles Brandreth's podcast Rosebud and just this morning I was listening to the Bjorn (a man so famous you just know who I'm talking about) episode. Bjorn is a little understated but it's still a really good interview (probably a bad idea to do it in front of an audience, but sure). (Possibly Bjorn insisted on that on the basis that it underlined the charity aspect of the program). 

My current podcasts are: Handsome, Slate Culture Gabfest, Slate Political Gabfest, usually WTF but not always, Blank Check except when I couldn't give a loose root about the director/films, Dave O'Neil's The Debrief, If Books Could Kill, Sizzletown, You're Wrong About... that's about it atm. Well it's not but no doubt when I remember the others I can add them in and remove this sentence. When possible, I subscribe to the podcasts in question (btw aside from apple tv, most of the streaming services I have typically had at my fingertips are unavailable to me all as a result of some cunt hacking my credit card and diverting funds to Barcelona and I cbf putting in the new details). 

The Debrief is really a case of a great show made from the rump of someone's day - Dave O'Neil drives to and from the absurdly diverse shows he plays in different parts of the country with the other comedians he's on the bill with and he kind of workshops the process before and after. So simple, so straightforward. A lot of fun. 

I have about ten novels on the go and I really should call a moratorium and finish them off. I know - I'll put them all in a list and then do it. 

toddle along

I was listening to a group gripe on the Slate Culture Gabfest which by the way I have listened to every week for possibly ten years now and it has really informed my worldview* and they were griping about the terminology/underpinnings of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and apparently Todd is going to be inducted along with Tina Turner, the Go-Gos (I bet the Bangles are really pissed off) and Carole King, and Todd was not dismissed exactly but categorised as 'rock of course' the implication that this was one of the old school people who you'd expect to have been inducted any year.

I don't feel dudgeon or anything on his behalf and I am sure he can take care of himself but he is a lot more iconoclastic than 'rock' and I'm pretty sure that anyone who categorised TR as 'rock' just doesn't really know/care what he does. Certainly he has committed many crimes in the realm of rock the most heinous of which in my book is producing Bat out of Hell though the one thing I will say in his defence there is that apparently he thought the whole thing was a Springsteen parody. Since I don't 'get' Springsteen I suppose it makes sense that I don't therefore 'get' Meat Loaf except insofar as that record makes me feel about as queasy as real meatloaf. Anyway - TR's actual output tends not to be rock, is my point, or at least it's at least as often other styles and genres (most of the time in the last ten years he's been putting out dance records, of some variety) and hearing him described/dismissed as 'rock' makes me want to pull out a bunch of his less rock records and not only that but also to play them while I make corrections to an article I first wrote about a decade ago and which possibly might even just see the light of day next year. A nation exhales lol. 

*Fascinated to hear them not pronounce ABBA the way most Americans often seem to, with the a sounds as in Java or guava or lava but to rhyme with the 'abbas' in yabba dabba doo. I had a feeling there might have been a chat beforehand just to get everyone on track there and that they went through a few minutes of getting the members' names right, too, which they didn't really, not that I could do better.