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. 

i'm turning into a cuban

AT LAST! Thrown on my own freakin' resources, and to a certain extent forced to use some of those muscles that were possibly always dormant or at least unused for a long time. 

I realised a few weeks ago that I had misplaced, or possibly comprehensively lost, my 'ear buds' (I grimace at that phrase but I guess that's what they're called). I actually went to JB last weekend to buy some new ones because - fuck it, right? But I forgot, JB is freakin' closed, like everything except, you know, BWS. On searching the drawer of batteries and weird ephemeral electrical/audio cords I maintain, in the hope of finding some more ear buds (ugh) I found that I had some bluetooth ones, that were probably once given to me as part of some package or other of nonsense with a new phone. GREAT, WHAT ARE THEY. They came with no instructions but I have finally learnt, after twenty years, that you can usually google shit. So I squinted and strained (they're tiny) and found out the make and model and looked it up. As usual, the instructions were available, but written by a piece of shit with no capacity to communicate, certainly not to me, and possibly not to anyone. I certainly couldn't see how on earth, having charged these ugly things, you then turn them on. There was no off-on switch, labelled anywhere in the exploded diagram (not that exploded really, they're too simple to explode, do you break a butterfly on a wheel?) and just no indication of how this is done. I got really frustrated and felt like I was being taunted. To be honest on the one hand this is what it's like feeling old, but also, I have always felt like capitalism was only filling 85% percent of its part of the deal and that 15% was crucial. So, the instructions said you had to separate the bud backs to turn them on. What the actual fuck, I took out my corn cob pipe and croaked through my whiskers, is that supposed to mean? It literally does not make sense. The 'buds' are already separate, if joined by a thin cord. It took about three days of trying, giving up, and coming back to the thing to try and figure it out. Ultimately, I reasoned that to separate the bud backs one would first have to put them together. So I did, back to back, and realised they were magnetic. Why? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. You can put them together, and they join together, then you separate them, and suddenly the fucking thing is pairing with your device, and you can go out and listen to the Slate Political Gabfest, or spotify's fucked up suggestions for what you would be satisfied with in place of what you really want to hear, while you're doing it. Bloody nora. 

OK so in fact I'm actually glad that I was forced to use something I had, rather than hold onto it for a decade and finally throw it away or toss it in a brotherhood bin or something. This could catch on.