The Sounds in My Head

Season 21 Episode 7 SPECIAL "SYNTHSTRAMENTAL" … "INSTRUSYNTHAL?" EPISODE!

Season 21 Episode 6 This episode features some edited down clips of Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on Radio X talking to John Kennedy about the origins of the two songs I played in the episode. The Paul Simon documentary I mentioned is called In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon by Alex Gibney.

Season 21 Episode 5 This episode features a clip from the Blocked and Reported podcast with Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal talk about the confusing shake out on who supports which side in the Israeli vs Palestinian/Hamas war. Also, Benjamin of @holylandspeaks opines about the fixation on Palestinian suffering by people who completely ignore Ukrainian or other suffering.

Season 21 Episode 4 This episode features a condensed clip from The Big Conversation podcast where Alex O’Connor talks about how religious people try to give take credit for the progress made at dismantling all of the awful stuff their religious traditions got wrong historically. Also, a clip from Christmas Vacation about Ruby Sue.

SPECIAL “ALL WOMEN” EPISODE! This episode features a clip of Julia Steinberg's testimony in front of Congress on November 9, where she talks about the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and its modern roots in the conflict theory of the oppressor vs. oppressed.

Season 20 Episode 10 This episode features an edited-down “41 Lessons from My 41 Years” list presented by Nate B. Jones on TikTok. It was too long to include the whole thing, but I really don’t disagree with any of his list. This kinda thing easily veers too far into trite, but there can be a lot of truth in well-composed bumper stickers, and I think Nate hits them all well.

Season 20 Episode 9 This episode features a clip of a CNN Town Hall where former NJ governor and Trump lackey Chris Christie recounts how Trump gave him COVID, which very nearly killed him, then lied about it, naturally.

Season 20 Episode 8 This episode features a clip from a recent episode of Sam Harris’ podcast Making Sense, where he talks about the incomprehensible waste of collective attention the human race has wasted on about the least important human to ever be born. I didn’t include much of it, when he gets into a media analysis and so on, but I’m 100% with him on all of it.

Season 20 Episode 7: Special “Music from Soundtracks” Episode! Asteroid City 1. Last Train to San Fernando - Johnny Duncan 2. Freight Train - Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group Poker Face 3. Charlie's Theme - Pellea 4. Six Foot Down - Gene Ski 5. Blues Run the Game - Jackson C. Frank John Denver: Country Boy 6. Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver The Worst Person in the World 7. Waters of March - Art Garfunkel One More Time 8. Yours to Keep (acoustic version) - Myie Rogue Agent 9. Just Like Heaven - Hannah Peel Cold Feet 10. Just Like Honey - Hannah Peel Fleishman is in Trouble 11. Wise Up - Aimee Mann Little America 12. Come On Home - The Lijadu Sisters Lord of War 13. Mama Africa - Young Bakuba Band Masters of Sex 14. You Don’t Know Me - Lizzy Caplan This episode features a clip from NPR’s Fresh Air where film critic Justin Chang reviews Asteroid City, and also a brief clip where Taffy Nivert talks about the origin of Take Me Home, Country Roads from John Denver: Country Boy.

Season 20 Episode 4 - SPECIAL “MUSIC IN FRENCH!” EPISODE! This episode features a clip from Jim Gaffigan’s album Quality Time about eating French Cheese, as well as a very old Louis CK bit about being approached in NYC by a French guy who needs directions. Light, but relatively topical fare for this episode. heh.

Season 20 Episode 3 This episode features a brief clip from FOX’s The Family Guy which made me LOL, and a TikTok by @philjamesson about his incredibly successful social media empire.

Season 20 Episode 2 This episode features a clip from the new podcast The Urbanist Agenda from Jason of the great Not Just Bikes. His co-host for the inaugural episode was Adam Something who shows off his pitch-perfect Slavoj Žižek impression as they talk about living in human-friendly cities.

Season 20 Episode 1 This episode features a clip from Marc Maron’s latest HBO comedy special, From Bleak to Dark, where he outlines a strategy to win over Christians by rebranding abortion clinics as “angel factories”. It may be a joke, but I think the plan could be just crazy enough to work. Mental note: From now on, always refer to Planned Parenthood and their ilk as angel factories.

SEASON 19 FINALE! This episode features a clip from the podcast The War On Cars where guest, prominent sex columnist Dan Savage, talks about how terrible cars are, and how livable streets activists can win people over to our side. It was a fun interview, and while I’ve always enjoyed his media appearances, but prior to this interview I never knew he was a kindred spirit with regard to this topic.

SPECIAL "CHRISTMAS MUSIC 2022" EPISODE! This episode features a bulletin from Sveriges Radio’s daily English language news podcast about how shop workers in Sweden’s largest trade union think Christmas music poses a health and safety risk. MY APOLOGIES if this episode is triggering for any listeners.

This episode features a clip from a terrific interview with Yuval Noah Harari on by Sean Illing on his Vox podcast The Grey Area. After Ezra Klein went to the NYT Vox slowly auditioned other people to fill the gap, renaming The Ezra Klein Show first to The Conversation with different hosts, of which Sean was by far and away the best, and they eventually gave him the feed and renamed it The Grey Area. I just never unsubscribed. Ezra is awesome, but I like the NYT incarnation of his show less than the old version, and I think The Grey Area is usually more interesting than EKS these days.

This episode features an extended series of clips stitched together from a recent episode of Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast where Sam talks to subject matter expert Timothy Snyder about Russia’s war on Ukraine and he systematically knocks down bad take after bad take from the "do your own research" wing of the Twitterverse.

This episode features a clip from Coleman Hughes’ podcast Conversations with Coleman where music critic and historian Ted Gioia talks about where musical innovation comes from and the pattern of things from the fringe becoming mainstream.

This episode features a clip from Channel 4 News' report on the truck bombing of Russia’s bridge connecting illegally annexed Crimea in Ukraine to the Russian mainland. The latest in a long series of colossal embarrassments for Putin.

This episode features a clip from The Michael Shermer Show where Michael talks to British satirist and commentator Andrew Doyle about the adoption by progressives of trans activist’s world-view, and how folly and unprogressive he predicts history will judge that to be. Call me a “TERF”, but I tend to agree, and I hope saying so doesn’t mean I lose a bunch of friends. Also, I’m personally more concerned with the elimination of sex-separated spaces for women and girls, as well as social contagion among teenage girls leading to irreversible medical interventions for them, than I am about gay boys, but ya know, yeah them too.