“Which podcasts should I listen to?”
I’m asked this question fairly frequently. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering that I got deeply involved in on-demand audio and then launched podcasting for a global news media organization ten years ago when the whole thing was nascent.
Still, recommending a good listen (as in the equivalent of a good read) has not been easy to toss off. After so many years of listening and producing not much is all that fresh to me anymore: whether in the approach, the content, or the execution. As I am a fan of really interesting people and conversationalists and in-depth discussion of ideas and philosophies more than a devotee of the shows on which such people and topics may appear, I have to dig down — and sometimes back — to find something that truly resonates.
Such is the case with Dan Carlin’s Common Sense: a one-man podcast that’s been around since 2005. In that time he’s amassed a few hundred episodes and covered some weighty topics — with passion and a commanding oratory. Carlin is skeptical, forthright, sharp, learned, and — despite his self-assured manner — not given to posturing or platitudes or easy solutions. He is also non-partisan in his politics.
And, importantly for podcasting, he is highly entertaining with a real flair for engrossing storytelling. You can’t take the title too literally — his is a skeptic’s approach to politics and history — however it’s likely you’ll immediately realize that very few people have the ability to connect with and build an enthusiastic audience on such arguably unsexy albeit fundamental subjects. For these reasons I can heartily recommend that you invest your time and (if I may say) sensibility to give him a listen.
A recent show from March 31st — #303: The Way You Play The Game Redux — addresses Donald Trump. This episode’s description reads:
“It’s not easy to get under Dan’s normally flexible, see-things-from-multiple-angles skin, but Donald Trump’s stated willingness to cross traditional American moral fault lines has done just that.”
Considering Elizabeth Warren’s current statements about Trump now that he is the de facto Republican nominee for the coming election, this essay-out-loud by Carlin couldn’t come at a better time.
Download it and listen on a walk, during your commute, or cruising around in your car. Carlin is not a player or grandstander like O’Reilly or Beck and their ilk, or a run-and-gun loon like Alex Jones, nor is he the MSNBC-styled, “liberal media” watchdog that some might try to pin on him. Dan Carlin is certainly something else you won’t find in the corporate news media.
