MY NEW PROFESSORS 

I really enjoyed my college experience overall both undergrad and graduate; the latter being a lot more work.  But being out of college now for six years I have come to miss the college courses and lectures that I found extremely interesting at the time.  I wish I could audit some history or English courses for fun, but time and money makes this difficult.  Instead to fill this desire I have become a fan of listening to podcast, which allows me to hear folks lecture on varying subjects that matter to them.  Here are my three favorite podcast in no specific order.  It would be difficult to rate them, because I feel their subject matter differs very much and they all speak to different parts of me.

1: SModcast    ( http://smodcast.com/channels/smodcast/)

Of all three shows this is the most recent one I have gotten into.  It started in 2007 and is hosted by director Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, his long-time producing partner.  I have been a big fan of Smith and enjoy his films such as Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma.  However, when I first saw “An Evening with Kevin Smith,” I became a much bigger fan of the man himself.  In this special he went to different universities and spoke about his hilarious adventures from New Jersey to Hollywood.  Smith is very funny and comes off as still being down to Earth, even after his fame.  The weekly podcast are him and Mosier, who is also funny, talking about random stuff from the films they are working on to crazy beavers in Canada.  He does swear quite a bit and maybe at time a little too raunchy for my liking.  Overall, I enjoy listening to these dudes banter and they also inspire me since they both created a low budget film and found success and still hold on to these DYI beliefs.

2: On Being (http://onbeing.org/ ) 

On Being with Krista Tippett, was formerly known as Speaking of Faith, started on Minnesota Public Radio back in 2001 and then aired on NPR in 2003.  Each week Tippett speaks with different public figures, who talk about a range of topics from civil rights to poetry, but they all touch on religion and spiritual beliefs people share about the world.  I really enjoy listening to this one on walks outside; because she her guest tend to speak about this world we live in and remind me that I am part of this world and all its mysteries.  Some of the guests on the show I recognized their names, such as the Dali Lama, Eve Ensler, and Phil Donahue (one of my favorite episodes); but the majority of the guest I have never heard of.  Almost every time I listen to this show I find the conversations very interesting and talking about subject matter I wish we could discuss more in everyday life.  Even if you feel that you do not prescribe to an official religion or are atheist, you can still gain some good insight in this show.   

3: This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ )

About a few years back I saw Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, talk at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  When the program started they turned the lights completely off and we sat in the pitch dark when Ira started talking to the audience and it felt like you were listening to him on the radio than him actually being  right across the room.  This was probably the first podcast that I started listening to on my I-pod.  The show started in 1997 and I just learned was originally titled, Your Radio Playhouse.  When I am listening to SModcast I expect that I will be laughing and when listening to On Being that I expect to explore some cultural concepts.  However, when listening to This American Life, I tend to find myself laughing and being touched about the varying topics that the show offers.  The hour long show has some kind of main topic and then there are usual three to four acts that deal with that particular topic.  For instants, there was an episode where they hung outside a rest stop and had conversations with the different visitors on their ways to various destinations.  The show can take ordinary events and make them interesting to us the listeners.  It was on this show that I first heard the “SantaLand Diaries” an essay by David Sedaris, in which he reads on the radio about his humorous account of being a Christmas elf at Macy’s department store, so for this one episode I will be in debt to this show forever.