COIN-OP MEMORIES PART 2

Back for more. Part 1 ( I'm not going to link it as you would miss the sweet Herpes post below ) whet your appetite about some classic arcade gaming. Well I have carried on my trawl through the arcade classics I remember and picked out more of my favourites that are worthy of a go still to this day. Lets get down to it.

Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja (1988)

One of those games that every arcade had, also one of those games that everyone had at home as it was ported to nearly every home computer going. Despite being easier on the home versions it still gave you a little more edge over the competition when it came down to playing it in public.
The game had you attempting to rescue President Ronny ( Reagan ) from the DragonNinja. You constantly get asked if your a bad enough dude to take on the job despite your character proclaiming he's "bad" after every stage. They ain't even satisfied when you beat the shit out of waves and waves of enemy ninjas, dogs, ladies in bondage gear and various boss characters.

Once you manage to defeat the the evil DragonNinja, you get this pretty sweet ending......

Lucky & Wild (1992)

This was the coolest game when I was a kid. For those of us that grew up watching Lethal Weapon, Starsky & Hutch and Tango & Cash, this was the only way to live out those fantasies. It wasn't a very popular machine due to the size it required, but you had hit gold if any amusement had it. First off, check the machine......

That's right! Driving as well as shooting! With two guns! It might be a common thing these days but back in the late 80's/early 90's, only Chase HQ had the police chase, shooting and driving angle really nailed. Lucky & Wild allowed you and a buddy to be cops chasing down and shooting the shit out of everything on screen.
Check the video.............

Mute the sound as its pretty annoying listening to some bozo talking through it.

Pretty sweet looking eh? The attraction of it was the absolute chaos it seemed to involve. You drove through malls and restaurants while blasting bad guys apart! At its heart it was a standard rail shooter, to my young mind it was the nearest I would ever get to being involved in high speed shoot-outs.

Hot bitches 

Plus sweet chase music

I am pretty sure this is the king of my mispent, childhood, arcade loitering.

Vendetta (1991)

At one point in time, any urban set, revenge themed beat em up wouldn't have been taken seriously if it didn't have the title screen set on a graffiti strewn brick wall. That was a cast iron certificate that you would see fist/face interface action. Vendetta was a sort of sequel to the Double Dragon rip off Crime Fighters, it was a pretty standard rescue-your-girl-from-nasty-dudes. Now, lots of games dealt with this theme, Vendetta changed it up with the chance to have 3 of your friends back you up. Allowing you to throw each other into enemies and such.

Vendetta added a ton more violence than Final Fight or Double Dragon had, this was what had me coming back. You could hold enemies down and wail on their torso, smash barrels over heads, kick down scaffolding, smash sacks of cement around their faces, tons of pretty rough stuff. Get your hands on a baseball bat with nails or a chain and you could carve your way through the enemies.

Hot bitches and fire.

Your gang is called Cobras.

Rogues gallery.

Did I also mention the pretty bitchin' soundtrack courtesy of Castlevania composer Michiru Yamane? You bet I did.

Personally, these where my favourites. I always had a few more that I played pretty regular like Captain Commando, Knights of The Round, Narc, Vigilante and some others. Anyone want to throw their own favourites in?

COIN-OP MEMORIES PART 1

If my parents had a list of things I shouldn't have spent my hard earned paper round money on then arcade games where public enemy number one when I was a child. Even more so than comics and records! I could happily piss away a whole weeks wage ( back then, that was a lot) inside of an hour at any number of amusement arcades dotted around my home town. I have always believed the appeal was the fact that you believed you would never see these games on your home computer, couple that with the amount of violence and the prison-art-therapy artwork adorning most of the machines casings and you had a sure thing when it came to relieving young people of money.
I recently spent a bit of time messing around with a MAME emulator and revisiting some of these games. Suffice to say, it becomes obvious you were not designed to complete most on a single credit. A few have held up pretty well while others still hold a small corner of my memory hostage. Following my research, these are my sure fire, revisit, classic arcade cash devourers.

Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (1992)

Cadillacs & Dinosaurs not only combined all manner of awesome things ( dinosaurs, cool cars, guns, post-apocalyptic story and girls) to appeal to a young man, but it also managed to keep me going back time after time. Despite being Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales bolted to the Final Fight game system, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs held my attention for years. You had guns! Final Fight didn't have those. You could kick the shit out of dinosaurs! Final Fight couldn't do that.

That's what you think dick neck.

The story had you fighting off poachers, mutants, bikers and various nasty types from messing with the balance of nature. That didn't really matter to me. The clincher was halfway through the first stage, being able to blast someone out of a window with a shotgun before punching a Rock Hopper (Raptor. None of the dinosaurs go by their real names) in the face outside in an alley! Throw in being able to smash through bikers and barrels in a car and I was sold. My pockets rapidly emptied.

Ignore the System of A Down tune at the beginning, Some people have a nerve.

A.B. Cop (1990)

AB Cop was the easiest of my childhood arcade adventures. Being as I once managed to complete it on a single credit, sadly there was no one to witness my amazing skill on that fateful day in a derelict amusement arcade in Blackpool. AB ( Air bike, air biscuit) Cop took the Hang On template of third person, full immersion racing ( you had a bike to lean left and right on, or if your arcade was cheap they just had the cabinet with handle bars ) and added enemies to battle. The levels all took the same route, ram various nasty biker types before confronting the boss. You then had to use your turbo charge to jump and smash him off the road to complete the level and get a satisfying thumbs up from your rider.

The main appeal of AB Cop was the difficulty scale. It was so easy to have a single credit and get through about 3 levels before you had to dive into your pocket for a follow up go. Once you worked out the main tactic for dealing with every boss ( jump, turbo charge. steer left/right, repeat) you could rampage through the whole game on a single credit. Of course the appeal of showing off to all and sundry in the arcade by reaching the completion screen of any game was impossible to ignore. No matter how easy said game was.

BEAST BUSTERS (1989)

Long before you could take cover with a fancy foot pedal in Time Crisis and such games, rail shooters gave you a big machine gun and threw waves of enemies at you. Beast Busters ( from the ever reliable SNK stable) was always the game I saw in arcades but never managed to actually play as they always seemed to place Operation Wolf or Rambo 3 in my way as a distraction. Luckily, I found a flea pit on a family outing that only had assorted pinball tables, Asteroids and Beast Busters. No contest really, sorry Asteroids.

The wafer thin plot had you as gun nuts trying to escape a zombie infested city. Gun toting zombies at that. Pretty ahead of its time stuff? The gore was a major factor in how cool I thought this game was. Enemies exploded in blood and bone pieces, green slime was everywhere, they had zombie bikers, Jason like hockey masked monsters and then along came the absurd bosses! A driverless Jeep that shoots missiles before coming alive! A typical 80's street punk that transforms into a massive dog! A floating eye made of bodies! Next level shit for any kid. Even the soundtrack was sweet.

It had 3 f**king guns!

Party Bus

Thanks to the wonders of MAME technology you can enjoy all these titles from the comfort of your own home. You don't have to worry about all those dodgy, blatantly criminal looking dudes that used to hang around arcades, you don't have to worry about putting your hand in the never clean ashtray that adorned pretty much every machine and you don't have to worry about any bigger boys coming along and shoving you over while you where playing. The world of arcade gaming is far less dangerous these days.

P.S. If anyone can help to hook me up with any of the soundtracks to these games or other arcade classics then that would be sweet.

Part 2 to follow.

SIRIUSLY, FOLKS

July 23, 1973: Our old pal Robert Anton ("Pope Bob") Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus! Trilogy, author of The Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising, and countless others, proponent of higher conciousness, laughter, and ridiculousness, Discordian, guerilla ontologist, enemy of "is", is appeared to be contacted by extra-dimensional beings from the Sirius star system, setting into motion a chain of events that established his legacy as one of high weirdness' finest minds ever since.
Sure, Bob had just finished the aforementioned Illuminatus! Trilogy and was gobbling high-quality acid like it was going out of style (hint: it was). But he was fully convinced that a Sirian intelligence had entered his mind to enlighten him, and although he later guessed that maybe it was "just his left brain talking to his right brain" and also "an enormous white bunny named Harvey", his interpretations of this Sirian communication guided much of his work thereafter, until his quote unquote DEATH in 2007.

As documented in the film Maybe Logic, Wilson's refusal to accept or deny any one interpretation of "REALITY" was what defined him as a free thinker, and the concept was one that he fully fleshed out in Cosmic Trigger.

From Trigger's Wikipedia (a site which just happens to be an excellent parable for objective and subjective "truth"): "Wilson employs several models for his experiences, such as the interstellar ESP connection, during which time Wilson enters a belief system (or as Wilson prefers to call it, reality tunnel) in which he is communicating telepathically with extraterrestrials residing in the Sirius star system. Wilson states, however, that this belief system does not necessarily have any objective truth, which highlights his main point: that all such models—whether spiritual or scientific—are just that: models, or maps, of the world, and they should not be confused with an objective, permanent reality. Throughout the book, he makes references to specific paranormal personal and group experiences, yet he does not allow himself to become convinced of their reality apart from his perception of them. He calls this approach 'model agnosticism'."

I should also mention that these are the basic tenets that Illogical Contraption itself has been built upon. But I've said too much already, so to avoid making this any more confusing (Heaven forfend!), I give you Pope Bob's own words on the subjects of Reality, Quantum Psychology, and SIRIUS (from Maybe Logic):

"Is", "is." "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment. -RAW

So why SIRIUS? Judging from the title of this post, said star system (it's actually a binary star system, consisting of a white main sequence star of spectral type A1V, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed Sirius B) plays a central point in today's discussion. Why did a mind as vast and brilliant as Wilson's place so much importance on this one particular point in the Universe? Was it by choice that he placed that importance, or was the connection established by an alien force indeed? For one, Wilson's cosmic awakening took place on July 23rd, 1973, and Sirius happened to be "rising" at the time. Mid-to-late July = "the DOG DAYS" right? So what significance does that fact hold, if any?

Who fucking knows, really? But Sirius isn't done with us yet.




February/March 1974: Another one of science fiction's greatest (and strangest) minds is possessed by Sirian intelligence. I speak, of course, of Philip K. Dick (whom I've written about at length before), a guy who places so much signifigance on the event that he begins referring to it simply as "2-3-74" and hand writes an 8,000-page manifesto about it (it's called the Exegesis).

According to Dick's account, a delivery girl from the pharmacy visited his house one fateful morning in February '74 (he was recovering from the removal of an impacted molar), and an early-Christian symbol she wore around her neck just sort of.... Blew his mind open.

"I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane".

This was the birth of PKD's "VALIS" (Vast Active Living Intelligence System), a nebulous and all-encompassing concept that he wrote about at great length--most notably in the eponymous Valis, published in 1981. Initially intended as the beginning of a trilogy (much like Illuminatus!), Valis was followed by The Divine Invasion later that year, although the final chapter, The Owl In Daylight, was unfinished at the time of PKD's death in 1982.

Wikipedia chimes in: VALIS has been described as one node of an artificial satellite network originating from the star Sirius in the Canis Major constellation. According to Dick, the Earth satellite used "pink laser beams" to transfer information and project holograms on Earth and to facilitate communication between an extraterrestrial species and humanity. Dick claimed that VALIS used "disinhibiting stimuli" to communicate, using symbols to trigger recollection of intrinsic knowledge through the loss of amnesia, achieving gnosis. Drawing directly from Platonism and Gnosticism, Dick wrote in his Exegesis: "We appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat different deposits from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction - a failure - of memory retrieval."

PS The story of the missing PKD android is pretty nuts too.

More: At one point, Dick claimed to be in a state of enthousiasmos with VALIS, where he was informed his infant son was in danger of perishing from an unnamed malady. Routine checkups on the child had shown no trouble or illness; however, Dick insisted that thorough tests be run to ensure his son's health. The doctor eventually complied, despite the fact that there were no apparent symptoms. During the examination doctors discovered an inguinal hernia, which would have killed the child if an operation was not quickly performed. His son survived thanks to the operation, which Dick attributed to the "intervention" of VALIS.

Another event was an episode of supposed xenoglossia. Supposedly, Dick's wife transcribed the sounds she heard him speak, and discovered that he was speaking Koine Greek-the common Greek dialect during the Hellenistic years (3rd century BC-4th century AD) and direct "father" of today's modern Greek language- which he had never studied. As Dick was to later discover, Koine Greek was originally used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint. However, this was not the first time Dick had claimed xenoglossia: A decade earlier, Dick insisted he was able to think, speak, and read fluent Latin under the influence of Sandoz LSD-25."

You can find large portions of the still-mostly-unpublished Exegesis HERE.

Yes.

No.

Well? Two of the greatest and most respected minds in modern fiction, both claiming that their consciousness had been inhabited (within 9 months of each other) by a higher intelligence from the Sirius star system? That doesn't seem at all strange, does it? They were both on LOTS of drugs, I'm sure that explains it. Hmmm... Did anything else weird happen around that time? No? OK.

Nothing to see here, please move along...

But before you go, let's discuss one more thing: DOGON.



Not you, Dagon. DOGON.

We do love our ancient aliens here at ICHQ, hence we are well-versed on the origin myth(?) of Mali's Dogon tribe, even without the help of the History (?) Channel. But for the less initiated, a visit to Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery (via Dark Star1) should suffice:

"... (Mystery) looks in detail at the belief of the Dogon, an African tribe living in the Mali republic in the sub-Sahara, that Sirius is a binary star system. This information is impossible to obtain without using modern telescopes. Not only that, but the figure of 50 years that they allegedly claim for the orbit of Sirius B around Sirius A is absolutely accurate. The Dogon claim that this ‘sacred knowledge’ was given them by a race of god-like extra-terrestrials that came to earth from the Sirius system itself...

...A lot is made of the elliptical symbolism used by the Dogon to describe their sacred tertiary star system. They clearly identify this system as Sirius. Let us suppose that they have a long religious tradition, dating back to their Egyptian roots, then imparted through Greek migratory patterns. This tradition did indeed describe Sirius and this elliptical binary star system, but the Dogon were already separated from mainstream civilisation during the period we are interested in, namely the 1st century AD. They, like the Middle Eastern world, watched the heliacal setting and rising of Sirius each year, in the hope of seeing the appearance of the binary dark star, Nibiru. During the first century AD, it appeared, as promised.

They watched the red star appear near Sirius, and possibly watched some of its motion through the constellation of Canis Major. The perihelion passage was marred visually for the Dogon, just as it was for the Romans, Egyptians and Mesopotamians. The sense of the motion having occurred around the Sun was thus lost. It is easy to see how the Dogon would attribute the star’s appearance to Sirius the Sirius system itself: the red star appears near Sirius, moves across it and disappears. To the Dogon, the ‘Nommo star’ must have appeared to move along its elliptical orbit, brightening whilst coming towards us, and than receding back to Sirius. The tradition of the Sirius system as being the home of the gods would have been visibly played out in the heavens for the Dogon observers..."

Via occult book reviewer Joan d'Arc:

The Dogon are aware that “an infinite number of stars and spiralling worlds exist” and that all types of creatures live on other “Earths”. In addition, they say that the Nommo, the people who come to Earth in their spaceships, will come back again when their ‘star’ appears in the heavens as “testament to the Nommo’s resurrection."

Wow. It seems that Sirius has had something of a long history of communication with the people of Earth (only if you consider 5,000 years a long time, that is). Maybe Wilson and Dick were on to something... Perhaps only the highest-functioning minds amongst us are able to recognize the Sirian communication-waves, maybe Dick's "pink beam of light" really is out there, unable to connect, as it were, with all the Cro-Magnon brains present on the planet today. Then again, maybe not.

But consider this: The most important ceremony in the Dogon's ceremony-rich culture is one called sigui, which celebrates their cosmic roots and journey into human form. The sigui takes place only every 60 years, and when begun, lasts months and/or years. The last sigui began in 1967 and ended in.... You guessed it.

1973.

The next sigui begins in 2027. See you there.

SIRIUS: YOU THE MAN NOW, DOG.

INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE

Image courtesy of Mark Rudolph, Requiem Metal Podcast

I'm not sure what percentage of Illogical Contraption's readership listens to podcasts--it is, after all, an acquired taste, not the most popular form of entertainment, but burgeoning nonetheless. I subscribe to exactly 20 myself (my computer's memory won't allow for much more and I ain't about to start dumping 'em onto my external hard drive), and in the last 6 months or so my music-to-podcast ratio has been about 50/50. They're a great alternative to commercial radio for a guy like me that spends alot of time in cars or on public transportation, after all you can't spend 100% of your earbud time rocking to Russian slam metal (can you?). So today's post is a breakdown of the aforementioned 20 podcasts on my roster, most of them probably pretty well-known and familiar to you if you're already an enthusiast, but hey, whatever, I thought I'd share...


- HorrorEtc

An in-depth exploration of the horror genre (amongst many other things) with very-Canadian hosts Anthony and Ted (and sometimes Doug). Podcasts are produced at least once a week, with a huge archive for your perusal (almost 200 episodes, most in the 1:30 to 2 hour range). These guys like to swill beer while they talk slasher, gore, thriller, suspense, etc., but slobs they aren't--discussions often swerve into the technical minutiae of filmmaking, and they are always "films", not "movies".

Pros: 300+ hours of obscure horror cinema talk at your disposal.
Cons: Anthony in particular can come off as a little bit pretentious, and subject matter is explored SO deeply and thoroughly that a lot of uninteresting fodder gets thrown in.

- Junk Food Dinner

Junk Food Dinner, although relatively young, appears to be a weekly affair, and, like HorrorEtc, is almost completely film-related. The Skype-based format of its production model allows for 3 hosts based in Ohio, LA, and New York to be present for each episode, with each of them bringing an obscure film to the table for discussion every week. Along with quite a bit of "nerd news", good musical interludes, and plentiful digression, JFD brings the B-movies, grindhouse, horror, sci-fi, and 80's comedies hard and fast, and I always end up adding a movie or two to my Netflix queue after listening.

Pros: Shitloads of quality flicks you've never heard of.
Cons: Only, like, ten episodes available on iTunes right now.

- Doug Loves Movies

Continuing with the movie theme, we have the always-stoned Doug Benson and his weekly comedy/film trivia podcast Doug Loves Movies. Usually performed live at the UCB Theater in LA, DLM is always populated by an entertaining list of A-to-B-grade movie stars and comedians (he got John Lithgow!), and always ends in a spirited round of The Leonard Maltin Game.

Pros: Never fails to entertain--Benson is a genuinely funny host and guests are mostly lucid and well-chosen.
Cons: The live setting of the show doesn't always translate 100% to podcast format.

- Comedy Bang Bang

Transitioning from film to comedy, we now start with our 5-show block of podcasts from the Earwolf Network, co-founded by Comedy Bang Bang (formerly Comedy Death Ray) host and former Mr. Show writer Scott Aukerman. I posted on CBB/CDR back here, sharing several of their finest clips via YouTube, but again, the show archive is massive and stocked with quality bits, offering hours and hours and hours and hours of listening pleasure to the casual comedy enthusiast. Comedy Bang Bang is often considered the yardstick by which to measure comedy podcasts, and Aukerman's format (usually featuring a movie or music star paired with an "in-character" comedian) is about 90% successful.

Pros: Seth Morris, Nick Kroll, James Adomian, and Paul F. Tompkins ALWAYS kill it.
Cons: Humor-wise, CBB can be pretty hit-or-miss.

- Affirmation Nation with Bob Ducca

The first "official" CDR/CBB spin-off features Seth Morris as the ailment-stricken self-help addict Bob Ducca, initially introduced on Comedy Death Ray as Aukerman's (fictional) ex-stepdad. In a departure from the "usual" comedy podcast format, Affirmation Nation is offered in 1-to-4 minute installments 5 times a week, and somehow, almost every episode manages to be literally laugh-out-loud funny. Highest recommendations possible.

Pros: Introduction of terms like "faucet titties", "Kettle Corn enema", "nasal halitosis", and "hand putty" into your daily vernacular.
Cons: None.

Pro tip: Bob Ducca's Twitter account is amazing, if you're into that sort of thing.

- Mike Detective

A deft send-up of the long-gone private eye/film noir genre, Mike Detective is the creation of comedian/actor Rob Huebel (of Human Giant and Children's Hospital), and is chock full of ridiculous wordplay, graphic single entendres, low-brow comedy, and brilliantly stupid puns. Episodes are usually in the 5-to-10 minute range, with the first "season" ending recently.

Pros: Like Affirmation Nation, good for a few solid belly laughs.
Cons: Episodes are short, few and far between.

- How Did This Get Made?

Speaking of Human Giant, Huebel's co-star Paul Scheer (who also appeared in Piranha 3D and was quasi-interviewed by our own Brother Cory back here) co-hosts the twice-monthly shitfest HDTGM? with Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael, and consistently nails it with his brutal eviscerations of past and current Hollywood garbage (most of it involving Nicolas Cage). This podcast can be an acquired taste, but I personally have an unquenchable thirst for shit-talking bad movies, the worse the better (and vice versa?).

Pros: In-depth plot analysis of movies like Sucker Punch and Drive Angry: Shot in 3d save you the pain and hassle of actually watching them.
Cons: I actually wish the 45 minute-to-1 hour episodes were longer.

- Who Charted?

The last in our series of 5 Earwolf-produced podcasts is Howard Kremer and Kulap Vilaysack's Who Charted?, a show which, despite being pretty funny, I consider something of a neccesary evil. Their weekly run-downs of top charters in film, music, video gaming, and the like are mostly foreign to my ultra-specialized tastes, but in a way, if I must keep up with pop culture, this is the way I want to do it--in short, controlled, 10 second bursts.

Pros: Good guests, good music (Kremer moonlights as alter-ego comedy rapper Dragon Boy Suede), and a healthy dose of deserving cynicism (mostly on Howard's part) when discussing "popular stuff".
Cons: I could tell you what song was #3 on the dance charts last week, if I wanted to.

- The Nerdist

Another "guilty pleasure" on the list, the Nerdist podcast (co-hosted by Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray, and Matt Mira) is sort of like the "morning radio show" of my poddictions. These dudes are all legitimately funny, super nerdy, and full of quick wit, but also obsessed with the Hollywood "scene", often pandering to A-list guests or dropping names unnecessarily. I don't know--I can't always get behind the Nerdist 100%, but it hasn't stopped me from downloading and listening to all 100+ shows in their archive.

Pros: The title implies a certain degree of nerd and/or geek-based knowledge, which the show delivers in abundance.
Cons: Chris is hung up on himself, Jonah likes to talk about "indie rock", and Matt is a fan of the Dave Matthews Band. 'Nuff said.

- The Pod F. Tompkast

Paul F. Tompkins is a fucking comedy genius, and his foray into the world of podcasting is a welcome one. But while the Pod F. Tompkast is well-produced, creative, and intelligent, it lacks variety, an element that will hopefully be added when the first episode recorded in front of a LIVE audience airs next month. This show is relatively new, and could use a couple tweaks to hold listener interest better. But I trust the comedic instincts of its seasoned host, and hopefully the Tompkast will continue to improve accordingly.

Pros: Regular visits from well-worn Tompkins characters such as Cake Boss, Ice T, Gary Marshall, and Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Cons: Paul's one-man, direction-less rants can get tiresome (he needs to start bringing on some guests), and his ongoing segment featuring extended phone conversations with comedian Jen Kirkman don't really go anywhere.

- Superego

Holy shit this show is bizarre. And fucking hilarious.
I stumbled accross this one on a chance recommendation from the previously-mentioned Mr. Tompkins, who, along with other well-known comics like Patton Oswalt and Andy Daly, has done extensive guest-voice work on the show. Somehow, the creators of Superego have created their own off-kilter comedic language, full of weird non-sequitirs, purposefully misplaced pauses, nonsensical word combinations, and pure, unadulterated insanity. I'm not even really sure what to call it. It is "sketch comedy", yes, but somehow beyond it as well, contorting into abstract surrealism and improvisational scat-storytelling as well. If Tim & Eric directed the Firesign Theater, the results would be something resembling Superego.
As a bonus, the production value and technical details are top-notch as well, with the podcast itself being presented in a "chaptered" format I've never before experienced in a comedy podcast (custom graphics "follow" the show's storyline as well, changing on your iPod's display screen as the episode progresses). But above all, the show is FUNNY, and if you choose to take the plunge, you'll soon be as enamored with Shunt McGuppin, General Zod, Don DeLillo, and The Pray-Day-Dur Kid (you'll know when you get there) as I am.

Pros: Pretty sure this podcast actually makes you smarter.
Cons: Only one 20-minute-to-half-hour episode per month.

- WTF with Marc Maron

I guess WTF is the closest you can get to a "mainstream" comedy podcast, although that term means something totally different in such a specialized form of media. Maron still produces his interview segments from his own garage (when he isn't conducting them live on stage or from a hotel room), with his own gear, and each episode is flavored, for better or worse, by his cynical, twisted world view. Say what you will about the bitter old fuck, but Maron certainly isn't a "sell-out", and half the fun of the show is hearing his own dark, honest stories intertwined with those of his (usually) high-profile guests. Unlike mainstream television or radio interviewers, WTF is unafraid to sink its proverbial claws into its victims interviewees, and the magic of the show is hearing about the darkest fears and anxieties of otherwise "untouchable" comedy/media stars.

Pros: Endless kvetching.
Cons: See "Pros".

- Things We Did Before Reality


Personality-wise, SF-based comedian Will Franken has a lot in common with Marc Maron--they're both unrepentantly bitter and angry, sharp of wit and tongue, and prolific as Hell--but Franken's podcast is a hard 180 from Maron's dry back-and-forth, a frenetic, schizoid, one-man romp indulging all the voices in his head. Where Maron is liberal and prone to chin-scratching introspection, Franken is (beneath a confusing mass of conflicting voices) actually pretty conservative, and never hesitant to put his ideas into action. Despite a complete schism with his Republican leanings, I have to hand it to the guy: Things We Did Before Reality is an amazing listen, an obvious labor of love that is as funny as it is random. Franken's stream-of-conciousness ramblings involve a huge cast of characters (all performed by the man himself), an arsenal of sound effects and weird references, even a healthy dose of original music. This is probably the most obscure podcast you'll find on this list, and undeservingly so.

Pros: REALLY FUNNY.
Cons: No new episodes in over a year, looks like a limited run...?

- Out There Radio

Man, I listen to waaayyyy too many comedy podcasts. Shit.
Anyway, next up on the list is Out There Radio, a conspiracy-themed 50-part series created several years ago by two college dudes in Georgia. Now, I've gone through my share of "conspiracy" podcasts, and without fail, ALL of them except Out There have fallen by the wayside. You see, conspiracy theory-based podcasts always fall prey to one of two downfalls: they either A) are super boring, or B) have awful production (basement-dwelling conspiracy nuts rarely get the feedback the need to correct such issues). Out There succumbs to neither, and as a result, remains an all-time favorite. Running the gamut from UFOs to Satanism to mass suicide to the JFK assassination/Warren commission to Nazi cults to 2012 to Charles Manson, show topics are engaging and well-researched, and the hosts are wise enough to present both sides of every case while endorsing neither. As a bonus, when you subscribe to Out There on iTunes, you also get a couple dozen episodes of a Disinformation series these same guys did, super recommended all around.

Pros: Hugely informative.
Cons: Defunct.

- Requiem Metal Podcast

... And onward to the METAL podcasts! I've spoken about Requiem at length here on IllCon before, but allow me to repeat myself once again: this is a GREAT show, and has turned me on to a shit-ton of previously-undiscovered gems (mostly Swedish) in the recent past. Hosts Mark and Jason have put in decades of service to the metal cause, and it shows in the quality of their work. While my taste in metal doesn't always converge with theirs (come on, guys, that new Cathedral is AWFUL!), I don't really expect it to either, as metal is a splintered prism of fractalized preferences and styles. These guys love ALL of it, which is why the show works so well.

Pros: Hugely informative.
Cons: A whole show abouth the fucking DEFTONES? Really?

- MetalCast

Double that previous statement for MetalCast: The Ultimate Metal Show. This international endeavor is extremely heavy on the symphonic Italian power metal, gothic Grecian power metal, Finnish psychedelic power metal, etc. etc. etc.--long story short, lots of stuff that I don't really care about. But it is formatted, like Superego, in CHAPTERS, making it really easy to skip forward and backward over songs to get to the good stuff. MetalCast is actually a pretty awesome resource for exposure to new metal, and, like several other podcasts here, their archives are enormous. Like Requiem, MetalCast is a great way to discover music you would never be exposed to otherwise, and the thick-ass accents present on the entire rotating cast of hosts are pleasing to the ear as well.

Pros: At least one exciting discovery per episode. What the Hell is a Nader Sadek?
Cons: Power metal. Power metal power metal power metal power metal power metal power metal power metal. Power metal.

- StarTalk Radio

OK, metal's over. Good metal podcasts are hard to find, or maybe I'm just too picky...?
Either way, we're now getting into the intellectual stuff, so I won't blame all you knuckle-dragger if you want to bail now. Gone? OK cool.
StarTalk Radio, hosted by "celebrity astrophysicist" Neil DeGrasse Tyson (you may have seen him on The Colbert Report or The Daily Show), succeeds in its goal of making science--both celestial and terrestrial--accessible to the common fuckup, by relating the basic tenets of physics and biology to pop culture, whether it be movies, comic books, sports, or music. By avoiding the humdrum lecture style of the average science teacher, Tyson makes science an engaging topic, and by bringing the odd comedian on as a sidekick manages to keep conversation light and goofy. But be careful, because you might end up actually learning something.

Pros: LEARNING CAN BE FUN!
Cons: Neil DeGrasse Tyson is kind of a smug bastard. He seriously introduces himself as "Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson" in EVERY EPISODE.

- H.P. Podcraft.com

Depending on your literary preferences, you probably either love or hate Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Me, I reside firmly in the former camp, although I think everyone can agree that his style of prose is convoluted, confusing, heavy-handed, and over-wrought. Luckily, the dudes over at the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast have your back, creating a show that can be viewed almost as high-production-value audio Cliff Notes of the man's work. Seamlessly fusing sound effects, readings via actors from the original text, and extensive plot analysis and insight (their exploration of At The Mountains of Madness is at 5 hour-long episodes and counting), HPPodcraft is an excellent companion piece to the writings of one of horror's greatest minds, and will most likely help you parse some of Howard's most heinous run-on sentences--with a dash of macabre humor.

Pros: Will allow you to reference Lovecraft's work much more freely and accurately in mixed company. Chicks are WAY into that.
Cons: Niche interest. I doubt many people will enjoy this one as much as I do.

- Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

I don't really know much about Dan Carlin outside of this podcast, but it was recommended from several different sources and I'm glad I checked it out. Wanna listen to a seven-plus hour history of ancient Rome with ALL of the gore, murder, incest, and baby-sacrifice intact? Good! Carlin's got you covered, breaking down several of history's greatest epochs into lascivious, easily-digestable 90-minute chunks. I don't really consider myself a big history buff, but Hardcore History expounds on humanity's finest (and most deplorable) hours in a way that is both interesting and informative, and even though I'm not sure if more episodes will be made or not, there is plenty here to keep you busy for dozens of morning commutes.

Pros: More "smart" podcasting. Might as well stimulate your brain cells while you slowly destroy your eardrums.
Cons: Dry-er than Barbara Bush's vagine.

- This American Life

Okay. I admit it.

Pros: What, are you too "cool" to sit down and just listen to a GOOD FUCKING STORY every now and then? Jesus man, get over yourself. Asshole.
Cons: Listener may or may not develop brown corduroy patches on elbows of jacket, listener may or may not sprout ponytail, spectacles, or bad facial hair, listener may or may not find him/herself driving a Prius or visiting local Farmer's Market more than once daily.


So there you have it. The 20 podcasts that I subscribe to, in no particular order. What buried treasures are YOU CLOWNS listening to these days? Comments section, go!