Both Big Boi and Yelawolf (the white guy with the creepy haircut) just rip this track. Yelawolf has a big future. Andre 3000 on the beat.

Join Graham, Dave and special guests for a live episode of Stop Podcasting Yourself at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival. More information on the Bumbershoot calendar here.

Colorado Rockies Legend Charlie Hayes, Invited Guest

Join Jesse Thorn and MaxFun Development Director Theresa Thorn for a meetup in Denver, Colorado! We'll be meeting up at Sweet Action Ice Cream in Denver, from 5:30-7:00 on Thursday, September 23rd. Rumor has it that the folks at Sweet Action are such big MaxFunsters that there are MaxFun stickers on the cash register. Come meet some friendly Denver MaxFunsters and eat ice cream right before dinner.

Welcome to season two of Coyle & Sharpe: The Imposters! In the early 1960s, James P. Coyle and Mal Sharpe roamed the streets of San Francisco, microphone in hand, roping strangers into bizarre schemes and surreal stunts. These original recordings are from the Sharpe family archive, which is tended by Mal's daughter, Jennifer Sharpe. You can learn more about Coyle & Sharpe on their website or on MySpace. Their recent box set is These 2 Men Are Imposters.

On this episode: Coyle & Sharpe want you to exchange innards with another person. Relax, it's only for fun.

Our pal Nick Hornby and past guest Ben Folds are collaborating on an album that's out in just a couple weeks. They've released this lovely video, featuring backup vocals and drums by the indie duo Pomplamoose.

Comedian Paul Myrehaug returns to talk mascots, dying trades, and cupcake TV.

Download episode 129 here. (right-click)

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I've known A-1 since he was watching Pokemon, and now he's flipping the theme song from Pokemon for this excellent track. He grew up on my block, and our families were (and are) close friends. He's the same age as my little brother, and they've been tight since they were like six. This is a hot record. I'm proud of the little guy (who's like 20 now, so I shouldn't call him a little guy anymore).

Vital stats:
Format: L.A.-centric newsy culture segments
Duration: 20m-90m
Frequency: on average, weekly
Archive available on iTunes: all

There’s a lot to say about how podcasting and public radio have interacted in Our Brave Age of New Media, but most of it would bore people. Public radio, alas, has had a much stronger effect on podcasting than podcasting has had on public radio, but the effects are interesting to think about nonetheless. At minimum, though, it’s pretty great that most public radio programs podcast. This enables you to, for instance, remotely scope out a city’s public radio situation before you move to that city. I’ll probably move to Los Angeles in the next year or two, so naturally, I’m submerging myself into all kinds of L.A.P.R. podcasts.

KPCC’s Off-Ramp [RSS] [iTunes] is one of the richest of these. I don’t quite know how to describe it except by the very, very dopey genre name “magazine show.” For those not into public radio, a magazine show assembles a bunch of loosely associated short pieces with lowish-medium to highish-medium newsiness value, unites them with a host’s voice, and calls it an hour. Off-Ramp’s concept is to keep more or less within the confines of Los Angeles, focusing on Los Angeles stuff: hidden wineries, anime conventions, Chicano rockers, “entertainment legends,” Phil Spector.

It actually seems to be a pretty amusing, informative, effective guide to Los Angeles culture, to the extent that there can be an “effective guide to Los Angeles culture.” I do not say this because I’m a displaced, embittered New Yorker who demands to know if you call this a bagel. I say this because L.A. contains so freakishly many types of culture that most attempts at making a Baedeker are doomed from their very conception. Fortunately, Off-Ramp doesn’t strain to be comprehensive, instead picking a series of cultural entities that might be interesting: a conversation with an obese nude model here, a search for L.A.’s most fêted hot dog jonts there. (There are even segments from The Dinner Party Download included, which remains, I’m saddened to inform you, just a bit too slick.)

While I can totally see how this radio kaleidoscope of neat L.A. stuff would be what you want to hear while driving around town, I can’t help but sometimes be irked by the short length of the individual segments. I’d normally have no choice but to rue whatever seems responsible at the time, but the Off-Ramp podcast feed provides longer versions of some of the show’s interviews and other reportage. The most fascinating stuff I’ve heard on the show comes in these “extras,” which includes an extended-mix around-the-picnic-table conversation with contributors to the L.A. literary journal Slake [MP3] or an uncut version of host John Rabe’s interview with the co-creator of Columbo [MP3], who’s evidently still writing new Columbo stories.

I am thus left in the awkward position of wishing that public radio would start to sound a little less like Off-Ramp and a little more like Off-Ramp’s podcast. Perhaps magazine shows could morph into, oh, novella shows, at least? While all the radio version’s quick hits about novelty food and entertainment-industry eccentrics reinforce my desire to move down there, but it’s the long-form stuff that really seals the deal.

[Podthinker Colin Marshall also happens to be the host and producer of public radio’s The Marketplace of Ideas, the blogger of The War on Mediocrity and the writer of The Ubuweb Experimental Video Project.]

Janet Varney and Jessica Makinson join Jesse and Jordan to talk about hot weather, pop-up shops, casual encounters and more.

Mary Roach is the author of several best-selling books of science journalism, including Stiff (about cadavers) and Bonk (about sex). Her most recent is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. It's an investigation of the science of human travel in space, from the high-minded (cosmic rays, interpersonal relationships, muscle degeneration) to the less-high-minded (farts, poops, barfs).