The Internet offers a plethora of options for those interested in reading insightful and relevant content about popular culture. But, sometimes you need to get your cultural fix while working out, cooking dinner, or sitting in traffic. The exhilarating world of podcasting opens up new opportunities for pop culture analysis in the relatively young medium. However, as is the case with the written word, it can often be difficult to separate the podcasting wheat from the chaff. For every intelligent and well-produced episode, there are hundreds of rambling, amateurish productions available for download on a daily basis. Here is a list of ten particularly rewarding podcasts covering the worlds of film, television, music, and literature. I always look forward to seeing new episodes of the following pop up on my iPhone:

#10: Film Junk
Although it took me a while to get into this podcast initially, it is now prominent in my regular rotation. Three movie fans from St. Catherines, Ontario talk weekly for a couple of hours about all aspects of the cinema, from movie news, to trailer trash, to reviews of new releases. While this podcast leans dangerously towards irrelevant rambling on occasion, the hosts are amusing enough that they are entertaining to listen to even when they talk about hockey or their collections of Star Wars memorabilia. The insights of documentary filmmaker and co-host Jay Cheel are of particular interest.

Thanks again to YouTube for allowing us access to footage that might have otherwise been forever lost. This Australian TV clip features John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil of Punk Magazine definitively proving that no one has ever made a dime in rock journalism. The clip, which briefly drops into silence, reportedly shows the NYC-based pair in their offices some time in 1977, with the best bit coming after a clip of English punks are shown. The lines of demarcation between the various punk movements have gone down in the annals of history. Here, then, a first hand look at just how seriously they were taken.

Lt. Dan Choi in front of the WHite House,
handcuffed to the gate in his military fatigues,
discharged from being gay.

Wow, other people’s moral judgments just get sicker and sicker. Just goes to show that it never pays to ask a people to deny themselves.  Caution, when I watched this clip streaming on CNN.com, it was preceded by a candy bar commercial where a family father ogles over a trio of teen girls in front of his wife who stands next to him struggling with their infant. The sweet confection gave the man time enough to think of an amenable excuse for checking out the prepubertal set of scantily clad young maidens: “I’m looking at potential babysitters,” he finally blurts out after his candy-snack jack. He was gonna exploit them one way or another—or both! In the same warped universe around the same warped time, there was also story about an announcement made over the PA system in a retail shop in Jersey: “Attention Wal-Mart customers, all Black people leave the store now.” So, this should all situate the following clip about a military service woman being granted a marriage license by one state, outed to her government employer by the police, and dropped by the sidelines by our society in the same warped nation-state. Ask. Tell. And See this:

“This is what change looks like”—President Obama on the passage of the health care bill 2010.
“How y’ah like me now”—Kool Moe Dee on passage of fly lines and breaking beats.
“Phew! Now let’s continuing governing”—The American people as we persevere in lining up with one another, and marching to a steady beat.

Now that “We, the People” can get late breaking news without the big media fixture… we can watch the admin online. “This is what change looks like.” I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure, so thanks for clearing that one up, Big B. I’m a gen-XYer, which means that I was exposed to plenty of MTV and more than my share of bad governance. Governance was so bad under that mesmerizing era when the late Mr. Jackson was singing “Beat It!” that our leaders actually boasted of out-sourcing the care taking of most public goods. Social inequality expanded exponentially, but on MTV all we saw were those who came out on top; now we call it bling! Big bucks bred big benefits for what was presented as a benign few. Money just grew for anyone who worked hard was what the TV was selling. Now, at least, more folks know that to be untrue, not when public goods like a nation’s health security are compromised. But these are all the facts one misses when these stories are consumed and regurgitated to us by big media. Thanks to the Internet, we can surf the White House’s channel directly. “How y’ah like me now!”

Bollywood’s got their Big B, Mr Amitabh Bachchan himself, a 68-year-old film star that continues to appropriate pop cultures’ latest trends to reproduce his stardom. Bollywood’s Big B and his son each have commercial hip-hop videos—outtakes of sing ‘n’ dance film in full Bollywood array. Then Big B’s son married Bollywood’s fairest maiden. (And fair skin is big bucks in India, hence dames like Big B’s daughter-in-law are necessarily Fair and Lovely like the popular skin-bleaching cream. See the picture here of Big B, Aishwarya and Lil B before the major-event-wedding in 2007, and back when Indian chicks on screen could still boast some flesh—now thin is absolutely IN!) This courtly affair commands the attention of millions, and is its own marketing machine that could sustain that family’s wealth for generations to come even if none of them ever worked again. Until just over a year ago, it felt like America only had those sorts of stars—that kind of Bollywood Big B—the wealth alliances and fantasies sold to the masses of poor, one rupee at a time. But, apparently I was blind, because now I see watershed decisions made by those elected to govern. Like crack to a fiend, or like dark chocolate to me, Sunday, March 21st, 2010 feels like Tony Toni Toné: It feels good, yeah. It feeeeeels good!”

Here’s a two-minute video from the Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors that condenses the history of the last decade into a presentation of 92 magazine covers that reflect the era we just lived through.