After 25 years, (35 if you count the years that they were a local radio show in Massachusetts) Cartalk is no longer producing new episodes. Focus: Comment on the end of a great American pasttime - sitting in your car, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, laughing your ass off at Click and Clack making fun of each other. Alt-focus: The radio. Do you listen to it, or is your AUX cable soldered in there?
Why can't it be both? You couldn't pay me to live in a town again for the foreseeable future, but one of my favorite things about visiting my hometown is driving around with my friends listening to the shitty radio while singing/talking/being stupid. It reminds me of being 16, which is nice sometimes. I don't have a car, so I don't listen to the radio, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts that are originally radio shows because I am so hip.
I love Car Talk. When my dad would drive around when I was a kid, NPR is basically the only station he would listen to. It's crazy that the two went to MIT - from just listening to the show, you'd figure they were just a couple of New England mechanics.
Man, I love Car Talk. Of all the generally mediocre, boring shows and irritating liberal propaganda on NPR, you had two of the funniest, coolest guys in the history of radio dispensing quality advice and humoring the audience. And all the while, they had the best chemistry possible. I used to listen to a number of fun shows; Dr. Dean Edell: A smart, articulate doctor answered a litany of health questions. Think of Dr. Drew, except way smarter, ten times funnier, and not only about sex. Len Tillem: A smart, articulate lawyer with a wicked New York accent answers a litany of legal questions, especially those pertaining to suing someone in small claims court. Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story: Easily my all-time favorite. Paul Harvey describes some bizarre person or event, without telling you quite what it is. When he does, it's (usually) shocking and illuminating. In one, he talks about a great Cuban athlete who was especially good at baseball. MLB teams were very interested in him; he was one of the best early baseball stars in the history of the nation. Yet, for some reason, he didn't attend a try-out by the New York Mets and soon abandoned the sport. Still, he had set records in track and field in high school, and was an intelligent young man with plans to become a lawyer. He would turn out okay, right? Indeed, he did; Fidel Castro ruled Cuba for 50 years. But even beyond that, Paul Harvey had one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. Girls compliment me on my voice all the time, and I have worked a lot on both its sound and my diction through the years. However, I can never hope to have a voice even half as incredible as his. And Harvey's diction is superlative. Even with the lousy quality, this video should get this point across; (story kind of sucks, but his delivery is what is important)
I also do this, from time to time. It's not really silence though. Like you said, you're still listening to things. But, what you're listening to is ambiance, rather than some blaring sound that demands your attention. Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city This is one of the most annoying habits of my generation. I know a lot of people who cannot stand to go a minute without music playing. But, they usually aren't even listening to the music, they're just cranking noise to drown out their internal monologue. Getting back to the focus, I didn't even get a call back from Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, but I'm still sad to hear them go. I am glad there's still lots of good stuff on NPR though. They're one of the few outlets that discusses anything in depth, from government to film to food, and even cars. You don't even have to be a car guy to appreciate the show (I'm not, and I do). It's a combination of being privy to some very sophisticated reasoning skills and some very smart commentary. It's basically House, but with cars.
I listened to Opie and Anthony when they were being broadcast in Cleveland and when I had a free XM subscription. Talk radio in Cleveland is shit-status right now and there's almost no music that gets played on the radio worth listening to except classic rock. I don't have a vehicle at the moment and won't for the next year so I won't be listening to radio for a while. Maybe I will once I get to Germany to try and immerse myself in the German language which I'm currently beginning to try to learn.
Mike Richards in the Morning on TSN 1050 AM here is pretty decent during hockey season, and the end of baseball and beginning of football season, however now that hockey's mostly over and it's just the Jays, he's nowhere near as good to listen to. I tend to tune in to CBC radio off and on, but otherwise it's my iPod pretty much constantly - Though I am a big podcast fan, usually listening to something like Jay and Silent Bob Get Old.
Focus: Car Talk gave me some of my first impressions of an East Coast accent. My dad always had AM 1500 on in the car, so I recognized the Blazing Saddles theme song from the intro to Jason Lewis' show before I even knew what the movie was. Anti-focus: I have my radios pretty much stuck on 92.5 KQRS here. The Tom Bernard morning show isn't bad and if I'm not listening to classic rock in my workshop, I have Pandora playing bluegrass or the Stevie Ray Vaughan station. In fact Pandora is my main music source while I'm woodworking. Sometimes I have NPR on if I will be driving all day long, but it really depends on what's on.
Satellite radio is pretty much all I listen to anymore. I mostly listen to the 90's rock channel and the Jason Ellis show. Terrestrial radio is fucking painful to listen to.
I go through phases, I'll do just plain radio for a few months and then do audio books for a few months and go back to radio. Lately I've started The Paleo Solution podcast starting at episode 1, I've got about 100 to go to be current, not sure where I'll go from there, but I do like the effortless manner in which you can download thousands of hours of audio from some of your favorite people for free.
I've been listening to NPR more and more over the last couple years. The morning shows here are terrible. Raleigh has terrible terrible radio altogether. Terrible! There is a country station, a very bad classic rock station and a top 40 pop station (really top 10 as it's the same shit over and over). There are two morning shows that I've listened to and both aren't really that good. Two Guys Named Chris is boring. Bob and the Showgram is just annoying southern crap. If you aren't a redneck, southern hillbilly, you just won't appreciate it. Bob tries to be edgy at times it seems but he just comes across as a sexist, close minded idiot. I think if you've lived here your whole life you probably love him, but it's just horrible. I don't have the budget for satellite radio so it's either NPR or burned cd's of whatever good stuff I'm listening to. To be honest, most of the 6 discs are children's music my 2-year old loves. Caspar Babypants is actually pretty good.
Terrestrial radio pretty much sucks, but it really sucks in DFW. The only two stations I'll tune to are NPR and NPR's music station, but for the most part, I'm listening to either playlists or podcasts. I enjoy Alec Baldwin's "Here's the Thing" as well as lectures from iTunesU from time to time. I had XM/Sirius for a few years, but cancelled. I was listening to the same channels and began having their playlists memorized. But one of the things about XM/Sirius I did like were the shows hosted by the artists like Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. I just wasn't always in the car at 4:00 pm on Sunday or 11:00 pm on Tuesday.
Podcasts. I'll listen to the occasional news, sports or weather report, but almost never music, unless I'm driving with my daughter. Otherwise it's podcasts - a mix of comedy, current events and whatnot.
I'll listen to the radio if I'm riding around at work; we use an old Grand Cherokee to check cattle/fences/run 'farm errands' to town; and it's only got a very basic AM/FM radio in it. So in a nutshell, the way the mountains lay I'm not going to pick up any stations beyond 98.1 (a classic country station), or the AM old-time gospel music station from the next town over. 98.1 ain't bad, it's got a half decent morning show with CBS news every hour or so; and lets be honest; country music from the 50's-90's is a hell of a lot better than what passes for country these days. The AM station is beyond shitty; as you would expect from an operation run out of a shack and sponsored by the local funeral homes. Now in my personal vehicle, it's mixed CD's all the way unless I'm down in NC where I pick up signals that convert to more than static with a smattering of voices and music.
I have XM that came with my new car. Between that and streaming stuff off of my phone's Bluetooth, terrestrial radio can lick my salty nutsack. I don't even have to listen to local news radio anymore because XM has traffic reports every ten minutes. The only time I bother is when the Mariners/Seahawks are playing and even then it's iffy.
My ipod broke, and I refuse to buy a new one, so I listen to the radio in my car now. There are a couple solid stations in the Philly area, my favorite being XPN. It's a member-supported station, with very few commercials, although a couple times each year they fund raise which basically kills the station for the week. They play an eclectic mix of music which works about 90% of the time. They have a kids' music hour, and a few syndicated shows on the weekend that I don't care for, but otherwise, their programming is great. I used to commute to the old job in my car, and I loved ending my work week rocking out to their all funk "Funky Friday" evening show. Since the 'pod broke about 6 months ago, I've been exposed to a lot more new music than I would have were I not using the radio. If you've got a good, non-top-40-pop-crap station in your city, I strongly suggest mixing it up every once in a while and listening to the radio, antiquated though it may be.
I don't have a AUX port in my car, and the transmitter I have to plug into my ipod rarely has batteries, so I listen to the radio more often than not. I listen to 102.1 The Edge a lot in the morning as they have the best morning show in Toronto with The Dean Blundell show. I catch 103.3 from Buffalo as there morning crew Shredd and Ragan give me my daily laugh as they report on the idocy of those in upstate NY and the other idiotic things on the news from Amurrrricah! Other than that, since moving in with girlfriend she has put her shitty presets in for 99.9 and Kiss 92.5 and what not so she can hear her terrible pop radio trash. That has been the only downfall of letting her drive my car on a semi regular basis. The Dean Blundell show does this thing called "What Happened" where there listeners call in to discuss fucked up thing that have happened in their live to try and win passes to concerts in Toronto, movie passes, gift card to restaurants etc...here are some of their best...
Focus: Car Talk has existed for my entire life. I still listen to the live show, and also download the podcast just in case I miss it. It has also taught me some very useful stuff about cars, and how to isolate and identify mechanical problems. Puzzlers are fun, and the word/language-based ones I can usually get instantly. I'll definitely miss Tom and Ray; I guess their boats must be all paid off. Alt. Focus: Saturday is the only day I regularly listen to the radio, but for most of the day I have it tuned to 90.3 WHLA out of La Crosse. Car Talk at 9, Whad'ya Know? from 10-12, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me 12-1pm, This American Life 4-5, Prairie Home Companion 5-7, and Tent Show Radio from 7-8. There are a couple other programs that I'll listen to if I remember when they're on, but Saturdays I'll stick near a radio when I'm working on stuff. The first preset in my car/truck is always public radio, but I also have a tape-deck adapter to plug my MP3 player into. Growing up, we always listened to the radio on Saturdays, especially Prairie Home Companion. I still have tapes from shows they did in 1994, back when I first learned how to use a tape recorder. Joke shows were always my favorite as a kid, but as an adult I've been introduced to a lot of good music by hearing it on Prairie Home.
Have not listened to the radio in years. I frequently commute by train (in LA of all places) and find Podcasts (Carolla, Fitzsimmons, Bill Simmons, Car Talk etc) and Sirus (Stern) much more convenient and enjoyable. Also audiobooks are great. I have the music I want on my iPhone. When forced to listen to the radio on occasion I find relying on the DJ's choice of music annoying and can't stand the banal chatter and adverts.