Yeah, we’re all doing the podcasts these days aren’t we? More people working at home. Or driving to and from work. Do people listen to podcasts when they commute? I would. Listen to podcasts, not commute. Man, I am NOT a big fan of commuting—ugh. I’m working at home a lot these days, drawing, pencilling, inking. I’m pretty into the podcastiverse right now.

Podcasts are great. They’re free. They’re updated all the time. If you have a strong stable in your library there will always be something you’re in the mood for.

Over the past couple years I’ve gotten into a few. MJ introduced me to The Thomas Jefferson Hour, where one guy interviews another guy who portrays Jefferson—as if he just appeared in the present—and they discuss topics like politics and war and Jefferson’t policies, and democracy and, yes, slavery, and all manner of American issues, then in the latter part of the show the Jefferson guy drops the act and they break down all the things “Jefferson” said and why he said them. Interesting. In one show, “Jefferson” called for scrapping the constitution and rewriting it. A radical idea, and one he actually did advocate. Then you realize what a truly radical guy Jefferson was. One of our founding fathers. And they were all radicals, really. Revolutionaries. It brings it home, hearing the sainted, mythologized Thomas Jefferson waxing rhapsodic about radical change in a resonant voice. And you think about what America was supposed to be, or could have been, or might have been or should have been, or what it could still be, or that it’s an experiment still in progress. Kind of a cool show.

Most recently I’m into two podcasts in particular: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Marc Maron’s WTF. I’d tried to listen to Maron a few years ago, but it didn’t take. I gave him another shot last year and I’m digging him. Maybe he’s gotten better or his guests are more diverse or something, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of his shows lately. And hey, if you listen for 10 minutes and you decide you don’t like a show, whoop-de-doo. Go to the next one. It’s free. Or go back to Thomas Jefferson, I don’t care.

But a couple Maron episodes really worked for me this past week: one with Hank Azaria from The Simpsons, one with Azaria’s shrink Phil Stutz, and one with Simpsons producer Sam Simon, who’s got terminal cancer, but he’s really cheerful. All good, smart, funny and poignant episodes.

And the other, Hardcore History, is a trip. Dan Carlin, the host, is so INTO history—he gets so EXCITED by it and is so moved by it—that he’s a lot of fun to listen to. And you learn about stuff like World War I and the U.S. war in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War and the Mongols (Carlin’s favorite subject in the world). And these are really long podcasts, too. Two to four hours each. And many subjects have multiple episodes. And Carlin is so intense and so excited about these things, and he throws his voice into his scripts, giving his sentences and phrases spin and English and urgency and drama. He’s like the greatest history teacher in the world. The one we all should’ve had in school so instead of not giving a damn about history and being “doomed to repeat it” and being dull, crappy, uninformed citizens, we would be happy to learn about our past, our past mistakes and what we did right and wrong.

Podcasts. Give ’em a listen.