Drunk people are so meta

October 25, 2010 3:11 AM

In 2008, residents of Seattle began to hear a very different kind of radio program on their AM dial, for three hours every weeknight. That show was Too Beautiful To Live. Much of the joy of the program is getting to know the hosts, and discovering whether or not the show survives, so I won't spoil it for you. You can start by listening to the First Show, or enter any weekday since Jan. 7, 2008, into the "Browse by date:" search box on the First Show webpage. If that's not enough motivation to start listening, here are some favorite episodes:  Interview with John Hodgman, Interview with Garfunkel and Oates, Interview with Wil Wheaton, Ross Dress for Less, Broke as a Joke in Seattle, Drunk People are So Meta, Interview with S.E. Hinton, Interview with Adam Carolla.
posted by LURK (13 comments total)

Thanks Luke errrrr, LURK. It actually looks like some interesting stuff... will have to listen later...
posted by HuronBob at 4:19 AM on October 25, 2010

There's a difference between not spoiling it and not giving us any information to go on.
posted by leftoverboy at 5:36 AM on October 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the OP makes it sound like all the hosts have some deadly disease, which is definitely not in the Wikipedia article. There's a pretty decent summary of the show from the Seattle Weekly.

SPOILER ALERT:

The on-air show was canceled, but they apparantly still do podcasts on the KIRO website, which seems fitting because it is sort of a podcasty show.
posted by muddgirl at 6:13 AM on October 25, 2010

Why is the host's identity a secret? If I listen to it will I be amazed and delighted?
posted by mecran01 at 6:23 AM on October 25, 2010

Spoiler alert: The show's hosts are Anakin Skywalker, Keyser Soze, and Rosebud.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 6:41 AM on October 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting this. I was a fan of Luke Burbank's short-lived NPR show "The Bryant Park Project" which never really found an audience, especially after Burbank moved to Seattle. It never occurred to me to see if his Seattle show was available as a podcast
posted by donajo at 7:32 AM on October 25, 2010

I listened to every TBTL episode for a little over a year, from March 09 through May 10. Donated $50, got the t-shirt. It was my favorite podcast in the summer of '09. In my opinion, the quality has seriously dropped off since Jen Andrews left on her road trip odyssey: Luke is a great host but he gets a little too rambly and ranty when he has to fill so much airtime by himself, a more prominent role for Sean is not necessarily a good thing, some of the show's regular guests connect better with Jen then with Luke, and I think that she did a lot of legwork and detail stuff behind the scenes that doesn't get done now.

The show is very of the moment, which is why I had to stop. I listen to about 40 podcasts and so I need most of them to be tolerant of possible long delays before I get to them-TBTL isn't like that, so once the quality dipped a little bit I had to let it go. Maybe when Jen gets back I'll give it a go? When does she come back?
posted by Kwine at 8:46 AM on October 25, 2010

I was really hoping that Garfunkel and Oates was Art Garfunkel and John Oates. I imagined an in-depth conversation about what it's like to be a big star without being the star, or how it feels to be defined as one part of a duo even when the duo is over, or how they cope with being somewhat of a punchline these days when they had such a real impact on popular music.

Alas, it was a hipster band featuring smartypants lyrics and a ukelele.
posted by AgentRocket at 10:52 AM on October 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

LUUUUUUUUKE
posted by mwhybark at 11:29 AM on October 25, 2010

Kwine: Jen is due back as a regular part of the program Nov. 1. Luke's also building a proper studio in his basement and getting an intern or two, so you might want to give it a shot again. I have been a fan of Luke's since his BPP days (which makes me a Refugee as well as a Ten in TBTL parlance), but it was Jen's vision of the show as a community of listeners (that bore fruit in real life, as various groups of Tens around the country came together for meetups and such ontheir own) that makes it really special.

The thing that I love about this is that the show has been crowd-sourced since KIRO took them off the radio, and it embiggens my heart to see it succeeding to the point that Luke and Jen can actually make a living at this, not only for themselves but for podcasting in general. The more alternatives that people create to coporate media, the better as far as I'm concerned.

Now if they can get Sean back on a regular basis, then we're cooking with gas! RAWR!
posted by KingEdRa at 11:59 AM on October 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

That Ross Dress for Less one is both awesome and hilarious. Thanks!
posted by bluefly at 12:17 PM on October 25, 2010

Well, I'm a fairly recent Ten, and I have to say. I loves it. I'm trying to figure out some pretext to get my band interviewed on the show. We don't really do the kind of stuff featured on Sean's mixtape, and we're really not that popular....

...but one day.....
posted by lumpenprole at 3:19 PM on October 25, 2010

By the way, any fans of Wil Wheaton and/or D&D and/or poignancy should definitely tune into the Wil Wheaton episode.
posted by mhum at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2010