A Trip Through Insanity

After flipping through what seems like hundreds of possible radio shows to listen to, I fell upon "A Trip Through Insanity" on The Story with Dick Gordon, a collection of stories in which rape, gospel, and post offices are discussed. I chose this podcast mainly because the story of Pippin Ross (an NPR reporter who was raped on the job and was later arrested on drunk driving charges) was interesting to me. Listening to Pippin was almost painful. Because the podcast was purely audio, the intensity of Pippin's choked-up, sobbing stories of rape were uncomfortable to listen to. This discomfort creates a sympathy for Pippin that stretches out to the inmates that she describes as having "Precious-personas." Before listening to this section of this podcast, I had never sympathized with inmates, but Pippin's soothing, radio-made voice and heart-felt descriptions of the women she met in jail make jail seem like a home for women trapped in the mishaps of their past.

Another reason why I chose this podcast was because of the section on post offices. I am heading to Albuquerque this weekend for the NCAA tournament so this section about southwestern post office stories intrigued me. All the stories were cute and simple, however I did not see their connection to the rest of the post office and I felt like I had wasted time by listening to it.

The final section is on performing gospel in the Subway. I was slightly bored with this selection and wished the trains in the background had been edited out. That being said, the story was inspirational and gave me a better understanding of the homeless citizens of New York. This story also was interesting in the way it showed how pride can deter you from pursuing something that could be enjoyable.

Overall, I liked the radio show. I wish it had more scandalous stories (a la 48 Hours Investigates or 20/20), but I found the show easy to listen to. Not only this, but I found that I could listen to the radio and do other things at the same time. This reminded me of the New York Times statement that Radio was easier to multitask with than TV. So true. Right after I wrote this, I watched an episode of Glee only to realize I never published this...