It's Not TV

The show I am probably most amazed to even find in podcast form is undoubtedly Real Time with Bill Maher, an HBO Friday-night news chat show which is similar in style to Maher's last gig, Politically Incorrect. Every week he does a monologue, has two one-on-one interviews, and the majority of the time is a discussion panel with 3 guests.

It's only downloadable, so far as I can tell, through iTunes. And while it kills me to pimp an Apple product, iTunes does a very respectable job keeping me updated with podcasts, so there you go. Good work, Steve Jobs!

Anyhow, you should get this past week's episode. It's classic, for many reasons. For one, there's an incredibly insightful interview with Gary Kasparov, formerly the world chess champion and now the leader of the opposition political party in Russia. If you get the episode, scroll to 30:23 to get to the start of the interview. As Chris Matthews says afterwards, it's amazing how he doesn't talk down to the listeners at all, but is instead open and honest and, well, right about so many things.

Also, it's worth scrolling to 21:17 and listening to two plants start ranting about Building 7 at the World Trade Center. You can see the video here. It's great to see Maher actually run into the audience and help security get rid of one of the protesters. Gotta love actual live TV. I do have to give them props for not editing it out of the podcast, though; that's downright admirable.

So, go check it out. Get rid of your satellite dish and just get you some iTunes - you'll never know the difference!