Passions in America Podcast!

OK, so there are way too many things happening at the moment. I’d go into it all but let’s be honest, it exhausts me to think about it. You certainly aren’t going to be all that interested. But I hope that as everything comes together, you will find a lot of it pretty cool. I guess we’ll find out together.

For now, let me tell about a new podcast I launched today called “Passions in America.” This has been a big podcast week. Michael Schur and I started up our new PosCast season on Tuesday with the thrilling brand of nonsense and audio issues our dozens of fans have come to expect. The PosCast will happen every other Tuesday, something you can take as gospel because as Mike says, if there’s one word that best describes the PosCast, it is “reliable.”

The Passions in America podcast is part of an entirely new project that I’m working on; I’ve written a little bit about this before. If you want to catch up on the whole project, you can see the beta version of the Website now. That is in the process of being revamped, one of those "so many things," I mentioned at the top.

The Passions in America podcast idea is simple: I talk to cool people about their passions. That’s all. The response has been extraordinary and exciting, an amazing line of guests have either already recorded an interview or have agreed to come on.

I cannot begin to describe how much fun it is to talk to people about their passions. I remember thinking this for the first time decades ago when I was just starting out in the business. I set out to to do a big story on baseball cards. And when I called hugely successful people who had been interviewed a million times like Bob Costas, there was so much joy in their voices. They couldn’t STOP talking about their love of baseball cards. They didn’t want to let me off the phone. It was fascinating.

I’m hoping to do a Passions in America podcast with Bob Costas entirely on baseball cards. That’s the sort of podcast I hope this will be.

We begin with the wonderful Nick Davis, a filmmaker who just made “Ted Williams: ‘The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived,’” for PBS’ American Masters (debut: July 23rd). I talk to Nick about his passion for storytelling, his passion for baseball (Mets fan, still hasn’t gotten over Matt Harvey taking the mound in the ninth) and his extraordinary family, particularly his grandfather Herman Mankiewicz. It was fabulous.

The Passions in America podcast is streaming here and at Audioboom and I believe it will soon be available at a podcast filling station near you such as iTunes, Stitcher, etc.

Update 1: Passions in America is now available on Spotify either through search or this direct link. I'll try to let you know as it begins appearing in other places.

Update 2: And now it's available on Stitcher. Hoping for iTunes soon.