He's a Great Kai

I am mildly in love with Marketplace Morning Report's Kai Ryssdal. For you non-NPR listeners, Marketplace is the economic-themed half hour show that's right in between All Things Considered and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The Morning Report is the ten-minute morning version that's on at 8:50am every day after Morning Edition.

Anyway, I've loved Kai for years. He's got a great voice, he's smart and he has the most wonderful, dry sense of humor. His weekly "Sign of the Apocalypse" cracks me up every time. Kai has been the host of the Morning Report for years.

Meanwhile, the more substantial Marketplace was hosted by lame-o David Brown, whom I do not care for. Anyone who describes himself as a "renaissance man" deserves a cock punch. Sure, sure, someone probably wrote that for him, but it seems so much more effusive than Kai's or Tess Vigeland's description, and therefore I think Brown had a hand in it.

But anyway, I am happy to report that David Brown is gone and Kai Ryssdal is now hosting the 30-minute Marketplace. Hooray!

In other news, this past weekend's This American Life made me cry. It was about the difference between how we want people to see us, and how they actually see us. As far as themes go, it wasn't as well-tied as it usually is. But the last two stories were so well-told and moving that it didn't matter. Jonathan Goldstein's realization that his father loved him because of who he was and not in spite of it? Priceless. But I lost it in the final act where the mother is trying to help her ten-year-old son learn about who his father really was, now that Dad has a degenerative brain disease that has wiped away his personality.

Chuckles and I argued last week about Ira Glass, host of TAL. I'll grant that my argument wasn't that strong... I think I said something like, "You're crazy! Ira Glass rules!" And he does. So. There.

Last, but certainly not least, it's hard to beat Peter Sagal saying "badunkadonk" on the radio, and then having to explain what that means to Roy Blount, Jr (whom I strongly suspect was drunk).