Podcast fiends, here’s your new addiction.
Brendan O’Loughlin recently launched the inaugural episode of his podcast titled, City in Exile. It’s a document of the ever-evolving cultural capital of California, San Francisco, and more specifically, it’s O’Loughlin’s love letter to the city he grew up with. San Francisco is also my favorite city in the country and watching it evolve, and seemingly devolve, from the place I used to escape to in my youth has been both mystifying and depressing, but those of us who pay close attention recognize that all things change and we find ways to recapture those ephemeral bits that made us fall in love with the city as it continues to change.
The focus of his first episode is Paul Pena, blind bluesman who was the subject of a fascinating documentary by filmmaker Roko Belic called Genghis Blues in 1999. Through the course of the episode, O’Loughlin guides us not only through Paul’s life but through the historical growth and changes the city of San Francisco experienced as well, ultimately leading our criminally underknown musical legend across the Pacific Ocean to the Russian Republic of Tuva and back again.
With the Gonzo Journalistic flourish of Hunter S. Thompson and years of experience of his own living all around the state, O’Loughlin’s deeply personal and deeply relatable tale is profoundly uplifting in a time where constant stress and depression seems to be the status quo. What can I say more? Give it a listen. You will not regret it.
