MaximumFun.org is looking for an office administrator in our Los Angeles office.

Duties include:
Office management
Mailing
Assisting development staff
Filing
General administrative assistance

Job starts at twenty hours per week, pay $10-12/hr. Administrative experience appreciated.

Email your resume, a brief cover letter and contact information for two past employers to maxfunjob@gmail.com.

Opportunity cost is a core principle of economics. It essentially means the money you lose by doing one thing instead of another. If you get paid $20 an hour to sort mail, and take an hour off to file your nails, you lost $20. So filing your nails cost you $20. That’s opportunity cost, very broadly.

Like Mad Men, MaximumFun.org produces a bunch of weekly shows, mostly an hour or so in length. (Ours are on average a little longer, actually, but we’ll let that lie.) When you watch ad-supported media, there’s opportunity cost - the time you spend with the commercials is time you could have been making money. Or doing something else that you value as much as making money - say playing ball with your kid.

What if you donated to MaxFun an amount that matched what you “spend,” in opportunity cost, on the commercials in Mad Men?

Every episode of Mad Men features about 15 minutes of commercials. There are 4 1/3 weeks in a month, on average. So a little math shows us that you “spend,” in opportunity cost, your hourly salary * 1.08 every month watching Mad Men commercials.

Make ten bucks an hour? That’s $10.83 every month.
Make twenty? That’s $21.65.
Make fifty bucks an hour? $54.13.

And if you’re salaried, work 9-6 and get two weeks off a year…

$30,000 a year, and you’re “spending” $16.91.
$50,000 a year, and you’re spending $28.19.
$80,000 a year and you’re spending $45.13.

That’s EVERY MONTH on ONE SHOW. And don’t forget - you pay for cable so you can have the privilege of watching their ads. (And there’s ads built into the show! Conrad Hilton! That whole storyline! Bought and paid for! Seriously!)

So what if you gave that to support our shows every month? Or even half? If you did, it would go straight to the people whose work you love. Not execs or ad guys or shareholders or whatever.

Why don’t you? It’s easy. In fact, click here, and do it now.

I don’t think you shouldn’t watch Mad Men. I love Mad Men. I just think this is a great chance to think about how you’re paying for your entertainment. I think it’s worth valuing your time and attention, and valuing the content you care about.

(And yes, pedants, we sometimes have a couple brief ads in our show. Why don’t we call that and the advertisement-storylines a wash :)?

Hey Bullseye listeners... do us a favor, willya? Fill out our listener survey. We need to know who you are and what you think!

It’s official: starting in April, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn will be distributed by National Public Radio! This is the culmination of months and months of meetings, negotiations and planning, and we’re so, so proud to make it public today. (And so, so proud of the sweet illustration that we just made (above).)

We’re excited to be joining forces with the big dogs in public radio, and excited that we’ll no longer have to spend like half of every conversation at every cocktail party explaining the complicated square-rectangle relationship between “public radio” and “NPR.” (From now on, we can just be all, “yup, I do a show on NPR.” It’s gonna be great.)

We’ll be on the same team as our all-time favorites like Terry Gross and Brooke Gladstone, and our new jack favorites like Glynn Washington and Jad Abumrad. It’s an ideal situation.

If you’re a longstanding Bullseye listener, you’ve got nothing to worry about. The show will continue to be produced independently by MaximumFun.org, but now we’ll also have the cachet and manpower of NPR helping us to bring it to public radio stations around the country. Our hope is that this partnership will mean a better show, better guests and a bigger station lineup.

This is the next chapter in a story that started at my college radio station when I was 19. Twelve years later, I think our show is the best it’s ever been, and now we’re in position to take advantage of that fact.

As a great American once said… haters don’t be mad, ‘cause it’s all about progression… loiterers should be arrested.

Ad astra!

Almost seven years ago, Mike Arnold, then of PRI, called me and asked me a question: "If PRI were interested in distributing your show, would you be interested in having PRI distribute it?" It was a dream come true, and I value immensely the hard work Public Radio International has done sharing our show with stations, and the kind people who work there who've become my friends.

That's why it was so immensely hard to say goodbye.

I've decided that starting this spring, Bullseye will have a new distributor. We'll announce the specific details soon, but for the time being, I want to emphasize that the only effects for listeners and stations will be positive. Our production and distribution won't be interrupted, and the show will only get better. This is a difficult step, but it is also a step forward.

For the time being, I just want to thank all of the kind people at PRI who've been wonderful partners over the years, particularly those who've worked with me directly, like Mike, Mark Kausch and Heidi Schultz. It's been an honor to be associated with PRI, and with wonderful shows like This American Life, Studio 360, To The Best of Our Knowledge and others. Thank you.

Bullseye fans: the future is bright. I'm excited.

Put This On Season Episode 5: Elegance (Milan) from Put This On on Vimeo.

Welcome the newest MaxFun show: Risk!

Risk! is true tales, boldly told.

For the last few years, Kevin Allison has been bringing the funniest and most insightful performers on both coasts together to share true stories from their lives. True stories that they never thought they'd share.

I've loved Risk! for years. It's fascinating and hilarious and touching, and it always surprises me. Kevin is an amazing editor and guide for the show, and I think we share the same values.

I'm so proud that when Kevin decided to join a podcast network, he chose MaximumFun.org. You now have the opportunity to support Kevin's work (and ours) directly by becoming a MaxFun donor on MaxFunDay, October 15th.

We've reached the organizational size where we can start to spend money speculatively. We've added shows and new production initiatives, and we're counting on you to help us support them. If you're not already a donor, think about the value that our work has in your life, and remember that on MaxFunDay. If you are - maybe hector someone you know into joining.

So: if you've never heard Risk!, head over to iTunes and subscibe now. Or if you're not an iTunes user, subscribe with this RSS feed. And if you have heard it, remember to support it. We're so happy to have Kevin and his team as part of the MaxFun family.

Put This On, Season 2, Episode 4: Eccentric Style from Put This On on Vimeo.

Over at Put This On, I just released the fourth episode of our second season. I think it's a really good one, maybe our best ever. You should watch it.

Bullseye listeners: can you do us a favor?

Can you respond to this survey for us?

It's quick and painless, and will help us get a picture of where we're at, six months after transitioning the show from The Sound of Young America.

Written by Jordan Morris, featuring the voice of me, Jesse Thorn.