Random Thoughts for 4.29.18

Earlier today I found out that my old grade school is suspending operations after this school year. Funding is the issue. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't have any real "sentimental" connection to the school. In fact, grade school wasn't the happiest period of my life. Nevertheless it does feel like a massive chapter of my life is closing. It's a somber reminder that nothing is forever, and life is always full of change.

Podcasts You Listen To

Earlier today my cousin Matt sent me an email about how he was migrating all of his podcasts subscriptions from iTunes to DownCast. While conducting this transitions, he pared down the number of podcasts he's subscribed to from 185 to 39. Additionally, he created a spreadsheet to organize his most listened to shows into particular categories. I love that he did this, and without knowing he did this, he has motivated me to organize some of my podcasts. Specifically my episodes of WireTap. I've always wanted to organize them into some sort of chronological order. But doing so will be a very large task, and that frightens me. 

Anyways, I love podcasts. The democratization of the media through the digital revolution is amazing, and allows independent audio producers, such as myself, the ability to publish our stories independently, develop an audience, and in some cases make some money. It truly is a game changer. But you know what I think would be cool addition to the podcast phenomenon? Distributing them on either a cassette tape, vinyl record, or CD. 

We all love the ease of podcasts. We subscribe to a particular shows RSS feed, and then we are guaranteed new episodes whenever one is published. But what would it be like to create almost a mix tape of podcasts that follow a common theme, topic, and guest? I think it could add an interesting element to it. Plus with the resurgence of analog technologies, it may create a cool marketing gimmick for a new program. 

Also, how cool would it be to get a podcast....on vinyl? I would spend money on that. 

Random Thoughts for 4.10.18

1. I'm reading a biography on Paul McCartney by Phillip Norman. It's very good. While reading it, I had an idea. It would be neat to listen to his entire solo discography in order. Like as I'm reading the book and following his life, listening to his music in order would be following his musical life as it progressed.

2. I'm currently on my next episode of the 'Looking Glass' series. It's going to be ghost stories and the paranormal. I'm not sure how I want to organize the content. I just want to get a lot of good ghost stories.

3. I hope by working on ghost stories won't mean that I somehow get haunted by a ghost....

4. WrestleMania was a lot of fun this week. Matches were good. The storytelling was outstanding. But seven hours is way too long to watch wrestling.

5. I haven't found any new good music to listen to for awhile. It really bums me out.

'The Analog Experience'

Four months of hard work has finally come to a conclusion, as I released the 'The Analog Experience', the season 3 debut of the my podcast series "The Looking Glass". Overall, I'm very pleased with the new formatting of the series, and I think its some of the strongest audio I've ever put together. Although I think I could of done better with the narration writing, but hey there is always room for improvement. For my next episode, I want to do a story about ghosts and the paranormal. I'm in the pre-planning stage, and I'm really enjoying the topic thus far. Until then, check out the latest episode below.