Sorry that I’ve been away from my keyboard for so long. A lot of crazy things have happened in the interim, like a near coup in Moscow that threatened to take Vladimir Putin out like a second-rate Muammar Gaddafi. The truth is that I took some time off to go see one of the last-ever Dead & Company shows in Queens, and then I’ve been preoccupied with trying to start a podcast with my longtime buddy, Brendan Skwire (here seen creating Speed Metal Bluegrass version of Bill Monroe’s Wheel Hoss).
Nothing makes you appreciate the talent and work required for something like trying to do it yourself. We’ve been laboring to put the pieces together for a podcast for months, and it feels like a Herculean task. We finally have all the required equipment and a grasp on the editing skills we need. We’ve listened to a lot of radio shows and podcasts to get a feel for how these things are put together and what makes for compelling content. We’ve sat down with successful podcasters to pick their brains. And we’ve done a couple of dry-runs now. The last segment we did will probably serve as the bulk of our introductory episode, but we still have more to do.
To start, we’re going to be audio only. And we won’t be taking any callers. We just need to get our feet wet. If we wait around to have everything we want ready, we’ll never get off the blocks.
Brendan and I met through political activism, and we’ve both written about politics for years, but we don’t want our podcast to be limited to that. We’re both looking for a bit of a change of pace. He’s a musician and public school teacher, and I’m a bit burned out on the political grind I’ve been doing exclusively for the 18 years since I launched Booman Tribune. So, we’ll talk about sports, music, culture, history or whatever else we want to talk about in addition to the big political stories of the week.
Having said that, you Progress Pond readers are the primary audience for this, and we want to know what you’re interested in. Eventually, we’ll let you call in to the show, but for now maybe you can just let us know in the comments. Whether it’s a personal question or something about an article one of us has written, or something else, it’s basically just a matter of what you’d like to ask. Also, what kind of content are you interested in?
I can already tell you, that I have gained a lot of respect and appreciation for people who do professional podcasting. It’s a lot of work, and getting good at it will take some time. But it’s also fun, and we all need more fun, right?
