Listening to: Rx Bandits
Writing habits: Ha. Funny joke, me.
Status: Headcold - minus two constitution and wisdom. Minus one intelligence.
So, I have a podcast now? I’m actually really happy with the name as the creative process about what the show could be was stuck on “what on earth do we call this?” Most of the creative process has been the two of us drinking beers and talking for years about various things but, we never really tried to structure the conversation before. I love me a good wordsmithing. I can spend whole minutes wordsmithing a whole sentence into a fine edge that I can be proud of. The difference with a podcast is that the thoughts that leave my mouth have to be good the first-ish time. I’ve never let perfect be the enemy of good enough for anything I’ve ever done (you’re reading this, aren’t you) but, it’s a real struggle when I go back and listen to myself and regret absolutely every dumb fuckin’ thing I have ever said out loud to other humans for my entire life. I have to operate under the assumption that this is normal for starting your very first ever podcast.
A thing I have found incredibly frustrating already is the fact that having a plan is hard and executing a plan is even harder. Specifically, in the first episode of the podcast, I had this idea in my head that it would sound like the two of us talking and shooting the shit like normal but instead it comes off as a dating profile. Do you know that we like long walks on the beach and books? I went back and checked it four times before the ol’ Fuck It attitude kicked in and I hit the publish button anyway. I’m still not sure I am happy with what we did the first time through but, I am incredibly excited about what we can do in the future.
One of the primary reasons I wanted to start a podcast was rooted in the idea that I tend to write how I talk. I very much like to ensure that my specific voice and what I hear in my head is what you get when you read these words. I feel like I pull that off. The minute I put a microphone in my face and record the actual words, I kinda sound like a dumbass. Or at least not as clever and smart as I would like to admit. Now, there are plenty of opportunities to hone my speaking voice and tone as we continue on. I just feel that a first episode (or an episode zero) should really get you the meat of the personalities in question.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, making something is hard. Have you tried it? Have you put thoughts together in your head of how a thing should be and then attempted to bring that very brain idea screaming into this realm of existence? It’s terrifying. I understand now that a key thing I am lacking in this regard isn’t ideas, those are somewhat cheap and easy, it’s the practice and patience to get something right. Not perfect. Just “correct.” My process to start as been very much mimicking things that I think I’ve heard be successful and having no idea if they will actually work for me. Oh, and I have none of the practice or experience to know if that will work or to pivot if it isn’t working. There is so much more for me to learn. I don’t mind the effort to accomplish that but, bringing in a whole second human is making my brain do back flips in my skull. Writing things on this blog when I feel the need doesn’t require anyone else to check. Doing a two sided conversation on a specific topic, that’s a challenge. Humans are very sticky and tactile things and self-doubt can come out as group-doubt and that’s just toxic to the whole thing.
I will say this. There are a couple things I am proud of already. I thought I did an okay job on the edit. I want things have a bit of that “live to tape” feel while also allowing us to cut out dumb video-call issues that eye contact and body language would assist with in real life. I also went ahead and added some loops I made on the korg kaossilator mobile app as a podcast intro and outro. Those tracks are actually on my soundcloud because of course they are. I also think we actually do an okay job with talking once things get going. I was also proud of myself for Shutting the Fuck Up For Once. If you have ever talked to me, I think you understand that it’s a real challenge for me to just Shut the Fuck Up.
I absolutely was tickled pink by all of the dumb administrative tasks with starting a podcast. Once we had the name I went a purchased an even more catchy domain name. I then got to go out and research MAIL HOSTS! Mail! I love it. Setting up a unique mailing address and a mail location that we can control is critical to me as it ensure we can do whatever the hell we want whenever we want to. It’s also the reason I have this blog in simple stuff like hugo. It is a priority to me that I can pick up my ball and go play somewhere else if something goes wrong with technologies or hosting outside of my control. Once we had the domain and the mail hosting, we just had to decide on a podcast host. This was harder than I thought because our show structure doesn’t really exist yet. We know we are going to do something every other week. And we have an idea on how long that thing will be (under an hour) but, I don’t want to pay for hosting of “five hours a month total with 1000 unique downloads” or some nonsense when some sites have “unlimited hosting, downloads, and length.” The last piece of that puzzle was also ensuring that I could bring the domain I purchased to the hosting solution. I wanted more than to just redirect a domain. All of the feeds and every url you see should be under my control. What does all of that do? Nothing really. But, it does allow me peace of mind that I can change my mind later if I decide something is bad or weird. That’s worth the fourteen dollars a year on a domain.
Well, what did we learn about the ol’ Justis thinkin’ machine. I demand control, I need options, I like process and procedures, and doin’ stuff is hard and scary. No revelations here, just systems operating as normal. So, go check out the podcast. Maybe by the time you’ve read this I’ve come back around on it. That’s how self-doubt works. I won’t know how I feel about anything until I’ve done it one thousand times.