Hello, blog readers!

No, I haven't forgotten the ol' blog. I've been busying myself with the podcasting world of late.

How did I get sucked into the realm of Internet audio, when I had been a man of the written word for so long? Well, it's an uninteresting story, as my readers have become accustomed to (am I self-deprecating enough?).

Back in September I was at Barnes & Noble and happened to leaf through Adam Carolla's book. He had a couple of pages in there I found to be blazing with insight. I went home and reported on Facebook that the book was hysterical. A Facebook friend and former local DJ suggested I check out Carolla's podcast. Though they've been around for years and I love morning shows and talk shows, I had never listened to a podcast.

The Carolla show I dialed up was an interview with Andrew "Dice" Clay. It had been suggested to me as far back as `97 or `98 that I could record a radio-style show and put it on the Internet for downloading, years before Adam Curry came up with the term "podcast." I had many misgivings about the idea, but they began melting away upon listening to this Dice interview.

When the initial recommendation to do a show on the Internet was made back in the late 1990's, I thought it was a silly idea. I was trying to get to a 100,000 watt station in a glamor capital like Los Angeles or Chicago, with the attached six-figure paycheck, not make fuzzy-sounding audio files (these were the Real Audio days, pre-MP3) for free. After the podcasting format was solidified and named, I still believed you needed a morning zoo crew of five "laughers," a stunt guy to take poops in public parks, and a green room filled with A-list celebrities to interest anyone. Who would listen to me sitting in a room talking to myself?

The Carolla/Diceman interview reset my perceptions. This was just two guys talking for an hour: no sidekicks, no forced laughs, no station IDs or traffic, no sound effects, and apparently it was extremely successful. From there I investigated the other big names: Marc Maron's WTF, Chris Hardwick's Nerdist, and Uhh Yeah Dude (yes, that's the name of a very successful show).

I've also discovered that outside of those few, the Internet is teeming with half-baked, unlistenable dreck, and it's not even coming from amateurs, it's big-time showbiz names you know producing this shit. It's worth noting that the hosts of the top three shows, Carolla, Maron, and Hardwick, have substantial radio experience, and many other podcasters don't, so maybe that's why their shows are more listenable and subscribed to.

Comedian Marc Maron of WTF was in Atlanta this past week, and was on the cover of the local alt-newsweekly, Creative Loafing. The article frightened me. It explicitly details that Maron is pulling big numbers in terms of listeners and ad dollars. Until now, in my world, anyway, podcasting has been an underground phenomena; none of my friends listens to even the biggest shows, or seems familiar with the hosts. But when the news of the dollars the top shows are drawing gets out there, every butt face in the world who isn't already doing a crappy podcast will want to join in. A gold rush will ensue. Soon it will be like the L.A. hair metal scene, with a thousand worthless bands all vying to be the next Van Halen, while something new sprouts elsewhere, off the radar.

But my real point here is my podcast truly sounds better than a lot of what's out there, and you should go listen to it.