Monday, May 25, 2020

4593 Plodcasts



Get one of these for your basement and you, too can become a podcast star.  Available at Gimbels, EJ Korvette, Radio Shack and other fine stores.

They’re too long.  They’re too late. Most have no adult supervision and why do you listen?

Do you remember the cartoon with two dogs sitting at a computer and one says to the other, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”? Now they do.  Every computer has a camera. But it doesn’t matter if you’re a dog.  Someone will listen.  Every computer now has a microphone.

Dogwhistles abound on the internet (no longer capitalized in the punctuation of the peasantry.) Anyone can post.

What’s you’re pleasure?  The candidacy for Grand Poohbah of the Glorious Knights of the Kentucky Klan?  Or the leader of the “Bring Back the Soviet Union” consortium of West Leningrad, FL?

How about 20 or 25 minutes of This Day in Lithuanian History. Or the Wolfgang Puck method of heat-free cooking? Or how to get the sauce off the ceiling when your pressure cooker explodes?

Some podcasts take on the trappings of a CNN or MSNBC or Fox News Gabfest.  Would you like half an hour of some washed up never-was comedian with a chorus of yea-sayers selling the do-it-yourself Reiki Massage Course?

A close relative suggested that these posts get supplemented with a podcast.  Do you really want to hear an old guy blabbing on about Jerry Sandusky or entropy the haunted bars of central Pennsylvania or the good old days of the New York City Folk Scare?

I thought not.

These posts started as a podcast -- part of a larger radio presentation. They ran to fill a two and a half minute segment with nothing else available.  Can you imagine if they lasted 15 minutes?  It was my segment and any longer than 500 words would have put me to sleep at the microphone.

Podcasts -- or Plodcasts -- are a waste of your time and the efforts of their writers, producers, speakers and the bandwidth of your internet connection.

Oh, but don’t they add to the depth of reporting?  Sometimes.  But three times or -- heaven forbid -- FIVE times a week? Nah. It’s just aural packing peanuts. And when you spill the packing peanuts on the floor, where you have to chase them, and you reach into the box that held them, there’s a crumb of interest -- if that.

Of course, in the days of forced home incarceration, some of us have a lot of time to waste.  After all, how many closets can you rearrange in a week?  You really don’t want to paint the living room. You can’t shoot at targets indoors without a permit.  And you can’t practice your high jump in rooms of average ceiling height.

So sure. Go find out what happened in Lithuania on this day in 1745.  Or watch cam girls or cam boys (don’t let your spouse see the American Express bill.) Or maybe (shudder) read a book. Even better, take a 20 minute nap. Make a phone call. Have a conversation with the person from whom you hide the credit card bill.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

This just in…
(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION) -- The almost universally unknown podcast distributor 4Forty4 has signed Larry King to a $5 million contract to do a regular one hour celebrity interview show. This was first reported by Variety.

(NEW YORK) -- Joe Rogan, possible king of all podcasters, is taking his pod to Spotify. Rogan’s 1,000 podcasts have collected 24 million clicks.  The closest runners up? The next thousand down the list have collected a total of 24 clicks.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Any Questions? Wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2020

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4759 The Supreme Court

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