James Interviewed Twice in the Last 12 Hours
It's been a busy day here at the ReginaRadio.com World Headquarters. I just finished a phone interview with a U. of Regina journalism student about my podcasts and the cultural phenomenon of portable media. Those 20 year-old journalism students are some hyper, let me tell you.
Last night I had the honour and pleasure of speaking to the Guru of Canadian Podcasting, Mark Blevis, host of The Canadian Podcast Buffet and Electric Sky. He interviewed me for an upcoming segment on the CPB regarding my use of video simulcasting on YouTube to expand my listening audience.
It was great to speak to Mark after hearing him talk about podcasting for most of the last year and interacting with his show. However, I think I tuned out from time to time because hearing his voice made me think I was listening to his popular podcast rather than talking to someone live on Skype.
As well as cohosting his podcast on podcasting, Mark has a widely-popular interview podcast. He's interviewed dozens of interesting people, too numerous to mention, some famous, some infamous. Using his experience as an interviewer, he threw a couple of curve balls at me which I found hard to answer.
At one point he read me a supposed quote about me thinking I was more important than the medium and basically that I was a publicity slut. It was like there was a little James on my shoulder telling me these things because it may be how I in fact (guiltily) feel about what I'm doing. Perhaps I've just gone mad and he didn't read me that quote after all. If so, my answer must have sounded particularly strange.
I come from a different world than most podcasters. I'm a comic actor/writer/producer who has had it with being in TV network development hell for 12 years and wants to do his own thing. My goals are different from those of most podcasters. I'm not happy just having an audience because I've had an audience of 10,000 or more on local television and close to one million during my short one season stint on Just for Laughs. For me to feel like I'm making it in podcasting, I have to have a large enough audience to monetize my efforts or use it as a stepping stone to something more lucrative.
Having said that, I enjoy the personal aspect of podcasting. I enjoy meeting new people, sharing and unloading a few personal aspects of my life to others, even if I do embellish for comic effect. Interacting with other people in the podcasting community has been great and there's nothing like the personal connection listeners have to me because it's a podcast from my bedroom and not a commercial enterprise where I'm one piece of a large puzzle with no audience interaction. I also like the physical anonymity of audio podcasting. I used to get freaked out when I'd walk down the street and people I didn't know would recognize me (it still happens several times a week, but nothing like it used to be.)
It's also cool to have world-wide distribution with podcasting. I haven't quite figured out my appeal in this culture, let alone foreign ones, but maybe I will one day if I keep it up.
A year ago, Mark was listening to all 120 Canadian podcasts. That is insane, of course, but what dedication he had preparing for the launch of the Canadian Podcast Buffet. Mr. Blevis also co-organizes the annual podcast convention in Kingston, Ontario called Podcasters Across Borders.
Mark and Bob, the people behind PAB and CPB always seem hurt when I say I can't attend their big event in Kingston each year. It's like they're having a party on the other side of town and I tell tell them I've decided to stay in that night and watch television while eating Cheese Doodles in my pajamas. I guess all other Canadian podcasters are independently wealthy or something. They're all my age, late thirties or more, and they should be wealthy, but I'm not. I'm a starving artiste. Actually, I'm anything but poor but I'm far from being able to afford the grand it would take to fly my ass out there and party with my podcasting friends for two days each June. it's certainly not because I don't want to, I'm just fiscally-challenged this life, that's all.
Labels: podcasting
