#WorstFriends Email exchange Part 2

Colin

You busting out "in journalism" is exactly like me saying "well in the Game of Thrones book, THIS happens instead."  No one likes that type of person.  Your "journalism" experience does shines through with such a well written response, I'm just left curious as to why absolutely none of your actual newspaper articles are ever written so well or are so insightful?

And two spaces after a period is APA style, which I had to use when writing my thesis about workplace bullying, which you sir, heretofore, I do declare, are yourself, that which I just previously spoke of..... a bully. 

As for my smirk faced comments, I'm not sure if I use a colon or semi-colon here, anyway, my rebuttel:  I sent you the first article about the zombie eating the homeless guy's face and said we need to talk about how we are preparing; I've been telling you to watch season 5 of The Wire for a year now so naturally when you finished we were going to discuss it; and the Entourage episodes (my idea, which you later admitted you disliked only because I thought of it first) originally was going to be a bulky 2 hour straight pod, until you decided to break it in two.  Part 2 was only downloaded three times because, and I know because I checked, we really only have three friends who listen to the pod who actually watched the show.  But I digress...

Now that we have that out of the way, I will concede that I was initially against the more free flowing format.  That is only because I personally need to have more of my thoughts laid out in preparation.  That is so we don't come across as two mouth breathers with nothing to say because we didn't know the other was going to bring up a certain topic (insert Days of our Lives which was brought up in episode 12).  That being said, I feel like we have found a decent mix of randomness and organized focus.  The opening segments definitely give almost everyone a reason to listen, and then depending on the overall topic, others can hang around to see what our thoughts are on certain shows, movies, current life events, or erotically dancing little buddies.

All of these adaptations/improvements/changes are going to be beneficial because my initial worry about the podcast was that we would run out of ideas.  At first we discussed having lists of favorite/best tv shows and movies and actors and characters etc.  I was also hesitant about us podcasting about things we basically have a half-assed understanding of.  I wanted to have a unique podcast where we talked about things we actually know quite a bit about.  The sad realization that I came to was that everything I am very educated on is kinda piss-boring (at least by others standards, I personally find my background fascinating).

You kept pressuring us to talk about things we basically knew jack about, but during that process I feel like we have established a unique persona where we accept that we know jack, but hmmph WHO CARES; we're fans, we have opinions, and we have microphones.  Our perspectives, while uneducated and unsubstantiated, are our own and we just hope people like listening.  Its still painfully clear though, especially when we discuss television shows, that we are in no way qualified to be actual critics, but instead basically give smart-ass comments about little people and a lack of nudity from our favorite little khaleesi.

What are your thoughts on where the podcast is now?  Is it what you had initially envisioned? What sacrifices do you feel you made during the development of this show before giving birth to it in a bathtub?

Tim

I’m going to flip it on ‘em, because, in the words of Busta Rhymes, “Flip mode is the greatest.” Instead of addressing your cruel comments aimed at my career and allegations of bullying, I’m going to first answer your questions.

The podcast, in its current state, is better than I thought it would be, but not as good as it will be. Like you mentioned above, I think the changes will be beneficial because we’ll never run out of content. Something ridiculous happens ever day in this crazy world we live in. It seems we agree the podcast is better in its 12th episode than its first, although we may never agree on whose idea it was to discuss zombies and outbreak preparations (mine).

It’s not as good as it will be, because we still have a lot to learn and accomplish when it comes to interviewing guests, creating a theme song, recurring segments, etc.

As far as my initial vision of the podcast, we’re close. You know how an archery target has a yellow circle for a bull’s eye, then a larger blue circle around that, then a series of increasingly larger white circles just to make people feel good about hitting the target? I’d say we’re right on the line between the blue circle and first white circle. A little further away, we’d be in a position of “Well, at least you hit the target.” And if we were a little closer, we’d be damn close to my initial vision of the greatest podcast ever in the world.

And now, the sacrifices. Really, the major sacrifice has been time. I don’t think either of us has spent money on the podcast outside of buying some inexpensive microphones and a ticket to “The Grey.” Sacrificing time, which is not money, despite what we have been led to believe by over-aggressive businessmen in movies and television, is not something I regret, because, you know, you only die once. (I’ve been saying this for years, and think “YODO” is cooler than “YOLO,” which people use as a reasoning for stupid ass stuff like “Drinking a beer. YOLO!” But I digress.) We are getting to the point where I think a financial sacrifice is needed for growth. In my opinion, it’s time to buy hosting from a service like libsyn so we can get up on iTunes without trying to manipulate the system.

Oh, by the way, what’s all this stuff about our perspectives being uneducated and unsubstantiated? What qualifies someone to be a TV critic anyways? I had a college professor who sat on a panel at a television conference to discuss his essay about Spongebob Squarepants being OCD. Is that what makes someone smart? Let’s not forget I also had a course in college titled “John Carpenter films.” Is making sense out of Kurt Russell’s surfboard heroics in “Escape from LA” what it takes to be an “expert” on film? You know what Carpenter was really doing there? Trying to show he is “with it” and knows what the kids want. You know what he actually did? Made an ass out of himself and Kurt Russell. The Spongebob professor thought everything that was long and thin was a phallic symbol — the knife used to kill Col. Mustard in the billiard room — it’s a penis! That candle lit in a dark room so our protagonist could see a book, it’s a penis! The hot dog the man bought a baseball game for his son, you guessed it! A penis!

If being educated means over-thinking cartoons and finding penises in strange places, count me out. I’ll keep it real and discuss heads sliced in two from the eyes up and my desire to see a bare-breasted khaleesi. (I think I’m going to start a petition demanding this in season 3. Will you join me in this noble quest?)

I’m going to ignore the snarky comments in your email, putting an end to the petty back and forth, and establishing myself as the bigger man.

What happens next with the podcast? Do you have any goals when it comes to downloads, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, guests or audience participation? Did you know you misspelled rebuttal? Will YODO catch on?