Vidcast – License to be Humble

I’m probably going to do more on-the-spot vidcasts whenever I get the urge.

 

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DIC #33 – The Last Podcast Show

Fellow winners, this is the last one. Yet, before I go off the feed I’d like to thank all my listeners and contributors who have supported this show (listed below). Also, I’d like to introduce Geoffrey Singer, a writer living in Ohio.

The old shows will remain on the feed or you can download them here>>

Thanks Forever:

Norm Sherman of the Drabblecast, Richard Arndt, Steve Eley of Escape Pod, My Wife Anna, The Absent Bluenose, Summer, Alex and Marissa of Ricky Shore Sings the Blues, Sundown Lounge, Ami Shetland, Frank Forrest, Kim Martin, Ed Rubin, The Evie Man, Rick Quentin – your check is in the mail, Shari Wright, Demented Radio

 

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Don’t Be the Next…Be the Original

As a freelance web designer, I get calls from people who have the next great Internet idea:

It’s life Facebook….for Dogs!!!

It’s like Facebook…for Christians!!!

Sadly, these folk lack the two key components of the next great idea: passion and capital. You can do without the latter, but nothing comes into being without the first one.

These would-be internet gazillionaires are under the false idea that all the billion-dollar ventures started as entrepreneurial ideas. In reality, they started as hobbies or by just a few geeks tinkering between Hot-Pocket binges. These  inventors had a  passion before they had a paycheck.

Google began as a Stanford computer science thesis. Both MySpace and Facebook were created for a small audience by a few dorm rats. Even Digg was created to see if Slashdot could be improved.  Then someone thought, “Hey, maybe I could actually make money with this.”

It’s a weather beaten chiche, but it’s true: Do what you love first, then worry about getting paid for it later.  Yet,  I do believe its true.

Yet, as I pour through Craigslist, I see many web-entrepreneurs struggling to come up with the next great start-up or company concept. With the optimism of a tone-deaf American Idol contestant, they put countless hours into projects that are just a clone with a different color.

This Kids in the Hall sketch encapsulates many of them:

However, few of us are hard-core techies. I’m soft-core myself. But some people can turn their hobbies into a living.

Digg: Five Years in 5 Minutes

Outfielder in the Rye

Note: Thanks to an Italian Hacker the old theme has been compromised. I will have to start over with a new one. This one is buggy and some of the files won’t work – ARE

The following blog entry will destroy me. For what I’m about to say I will be forever an apostate among the Literary Hip. The Hipster equivalent to the SWAT team will raid my house. First they will confiscate my rare LP’s of indie artists who are know only to three people, including the artists, one of who now resides in a sanitarium. Then, they will crook my designer glasses. Also my collection of obscure gay Cuban poetry books and dead, nazi-sympathizing European novels will also be loaded into their biodiesel Volvo. I will then be barred from all basement gallery parties and will have to stand in the back of the protest line next time some football star kicks a puppy.

But it must be said: I didn’t like Catcher in the Rye at all.

I didn’t think it was trash, I just thought it was a ranting piece by an depressive, ungrateful rich kid. Who doesn’t think everyone is a phony at 15. That’s hardly a revelation. Where did the Central Park ducks go in winter? Well, Holden, being so much enlightened that the rest of us, how about going to a library and finding out? Even a phony like myself can tell you: They go ‘effing south in the winter.

Also,  I can’t dismiss the impact of this book on counterculture.  Catcher inspired legions of rucksack shouldering searchers who tramped down America’s backroads to judge and ridicule the ignorance of its residents. In every major city with a hip area (Atlanta cool wasteland is Little 5 Points), the bars and cafes are full of mismatched Holdens pining away for a Feelies reunion, working low paying, but total chick magnet, jobs and dismissing everyone’s hopes and dreams. This rebellion lasts until the parents cut off the trust fund or a Gap is dropped onto their favorite, if-you-heard-of-it-then-we-don’t-sell-it used record store.

I always hear how so many were changed by Catcher. I was 23 and living in Prague at the time. This was shortly after the Iron Curtain fell and many Americans came to see what was on the other side of that curtain. I met a guy who pleaded with me to read Catcher and dared me to not be changed by it. So I read it in less than two hours.

We met later and he asked me what I thought. We were in a Cafe owned by Americans, staffed by Czechs, and patronized by young Americans expatriates. What I thought? I listened to the conversations on the other tables.

Of course she was a typical American.

My parents expect me to go to work when I go back. I am working. I’m an anarchist  poet.

All these posers are ruining Prague. I saw a bunch of Jocks with their Jansport backpacks…

What I thought? I’ve been hearing from Holden since I set foot in Prague. Whiny, spoiled, and escaping into bohemian excesses not because of their love or art or life, but to escape responsibility or obligations. I was Holden, too. I didn’t want to go back home to hear my parents ask what I intend to do with my life. I didn’t even know if I wanted shaved chocolate on my moccachino.

“I thought it was OK. ” I said and reached for the dusted vanilla.

So if you don’t see me at the 40 Watt Club or shopping at Junkman’s Daughter, you will understand why.

Goodbye…Hello…It’s over at 33

Fellow Winners:

After some of the deepest contemplation I have ever done over a decision, I have found that the podcast version of Diabetic in Candyland is done. However, I’m just getting started.

I will have a final episode in February, where I will be a spring of ‘thankyous’ to everyone who has contributed and supported this podcast.

This decision has little to do with the decline of independent podcastingbut regards a reorientation of my life. This is the year I will become a professional writer.  I have become a professional writer.

Hence, Diabetic in Candyland will become a text blog, but I may do audio entries when the spirit lifts me by the shirttail.

The podcast will remain in the archives of this site, but expect the format and look of this site to change.

As a kid, I used to steal away with my parent’s tape recorder. After I got done burping and farting in it, I decided to make up a few stories with my Star Wars and Playmobil characters. DIC fulfilled that childhood longing to put on my own show. Well, I’ve done that.

Thank you all for supporting this show, but stick around because I’d like to keep you up to date with my progress. If there is a life for me in print, then I I hope to someday call you ‘readers’ rather than ‘listeners’.

Stick around. The audio may have gone silent, but I’m just clearing my voice.

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