Podcasts 101

Podcasts 101 from Trucker Larry-

If you have an Ipod (or any MP3 player) and haven't heard of or utilize podcasts, then prepare to take your earbuds to the next level. Podcast is a very wide encompassing term. It, basically, is someone (or someones) who sat down before a computer armed with a microphone, something to say, and time to kill. It is audio that has been recorded and encoded into the MP3 format and posted to a website (ie, Itunes, podiobooks.com, podcastalley.com, ESPN.com, etc) for your downloading pleasure. Podcasts are completely free and, believe me, more entertaining than the majority of crap available on your 200+ channels of cable. They offer the ultimate in portability and this is their major attraction. For example, how many hours do you spend on your commute to/from work weekly? If you are in L.A., you probably have 5 hours a week to twiddle your thumbs. Use this time productively! You go for bike rides, walks, or smoke breaks? Again, effective use of time and portability are the key selling points. And, I haven't even mentioned the actual CONTENT yet! Lets correct that.There are many types of podcasts. These are my self-named categories and there may be more but these are the major ones:

1) Audiobook: This is the author (usually) reading text and telling a story. They are released serially, that is the author may post/upload a chapter every other Tuesday (or weekly or monthly...) until completion. Number One With a Bullet (When the top ten hitmen in the world battle in a last man standing contest for $100 Million, the only rule is to stay alive).

2) Audiobook Drama: This is the audiobook above but the reader is changing his voice and acting out the scenes. This is the more common of the first two categories and is remarkably very entertaining. In this style, the speaker is as important as the content that he is reading and, done properly, is your normal audiobook on steroids. Infected by Scott Sigler, Nocturnal by Scott Sigler, One Among the Sleepless by
Mike Bennett, and Underwood and Flinch by Mike Bennett are outstanding examples (and MUST-HAVES!) of this art form.

3) Audiobook Performance: This one is an audiobook that becomes a movie experience for the ears. Sound effects (a slamming door, gunfire, tires squealing, blood dripping, etc) make this a true movie-for-the-ears and is performed by different voice actors playing dedicated characters. This is the best audiobook experience possible and unbelievably engaging. Think of a stripper giving you a lap dance with your
eyes closed; that lap dance is still pretty entertaining! Leviathan Chronicles by Christof Lupaka and The Antithesis Progession by J. Daniel Sawyer are great examples of what is possible.

Lets pause here and talk about the WHY of the audiobook format. How many books-turned-movies have you seen? Honestly, how many of the movies lived up to the books? The main reasons, for me, movies almost never live up to the books are the characters are never fully fleshed out and, most importantly, the movie screen will never live up to the special effects that your own imagination can generate. To me, the audiobook (be it an audiobook you check out from your local library or an audiobook podcast) combines the best of an old-fashioned page turner and a movie. Think about it for a second: the author describes what is taking place but YOU are the one generating the pictures and there is no shortage of scenes/effects that you can envison. So, if you like a good book, give the audiobook
formats a chance. I will steer you to good examples of each category and you can decide for yourself. The examples will always fit the criteria of being worthy of inclusion in this blog; So, download without fear and know that these examples are approved by a redneck with a 4WD truck! But, we have some more categories to cover!

4) Educational podcasts: These can be easily become the main draw to podcasts for some. Want to learn Spanish? There's several good podcasts. Want to learn about the Byzantine empire? Check out Want to learn about history from a unique viewpoint? Then you need Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. (Hardcore History is my absolute favorite podcast! Friggin get this one! I know, you're thinking "History? WTF?"
Trust me here: GET THIS ONE!!!). Want to learn about String Theory? It's available and free. My personal favorite include two in this category. The Skeptoid Podcast by Brian Dunning and The Survival Podcast by Jack Spirco are always on my Ipod Touch.

5) Reality podcasts: Are you in a garage band? Want to hear another garage band's trials and adventures? What about a truck driver's day-to-day life? Want to live vicariously and explore the life of a university student?

6) Religious podcasts: Everything from Catholism to Wicca is available. Consider for a sec: you have always wanted to have a ministry of your own ever since you saw that hot Tammy Faye Baker but this little thing called Life and putting food on the table interfered with your establishment of the Cult of You. But, not any more! Get a mircophone and plug it in and you are there, dude! Post it to Itunes and you immediately have a potential audience of tens of millions. That's a one with a friggin lot of zeroes!

7) Sports podcasts: Are you a Dallas Cowboys fan living in South Dakota? Then download the "Talking Cowboys Podcast" done by Mickey Spagnola and Nate Newton done daily from Valley Ranch every day of the regular and post season. Missed ESPN's "Mike and Mike" today? Then download
their podcast. Want to hear Stanley Cup talk in July? Then listen to Hockey Rant (w/ David Stearns), just one of about 40 podcasts that came up!

8) Comedy: Who doesn't like comedy? Got 60 seconds to listen to something? Then download a couple of "news stories" from "The Onion Radio News". Want to hear talk about Howard Stern? The Three Stooges? Want to hear new comedians? Then you need the podcasts! I could (and probably should) keep going but there's so-friggin-many!

I haven't even mentioned the news podcasts, the political podcasts, the fan-driven podcasts, etc.

If I have interested you enough to read to here, then tune in to the next installment to learn how to get this free wealth of entertainment and how to put it on your Ipod. The goal is to ultimately recommend and review podcasts that fit into Jeff's criteria, urban fantasy/shock/horror, that still leave you with your manhood intact and able to sneer at the metro-sexuals reading "Twilight".