Thanks a ton for joining the Circle of Intimacy on Friday nights for Joculation on MSP Waves. I appreciate everyone who takes time to hang out and join in. It says a lot that you can spend that time doing anything, and you spend it listening to the show. I appreciate that and the kind words.

So I assume you prepare these shows, right? xD

It may be hard to believe because of how the show flows over the two-hour time slot, but the truth is I really do develop and prepare each of the shows every week. In a sense it’s very much like what the writers of Saturday Night Live do during their season to create a new show each week. On the surface it sounds easy, but it’s much more difficult and time intensive than it looks. Do I freestyle? Yes. I do quite a bit of stream of consciousness during the show, but there is a whole lot of development that goes into each show a listener won’t see or recognize. If they could, it would seriously take away from that magic and flow of the show. So, a ton of effort goes into making it feel seamless to keep that magic.

I guess I can pull the curtain back a little bit to share some of how I block out and develop each show.

The show itself is broken down into approximately 4 (sometimes 5) monologue/rant sections which are split up by “breaks” with a humorous bit and a punk song run back-to-back. On average, the monologue/rant side of the house is about 90 total minutes of the 120 minute show – or in layman’s terms a shitload of empty space.

One thing I would suggest to give context of what we’re talking about – try talking to yourself (not a co-host - just yourself) for 15 minutes nonstop. During this chatter, you have to crack yourself up because you won’t hear audience laughter and any reactions in the chatroom are delayed by 20 seconds. You also gotta keep it fresh and can’t go over the same ground you’ve already covered previously. Once you get a sense of how difficult that can be, imagine how it works over space six times that size. I think the hardest part is always developing the opening segment – joke development, subject matter, etc.

So now that side of the house is handled (more or less), the other side needs to get handled - new music and humorous bits. Starting Mondays, I’m listening to hundreds of tracks each week easily. Most of it won’t fit what I’m looking for as far as a sound/feel for Joculation, so oftentimes I may only have a handful of new stuff, so some recycling has to happen – plus recycling happens with some bits the audience loves (such as the Bonecage song I Really Like Dicks or Proportional Genitals). Humorous bits are like 100 times harder to find than punk music.

I mentioned in an earlier response to @nineclaws I should probably do a post at some point around the creative process for those who are interested. Maybe some point in the future I will.

Now, as you're very pro, funny, have another show/podcast and your storytelling is really nice, have you thought of doing an interviews show/podcast?

When I was younger, I was very much into a radio show host named of Neil Rogers, and he has an extraordinarily strong influence how I put together Joculation. I recall right after his show was a sports talk program hosted by Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich, who was from the undefeated Miami Dolphins American Football Team. He was a jock through and through, but he was hilarious at times. I recall one time someone called in and asked Jim Mandich why he didn’t do interviews. His response was epic and blunt.

“I don’t do interviews because interviews are terminally boring.”

I can’t say I disagree with his point of view. Generally speaking, I don’t find myself tuning in very much to interviews so people can ask the same questions other people have asked the guest probably 100 times before.

That being said I did a very short-lived series back in the STEEM days called Be The Show - Uncovering the Personalities Behind the Posts. The concept of the series was: it be cool to begin to learn more about the content creators on the STEEM blockchain so we can humanize everyone just a bit more and hopefully find some awesome content creators to follow. I wound up interviewing @aksinya for the first interview in the series, then @firepower for the second interview, and finally @kennyskitchen for the final installment. Yes, those are all links to the interviews which are still accessible.

I very purposefully stayed away from the bigger names on the chain, because I thought so many others who were underrepresented for various reasons needed to be featured. In the end, I got tired of chasing people over multiple time zones or egotistical enough to think an interview with me was a waste of time. In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t waste my time chasing useless, vapid flesh-bags when that time could be better used developing next-level fart jokes and content.

Would I do it again? I don’t know. I guess now I’m a never say never kinda dude.

Also, what piece of advice would you give to someone who is starting their way into podcasting and content creation?

Good question. I’m not exactly sure I’m the right guy to give out advice about “How to Develop a Podcast or Livestream in 10 Easy Steps” if audience size is any metric. That being said, I’ve also made zero effort to promote or grow the audience so far, so…

I can distill this down probably into the best book I’ve ever read about starting a podcast (which would apply just as equally to a livestream). The book Make Noise: A Creator’s Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling by Eric Nuzum is by far the absolute best resource on the market hands down. Aside from that:

• I would say finding your voice and your format takes time – probably a lot more than you expect.
• Everyone will have an opinion about why your show sucks and why you shouldn’t be wasting your time doing it. Ignore them. The reality is you’re looking for your tribe and you need to focus on building your tribe – develop content for them and make it easy for them to find you. Focus your energy, time and attention there and make every piece of work high quality.
• After almost three years of doing this - more than anything, never forget your “why”. Why are you doing this? You’re going to have to remind yourself of this during bad shows, no listener shows, and moments when you start thinking format changes.

And finally, how come you got almost kidnapped in South America? How was that? damn!

South America – hahahaha. Talk about conflicted emotions…

So, years back I was married previously, and my part of my ex-wife’s family was from Peru. To make a long story short, I had managed to get dysentery something harsh right before a twelve hour bus trip though the Andes to Trujillo, Peru. The intention was when we stopped in Trujillo, we were going to look at some property in Canchaque, Peru before going north to Talara. I had such a seriously bad case of dysentery (I would eventually go on to lose about 30 pounds in 1-1/2 weeks), that we scrapped that idea and hopped a bus straight to Talara.

Along the way and just outside of Talara, the Shining Path (I believe) stopped the bus, and proceeded to send an armed group on the bus to begin demanding passports from all the people on the bus - row by row. As they were coming towards us, I thought they were Federales, so I thought nothing of it. My Ex’s uncle leans forward before they come to us and whispers to us, “I will ask them to take me as well if they want to take you.” It was at that point it hit me what was happening.

When they finally arrived to us and took our passports (two US Passports mind you), they decided to have a knitting circle discussion amongst themselves about whether to ransom these American tourists. In the end, I think I looked like death from the dysentery, so they handed our passports back, left the bus and on we went.

The next day, I was watching the news station, and apparently, they did get hold of an American. Ultimately, they decided to burn him alive in the streets of Canchaque.

I suppose God smiles upon fools.

Thanks for the comment and reading the long-ass response.