Pain! Pain! PAIN!!!

It's late. Or maybe it's early. I can't tell the difference, anymore. When you get right down to it, "early" and "late" all depend on perspective.

"The late Dwight Fenderman went to an early grave, due in no small part to his shrewish wife's incessant meddling."

Look at that sentence. Just look at it. Really, what does it all mean? I have no idea.

It's too late (or early) for critical thought.

On my previous post, I promised something to my... well I can't exactly say "readers"... my reader, I suppose. Him, and the unlucky souls who happen upon this blog via a random Google image search. What exactly did I promise? It was purposefully vague. I'm generally vague in these matters. I'm attempting to cultivate an aura of mystery. I am failing, but that's not what counts. I'm mixing it up a little, ladies (yeah, right) and gentleman.

Some of you may recall this blog once hosted a podcast. It was called The Podcast Of Lies, and it was a glorious thing. Over the course of 15 months, I unleashed 16 episodes of madcap entertainment that thrilled an audience of literally dozens.

My cousin Ky and I boldly discussed a wide variety of topics, and managed to offend more than a few people in the process. By "more than a few people", I mean "at least 20".

Believing our delightful podcast had accomplished all we had hoped for, I pulled the plug back in January. It seemed like the right thing to do, a bit like Chief smothering a lobotomized McMurphy at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Spoilers!

The podcast was a product of its time, and times have changed. Audiences are more sophisticated. They want something with substance, something with a little meat on its bones. And dammit, I'm going to give it to them.

That is why I am honored to announce the birth of the all-new, all-different Lies My Podcast Told Me!

I even sprung for a new logo! It's totally different!

You might be wondering if this is just some sort of wonderful dream, terrified to wake up lest it disappear before your bleary eyes like a phantom in the breeze. Rest assured this is all too real, Dear Imaginary Listener. You also might be wondering if this "all-new, all-different" podcast is really that much different from our previous endeavor. The answer: yes and no. Allow me to explain...

The Podcast Of Lies was a series of bite-sized portions of much longer conversations (ranging between 1-4 hours) chopped up and thrown together with little regard for things like continuity or pacing. I basically just edited together mostly random pieces of our regular dungeon summits because I found them funny. This is a somewhat different animal.

Any given episode of Lies My Podcast Told Me follows a different pattern. Instead of taking bits and pieces of larger conversations and cutting them together, these new podcasts excise specific chunks of these conversations, around 4-9 minutes worth. Does that mean there's a stronger continuity in these new podcasts? Sometimes.

The reason why I started this new venture is because I am often fascinated by the way our conversations often take truly bizarre turns in a very short amount of time without any notice. That fascination is what convinced me to try something different with Lies My Podcast Told Me.

The only edits in these podcasts consist of cuts to eliminate troubling audio issues due to the antiquated recording equipment I use, as well as some unavoidable trimming of dead air. Ky has this particular method of speaking, often leaving multiple pauses of one second or more between individual words in a sentence, which makes this necessary. This issue is only compounded when he drinks, which he does constantly.

We also both cough quite a lot, because we're generally unhealthy people in a race to see who can die first (I think I'm winning!). So if you notice any odd jumps in audio, there's your reason. I'm not cutting any conversation, just the unnecessary (yet all too common) spaces in between the words two kinda-sorta drunk people are struggling to string together into coherent sentences.

In this inaugural episode, entitled Uncle Spock, we talk about the song "Amazing Grace", AKA the validation of bagpipes.

A gig's a gig.

What starts out as a touching remembrance of lost loved ones quickly becomes a pathetic nerd-fest because one of us (take one goddamned guess) is a huge fan of Star Trek. In between the eight minutes and forty five seconds of this podcast, you will find brief shout outs to Tom Waits, the "drunken Irish" stereotype, 1980's television standard Night Court, and the unyielding bonds of a mother's love.

There's a bit of hyperbole in this podcast, as well as a dash of good-natured blasphemy. Enjoy it.



The current plan is to post a new edition of Lies My Podcast Told Me every other Wednesday for the foreseeable future. I invite you to come along with me on this incredible journey, as we laugh, cry, and discover a thing or two about the human condition. And ultimately, we'll learn a thing or two about ourselves.

There's powerful stuff coming, Dear Imaginary Listener. A new day is dawning. And I intend to miss that dawn, because I live in a cellar and hate the sun.

Could somebody take pictures of this new dawn and send them my way? I'm making a scrapbook.

What was I saying?