February 27, 2023 • 32 mins
This content is repurposed from an episode of Good Morning Podcasters- Podcasting Sucks! These are bonus episodes where Fuzz Martin and Jeff Townsend take a cathartic look at podcasting.Jeff and Fuzz talk about some of their audio horror stories. Whether it's antics from a guest or a bumbling boss who would give Michael Scott a run for his money, Jeff and Fuzz talk about some of their most memorable horror stories of podcasting (and radio).Podcasting Sucks!Good Morning Podcasters and Podcasting Sucks!: All rights reserved to Snoring Dog Media, LLC. & Jeff Townsend Media, LLC.
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(00:00):
Oh hi everybody, this is aJeff Townsy Media protection right. Have you
been searching for a podcast? Doyou want to learn from some great content
creators? Well, you've come tothe right place, Indie podcasting with your
host, Jeff Townsend, the indiepodcast father. This is Jeff Townsend.
(00:28):
As you are aware, Indie podcasterscurrently on a break. I'm busy with
a running a network that I havethrough a local media company, and then
all sorts of other projects that I'mmarking on through Jeff Townsend Media. But
I wanted to keep the spirit aliveand keep delivering you content that you may
find helpful that will help you growas a podcaster or a content creator.
Fuzz Martin and I purchased the rightsto formerly Tanner Campbell's Podcasting Sucks and Good
(00:52):
Morning Podcasters. So I'm actually goingto share an episode of Podcasting Sucks with
you a previous episode. If youwant to hear more, go to Morning
Podcasters dot com and find Podcasting Sucksthere. This is Fuzz and I talking
about verious different podcasting stuff. It'sgreat time. I'm gonna go ahead and
I'm gonna share this episode with you. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to
(01:22):
podcasting sucks. I'm Jeff Townsend.My best friend Fuzz Martin is with me.
We just we're bene. We're benerecording here as we're bene recording binge
batch, we're batch recording. Ithink batch recording just sounds so much more,
you know, like, yeah,yeah, but we we just recorded
basically an update on Good Morning Podcastersand podcasting sucks. Obviously your format on
(01:48):
Good Morning Podcasters does not allow youto give detailed thoughts and updates. And
so that was a pretty I don'tknow, maybe no one else will like
it, but I think it wasa good thirty minute spit. I think
so too. I think it wasgood. I think we went into some
details, and I really think thatbehind the scenes stuff I don't think people
hear enough about at times, andI enjoy listening that stuff. I enjoy
(02:13):
hearing the reasons behind why a showdoes what it does, or you know,
how somebody got into that role,and those kind of things, And
to me, that's entertainment. It's, you know, pulling back the curtain
and allowing people to see what goesinto the exactly yes, inside the shower.
(02:38):
Oh no, different too, Differentthings yeah, different genre. That's
Greg Shower over there so speak.But speaking of that, we were going
to talk this episode about podcasting horrorstories, content creation, horror stories.
(03:01):
Yeah, anything that relates. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. Yeah,
I've got a number of them frommy my days on the air. Uh
and and actually some from from podcastingas well that are my My podcasting horror
story is a doozy though. Ifeel like I need to give you a
(03:22):
trigger warning to you specifically Jeff soubut it is, it is, it
is jarring. I want to kickit off though, because I have a
quick, funny one yeah that Iknow a listener this podcast will absolutely hate
because it's involving him. Uh SoI will kick off. I will kick
(03:46):
off. It's not necessarily the horror. It's kind of a horror story,
but I'll explain why it's not reallyhis fault. But I'll kick it off.
That's okay, Yeah, that worksfor me. Hit it. One
of our good friends, great guy. I love the guy, talked to
him all the time. I considerhim a good friend. Ed Havens Eighties
Movie podcast. He's a genius oneightie cinema, particularly stuff you've never heard
(04:08):
of. So check out the EightianMovies podcast. But so when I launched
intie podcaster, heck was that almosttwo years ago. I did a bunch
of batch recordings before I even putout there. I probably had fifteen recordings
under my belt before I released.ED was one of them, and I
had been just batch recording like crazy. My wife is piste off. So
(04:35):
this is like towards the end ofit. This was like the last one
that then I was going to goto like one a week, okay.
And it was later in the weekand I'm like, I will be home
by this time. I will behome. She's like, no, you
won't. I'm like, you havemy word, I will be home by
seven pm. And she's like,no you won't. But whatever, and
(04:59):
behind the scene right divorced now.But it's all Ed's fault. Damn its
so uh, I'm like, okay, here we go. Six o'clock is
the scheduled time. Ed, It'sbeen up my yes, I try not
to use swear languages. He hasbeen saying things like I've already told you
(05:19):
I'd come onto the podcast, liketweeting at me constantly in front of it.
Very good Ed impersonation by the way. Yeah, well, thank you.
So we arranged it. Then I'mwaiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting
for this guy. And the wholetime I'm thinking I gotta get home at
seven o'clock. I don't hear anythingfor like several minutes, and he has
(05:41):
a different version. He says it'sfifteen, but it was more than that,
trust me, trust me. Uh. He has some like I'm like
emergency with his water pipes or something, okay, and I'm like, oh
my gosh, let's reschedule. Let'sreschedule ed, and he's like, no,
no, no, no, justa few more minutes. So uh,
and it goes on. It's damnnear six thirty when we start,
(06:03):
right, and I think, atthe back of my head, I gotta
be home by seven. I gottabe home by seven, like because she
is pissed off. How way wasthe studio fifteen minutes? Okay? I
was fifteen minutes from home all rightwhere I was recording, and I knew
I was toast already. So thenI start talking to Ed and I hadn't
spoke with him that much, justjust on tweets, and I had listened
(06:25):
to his podcast. Ye long windedfella. We love Ed. Yes,
but and Greg actually loves this episodebecause I talked for like a minute and
a half of the hour. SoEd gets in there later, right,
he keeps saying, a mom,could just give me a minute, Just
give me a minute. So hecomes on. We go over an hour
by a we go like an hourand twelve minutes. My wife is pissed,
(06:48):
and I'm like, oh, doyou hear the iPhone notifications going off,
like like your phone bling? Wellbling, it was on silent,
but I'm hearing. This is anedge just in nineteen eight, in nineteen
eighty four, George or one Yeah, I mean yes, And it was
interesting. It was a great conversation. I absolutely loved it. But it
(07:11):
was just funny though, because Isaid I will be home, I swear
I will be home at seven pm. And because of our good friend Ed
Havens, I don't think I've eventold him the extent of this. I
did not make it home at mypromised time. That's a lighthearted one to
start off with. Their dang it, Well, we won't blame him for
the divorce though, so maybe justa little bit now, I'm just kidding.
(07:34):
No, that's not his fault.I have a series of lighthearted ones
all about the same guy from myradio days. So are you did you
ever watch The Office? Were youan office guy? Yeah? I was
an office I was not like thebiggest office guy. But I've seen most
episodes of the Office. Okay,I had never been an office guy until
(07:57):
actually until the beginning of COVID,Like I'd watched like The Office was something
I would turn on when I wastraveling for work and I would get to
a hotel room, and I knewthat it would be something consistent and something
that, you know, like Icould just turn on there would be a
channel playing it and I'd watch it. But I never had actually watched all
of them until the pandemic hit andthen I started watching them. But upon
(08:22):
watching it, I realized that mygeneral manager from my final radio station that
I was at, and I wasthere for eleven years, that he was
Michael Scott. He may have beenmore Michael Scott than Michael Scott was.
So I have a a host ofdifferent instances. So do you remember when
(08:48):
Gilbert Godfried, who was the voiceof the Affleck Duck, had gotten himself
in trouble. I think he saidsomething I don't know if he said,
yeah it was something racist or somethinglike that. Yeah, yeah, I
believe so that so Aflack was lookingfor a new voice for the Afflack Duck
(09:09):
Aflack you know that. Yep.So Jim was the named of my general
manager, and he decided he wasgoing to try out for this. But
he didn't know how to record intoAdobe audition because he didn't want to have
to be stuck recording radio spots andthings like that, so he always tried.
(09:35):
It was like, always tried tobe ignorant to it, so that
either somebody else had to record himor he just could say no. But
he knew how to record into aradio station number. We had a thing
called audio vault, which was wherewe'd store our commercials and that kind of
stuff. Well, he typed ina four digit number and recorded over this
(09:58):
number, just thinking like the noway that I could randomly record over in
number. And you can kind ofsee where this is going. Yeah,
he recorded four minutes of him doingI'm sorry, two minutes of him doing
different duck voices a flack flack andhe was like doing like a Spanish version,
(10:22):
like a flamo and like that kindof stuff and two minutes of just
that, and he recorded it overa client's commercial file that the next day
ran from midnight until I got intothe radio station. Every commercial break there
was two minutes of Jim doing hisa flack debba and now you know again.
(10:46):
It was like midnight till four thirtyin the morning. It wasn't the
you know, prime time listing.But I'm sure there were some truck drivers
out there that were changing the chantbecause they hadn't heard that. Do you
think you should have went back toAffleck for some money for the advertising,
right? I feel like we shouldhave, yes, And I feel like
(11:07):
our knowing our salespeople at the radiostation, they probably tried. Do you
know who Leroy Butler was the patGreen Bay Packers linebacker or safety excuse me
safety. Yeah, he invented thelambo leap. Are you familiar with the
lambo leap? Yes? Okay withlambo leap? Yeah, So he's the
(11:31):
guy who invented lambo leap. Well, one day he came to our studio
and this was in probably the yearit was probably like two thousand and two,
and Jim, who grew up inthe probably the whitest area in Wisconsin,
like the center of Wisconsin, wherethere's no diversity at all. Uh,
(11:52):
Leroy walked into our office and hegoes Leroy for shizzle, my nizzle,
and we said, we said,hey, Jim, no, please
come here to the back room andlet us explain to you why that is
not appropriate for you, a fiftyseven year old white guy in a suit
(12:16):
to say to anybody first of all, much less a personal color. So
yes, there was to think that'sjust cool, though says something. Yeah,
I know exactly exactly, but itwas mostly like just it wasn't it
was just all out of the ignorance, like it was very Michael Scottish,
you know. Yeah, my favoritepersonal story of this and I won't go
(12:43):
you know, we don't have togo forever on this one. But the
first I was twenty I think Iwas twenty one years old. I was
twenty one. I just started workingat the radio station part time on the
weekends. I was board opping NASCARraces. So board opping is you sit
in the studio buying the soundboard andyou you know, when they's time to
(13:05):
go to commercials, he hit thecommercial break and play that and then every
so often you come in with youknow, time and temperature. Well,
he didn't realize it was in theoffice because it was a Saturday race and
typically races were on Sundays, youknow NASCAR races Sundays. So I popped
my head into his office to say, yeah, hey, my name's Fuzz.
(13:30):
I'm your new guy. Well,I I pop in his office,
his face turns white. I lookdown and you can hear like the printers
back in two thousand were really loud, and I see that he is printing
porn onto the like like porno pictureson his printer, and so embarrassed,
(13:52):
he takes a stack of blank papersand throws it at the printer, trying
to cover up what he's printing.But what it does. The turbulence from
him throwing it caused all of thepictures he had pointed to fly up into
the air and then gently drift downwith naked bodies all over the objecs exactly.
(14:18):
And I think he was like doingsomething for a bachelor party or something
stupid. But the Yeah, sothat was my first instance meeting this guy,
and I have I have a threadon my Twitter page that has about
ten more stories similar to that,so check it out at fuzz Martin.
But yeah, that stuff was crazy. Yeah, it reminds me that they're
(14:43):
of the last one of and thiseverybody listens, probably Herbly tell the story
about the when I dropped and inventeda word on the radio. This was
This was in a Washington, thestate of Washington, Okay, quite a
while ago. U I was doingan eight o'clock segment. I was allowed
(15:05):
to do an interview at the cityofficial. This is really like Jeff transitioned
into like more of a voice partin the morning and by letting me do
miscellaneous things in the morning. AndI had only been a few months,
but I was like, hey,this is a cool opportunity. It's like
eight thirty in the morning. It'sa really big time for the radio.
(15:26):
People are in their car on theway to work. Huge time. And
I won't go too much detail becauseI've had before. But I was interviewing
a city official, old, olderlady, nice lady, and at one
point I was attempting to ask herabout her successful career, but for some
reason, the word came out sexfull career. I asked her about how
(15:52):
your sex and I don't it's sexfulleven a word it should be now,
I mean I think it is now. Yeah, I think you've but yeah
that I didn't. I wasn't onair of her again. But eight thirty
in the morning is not a goodtime in a pretty decently populated area to
use the word sex full with acity official when you're talking about a serious
(16:15):
manner like crime. And I dropped, and of course not intentionally, like
like I said, not even aword, but it's somehow stumbled because I'm
not the best speaker. I'm notlike you. I don't have some oh
flos Martin here from WKS Milwaukee,but uh, I'm entertaining enough as a
as a person. But yeah,I dropped sex ful And that was about
(16:37):
the end of it. So they'reprobably still think of me a sexful Jeff
sexual Jef. I we may juststart calling you that that's a T shirt.
That's a T shirt? Is aT shirt? Again, don't buy
him in bulk, So I'm unprintfultogether. That's what I've been working on
today, a little T shirt website. So maybe I'll get sex full Jeff
in there. What are you usingyou for your website? Spring tea?
(17:03):
Okay, I'm going to get accustomedto main with it. Um. Sure,
I was actually gonna ask if youwant anything on there, but yeah,
I'm gonna try to tie that upand do that here the next couple
days. Get that done, excellent, I've got I've got a few ideas.
We'll talk off the year. Cool. So, speaking of of that
kindness, So do you know whoDelilah is, the famous like radio Um,
(17:26):
she's on like smooth like HER's likeeasy listing stations, right yeah,
easy, yeah, like laid back. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a
syndicated show, the way syndicated showhere. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
that's exactly yea. So there wasa country version. I don't know if
there still is, but there wasa country version of Delilah. And her
name was Leah and yeah, whichis like and she looks she has to
(17:48):
have their own version of everything.Yeah, And she looks the same as
Delilah and sounds the same. Butshe was country version, and it was
her name was spelled Lia. Wewere a Philly at the radio station.
She had put out a thing sayingthat she was looking for people to talk
(18:08):
about NASCAR, And for two yearsI was a announcer at a short track
racetrack, so I've spent some timenear racers. I grew up going to
race tracks and I have a lovefor it. So they told me they
(18:33):
wanted to talk to me about itabout me, like we were going to
discuss like who they were going toget on their syndicated show, as they're
like NASCAR person. So I've donea bunch of research and all this stuff
and I was ready for the question. Well, they called me during the
day because they recorded the show.It's not a live show, right,
(18:56):
and they were recording this show andto just kind of surprised me with like
oh my god, you know,like hey, we're on the you know,
essentially we're live. And I wasnot prepared for that, and I
tanked miserably. I was bad,and so I didn't get the job and
(19:21):
I messed up thing to do.It was it was I really felt I
was embarrassed, and it was likelike I knew what like what was going
on for the you know, theday, but it was like not,
I was not prepared for it.So I don't know if they ended up
going with somebody else or what.I stopped listening to the show, even
though at my station I didn't wantto hear him. It's like he never
listened to NASCAR again, Yeah,yes, exactly, exactly, never watched
(19:45):
it. So I mean, toyour defense, I would have done worse.
I probably would have known what tosay. I would have been like
nicest call. I wouldn't have known, you know, what to say or
do. So I'm sure it wasbetter than what I would have done.
Nascar has four syllables. U.Another another instance of some like podcast or
(20:07):
podcasting or recording. Horror story.Yeah, there was, so I used
to record. My job was towrite commercials, and that was my first
radio job, was writing commercials,and then it was producing commercials and being
on the here was just kind ofa part of what I did. But
that was really the thing that Igot paid for was doing that that consistent
(20:29):
work. We had an NFL fullbackcoming and I won't say his name because
I don't want to out him,but he's good dude. He's a super
good dude. But he was supposedto come in to record a car dealership
commercial and he was either nervous orhe had trouble reading, and I could
not tell which one it was.But he could not do he could not
(20:52):
read the thirty second script like Hi, my name is his name? Like
for this car dealership, like cometo this play and you know, you
get this whatever. So we struggledfor probably forty five minutes, and he
was getting frustrated and you could tellhe was embarrassed in that. I was
just like, hey, I've gota plan. I'm going to read this
(21:14):
to you, and I want youto read every sentence back to me the
way that I say it, exactlythe way I say it. So I
would read a sentence, he wouldread it back to me this same way,
or like a section even of asentence, and he'd read it back
to me. Yeah. Until atthe end we put it all together and
it sounded like he was just friggingamazing. But it was like he just
(21:37):
needed that. But it was like, all told, it probably took two
hours to record that thirty second commercialand another you know, probably hour two
edited to get that thirty seconds downto what we needed. But man,
it was sometimes you watch or intosome of those you know, things you
(22:00):
see on the air, and youdon't know what went into that because that
yeah, yeah, and and andI'll segue that into some things I've done
a lot of local stuff like youhave. And I got several examples,
but one recent one my first episodefor Indiana Stories, I spoke to Vinson's
(22:22):
Indiana historian, you know, seniorcitizen guy eighty years old. And this
is like a completely different challenge forpodcasting when you are remote, or even
if you're not remote, it's stillhard doing it on trying to walk him
through it. I tried to gethim here on boom caster, yep.
(22:47):
That wasn't going to happen. Endedup being zoom on his phone, him
and his wife. But those kindof things, it's really difficult when you're
talking to some when you're doing aninterview podcast with somebody who has no technology
technological experience at all. Ye there'sso many stories I could talk about from
(23:07):
that. But I'm sure you're thesame way because you can do things around
the community. It's and you haveto be patient, and it's just like
you accommodated for that gentleman, andyou have to do the same thing here.
First of all, a complete whiz, but he just doesn't know how
to set up the he doesn't knowanything about podcasting or computer you know,
yep, So you have to accommodatein order to get what you need and
(23:30):
get the job done and be kinddoing it, or if I'm just going
to be an a hole, thenit's not going to be good. You
know, you can't just upset people. So it's really getting through the frustration
sometimes because some people are just notat a level like we are even setting
or doing this. And I think, you know, if you like one
(23:52):
tip that I have if you aregoing to if you're setting out on a
journey to do interview podcast in person. I especially with people who aren't used
to being on the you know,the microphone or a radio whatever, My
biggest suggestion or equipment would be toget headset microphones like they wear. It's
(24:17):
sportscasting because every single time the micwill be positioned in the right position and
they're set up for noise and backgrounds. You know, they're set up for
people who are broadcasting at football andbasketball games and things like that, and
you don't have to worry about ifthe person turns away from the microphone like
this and that, you know,like, because you're gonna want a dynamic
(24:38):
microphone that cuts out you know,background noise and things like that. If
you're in a on location. SoI won highly recommend a headset Mike,
at least for the guest and andthat'll go grow. But I've been in
your shoes with the recording somebody whois you know, a farmer. You
(25:03):
know, we did a whole bunchof We did some market research on cattle
farmers during the beginning of the pandemicat at epic, and it was so
hard getting guys to like, youknow, how to use zoom that don't
normally do it, or have badinternet and those kind of things. It's
such a big challenge. It's soso hard. We made it happen,
(25:27):
but it wasn't meant for broadcasts atthat point. I was just meant to
make sure that we can actually connectwith them. So but all good stuff,
and yeah, again, you know, podcasting isn't easy. If it
was easy, everyone pretty much everybodydoes do podcasting, is it? And
don't they? Yeah? I haveone more tragic story. Okay, oh
(25:49):
tragic, it's it's horror, thoughI won't give out any information out of
respect for the family and the location. I was doing a local podcast and
there was this house that was famouslyhaunted. Tragic story about a murder that
took place there. This uh andthe gentleman that I was going to speak
(26:11):
to, he did tours there allthe time. He was actually the son
of his father was murdered in thathouse by his mother. Wow, then
as she took her own life.But this house is like crazy haunted,
right, Yeah, And I'm goingto go there on site and talk with
him. And this is a famoushaunted location, Like I said, I
(26:33):
want to. Yeah, I'm gonnaexploit in details, but I have an
arrangement to go record with him there. I'm excited, right because it's I
like that kind of stuff. Yeah, I get there, the cops are
there. He has been murdered.Are you serious? Hours before I was
(26:57):
supposed to talk to him about thishaunted house that was haunted because his mother
had murdered his father. He wasmurdered by his girlfriend fiance. Yeah,
And that really was like I waslike, oh my god, Like,
what are the odds of that?Like, I was supposed to meet this
guy and hours before he's murdered ina similar fashion that his father was in
(27:18):
the same house that's known all aroundthe state for being so haunted. That's
that's a horror story. Right there. But no, that really made me
think for a while. I waslike, did they just say what?
Because I pulled up and I'm kindof like, of course they don't.
Let'm not gonna let you go upthere. They got it blocked off.
I could see the house in thedistance that it stopped it. I'm stopped
at the street and I'm like,what happened here? They're like, there
(27:41):
was a they didn't even tell me. Then They're like there was this is
a crime scene, active crime scene. I can't speak on it. I
didn't find out till later, Ohmy gosh, like hours later that he
was, you know, found somebodymurdered and I was like, what the
heck. Then a couple days afterthat that came out. That's when they
had arrested the fiance girlfriend for it. But how crazy is that? That
(28:03):
is absolutely crazy? And good thingshe didn't show up. Well he gets
a recording. That's what I wasthinking, like, what would have happened,
Like we're talking about this terrible eventthat happened in the house to his
family. Yeah and yeah, Iwas just I don't know, three hours
from when something terrible happened to him. It's one of those things where it
(28:26):
makes you think about life. Iguess I would say so, yeah,
yeah, that would make podcasting suckfor sure. Yeah. I had to
take a few days off after thatone. I know, I'm sure.
I don't blame you. That's ahorror story by definition. Fuzz. We
just got done watching The Watcher onNetflix. Yeah, so I think I've
(28:48):
had enough of like haunted house kindof things for a while. I enjoyed
that. I enjoyed this series,did you. Okay, yeah we did
too, but it was just yeah, not the best thing ever, but
it's entertaining. Yeah, not whatwe normally watch, but yeah it's good.
Normally watched Married with Children, soit was fun. Yeah normally yeah,
Yeah, normally we're just all wewatch is The Simpsons, but only
(29:10):
the nineties episodes. Oh Bob's Burgers. Yeah, Bob's Burgers exactly, that's
our favor. So, Jeff,great, as I always to talk to
you. You know, podcasting canbe difficult, as evidenced by some of
the horror stories we shared. Itis a it can be fun and exhilarating
(29:32):
to the horror stories are you know, they create stories and those are things
that you're going to tell welcome toyour future, no matter how hard they
are. But it's all fun.Enjoy it, enjoy the ride, have
a good time with it. Thereare more positive stories than horror stories.
However, you have to walk awayfrom these horror stories with something, a
(29:52):
learned experience or something if you can, or or a moment that will last
forever that's exactly right. Or youget murdered on the steps of your interviewers,
interviewees haunted house, you know,one of those. One of those
three things can happen at any givenpoint. But we do appreciate you listening
to podcasting Sucks here on the GoodMorning Podcasters Feed. Jeff, thanks for
(30:18):
all you do for the podcasting community, and you know I'm looking forward to
the next Podcasting Power Hour, whichour Monday nights at nine pm Eastern Time
on Twitter and talk to you nexttime. And I will end it with
this. Make sure you look outfor the ed havens. Make sure you
don't talk and use the words sexfulto respect to people in the community.
(30:44):
Make sure you're not printing off pornat work. Make sure you're not getting
into an active crime scene. Theseare all very important things that can make
podcasting stuck true. Thanks for listening, good, thanks for listening, and
(31:15):
thanks for telling a friend. Butmore importantly, thank you for supporting independent
content creators. If you're enjoying thepodcast or like the work we're doing in
the indie podcaster community, I askyou to tell just one fellow content creator
that hasn't heard of this podcast orthe work we're doing and share it with
them. But more importantly, Ihope you continue with me on this journey
(31:38):
as the indie podcaster. Keep beingyou, keep being great, And the
question is do I stay here?Will you be fuck all? You gonna
(32:00):
come back? Will you be back? Are you coming back? Jeff Downton Media be
Oh hi everybody, this is aJeff Townsy Media protection right. Have you
been searching for a podcast? Doyou want to learn from some great content
creators? Well, you've come tothe right place, Indie podcasting with your
host, Jeff Townsend, the indiepodcast father. This is Jeff Townsend.
(00:28):
As you are aware, Indie podcasterscurrently on a break. I'm busy with
a running a network that I havethrough a local media company, and then
all sorts of other projects that I'mmarking on through Jeff Townsend Media. But
I wanted to keep the spirit aliveand keep delivering you content that you may
find helpful that will help you growas a podcaster or a content creator.
Fuzz Martin and I purchased the rightsto formerly Tanner Campbell's Podcasting Sucks and Good
(00:52):
Morning Podcasters. So I'm actually goingto share an episode of Podcasting Sucks with
you a previous episode. If youwant to hear more, go to Morning
Podcasters dot com and find Podcasting Sucksthere. This is Fuzz and I talking
about verious different podcasting stuff. It'sgreat time. I'm gonna go ahead and
I'm gonna share this episode with you. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to
(01:22):
podcasting sucks. I'm Jeff Townsend.My best friend Fuzz Martin is with me.
We just we're bene. We're benerecording here as we're bene recording binge
batch, we're batch recording. Ithink batch recording just sounds so much more,
you know, like, yeah,yeah, but we we just recorded
basically an update on Good Morning Podcastersand podcasting sucks. Obviously your format on
(01:48):
Good Morning Podcasters does not allow youto give detailed thoughts and updates. And
so that was a pretty I don'tknow, maybe no one else will like
it, but I think it wasa good thirty minute spit. I think
so too. I think it wasgood. I think we went into some
details, and I really think thatbehind the scenes stuff I don't think people
hear enough about at times, andI enjoy listening that stuff. I enjoy
(02:13):
hearing the reasons behind why a showdoes what it does, or you know,
how somebody got into that role,and those kind of things, And
to me, that's entertainment. It's, you know, pulling back the curtain
and allowing people to see what goesinto the exactly yes, inside the shower.
(02:38):
Oh no, different too, Differentthings yeah, different genre. That's
Greg Shower over there so speak.But speaking of that, we were going
to talk this episode about podcasting horrorstories, content creation, horror stories.
(03:01):
Yeah, anything that relates. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. Yeah,
I've got a number of them frommy my days on the air. Uh
and and actually some from from podcastingas well that are my My podcasting horror
story is a doozy though. Ifeel like I need to give you a
(03:22):
trigger warning to you specifically Jeff soubut it is, it is, it
is jarring. I want to kickit off though, because I have a
quick, funny one yeah that Iknow a listener this podcast will absolutely hate
because it's involving him. Uh SoI will kick off. I will kick
(03:46):
off. It's not necessarily the horror. It's kind of a horror story,
but I'll explain why it's not reallyhis fault. But I'll kick it off.
That's okay, Yeah, that worksfor me. Hit it. One
of our good friends, great guy. I love the guy, talked to
him all the time. I considerhim a good friend. Ed Havens Eighties
Movie podcast. He's a genius oneightie cinema, particularly stuff you've never heard
(04:08):
of. So check out the EightianMovies podcast. But so when I launched
intie podcaster, heck was that almosttwo years ago. I did a bunch
of batch recordings before I even putout there. I probably had fifteen recordings
under my belt before I released.ED was one of them, and I
had been just batch recording like crazy. My wife is piste off. So
(04:35):
this is like towards the end ofit. This was like the last one
that then I was going to goto like one a week, okay.
And it was later in the weekand I'm like, I will be home
by this time. I will behome. She's like, no, you
won't. I'm like, you havemy word, I will be home by
seven pm. And she's like,no you won't. But whatever, and
(04:59):
behind the scene right divorced now.But it's all Ed's fault. Damn its
so uh, I'm like, okay, here we go. Six o'clock is
the scheduled time. Ed, It'sbeen up my yes, I try not
to use swear languages. He hasbeen saying things like I've already told you
(05:19):
I'd come onto the podcast, liketweeting at me constantly in front of it.
Very good Ed impersonation by the way. Yeah, well, thank you.
So we arranged it. Then I'mwaiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting
for this guy. And the wholetime I'm thinking I gotta get home at
seven o'clock. I don't hear anythingfor like several minutes, and he has
(05:41):
a different version. He says it'sfifteen, but it was more than that,
trust me, trust me. Uh. He has some like I'm like
emergency with his water pipes or something, okay, and I'm like, oh
my gosh, let's reschedule. Let'sreschedule ed, and he's like, no,
no, no, no, justa few more minutes. So uh,
and it goes on. It's damnnear six thirty when we start,
(06:03):
right, and I think, atthe back of my head, I gotta
be home by seven. I gottabe home by seven, like because she
is pissed off. How way wasthe studio fifteen minutes? Okay? I
was fifteen minutes from home all rightwhere I was recording, and I knew
I was toast already. So thenI start talking to Ed and I hadn't
spoke with him that much, justjust on tweets, and I had listened
(06:25):
to his podcast. Ye long windedfella. We love Ed. Yes,
but and Greg actually loves this episodebecause I talked for like a minute and
a half of the hour. SoEd gets in there later, right,
he keeps saying, a mom,could just give me a minute, Just
give me a minute. So hecomes on. We go over an hour
by a we go like an hourand twelve minutes. My wife is pissed,
(06:48):
and I'm like, oh, doyou hear the iPhone notifications going off,
like like your phone bling? Wellbling, it was on silent,
but I'm hearing. This is anedge just in nineteen eight, in nineteen
eighty four, George or one Yeah, I mean yes, And it was
interesting. It was a great conversation. I absolutely loved it. But it
(07:11):
was just funny though, because Isaid I will be home, I swear
I will be home at seven pm. And because of our good friend Ed
Havens, I don't think I've eventold him the extent of this. I
did not make it home at mypromised time. That's a lighthearted one to
start off with. Their dang it, Well, we won't blame him for
the divorce though, so maybe justa little bit now, I'm just kidding.
(07:34):
No, that's not his fault.I have a series of lighthearted ones
all about the same guy from myradio days. So are you did you
ever watch The Office? Were youan office guy? Yeah? I was
an office I was not like thebiggest office guy. But I've seen most
episodes of the Office. Okay,I had never been an office guy until
(07:57):
actually until the beginning of COVID,Like I'd watched like The Office was something
I would turn on when I wastraveling for work and I would get to
a hotel room, and I knewthat it would be something consistent and something
that, you know, like Icould just turn on there would be a
channel playing it and I'd watch it. But I never had actually watched all
of them until the pandemic hit andthen I started watching them. But upon
(08:22):
watching it, I realized that mygeneral manager from my final radio station that
I was at, and I wasthere for eleven years, that he was
Michael Scott. He may have beenmore Michael Scott than Michael Scott was.
So I have a a host ofdifferent instances. So do you remember when
(08:48):
Gilbert Godfried, who was the voiceof the Affleck Duck, had gotten himself
in trouble. I think he saidsomething I don't know if he said,
yeah it was something racist or somethinglike that. Yeah, yeah, I
believe so that so Aflack was lookingfor a new voice for the Afflack Duck
(09:09):
Aflack you know that. Yep.So Jim was the named of my general
manager, and he decided he wasgoing to try out for this. But
he didn't know how to record intoAdobe audition because he didn't want to have
to be stuck recording radio spots andthings like that, so he always tried.
(09:35):
It was like, always tried tobe ignorant to it, so that
either somebody else had to record himor he just could say no. But
he knew how to record into aradio station number. We had a thing
called audio vault, which was wherewe'd store our commercials and that kind of
stuff. Well, he typed ina four digit number and recorded over this
(09:58):
number, just thinking like the noway that I could randomly record over in
number. And you can kind ofsee where this is going. Yeah,
he recorded four minutes of him doingI'm sorry, two minutes of him doing
different duck voices a flack flack andhe was like doing like a Spanish version,
(10:22):
like a flamo and like that kindof stuff and two minutes of just
that, and he recorded it overa client's commercial file that the next day
ran from midnight until I got intothe radio station. Every commercial break there
was two minutes of Jim doing hisa flack debba and now you know again.
(10:46):
It was like midnight till four thirtyin the morning. It wasn't the
you know, prime time listing.But I'm sure there were some truck drivers
out there that were changing the chantbecause they hadn't heard that. Do you
think you should have went back toAffleck for some money for the advertising,
right? I feel like we shouldhave, yes, And I feel like
(11:07):
our knowing our salespeople at the radiostation, they probably tried. Do you
know who Leroy Butler was the patGreen Bay Packers linebacker or safety excuse me
safety. Yeah, he invented thelambo leap. Are you familiar with the
lambo leap? Yes? Okay withlambo leap? Yeah, So he's the
(11:31):
guy who invented lambo leap. Well, one day he came to our studio
and this was in probably the yearit was probably like two thousand and two,
and Jim, who grew up inthe probably the whitest area in Wisconsin,
like the center of Wisconsin, wherethere's no diversity at all. Uh,
(11:52):
Leroy walked into our office and hegoes Leroy for shizzle, my nizzle,
and we said, we said,hey, Jim, no, please
come here to the back room andlet us explain to you why that is
not appropriate for you, a fiftyseven year old white guy in a suit
(12:16):
to say to anybody first of all, much less a personal color. So
yes, there was to think that'sjust cool, though says something. Yeah,
I know exactly exactly, but itwas mostly like just it wasn't it
was just all out of the ignorance, like it was very Michael Scottish,
you know. Yeah, my favoritepersonal story of this and I won't go
(12:43):
you know, we don't have togo forever on this one. But the
first I was twenty I think Iwas twenty one years old. I was
twenty one. I just started workingat the radio station part time on the
weekends. I was board opping NASCARraces. So board opping is you sit
in the studio buying the soundboard andyou you know, when they's time to
(13:05):
go to commercials, he hit thecommercial break and play that and then every
so often you come in with youknow, time and temperature. Well,
he didn't realize it was in theoffice because it was a Saturday race and
typically races were on Sundays, youknow NASCAR races Sundays. So I popped
my head into his office to say, yeah, hey, my name's Fuzz.
(13:30):
I'm your new guy. Well,I I pop in his office,
his face turns white. I lookdown and you can hear like the printers
back in two thousand were really loud, and I see that he is printing
porn onto the like like porno pictureson his printer, and so embarrassed,
(13:52):
he takes a stack of blank papersand throws it at the printer, trying
to cover up what he's printing.But what it does. The turbulence from
him throwing it caused all of thepictures he had pointed to fly up into
the air and then gently drift downwith naked bodies all over the objecs exactly.
(14:18):
And I think he was like doingsomething for a bachelor party or something
stupid. But the Yeah, sothat was my first instance meeting this guy,
and I have I have a threadon my Twitter page that has about
ten more stories similar to that,so check it out at fuzz Martin.
But yeah, that stuff was crazy. Yeah, it reminds me that they're
(14:43):
of the last one of and thiseverybody listens, probably Herbly tell the story
about the when I dropped and inventeda word on the radio. This was
This was in a Washington, thestate of Washington, Okay, quite a
while ago. U I was doingan eight o'clock segment. I was allowed
(15:05):
to do an interview at the cityofficial. This is really like Jeff transitioned
into like more of a voice partin the morning and by letting me do
miscellaneous things in the morning. AndI had only been a few months,
but I was like, hey,this is a cool opportunity. It's like
eight thirty in the morning. It'sa really big time for the radio.
(15:26):
People are in their car on theway to work. Huge time. And
I won't go too much detail becauseI've had before. But I was interviewing
a city official, old, olderlady, nice lady, and at one
point I was attempting to ask herabout her successful career, but for some
reason, the word came out sexfull career. I asked her about how
(15:52):
your sex and I don't it's sexfulleven a word it should be now,
I mean I think it is now. Yeah, I think you've but yeah
that I didn't. I wasn't onair of her again. But eight thirty
in the morning is not a goodtime in a pretty decently populated area to
use the word sex full with acity official when you're talking about a serious
(16:15):
manner like crime. And I dropped, and of course not intentionally, like
like I said, not even aword, but it's somehow stumbled because I'm
not the best speaker. I'm notlike you. I don't have some oh
flos Martin here from WKS Milwaukee,but uh, I'm entertaining enough as a
as a person. But yeah,I dropped sex ful And that was about
(16:37):
the end of it. So they'reprobably still think of me a sexful Jeff
sexual Jef. I we may juststart calling you that that's a T shirt.
That's a T shirt? Is aT shirt? Again, don't buy
him in bulk, So I'm unprintfultogether. That's what I've been working on
today, a little T shirt website. So maybe I'll get sex full Jeff
in there. What are you usingyou for your website? Spring tea?
(17:03):
Okay, I'm going to get accustomedto main with it. Um. Sure,
I was actually gonna ask if youwant anything on there, but yeah,
I'm gonna try to tie that upand do that here the next couple
days. Get that done, excellent, I've got I've got a few ideas.
We'll talk off the year. Cool. So, speaking of of that
kindness, So do you know whoDelilah is, the famous like radio Um,
(17:26):
she's on like smooth like HER's likeeasy listing stations, right yeah,
easy, yeah, like laid back. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a
syndicated show, the way syndicated showhere. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
that's exactly yea. So there wasa country version. I don't know if
there still is, but there wasa country version of Delilah. And her
name was Leah and yeah, whichis like and she looks she has to
(17:48):
have their own version of everything.Yeah, And she looks the same as
Delilah and sounds the same. Butshe was country version, and it was
her name was spelled Lia. Wewere a Philly at the radio station.
She had put out a thing sayingthat she was looking for people to talk
(18:08):
about NASCAR, And for two yearsI was a announcer at a short track
racetrack, so I've spent some timenear racers. I grew up going to
race tracks and I have a lovefor it. So they told me they
(18:33):
wanted to talk to me about itabout me, like we were going to
discuss like who they were going toget on their syndicated show, as they're
like NASCAR person. So I've donea bunch of research and all this stuff
and I was ready for the question. Well, they called me during the
day because they recorded the show.It's not a live show, right,
(18:56):
and they were recording this show andto just kind of surprised me with like
oh my god, you know,like hey, we're on the you know,
essentially we're live. And I wasnot prepared for that, and I
tanked miserably. I was bad,and so I didn't get the job and
(19:21):
I messed up thing to do.It was it was I really felt I
was embarrassed, and it was likelike I knew what like what was going
on for the you know, theday, but it was like not,
I was not prepared for it.So I don't know if they ended up
going with somebody else or what.I stopped listening to the show, even
though at my station I didn't wantto hear him. It's like he never
listened to NASCAR again, Yeah,yes, exactly, exactly, never watched
(19:45):
it. So I mean, toyour defense, I would have done worse.
I probably would have known what tosay. I would have been like
nicest call. I wouldn't have known, you know, what to say or
do. So I'm sure it wasbetter than what I would have done.
Nascar has four syllables. U.Another another instance of some like podcast or
(20:07):
podcasting or recording. Horror story.Yeah, there was, so I used
to record. My job was towrite commercials, and that was my first
radio job, was writing commercials,and then it was producing commercials and being
on the here was just kind ofa part of what I did. But
that was really the thing that Igot paid for was doing that that consistent
(20:29):
work. We had an NFL fullbackcoming and I won't say his name because
I don't want to out him,but he's good dude. He's a super
good dude. But he was supposedto come in to record a car dealership
commercial and he was either nervous orhe had trouble reading, and I could
not tell which one it was.But he could not do he could not
(20:52):
read the thirty second script like Hi, my name is his name? Like
for this car dealership, like cometo this play and you know, you
get this whatever. So we struggledfor probably forty five minutes, and he
was getting frustrated and you could tellhe was embarrassed in that. I was
just like, hey, I've gota plan. I'm going to read this
(21:14):
to you, and I want youto read every sentence back to me the
way that I say it, exactlythe way I say it. So I
would read a sentence, he wouldread it back to me this same way,
or like a section even of asentence, and he'd read it back
to me. Yeah. Until atthe end we put it all together and
it sounded like he was just friggingamazing. But it was like he just
(21:37):
needed that. But it was like, all told, it probably took two
hours to record that thirty second commercialand another you know, probably hour two
edited to get that thirty seconds downto what we needed. But man,
it was sometimes you watch or intosome of those you know, things you
(22:00):
see on the air, and youdon't know what went into that because that
yeah, yeah, and and andI'll segue that into some things I've done
a lot of local stuff like youhave. And I got several examples,
but one recent one my first episodefor Indiana Stories, I spoke to Vinson's
(22:22):
Indiana historian, you know, seniorcitizen guy eighty years old. And this
is like a completely different challenge forpodcasting when you are remote, or even
if you're not remote, it's stillhard doing it on trying to walk him
through it. I tried to gethim here on boom caster, yep.
(22:47):
That wasn't going to happen. Endedup being zoom on his phone, him
and his wife. But those kindof things, it's really difficult when you're
talking to some when you're doing aninterview podcast with somebody who has no technology
technological experience at all. Ye there'sso many stories I could talk about from
(23:07):
that. But I'm sure you're thesame way because you can do things around
the community. It's and you haveto be patient, and it's just like
you accommodated for that gentleman, andyou have to do the same thing here.
First of all, a complete whiz, but he just doesn't know how
to set up the he doesn't knowanything about podcasting or computer you know,
yep, So you have to accommodatein order to get what you need and
(23:30):
get the job done and be kinddoing it, or if I'm just going
to be an a hole, thenit's not going to be good. You
know, you can't just upset people. So it's really getting through the frustration
sometimes because some people are just notat a level like we are even setting
or doing this. And I think, you know, if you like one
(23:52):
tip that I have if you aregoing to if you're setting out on a
journey to do interview podcast in person. I especially with people who aren't used
to being on the you know,the microphone or a radio whatever, My
biggest suggestion or equipment would be toget headset microphones like they wear. It's
(24:17):
sportscasting because every single time the micwill be positioned in the right position and
they're set up for noise and backgrounds. You know, they're set up for
people who are broadcasting at football andbasketball games and things like that, and
you don't have to worry about ifthe person turns away from the microphone like
this and that, you know,like, because you're gonna want a dynamic
(24:38):
microphone that cuts out you know,background noise and things like that. If
you're in a on location. SoI won highly recommend a headset Mike,
at least for the guest and andthat'll go grow. But I've been in
your shoes with the recording somebody whois you know, a farmer. You
(25:03):
know, we did a whole bunchof We did some market research on cattle
farmers during the beginning of the pandemicat at epic, and it was so
hard getting guys to like, youknow, how to use zoom that don't
normally do it, or have badinternet and those kind of things. It's
such a big challenge. It's soso hard. We made it happen,
(25:27):
but it wasn't meant for broadcasts atthat point. I was just meant to
make sure that we can actually connectwith them. So but all good stuff,
and yeah, again, you know, podcasting isn't easy. If it
was easy, everyone pretty much everybodydoes do podcasting, is it? And
don't they? Yeah? I haveone more tragic story. Okay, oh
(25:49):
tragic, it's it's horror, thoughI won't give out any information out of
respect for the family and the location. I was doing a local podcast and
there was this house that was famouslyhaunted. Tragic story about a murder that
took place there. This uh andthe gentleman that I was going to speak
(26:11):
to, he did tours there allthe time. He was actually the son
of his father was murdered in thathouse by his mother. Wow, then
as she took her own life.But this house is like crazy haunted,
right, Yeah, And I'm goingto go there on site and talk with
him. And this is a famoushaunted location, Like I said, I
(26:33):
want to. Yeah, I'm gonnaexploit in details, but I have an
arrangement to go record with him there. I'm excited, right because it's I
like that kind of stuff. Yeah, I get there, the cops are
there. He has been murdered.Are you serious? Hours before I was
(26:57):
supposed to talk to him about thishaunted house that was haunted because his mother
had murdered his father. He wasmurdered by his girlfriend fiance. Yeah,
And that really was like I waslike, oh my god, Like,
what are the odds of that?Like, I was supposed to meet this
guy and hours before he's murdered ina similar fashion that his father was in
(27:18):
the same house that's known all aroundthe state for being so haunted. That's
that's a horror story. Right there. But no, that really made me
think for a while. I waslike, did they just say what?
Because I pulled up and I'm kindof like, of course they don't.
Let'm not gonna let you go upthere. They got it blocked off.
I could see the house in thedistance that it stopped it. I'm stopped
at the street and I'm like,what happened here? They're like, there
(27:41):
was a they didn't even tell me. Then They're like there was this is
a crime scene, active crime scene. I can't speak on it. I
didn't find out till later, Ohmy gosh, like hours later that he
was, you know, found somebodymurdered and I was like, what the
heck. Then a couple days afterthat that came out. That's when they
had arrested the fiance girlfriend for it. But how crazy is that? That
(28:03):
is absolutely crazy? And good thingshe didn't show up. Well he gets
a recording. That's what I wasthinking, like, what would have happened,
Like we're talking about this terrible eventthat happened in the house to his
family. Yeah and yeah, Iwas just I don't know, three hours
from when something terrible happened to him. It's one of those things where it
(28:26):
makes you think about life. Iguess I would say so, yeah,
yeah, that would make podcasting suckfor sure. Yeah. I had to
take a few days off after thatone. I know, I'm sure.
I don't blame you. That's ahorror story by definition. Fuzz. We
just got done watching The Watcher onNetflix. Yeah, so I think I've
(28:48):
had enough of like haunted house kindof things for a while. I enjoyed
that. I enjoyed this series,did you. Okay, yeah we did
too, but it was just yeah, not the best thing ever, but
it's entertaining. Yeah, not whatwe normally watch, but yeah it's good.
Normally watched Married with Children, soit was fun. Yeah normally yeah,
Yeah, normally we're just all wewatch is The Simpsons, but only
(29:10):
the nineties episodes. Oh Bob's Burgers. Yeah, Bob's Burgers exactly, that's
our favor. So, Jeff,great, as I always to talk to
you. You know, podcasting canbe difficult, as evidenced by some of
the horror stories we shared. Itis a it can be fun and exhilarating
(29:32):
to the horror stories are you know, they create stories and those are things
that you're going to tell welcome toyour future, no matter how hard they
are. But it's all fun.Enjoy it, enjoy the ride, have
a good time with it. Thereare more positive stories than horror stories.
However, you have to walk awayfrom these horror stories with something, a
(29:52):
learned experience or something if you can, or or a moment that will last
forever that's exactly right. Or youget murdered on the steps of your interviewers,
interviewees haunted house, you know,one of those. One of those
three things can happen at any givenpoint. But we do appreciate you listening
to podcasting Sucks here on the GoodMorning Podcasters Feed. Jeff, thanks for
(30:18):
all you do for the podcasting community, and you know I'm looking forward to
the next Podcasting Power Hour, whichour Monday nights at nine pm Eastern Time
on Twitter and talk to you nexttime. And I will end it with
this. Make sure you look outfor the ed havens. Make sure you
don't talk and use the words sexfulto respect to people in the community.
(30:44):
Make sure you're not printing off pornat work. Make sure you're not getting
into an active crime scene. Theseare all very important things that can make
podcasting stuck true. Thanks for listening, good, thanks for listening, and
(31:15):
thanks for telling a friend. Butmore importantly, thank you for supporting independent
content creators. If you're enjoying thepodcast or like the work we're doing in
the indie podcaster community, I askyou to tell just one fellow content creator
that hasn't heard of this podcast orthe work we're doing and share it with
them. But more importantly, Ihope you continue with me on this journey
(31:38):
as the indie podcaster. Keep beingyou, keep being great, And the
question is do I stay here?Will you be fuck all? You gonna
(32:00):
come back? Will you be back? Are you coming back? Jeff Downton Media be
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