Interview with Dustin VanCour on Podcasting Journey

Hi, this is Frank Todaro and you're listening

to the GeekCast Radio Network. There is nothing

wrong with your podcast player. Do not attempt

to adjust the volume. Hello and welcome to Studio

2009. I'm, of course, TF2 and Mike. Joining me

as always is Steve Megatron. Hello. Hello. This

is our 20th episode and on the 20s or actually

on the on the fives or whatever you want to call

it. We have our podcast approach series where

we interview podcast hosts, podcast listeners,

usually a mixture of both. We usually try to

find someone who has both listened to and or

been a host of podcasts in the past. And today,

our podcast approach guest, we welcome back for

the third time to the GeekCast Radio Network,

that guy who all gives us the nerd effect. It's

Dustin Van Coor. Hello, sir. Hello. Yes, you

are here. I am here. Or am I there? I could be

anywhere. Yeah, you could be. I could be outside

your window. You wouldn't even know it. Creep.

I don't see any drones with... earrings around.

Anyway, getting started as a podcaster. When

did you discover podcasts and what was the first

one you listened to? When did I discover? I can't

pinpoint a date, but what I can say is that I

specifically remember getting started in So a

lot of us know that nice little website called

screw attack from back in the day And from there

I discovered the podcast side scrollers and that

was kind of like my first real foray into podcasting

And and listening to podcasts and stuff and Yeah,

so that was really my first like big thing listen

to Craig and all those guys talk video games

and stuff like that kind of was like my first

Real things like holy shit. These are like guys

that Used to listen to all the time is like these

were the guys I would have been friends with

in elementary school and high school and all

that stuff So I kind of have like a connection

with those guys Very cool. Very cool. How long

after you started listening? Did you want to

start your own podcast? Not very long so most

people know nerd effect and and doing a handful

of shows with you guys and Mike but technically

my very, very first podcast was back in like

2005. And it wasn't really my show. Uh, I was

actually, uh, this is going to be so obscure

for everybody, but I did a stint for a year out

in Burley, Idaho as a manager of a radio shack

out there. And, uh, one of the guys who worked

at my store was also a radio DJ for a country

station out in twin falls. And, uh, He had a

bunch of equipment down in his basement and he's

like we should start a podcast and we just called

it the BS cast for you know BS and we did it

was just literally an hour of us once a week

just shooting the crap and Not really having

any sort of subject. We would just start and

he hosted it So we just kind of rolled with him

and it was pretty funny It was a it was a good

time for the for the short period that it ran

Very cool. Very cool What was your plan in getting

your podcast off the ground? My plan was well

first off I was inspired by gut is like you at

you and Dodd and the side school or guys was

like and so I think I did my very first podcast

with Dodd and it was regarding The Ninja Turtle

series from the NES and it was comparing the

NES port of the actual arcade And he reached

out to me because he knew I actually owned the

full arcade cabinet. And do you still have it?

Yeah. I plan on being buried in that thing. I

will have it fully converted into my casket or

at least pass it down to my daughter if she wants

it. But I'm not selling it for nothing. So that's

like my that was like my five year. That was

like Dustin, age seven. Life goal was to own

that arcade machine. So. And here we are I got

it I think I I got my first real big like bonus

check from a job that I was working and I had

it shipped from New Jersey I think off of an

eBay eBay sale for like 1700 bucks And I've and

I have no regrets That's a long way Yeah from

New Jersey to Boise, Idaho and it was shipped

freight. So it came wrapped in like oh wow. Yeah,

it was it was wrapped in extra thick Saran wrap

and a pallet and everything, and they dropped

it off at my friend's house because she had a

garage. And it sat there for three years until

I could finally get it into a place that I bought.

There you go. Which do you prefer, audio or video

podcasting as a fan and as a producer? I definitely

prefer audio podcasts because when I... Primarily

listen to them. I'm usually at work. So I can't

really be bothered to be distracted too much.

So Yeah, definitely definitely audio as far as

that goes So what what kind of setup did you

have when you started podcasting and what do

you use now? So when we first started podcasting

we I had bought some really basic Behringer equipment

It was just a simple I knew there was going to

be at least four of us when the podcast first

started out. It's always been me and my best

friend Mason and then the two other seats kind

of just Rotated as people weren't able to do

the show anymore. So it originally started out

with me Mason Zach and my cousin Jake and We

had a blast doing that and we started off with

some simple equipment we had a a four mic Behringer

mixer that was USB compatible. And we took it

to my laptop and had four Behringer condenser

microphones and I bought all the stands and everything.

And I funded the whole thing myself and I knew

it was just gonna be for fun. I wasn't trying

to like get sponsorships or anything. This was

literally the only reason I got started in this

was I knew it was gonna be a great reason for

all of us to hang out. Like if we had something

scheduled that we could do and actually show

up and do. That was gonna be the thing and the

podcast was kind of our outlet for that because

at the time I was a new dad and I needed needed

some time for myself Whenever I could get it,

you know like once a week just to get out with

my friends and that was kind of it So whereas

other people might go out to the bar or to a

club. That's not really my thing. So That was

our thing with the podcast Nice nice So if you're

if your equipment of any kind whether it be headphones

or microphone breaks down Do you typically buy

the same thing or do you take that opportunity

to upgrade to something better? Um Thankfully,

we've never really had anything like break break

on us The only thing we've had broken on us was

that original mixer it lasted for a couple two

or three years and Then also we started getting

some really weird staticky feedback in one of

the microphones So to make up for that in the

meantime until I could afford a new mixer what

we just kind of hooked up a splitter to one of

the mics and Just ran two mics into one of the

ports and didn't really have any issue with it

You know, I think it just took away from you

is the fact that you didn't have individual control

over that one microphone So if you're controlling

one of them, you're controlling both And so that

was really the only beef I had with it. But other

than that it was fine also had a four port Headphone

amplifier, so it was one to four so that each

of us could have our own headset nice and It

was really I mean if you guys have seen any of

the pictures I posted online I've posted pictures

of our setup before and When I Not to not to

make a sound depressing but when I got divorced

A few years back. I knew I wanted to like do

something more for myself I was starting I was

starting to make more money for myself. So I

started to Gradually make some upgrades. I bought

four new mics. I bought a new mixer. It's a little

bit bigger It's still a I think it's a six port

microphone one now and it's a Mackie really nice

nice and And now we run that with our podcast

and what that'll do is it allows us to we've

had guests on the podcast actually like physically

show up to our Podcast and that actually allows

us to hook up, you know more mics to the show

if more people decide to show up So yeah, and

I still have all the microphones. I haven't actually

gotten rid of any of the equipment I've had over

the years. I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes

to electronics, and it's probably not the greatest

thing in the world. I still have my box to my

PlayStation 4, which serves no purpose after

the warranty, but it's just nice to have it,

I guess. I can see that. But yeah, I just love

that kind of thing. So I still have like four

spare mics just floating around if we actually

need them. I had my backpack, so we used to do

the show, not remotely, we didn't do it out of

my house initially before the divorce. So what

we would do is my office where I worked is owned

by a friend of mine and she let us use the conference

room to run the podcast out of. and they had

a big conference table that we could all just

sit around and do the show from there, which

also was great because if we had guests we could

invite them to the office and they could have

a spot too. So it wasn't like somebody sitting

in the corner with a microphone in the corner

of a living room trying to make room for the

other people in the room. The one thing we've

never done surprisingly is what you guys do and

that's we've never had a remote recording before.

We've never had anybody like call in or... do

it over Skype or Discord or anything like that.

Every podcast we've ever done was always done

in person between the four of us. Interesting.

That is cool. I could never do that. I've done

that a couple of times and it is cool to do,

but I'm already so scatterbrained. I can't sit

here and look at you and focus on whatever topic.

It's just too wacky for me. And it's funny with

the headphones because this is all your fault.

Of course I do well here's here's the thing that

so Again, as Dustin mentioned for for his stuff.

There's pictures of me online. I think from 2014

He was you were raving about these JVC headphones

and the sound quality is the best and this and

that and the whatever Well, they lasted till

about 2017 2018 and then like around the ear

and everything it just all started falling apart

and degrading So I'm like I've got to find these

again These are the only damn headphones I can

really use because they encapsulate my entire

ear on both sides Like I have all the cushioning

bows can go to hell for all you care thing for

the buck those jbc's that we owned are absolutely

hands down some of the best headphones i've ever

owned and jbc is not known for like high -end

electronics like they're like mid -level at best

yeah but for some reason those headphones sounded

so crystal clear and so perfect and like you

said the ear cups were you and i got gigantic

heads it's no fucking you know secret i have

a huge noggin and Those things fit around my

ears and on the side of my head so comfy is like

having musical pillows attached to the side of

your head Like they were perfect and I I would

I would put those headphones up against any two

or three hundred dollar pair of I don't know

about bows necessarily, but definitely like Beats

or something like that, you know, and they would

rock What's funny is I had when we started the

network I started off with one of those $9 Labtech

plug -in microphones. It sounded like garbage.

And then I bought a Logitech ClearChat Pro USB

headset. And after buying that for like 30 bucks,

because it had the microphone built in, it had

the headphones, it was comfortable, all the settings

were on the headphones. I had those for a number

of years and then the I forget what happened.

I think the the padding on it rotted out like

just the the fake leather that was on it. And

the first to go. I know it was it rotted out

and I was like, oh, man. And then the earphone

part of it that extends, I think, snapped. And

I was like, well, these are junk. So I went and

bought another pair at the store, which was a

similar model. Because I was pretty happy with

them and then come last and those lasted me The

first set lasted me about like six years and

then the second set lasted less, but it made

it through multiple moves I I was sitting there

during the virtual podcast movement last year

and Mackie happened to be the only one doing

giveaways Like everybody else was like, oh, I'm

going to toot my own horn for my network and

for this company. And Mackie was like, we're

doing promotional stuff. We're giving away different

stuff every single day. And we're doing demonstrations

of how to use the equipment. And I was like,

OK, well, I don't know much about them. And I

was like, I would love to win something. And

if nothing else, I'm learning while I'm sitting

there. Working from home I was watching on one

screen for the the panel and I'm doing my job

on the other stuff and You had to comment periodically

and I happened to win the first day of of that

I won a like Two two or three hundred dollar

headset. Yeah, you did and I was like, well,

that's awesome because Mine had just broken and

snapped So it was it was quite funny on that

it had completely fallen apart and then I won

These headphones and I just had to wait for those

to show up Well, then later in the week I won

their their studio bundle which has the studio

speakers the microphone and One of the hundred

dollar headphones, so I'm actually not using

the three hundred dollar ones right now because

I'm waiting until these hundred dollar ones disintegrate

Which could be a while? But whether so what's

ironic about your story is is that I also won

a pair of like $200 Mackie headphones from an

Instagram contest they were having that's awesome

Yeah, they're they're very generous and their

stuff is great. Like I I'm very happy with it,

but I still have my My go -to microphone at least

right now I use their microphone as like a backup

if I need to use it somewhere else in the house

Because I have this one mounted on a boom arm.

I have a blue Yeti and I've had that since 2012

and it sounds quite honestly fine, so I don't

have any reason to change it, but I have a backup

of pretty much everything now, which is nice,

and I didn't pay a dime. Yeah, I'm using a Blue

Yeti myself right now. I got it off of Woot,

and I don't know if you know. Do you guys know

what Woot is? No. It's a... It was independent

for a while, but then Amazon bottom but they're

like one of those bargain a day type places where

they put up a new 24 hour bargain in like like

eight different categories one in electronics

was or computers is one of them and they were

having they had the Midnight Blue Blue Yeti one

as a refurbish and I wasn't about to pass that

up. So that's really nice That is awesome. Yeah,

and Yeah, that's that's very cool So, kind of

jumping back onto our topics of questions here,

did you think you'd be podcasting for as long

as you have? So, yes, I guess. Like I said, it

was just kind of a, it was built as a reason

to hang out. So even as now a halftime single

dad, I still have one week off and we try to

use that Sunday of that week to use to record.

We had recorded consistently up until about Mike

actually pointed it out to me earlier today,

and we haven't posted anything since May of last

year You make it sound like I'm like poking poking

a bear over here No, I just wanted to make sure

I had my information right no no no it's fine

And it's and if you if you go to our website

you'll even notice that before that we didn't

we haven't posted since November So like it's

not we ran into some consistency issues at one

point and between Parenting and I was getting

really backed up like I think I have a backlog

of like seven or eight shows that I haven't edited

or posted yet And some of them are now so dated

I think some of them are from like e3 of 2019

and stuff like that like there's just stuff on

there that I just never got around to editing

and posting and So that's just it we just kind

of ran into that wall there and We have Hopefully

some plans to get it back up and running. Well,

we started in 2013 And we were really consistent

for a long time and we've done a lot of cool

stuff since then during that time We used to

go to a lot of conventions locally as did we

and So maybe as a podcast, I don't know, did

you guys get media passes all the time? Because

those are the best. Oh, yeah. I got them like

when I was in Michigan. I got them quite often.

Not only for like Grand Con, but I got them for,

I think, the one in Illinois, Chicago. C2A2?

Yeah, I think I got passes for it, but I was

moving at that point so I couldn't go. Oh, right.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So there is a video

element to our podcast and that video element

happens to be based around interviews that we

do at conventions. So we do we do interviews

with people we just kind of find fascinating

or interesting at conventions. We'll find artists

and writers and and comic book publishers and

stuff like that. We'll have conversations with

them, cosplayers. We're friends with a lot of

local cosplayers, so I've done interviews with

them. We've also interviewed some celebrities.

My favorite one right now is the fact that I

was able to interview Jake the Snake Roberts

at Cherry City Comic Con. That dude is the sweetest

human being. You would never guess it, but he...

He let me hug him before the show or before the

interview. That was awesome. And he asked if

I had any final request before he had to go off

and sign the book. And I just said, if you would

do me the hugest favor in the world, I just lay

down a heel style promo on me right now. That

would be amazing. And he he's like, what was

your name again? It's like I was like, it's Dustin.

And he went off for like three minutes straight

of just like absolutely bashing me. It was amazing.

All right. I don't know, maybe put a prolo on

there real quick. What's your name? Dustin. What

the fuck are they doing? Dustin. You wanna play

with a snake? You wanna touch it? You wanna feel

it? You wanna hold it? Really? I don't think

so. You see, Dustin? You like to play the game.

Jake? You don't play He's a really sweet guy

I've interviewed a couple of people from Stranger

Things The Walking Dead from and we had and And

that was from Treasure Treasure Valley comic

-con when they came over to Boise in Napa area.

So yeah That was like that's like some of my

favorite stuff and that's just some of the stuff

that this dumb little podcast has afforded us

to do we did a A media thing for Chris Hardwick

when he was doing a stand -up tour like their

media agency like reached out to me and said

hey We see that you're an active podcast in the

Boise area. He's gonna be doing a stand -up show

Do you want some tickets to give away and I was

like, yeah Yeah, like Chris Hardwick's like one

of my big heroes he's a big podcaster and he's

obviously a stand -up comedian and has a huge

pop culture following and stuff and oh, yeah

and we gave away like three pairs of tickets

to To his to his stand -up show that he was having

in town through Facebook and at the time he was

doing at midnight which was a hilarious show

on Comedy Central if you ever can go find it

in the odd in the archives and so we did a a

hashtag thing where hashtag celebrity zombies

or something like that because it was in October

and people would make up like Zombie names for

celebrities or nerdy nerdy celebrities like George

Decay was one of them that one Gory Gygax, you

know, it's just like these crazy names We just

voted on which ones we thought were the best

and gave the tickets away to those people So

stuff like that like stuff. I never thought in

a thousand years I'd ever be doing you know That's

awesome, man. So how have your podcasting goals

changed since you started compared to now? So

I've had you know, I have I like to think big

but at the same time right now it's like the

goals have changed in the way that they kind

of rolled backwards because right now it's just

wanting to get the show back and starting again,

but at its peak I started having these like crazy

ideas like what if Like I started thinking of

things like what Kevin Smith does where he does

like live stage shows where people participate

and laugh and stuff like that I was like, well,

I don't think I ever would ever have the balls

myself to do that but I was like what if there

was like some like weird creative thing that

I could do with that where if I started somewhat

of like a I don't know like a non -profit or

something like that in town that would like I

would call it like the Boise pod garage or something

like that where people can come and like rent

out studio space to do their podcast and they

can pay per session or per hour, whatever it

takes. And then maybe have like some sort of

like comedy club nighttime element to that too,

where people could like stage a live podcast

and we're to like what Kevin Smith was doing.

So, and then I could pay at the door and you

know, we would take part of that to like pay

for the space and then they could take the other

part of it as, you know, like an income for their

show. So just stuff like that. I was thinking

really big into the future, but things obviously

kind of came to the halt over the last year.

And whether or not that's actually in the realm

of reality for me might be another thing, too.

But that is a very lofty, lofty goal. I would

like to travel more to more cons, like go to

Emerald City Comic Con, Fan Expo, Rose City,

all those bigger comic cons that surround the

Boise area. Mm -hmm. We never really have like

big comic conventions in Boise. The biggest one

that we've had is Wizard World. They came here

in 2018, promised they would be back, and then

canceled the next year because they found out

that the weekend that they were going to be here

was the exact same weekend San Diego was coming

through, or was doing their convention. They

didn't want to have to compete with that. Oh,

jeez. So that kind of put a damper on things

and they haven't been back since they they put

this bit they did this weird thing for all the

for everybody on the final day of the con where

they said everybody gather at the stage at this

time and Fucking you know who the host of wizard

world is just Mm -hmm Kato Kaelin He's the host

of wizard world like he's the guy on the mic

and seeing almost everything on the main stage

And it's hilarious. And he's actually a really

cool guy. I don't know how else to put it, but

he has not lost an ounce of energy ever. Interesting.

But he announced to everybody that, yes, we've

done a consensus. Yes, we'll be back next year.

Yes. And everybody's like, woo! And then they

never came back. So thanks for nothing, Kato.

Oh boy. Yeah, if you ever want to go to Emerald

City, just let me know. We can do something because

I'm three hours away from Seattle. Aren't you

up at your Vancouver area, right? Yeah, I'm three

hours south of Seattle. Yeah. I'm waiting for

something in the Denver area. I'm like 50 minutes

from Denver. There you go. I live in Colorado.

Denver has to have something big there. Do they

have something? Oh Well, I think that's everybody

though Yeah, I think fan X is actually though

because they're they're not until like October

So they announced that they're actually gonna

have their convention this year, which is kind

of nice but I've never been to that one either

and That would be quite the distance for me to

travel. I mean, it's not like it's only about

six hours from here if you really put the pedal

to the ground but But, uh, that would be a really

fun one to go to. I know a lot of Boise people

like to go to FanX because a lot of big celebrities

tend to show up to that one. Yup. All right.

Let's talk about your podcast listenership. As

a listener, what defines a good podcast to you?

Defines a good podcast to me? I think, uh, just,

yeah, again, we've just done it for fun. We've

never really like, I have never, it's like, Hey,

here's what we are. Here's what we do. If you

want to listen to it, great. If not, then. Whatever.

And we're not angry about it. No, this is you

as you listening to shows. What defines a good

podcast to you as a, as the person listening

to it, not as the producer. There's so many elements.

It also depends on kind of the type of podcast

you're listening to. Like if you're listening

to something like, uh, like say Kevin Smith,

like if you listen to Hollywood Babylon, like

the level of banter between, uh, between those

two guys is. Is impeccable like you the show

never has a dull moment in it or like if you

listen to like a radio play podcast those ones

Like the ones that have like really good like

musical elements and background elements of as

an interactive part of the show Those are the

really good ones that tend to like if you listen

to the Wolverine podcast, that's really good.

I get so good What else or like even just small

ones like like you guys and Dodd and me and whatever

like And side scrollers like that's the best

reason I love side scrollers like it wasn't really

like professionally done for that for for the

most part But it felt like you were talking and

listening to guys Who you would have hung out

with? at high school and talked about video games

after school. Like, oh, you're the latest release

of this. Let's talk about that. Remember when

we used to play Mario when we were like six years

old? Yeah, that was amazing. So like those are

just that kind of thing is really positive. I

think as long as as long as the energy between

the people who are talking is positive, consistent

and just. I guess electric is kind of the word

you really want to look for is it's like it's

natural if it's natural It's gonna be good if

it's two people trying to um and off each other

for half an hour You're gonna lose interest real

quick. So Anyway, that's what editing is for

True. So here's the thing. That's the thing I

do with my podcast I do little to no editing

to any of my podcasts I used to at the beginning

but then I was like, you know what it that's

just part of the show Like if it isn't natural

when you're rolling with it I don't want to hear

it. So even if there's like a moment of like

quietness, if it's only like a split second,

I'm not worried about it. But the most editing

I'll throw into my podcast is I'll throw the

intro at the beginning of the show and the outro

at the end of the show. And that's about the

most editing I do. And I'll do like the noise

reduction. But other than that, that's about

it. As a listener, what does a podcast have to

have to draw you in? So this is more of like

you listen to say the first episode of a podcast

series or something What does that one episode

have to have to keep you coming back week after

week? I Mean a lot of the same so if I if I get

sparked in interest of a show like if something

catches my ear and I start to listen to it and

I hear that first episode and it's I'll give

it some leeway if it's rough obviously because

it's the first show you don't really know what

to expect and I might come back for maybe Another

two to five episode just to kind of see what

they've done with it since they've gotten feedback

or whatever But after that it's like if they

haven't done anything to really try and improve

or do something different that they haven't really

Addressed some of the issues that they have at

the show and I just tend to lose interest real

quick But I haven't really ever like lost full

interest of a show before. And to be fair, I

do tend to listen to more. Produced podcast,

you know, like they like they probably have a

studio and a production crew that put their podcast

together. But. Other than that. Yeah, like if

it's an independent podcast, I like those elements,

too. That's the thing. Like if it's just us bantering

and. Having fun. I that's the stuff. I like to

so I Don't know. It would have to be a really

a real stink bomb to like really not get my attention

I just like having something like in my ear like

as a background noise and if it has my attention

and it's funny and I can giggle every once in

a while or Get really into a story or a plot

line depending on the type of podcast I'm listening

to I'll probably keep listening to it So none

of this. Yeah, I've had, I've had some, uh, I've

listened to some like educational and like, uh,

Oh, actually, you know what? I'll go back. The

last podcast I listened to that for the life

of me, I could not get into was a podcast about

programming because I was starting to get into,

into computer programming, uh, last year. And

I said, Oh, let me see what's podcasts are out

there. And I listened to this one podcast. and

it was the most droll and dry. They just, I mean,

I understand that programming is very number

oriented, very sequential, very linear in some

cases, but it's just, your show shouldn't be

like that. You don't want a show that's binary.

You don't want to show that's ones and zeros.

Yeah, it can get real tired and real just like

heavy on the senses after a while. You're just

like, I can't do this anymore. It's like, you

can only talk about running loops and whatnot

so many times before your brain wants to explode.

It's a good thing. I don't drink because I did

just listen to a podcast where they literally

mentioned their discord, multiple discord channels

that they have 10 times within an hour and a

half or 10 times or more within an hour and a

half. And I'm like, Oh, They said discord got

to take a drink. I'd be in the hospital right

now. I wouldn't be on this podcast You shouldn't

have four Ben Steins hosting the podcast. It

just doesn't work. No, no What could have one

dry comedy guy on the show? That's fine But all

four of you shouldn't be like that. No, you can

have you can have a Ben Stein But you need a

Morgan Freeman to you know, shake it up a little

bit indeed Jack Nicholson I want to hear that

podcast just so you know. Just Jack Nicholson,

Morgan Freeman, and Ben Stein just having a roundtable

discussion about anything would be amazing. No,

I just have to learn how to do the voices and

I'll be good. All right. Let's talk about time

length. As a listener, do you prefer short 30

minutes to an hour and 30 minute shows or do

you prefer longer podcast episodes as in like

two hours or more? Half hour to an hour seems

to be really good as far as Like a structured

show goes like if there's three to four people

on a show like us I would say anywhere around

an hour is a good length One of the shows that

we wanted to do on nerd effect was actually called

brain bites and we did like One or two episodes

of that show and the whole idea was taken from

another podcast I had listened to where they

actually set up a timer You have 15 minutes to

take the topic and then discuss it and then each

person kind of gets their own like Two to three

minute go and then the last five minutes is like

open discussion and then we just kind of end

the podcast there like yeah So I thought that

was kind of a nifty idea that we attempted once

or twice and then never did it again But that

would uh, I think we the problem with that was

finding topics that you could discuss quickly

but Yeah, I think it's a good idea and I really

want to do it again I just don't think at the

time we were really set up to do it It was it

was a test more than anything at the time and

I think if we really tried to put our heads down

and do it and maybe even just like Create a list

of topics and come prepared That would be a little

easier to do I think in the future You always

have to be prepared As a listener, do you start

at the beginning of a podcast, the most recent

episode, or do you jump around? Now I know technically

this matters if it's like a podcast covering,

let's say, The Walking Dead for all, what was

it, 11 seasons or nine? I don't know how many

seasons that show had, but like, obviously a

review podcast, you'd start at the beginning,

but generally how, like when you first find something,

do you listen to the most current episode or

do you go all the way back to the beginning?

I will... If I get in in the middle of a middle

of a podcast advice if it's like three seasons

in I will start at the most like recent I guess

iteration of that podcast And just listen to

that current season and if it holds my interest

I'll go back and listen to the older stuff If

it's story based like if it's a radio play or

whatever. I'll start those from the beginning,

but those really don't have like any sort of

You know time stamp on them in order to make

them remain current, you know, they're it's a

story It's like a book. You can start it at the

beginning whenever you want But yeah, I definitely

I try to start at the beginning when possible

if it's like if it's like so deep into the show

like if they're Full season two seasons three

seasons into it. I'll start with whatever's most

recent and work my way back from there Very cool.

Very cool. Nice so As a listener how many hosts

are too many on one episode? How many ho anything

really beyond like four you're gonna have people

talking over each other really bad And that's

I would say mixing the idea of having guests

on the show like if you have a guest on the show

That's that's a different element I think in

my opinion, but as far as the hosts who repeatedly

show up having more than four is you it's It's

gonna be chaos and your show is gonna run way

too long. That's my opinion I kind of agree with

that in some regards unless you're getting like

unless it's like a top 100 countdown for instance

Where we'll see that and that's what that's and

that's fine because that sound that's gonna be

more structured You're gonna go around the table

and ask people Their vision as you go and as

long as you have one guy who's actually controlling

the the the show Who's actually saying? Okay

your turn your turn your turn then I think that's

just fine. That's not a big deal, I think. However,

I will say your show's gonna run really long.

That's the only downfall you're gonna have. So

when do you decide to stop listening to a podcast

altogether? So the, I haven't, okay, here's some

blunt truth. I haven't listened to an actual

podcast in probably like two years. and that

isn't necessarily because I don't want to listen

to podcasts in general. It's because my life

has just taken a different direction in the idea

of what I'm doing with my professional life because

I was in an office environment for 12 years and

could just listen to it while I worked. I knew

my job inside and out so it was very robotic

and I could just do it without really thinking

about it so I had the time to just sit there

and put headphones on for eight hours a day and

listen to whatever podcast I wanted to. What

ended up happening was back in 2019, I decided

to go into a programming bootcamp. So I needed

to maintain my focus there. And then I tried

to move into a new career. That lasted for about

five months before the pandemic hit. And I really

needed to focus on that career. And when you're

in programming, a lot of people will think, you're

just a... code monkey at that point, which isn't

necessarily true. You're actually all over the

freaking place. You spend maybe three out of

your eight hours a day actually doing anything

programming related. So you're actually running

around doing ideas, putting things on paper,

talking to bosses and customers and stuff like

that all the time. You're more of a consultant

than you are a programmer. And at least in the

job I was in, there are jobs where you just sit

there in the dark room and, you know, Monkey

go click click and you know, pretty's happen

on the screen but But I'm not sure which monkeys

you're talking about and I'm not sure what screens

you're watching but oh wow Well, hey your computer

doesn't work without somebody who's doing that,

you know, so it's just There there are people

who just preferred that type of job. I don't

prefer that type job I got into programming because

I wanted to make really pretty things like I

have a I have a very artistic sense of mind as

I'm sure you guys do too. You're very creative

as far as like doing podcasts and stuff like

that. And I'm sure you guys have seen some of

the drawings I do. I was like, well, what if

I took both of those ideas? Like I'm a big tech

junkie, but I also like art. So I was like, what

can I parlay that into? Oh, web design. So, and

you see people just build like even. Something

simple built out of WordPress has like on the

back end people who actually have to build those

out to make them look the way they do so That

really caught my interest and there's a lot and

what you learn is that there's a lot more to

programming than obviously just some HTML and

CSS to make things look pretty there's you know,

there's a lot of JavaScript and forms and and

Loops and stuff like that that you really got

to learn those are like the that's the tough

stuff and then back -end programming which is

will absolutely tear your brain in half. But

yeah, that's why I took the career change because

I was just tired of doing what I was doing. After

the divorce, I was going through this journey

of self -discovery type thing. I was like, you

know what? I'm going to take this opportunity.

I'm going to learn something new, maybe even

do a career change. What pays well that I could

be interested in programming? Well, I can't do

a four -year degree because I'm a 36, 37 -year

-old man with a daughter, and doing that without

any sort of income would be an absolute drain

on my existence as a human being. There is a

local boot camp in town that I attended that's

a 13 -week boot camp that teaches you basically

enough to be dangerous and enough to get hired,

and the rest you just got to make sure you learn

on your own as you go. So, yeah, that's what

I did and then the pandemic and I've been laid

off since March of last year. So That sucks and

it does kind of suck but at the same time it's

like I got that year to I don't know like I got

We're gonna go way off the rails here, but I

got like super depressed all summer long and

all the way through Christmas of last year and

Got really hard on myself because of how things

had went and in the last Three to four months

that's kind of come back around and now I've

kind of gotten into this mode where I feel way

more motivated than I used to be and Just kind

of in this mood of wanting to Finally kind of

put some change of things like I'm vaccinated.

I'm ready to get out into the job market. I need

to do some things to Move my life forward. I

don't I'm almost 40 years old and I really want

to like push myself out of my own comfort zone

enough to like not go completely insane but enough

to like challenge myself and push myself forward

in a new career and I'm actually currently waiting

on a callback from a company that's supposed

to call me this week. I'm feeling confident about

it and I really need this job keep your fingers

crossed fingers crossed But it would be, the

job in hand would be enough for me to learn and

it's enough to like, because it starts as an

apprenticeship program, a 90 day apprenticeship

program with these guys and it's a paid thing

and you start as a cohort, they bring you in

like four or five people at a time, they train

you hardcore for 90 days on Salesforce and then,

send you off into the wilderness of their company.

So, and there's a lot of growth and potential

in the Salesforce program that would be really

good if I could get that. So, that's where I'm

at. Very cool. I'm actually going to interrupt

Steve on this one because question 15 is what

podcasts are you currently listening to? Well,

you already said you aren't listening to anything.

What would you recommend that you have listened

to? I was going to say, yeah, it's not that I

don't... Listen to podcast. It's just I haven't

really listened to anything currently, but if

I had to like go back and I would listen to So

the Wolverine podcast if you want a really good

storyline podcast is amazing like it's it's all

voice acted The guy's name absolutely escapes

my mind, but he was like the He was the main

dwarf in the Hobbit movies the three Hobbit movies

Frodo no, no the dwarf The dwarf. Oh, yeah, I

know what it who you're talking about But he

voices Wolverine that in that oh wow, and it's

absolutely perfect Anything by Kevin Smith and

Chris Hardwick is gonna be good. Those are like

the the well -produced ones Obviously the cash

radio network you gotta listen to that but in

the blood But you're already here so Man, there's

just so much like I used to listen to so I had

like 10 different podcasts that I used to listen

to regularly and now some of their names are

escaping me. There was a horror podcast I listened

to that was really good. Man. I wish I had names,

but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I know. I know Markiplier just started a podcast

that I'm really interested in listening to. I

just haven't listened to it yet. Mm -hmm And

man, yeah, so that's that's about the best I

could probably really recommend to you You're

gonna if you want good laughs and giggles listen

to Hollywood Babylon Kevin Smith's like live

show podcast. It's really good always funny All

right, let's talk about your podcast production

as a producer now Obviously, this is when you

were doing the podcast not in this very moment

Did you find yourself listening to podcasts less

and less as you were producing your own show?

You make it sound like I'm just dead at this

point. No Hello as a producer I Barely like I'm

lucky if I listen to five podcasts a week. Whereas

before I started doing this stuff I was listening

to like 20 a week now. I'm producing 20 a week

half the time That's true. But you're able to

do this full -time whereas I I didn't have that

ability I had At least I'm assuming that's that's

kind of kind of like semi full -time thing for

you, right? Am I am I wrong in that? Yeah. Yeah

Okay, cuz I love it So when I had my job, I was

able to listen to a lot of podcasts and not really

worry about editing and stuff like that. And

we only edited one or two shows a week, so it

wasn't a big burden on me to do that, even though

I told you I was seven or eight deep that hadn't

been posted. But we won't think about that. The

recording a podcast is definitely the easy part.

It's the editing and posting that's the pain

in the ass But uh, yeah, I listen to just about

as many podcasts I think as I did before and

after I started the podcast because I live the

majority of my listening at my day job So that's

that's a that's my answer my short answer As

a producer, are you a podcast planner? Or are

you just throwing stuff at the microphone to

see what sticks? So the extent of our planning,

sometimes we'll do the list podcast, which you

do have to do a little bit of planning for it

because you want to make your list and come ahead

of time with it. Things that revolve around events.

So say like E3 or Comic Con, we would try and

plan and listen to the actual event as it happened

so we could come to the show with something.

Other things we would just say, like, here's

our topic for the week. Let's just freehand it

and see where we go from there. We can just kind

of bounce off each other and banter about it.

So it just kind of depended on the subject at

hand. We also did a D &D style podcast called

The Initiative as part of Nerd Effect. That was

just us running a campaign and usually it was

either run by Mason or Mike because I have like

next to no D &D experience and I have no desire

to ever be a DM. So that came with some planning

on their part because they had to be able to

plan out the actual game as we went. But yeah,

so there was some planning, but a lot of it was

really some banter just between like the biggest

part of the planning was just coming up with

topics and. having a general idea of what to

come to the show with. After that, it was just

kind of an hour, sometimes even an hour and a

half. I will admit, even though I said an hour

is the ideal size of a podcast, our show would

run an hour and a half, sometimes easy. So yeah,

kind of very free formatted for the most part

with some planning. Cool. I kind of do a little

bit of both. Well, I mean between Steve and I

we kind of rely on each other sometimes to the

point of if he's like What do you want to do

for alter geek this week? I'm like, I don't know.

It's your show. What do you want to do? Basically,

we are two of the vultures from the jungle book

sometimes and I'm like, oh well Let's do this

and let's just make it a short show and you know,

whatever like we did a thing called Was it 10

or 20? Yeah, it was like 10 minute blitz or 20

minute blitz. We're Like you were saying earlier

about taking one or two topics and just fitting

it into one show But you only have 10 minutes

to talk about it kind of thing Yeah So I was

gonna say those types of shows are great it just

I just wish I had more time to do them as all

Yeah, I i'm kind of the same boat. I used to

produce five or six episodes of shows during

the week and have time to edit them and Record

them and now I don't Hey if you can get them

recorded I can get them edited. Hello. That is

true So as a producer, are you a one -man show

kind of host or do you prefer working with co

-hosts? I prefer working with co -hosts cuz I'm

I'm as much of an introvert as I am I do like

socializing with with my friends, you know, I

like being in the same room with them and hanging

out. It's like even when they came over to do

the show, that wasn't the only thing we did.

Sometimes we'd hang out and watch a couple of

shows and just, you know, mess around for a couple

of hours. But yes, but as far as like per dude,

like editing and stuff, I was pretty much a one

man show. Like I did all the editing and uploading

and website maintenance and stuff like that.

That was all put on me. which is why I sort of

blame those other episodes for not getting uploaded.

In fact, I'm looking at my website right now

that hasn't been touched in a year and I'm not

sure why, but there's like cover photos that

aren't even loading and the slider doesn't work.

It happens to all of us. Like what happened there?

So now to figure that out. Oh crap, you ran out

of storage space. So we're going to delete all

these photos that you spent hours re -adding

to it. It's a shared server with infinite space.

There is no such thing. Well, if you read the

fine print, they say unlimited space, unlimited

storage. However, they give you a file count.

I haven't run into that yet, and we've been doing

this since 2013. Then again, you guys put out

way more shows than we do. I'm not sure who your

host is. I use Dreamhost with a... with a WordPress

install. Yeah, I tried using them and they are

site tanked. Alright, well, I can't argue with

that. So years of content, thousands of hours

of audio. Nobody can handle us. That's where

you guys are paying for that private server and

it gets really expensive. Yeah, we're almost

to that VPS stage. I'm dreading it. How do you

go about finding your co -hosts? They're all

my friends. It makes that super easy, then. It

does make it super easy. Yeah, it was all, like

I said, it was just a reason for us to hang out.

So I was like, hey, guys, you want to do this

thing? And they were like, sure, let's do it.

And then that was our whole thing. So as a producer

of podcasts, do you feel you need all of the

fancy gear, like mixing boards and things you

would typically need, maybe a radio station?

good stuff or just stuff that you prefer. Need

is a real strong word. And I think if you want

a really good production value, yes, you do.

But as far as even like if you keep bringing

him up, but that's just because he's a guy I

listen to a lot of. And so Kevin Smith would

always preach towards the end of some of his

shows where podcasting was a huge creative outlet

from him when he was not doing movies. So he

would always say he's like podcasting is like

one of the easiest things you could possibly

ever do. All you have to do is the simplest form

of it is you already have a microphone built

into your phone, pull up your voice recorder

and record for a few hours and you can edit and

post it right from your phone if you really wanted

to. You can just I mean, you don't even have

to have a website that you can just upload it

to something like SoundCloud or Mixcloud and

just call it a day. But even those cost money.

But nonetheless. even Mixcloud is free. And yeah,

upload them there. And that was like the easiest

form of doing a podcast you could ever do. And

you don't have to have editing equipment. You

don't have to even have to put an intro or an

outro on it. You can just talk into a microphone

for an hour and upload it. And that can be your

podcast. Whether or not people's gonna listen

to it, that's up to them. But as far as a creative

outlet to do, it takes almost nothing to actually

do a podcast as far as that goes. Now, if you

want good production, and editing and stuff like

that, then yeah, using audio editing and having

nice equipment that actually makes you sound

like you're decent. That's going to cost you

money. I don't even want to know how much money

I spent on sound equipment at this point. For

the most part, it's just buying the same stuff

over and over again. I don't have a mixer. The

fact that we're recording this over Skype in

a CAD U37 condenser mic and JVC headphones that

are a few years old now. And yeah, I do all the

editing. And I now make sure they are leveled

now that I have a program that can actually level

stuff for me. But it's like, again, for me personally,

it's that concentration level. If I have to have

a whole thing to the left of me where I have

to make sure every you know it's like don't touch

my levels it's like oh god just no no anyway

all of our stuff is just recorded right into

audacity like it's just it's one usb input into

the computer and audit hit record and audacity

goes and you can edit it right from there yeah

that's true audacity is good for that they're

also good for recording uh as long as you have

the stereo mix uh um plugin Uh, they're also

good for recording audio off of wherever. All

right. As a producer, you kind of already talked

about this. How much time do you put into editing

the show? You apparently don't put any time into

editing the show. There's a lot of wait time

in editing as far as like the compiling goes.

Like once you go from the raw file into like

an MP3. There can be some waiting that happens

there that you gotta wait for it to do all that

before you can actually have a file that's available

to upload. I think where it comes to editing,

you aren't thinking about just editing the audio

file either. I also create the cover art and

the mixed cloud art and all that stuff that goes

into the podcast as well. And then I do all the

social media posting and stuff like that after

it's posted. Just make sure it all goes up and

make sure it's available for people to be like,

oh, hey, look This is up and make it look halfway

decent, you know good saying you're making the

blog post for it and everything and making sure

that your plug -in is pointed to that particular

podcast and make sure that iTunes and all those

guys recognize that it's there stitcher and whatnot

and You know, there's there's a lot more that

goes into it than just you know Editing your

audio file and calling it a day True, and I think

for the most part as long as he doesn't mind

and he's gotten used to over the last 12 13 years

my editing style I'm pretty sure Steve doesn't

mind sending me a thing saying hey Can you edit

this because again? I have the most time out

of the two of us where I'm like hey I need images

for the next eight months in this one email do

them when you can Cause Steve is the art guy

and I'm the audio guy. I cannot do art to save

my life. I just can't. I'm honestly surprised

nobody's attacked us yet because all the art

that I pull for our shows is usually pulled from

a source that I just Google. I mean that's the

same thing with us. Especially with our initiative

podcast when it comes to the D &D style. stuff

you're just looking for art that's relevant to

your to your show to use this cover art and a

lot of that i'm sure is you know probably licensed

to somebody or somebody created that and i have

no idea how to give them credit so i'm kind of

using it on a whim but we're so small nobody

really cares and we're not profiting off anything

if i could give them credit i totally would i

just don't know where i pulled it from here here's

the way you give them credit is if you know you

just mention them so for a specific like Coming

up, Steve and I are gonna be talking about Transformers

Beast Wars numbers four and five. Well, Josh

Bircham, the artist, Josh Bircham did the cover

for issue four. So Steve has Dinobots from the

Beast Wars comic in the featured banner for the

pull bag episode 417. We'll just say in the show,

hey, the comic cover art that you see in the

featured banner is from the main cover of Beast

Wars number four done by Josh Bircham. As long

as you mention them in the show, that's the easiest

way to give the credit. All right, you kind of

already mentioned this as well, since your show

is an in -person show, but as a producer, do

you prefer in -person recordings or over -the

-internet recordings? Potato, potato. I like

the in -person recordings because it's done with

my friends. I think if it was with a complete

stranger, it'd be a little more awkward but That's

when you know, you have a guest on the show and

they come on they usually like there's two or

three of us there that are Interviewing them

as a whole so Everybody's comfortable and stuff

like that. I like I've never had the opportunity

to actually host a show over the internet Like

I'm doing this with you guys, but you guys are

hosting it So I'm just kind of rolling with your

guys as punches. Whereas me hosting it. I have

not had the ability or really the want actually

to do that. I think if I had, I need to do more

research into that myself and maybe I can even

reach out to you guys as far as how you guys

do it. But yeah, I just have never done that.

In fact, we may have even done some pandemic

shows if I knew how to do that, because then

I could have just gotten Mason and Mike to just

record from home. Yeah, see the perfect thing

now that Skype has a built -in recorder. I'll

let you know if you want to use Skype I know

Steve will recommend discord and other things

to do other things because discord and both both

discord and Zencast or record on individual tracks

but Skype for me is the easiest thing because

it records the whole thing I don't have to worry

about losing anything unless the internet connection

dies I don't have to worry about any of that

stuff kind of thing so yeah anyway All right,

as both a listener and a producer, do you prefer,

oh, okay, well, this question doesn't technically

pertain to you because you have one show, but

like you said, you have a D &D -type episode

on your show. But basically, the question is,

specifically as a listener, do you prefer one

feed have everything or should each type of show

have its own feed? So for example, We have All

Things Transformers, which is our news and main

discussion show, and then I have TFG One, we

have Beast Unleashed, which is the Beast Wars

show, and then we have Transformers Animated,

which is the animated cartoon show. Do you want

those all on one, or do you think of This Week

in Geek, when they had, you know, nerd news was

its own thing, and what else did they have? Oh,

God. Like, the commentaries that they did was

its own thing. Which do you prefer all at one

or separated? I think it depends on your goal.

I think you guys like you, you guys specifically

called yourself the news nerd network. If you're

trying to create a network of different shows,

if that's your goal, I think having a separate

feed for all of that, as long as you're consistent

is is good. So whereas us, we didn't really recorded

one or two shows a week. So we kept it all in

one feed, but each show kind of had its own.

title as far as like, so if you knew it was the

initiative, it was the initiative and you could

see that it was like, you know, the initiative

episode 28 or, uh, you know, nerd effect news,

uh, episode three or whatever. And you can trail

it back that way. Um, I, I've wanted to do things

like you guys do actually creating a network

of shows. I think it'd be fun to like reach out

to other people, kind of with that whole pod

garage thing. Like I was telling you, like it'd

be fun. Like if everybody in that garage scenario,

if we could offer up hosting space, for each

person to host their own show, but have one centralized

location to go get that. You know what I mean?

So, if that was several different networks, or

even Smodcast. Smodcast has all of its shows

separate, but it's all on one site. You can go

right to smodcast .com and you can see all of

their shows. Same with you guys, all that stuff.

Whereas, and same with us technically, but we

only have the one feed. So that's all we're small.

So I think if we decided to expand out and do

more, I would probably, you know, start separating

some of that stuff out. All right. That's awesome.

You could always join us, but anyway, how do

you, how do you use social media to promote the

podcast? What's the best part of social media

for you in promoting the show? Using promoting

the show I think social media just is kind of

its own It's kind of its own self -serving beast

like it just you just post the show up on Your

social media platforms and then that just like

is a signal to people to go listen I think where

social media comes in handy is with interacting

with your audience. I think we had a goal in

our website in the early stages where we were

gonna create a Board where people could go in

and just talk about the different shows or different

categories and stuff like that and kind of create

like a faux social media using Using message

board and stuff like that, but that did not pan

out In fact, it got hacked at one point and got

really bad a bunch of bots and stuff like that

posting porn sites and stuff like that was happening

in our in our board and I was like, well, that's

done So we just deleted that all together. So

Where social media comes in handy is through

Facebook. We use Facebook primarily. I'm not

a huge Twitter guy at all. I like using Instagram

to post a lot of our convention stuff. If we

go to conventions and start taking pictures of

cosplayers and events and stuff like that, we'll

post all that stuff to our Instagram page. One

of my favorite pictures I ever took at a convention

was We're friends with the local rebel alliance

and I forgot the the dark side people 501st.

So the cause there Star Wars cosplayers and they

do charity events and stuff like that. And there's

like different different areas of the country

where these guys go and they do charity events

like that. So they promote themselves at these

conventions. So one of these guys comes up to

our thing dressed as a Mandalorian and start

playing. Starts playing super so one of our things

so since we're a podcast not a lot of people

come up to us So we have to give them a reason

so we tend to give away a lot of free stuff Like

I'll buy a bunch of like party stuff and stuff

like that and put it out on our tables to have

people come up And actually talk to us. I have

like a little Like a 15 inch Picture frame like

a digital picture frame, but I bought that it's

cheap. It was only like 80 bucks but it has a

video function too. So I just loaded up a bunch

of our interviews onto it and on an SD card and

just uploaded it. So those videos just play on

loop. So you can see what we're doing there.

But I also invested in a RetroPie and uploaded

a bunch of NES and SNES and Genesis games and

stuff onto it. And I bought a rolling cart that

we have a 40 -inch TV that mounts to it. And

we set that up right outside our booth so people

can come up and just play it for free and just

hang out. Reminds me of the old days at the mall

with the Nintendo Center. Yeah, kind of. So they

could just come up to it. But somebody was at

our booth playing the SNES Super Star Wars game.

And the Mando, who came up to us behind him,

picked up the controller and started playing

it. So we have this picture of a Mandalorian

playing Super Star Wars on SNES. And it's like

the coolest picture I think I've ever taken.

And I've taken a lot of cool pictures at conventions.

But I thought that was just kind of a cool visual

for our booth. Very cool, very cool. But yeah,

it's basically fan interaction and human interaction

through our social media, I think is where that

comes in handy. Or like I'll share. on Facebook

to our Nerd Effect page semi -regularly. There's

something coming up. I think the most recent

thing I posted was they had shown the most recent

Shazam stage set photo of all the new different

costumes for the Shazam characters. And I think

I shared that to our social media page and people

like and comment on that and say, oh yeah, costumes

are cool and stuff like that and we'll interact

with them. But other than that, I don't really,

it's kind of a, As far as the podcast itself

goes it's just more of a warning system for the

show And then then we just use it for fan interaction

instead of the board. So that's that's kind of

where social media went for us Very cool. What

is your favorite topic to discuss on a podcast?

Uh You know, it's funny we don't do the show

anymore it was my favorite show but I guess the

rest of the crew kind of got tired of it. But

we used to do a news show ourselves and I was

actually inspired by you guys and Dodd where

we had like the nerd news and we just we each

just picked a story to do and we would talk about

it. We'd go over the story and then free banter

it for about five minutes and then go on to the

next story and banter about that for five minutes.

And I always thought that was fun. because it

was kind of easy that the stories just kind of

serve themselves to you as they come up and you

have kind of a week to prepare for it and It

was really not that hard to like talk about and

you can come up with some funny stuff I think

we were trying to do like a like an idiot of

the week type thing where you'd read about something

in the news or somebody did something dumb and

I think we stopped that pretty quick though,

unfortunately And then we did a But generally

we just pick a topic every week We try to find

something that's like a current event in the

realm of nerddom so whether or not that's like

movies or We'd find something in science that

maybe that had happened recently that we could

talk about And we just kind of pick a subject

like let's see here And we do a holiday gift

guide every year, but that one's kind of Don't

tell anybody this secret, but that's kind of

a way we could earn a little bit of scratch on

the side but uh we did it we do a holiday gift

guide every year where we pick some stuff off

Amazon stuff like that because we have a an associate

account so all the links that we post to our

site for the Christmas lists that we make will

garner us like You know, 20 cents or whatever.

So if you wanted to buy something for Christmas

through those links, it would help us out. And

I think we make fun of that at the beginning

of every show too. It's like, if you want to

help us out, you can check out this gift guide,

that kind of thing. And we've made maybe a total

of two bucks in the last seven years. So it's

not like we're making anything. Yeah. You don't

get into podcasting to make money. I mean, unless

you're Kevin Smith or somebody like that, but

still. Unless you're unless you're popular enough

to get sponsors like like hardcore sponsors like

that's that's one thing like you hear them like

the big YouTube and podcast companies to get

like Casper mattress and and Manscaped and stuff

like that. They'll get those guys as as sponsors,

but It just it's not in the cards for a podcast

our site. I think the most The most we really

get quote unquote paid for is free access to

all these conventions where we get to act as

media and interview people, but it promotes them

too. It's kind of like a, you know, we'll shake

your hand if you shake ours or that kind of thing.

Exactly. It's always a, it's always a, um, a

two way street when it comes to promotion. Like,

Hey, you have a podcast, send me an ad. I'll

throw it on my shows and I'll send you an ad

that I've done for whatever that I do kind of

thing. It's, you know, quid pro quo. Yeah, I'm

just looking at some of our prior shows we did

a This was a fun show. We did a we did a show

called late to the party Which which I thought

was kind of fun as a topic because we were talking

about all the shows that we just kind of like

shows that have been out for quite a while like

a Decent handful years that we just never got

into and then all of a sudden started watching

it. We're like, holy crap. This is the best thing

ever and I think mine was of course Doctor Who

but Because I was very late to that party. I

didn't start watching it until 2011 and the only

reason I got into it was because Evy was born

and I was at home for a week and I binged the

hell out of it because it was on Netflix at the

time and I made it through all of like David

Tennant and Matt Smith's shows at the time and

like the course of a week so And then immediately

became a Doctor Who fan after that. I live breathe

eat and die Doctor Who now at this point. So

anyway That's awesome. So was there ever a moment

when you were kind of like alright podcasting

I'm done peace out Only because it was forced

on me at this point I think You know, if I'm

dead honest with you, it wasn't that I wanted

to ever give up podcasting. It's just that podcasting,

at a certain point, started to become a burden

rather than a benefit. You know what I mean?

So, where immediately post -divorce, I started

having a lot more time on my hands than I was

able to... Have more free time during the weeks

where I didn't have the kiddo and I could edit

and post and stuff like that But it became as

as life began to get more complicated Carving

timeout to actually like edit the shows Was painful

like because I knew what it was gonna take to

edit and post that show It would be like two

to three hours to get really, you know from point

a to point B and get everything uploaded so That's

when it started becoming a burden and it's not

that I didn't want to do the show It's just that

it just became more difficult. So Yeah, and I

so as things Start to pan out in the near future.

I'm probably going to Look at different avenues

for editing and posting and stuff like that and

try and see if there's a better and quicker way

to do this I know at one point I was Looking

at SoundCloud as a as a as a point of hosting

hosting. No, no, no, no. No, they're horrible

Because they have like a built -in RSV RSS feed

that you can just feed right into a podcast and

just call it a day Yeah, everybody does Yeah,

they're they're they're so like not keeping up

with the times with what podcasting is turning

into that they're just And they're constantly

on the state of going bankrupt. So I would never

recommend them Well, to be fair, SoundCloud was

never really, I don't think it was ever really

intended to be a podcast hosting situation. It

was intended for independent music producers,

I think, at one point. That was 99 % of its source,

and then they probably just added podcasting.

I was like, eh, okay, we'll do it. So I do all

my hosting through, like I said, Dreamhost and

a WordPress install, and then I think I paid

theme forest for a theme for a podcast that I

then installed as part of my WordPress. And then,

I think it's like the Blueberry podcast distribution,

like plugin. Oh, PowerPress, that's free. It's

not specifically called PowerPress, but it's

just a plugin for WordPress called Burberry.

And Burberry, I think, is specifically, I think

it's just a way for them to like, because Burberry

is a podcast hosting company of sorts, but they

also have a plugin that you can just plug in

the link to the MP3, a title description, say

whether or not it's adult -oriented, and an actual

podcast description, and then it just picks all

that up off the RSS feed. It can also generate

its own RSS feed from your website. We use the

same plugin. I think I read your own I've never

done that. I haven't done that. I think what

I'm doing right now is going through a feed burner

on Google Yeah, if your feed burner feed gets

too big from too many years of content It maxes

out at a certain memory limit and it stops posting

new episodes So just be aware of that too. Good

thing you're not as big as we are big in quotation

marks Came out with their own alternative to

feed burner called podcast mirror, which is basically

an up -to -date version of what Google is neglected.

So. Well, good times. Nice to know I have to

now figure out all this when I decided to get

back into podcasting again. Hey, you know what?

We live to teach people around here. So, you

know, we learn by mistake. Absolutely. That's

the kind of thing I'm talking about when it comes

to the pod garage thing like that's the whole

that was my whole idea like if I wanted it to

be a I wanted to be a nonprofit kind of learning

situation where we could take like a handful

of people and Show them the show them the basics

and then they could start up their own podcast

And if they need like hosting space or whatever

they could pay us for that But It was kind of

just a idea to like give people a creative outlet

and not have to like financially burdened certain

people they can just come in and use the equipment

to make their own show and then you know Copy

it to a flash drive or whatever they need to

do and they can take it home and edit it or if

they want to host it with us we could do that

but they could just do all that right there and

then Upload the show and they don't have to worry

about you know maintaining any of the equipment

themselves But that was kind of the idea I had

I don't know if that's Good or not. I don't know

what you know Risks are involved in that especially

when it comes to handling that much audio equipment,

but yeah Something just stuff to figure out.

So what do you see is the differences in podcasting

versus being on the radio? Oh Man, well the big

thing immediately is that when you're on the

radio You're live like if your mic is hot it's

hot and people are gonna hear whatever you have

to say in that moment so Think that's like the

big difference I you can you can kind of say

the same for like live shows Like Kevin Smith's

Hollywood Babylon where he's at a comedy club

and performing live in front of an audience But

even in the post you could still edit some of

that out for the actual podcast so I don't know

I think I think that's the big difference as

far as as far as radio versus podcasting is that

it's you're gonna hear everything that's about

to be said live and in the raw. I would say with

a few exceptions, like maybe you have like a

pre -recorded interview that you're going to

use as part of your show or something like that.

But that seems to be the big difference to me

is that you're very much live at any given point.

Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I've had experience with

that. Hosting a podcast live at a convention

a few years back and that was probably the most

awkward thing for an introvert to do, especially

when they contacted you to host their event.

And I was like, well, I can do a podcast while

I'm live and just record the whole thing and

easy content. And then they were like, we'll

provide a co -host for you. And then five minutes

before the event starts, they're like, oh, yeah,

the co -host that we had scheduled for you is

not going to be available. You're flying solo.

Have fun. I did see One there was one other as

when we were at cherry city comic -con, there

was a local podcast there It's cherry city was

like the one podcast that we did that wasn't

local and it was out in Salem, Oregon and There

was another podcast there that looked like they

had way more of their poop in a group than us

But there was like three or four of them at a

table and they were set up right next to the

celebrity booths at the time So they were able

to just kind of like pull in celebrities as they

felt like they wanted to and they would do like

a quick like 10 15 minute interview for the podcast

and they were streaming it at the same time so

they're streaming recording uploading they were

doing all that right from their table and that

so they were doing a chunk of that live which

and I thought that was a really cool idea and

I would personally like to do that at some point

the only problem with that is is that my hosts

Are not like that. They have no desire to be

on camera at all so I Break cameras. No one wants

to look at this. This is why I do audio. Hello.

This is you know Yeah, it was it was the what's

the little thing you got a face made for radio.

Yep broadcasting But I have no problem with that

like I know I'm a big guy and I I have plenty

of body image issues, but that that that was

part of the challenge though, do you got to get

around that and and and Get to the point. I remember

my first my one of my first interviews over video

was with With a cosplayer Joni brosis Who's super

cool and she's amazing, but she's like four foot

eleven and I'm and weighs like maybe a hundred

and hundred and ten pounds and I'm like this

six foot one 300 pound giant standing next to

her. Like that was kind of awkward because you

got to fit all that into the frame. And my first

editing experience, fucking trolls, I put that

up on YouTube and like I remember I was really

just starting to learn how to use video editing

equipment at the time. I think at the time I

was using Sony Vegas and not very user friendly

at all if you ever decided to use it. but I had

created like a little like semi -transparent

banner that went across the bottom of the screen.

Well, that banner just happened to cover up because

she was so short and we were both trying to fit

into the frame would cover most of her torso.

So a lot of, because she's a pretty, you know,

she's beautiful. And so when I had this like

little banner going across her torso, I got like

three or four comments that were like, you really

need to remove that banner next time. It's like,

I know, I'm sorry. And of course, I don't even

know where the source file is anymore at this

point. So I just it's kind of there forever.

I can't really change it at this point. But but

yeah, because she was so short, she only takes

up like the bottom half of the frame. And so

now, you know, half of her torso is Completely

blocked out by this semi -transparent banner

with her name on it that I've since later learned

that I only keep up for about ten seconds and

I I've got the gist of like creating animations

within the editor that roll it forward and backward

and stuff like that So I've I that's not a problem

anymore, but that was like my first real edit

and I got a lot of crap for it. So anyway See

again as I mentioned earlier, that's the magic

of having Steve or my buddy Neil We all know

TV's mr. Neil Around where I can just say okay.

Here's this slate fit this into this and make

it look cool or if I have an idea for something

it's like Whatever you need to do to make it

look cool as long as these are in here Go for

it Go crazy and then show me afterwards. Well,

you already talked about the interviews you've

done, but were there any others besides Jake

the snake that you've done? So Joni was a was

a fun one Jeffrey Weissman was a fun interview.

He is Kind of crazy. He's very very energetic.

But if the name doesn't you know ring a bell

he played a He played, uh, Oh my God. Um, not

Marty McFly, obviously, cause that's Michael

J Fox, but his dad. Oh, Oh, he was the George

and, um, yeah, George, he played George McFly

in two and three after the fallout with, uh,

what's his face. Yeah. Yeah. He looked identical

to him into it. I had no idea there was even

a character change until he told me during that

interview He's like, oh, yeah, I was this guy

but yeah, he was George McFly in the second and

third movies and we had a really good conversation

with him and and He was really energetic and

really into it and was promoting I guess him

and a couple of the characters from the back

to the future movie or actors from the Back to

the future movies were trying to form like a

band and all sorts of fun stuff He was a he was

a fun that he was a hoot for an interview The

I wouldn't say it was my worst interview of the

bunch, but it was definitely not like As energetic

and hopeful as I thought it was but the two guys

from Stranger things didn't seem like they really

wanted to be there But uh the the the kid was

fine he was like, why am I forgetting their names?

But he he was the bully from the first season

the kid And then the teacher the guy who played

the the like the kind like the audio video teacher

to the kids I interviewed I interviewed those

two guys and they were cool like they didn't

see they weren't rude or anything But they just

didn't have like the same like yay. I'm happy

to be here energy, you know Had a couple actors

like that. Yeah Of course, then again, the only

interview that's the worst interview is the one

that never records and you can't get the time

back that you spent. I will say one of my favorite

moments was during that interview. So with the

guys from Stranger Things, names are hard for

some reason, and I don't know why, but Lois Lane

from the original Superman movies, help me out

here. Margot Kidder. Margot Kidder was at that

same convention. We didn't get a chance to interview

her, but we did get a chance to talk to her and

she was amazing. She like passed away a year

later. But in that interview, she rolls behind

us. The way they had the interview structured

on us is it was at the Nampa Civic Center and

if the Civic Center has it's like a theater they

have a theater area in the civic center that's

set up for like stage plays and stuff like that

so there's a lot of chairs so they use the stage

with like four uh like five or six cocktail tables

that stood about five feet tall you know and

uh and we would stand around those and do interviews

and there was different news outlets there and

us like i felt so out of place like we were the

only like non -professional Place there there's

like channel 7 news and radio stations and stuff

at the tables around us and here we are with

this little rink -a -dink podcast with a Camera

that looked like we bought it off the Walmart

special and it was it it was fun By comparison

anyway, maybe it was a good camera. It's a Canon

like g20 or something like that It was like a

$700 camera, but compared to like the other equipment

that was around I you felt kind of meek and not

really Belonging But it was fun. But anyway,

Margo Kidder comes up behind us and she friggin

I didn't even see it until after I edited the

video But she totally video bombed our interview

like she like walked behind us and she looked

at the camera and just like Stuck her tongue

out with her eyes wide open and then she kept

walking and her handlers right behind her and

everything and I created this like slow -mo cut

that I put up on a I put up on the website on

our Facebook page that just it's golden like

she made that interview and Everything like that

split second. She was there Made up for the entire

like drool that that interview actually was so

yeah, that was fun having Margo Kidder up there

just Being her last name kidder And she showed

up like she was That woman was awesome. Like

I can't tell you enough how awesome Margo Kidder

was she sat there in the front row of the seats

when she was done with the interviews She sat

there in the front row of the seats of the theater

and just told stories for like an hour straight.

And just everybody was standing around her like

they were listening to the greatest human being

in history tell the most amazing things. And

it was fun. It was really fun. It was like listening

to grandma talk about, you know, growing up in

the 70s. Like it was it was really cool. And

she wore these like slip ons that were like Oh

like bedazzled like they were really sparkly

and I remember I remember looking at it good

I really love your shoes and she just kind of

looks at me and smiles goes Thanks, you know

super sweet lady and she one of the so we have

a lady here in town who runs a store called repop

gifts and it's a it's a huge like pop culture

store like you go in there you can find dr. Who

mugs and and t -shirts and and Harry Potter stuff

and Star Trek stuff and they she decks it out

like her husband is a hobbyist. So he has a to

scale to model Original Star Trek captain's chair

that he built himself All the LED lights in it

and everything that make it black has the soundboard

in it So you hit a button that it'll make the

appropriate soundboard sound to the buttons on

the captain chair Like that's the type of store

these guys run and it's amazing. They have built

their own hobbit hole like to scale like All

sorts of cool stuff in the store. Anyway, she's

there. She runs a booth every year out of one

of these, out of every one of these conventions.

And Margo Kidder, and our booth was right across

from there. I wish I would have taken a picture

for her, but I didn't. But Margo Kidder went

up to her booth, and she has a bunch of handmade

stuff. A lot of her stuff is handmade too. So

all these like skirts and pants and stuff like

that. She made with like Superman themed apparel

that she made herself. Margo Kidder went up to

that booth and bought anything that was Superman

related from her. She's like Margo Kidder just

dropped $300 worth of stuff at my booth like

just now and I was like, I know I watched it

But Margo Kidder was so unassuming like people

didn't really recognize who she was unless you

knew that that was Margo Kidder like she could

walk around the convention like probably 80 %

of the people would have no idea who she was

But uh, but I saw and I knew exactly who it was

because I had just interviewed In the same room

as her and everything and I was like, holy shit.

She let margo kidders over it Millie's booth

like buying Everything that's remotely Superman

related. She drew she bought like two pairs of

pants and like three skirts and All sorts of

stuff like walked away with like $300 with a

stuff from her booth. She's like that was amazing

That is so cool. I think if people saw her and

if they heard her she would you would know immediately

even if you didn't know It's if you if anyone

saw the superman movies As soon as she spoke

you would know that that's lois lane Yeah, I

just think because it was a more localized convention

like right a lot of the other people there are

Gonna be children who probably don't really recognize

some of the older celebrities like they probably

recognize the guys from Stranger Things and and

Walking Dead But Margo Kidder is one of those

is one of those people you bring in to bring

in the older crowd Like she's a draw for those

people, you know, yep, absolutely It's so funny.

I just spent the last few minutes as you're telling

that story looking her up Did not know at one

point she was married to Kevin McCallister's

father, Peter John heard from 79 to 80. He died

in 2017. She died in 2018. Yep. That's, that's

just crazy. I know she had, uh, I know she had

some mental health issues and she talked about

that too. Like she, she didn't just talk about

her experiences as such, but she talked about

mental health and stuff like that too. And how

important it was to like, you know, relieve yourself

of your addictions and stuff like that the best

you can. Like she was. one of the most empathetic

human beings I've probably ever talked to that

is like in the upper echelon of, you know, celebrity.

So it was really nice talking to her. Like she

was just a super cool human being. That is so

very awesome. All right. Only two more questions

to go. What advice do you have for new and also

veteran podcasters in the art of podcasting?

Don't be afraid to start. Just do it like if

it's something that Man like if it's just something

you're interested in and And you just want to

talk to your friends and get it out there just

do it find a way to do it research your stuff

just hop on Google it's free and And figure out

how the best and cheapest way to create a podcast

is and just do it Don't be afraid to put your

feet in the water if even if it's like the most

obscure topic in the world like I created the

name nerd effect specifically because I didn't

want to pigeonhole myself into One particular

topic. I didn't want to call it, you know, Star

Trek, the Star Trek effect and then not be able

to do anything else. So I knew that we were going

to be talking 90 % about the realm of nerdy.

The thing about that was that when you say nerd,

anybody can be nerdy about anything right down

to sports. Like I, I couldn't tell you a damn

thing about, you know, like I know how to play

baseball. I know the rules of baseball, but I

have a cousin named Cody who can give you the

statistics for the Seattle Mariners for the last

five years. So like, You know, there's just it

just depends on who you are and you can be a

nerd about anything So that's why I like the

idea of the name dirt effect is that it kind

of opened that door to anything the probability

of anything, you know so Don't be afraid to start

figure out a way to do it easy come up with something.

That's You know a catch tell your friends, you

know, get it out there. Don't be afraid to promote

yourself The Facebook page is free a Twitter

is free Instagram is free get out there promote

yourself, get your friends in on it. It's a blast.

Some of my favorite moments have been just from

podcasting, and look where it got me. I didn't

think that I was gonna be interviewing freaking

guys from Stranger Things and having Margot Kidder

be the most awesome human being in front of me

for an hour. Done. So it just gets you to a point

where opportunities open up once they figure

out who you are and what you do, and then you

can... work on growing from there. Like if you

wanna make it more production worthy, you can

work on getting microphones and figure out how

to do it over the internet like we're doing.

Like there's just a lot of options, especially

if you're, I don't know, I think a lot of guys

like us who are kind of in that realm of nerd

tend to have the equipment handy like this Yeti

mic. Like I already have it here and you can

start a podcast with that. You wanna fly solo?

Just do a solo podcast. You can do that too.

You want to spit into a microphone for half an

hour about a topic. Do that. Why not? Yeah. I

always have to have people to bounce off of.

I can't. I tried in the beginning and it failed

miserably. You're your own worst enemy. I think

when it comes to podcasting, you can't. I would

say at the very minimum I would have to have

at least Mason present in order to really put

put a podcast together And we've done we've done

duo shows before because the other two weren't

able to show up or whatever I think I've done

and I've done shows without him and with Mike

and Tara So like it just kind of depends on who's

willing to show up and make sure that they're

people that you can Have a conversation with

the more natural the energy the better. Oh Absolutely,

most definitely. Yeah And it's so funny I did

For those that don't know because studio 2009

is technically a new podcast that we started

Over on the pullback, which is our comic podcast

going on for eight year almost eight almost nine

years now Never thought I would get to over 400

episodes on that feed, but I have and I knew

immediately as soon as I hit like 395 I'm like,

okay episode 404 comics not found we start by

talking about comics and then we talk about Anything

else for the rest of the show and then somehow

tie it back into comics So we did that and I

thought that was really really awesome. So it's

it's just yeah It all depends on who you're hosting

with and what the topic is and as long as Everyone's

engaged and wanting to discuss the topic That

works the best Yeah, don't be don't be the person

who's don't be the person who's like sitting

behind just saying asking what if You know, that's

the worst part. That's the worst thing you can

do is just don't be afraid to start. Just do

it. If it's with Steve's Plantronics headset

and a hope and a dream, do it. I started out

on something worse than that. I don't even know

what brand it was. There's a picture of me floating

around from 2008 -2009. It's this weird over

-the -ear headset with a stick -arm mic attached

to it. Essentially, it's what we always make

fun of now because don't ever just buy the $10,

$5 Walmart headset. You don't have to spend an

exuberant amount of money, but buy something

that is going to be worth the investment and

worth going forward with your time. Yeah, I wouldn't

say don't force yourself to start right away.

Find make a plan, you know, if you need to save

a few bucks or something decent or something

like that I would say don't be afraid to do that

but uh But I mean if you have a hankering to

start a podcast even if it's just will be like

five minutes to say You know what? This is my

podcast. This is what i'm doing for five minutes

Take it or leave it. I got plans for the future

and get it started that way Yeah, sure. Why not?

Who's gonna who's gonna fault you for that? Nobody.

Nope. Um, they might go what the hell was that

and then Pay attention to it later when they

realize what this kid or this person is gonna

be doing but um Yeah, don't don't be afraid to

start Don't be afraid to save a few bucks like

you can get a decent condenser USB mic for 20

25 bucks on Amazon You know, it doesn't take

you don't have to have a Yeti to start by any

means. So yeah, don't be afraid Absolutely. Where

can the people find your show? nerd effect calm

and then most of the regular podcast outlets

I know things have kind of changed in the landscape

of where podcasts are distributed these days,

but I Think the one that we haven't really gotten

on to yet is Spotify As long as you don't put

any music in it you should be fine Yeah, the

big one the big one that we're I mean we have

we're on stitcher That's the big one probably

for us and then obviously like iTunes because

it's all through a feed. I have I've come across

I've come across our podcast on sites that I

didn't even know existed before, so whatever

you're listening to, it's probably on there,

except for Spotify, because they require a specific

RSS feed, I think, up front, kind of like Stitcher

does. You have to tell. You have to email Stitcher

and be like, hey, here's our RSS feed. Can you

add it to your list? And then it takes like a

week for them to get back to you and go, OK,

you're good. Yep. Any final thoughts or anything

else you want to say, Steve, before I close it

out? Nope. All right. Well, thank you for joining

us here inside the studio. If you'd like to get

in contact with us, we'll leave feedback for

the show. There are several ways to do so. Visit

the website geekcastradio .com where you can

listen and comment on all of our posts. Send

email to feedback at geekcastradio .com. Here,

always, you can listen to us nowadays at Google

Podcasts. Leave us reviews there. Please, Spotify

and any other podcasting client you use. Follow

us on Twitter at geek cast radio is the network

at its studio 2009 is the show. I am at TF2 and

Mike Dustin. What is your Twitter? If you still

have it, isn't it one up your life still? No,

that's like an old one. I am I am personally

at um at Dustin Vancouver, uh, B A N C O U R.

Um, and uh, I have one for nerd effect. I just

can't remember if it's nerd effect. calm because

somebody took it, hold on, hold on, I'll tell

you. But if you just look up Nerd Effect at pretty

much anywhere, you'll find it, it's a blue and

black logo. Yeah, because Nerd Effect is something

completely different on, oh and you know what,

it's Nerd Effect Pod is what it is. So we're

in Nerd Effect Pod on Twitter, you'll find us

there, but I'm looking at it now, we haven't

posted anything since 2019, so. There's that.

What about you, Steve? You can find me at SCP

-21. Become a fan on Facebook. Go to facebook

.com slash Keycast Radio Network. You can also

search out Studio 2009 podcast over there as

well. Coming up next, Steve and I already recorded

this one, so yay. All I have to do is edit it.

We are going to be talking about in Episode 21,

the Mighty Ducks franchise, the films, and that

Disney Plus show. For now, I am TFG1 Mike with

Steve Megatron and Dustin Vancouver. You'll hear

us back in the studio soon.