Interview with Mike The Birdman on Podcasting Journey

Cause watch this, I'll slap myself three times,

I'll turn on the charm, and nobody will fucking

know. Yeah, but... Hello and welcome to Studio

2009. I'm of course, TF Joe and Mike. Joining

me for our latest podcast approach is... a man

who wants to fly like a bird, as well as how

he just can't stop punching himself. That's an

old joke, folks. No one's going to get that.

No one's going to remember that one. Yes, that's

right, folks. Making his return to Studio 2009,

it's Mike the Birdman from This Week in Geek.

Yes, it is. I have returned to the plenth - plenth

place from when I just kind of hung out occasionally.

But yeah, I'm back. It has been quite a while,

actually. Yes, I think those clones destroyed

us because we couldn't even get any revenge of

the Sith on them. That's true. But hopefully

when schedules clear up and homework stops drowning

me, I'll be able to come back and finish up some

things with you. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we

are here as people heard last time in episode

27. Yeah, this is episode 28. Episode 27 was

Ben Montgomery from Records Revisited Podcast,

his podcast approach. For those of you who haven't

heard podcast approach, technically I did this

series on this podcast every five episodes. I'm

throwing that out the window because no offense

to any of the guests. For me personally, this

format is the simplest and easiest way to record

a podcast. Hey, we get interesting stories from

listening and producing and everything else.

To kick it off, Mike, when did you first discover

podcasts and what was the first one you listened

to? Um, I first became aware of podcasts probably

would have been about 2004, maybe 2005. And I

used to listen to a podcast called Star Wars

Action News run by Marjorie and Arnie. Cause

at that time I was really into collecting, uh,

Star Wars revents of the, uh, Sith figures. And

I started. Getting into the collector community

used to hang out on Yoda's news .com rebel scum

.com and I used to actually got my first PR gig

was at FX dash sabers .com. I don't know whether

that last site is still around anymore. Um, but

yeah, I used to listen weekly to send in weekly

questions. And, yeah, that was the first podcast

I listened to pretty much right through until

when I started going to college back in 2006

for the first time when I started taking broadcasting

from Niagara College. And then that was pretty

much the only podcast I ever listened to. I've

only really started getting into podcasts truly

in the last couple of years if I started actually

listening to ones that aren't. me and that feels

a little weird. And I know I've been doing this

for like 15 years, but I just never really kind

of caught onto them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you

know, I started out as a listener and then I

figured, Oh, I could do this. And between you

and Steve Saylor and a bunch of other people,

I was like, Hmm, yeah, I could do this and, and

all that good stuff. So it was about Two years

from this point that you listen to that first

show to the point of you guys really two or three

years. You know, as far as how long between when

you started listening to when you started Twig.

Yeah, because Twig started in early 2007 on CRNC

90 .1 FM, which is the college radio station,

which would broadcast from Welland and on a good

day you get it. out in St. Catharines. Our radio

station, as far as I know, is one of the few

that was actively streaming online at the time

via Winamp and other things that could pick up

the audio that would stream from the campus.

And yeah, there weren't a lot of us around, however,

though, because my former co -host Steve was

really into the whole video, podcasting, and

kind of really plugged into that world. We started

attending conventions as guests, and our first

one, we were actually featured presenters, I

think, and that was PodCamp Toronto back in 2007,

where we spoke at Ryerson University, which is

one of the largest universities in Canada. And

it just kind of went from there. In fact, We

almost ended the show like permanently because

he went off to Humber and I remember recording

one of our last Episodes before he left and then

we decided, you know, we could just keep going

and It was I can't remember what the topic was,

but I know I used the ending of alien 3 where

Ripley's flight recorder is playing over the

closure of the prison planet And she's like,

this is Ellen Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo

signing off. And I thought that was a really

good way to end the show. Clearly that didn't

happen. Um, we're still going or I'm still going

with like Alex and yeah, it's been quite the

ride ever since. Cause I remember we used to

have to talk to Niagara because at that time

podcasts were still relatively new. And I remember

us asking the radio program professors and the

college itself, like, do we own our own copyright?

And they're like, well, I guess so. And we're

like, we're like, okay, fucking a right. And

they're like, so we can continue the show as

we see fit. Yeah, sure. Why not? They didn't

expect we'd become as successful as we did because

that year we would win one of the broadcasting

awards from the college for best radio program

to which Steve promptly broke the fucking trophy.

I never even got a chance to bring it home. And

yeah, so that was, I'm still sore about that

like 15 years later. Well, I mean, he is blind,

you know. Yeah, but he's not stupid for Christ

sakes. But yeah, so yeah, we kind of kept going

and then the show, expanded its roster as we

moved into second year. And then he changed schools

to Humber at some point during the year. So there

was mostly me, a lot of people I'm not friends

with anymore, but there was me, Pierce, David

Double D. He's still friends with me and he does

his own podcast now. And then I hooked up with

people like AJ, Elizabeth, Stacey, and some other

people. And we just... We expanded so much. We

had so many programs going at one time. We could

have a different show every single day. We would

start in production. Our show used to air on

Friday mornings at 930 or nine o 'clock. We got

the full hour on the station with like kind of

station breaks. And Dave would produce the infamous

double D rants, some of them which haven't aged

particularly well because of the climate that

we're in. And we would start writing on Monday

morning. Everything would be produced no later

than Thursday night. Just we have time to double

check the elements, make sure that it works and

make sure that everything was functioning as

it should. That also gave everybody. the chance

to research whatever topics we were going to

talk about because my particular college would

focus a lot on sports talk radio and delivering

news and neither topic really interested me except

maybe. the journalism angle of certain things,

but I never wanted to appear stupid. And we would

spend the entire week researching and I'll admit

back in those days because we also had a full

like kind of class schedule as well. I'm not

proud of some of those results, but I think we

came a long way in such a short time and we had

such a really good on air chemistry between me

and Steve. that it made things remarkably natural.

And I think that's what a lot of people kind

of gravitated towards. Plus having our own website

and the ability to have fans interact with us

on the then new platform of Twitter. Hell, we

had a MySpace page for a while. And we used to

just interact with fans and the thing was be

humble, don't be a prick, don't be an asshole.

And then we hooked up with other web creators

at the time who have gone on to be Titans in

their own right. Some the shining example of

hard work and dedication and other people who

shall remain nameless and are total pieces of

human garbage. So yeah, it's we've worked with

the entire spectrum. of web creation people from

the early days to the modern era of podcasting.

And it's opened some interesting doors along

the way. Yeah, absolutely. I assume the answer

to this is audio, but which do you prefer as

both a listener, as a fan and as a producer,

audio or video podcasting? If I am producing,

I prefer audio only because it's faster, in my

opinion, to do because I can look at a waveform

and odds are I'm probably taking notes at the

same time. If I have to remember, I said something

here. I'm going to have to edit that out. There

was a technical problem here. I'm going to have

to edit something out and I don't like dealing

with video. I've never been a video editing guy

because with when editing a video and audio podcast,

you have to worry about sync sound. sync sound

is the making sure your audio matches your video,

which is why when you edit film, for example,

the director and everybody else will have the

clapper board, they'll be like, okay, guys, three,

two, one, action. And when you see when you hear

that clap, I just did that'll show up on the

waveform as this is where sound is now starting

picture is now kind of running. And I just I

hated it. I hated it so much. Although now as

a video watcher, I watch a lot of podcasts on

YouTube. Some of them work better as, you know,

they're they're virtually audio anyway, because

it's usually them just kind of standing there

with a microphone talking. But sometimes you'll

get some good interactions like I remember one

of the earliest podcasts. I listen to, not weekly,

but when screwattack .com used to be around,

they used to do a podcast called Side Scrollers,

and they started out primarily as audio, and

then they migrated the video, and that was okay.

When it comes to modern video podcasts, I watch

Pat Danny Ass Punk, because sometimes he'll have

a really good kind of take on something. I'll

watch Fat Man Beyond occasionally if the topic's

interesting. And one podcast I'm considering

subscribing to their Patreon, but I haven't yet,

is probably the Delta Flyers, who do the Star

Trek Voyager podcast with Garrett Wong and Robert

Duncan McNeil. And I figured, you know what,

for five bucks a month, I'd watch that. But yeah,

when it comes to actually listening. I always

prefer audio because I can throw that on my Google

Home and I can do homework or do something else

while I'm listening if it's video. I can do other

stuff at the same time, but it's more distracting.

And just recently, Yeah, the only thing I'm really

listening to is that the Delta Flyers occasionally

some true some true crime podcasts I'll listen

to like I listened to one About there was a local

murder that happened around here probably about

15 years ago now, maybe a little bit earlier

than that named Tory Tory Stafford and this person

is this incredibly well researched person where

she got interviews with the police that were

involved other witnesses and I'm thinking that's

interesting and that's the type of podcast I

wish more people would be because it was so well

produced so incredibly well researched and it

just wasn't people bitching for an hour and a

half which is better the Super Nintendo or the

Sega or something like that and yeah It was something

different to see how things have evolved. And

even as content creators ourselves, you look

at the old video podcasts and how they used to

be produced. And now anybody with a semi -decent

camera that can shoot at a minimum of 720p up

to these 4K podcasts can do incredible work.

And you can honestly edit fairly quickly. Hell,

I've seen people do entire editing on their iPhones

as long as they know what they are doing. So

it's astounding how far the format has come since

its inception in the early 2000s. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, everybody with a smartphone nowadays can

be whatever they want to be What kind of setup

did you have when you first started and what

do you have now when we first began twig Obviously,

I was just coming into Niagara College at the

time and I purchased at that time What was a

top -of -the -line? MacBook because I got a really

big Scholarship from my local reservation. For

those of you that don't know, I'm indigenous.

I'm Ojibwe Chippewa of Nawash. And the band gave

me like, thousands of dollars. And they're like,

what do you need? Well, I need tuition paid.

And that was like three grand something. What

else do you need? Residents would be nice, but

my parents paid for that or my adoptive parents.

And what do you need? I need a laptop, because

The standard for many, many years was Mac. So

I spent over $6 ,000 on a Mac book, maxed out

the RAM, maxed out the hard drive, got as much

bells and whistles as I could. I even got Final

Cut Pro with it because I had a friend of mine

who was working at the television station I was

volunteering at as the audio director. And he

was teaching me how to edit on Final Cut Pro

when we didn't have assignments due for the evening

on a newscast. And what I have now is I do it

primarily from Windows 10. I have a Sound Blaster

K3 Plus sound card, which Alex put together for

me last year. I use a condenser microphone. which

is powered by phantom power, but can also be

powered via USB. In the early days, we had some

gigantic mixing board. I think it had like six

inputs. The thing weighed like 20 pounds. But

that thing was a beast and it was Steve's. And

I remember, because he didn't want to lug it

around to between where he lived and my place.

I'm like, fine, fuck, just leave it here. I think

I podcasted more because I was really bored.

I'm like, well, I got two hours and I know what

I'm talking about. I'll just go talk. It just

became integrated into what was then called the

Twig Studio, which was the common area of the

house I was renting. It was the MacBook, the

mixer. We'd have four microphones and stands

because my roommate at the time and best friend,

Pierce, was a musician. We could have these floating

stands with shock mounted microphones, which

are also condensers because Steve's board could

supply phantom power. So we were sounding better

than 90 % of the podcasts at that time that were

currently being produced. And when we went to

college, people would ask to borrow our studio

because Why would I try and go through the hassle

of going through the college, signing up, dealing

with security? when they can go talk to Mikey

and maybe he'll help me out. Now, admittedly,

a lot of those people are jerks, and if you're

listening, fuck you. And I didn't mind helping

nine out of every 10 people who would ask me,

because I knew, honestly, they just wanted to

get things done and I wanted to help. But some

people saw me as a bit of an easy way out, which

whatever. I'm not going to hold it against them.

If I had the same position, I would too. Yeah,

we that's how Twig was mostly back in the day.

However, though, we used to edit in GarageBand,

which was this great piece of audio software

for Macs. And I remember learning that because

I was taught by Steve. But then we started using

a program which has now turned into Adobe Audition.

And I think it's known as something else now.

I think it's called Pro Tools now. But we learned

on a program called Cool Edit Pro. which used

to run wonderfully under Windows XP, but it became

more and more unstable under Windows 10. And

I stopped using that within the last couple of

years because it kept crashing and I would lose

so many podcast episodes just because it was

such an old, old, old program. And then Alex

taught me Adobe Audition and it's virtually the

newer version of cool edit pro just some of the

menus are a little bit different and some of

the sections are a little bit different. But

once you got the hang of it, it's not so bad

and everything sounds really, really, really

fantastic. Although I will admit I do miss some

of my presets. because I remember me and Pierce

spent like a week developing shortcuts and like,

okay, if this happens, we can go to A. If this

happens, we can go to B. But if B and C don't

happen, here's C. And if that doesn't work, you

could maybe use A with a little bit of D. And

we had contingencies in every possible scenario

to account for environment, sound, and everything

else. And I'm really sad that I lost those particular

things. Heaven forbid anything happened. We don't

want anything to happen, but if your headphones

or microphone or your equipment breaks down Do

you go back and buy the exact same setup because

you know? It's the quality that you want or do

you use that opportunity to upgrade? Depends

on what's available at the time when it comes

to computer software. Yeah, I tend to go back

to what I know, but I'm always willing to learn

new tools and technologies as things move forward

because I know for a long time we used to record

twig over Skype, but then Microsoft fucked that

up so badly. that we moved to Discord, but as

more people started catching on to Discord, the

bots that record audio became less and less reliable.

Now we use a service called Zencaster, which

is a web -based audio client, and we've had maybe

one fuck up in three years. And thanks to the

pandemic, it's a free service until they decide

they want to flip the switch. And even then it's

like 20 bucks a month. Who gives a shit? That's

like coffee. Um, and we started looking at different

other pieces of audio equipment because for years

I had a really large soundboard. The problem

is because you have to keep unplugging it and

plugging it back in. We kept losing them because

of the connections, our microphones. and our

pieces of audio tech would just get worn out.

That simple. I remember one stretch of time between

2014 and 2016, I think I went through three audio

boards. Maybe some of the quality just wasn't

there, but I would always go back and rebuy.

I would use SineHouser mostly for headphones

and microphones. My boards were almost always

Audio Technica. But we started getting review

products from Sound Blaster and we really lucked

into this sound card because it's no bigger than

like a CD really and it's maybe maybe an inch

or so tall and about as wide as like a CD maybe

a little bit bigger and It's just been so remarkably

usual. It's so remarkably portable. It's got

two XLR inputs plus two auxiliary plus the headphones

when it comes to headphones I used to only use

SineHouser because that was the radio standard

at the time. I'm alone in this one. I know this,

but I've always had a good relationship with

Astro. Years upon years ago, I got a set of Astro

A30s and Astro A40s sent to me for review. I'm

talking 2009, 2010, so the tech is pretty old.

but I still use them to this very day. In fact,

my eight thirties died last year and they lasted

me like 10 years. They were the Metal Gear Solid

three ones or sorry, Metal Gear Peace Walker.

But a friend of mine who worked for Ubisoft was

going through his closet and he came across a

pair of Far Cry three run ones. I said, dude,

can I buy those from you? I love those headphones.

You can keep the audio tags which are things

that appear on your ears And he's like nah, man,

just pay the postage and they're yours. So I

primarily Use a wired headphone connection although

for years and I only had to stop this literally

in the last month or so I'd have had a pair of

Logitech wireless headphones But because of the

way wireless technology works on Bluetooth and

on radio frequencies I started getting a lot

of interference, you know being handicapped.

It's hard for me to get up. However, thanks to

the sound card and really long USB cables, I

can put the board on my bed, I can jack in hardwired

and the connection is fantastic. But Logitech

does make a really good wireless headset and

I really enjoyed that. Very cool, very cool.

Yeah, I've had thanks to someone who else has

been on podcast approach, Mr. Dustin Vancouver.

He mentioned to me about some JVC. Big can ear

things. That's what I have now. I've gone through

two pairs of them so far And I still have my

cad u -37. So there's that. All right Did you

think you'd be podcasting for as long as you

have? No, actually, um, like I said, we were

isn't gonna stop the show as earliest 2008, maybe

even 2007. But when I went to Hamilton in 2009,

when I started going off to grad school for public

relations, I lived with Dave, another guy named

Stefan, and we could have another room that was

dedicated to the studio. Plus, we were getting

boxes upon boxes of review stuff per day. And

I'm like, guys, we can keep doing this. And they're

like, All right, what do we got to do? I'm like,

well, same thing as we did in Welland. We have

got a weak sound, not stupid. And let's bring

the A game. Let's be funny. And that's when a

lot of responsibilities change because I was

managing a full -time school load, also having

a full -time girlfriend and editing the show,

posting the show because at that time Steve was

gone from the site. And I was like in charge

of 95 % of everything. And I'm thinking, you

know what? I can manage this. This isn't so hard.

I was very quickly proven wrong at the end of

2010 because school just got to be so goddamn

much. Wasn't that when I took over? No, that

wasn't until about 2011, 2012 when I took a little

bit of a break. Yeah, so when I started graduating

from public relations in 2010 and when I moved

away to a smaller town, That's when I started

taking on other projects, which I very stupidly

tried to review a game per day. By the way, don't

ever do that. Um, and yeah, I just, I realized

producing was fun. I could still do it. And as

long as I didn't kill myself and maintain the

quality that I wanted, I'll just keep going.

And my rule with twig is always going to be,

I'm going to keep doing this until it's fun or

until I'm 50. Um, and whichever comes first.

And right now I've had my ups and downs because

I've had some pretty bad health problems in the

past couple of years. But I even broadcasted

from the ICU after I lost my leg because Alex

brought in a little microphone. He edited the

audio for me. and I was able to do that from

the hospital. So if death didn't stop me, inconvenience

certainly wasn't gonna do it either. And yeah,

just there's been times where I've lost team

members or I've lost touch with people. But when

Alex came onto the show in 2016, 2017, I didn't

expect him to bring so much life back into it.

He helped me revolutionize the production process,

helped me streamline a lot of things. We've gone

through several website upgrades. He does the

entire backend. He'll do about half the editing

on anything complicated. It gets passed off to

me, which is fine. And he's the review machine

because I balance so much other things with being

like a full -time husband and everything else.

But yeah, he really helped keep Twig alive. And

now that we've worked with people like yourself

and Steve, we brought on people like Aaron Paulier,

who works on the Star Trek Adventures RPG game.

He's got his own show, him and his wife. Um,

we work with, uh, JT who started out as a fan

of twig way back in the day. Now he's got a show

with me, another guy named Ken, who started out

again as a fan and now is one of our regular

contributors on the show. And yeah, it's just

been amazing. It feels like we're back in the

height of things again, because literally, uh,

I think Alex was telling me this as, as of this

recording, which was like November. We have enough

content to last us into the middle of next year

with one of our shows. We have shows planned

out until probably the middle of March. And right

now we're just putting together things. So we've

got so many things lined up that it's like an

assembly line from recording the show on Saturday

afternoons. Typically I have things edited by

like nine o 'clock on Sunday nights just depends

if I need to take a bit of a nap or something

or Everything everything is always ready typically

by no later than Tuesday morning at 7 a .m. But

almost always Monday morning 7 a .m. That's when

we hit hit the button and that's three reviews

be they a toy a movie a video game or something

each and every single week. And that's mostly

what's kept the passion going, the lights on,

is that we're always so busy and there's always

something new and exciting to talk about. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah, I found myself having to change

how I do things because after... 13 years of

doing review shows. Don't get me wrong. I love

doing review shows. I love talking about cartoons

or movies or comics or whatever. This for me

is simple. Just sitting down asking people anywhere

from 25 to 42 questions about whatever topic

it is. I can slap an intro and an outro and I

can do a once over through the whole thing and

bing, bam, boom. It's done and easy and whatever.

It seems like from the beginning to now, your

podcasting goals have changed. What is it about

your podcasting goals from the beginning to now

that have changed? In the beginning, because

I was a young, stupid kid, I thought being famous

would be awesome. It's had its shares of ups

and downs where going to a convention and being

recognized by a fan, that's really wonderful.

I've met some great people. Let's not get that

wrong. But I've also had my fair share of troubles

with it as well. I've had stalkers. I've had

people who've become targeted harassment. And

thankfully, because I'm generally known as a

pretty good and tolerant guy, it doesn't last

very long, which is very, very, very good, because

I always try and give everybody the benefit of

the doubt, even if they're terrible for five

minutes. And as my podcasting goals have changed,

When I came through journalism, when I graduated

broadcast in 2009, before I went on to PR, I

learned something very important from my journalism

teacher, Tammy, and it was the news should always

be free. And my mantra has been with Twig since

that day. I will never charge for this podcast.

I will never do a Patreon or a Kofi or whatever.

If you want to send a donation, cool. If you

want to send us something neat, fine, but I'm

never going to ask for it to keep the show going.

And I always want to be spreading the news and

reporting it as truthfully as I can. Have I made

some mistakes along the way? Yeah, like anybody

has. And as I get older, I just turned 40 a couple

of weeks ago. I want things to be fun. I want

things to still be informative. And I hope to

leave behind a good impression on people because

I get fan mail every couple of months. And they

always talk about how transformative I've been

in their lives, being there since high school

in many cases, or me going through my amputation

has changed the way they view disability. And

most recently in the last year or so, since I've

been rediscovering my indigenous roots, it's

inspired people to take on their own journeys

of discovering who they are via ancestry .ca

or those DNA testing services. But they'll also

be you encourage me to reach out to a brother

I haven't talked to in years, or I recognize

a piece of media as meaning something more. There

was a fan letter I got a couple of, I think it

was like about a year or two ago, and the fan

wrote to me about my interview I did with Jennifer

Hale, who was Commander Shepard, the femme chef

from Mass Effect 1 through 3 and all the associated

DLC. And that was a really good piece. And then

there's another fan named Miguel. And he's been

learning to play my favorite offspring song for

like a year or two. And I think he lives in Brazil

or something. I'm probably getting some names

wrong here. So if I am, I'm really, really, really

sorry. And then there's another fan who's never

stopped being there for me. And I got to send

a huge shout out to this guy. His name's Clark.

And I've only met him once when I went to Texas

for the Iron Man of gaming back in 2008. But

he always makes it a point to communicate with

me on Twitter. He used to call me on my birthday,

but you know, with phone rates being the way

they are now, like I don't blame him, but he

always interacts on Facebook and Twitter. And

I like to be encouraging the people that reach

out to me. As my podcasting goals have changed,

especially as things begin to wind down on my

career, which I'm fine with, I hope I've made

a difference in a positive manner. for people

and don't just do this because you want to get

famous because a, you're drowning in a sea of

content now. Yeah. Do it because you love it.

Do it because you genuinely have something you

want to express or you feel the duty to create

and never. This is something I had to learn very,

very, very recently is Don't monetize your hobbies

if you don't want to. If you suck at singing,

don't think you're going to get a record contract

from Drake. If you suck at drawing, Marvel may

not call you. But if it brings you joy and happiness,

do it. And the main reason I keep doing Twig

is it's fun. I love entertaining people. I love

inspiring people. And not to feed my own ego.

but because I generally want to put things better

into the world than when I left it. And that's

something I learned over the summer with my friend

Liam, who said to me, I can't even remember what

the context of the conversation was, but he said

to me, leave the world a better place than when

you found it. And as I started exploring my spirituality

side of my indigenous roots, Uh, there's a teaching

system called the seven grandfather teachings,

which I'm still not totally familiar with. And

that's kind of something I took from it there.

I know there's a teaching. I can't remember the

sacred animal associated with it. Maybe it's

the Raven, but I think the term comes to humility

and I hope I've been that. And if I haven't feel

free to call me on it. And I don't know. I want

things to be very. authentic, very transparent,

because I look back on my early career and I

cringe. I've done some pretty cringey things

in the past, but that's okay because I was a

child, I was learning, and I don't think I had

any real ill intent. towards things, and I hope

I can maintain that as I continue riding off

into the sunset, not quite yet, but I would say

my ultimate podcasting goal is I hope I've made

your world a little bit brighter, a little bit

less depressing, and I hope I've given you something

that you can look forward to. a 100 hour edit

job, you can survive anything. Anyway, now it

is time for Mike the Birdman to lower his shields

and let's talk about your podcast listenership,

which you mentioned before, but there are interesting

questions here. So as a listener, what defines

a good podcast to you? Quality. of first and

foremost. Now, I'm not saying you have to be

the most slickest podcast in the world, but if

it sounds like you're talking in a bathroom at

like a Sheetz or something, I've got some problems

with you. I want your quality to be consistent.

I don't mind if you're opinionated. long as you

can back it up with either some conviction or

some verifiable facts I'm a very big believer

in making sure you can present a good argument

basically thesis and antithesis and sim in sim

synthesis. And I know I'm probably screwing those

words up. But I want you to present things in

an orderly format. And defining a good podcast

means you do all that if you're going to do a

video podcast, it has to be well lit. If it's

not well lit, it looks like shit. People can

forgive a little bit of darkness. but people

cannot forgive bad audio, or if it's great video,

or if it's shitty audio, but good video, they're

gonna tune out. So you always have to make sure

you ride that balance of production quality in

that regards. In terms of what makes a good podcast,

in terms of content, be interesting, be entertaining,

and be willing to share the spotlight with whoever,

you guessed it, whoever the material is. and

be willing to be wrong. And certain topics come

down to opinion, but always be willing to listen

to the other person and at least entertain them.

And obviously there are certain things you just

shouldn't entertain, because I think we can all

universally agree, Nazis are bad. But if someone

says, I really enjoy Zack Schneider's Justice

League, for example, okay, that's an interesting

perspective, maybe a little controversial. Why

is that? And as long as you're willing to give

a person a respectful platform to talk, then

that is totally fine and I'm willing to engage

with that conversation. So we can insert all

the awesomeness that is Nickelback right here,

right? I kind of prefer Marvel movies. We are

Marvel. Yeah, but you know, you're Marvel licensed

by Fox. It's like if The Beatles were produced

by Nickelback. It's music, but it sucks. Hey,

that's it. I'm done. I've had it with all this

Nickelback hating, right? You think that makes

you cool with the cool kids in school, Fred?

No, it just makes me right. It doesn't. They're

overproduced, formulaic ear garbage. Oh, really?

You know who might disagree with that? Facts.

50 million albums worldwide, 11th best -selling

musical act of all time, Billboard's most successful

rock group of the last decade, six Grammy nominations,

12 Juno Awards, those count, six Billboard Music

Awards, two American Music Awards, one People's

Choice Award, Canadian, and a partridge in a...

pear tree sorry i thought we were just having

fun i didn't realize it was you know you were

um you gotta say you were nicer as a kid again

if you can defend the position it's about the

music folks not about the band trying to live

in like a mind man sick aside well a sense of

feeling This is how you remind me. As a listener,

what does a podcast have to have to draw you

in? So you go to a podcast your very first time

and it's been going on for about, let's say a

year and you want to go back to the very beginning

to hear how they started. What is that first

episode have to have to keep you coming back

to the next episode? Host chemistry. and interesting

content. For example, because this is a really

good example for me. When I started listening

to the Delta Flyers, which is the Star Trek Voyager

podcast hosted by the two former cast members,

I started with the latest episode at the time,

which involved the Borg, which is my favorite

Star Trek bad guy ever. But I'm like, you know

what, I've been looking for an excuse to go back

and rewatch the entirety of Voyager anyhow. Why

the hell not? And I went back and listened to

everything and it was just cool hearing all the

behind the scenes stories, how different things

work in Hollywood. And then I was kind of doing

a watch along at the same time. I'd listen to

an episode, I'd watch the episode. Now it's gotten

to the point where I just listened to the episodes.

And if it's interesting, I'll go back and rewatch

the actual Star Trek episode they're talking

about. I think I'm listening to, I think I'm

about halfway through season two. I think the

episode I'm listening to is called Alliances

right now where they team up with the Kazan or

something. And I'm thinking, all right, that's

pretty interesting. And that got me sucked in

pretty good. When it came to the True Crime podcast

that I listened to, I think it's called Canadian

True Crime. What got me interested there was

the depth of research. When I was listening to

her, she would cite sources, all things that

were verifiable in the media, it's stuff that

was publicly available, and maybe some stuff

that was maybe a little sensitive. But the way

that she handled it, it wasn't sensationalized,

it was human. And it was well done. It was like

any investigative journalist piece that I'd ever

heard with very little commentary, other than

the fact, this is horrible that this crime happened.

Here are the facts. Here's the order in which

they went down. And especially with the Tory

Stafford one, because that was such a huge news

story here in Ontario for a long, long time.

And the guy who killed her was a guy named Michael

Rafferty. going through his history, and how

he connects to even some pretty big people on

tik tok. Right now, it's I was like, that's interesting

to me, you've got the angle, you've got the research,

you've got the empathy. Let's go. And it's not

just people going pew pew with like, kind of

lasers. Alternatively, I was always a big fan

of Kevin Smith and I started listening to Hollywood

Babylon because I really liked him and Ralph

Garman. Now that being said, I do not like his

Batman episodes he does with Ralph because I

just don't care. But when he did the live show

at the John Lovett's Comedy Club, I thought that

was hilarious. And then Fat Man Beyond, as much

as I like Kevin, Mark is more interesting. I've

had Mark respond to me a couple of times on Twitter,

and I'm thinking, okay, you've got my attention.

Another podcast I used to listen to, and I just

thought about this now, is because I enjoyed

their chemistry, and it got more interesting

once I met them. When I met Ming Chen and Michael

... Michael ... Zapsic. Zapsic, yeah, from I

Sell Comics, formerly of Comic Book Men. That

show got me interested enough to maybe take another

look at comics again, because I'd been out of

it for so long. I had no idea what the fuck was

going on behind the scenes thing here. I think

I've said this publicly, but I'm not sure. Before

I was cast on comic book men for season three,

I was talking with Ming and Mike on a pretty

regular basis via email. And when they found

out I was cast in the show and I was saying,

hey, I'm a podcaster too. Can we do something

while I'm in Jersey? And they're like, Yeah,

that's a cool idea. Let's fucking do that. But

the producers a comic book message. Now we can't

do that because I guess it would spoil the surprise,

I guess. So that sucks. That would have been

a really, really, really cool experience because

I met Rob Bruce. When we were across the street,

they're prepping the secret stash for the shoot

that day. And me and Rob Bruce has shot the shit

about like, kind of Star Wars props. And I think

you were surprised about how much I actually

knew about kind of lightsabers because that's

always been my specialty in Star Wars is identifying

the different types. Like, is that a stunt saber?

What was that made out of? What scene it can

I match that the screen accurate and blah, blah,

blah. And it was just a really cool conversation

because I haven't met too many people in my circle

of friends that are huge prop guys that aren't

necessarily into like. For example, my next door

neighbor, Liam, we love guns, which is funny

if you know my position on things, but I love

prop firearms. So we talk about the Aliens M41A

pulse rifle or Robocop's Auto 9 or Deckard's

gun from Blade Runner. And it was neat to talk

to somebody that wasn't an armorer. So that was

a fun experience. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool.

As a listener, do you prefer a short 30 minute

to an hour and 30 minute shows, or do you prefer

longer podcast episodes as in two hours or more?

Depends on the topic, honestly. However, though,

because I come from a broadcast background, I

generally don't like anything over an hour, maybe

an hour and a half at most. And I know some twigs

have run longer than that, but that's usually

because of the elements we're dropping in. But

if the content's interesting, if I can cap it

to about an hour, hour and a half, I'm fine.

Two hours fucking max because who's got the time?

And the example Alex always gives me was most

people listen to podcasts on commute. So I'm

thinking, you know what? You're probably not

wrong. My opinion of this might change if I had

the drive in the Toronto every morning. And if

I don't want to listen to the local talk stations

here, I'll just throw on a podcast. take me as

I go to work. But generally about an hour is

what I prefer because the Delta Flyers is always

about an hour and change ish. And that's my preferred

format. As a listener, do you start at the beginning

of a podcast, the most recent episode, or do

you jump around? The Borg and Voyager team up

the fight species 8472. And then I went right

back to the beginning because I'm like, Hey,

let's see what Tom and Harry have to say. Um,

however, though, when it came to the true crime

podcast, Blair started me with Tori Stafford.

And then I've listened to other ones. She did

a one on haunted Canada. That was really interested.

There's been some other ones that talk about

other. paranormal topics. And I'll always focus

in on like, Hey, we're talking about skinwalkers

this week. That sounds interesting. We're talking

about, you know, ghosts. All right, that sounds

cool. Other podcasts. It depends on the guests.

I remember I've only ever listened to like three

or four wrestling podcasts in my entire life.

And I the first one I ever listened to was when

Colt Cabana did the one with CM Punk that was

really controversial at the time, where he like

shit talked Ryback and all these other people.

And I was like, okay, that is fascinatingly interesting,

but I never went back after again. Plus I found

out Colt Cabana is supposedly a big piece of

shit. So I'm like, all right, fine, fuck you.

You don't get any listenership. Chris Jericho's

podcast I've listened to a few times, but I swear

to Christ, if I hear another ad for like Blue

Chew or something, Yeah, like it ultimately depends

on guest unless the topic or the theme of the

podcast is super interesting to me. So I am remarkably

picky with my podcast because I'm so limited

on time, I might only get an hour or two a week

to listen. And nine times out of 10, I'm doing

something else. For example, as of this recording,

I'm playing Call of Duty Vanguard on the Xbox.

And I play a lot of multiplayer, I'm trying to

prestige right now. So I don't have to listen

to the game as much because I'm going to respawn

when I play domination or hard point or whatever.

And as long as I can keep my like K to D and

my kill streaks up, I don't care. So hey, what

better time to listen to the Delta flyer? So

why not? Or why not listen to the latest episode

of true crime? And that's generally how it goes.

As a listener, how many hosts are too many on

one episode of a podcast? Um, I think two is

ideal. Three is really good, especially if the

hosts know each other's kind of chemistry. Anything

above three to four, it starts getting a little

chaotic. And I can say that from a production

background. When I used to produce sports radio,

sometimes you'd get the main host and their co

-host and you might bring in a guest who might

be like a famous athlete, then you might get

a sports reporter. and you get people just talking

over each other unless they know each other's

chemistry remarkably well and just I find it

hard to focus in when there's too many voices

going at once especially if voices sound super

not separate from each other has to be a very

clear distinction so yeah I'd say three is ideal

two is Perfectly fine. Solo is hard unless you

know what you're talking about and have the gift

of gab. Like one of the exercises we used to

do in radio that before we were allowed on air

over the airwaves was my college professor Ron,

or maybe it was Chris, had said, okay, here's

your topic. I want you to say, I want you to

talk about apples for 30 seconds and not say

anything. And a lot of us are like, what the

fuck are you talking about? And it was basically

make apples interesting for 30 seconds. And it

also kind of depends too, is if your hosts are

interesting and if they've been humanized for

a while and you've earned that right, so to speak,

to talk about your personal life, that can be

interesting too. And we used to call those our

kind of talk bits. One of the stations that I

listen to out of Philadelphia is one called WMMR,

which by the way, has some of the best live 24

seven DJs I've ever heard. One of the guys who's

become a friend of mine, we exchanged emails

and Twitter DMS is a guy named Marcus in the

darkest. And we talk about D and D and all sorts

of other nerdy shit. Another guy I talked to

is a guy named Jackie Bam Bam. And we talk about

music, my life. He's always curious to say he's

always super friendly over email. He's called

me before for call is like, hey, Birdman, you

got like 15 seconds. And he let me intro a song

and everything. And yeah, just host chemistry

is so important. And if you have that as a host,

you can do almost anything. So I love listening

to engaged hosts. But I think two is the magic

number. Three is a beautiful number if it works,

but anything four, but anything above three,

it can be utter chaos. Yeah, absolutely. When

do you stop listening to a podcast altogether?

When the topics become not interesting or if

it just degenerates into bitching, which again,

if you can defend your position, that's fine.

And I respect that. But if it's going to be negative

thing after negative thing after negative thing,

I don't care. I've been on this planet for 40

years. I don't know how many years I've got left

at this point. And I just want to have something

enjoyable. So when a podcast loses its magic

or if I've moved on from that interest, that's

when I stop listening. Like I remember, again,

going back to my very early days when I used

to listen to Star Wars action news. I listened

to them from 2004 to probably middle of 2007

when the Vintage Trilogy Collection was coming

out, but they had done all the Revenge of the

Sith stuff, Force Unleashed, or not Force Unleashed,

Star Wars Unleashed stuff was becoming really

hard to find, it was always getting scalped.

And that's when I dropped out, thinking, you

know what, I can't deal with scalpers, I can't

keep up with this anymore. It's been fun guys,

but thank you and that's when I stopped listening

to them mind you I still have them on Facebook

So they're still good good people, but I just

haven't listened for a really really long time

Mm -hmm. Absolutely All right. Final question

before we head to a break What podcasts are you

currently listening to if any and what would

you suggest for our listeners? Um, well as I

brought up several times the Delta Flyers with

Garrett Wong and Robert Duncan McNeil if you're

a Star Trek Voyager fan, it's pretty much required

listening, because it's always interesting to

hear about how the different directors did things,

which is always kind of funny, how there's one

thing they talk about, and it's called shake.

And when you watch Star Trek, you know, when

a photon torpedo or phaser blast hits the shields

and entire bridge shakes, all the actors have

to lurch in unison. And there's a story they

told how there was a director or someone from

Deep Space Nine saying, okay, forget everything

you've ever learned and watch this tape. And

i thought that was really fast and you just get

a lot of really interesting behind the scenes

what's hearing garrick wong do is impression

of kate mogru is priceless another one that i

really really really want people listen to it's

called canadian true crime. And it is about one

canadian true crime but they also cover other

other crimes and stuff on there sometimes to

do something a little bit lighter hearted like

i said they did something. on ghosts in the paranormal

across Canada. I want to say they did something

on the Halifax explosion that happened in the

First World War, but maybe I'm thinking of something

else. Fat Man Beyond, depending on topic, can

be really good if it does run a little long.

Early Hollywood Babylon is really fun. I'm actually

going to look at my phone really, really, really

quickly here. Let's see what I'm actually listening

to when it comes to podcasts. Let's see. Oh,

I love this show, but I don't listen to it nearly

enough. post -mortem with Mick Garris. Mick Garris

is a horror director, and he worked with Joe

Russo, though not the same guy from the Marvel

movies, which I was confused with for a really

long time. But Mick Garris, he's the guy that

wrote Hocus Pocus, but he also did the stand

miniseries. He's done some of the most successful

Stephen King adaptations of their time. And he's

just a really interesting guy who's been around

Hollywood forever. And I know I knew him mostly

from the Stan miniseries on ABC. But then he

did a show called Masters of Horror, which was

on Showtime for a couple of years. And that's

incredibly well done. So you want insights into

the horror industry. I recommend that. There's

another guy that I like. and his name is Finn

McKinty, and he does the punk rock MBA. And it's

funny how you mentioned Nickelback earlier, because

everybody I know gives you shit for that. But

he will go into reasons why the band, for example,

isn't liked by the media. Is it their production?

Is it their sound? Has something fallen out over

the years when it comes to connecting with an

audience? And he's opinionated, but I always

felt his stuff comes from a place of trying to

genuinely express things and I've learned things

about other bands I didn't know and sometimes

he'll list off here's some bands you didn't know

that did some really cool things but they've

kind of fallen off like I found ice nine kills

to them I found yellow card and he puts sometimes

he'll do playlists on Spotify from the shows

he's done like hey guys here's a pop punk list

from the 1990s so from Green Day Offspring Pennywise,

bad religion, whatever, here it is. Here's everything

that I've talked about. And I really appreciate

that. I also listened to a show called ACG, because

I really enjoy this guy's review style. He's

one of the few game reviewers. I really trust

his opinion. And then finally, the episode that

I are, there's a show that I like and it's the

podcast syndicated version of their morning show.

And that's Preston and Steve from W MMR and they

have a podcast or a segment on their show, but

syndicated into a podcast called the bizarre

files. And that's where I source a lot of twig

news from because there is some weird shit that

happens day to day most often Mike in your country.

Yes, yes. Always Florida man nine times out of

10. Yeah, you got to be careful of Florida man

because Florida man will come after your ass.

Yeah, and he'll have like an alligator high on

meth. So it's always something super interesting

there. Plus, Preston and Steve and Casey boy

and Kathy Romano. I'm sure I'm missing a name

there. Oh, Marissa Magnata. great chemistry,

one of the best morning shows I've ever heard.

And their podcast is just as well done. Awesome.

Very cool. Very cool. We're going to take a quick

break folks and we'll be back after this. Twitter,

Instagram, and even TikTok. And the name is just

simply poppin' off toys. Thank you so much and

always keep it poppin'. On the Simplistic Reviews

podcast, we talk movies. We talk TV. We talk.

Hello, Julie, what the heck are you doing? Trying

to make our spot sound more exciting by adding

explosions. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could've

got the point across with sound effects, not

the real thing. Can't you just tape the microphone

to your head? Alrighty then. We are back here

inside Studio 2009's podcast approach with Mike

the Birdman from This Week in Geek. Before we

move on to your production value, or what you

do as a producer, I do have one suggestion for

you because I was shocked at this. Okay. And

it was only through something else that I found

out. You remember Ethan Suppley, right? Yeah,

the guy who couldn't see the sailboat. It's not

a sailboat. It's a schooner or whatever it was.

Yeah. So from all rats, he has his own show called

American Glutton, where he has people come on

there and talk about their weight loss journeys

and other things. I guess I've listened to a

few of these episodes. I don't listen to it very

often and I'm not, I'm a fat guy too. I probably

should listen to every episode he's ever produced,

but I'm just saying like, Holy crap, William

from friggin, you know what I mean? Like, yeah,

like, wow. Yeah, he turned into a tank. Like,

holy shit. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. Very much

so. All right. So we are all podcast producers

around here as a producer. Do you find yourself

listening to podcasts less and less? Uh, yeah.

And it unfortunately comes down to time mostly

because like I said earlier, I've got so much

going on week to week, day to day where I literally

have to look at my day and like, okay, where

am I going to find time for X? And it's only

in the last six months since I had my gallbladder

surgery and almost died earlier this year that

I was like, you know what, if I don't take some

time out, It ain't going to end too good for

me. So I try and carve out at least two hours

a day to watch some TV, listen to something,

play a video game that isn't for work. Or if

it is, it has to be super fun and just have fun

with it. And yeah, I wish I had more time to

listen to podcasts. But with me, I'm so picky

and I don't like that because I know there's

a lot of really, really good work out there.

Just the problem is where do I find the time

for this? Yeah, exactly. I will make another

suggestion really quick only because I know you're

a big Batman fan and they're already done a 90

% of the of the stuff anyway and they've moved

on to other things. Psychology and Batman, the

Arkham Sessions with Dr. Andrea Littimendi and

Brian Ward from Shout Factory. Yeah, that's a

show that always was on my radar. I just never

got around to listening to it, unfortunately.

They're currently going through the MCU. Okay,

that's pretty cool. As a producer, are you a

podcast planner, or are you throwing stuff at

the microphone to see what sticks? It depends

on what it is. For example, one of the earliest

shows that we produce, and as far as I know,

we were one of the first. Way back in 2012, when

we had the actual play podcast, These Warriors

Are Terrible, aka TWAT, that was something we

didn't know whether it was going to work. And

that was a format I literally came up with on

the spot. Because I was like, okay, and an hour

sounds cool. And that's how we would plan out

each session was like, okay, we're gonna play

fucking D &D or Star Wars. I have four hours

to tell one story. I have four people typically,

and I got to make it interesting. Shit, but fortunately

it worked out really well and that format is

carried forward and even the guy who took over

that podcast now just called terrible warriors

Justin has adapted the format and growing far

beyond that where he's adding music and sound

effects he has a Music license that he pays for

every year and the production quality is just

shot up so much more under him than it ever would

have been Under me For me, I like the plan. When

it comes to Twig, me and Alex, for example, we

have a plan that typically goes throughout the

week. We talk on Monday after the show's posted

or Tuesday, and we're like, okay, what reviews

are you working on? What can I use for my show,

Turd or Treasure? What goes into the main show?

And then we look at all the relationships we

have with all these different companies. When

gets... When did stuff get sent to us how topical

is it is it evergreen. Can we go through this

list of we go to the shoes checklist are like

okay that works that works that doesn't work

that can be shifted there this can be done here

when it comes to interviews. I don't pursue a

lot. I'm finding more people are coming to me

as I'm picking up a bit of a reputation again,

as being a really good and fun interview. So

when it comes to prepping for interviews, I typically

only take about a day or so unless I know the

topic tremendously well. And then we go from

there when it comes to planning anything else

out. I like to produce elements and see if I

like the feel of it. One show that we haven't

done a lot of episodes with just because the

co -host schedule can be somewhat unpredictable

with their health, which I completely get, is

something called the Nerd to the Third B -Sides

with Skyblaze. And with them, I said, we're going

to do your show Nerd to the Third Power, but

a little less formal. We're going to kind of...

Strip away. They ask a geek question and we're

just gonna have fun We're just gonna talk about

stuff that doesn't require a shit ton of research.

We want people to feel like you're still here

Let's have this conversation and while I was

building the elements like the intro and extra

That's when the show came together for me thinking.

Okay. I love the way this sounds I love the way

the extra sounds this is the vibe I want and

that show clicks Remarkably well and I only have

to produce it once a month So there's not a lot

cooking in the background, but when it does come

together, it usually turns out fantastic Awesome.

Awesome. Very cool. Very cool We've talked about

this earlier, but let's talk about it again as

a producer Are you a one -man show kind of host

or do you prefer working with co -hosts? Um,

it depends on the project when it comes to planning

big stuff, I prefer to work by myself. And that's

only because I know individual deadlines. And

I prefer to have individual control over my edits.

For example, I did a couple of podcast shows

this year. One of them was a paid gig. And I

said, I will do this. But if I do, I retain complete

creative control. And they're like, what do you

mean? Well, if I'm going to edit it, it's not

going to sound like shit. If my name is put on

this, you are not going to have two minutes of

music. For example, there's one show I'm not

going to name it. Trust me, nobody here listens

to it. But I was asked to put together a call

-in show for a local community group. And one

of the notes I got from one of the people in

charge was like, oh, just just put music here,

and it broke my fucking brain, and I'm like,

fucking what? You want me to put music here?

And I'm like, okay, first off, do you have the

rights clearances to do this? Do you understand

what you're asking me? I'm like, does your show

normally do this? What's your format like? Does

it fit with the vibe? And they're like, well,

no, then I'm not doing it. And I had to explain

to them, and they were very... receptive because

I don't think they'd ever had anybody from a

professional background. And I realized that

makes me look look like a giant asshole. But

I wanted their game to come up to a different

level. And for the most part, it did like it

sounded really, really, really good once I started

getting more directions from them. And it worked

out really, really, really great. I mean, overall.

And yeah, when it comes to more collaborative

projects, I don't mind working with a few different

people because I want their input. But when it

comes to producing individual elements, I like

to create those. For example, everything you've

heard on Twig, nine times out of 10, I've made

the... Element be it from music or sound effects

or voice clips The only ones that were not done

by me are the twig Transitional elements though.

They were paid for by me for example Tristan

who used to be with the show who's now on indefinite

hiatus Has done all the vo for twig like I give

him a rough idea. Here's what I want you to say

Here's your time limit. Here's what I want make

it happen and then we'll go back and forth and

generally it works out really well when i commission

music for the stargate show. Which premieres

in just a couple of weeks i went back and forth

with the composer who also did the music for

the twig main show now i'm like i want to feel

like stargate but i want to not exactly be a

one to one. composition of Stargate SG -1 and

Stargate the movie make it feel good and he got

me exactly what I wanted and Yeah, like I'm I

will fully event I'm a control freak because

I want things to sound good and Alex has made

me better because Alex demands a technical perfection

that maybe I'm not necessarily aware of, like,

are we putting this in the right kind of frequency

range? Are we differentiating channels? For example,

Alex has taught me a trick where I'll be in the

one ear 30%, he'll be in the other ear. right

channel 30 more percent and it sounds like a

conversation you would actually hear but without

putting one people in straight one ear and straight

the other and then if you have a central cause

for example that magic number three that I talked

about you can use the position in the audio soundscape

theater of the mind to position people but you

can do that from a technical perspective so your

brain will automatically filter okay Mike's on

the right Aaron's in the middle and Alex is on

the right and it just it works out wonderfully

so he's made me a better technical producer and

he's definitely made me want to up my game when

it comes to creativity One of the things I'm

experimenting with now, and I did this during

the summer when Alex took his time off, we did

a series of Future Imperfects and Loose Cannons,

and for each topic show, I'd spend about an hour

or two hours before the show that day, or maybe

a few days beforehand, and I would make a custom

introduction of about 45 seconds, because anything

over a minute... and maybe a minute and a half,

you're gonna lose your audience if it's nothing

but fucking theme music. But if you can make

it interesting, I find you'll hold people's attention

more. So for example, this was one of my more

fun edits I did is for the angry video game nerd

Halloween special we did this year when we talked

about the George A. Romero movies. I wanted to

create something that represented the zombie

apocalypse, the fall of mankind in about a minute.

So I got quotes from the night of living dead.

When the first news broadcast pops up, I got

one of the famous quotes from Peter and flyboy

where he's talking about when there's no more

room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. And

then there's a scene with Dr. Logan and captain

Rhodes and Captain Rhodes is having a fucking

freak out and he's like, what are we gonna do?

But shoot them all in the fucking head and dr.

Logan says very Matter -of -factly well captain

the time to do that would have been at the beginning

they outnumber us 400 ,000 to one you don't have

the ammunition and then I quoted the late Dennis

Hopper in Land of the Dead from the trailer.

He's like zombies man They creep me out and then

there's the sound of broken glass, which is from

the trailer Which then shows the date and I figured

that's a good Solid edit point to transition

right into the show. So I've I've got a very

big creative streak and I like to think I inherited

that from Steve and Pierce, but I've made it

my own sound over the years. I really enjoy imaging

and editing. Would my stuff make it on the radio?

Probably not. Maybe not. It did for a long time,

and I did some stuff with AM640 and FAN590 in

Toronto, but I love creating interesting soundscapes.

Very cool, very cool. How do you or did you in

the past go about finding your co -hosts? Um,

well, in the Niagara College days, we were all

in the same program. We were all friends. Uh,

me and Dave, we just hung out and Steve... We

started out as adversaries because I thought

he was cheating in class and turns out he wasn't

he was just really smart And then that friendship

has you know kind of ebbed and flowed over the

years very much at a low point Right now even

if it exists, but that's neither here nor there

The other twig co -host we just became friends.

My one friend was dating another twig person

Pierce and I just were best friends for like

the longest time and We just kind of all just

kind of stuck it out Alex came onto the show

because he used to watch my cartoon streams I

used to do over live stream and then we just

started talking He donated some games to one

of the other shows that I used to do and then

we just he reached out To me at one point and

we just started talking. However, though funny

story Again, not sure if this is in the public

record, but sometimes before my wedding, back

in 2011, I think it was, I called Alex drunk.

Very, very drunk. And I was like, who the fuck

are you? Who's Alex? Fuck you! And Alex tells

me this like years later. He's like, Mike, do

you realize you prank called me? I'm like, no,

I did not even have your number. And I look at

my phone because it syncs to my Google contacts.

Oh, wait, I do. What? And yeah, so yeah, that's

a wonderful piece of voice mail he's had saved

for years, and I wish we still had it. When it

comes to recruiting co host now. The most recent

acquisition was Aaron and Aaron we knew through

a friend of ours who is writing once again for

Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius. My God, I

hate saying that word because I always stumble

on it. But anyway, so Aaron was working on the

Star Trek books and I interviewed him about something

and then I can't remember how it happened. We

just kept talking. And then me and Alex came

up with the idea for loose cannon. And we found

out Aaron loves B movies. And he has these huge

opinions. And then I found out Aaron is a climate

scientist for the University of Michigan. He

works in the climatology department. He's like

a state researcher. So he's basically NASA level

scientists when it comes to understanding climate

change. And I was like, you're really interesting.

And we just started talking. And we've become

really, really good friends. Ever since when

it came to bringing JT and Ken on the show, for

example, I like to think I'm a pretty good judge

of character. And it just worked out really well.

Ken is wonderfully enthusiastic. He's also remarkably

knowledgeable JT brings a very human warmth.

to things that I really appreciate and I think

is very much missing in the podcast space. He's

just, he's a generally happy go lucky guy. And

I wish more people had that attitude about things.

I have had some co -hosts that haven't necessarily

worked out in the past due to scheduling or whatever.

And I wouldn't say I've thrown anybody under.

the bus, but other projects, sometimes they fall

through, sometimes they just don't work for whatever

reason. That's fine and dandy and I wish them

well in their endeavors. There are some co -hosts

I wish I could work a little bit more with, but

their space in the podcast world has diminished

over the years or they're hyper -focused on something

that I don't necessarily know a lot about. I

don't want to steal their thunder and they're

doing their own thing. And you know what, as

their friend and as a fellow podcaster, it makes

me so happy to see them succeed under their own

steam. And I think that's really cool. And two

notable examples are David Double D Dennis, who

does his own show, and Andrew Roebuck, who does

his own show. And to hear these guys who started

out with us. once upon a time and now they're

doing their own things. Dave has written articles.

Andrew's been published in magazines. He's been

quoted in several different places. That's fantastic.

And that's something I'm remarkably proud of.

I mean, I don't know it's something I can be

proud of because I can't say I did this, but

it's really cool to see them accomplish something

in the podcast space that is uniquely theirs.

And that's incredibly rewarding. Yeah. Well,

I mean, you know, you pushed him along. Yeah.

Like, you know, it's like with me, I don't just

credit you. I credit three or four other people

alongside you because you were one of the ones

that helped me along the way. You know what I

mean? Like, that's just the way it is. As a producer,

and I wrote this question specifically for you

when I originally did this, because for me, I

only need a Set of headphones and a cad, but

as a producer, do you feel like you need the

giant mixing board and all the fancy stuff that

would essentially be in a radio station or are

you good with a great mic and headphone setup?

Um, there is one piece of equipment I wish I

had and Justin has it on terrible warriors and

it's called a road caster and that just allows

you to mix in stuff in real time and As much

as I love being able to add the feel and sort

of the vibe of live AM or FM radio, I'm perfectly

fine with adding it in post because if you mix

your music too hot when you're talking, You can't

separate those channels in post nine times at

a time unless you're recording directly to a

computer in which case you can see it and I'm

sure you could fix it but Whatever. Yeah, I prefer

to add a lot of stuff in post So as long as I

have a good quality mic and soundboard, I'm fine

Would I like live mixing for sound effects or

something? That'd be fun. Hell on my mixing board.

I know I can do sound effects I know I can add

vocal effects to my voice. Do I know how to do

it? Nope and I'm not going to learn because I

don't want to I don't want to get lazy with it

because I think if I'm if I do it in real time

sure it might be funny in the moment but what

if I fuck up so I'd rather have the ability to

correct that mistake in post put that joke in

later if I want and it just works out fine so

honestly good mic good mixing board but what's

most important to me Is having a solid internet

connection i learned this year. Don't rely on

wireless headphones when doing podcasts and i

used to tell out of the time i don't worry don't

worry don't worry. And then i started getting

radio interference for whatever reason and now

i'm plugged directly into the soundboard via

auxiliary cable and everything sounds so much

better because the frequencies are so much richer.

So. If you have a really good upload and download

speed, like I've got the fastest internet you

can get outside of super commercialized internet

because thank you Rogers for that and I got a

really sweet frigging deal on it. Yeah, because

if you don't have a good connection, you're going

to have a shitty sounding podcast because your

hosts are going to break up and you're going

to have to feel dead air. And unless you know

what that person was talking about, you're going

to make your job so much harder in post. Yeah,

Steve Megatron sometimes will fill that with

animal noises, sadly. Sometimes. At least he

used to do that. I don't know if he still does

or not. As a producer, how much time do you put

into the editing of one show? Um, I've got it

down to a science. So Twig, for its hour and

a half runtime, let's say that's the average

length of a show. So let's break it down into

its components. So if I'm doing a review, for

example, let's say I'm reviewing a, let's pick

something. Let's say I'm reviewing Christmas

crunch, Christmas crunch. Let's say I'm reviewing

Christmas crunch. I want a sample from a commercial

that sounds appropriate, if not directly related

to the product. And then I want something at

the end. Typically I don't go over 30 seconds

because over 30 seconds, you're going to lose

the audience. Don't fucking do it. 45 seconds,

you're really pushing the levels of people's

attention spans. So I'll use two sound elements

and then I'll find appropriate music. I try and

get something from the franchise or the product

that I'm talking about. More recently I've been

using the YouTube music library or royalty free

music and we've been crediting the artist where

appropriate But I've also bought humble bundles

that include here's all the music you now own

the rights to it party the fuck on whatever so

and an element to create that figure 20 minutes

to half an hour to record till I get a take that

I'm happy with then Five minutes capturing audio

trimming it up making sure that it sounds good

splicing all that together So figure about a

half hour ish per review so that can add up to

about an hour and a half Depending if I'm doing

all three slots that week, which isn't often

and then editing the show it goes intro if there's

a promo the Theme which is one minute the introduction

which is usually anywhere from 10 minutes to

20 then first element which is whatever, then

I put a transitional element in there, which

is usually about 15, 20 seconds, and then I'll

put the news on top of that, and then I'll do

middle element, weird news, introduction, stories,

then this is always my challenge right at the

end of the show. If I do a review, if there's

a sound clip at the end of the review, let's

say I'm reviewing, I don't know, D and D or something.

And if I can't find a good voiced sound clip,

I'll put in something funny or something weird

that doesn't diss the product unless it really

sucks. Like for example, in the most recent episode

of twig, I reviewed the jackbox party pack eight,

and I used the fail horn from the price is right

now originally. Again behind the scenes here.

I was gonna use the line from UHF from Wheel

of Fish Where they're like do you take what's

in the box or do you take? 120 pounds of snapper

and the host is this over -the -top racist caricature

and he's like stupid you so stupid and Alex talked

me out of using that because he's like do you

want to piss people off I'm thinking Well, no,

and technically, this is funnier. And that's

always what agonizes me is always the last clip

before the outro of the show. And then I put

the outro on. And then sometimes, if me and Alex

have a blooper, I'll put that at the end of the

show. So honestly, If I have all my elements

done ahead of time, which I usually do, not as

much often just because it's November and October,

November are the worst months to get anything

done. Just because a lot of product comes out,

holiday gift guide starts coming up. I'm in school

right now. So projects are piling up. Time is

at a premium. So in the ideal world I can edit

a twig show in about half an hour when it comes

to other shows like say earth versus soup, which

is the 50s and 60s sci -fi podcast which Alex

edits but I used to edit in the beginning and

I could do that in five minutes because that

was basically leveling the audio, making sure

because Darlene speaks naturally quite anyway,

and they use a very specific microphone. So I

always have to kind of play with it. Alex does

it now because he's got a filter and a preset

set up for it. But he can do that in two minutes.

So certain shows will take less than 10. The

average length is about a half hour or more depending

but never more than than an hour typically. Oops.

Uh, no comment. I just can't. I bow down before

the editing overlords because no. Of course,

then again, I have no life and I have way more

time than you guys do. But anyway, that's beside

the point. As a producer, do you prefer in -person

recordings like someone is sitting right next

to you or over the internet like via Zencaster?

Um, it depends on the context and this very much

played a role during the pandemic. When me and

Alex used to record, that was our hangout day,

we would get together on Sundays, or Monday mornings,

and we'd hang out for the day, but the show always

came first. And then when he went home, I would

edit the show. When we record in person, The

energy feels different you can vibe off the person

you can feel their body language you you feel

the tone of the room is what i would call it

and recording online. When you know the person

really well, you can hear certain tells in their

voice When are they gonna stop speaking? When

can I pick up the ball and kind of run with it

and you just get into a natural rhythm now when

I'm doing an actual role play game podcast I

Prefer that in person and here's why going back

to what I just said I like to pick up on body

language around the table When I did a recording,

this would have been about six or seven years

ago now, I recorded an episode of Terrible Warriors

called Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I think I

called it Paradise Lost or something like that.

And there was a very emotional scene where real

emotions, people were crying and tearing up.

at the table. And I've been accused of being

an emotional vampire, so to speak, because I

love to bring out those emotions of people, consensually,

of course. And when you know how to put the pick

in someone's armor, to bring out a really good

response, and as long as everyone at the table

is comfortable, you can bring up some really

good performance moments, because I think everybody

expects actual play podcasts when it comes to

role playing in to be, oh, hey, here's critical

role and Matt Mercer and fuck, I hate that show.

But that's, that's a different discussion for

a different day. But yeah, so when you can really

know your co host vibes and feel, it's better

to record in person because you're going to get

a more Grounded response online again, if you

really know someone's tells it's really really

really good however, though On the other side

of that coin when you record over the internet

Some people are a lot looser because they don't

have to look you in the face. They don't necessarily

feel your Body vibe or your energy in the room.

So they may be at a more relaxed position with

you so it vastly depends among who you're recording

with but Ultimately during the pandemic. I've

learned recording remotely is so much easier

It means sometimes I have to wait to get audio

back because Alex does all the techno Wizardry

in the background. He's tried to teach me. I'm

getting better at it but he can turn around a

piece of audio in 15 minutes or less. It might

take me half an hour. And I realize that's only

15 minutes, but that 15 minutes is the difference

between me being done early and me having to

spend probably another hour at it because I get

the thinking too much and I overthink something.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the funny thing about

in -person, just really quickly for me, I've

been doing over the internet for years. I've

been doing Skype, Zencastr, whatever for my whole

career in air quotes. And when Steve Megatron

came to my wedding, I'm a one focus, like you

tell me to look at the script, I'll look at the

script. I can look at the script and talk. I

can't look at the script, talk, and then look

at you. So like having to have a conversation

with him and still look at the script sometimes

is like, you know, I would much rather have him

in my ears than sitting right next to me. See,

and that's something that I abandoned very quickly

in my radio career because early on, when they

teach you to do your bits, when you're doing

on -air stuff, they want you to have a script.

The problem is, unless you are good, you can

tell when someone's reading. It's the rhythm

and the staccato of their voice, and it just

comes across as so unnatural, and dare I say,

at times, not everybody does this, but it sounds

very disingenuous and very disinterested because

they're so hyper -focused. when you can be with

someone face to face, again, feel the room, you

will adapt as a presenter. And that's a skill

they teach you in broadcasting school. Not everybody

understands it. My school wasn't very good with

it. But I knew other podcasters and other people

who were perform performers who taught me that

and scripts are good noun again. But even when

I do interviews, for example, most of my questions

I generate on the spot because I'm listening

to what people are saying and I'm generating

questions while they're talking. Now that may

sound like I'm not listening, but when you're

in live radio, you may have a little bit of prep

time and sometimes you won't. So you better be

on the ball and be able to think fucking fast.

Absolutely. As both a listener and a producer,

do you prefer one feed have everything or should

each type of show have its own feed? You are

going to annoy so many people if you separate

things into different feeds. That's just my experience.

However though, as long as you're not throwing

like a fire hose of content at them literally

every day several times a day. It's not too big

of a deal. If you got one show coming out a day,

maybe two, that's not so bad. If you've got like

10 coming out a day. I hope you're I hope you're

being well paid. And if you're not, maybe consider

scaling back like I know for a while we talked

about doing that early on with Twig and then

Alex explained to me the technical logistics

of it and how you're splitting up your listenership

and segmenting it. Yeah, it's easier to get metrics,

but those metrics won't be accurate because you've

segmented the population of where things are

coming from. So I much rather having a one -stop

shop and now with platforms like Spotify, Apple.

et cetera, et cetera. One RSS feed, if that's

all you have to manage, fucking A. If it's one

YouTube channel, that's a little bit different

because one YouTube channel may cater to a certain

piece of content and another may do something

else. That's fine because that's literally just

clicking. Whereas Spotify or something like that,

you have to go and pick the RSS feed. And I know

it sounds like I'm just saying the same thing

over again. Maybe it's just the way that I perceive

it, but I think online it's a much easier thing

to just select whatever YouTube channels and

hit sub. Whereas audio platforms, it feels a

little bit more involved. It depends. I mean,

as long as you can, what I've found from how

long we've been doing it, as long as you have

whichever audio platform, let's just say Apple

too, just because this is the one I know. I remember

Steve Megatron had to basically go in and tell

them, look, all of these shows, list them under

the GeekCast Radio Network. And if you search

for the GeekCast Radio Network and you hit any

one of our shows, because all of our shows are

so different, you can find one subheading for

the GeekCast Radio Network. And most of our shows

are there unless one hasn't been added yet, which

I think this one hasn't. But anyway. How do you

use social media to promote your show? Social

media is such a weird creature because for years

upon years I had my Facebook open as public and

I would interact with fans and in the last year

I've had some really unpleasant interactions

with people I've had to change my Facebook mostly

to private I do still have a Facebook fan page

I do need to update that more often than what

I do But thanks to Spreaker. And when the Facebook

API decides to work, it auto posts our stuff

to Facebook and Twitter. Alex manages most of

that. However, because I've built my personal

brand over the last 15 years, my Twitter account

usually hovers around 4000 plus followers. And

that's where a lot of people get news and commentary

from mostly now it's politics cute animals and

late night musings but occasionally I'll talk

about video games and other shit too so yeah

like I find social media as a way to get to know

the hosts if that's how you want to approach

your career because there are certain content

creators out there they use social media but

you don't you don't know fuck all about them

like you don't know their real name and not everybody's

comfortable sharing their real name and as well

they shouldn't and other content creators, you

know a little too much. And for me, I like to

think I fall in that category where I maybe overshare

sometimes, but that's always been who I've been.

I've been very transparent with who I am. If

I'm struggling, I will tell you, but if I'm also

having a good day, I'll tell you as well. When

it comes to social media strategy, I find reaching

out the brands on Twitter has been really, really,

really well done. If you tag a certain company,

usually you'll get their attention. I get a lot

of retweets from Modiphius. I get retweets from

Galeforce9, Hasbro, all these companies where

I cover video games and role playing games and

board games. These people really, really well

respond because they're niche industries. It's

just a good thing when your show comes out once

or twice a week and it's your main focus, it's

easy to do that because we have so much stuff

on Twig. You know that Thursday is earth versus

soup day. Friday is typically future imperfect

day. Wednesdays is usually turd or treasure.

And if I think about it, I'll promote them on

my Facebook page and on my Twitter whenever I

think to retweet it or add commentary to it.

And when I reach out to a famous person, like

for example, I just did an interview with Brian

Volk Weiss from the movies that made us in Star

Trek Center Seat, tagging him and using the Netflix

hashtag was really effective that way. But then

again, my most effective tweet was a viral tweet

of a Pomeranian dressed as fucking Paddington

Bear with over 1 .5 million views and counting

until I like, until I like deleted I'm like,

fuck, people stop talking, but I know I can mute

it. It's so different and it varies from person

to person. I don't use TikTok because I don't

want to show my face and maybe that's a personal

thing. Instagram I use mostly for posting fun

little things. Like I said, Facebook is primarily

where I communicate with family and friends and

fans that have become friends. Twitter is open

to everybody unless you're a dickhead, which

I'm glad some of the privacy features are different

on there now. So that's very nice. And yeah,

I mean, it vastly depends on what social strategy

you wish to employ. I gotta say some podcasts

use it really, really, really effectively. Some

don't. And I'm glad I'm not a full -time social

media manager because I would be pulling. pulling

out my hair because metrics are such a pain in

the ass to track. Yes, yes, they are. What is

your favorite topic to discuss on a podcast?

Um, it's kind of changed over the years, like

it used to be anything, geek media, and that's

still a very large point to it. But I find myself

more and more drawn towards political topics.

And if you've been following me for any number

of years. It's pretty obvious where my politics

lie, but I'm always willing to listen to people

and talk with talk with them. But I wouldn't

want to start a political podcast because fuck,

I don't need that headache. Um, no, but I do

love talking role playing games, which is a subject

I'm hugely into, but I'm not a designer yet.

I love talking movies, ones that I love, especially

like aliens and Robocop. If I get a chance, if

I get a chance to talk props, I'll talk for like

an hour or more, just talking about different,

um, armorers and stuff like that how you may

have seen this gun in this movie like isn't that

cool sort of thing like in fact I was watching

Predator a couple of months ago and I'm pretty

sure Rambo's M60 shows up in Predator for a moment

I think we've screen matched the gun but I'm

not sure which means they must have shared a

common armor or that gun is just really really

widely used which is fine I love talking comic

book movies because those are easily accessible

to me. And when I hit the right series of comics,

I love talking about it because JT got me into

Gen 13, which is an old comic from the 90s. And

it's 90s as fuck. Let's get that right out of

the way. But I love the art style. And I found

the movie. on YouTube because it was never released

over here formally, yet it's got this really

good cast in it. John Delancey plays a guy in

it named Lynch, who's like their version of like

Professor X. And it's just it's just a really

cool movie. And not many people have seen it.

And I got into the comics because when I was

a kid, I read Roxy Magical Drama Queen because

I was just getting into it. Anime at that time

and I just I didn't know what it was. I just

thought it looked cool and So talking about things

that I can learn about I'm huge into one of the

things I really got into recently is Science,

I love talking space. I love talking astronomy

biology stuff like that. And with the pandemic,

I have picked up an interest in biology because

my sister works as a nurse practitioner. So I

understand a lot of the complicated science that

goes into some of the immunization and virology

and transmission vectors. So it's interesting

from a layman standpoint to understand things.

So when I get a chance to talk with scientists,

in fact, I'm working on something right now.

with National Geographic where I get to talk

to all these scientists who have been to the

Antarctic. They've studied penguins. There's

another guy who's the first blind person to ever

climb Mount Everest. I don't have any of this

confirmed yet. but I love to talk to people that

have interesting experiences. I'm trying to get

an interview right now with the Canadian space

agency because well, what's it like up there?

I mean, I'm not expecting to get commander Hadfield,

but if you could tell me, Hey, we're going to

talk. Here's the payload specialist who was on

the ISS for six months. What do you want to talk

about? Like, okay, ma 'am, we're going to talk

about X for an hour. That's what I want to do.

I love talking science. Very cool. Very cool.

Yeah, that's awesome. You've always loved talking

about science All right now we've met you've

mentioned already that twig almost shut down

in 2008 you've mentioned that you're at your

40th birthday or Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're

Yeah, so happy belated birthday and that you

you know you're not really slowing down but Was

there ever a moment besides that one that you

mentioned where you felt like Mike the Birdman

felt that you never wanted to do anything with

a podcast ever again? There have been moments

where like sometimes late at night I'll get frankly

depressed because everybody in the house is asleep.

I'm just here with my thoughts and There are

times where things on the show aren't necessarily

the most fun because I'm buried under deadlines

I don't get a chance to hang out with like Blair

as much there's just times I don't get to see

the family that I want to say I don't get to

create the bonds that I want to and people always

say will make time and There's been times where

I've looked at my phone I've looked at my life

and saying, you know, what would make me happy

is if I could have all my internet history erased

Just quietly fade away. Have a single tweet on

my profile. Thank you for everything. You've

all been fantastic. Be excellent to each other.

Learn from that. And if I could walk away from

podcasting and accomplish everything that I've

ever wanted to, I would find a way to responsibly

chuck my phone into the proverbial ocean. Retire

to someplace with a really killer internet connection.

Have my wife and my kiddies and that's it and

that would be the greatest Retirement plan I

could possibly think of is to be scrubbed but

be remembered as a good guy and There's been

more than a few times when I especially this

year when I had my gallbladder and my liver troubles

and Alex benched me for a few months and I was

thinking you know what man. Do I really want

to come back? But then I got some really nice

fan mail thinking, you know what? people still

give a shit people still care and It meant a

lot to me. So thinking you know what if you can

draw strength from my struggles then it feels

like a responsibility that I need I Should keep

going because it's so easy. It means a lot to

people And I hope I'm adding something to the

world of value. So, yeah, there has been times

where I've questioned things for just a few minutes,

but I remember the good people I've met along

the way. I remember the lives that I've touched

along the way. And I've even gotten notes from

people who've said they've been at near the end

of their rope and just knowing that I would be

there week after week despite everything. I keep

going and that's very, that's very meaningful

and that's very heartwarming and that's why I'll

keep going until I'm no longer welcome in this

space or until I've accomplished everything that

I want to. That's awesome. Okay folks, with that

story being told, we need to switch question

26 and 28 because we have two more that are just,

I don't even know how I can follow that up, but

let's just go with this one. What do you see

as the differences between podcasting versus

being on the radio? Um, I think it mostly comes

down to, uh, time constraints and production.

Um, cause there's a difference between being

on live radio, satellite radio, and then podcast

podcast. You control the process typically from

start to finish, unless you're sponsored in what's

case you may have to fulfill certain requirements

with radio. You've got news traffic, weather,

breaking news. Anything can happen. Equipment

can break on the air and stuff. Bad shit can

happen. My first on air shift. I remember this

at Niagara. We had something that was known as

the cart system, which is where there are CDs

mounted in these weird clear cases. And this

is when computerized audio was just really starting

to come into it. We had like an older version

of what they use in radio where where where you

can program the entire day. That system crashed

when I was on air So I remember having to drop

very fucking manolo in the middle of the day

on a college radio station You can guess how

well that went Was it was it Mandy? Please tell

me it was Mandy fuck. I don't know whatever was

it was fucking horrible enough And I remember

coming back out of that break thinking well folks.

I got nothing for you And that was an experience,

but live radio has a vibe that really can't be

matched anywhere else. But live radio is fun,

like being inside of a studio with engineers

and producers and most studios now have live

streaming cameras that show you getting animated

and being involved in the process of things.

And hopefully it's just, you know, it's... one

of those things. However, podcasts, you can control

when you record, how you record, you control

things over the final product. And I don't know,

I prefer pre -produced unless I'm being interviewed.

If I'm being interviewed, give me live radio

all day. If I'm doing the hosting, I would prefer

to be in control of every conceivable element

to make sure it comes out the best that it possibly

can be. Absolutely. Over your 15 years, I know

you've done a lot of interviews, but what are

some of your favorite ones with some of the famous

people you've talked to? Oh, wow. That's a hard

one. Shit. I have talked a lot. I actually really

enjoyed talking to all the adult stars that I've

talked with over the years. I remember one girl

I taught her stage name was Stoya and she used

to work for a digital playground. And I remember

her just being a real load of fun before the

interview and after the interview. I think I

hung out with her for like an hour after the

interview, just shooting the shit about stuff.

Another fun one is when I interviewed the voice

of Goku. from Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z

Super. Shawn Schubble's a weird guy, but my God

is he fun. The first time I interviewed him was

at Fan Expo. I'm looking at my wife here, 2007,

and he stole the microphone from me and said,

hey, fat man, hold on, I'll be back in 10 minutes.

I'm like. Did Goku just jack my shit? So Goku

ran around the con floor, just making up wild

voices and crazy things. And we didn't know what

the audio was until we got home. And that was

so much fun. Another person I had a really fun

time talking with was this space scientist, and

I think her name was Tamatha Scove. And she studies

space weather, more specifically how it relates

to the sun and whatnot. That was a lot of fun.

I've talked my most recent interview with Brian

Volk Weiss and we were talking about the movies

that made us and he told me a story about how

they got Nancy Allen on the RoboCop episode because

it almost didn't happen. And another story about

how Jennifer Grey's agent kind of sucks because

she didn't and find out about the episodes after

it aired. And that's a lot of fun. Like I love

getting behind the scenes info for people. Kyle,

a bear who's the voice of Ryu and Gohan from

Dragon Ball Z has been a fun one. He's always

been a great time. Mark Mir who plays male commander

shepherd. I talked to Jennifer Hale who that

is my shepherd from Mass Effect. One interview,

and this person has stayed with me for years

as a friend, even when I was in the hospital

with my amputation, and even with my liver, they

would check in on me. And that's Alison Court,

who was Lunette from the Big Comfy Couch, but

also Jubilee from the X -Men and Lydia from Beetlejuice.

I had a conversation with her a few weekends

ago on Twitter, and she's like, hey, Mike, How's

it going? I've been keeping track of you this

year. How are you and your sister Katie doing?

Katie, for those of you that don't know, is my

half -sister by blood on my father's side I found

through DNA testing last year. The fact that

somebody who is so remarkably busy remembered

that little fact about me speaks volumes of her

character. And just knowing that I have famous

people who give a shit like who people, they're

not just facial, they're people. And the fact

that if I need something like a favor from Mark

Mir, he'd be like, Yeah, sure, Mike, what do

you need? Like, the first time I met him, we

played Dungeons and Dragons and he was fucking

he dressed up as hunter s thompson in my hotel

room and i'm trying to tell this really serious

story about man and machine can they work together

and he looks at me dresses hunter s thompson

and he's like yes you and i can work together

hand and robotic claw twirling always twirling

and i looked at him like mark you're gonna fucking

break me dude and it slayed me and years later

I ran into him at a convention here in Guelph,

of all places, and his moderator couldn't make

it. He sees me, he's like, hey, Mike, do you

want to moderate my panel? Me and Mark Muir got

to sit there and talk Dungeons and Dragons in

front of an audience of 40 or so people, because

it was a pretty small con, plus it was the middle

of winter. It was fun. It was just really neat

to meet all these people. Finally, ah, man. Talking

with Tim Russ from Star Trek Voyager who plays

Tuvok was certainly a fun experience. Also talking

with Rob Picardo who plays the Emergency Medical

Hologram was fun for one weird reason. So we're

doing the interview and Bob asks me to pause

for a second. I'm like, okay, sure. What's up?

Fucking Bill Nye, the science guy walks into

his house. He's like, Oh shit, I'm sorry. And,

and I said to Robert McCartland, like, is that

Bill Nye? He's like, Oh yeah, that's Bill. We're

friends. I'm like, okay, just let me collect

myself. Let me pull myself up off the floor.

I'm like, that's weird. And yeah, it was just

something so unworldly that I never expected

to happen. So a lot of people from sci -fi are

really fascinating to talk with over the years.

And the fact that I can call some of these people

legitimate friends is something so utterly cool.

Absolutely. Yeah. The one thing I remember Ricardo

from besides his Star Trek stuff was he was the

voice of Amazo in Justice League Unlimited. Yep.

What advice do you have for new and veteran podcasters

in the art of podcasting? Don't get an ego about

things. Do not worry about your listenership

numbers. Do not worry about being the biggest

thing on the planet. Do not worry that you're

not sponsored by screen wave or audible or blue

chew or Nord VPN. And if you take on a Rage Shadow

Legends thing, I will break your fucking knees.

Just because I get so sick of that game, but

anyway. Yeah, it's basically, don't be a jerk.

Do not be a jerk. Treat every fan interaction

you get with respect. If someone disrespects

you, disengage in the best way you can. Don't

feed the trolls. Don't read the comment section

if you can avoid it because you are gonna get

people that won't like you for whatever reason

but Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Sometimes

those opinions can be hurtful But that's the

way life is and that's just the way People are

but understand that you are entertaining You're

creating and that's most often enough like like

I said very early on in this interview You don't

have to monetize every hobby you do. You don't

have to be, I'm going to be the next Chris Jericho.

I'm going to be Joe Rogan. Don't be Joe Rogan.

Just be a good person, ultimately, and present

what you feel passionate about as best you can,

as honestly as you can, and don't get an ego

over it because nobody likes a jerk. people generally

like a nice person, just don't be phony about

it. Be very genuine, be very transparent and

also respect those parasocial boundaries. Sometimes

you will make some real friends out here, but

don't force it. Like some people get close to

their podcasters or people in the media and sometimes

those turn in the genuine friendships. But they

don't always. And don't be upset if that doesn't

happen with you. Also, don't expect fans to send

you stuff. If it happens, that's really cool.

But instead of them buying you something, I'd

rather get a nice piece of fan mail. And those

are the things that stay with you for a lifetime.

And for all the times I've gotten cool stuff

from fans, some of it's been really, really,

really appreciated. But I remember the fan mail

that says I made a difference to them most of

all and I guess the biggest piece of advice I

can give to a new podcast or old podcasters is

What my friend Liam said? Leave the world a better

place than when you found it put something good

into it and it doesn't matter what that is Don't

be an asshole be as excellent as you possibly

can be And do it because you love it. Don't do

this because you think you're going to get a

sponsorship. Do it because it's genuinely entertaining

to you. And if you're entertaining, people will

find you. Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better

to myself, folks. He is completely right. As

far as the opinions go, opinions are like assholes.

Everybody's got one. And the thing of it is,

is... I I got into this whole thing because I

thought it was the very first pop beside before

just right before you guys right before twig

the very first podcast I listened to was called

world's finest podcast it was just these two

dudes reviewing every episode of every DC animated

universe cartoon that there was when I first

saw the title and the art I'm like ooh Is that

with Bruce Tim and Paul Dini? Because I thought

they were doing a podcast. I didn't know. X number

of years later, look where I am. Look where you

are and look where we all are. Where can the

people find your shows? Well, we are across most

major platforms at Spotify and iTunes, Spreaker.

The best place to go is thisweekingeek .net.

Shows are posted almost daily. Twig main show

typically airs on Mondays, if not Tuesdays at

the latest. Thursdays is typically earth versus

soup. And then other stuff. My social media is

at birdman .acrosseverything. I'm most often

active on Twitter and Instagram. I do have a

Facebook fan page. Like I said, I'm not super

active on there. I'm really going to try and

change that in 2022. And I love playing video

games. So if you're not an asshole, let's play

some COD together. That might be kind of fun.

So yeah, you can always find me. I'm always willing

to talk to almost Anybody, Mike at thisweekendgeek

.net goes directly to me. And yeah, I'm always

willing to engage in a fun and interesting conversation

with you. Absolutely. 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

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It's for the network. At itsitsstudio2009 is

for the show. I am at TF2 and Mike. You can also

follow Mike at Birdman Dodd. Become a fan of

Facebook, go to facebook .com slash GeekCast

Radio Network and you can also check out Studio

2009 podcast over there as well. Coming up next,

I think Steve Megatron is returning. And I believe

we're going to be doing a discussion on the Ryan

Reynolds movie Free Guy. I think. I don't know.

I don't remember. For now, I am TF2 and Mike

with Mike the Birdman saying be excellent. be

excellent to each other, get vaccinated, stay

safe this holiday season, and like I said before,

put something good back in the world if you can.

Absolutely. We'll hear us back in the studio

soon.