I bought all this podcast equipment a few months ago but haven\u2019t had the time to start a podcast. I\u2019m hoping, once I leave my hideous day job, I\u2019ll be able to start podcasting somewhat seriously. I want to do two podcasts, actually. A straight \u201con being an indie publisher\u201d podcast (and I\u2019ve scripted several shows already), and then a ranting Nacho podcast. As I slowly move towards 10,000 words, I\u2019m really liking the idea of Nacho-casting because, ugh. I\u2019ve exhausted my writing ability just about now.
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I\u2019d imagine a Nacho-cast could be recorded \u2013 basically live \u2013 on Friday nights. I\u2019ll get a couple six packs and just rant and drink about whatever comes to mind. This, for the listener, would be truly exhausting, I imagine. But I\u2019m really doing it for my own edification. I\u2019m my most important person, you know?<\/p>\n
In the early 90s, I got a little microcassette recorder so I could be more like Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks<\/em>. On my long drives between DC and my college in Elkins, WV, I\u2019d chatter away and fill tape after tape. All pre-Great Society ranting. Essentially another version of hypergraphia: I couldn\u2019t write while I was driving, so I rambled on to myself for four hours as I drove (what I discovered a few years ago) was the long way round to my college, avoiding highways and taking the scenic route.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t regret taking the longer (and incorrect) way to college. It was a lovely trip, with vast amounts of time spent all along on the backroads of America. You see the strangest things when you\u2019re out there driving through old America. I\u2019d stop and spend time at dumb tourist spots (like the smallest church in the lower 48 states), or the source of the Potomac River. <\/p>\n I fell so in love with that journey that, after college, in the late 90s, I wanted to start a blog and a travel book series that was all about visiting roadside Americana haunts. Roadsideamerica.com existed then, but I wanted to do it my way. Put my voice on it, and also see if it was something that I could potentially market. Could I make a living travelling and writing about travel? <\/p>\n This scheme got pretty involved. I coerced two friends to be my travel companions and, armed with my microcassette reporter and endless notepads, we explored Amish country in Pennsylvania, we travelled to Columbus, OH to see Crate City and the country\u2019s oldest traffic light, to Flemington, NJ to see the crash site of the Hindenburg, and to Northlandz, the largest model railroad in the country. <\/p>\n The roadtrips were awesome. We stayed in skeevy motels and went into seedy, smoke-filled taverns. My friends, at the time, lacked all imagination and individuality, but that was okay. They liked driving, and one was okay at making webpages at a time when having a webpage was difficult and content management software was nonexistent (or useless and annoying). I even managed to write a few articles about our trips, and I started putting together a proposal to try and raise money. Could my two friends and I really make a living driving out to see stupid shit in farm country? Maybe. <\/p>\n