The opposite of audio adrenaline would be the audio version of this blog.

Let's not call it a podcast.

The band Audio Adrenaline opened for DC Talk in Sioux Falls in 1996. This was part of a series of sketches I did from memory when I got home. © Julie R. Neidlinger.

A couple of friends and I went to a concert in Sioux Falls in 1996 and I got so carried away from the excitement of meeting DC Talk backstage and being up front in front of the speakers during the concert that I hurt my knee in all the jumping around.

The opening band for DC Talk was Audio Adrenaline, and it certainly was.

But this is 2023 and I’m more cautious with my knees and ears these days.

Podcasts (called audio blogs back then) hit the internet in my early blogging days, seemed like a novelty, and started to wane. Everyone talked about them, suddenly no one did, I thought they’d died out…

And then they exploded.

I explained to my friend I suspected their resurgence was due to the arrival of the smart phone. Previously you had to listen to them at your computer.

Imagine how my speculative investments would have gone if I was into such a thing. Never take financial advice from me.

Thanks to true crime fascination and podcasting celebs like Joe Rogan, just about everyone is listening to podcasts or creating them.

“As if the world needs another podcast,” I told my friend as I sifted through what seemed like 30K true crime podcasts. “If people don’t keep getting murdered, I don’t know what all these folks will do.”

Ha ha.

“I am a car wreck when a microphone is placed in front of me.”
— Julie R. Neidlinger, from a blog post on May 11, 2008

I often imagine the world veering back towards true radio dramas, without all the Lucky Strike ads of course, but I think podcasts aren’t so much radio dramas as they are more of an amalgamation of an audio column, radio show free of the FCC overlords, speech, or interview. They aren’t radio dramas, though you might come upon a once-in-a-while background sound effect that some crime podcasters use to get your hair to stand on end.

What makes a great podcast?

Great host. Great topic. Great storyteller.

Podcasts seem to be topically based (e.g. true crime), regional (e.g. interesting people from the area), or national (e.g. interesting people or stories from the nation/world). Political podcasts do my health no favors, so I don’t include them in my list.

The art of telling a story is tough, and I don’t possess it. With that in mind…

Yes, the world doesn’t need another podcast. Certainly not from me, who lacks storytelling ability.

So that’s why I’m not officially calling it a podcast at the start. I’m calling it an audio blog.

Audblog.

Blogdio.

Julietalky.

I don’t know.

Fully aware of how the talkies ruined the careers of many silent movie stars, there is some trepidation. I have the mathematical impossibility of creating three “first” episodes that I made over a time span of two weeks, unable to upload because they were terrible until I finally forced myself to publish one whether I liked it or not (not, incidentally).

The first everything you do tends to be awful and you look back on it with embarrassment. But you have to do the first one to achieve the 50th. There’s no way around it. My first blog posts were really, really bad. After over twenty years of writing online, I finally feel as if I’m just now starting to maybe eke my way out of the Blogging 101 introductory course.

The Lone Prairie Audio Blog (yes, podcast) is already live.

Oh yes, I buried that lede. No need to build up expectations and announce it beforehand. Underpromising makes over-delivering (or, in this case, basic delivering) much easier.

It’ll be rocky, so be patient.

Format must be figured out. Equipment and software must be subdued. Voice practice must happen over time. Music and background sounds must be created. It takes time and practice.

The episodes won’t be sent out via email initially, because no one needs more email.

¹

They are at julieneidlinger.com under the “Podcast” link, and perhaps elsewhere if they make it to other platforms. Expect the same level of meandering thought-plucking you’ve gotten used to here, ideas that don’t necessarily conclude, except spoken instead of written, full of gaping holes of logic.

But there are a couple of less obvious reasons for my choosing to do this.

Being alone so much means I spend most of my days in silence and without talking. There’s a loss of verbal communication ability, including enunciation and the thought processes for verbal communication, at work. Lucky you, helping me find my words.

It’s also true that people don’t read as much; they want to watch or listen. While that doesn’t make me happy, I understand that many are listening to audio while doing other work (myself included).

I welcome your thoughts on things you’d like to see covered, whether it’s as a written blog post or as an audio blog post. Leave a comment on this post, or in the blog chat, with your suggestions.

I’ve opened the comments in this post up to everyone, though trolls and uncouth behavior will be removed and blocked.

Thank you for your patience in this. Starting something new is always a nervous thing, especially later in life when your habits and comfort zones are firmly set.

1. Emails haven’t gone out for the stuff I’ve published on the Prairie Writers and Angryman Cartoon sections of this blog, though I am putting things there. No need to bombard people’s inboxes. If you’re a paid subscriber, you have access to everything on the julieneidlinger.com site, including that.