msb-0033 Silence Can Be So Reassuring Sometimes...

msb-0033 Silence Can Be So Reassuring Sometimes...

Feedback comes first but its 'private and confidential' so we're not going to discuss it.

I never thought of myself as an "Agony Aunt," but feel free to vent.

Some people have it much harder that I do.

Some people have it much scarier than I do.

And some people are just scared a lot more than me.

Yes, the future can be scary.

But what are you really scared of?

The future?

Or what it may possibly hold for you?

It can be wonderful anyway.

(Apart from episodic interruptions. Its like flying. Long periods of sheer boredom interupted by moments of stark terror.)

Its all in your attitude and in the attitude of those around you.

You can control your own reaction and that can calm that of those around you.

Usually, that can defuse the severity of anything you face.

Usually.

I'm the last one to deny that episodes don't leave lingering damage, or that you never get worse.

Like Bruce Cockburn sang back in 1983: "The trouble with normal is it always gets worse." http://cockburnproject.net/albums/thetroublewithnormal.html

There will be times when you just feel like a lone wolf, baying at the moon.

But remember, friends get you through times of no money better than money gets you through times of no friends.

I agree though that, rich or poor, its nice to have money and that not having enough sucks worse than having too much.

I'm glad to lend an ear, or should that be an eye for an email?

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I'm playing songs about Silence to reassure people that I can shut up about truths revealed.

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I'm thinking, let me restate that, Lee and I are thinking, that we need to expand the audience of the show.

MSers are fine (Like, I should know that? Right?)

I will carry ads for their therapies, drugs, products goods and services, when the market wakes up to the potential of podcasting.

But, like Sonny and Cher sang back in 1965, (Jeez. I feel old, old ... old.): "They say our love won't pay the rent. Before it's earned, our money's all been spent."

She is suggesting that I go for a wider demographic, reach a wider audience and stop trying to laser in on MSers.

She put it very succinctly: "You can't help anybody from the poor house. Use your show to help yourself first and you can help MSers along the way."

As loath as I am to admit it, she's right.

I'm kind of like Casey McKinnon whose "Ms. Kitka" podcast eventually became "Galacticast". Its to her credit that its even more interesting now than it was in her old format. She was and is brilliant at drawing an audience.

But at least the name of this podcast is a TLA (a Three Letter Acronym) and we can just tell people MSB stands for something else.

On iTunes, people can still find me by looking for podcasts about 'Multiple sclerosis' and letting my late cat 'Wiki' guide them guide them to subscribe.

But the actual 'name' is changing.

But I don't really want to abandon you. Hell, I don't want to abandon us all.

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And what's the Hell is going on with my stats?

I'm either staying the same, going up or going down. Lately its up though not much. Well, actually, if the stats aren't lying (and according to Mark Twain there are three orders of mendacity: lies, damn lies and statistics) the last episode has been rising with a bullet.

But I can't really tell which way the audience is going.

I'm getting a lot more web hits but the subscriptions look like they're stable.

Okay, they're way below where I had hoped to be, but I couldn't get the local chapters to pick up my article on podcasting this publishing cycle.

In Jersey, I had to hear about some volunteer quitting and supposedly that was the reason I didn't make it in the issue.

Sure... Yeah... And I was born yesterday.... At noon...

Look. If you don't care or don't want to help, that's fine. I can deal with that.

But I hate being lied to. I hate being kept dangling on a line like a fish. I've snapped many a line and spat out many a hook in my day. I wanna move on.

I knew somebody who put his life on hold for two years, (two years!) waiting on some bull-shit.

I determined that I would never do that.

Tony (yes he has a last name too,) taught me all I know about comparative music studies.

His knowledge of music and performances of particular pieces was encyclopedic.

I learned more about Corot than any man could without a tailor's measuring tape.

But I learned how to be impatient wisely from his example.

Anyway, I wonder if the screwey stats are due to potential advertisers checking out my site?

Or is that because more of you are not subscribing, instead picking up episodes off the web?

I need to know.

Reach me at at MSBPodcast.com by email, or Odeo me and let me know.

I am doing the responsible thing and letting the artists know when I play their works.

How 'bout if you let me know when you download an episode. (Don't worry about your email address. I get enough spam that I could mine all the crap I get for email adresses. I don't need any more.)

Send me some feedback. Become real.

Anybody can lurk in the shadows. Or it could be nobody.

Unless I get some feed-forward of your intentions, I'll just ignore it and put it all down to random noise.

And with the spasticity associated with MS, I had to learn how to deal with random noise.