Friday iPod

I was up late last night listening to the funniest podcast of ever.

Kevin Smith’s SModcast #108, live from the International Bear Rendezvous.

Now, if you tend to get really squeamy about things like gay buttsex, perhaps this SModcast isn’t for you. But if you have no issues with the idea that big burly men need man-loving, too, then please, do yourself a favor and listen to this show!

A friend of mine got me turned on (so to speak) to Smith’s podcasts around the time of the infamous Southwest debacle, and I’m so glad.

See, I’ve been podcasting for a while now. Almost two years. In fact, I just wrapped up my long-running show Brass Balls Radio in order to regroup and try something new. BBR had a producer and all kinds of shiny bells and whistles that made it sound really professional. It had hundreds of thousands of subscribers. But there came a point where we were focusing more on the shiny bits than on the content. We were losing the core of the show.

By contrast, Smith’s SModcasts (so named because they are hosted by “S”mith and pal Scott “M”ozier) aren’t shiny. You can hear him drink water. The dog barks in the background. He swears like a trucker. And yet he’s almost always in the iTunes Top 5.

It has taught me something: Authenticity can go much further than bells and whistles.

I will be starting a new show next week. It will be self-produced, and will lack the slick packaging of Brass Balls Radio. However, it will be real. Though I can’t say for sure whether any part of it will involve man-on-man buttsex, I will strive to make it funny, interesting and informative to my listeners.

Stay tuned.