If you’re following along, you may remember the recent article about “just do it.” Well, the “it” was finding a job. No surprise there. I’m not exactly raking in the dough, so it’s a fair suggestion.
Unfortunately, I have fits and starts. Stop and go. Moments where I plow forward like wildfire, then come to a complete halt for seemingly no reason at all. That behavior doesn’t sound great to potential employers, so while my body is going through the “great change of life,” it seems best not to bother. I’ve got plenty going on to keep me busy, and we’re not in too bad of shape financially.
But there’s an avenue I had considered a few weeks ago that crossed my mind again today. One that cropped up when I decided to donate my car to KDHX: maybe I could be a radio personality?
Surely a non-profit radio station could hold a weekly spot for someone like me. It might be volunteer work, but it could use the skills I’ve accumulated with the podcasting and help get me out of the house. Like a job practice run of sorts. And so, I consulted Google to find out more.
Nope. I’m apparently too old (18–40). Not even volunteer work wants me.
But I wasn’t deterred. The power of not being depressed compelled me! Or possibly light mania, but whatever. My imagination took off. What if I made my own radio station? One with short article readings rather than songs? Here and there, I could host podcast shows that ran live (or pre-recorded). My podcast — hell, any and all of them — could easily be one of them.
After an hour or two of research, I found a place to set one up for free. Yup, free. I don’t expect a lot of it, but at this point, it’s a proof of concept.
The idea here is to set it up mostly as an automated thing. It’s technically live right now, though there’s nothing on it yet. Well, not as of writing this. I’ve nothing to add to it just yet.
If you’ve read this far, perhaps you could help me with that?
Are you willing to record yourself reading an article? At this point, it doesn’t super matter what it’s about — I’ll even take the crypto crap right now. The content isn’t as important as the experiment at this stage. We can prune later, but the seed needs space to grow, savvy?
And I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I’d prefer if it’s an mp3. If for some reason you can’t record in mp3 format, then check out this free conversion site. Or Google it and find another one. There are tons.
The quality and content, for the most part, aren’t an issue. What you want to give me, I’ll accept with gratitude. Just make sure you’re ok with people hearing you making fart noises in the middle. And if you’re spreading hate, know that I’ll be pulling it as soon as I find out. That’s really the only bar. Just… don’t hate. Well, and no copyrighted stuff either. Own your shit. That sort of thing.
To get back to the journal aspect of this article, every low tends to come with a new rise at some point. The cycle continues, low to high and back to low. Sometimes I can complete that cycle flawlessly, and it’s a sort of work/rest kind of deal. Other times, I just burn out and hit a brick wall at the end.
Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of that wall option here.
I know I should slow down, give the idea time to percolate. But I found the free option! And, well, I was excited. This time next week, it could be a bust. I’d rather know that now than set it aside all careful-like and wait for the hope of a pristine moment to try it out and watch it fail all the same.
Knowing when to quit is a skill I’m still developing, but I guess this one will depend on how easy it is to manage and how many people are interested in listening or contributing. Since it costs nothing, I can leave it hanging out in the background to see if it catches on. And if it does, well, I can always decide to spring for a better, paid option. But right now, TAM doesn’t have the financing to fund anything more spiffy.
If you’d like to donate, there are options on the website, themonsteralley.com. Make sure to add a note that it’s to support the radio station.
For now, I’ll just keep going where the muse takes me. Fighting it hasn’t done much good. Well, unless money is involved. Then, maybe. But since this is a free thing for now, it’s worth checking out to see where it leads. Who knows, it could be really fun! And if nothing else, at least it’ll be an interesting story to tell later.
See you next time. Hope you enjoyed the madness. 😉
I looked into doing a podcast a while ago, but my family talked me out of it, and when I gave serious thought to voicing some of the stuff I write, it gave me the ick too!
LoL - I get excited and let ideas run away with me too.
Recently I stumbled across a site you might want to investigate ACX. If you buy yourself some recording equipment, you could be the narrator voice for audiobooks and earn money.