I am a huge fan of podcasts, and I have been for a long time. I started in late 2006, using iTunes to download episodes of Penn Jillette’s terrestrial radio show Penn Radio that aired on the short-lived Free FM. Well actually I started using iTunes to download episodes of a different terrestrial radio show in late 2005 that I’m too embarrassed to name now. I might have started earlier, but it wasn’t till 2005 and I went to college that I had consistent access to internet with sufficient speeds to download hourlong audio files in a reasonable amount of time. After that I discovered various other shows like the Brewing Network circa 2008, the Smodcast family of podcasts circa 2010, the Nerdist circa 2012, the Adam Carolla show circa 2013, the Solid Verbal circa 2014, the Biggest Problem in the Universe circa 2015, the Savage Lovecast circa 2016, the Bill Simmons podcast circa 2017, One Shining Podcast circa 2018, among many others to the point now that I have a balanced diet of different shows that serve my various interests with increasing specificity, such as Quantitude, The Fantasy Footballers Podcast, The Strength Running Podcast, the History of English Podcast, and the Omnibus.

For a long time I have wanted to start my own podcast. In 2010, my friend Brian (who may at some point be a guest on this show) and I discussed the idea briefly, but it didn’t go further than that. And if it had we probably would have done 3 episodes and quit anyway. I remember thinking in 2015 that we had reached the absolute saturation point with respect to podcasts, and that while I might like to resurrect my interest in my own podcast, I should have already done so. How little I realized at the time.

While I would like to start a podcast, because I have thoughts of my own and conversations with other that I think could be interesting to a niche audience of others, at least once I have sufficient practice to develop my voice and expressive style, I struggle with the idea of actually doing it for a number of reasons. First is just the lack of focus to actually get the ball rolling which can be an issue with this sort of frivolous endeavor. But mainly what it is, is the self-consciousness. I don’t feel like I can share what’s in my head widely and potentially to an audience of people who don’t know me personally without feeling very afraid of what the reaction might be. Not because I have a bunch of shitty edgelord takes that I need to get off my chest that are gonna get me in trouble, but just the fear of sounding dumb can be pretty paralyzing. There’s also the larger issue of analysis paralysis, where if I wanted to get started there’s a million things I have to figure out. How do I record, how do I edit, what kind of microphone do I have to buy, how do I make it sound decent, do I need to set up a recording space, how do I get the show on itunes or spotify or whatever, and on and on there are a million things that would trip me up between having something to say and making it available to listen to. Plus just the time that I would need to put in regularly to record and edit episodes would probably mean I had to drop it sooner rather than later because I just wouldn’t have that much time to spare. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that these obstacles would keep me from ever having a podcast.

Today though I had an ingenious idea for a podcast that would solve every single one of those issues, and that idea is The Unlistenable Podcast. It’s not called that because it has dreadful audio quality, although that may be true. It’s called that because you can’t listen to it, because I’m not going to release the episodes. This solves literally every issue that ever stopped me from recording a podcast. I don’t have to be worried about what people might think about what I say, because no one will ever hear it. I don’t have to learn how to record and edit, or buy a bunch of equipment, because it doesn’t matter, I can record it in whatever the most convenient way is, and I can mess up what I’m saying as many times as I want without worrying about editing. And further to that point, I don’t have to take the time to sit down and do it in whatever recording space I can come up with, I can just do it as I go about my life, while I’m in the car, while I’m getting dressed, folding laundry, basically whenever it’s okay for me to talk out loud. The same way that listening to podcasts is a portable diversion you can take with you and do any number of other things, this podcast can fit seamlessly into my everyday life. It’s really the perfect podcast. I get to scratch the itch of making it with almost none of the overhead, and I don’t have to waste anybody’s time listening to it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my podcast! To use my signoff from the show, thanks for not listening!