Adventures in Podcasting: Sick Days

 Garin and I are almost insanely dedicated to recording. We get together early every Sunday morning and we work until the early afternoon. Whenever one of us takes a vacation, we typically record what we can early. I have my doubts about the validity of what we are doing (meaning I wonder sometimes if we really have much of an audience), but I don't doubt the commitment either of us have to the show. 

Want to see the two of us out of sorts? Keep us from recording. I think we both get our fellowship time in a very real a religious sense just talking and hanging out. Why does it take 4 or 5 hours to record an hour and a half of material? Am I the dogged professional that makes the talented Garin do take after take? Not at all. We nerd out completely! 

I have cut more and more of our off topic material out of the YouTube portion of the podcast. There are hours and hours of conversations that don't get recorded. Honestly, I am a lot funnier off camera. Nerves? Probably. Playing the straight man to Garin's funny man role? Absolutely. 

What do you do when mortal life rears its ugly head and one of us gets sick? I think it depends on how sick. We both have recorded through headaches, allergies, hurt backs, busted knees, exhaustion, and the sniffles. We do try not to contaminate one another. Anything that involves the porcelain throne keeps us apart. Friends are friends. Shows are shows. There are limits though.

Today was an example. Garin wasn't up to par. I have to admit that for my own reasons I was so relieved to just sleep in today. I am recovering from my own thing and having a damned hard time shaking it. Four extra hours of rest, a good lunch, and a beautiful motorcycle ride into work were very good for my soul.

I normally spend most of Sunday working furiously on editing. We record for two hours at most. I watch each video three times. I cut the audio once. The process takes me about five hours over all not counting monitoring uploads. Interestingly enough I spend a few hours during the week prior to the recording making lists and gathering artwork. A break from that today was good. I set Sundays aside for this. 

Now we are at a bit of a conundrum. Do we make up recording? I said no. Garin was not going to force the issue, but he did want to make up the recording. Sigh. I wish I was more convinced that people enjoy our content.

I decided to trust Garin rather than my current insecure head space. Part of the purpose of this post is to let our audience know that we are going to record Tuesday and get things posted up as quickly as possible. The hope is that it is better late than never. 

How important is consistency in releasing content? If we follow the comic book model you need to get your material out on the same day of the week each week and consistency drives your popularity. Many comic series over the years have dropped their fan base through inconsistent release dates. Never was there a more upset fan base than comic book fans during the COVID-19 shut down. Yes, I am including people finding out that Firefly was cancelled. Firefly wasn't even a full season. Superman has been being released since the 1930s. Most major Marvel titles have released hell or high water since the 1960s. Some of the people who have followed along with comics most of their lives also tune in to us in one form or another. Seems like keeping consistent might be good. 

I am of the absence makes the heart grow fonder school of thought. I really wanted to just toss up an apology on social media and say," See ya next week!"  People saying they missed us, dropping comments, or being more excited to see our content next week are all indicators that our audience cares. 

Good thing Garin has good sense. Sorry we are going to be a little late this week. Hope it leaves you hungry for content.