Podcast Ping Special 2 - A Podcast Ping Christmas

A Podcast Ping Christmas

This is a reworking of the Podcast Ping Christmas Calendar from 2009. I took all the poems and music and compiled them together into a single episode.



Doing this made me realize how much work I put into the Calendar. Just putting this together took a couple of hours even though I had everything else already done. The episode runs more than an hour and a half. I did have to redo the credits which themselves run about a minute and a half, and that's after compressing them.

I used all the old recordings of the poems instead of re-recording them. They probably would sound better had I re-recorded them but I wanted to save some time and effort. Re-recording would likely have taken a few days to record and edit, and it may not have made that much difference. The original recordings aren't that bad.

The idea was really to give people the convince of getting all the songs and poems from the Christmas Calendar in one file. This way the special can be played as background for a Christmas party. And I'm sure there's many who will be surprised to hear so many Christmas songs that they may never have heard before.

Since the Christmas Calendar was twenty-five days long, this special contains twenty-five songs and poems about Christmas. That means I've written about twenty-five Christmas poems, although some are just seasonal poems about winter. It's likely that I wouldn't have written many of them if I didn't have to do them for the calendar.

As for further episodes of Podcast Ping, it's going to be a matter of wait-and-see. I would like to do more but it does take time. But it's not so much the time it takes, it's more that I've just got so many other things to work on, and working on Podcast Ping takes time and effort away from those.

But I never really quit Podcast Ping, I just put it aside. And this is the second special I've done since the wrap-up show. I did have an idea for another podcast but I've been unable to get into that. And it's really hard to get an audience now for a new podcast. The podcast market is over-saturated and people can find streaming video very easily. It's hard to justify the work when you're struggling to get even twenty people to listen.

But if I do more Podcast Ping episodes it will be because I want to listen to them. And Podcast Ping is sufficiently established that I could get a decent sized audience. But I will have to spend some time writing poems and I've been busy with other writing lately so it could be a while. If I can sit down and crank out a few hundred poems it won't be hard to put episodes together. And I expect I will need that much because it would only really be worth doing if I was doing them weekly; monthly shows would not likely hold a large enough audience.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 3

Today's show deals with ghosts.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day3/13Days-Day3.mp3

The downloads so far have been a little slow, but it's still early. I suspect it should pick up more next week as more people get excited about Halloween.

I've been considering some changes for Podcast Ping next year but nothing is finalized yet. I consider the feed a literary channel, just as I consider Blue Hot Gossip a comedy channel. It's easier than creating new feeds. I was considering doing a classic epic poem, much like Beowulf (only a little more modern) but that would depend upon how much interest it got. I also would like to do one of my novels, but likely not The Unstoppable Ride since I'm having a hard time finishing it. It would be one I've already finished. But that won't be until next year. For this year there's just the Halloween and Christmas episodes, with hopefully a New Year's episode.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 2

Here's the second of Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween. I had to re-record this episode a few times to get the voice right, although most of the episodes were re-recorded to improve the voice.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day2/13Days-Day2.mp3

I've decided to try and get these up the night before since it gives me more time should something go wrong like a server being down. And it allows listeners to get the episodes early enough, especially when the final day is Oct. 31st.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 1

This is the first of the 13 Days of Halloween. The Count Cordova character comes from The Blue Hot Gossip Comedy Show, although I think I've only used him on one episode. It's a voice that I've had to work on and that I still don't have quite right; I was trying to avoid slipping into a hard Lugosi's Dracula impersonation.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day1/13Days-Day1.mp3

I thought I'd get this up a little early. I'm in the EST timezone so I'm basically counting the days by that. I will try to get them up by noon provided all the servers are working okay. I may post the night before since it's a little easier than trying to do it in the morning. The episodes are finished so it's just a matter of posting them.

I've still a fair number of poems to write for Christmas, although it's hard to write Christmas stuff before Halloween. But I'll have a month plus whatever time before the episodes get posted so it shouldn't be a problem. I am reusing a few that I've written before but the majority will be new poems. The format still isn't finalized; I might have two songs per episode but I will have at least one. And while I would like to have a host like the Halloween episodes it might be too much work. I'll have to see how it goes.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 56 - Jabberwocky and Filk

I had a few songs I wanted to get out so I squeezed this one in before the 13 Days of Halloween. Initially it was just going to focus on filk music, although Jabberwocky seemed appropriate, especially for the last song. And I don't know where the voice came from, it just seemed to come naturally as I read the poem; probably encouraged by the phonetics of the poem.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing56-Jabberwocky/pp56.mp3

This time around I used songs I gathered from various sources rather than just Mevio. I'll probably use more variety of sources in later podcasts, although that's not likely until next year. I've already got Halloween chosen and there's no shortage of Christmas music on Mevio. I still like Mevio because of the quality of the material. While there is a lot of material on other sites, it's not always podsafe and it's not always of professional quality. Some of it sounds like it was recorded by a cell phone at a convert.

Next episode should be the first of the 13 Days of Halloween on October 19th. I've just a few short scripts to finish and then all the recording and editing, which I'll probably try to get done this week. I've still to write any poetry for Christmas or to select any music, although I don't think I'll be needing scripts.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 55 - The Ghost of an Anniversary

While I'm a little slow this year, I had to get one out for the anniversary.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing55/pp55.mp3

This year it's been harder to do a weekly podcast for a number of reasons. Mainly I don't have the backlog of poetry I had when I started, even though I've been doing classic poems this year. I also don't have as much time to work on it as I use to. Some of that is because of The Blue Hot Gossip podcast, which takes at least a full day's work (normally spread out over a period of time) to produce. And The Blue Hot Gossip has seen much better download numbers. After two years it's still rare for an episode of Podcast Ping to get more than a thousand downloads.

And if people aren't downloading the podcast, then it hardly seems worth doing. It would be better to do another type of podcast. Although I do like doing it, so I doubt I would stop, but I have to balance the amount of time I work on it with the amount of time and effort it's worth. I'm also been trying to get a company started which takes not just time but attention. And there's always the writing to work on which takes more time than I've been allowing and directly competes with time for writing poetry.

Even though I've only done a handful of episodes so far this year, I am planning on doing something special for Halloween and likely Christmas. I have been thinking of doing a Christmas calendar for a while and recently decided to do a test run by doing the 13 Days of Halloween. Starting on October 19th and running until the 31st, I'll try to post one short podcast a day. If it goes well then I'll do the same for Christmas, starting on December 1st. Provided I do those episodes, that will raise the episode count to over forty episodes for the year.

I've also come across an epic poem I would like to try doing, but I won't get to that until at least next year. And as all long time listeners know, these plans are constantly changing and what I plan isn't always what I produce. But I am working on the Halloween episodes so expect the first one of those, and likely the next Podcast Ping episode, on October 19th.

(I keep forgetting to mention this.)Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 53 - Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas

A reading of Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill. I felt the last poem was a little short so that the music dominated most of the podcast. I wanted something a little longer this time to balance it out a little better.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing53/pp53.mp3

You'll also notice I've changed the intro a little to accomidate some promotion for my new toy shop. It can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com. I'm just starting it up so I've only a small selection at the moment, but I have many ideas for new designs.

With the summer coming I'm starting to think about shows for December. I know it sounds early, but I would like to try a Chrismas calendar this year. That means I've got to come up with 25 Christmas songs and I'll likely have to write quite a few poems even if I choose to re-use some poems. The current plan is to have 25 shows, each with one poem and one song.

Podcast Ping 52 - Daffodils by William Wordsworth

Similar to the last episode, this podcast has a reading of Daffodils by William Wordsworth.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing52/pp52.mp3

Eventually I will get back to using my own poetry but for the time being, at least for this year, I'm going to stick to using poetry by famous poets. I'm focusing more right now on The Blue Hot Gossip Comedy Show.

Podcast Ping 51 - Kubla Kahn

This episode is a reading of Kubla Kahn (Xanadu) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing51/pp51.mp3

I didn't want to go too long without getting an episode out, even though it's only been a couple months. I don't know how many I'll do this year, although the ones I do will probably be more like this one. I do have an audiobook/podiobook planned for the feed but for reasons I'll reveal later I'm waiting to start that.

Aside from the audiobook, which I'd like to get out weekly, I'll probably be only doing one "regular" episode a month for Podcast Ping. I've developed a new approach for The Blue Hot Gossip Comedy Show (http://bluehotgossip.blogspot.com) and I want to put more effort into that, possibly even getting out one episode a week. I tend to see better download numbers for it than I do for Podcast Ping, despite producing a lot fewer episodes. But it may take a few months before I get going on that. So I will be busy doing a lot, but there is only so much I can do and I have to put the effort into those things which provide the best return.

Podcast Ping 50 - Favorites

Here's an special hour long episode of Podcast Ping made up of some favorite songs and poems from the entire series. I had to trim down my selection a lot to keep it from being too long but there's still about fifteen poems and songs included. As it is, I was going to make it only a top ten but found that too limiting.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing50/pp50.mp3

In putting this together I tried to use more of the older material than the newer material, although the rebuilds may make it seem newer. I also avoided instrumentals and I didn't include more than one song by the same artist. I was also going to make sure I didn't use more than one from the same podcast, but that would have added too much work. With over two-hundred songs and poems selecting fifteen still meant leaving out many good songs and poems.

Of course if the bonus episodes are included this is really more like episode sixty-one, (at least fifty-one with the music and poetry format) and if the Beowulf readings are added the number goes beyond a hundred. So the number is really arbitrary. But this is the official fiftieth episode.

I'm inclinded to call this the end of season one, simply becuase I don't expect to ever be doing anything with this material again, aside from publishing the poems. Next "season" I'm going to work with new material. I'm also considering using material from other poets, particularly famous poets, rather than my own. I've done a lot of poetry for the podcast and I could use the break. I'm also debating doing something special for next December. And I still might do a podiobook, but it will be from one I've already finished writing.

I may also take a few months off from podcasting, but I'll have to see how things work out.

Podcast Ping Bonus 11 - A Message From Santa

Here's a new Christmas bonus episode, A Message From Santa.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPingBonus11-AMessageFromSanta/ppb11.mp3

I could have called this one episode 50, but I have planned 50 to be a favorites episode which I'll post sometime before New Year's. That episode is made up of about fifteen poems and songs gathered from past episodes. I'm also making it a "season finale," since I will probably be taking a few months break from the podcast. But more about that in the next post.

Podcast Ping Bonus 9 Rebuild

This is a rebuild of last year's Christmas bonus episode, a reading of "A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Moore." For some reason the old one came out in mono so this is a stereo version of it.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPingBonus9Rebuild/ppb9-REBUILD.mp3

I'm not sure if I'll do a Christmas bonus this year or not. I do have Podcast Ping 50finished which I'll release in December. I was going to wait on this one but since we're into the Christmas season I didn't see any point in waiting.

I seem to be at a terrible standstill with THE UNSTOPPABLE RIDE. I'm still trying to rewrite the second chapter for recording, but I find myself drawn in other directions. I tend to take December off from writing since I find myself creatively worn out and it offers some time to regain my energy. I am also finding myself drawn towards children's stories right now. Some of it came from listening to the poems I selected for Podcast Ping 50 and realizing how well suited many are for children. Of course it might also be the time of year.

I have tried some children's stories in the past and it might be time to get back to it. I've got a great one going right now that's worth focusing on. And I really would like to rework some already finished full-length novels to boost their length into a more saleable size. Currently they're about 80K so I need about another 10K or 20K.

So I can't say how long it will take to get back to THE UNSTOPPABLE RIDE. I don't want to leave it a half-finished podiobook so until I'm ready to fully commit it might be best to hold off. I thought it might help motivate me to work on to release it as a podiobook but it's just not working out that way. But it will get finished.

Of course I've still got a lot of material to get out. I have been considering a change of structure for Podcast Ping, but that wouldn't happen until next year. And I find myself spending a little more time on my blog lately so I might be giving that more attention.

As for episode 50, I'll either get that out around the start of December (maybe even Sunday) or the end. I was originally going to make it like the end of the year episode last year but I may not wait that long. After that I might just take a few months break from podcasting but I'll decide that in January.

Podcast Ping 23 Rebuild

This is a rebuild of episode 23-Comrades. It was originally intended for Rememberance Day of last year, which is why I waited until now to release it, and includes a reading of "In Flander's Fields."



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing23Rebuild/pp23-Rebuild.mp3

This will be the last music and poetry episode until December, but should get at least one chapter of THE UNSTOPPABLE RIDE out this month.

Podcast Ping 49

This episode contains music and poetry about the coming of winter.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing49/pp49.mp3

I'll release the rebuild of 23 in a couple days. I've also finished episode 50 and a rebuild of Bonus 9, but I want to release those in December. I'm also considering doing a Christmas episode for this year, even though I'll have the rebuild of last year's Bonus 9 and a posting of "A Pickle for Christmas" which I had trouble posting properly last year.

Podcast Ping 1-10 Special

This is a collection of the poems from episodes 1 to 10, excluding those re-used for episode 41. I've been meaning to do this for a while and remembered while working on episode 50.

This is just poetry alone. No music. The poems have been re-recorded. Most of the rest of the stuff from the earliest episodes were just me talking or some of my guitar playing. It was at episode 11 that I started on the current format with the podsafe music, so doing a full rebuild of the first ten episodes wasn't worthwhile. And I have been meaning to do an all-poetry episode for a long time.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing1-10Special/pp1-10-Special.mp3

I called it a "special" instead of a "bonus" episode because bonus implies additional material. And it's not a proper "rebuild" because I'm only using select parts of some of the podcasts.

This is just part of the wrap-up process for the season. I've decided that episode 50 will be the season finale and after 50 I won't be touching any of the old material except for publication. So no more rebuilds or best-ofs, just all new material. Of course that may wait a while until I've finished THE UNSTOPPABLE RIDE. (The first chapter of which will be about the only thing carried over into season 2.)

Podcast Ping 32 Rebuild

Here's a rebuild of episode 32.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing32Rebuild/pp32-Rebuild.mp3

It's getting a little hard to keep track of which rebuilds I've released, but I've only got a couple left. Just the rebuild of 23, which I'll get out this week and the rebuild of Bonus 9, which I'll release in December. And of course I've got the new episode 49 coming out soon, likely this week as well. I don't plan on doing any more rebuilds after Bonus 9; they were mostly done because I wanted to torrent them and felt it was worth the work since it would improve the quality.

Podcast Ping Bonus 10 - Waking The Dead

I wasn't planning to do another Halloween one this year but I ran across a couple things from the Internet Archive I had which I had thought of using for a Halloween episode and wound up not using them on episode 48 so I thought I'd throw together a bonus episode. I made it a bonus episode because I want 50 to be special and I've already got 49 put together.

Considering the age of the recordings, which I tried to clean up as much as possible, all the musical performers are likely dead now, hence the title. The noisiest recording is the first: the other two aren't bad.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPingBonus10/ppb10-WakingTheDead.mp3

This will likely be the last episode for the month. I've just got three more rebuilds to go, one which is for Christmas and will come out in December. So things will slow down. Episode 50 may come out just before New Years as episode 30 did. As for episodes in the new year, I haven't decided on that yet. I'm planning to just concentrate on THE UNSTOPPABLE RIDE.

Podcast Ping 22 Rebuild

A rebuild of Podcast Ping 22-Garden Party. The first turned out to be in mono so this one is in stereo.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing22Rebuild/pp22-Rebuild.mp3

If I can find the time I'd like to get another bonus episode put together for Halloween, which I'll get out tomorrow or Friday. I came across a couple of things on Internet Archive and I've got a couple poems I can use.