I’m still here

Today is October 6, 2020. Wow. It has been more than six months since my last post and I think eight months since I did an episode. Why? Do I really need to explain that? I had just barely launched this project off the ground in January when shit. hit. the. fucking. fan. January 2020 seems like five years ago. Since then, well, yeah. The podcast studio is in my house and nobody but me and my wife have been in my house since the last episode. Seriously. Except I think my sister dropped off some pound cake but I am pretty sure she stayed on the front porch. Has this year driven me insane? Trick question. I was already bat shit crazy before 2020. So HA! Fuck you 2020. You know what? I actually don’t like the whole blaming 2020 thing. It’s dumb. It’s not the year’s fault. 2020 didn’t have a choice. It’s what comes after 2019 and it can’t vote, so no, the number you write on your checks is not responsible for anything, it’s just how we will remember it. You can count me out of those who will be reveling in sure-to-be stupidly crowded New Years Eve celebrations, as if ticking off one more trip around the sun since Jesus was born is going to solve our problems.

The reason I spent 15 minutes today just trying to remember my password to log in to this website I made is to tell you that the podcast is going to live on…. I hope. I liked doing it so I’m going to keep doing it. Even what little you see here was a lot of work! And I’ve done a lot of work trying to figure out how to keep recording episodes over the phone, or whatever, during a quarantine/social distancing. But after cancelling the episodes I had scheduled and messing around with different ways to record phone calls, it just never panned out and I lost the wind that was in my sails. Depression. Ok? It was depression. Don’t act like you haven’t been, this is America. I don’t owe you an explanation. In early February I had FIVE really interesting people booked and on the calendar to come over to the house and do a show and others who had agreed to do one and just needed to pin down a day. The momentum was real and I was very excited. I was on par to crank out a new episode every two weeks or so for a few months. I think maybe I can get that energy back. Who knows? I haven’t even reached back out to those friends who had agreed to be guests yet. Writing this is the first step I’m taking to get back into the swing of things. Maybe by tomorrow the wind will be taken from my sails again. That’s how 2020 has been. Day to day. And don’t get me wrong, this year has been good to us! Us being my wife and I. Neither of us have gotten COVID and both of us remain employed for the duration of, that’s right, 2020. So far. Knock on wood or whatever your superstitious thing is that you do to ward off 2020. You know what? Fuck 2020, it is to blame I was wrong. Do you even want more episodes? Is anyone even reading this?

Holy fucking hell……

It has been well over a month since I have sat down and done anything related to this podcast and blog. And for good reason(s). Now, well, as you may have noticed, we are quarantined. Most of us. My wife and I especially since we have both been sick for about 9 days now, and no determination as of yet as far as what the actual cause is. Could it be this Coronavirus? Sure can. Could it be something else? Sure can. But due to this insanity I have found time in between scanning tax documents to sit down and vent about a few things. So buckle up….

I am a data driven person. I like to stick with the facts and not let emotion get in the way. Its how I roll. I use logic and reasoning to make decisions. And I consider myself a top notch decision maker. I’m usually very good at sifting the facts out of the words that my face sees and hears and at recognizing when I’m being given an opinion vs a fact. Of course I am prone to an angry tantrum when the data doesn’t go in my preferred direction, which is emotional, but that is about the extent of it. If the world doesn’t make sense, I get anxious. Which, I suppose, is also emotional. In order for the world to make sense I need information. Its the not knowing things that bothers me. The more I know the more I can position myself and my family for the most likely potentially positive outcome. And then take the temperature of things and course correct along the way….. Boom! Look at me with life all figured out and shit……….HA! Did I almost have you convinced? Me neither. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Which is ok. At least we are all in the same boat. I don’t feel as behind the curve (which we are trying to flatten!). But all I know is that I don’t know things and the things I do know don’t make sense right now. So I am anxious as aforementioned. I haven’t been anxious enough to behave irrationally yet. In fact I have made some pretty wise decisions if I do say so myself. I seem to have avoided much of the major economic fall out from this catastrophe. All other things being equal, I came out ahead on that front. So far…. I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch by any means, but I would be having more angry tantrums if the data was worse. And my paycheck showed up this morning….So a sigh of relief there ok good. Look, a lot of people have died from this virus and many more are going to die. And that sucks ASS. And this virus is going to bankrupt more people than it kills and that is a fact. And that sucks ASS too.

My wife has been coughing. A lot. I love my wife. A lot. I mean we have been quarantined together for 9 days running and we haven’t argued once. We still laugh. We even laugh about the idea of arguing during a quarantine which just makes us laugh more. We have been through a lot together, way more than just this quarantine, and we only ever get stronger. Its the best part of my entire existence on this planet. The point I am making is, I am blessed. Very blessed.

I’m the first to admit, I made jokes about the virus early on. I think I said something about selling pennies for $100 each and telling people that if they stick it under their tongue it will cure coronavirus……What a DICKHEAD thing to say NOW. But when I said it, it was funny. Whats really funny is how whats funny can change on a fucking DIME. There I go thinking about money again. No. Clearly this is a serious matter. Don’t stick pennies in your mouth. Even when there isn’t a pandemic.

My grandpa died last Friday the 13th. Its ok, he died of old age, mostly. I mean I’m 37 and I still had a grandpa….Remember what I said about being blessed? Unfortunately, the wife and I were just showing the first symptoms of being sick with something that morning so everyone was waiting to see if we could get to the hospital and visit before they removed his medicine and replaced it with morphine. If you can remember, last Friday nobody really knew what to do yet. The doctor told us absolutely do not visit an ICU in a hospital right now, as there is a pandemic beginning, dumbass! They didn’t call us a dumbass because nobody really knew what to do yet. But they did say the part about not visiting. So I had to say goodbye to grandpa on Face Time. And even worse, I couldn’t be there for my mom. And I still haven’t seen her yet to give her a hug. Some other people have died in the last month too and ….I dunno. I’m getting tired of typing now. Thank god for Face Time. By God I mean the computer simulation we are living in. That’s a whole other blog. Later.

Time Flies….

…when you’re doing a podcast. Time flies in general. Lets face it, we don’t have much. Even if you get a lot of time you really don’t get a lot. A lot has happened since the last podcast episode and these happenings are a big reason I haven’t put out a new episode in a few weeks now. We lost my 92 year old grandmother, Florence, last week. That is the big thing that happened. Everything else is just everything else. It was very expected for her to die for quite a long time, and her very slow decline was tough on the family. So the worst of that is over and she went peacefully and that is a beautiful thing. But I will miss her tremendously. I already do. She and I were very close. She was one of those people where you knew where you stood with her. And I was her favorite. She made no bones about it. She would even tell my sister that I was her favorite…”sorry, Brittany.” But time flies…. Its already been a week since she died. A week! A whole ‘nother valentine’s day has happened since she died. Another Daytona 500 has more or less happened. 1/52nd of the year. That’s almost 2% of the entire year, gone, since gram has been gone….7 days ago. We don’t have any fucking time, people!

And now, for those of you who spend any time around me at all, here is the part where I sound like a broken record….no pun intended. Since the album Fear Inoculum by Tool came out last September, it has pretty much been on a constant loop on my car rides to and from work, and whenever music has been playing around the house. Saying the album is amazing is a complete understatement. That word is thrown around too much these days. “That pizza was amazing.” Shut the fuck up no it was not. Amazing means “causing great surprise or wonder…astonishing...startlingly impressive.” Pizza can’t be fucking amazing, and I LOVE pizza more than most people. But this album meets the definition. The album came at a time in my life where I really needed it, given the context of the lyrics. For example, back in October I had some conflict in my life and lo and behold the lyrics of this particular album spoke to me. It gave me strength and courage to face something and stand up to somebody. And that shit needed to happen. I don’t know if I could have done it without the mantra of Fear Inoculum repeating in my brain. After that shit was more or less over with, I sort of thought that the album had served its purpose in my life. I was wrong. Over the last 5 or 6 months of this album being in existence, the most powerful thing to happen to me was not a little conflict in October. Of course, it was the loss of my Gram. And here is where I tie all of this rambling together: Listen to the album. Especially the song Descending. It is a warning. Stop living in fear. Start actually LIVING. We don’t have much time!

That said, I am working hard to bring you some new episodes very soon. In my free time…..

Episode 3 - Darius Kennedy

27 years is a long time for anything. In 27 years you are just about paid up on your standard mortgage, and you’ve probably had to replace the roof at least once. Good luck getting a car to last 27 years. 27 years is how long all those dead rock stars lived their entire brilliant lives. A 27 year old person is old enough to know better. 10 year-olds supposedly don’t really know shit though.

27 years ago was 1993. I was already 10 and in the fifth grade and I was new to the school. So was this kid Darius. Darius was maybe a little more new to the school in a sense since the school was in the middle of cornfields (still is) and Darius was from the south side of Chicago. I had at least seen cornfields before. You ever just know immediately when you like a person? It was that. Although we came from very different backgrounds and looked quite different from each other, we hit it off and became best friends. We played football on the playground every day. Joined band together. He played alto sax and I trumpet. Those first few formative years helped define who we would be 27 years later. Darius wanted to be a stand-up comedian even way back then, inspired by his Uncle Dwayne who he never shut up about. I wanted to be a pilot, inspired by……I’m not sure. Darius already was a stand-up comedian way back then. At 10 he was the stand-up of Mrs. Zarumba’s musty mobile trailer classroom, but by 12 he was actually getting stage time in comedy clubs in Chicago. I couldn’t even comprehend what that meant as I played around on my flight simulator. I mean, I had seen Gallagher on HBO….’’Darius, are you doing that?’’ ‘‘Not exactly.’’

27 years later and Darius is still doing stand-up. And he’s good! Nobody as outgoing and naturally funny as Darius Kennedy could possibly fail at stand-up comedy. You’re going to laugh. And you’ll laugh during the podcast. He just has a way of telling a story where you are waiting for the next laugh to come. But he’s also very smart and can tell you all about what it takes to get a large commercial building LEED certified in the notoriously corrupt city of Chicago. He can tell you what it’s like when one the many tenants of his family’s rental properties squats in the apartment after they’ve been evicted, tragically loses a child while still living there, and he is the one who has to respond to the scene on behalf of the property and deal with the tenant and with Chicago police on the south side. He can tell you about the 2008 financial crisis and how it damn near destroyed the real estate empire his family had built, and had damaged the physical health of he and some of his family. This dude has been through some shit, folks. And 27 years later he and I still connect. One of those where you just pick up right where you left off and its like all that time hadn’t even passed. Except for the current presence of bourbon and beer, our conversations still feel like we are in the back of that musty mobile trailer classroom in a boring cornfield somewhere out by…..nothing. Its not by anything! And I’m not a pilot.

Thanks!

Well, shit look at that. I did a full episode with a guest! And a great, interesting guest at that. For a full hour! Thanks again, Mike. It was fun and I really couldn’t be happier with how it went, how it sounded, and the positive response I’ve received from people. A genuine thank you to everyone who has listened and supported this endeavor thus far. I feel like we’re off to a great start and I’m excited about where it is going. It’s a little crazy to me that this all came together in less than one month! I hope we can keep the momentum going in the same direction.

I can’t help but wonder…..somewhere there is a guy who once wore no pants on the Dan Ryan expressway. I’m guessing this individual has no idea that Emmy awards have been won and lost over that little stunt. Where is he now? In jail? What is the usual sentence for mooning Chicago traffic? The real crime is holding up the traffic more than it already was, forget being bare-assed. Is that guy even still alive? I mean, not too many of us have truly lived like that guy has. But, I suspect a person who chooses to go pants-less on the Dan Ryan isn’t trying extremely hard to stay alive in general. I wish I’d have thought of these questions when I had Mike in the studio! Mike, if you ever reach a stretch in your career where you feel like you’re overdue for another Emmy, send me a text and I may just be willing to drop-trou and go for a jog on the Eisenhower.

The best part of the episode, though, was when Mike opened up about his son Jack who is on the autism spectrum. I learned a lot and I hope that the information he shared, along with offering for people to reach out to him on the subject, may reach somebody and help them on some level.

I hope you all enjoyed the episode and I look forward to putting more out there very soon!

Episode One!

It’s not much of an episode, I admit. Just over three minutes long. But I did it. I managed to record myself saying ‘‘um’’ too many times all by myself. That pretty much sums it up. I just wanted to welcome people to the show and to thank certain people who have helped me out in the last few weeks with feedback and ideas. Plus I just needed to do it to test everything and make sure that whole part works. And it seems to be. So far so good. I am a little nervous about when the email goes out to everyone and it goes up on social media even though I already tested that too. I just don’t want to look like an idiot, you know what I mean? It always sucks when you look incompetent. Its even worse when you ARE incompetent. But, I suppose any hiccups can be handled just like anything else in life. Speaking of hiccups, I’m fucking starving because I only ate two granola bars all day but I was determined to get this done.…….Did I remember to click the box that there will be explicit content? Because you can bet your fuckin ass there will be swearing. It is my right as an American. The question is will I swear responsibly? Because responsibility is the price we pay for our rights in this country. I’ll try my best, I swear….

Time to press record?

I think I have reached a point now where I can produce an actual podcast. Finally. Geez, for being a podcast I sure have been busting my ass doing a whole bunch of other things except recording podcasts. But it was important to me to have certain infrastructure in place before I had episodes to put out there. For one, I wanted to have this website somewhat put together as a home base for everything. So now I seem to have that, as well as: an email address, social media accounts, a way for people to subscribe to this blog and subsequently all the podcasts, a service in place to email the subscribers when new episodes are posted, all the physical gear I need, the technical know how to edit a show together, and I have started an actual company….

The company is called Grizzly Butt Media. Grizzly Butt is sort of an inside joke around this house and for good reason it just needed to be the name of my first ever LLC. I’m sure there will be more weirdly named companies in the future since I am always coming up with various hair brained schemes. More to come on that later.

In yesterday’s blog I said something about starting a company but I waited until today to announce the name because I have a cat. The cat’s name is Hannah. Hannahbelle Lecter to be precise. And I have had her for exactly 10 years to the day, today. So it was the perfect day to tell you about Grizzly Butt. Hannah is, well, morbidly obese. Always has been. You know how when a cat walks away with their tail up and they have that weird cat butt? Well, like I said Hannah is a big girl so whenever she moves through the house she looks more like a grizzly bear walking away, not a cat. Just google it. Its not that bad I promise. And so the wife and I often fat shame the cat. Specifically, I call her Grizzly Butt. She likes it. So just like my story of naming this podcast after some oddball thing in my vernacular, so happened the naming of a company I can use to purchase a laptop, this website, cloud space, a hosting platform, microphones, and other shit.

But even with all of these to-do items crossed off, I’m just getting started.

So lets fucking go!!

Mission Statement

Do I need to have a mission statement for this fucking thing? No, probably not. But could it help? I’m not sure….. It all sounds so official and….douchey? Why would I?

What if the podcast is successful? I don’t ever want to lose sight of what this was all supposed to be about in the first place….but I also don’t want to be stubborn and turn down possibly great opportunities because of my convictions. It should remain fluid and free and I dunno about you but at first glance mission statements don’t ever feel free. There is a sort of stiffness to the whole idea of having a mission statement. Can’t I just stay focused without one?

What if I fail? I don’t ever want to fail and look back and wonder if I compromised my values along the way. But don’t I already know what those are, and can’t I make decisions as they come without referencing a crappy written statement that hath been pulled from my ass? I definitely don’t want to ever start taking this thing too seriously and maybe this notion of a mission statement is a sign that I am doing just that. If I do have a mission statement it’s not for you. It’s for me. For me to maintain perspective. I guess if it's just for me I could keep it to myself and not write a blog post about it. But if I put it out there then maybe it would be easier to remember and to stay focused. It could hold me accountable. Even just a few years ago, when I would read a mission statement from, say, a company, I would always kind of roll my eyes and think ‘‘yeah right, your only mission is to make money. Quit it with the bullshit.’’ But recently, I have come to appreciate that these statements can be meaningful.

What got me thinking about this in the first place is that I coughed up a few bucks to start an actual company for this podcast. I’m going to need a new laptop very soon and there are production costs for a podcast among other things, I’m sure. So I figured I might as well have it set up to where it’s not a hobby but enough of a business where I can write off the expenses. Refer to the 3rd sentence of my 1st blog post: (“….I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing…”). Recently, someone I know who is a remarkable leader was commenting on what it means to have a Mission Statement. His Mission Statement includes not only the Mission, but also his Vision and his Values. Great, three fucking things to worry about now? What is the point?

This is what he said: “The Mission is now. The Vision is the future. And the Values are forever.” For some reason, like the figure of speech ‘‘a fist from your face,’’ something clicked and it stuck. Giving them the context of time somehow made it all fit.

Ok fuck it lets give it a try…

I suppose if I had to state a MISSION for this podcast I would say it would be: To make meaningful connections with interesting people and to share those interactions with as many people as possible while having fun doing it.

I suppose if I had to state my VISION for this podcast it would be: To leave each podcast feeling more positive, more wise, and closer to the truth than before I pressed record.

I suppose if I had to state my VALUES they would be: Truth. Freedom. Respect. Open mindedness. Learning. Fun. Friendship. Growth.

I don’t know. What do you think? Should I do it? Maybe I just did….

Another breakthrough….

Today was a productive day. I am another big step closer to being able to actually do this thing. I finally figured out how to edit things together on my computer. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and with a little help from YouTube I think I am now able to: record a podcast, retroactively record an intro for it, insert the intro in front of the podcast, and also insert my pre-recorded music (with the volume fading in and out!) which I wrote and recorded myself on my Les Paul. These are all good things and the result was something that sounds, well, professional? So that makes me very happy. And all before noon on a Sunday!

The next big step here, I think, is to figure out how and where to host the episodes online and then upload them to this website and to streaming services. Couple that with the creation of some social media sites and all of the infrastructure should then be in place to start doing shows. I already have about six or seven people who have said they would come do a show which means a lot to me. They are all great people who I think you will both like and find as interesting as I do. I also have some other folks on my radar so fingers crossed that they too would like to be on.

And now for a dose of irony. I love irony. Its fucking hilarious, usually. If its not funny it will at least tend to open my eyes to some type of truth and that is good enough. The paradoxical nature of it makes me stop and think for a second which can’t hurt. What was that old quote about truth? There is no truth of which I am afraid. Or something like that. Well that’s true! For me, anyways. My life has always sort of been an undying pursuit of the truth. Its what I’m most interested in hearing and talking about. There is no time for anything else! Its probably why, when I read, its mostly non-fiction, and when I watch movies, they are often times based on a true story. Truth is often stranger than fiction and if I can empathize and learn something from other people, in a real situation, that is much more fulfilling to me than say watching a movie about comic books with ridiculous characters flying around in spandex capes fighting computer generated dragons…. I realize, at the end of the day, they’re all telling the same story: an arc about a hero fighting evil, getting the girl, blah blah blah. But real life sometimes doesn’t work out that way. It doesn’t always get tied up in a pretty little bow. Life is messy. It is complicated. But in there, somewhere in the bullshit, is the truth. Clearly, I tend to choose the truth over….fun I suppose…. Oh yeah, right, the irony thing. So the ironic truth is: I don’t really like attention…but I'm going to do a podcast, have a website, and even make social media sites for it. I despise social media. I think that for every good thing that has come from it, 10 more bad things have threatened to destroy the fabric of our society. That may just be the grumpy, cynical old man part of my personality but the TRUTH is lives have been destroyed and the photos you took of your sushi have been compromised by Russia. Not to mention the crushing oppression of cancel culture. Although I am extremely curious about the world, and always willing to make meaningful connections with well-meaning people, I am by nature an introvert. So the quest for truth is perhaps the drive behind this creative endeavor but there are parts of my very being that are telling me this is stupid. I find it hilariously ironic that I’m over here trying to learn what an Instagram is….all for the sake of trying to tie it all up in the pretty little bow I don’t even believe exists… But its too late, I’m going to put myself out there. I just hope I don’t get hurt.

The beginnings of a podcast…

So I guess I decided to start a podcast. But before I have recorded even one episode, I have started this website/blog. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing in case you haven’t already figured that out from the first two sentences. Its not like I set out to have a podcast. Its not like I went out in search of specific pieces of equipment I needed in order to do this. What happened was sort of by accident. Let me explain…

I play guitar a little bit. I say a little bit because I mostly sit around strumming by myself. I’m not in a band, never have been, nor do I expect to be invited into one anytime soon. I do this in the “music room”of my house. In any other suburban single family home like mine the room would be called a bedroom. One of the four this house has to offer. But, I don’t have any kids and I only need one bedroom for sleeping, so this bedroom became the music room. I keep my guitars in here and a couple amps. I added a desk so it doubles as sort of an office with my laptop and a printer. Over the years, with playing guitar, I have acquired gear that gave me the best bang for my buck. I’m not exactly cheap. I actually love spending money. Just ask my wife. But I really love getting a great value for the money I spend. One way I accomplished that about 10 years ago was I bought a little stomp box/effects pedal/amp modeling doohickey that I could plug the guitar into and get thousands of different tones and effects. Hours upon hours of fun! If I went out and bought individual pedals and amps and speaker cabinets I would have spent thousands and thousands of dollars for what the doohickey approximates fairly well in my estimation (at least for my purposes/skill level). And if that wasn’t enough bang for my buck, with this doohickey came a CD, and on that CD is some free recording software. Its not Pro Tools, but its perhaps not too unlike Pro Tools. OK some of you will be yelling at me about how its nothing like Pro Tools and you’re probably right. But when you open the program you can see all of the little sliding fader things and about a million buttons that I don’t know what the hell any of them do. Its like a recording studio on your computer. Neat! So, I set that aside…..besides how do you plug a guitar into a computer? My laptop doesn’t have a 1/4’’ jack….I think the doohickey plugs in with a USB but is that how you get the music into the recording thing? Who knows right? Certainly not I. So for the last 10 years I would play guitar for a little while, then put it down for a few months, then pick it back up. Clearly, its just a hobby. Playing guitar, when I’m inspired, is sort of meditative for me. I can escape the world for a while and maybe create something cool that didn’t exist before. But I never messed with the recording software for the last decade I’ve owned it.

Today, by the way, is Christmas Eve 2019. 364 days ago (that’s Christmas 2018) I got a really cool present from my dad: a microphone. Cool! I never had a microphone before and this one seemed quite nice. You could just tell it was a quality thing and not a cheap piece of crap. Thanks, Dad! My dad always gives great gifts for Christmas. His theory is to get people what they would never go get for themselves. That is genius. I’m always thinking about what people would want or need, not what they would never think of. I need to change that because the way my Dad thinks can stimulate inspiration where nobody saw it coming. But wait, what do I do with this microphone? I have an old reel-to-reel tape recorder (also given to me by Dad; he bought it new in the 70s) so I guess I could plug straight into that thing and record myself on some 10-inch tapes. Or I could plug the mic into my guitar amp and just sing horribly through the house, when my wife was at work, of course. So that’s what I did. I may have also pretended to be a stand-up comedian a few times but that is a whole other story. Then, last week I was getting ramen at this great little place near where we used to live a couple years ago. Right next door to the ramen place is a pawn shop which is a regular stop after I fill myself with more pork belly than should ever be allowed. I had bought stuff there before, including one of my acoustic guitars. Well this time I noticed they had some sort of a box in the case with all the guitar pedals and it clicked! This box is exactly what I need to plug a microphone or an instrument into a computer. An ‘‘interface!’’ It has 1/4’’ inputs and a USB output…..I suppose it takes the analog audio signals from a microphone or a guitar and converts them to little digital 1’s and 0’s, and sends those through a USB to the computer? That must be it. Eureka! It worked! For $40 I got this little box, connected the mic to it and connected it to the computer and started up that old ProTools like software. After a few hours of fucking around and pressing buttons I figured out how to record and even play it back. No way!

As it turns out, like many of you, I have been listening to podcasts a lot for the past 5 or so years, ever since I got a paid subscription to a music streaming service. Since then I have found podcasts to be a very interesting medium. You can say whatever the fuck you want. You don’t have commercial breaks. You decide what to talk about. You decide when you want to do one and when you want it to end. Being the control freak (my wife calls it that, I prefer Freedom Lover) that I am, I was intrigued. I also have a lot of opinions. So when I accidentally discovered that I had acquired all, or most, of the necessary gear to have a podcast, I pressed record….

A Fist From Your Face……What kind of name is that? Well to me its sort of a double entendre. First, on the surface, it kind of sounds like someone might be about to be punched in the face. We’ve all wanted to do that at one time or another. Or maybe someone has a metaphorical fist coming out of their face. Like maybe their words hit you like a left hook. That’s a powerful image. The second part of the double entendre is a bit more literal and technical. You see, in other parts of my life, I have made friends with a number of people in the field of broadcasting. Both radio and TV. And I have been in a proper radio station studio, in front of a mic, on more than one occasion. And this is what they tell you: try to keep the microphone about ‘‘a fist from your face’’ so your mouth is not too close nor too far away. For whatever reason that stuck in my head and it was the first thing I could think of when I was deciding on a name for this podcast. Instead of listing 10,000 other shitty names and being indecisive like a teenager trying to think up the perfect band name, I just went with the first thing. Welcome to A Fist From Your Face.