Need Your Honesty

Non-Phish Member Projects
#1

I’m really ready to bag this effort after the second program. Here it is by the way:

http://165.230.101.79/Podcasts/PlanetShowbiz/PlanetShowbiz-002-May2009-Mothers-Day.mp3

I really need your honest opinions, not what you want to tell me just not to hurt my feelings. I have no vested feeling about this show in any positive way. It sounds totally deuchy to me, and I’m ready to tell Steve to find someone else to read his script.

He drew me into this project with promises of it being just a way to capture the fun we used to have talking about this shit in the office, and now it’s turned into a lame excuse to create an audio crap retro version of Entertainment Tonight.

Try not to second guess what I would want you to say after listening to this month’s episode which streamed on WCCR this past Saturday night. There are no hit numbers I can review, and I’d really like to see the Ohkeepa sampling of opinion to determine whether I continue doing this at all. I really don’t care either way except that recording this episode really made me unhappy and angry, and I don’t want to feel this way again.

I’d rather walk away and let him find another “Fone” to bounce his announcer attitudes off. Thanks, people, I really appreciate your help with this.

#2

If this started out as a joint effort, it seems like your friend Steve has taken off with it and relegated your position to being his ‘sideman.’ His announcer attitudes (as you say) are kinda off putting.

In total honesty, you seemed like the most interesting guy in the room.

Go solo!!!

#3

i kinda liked it! but hey, if you don’t enjoy doing it, why continue?

just outta curiosity, what was it that got you upset about doing this?

#4

Performing in general as a need for recognition for something I believe myself to be or believe myself able to do is something that never appealed to me. Those things, that I consider cool things to share, that are more considered by me as things that ‘happen’ in time, as a function of the Great Vibe, is something that is very real to me, and I share them all the time. One of the reasons I like Phish so much, is that I never get the feeling that they themselves are performing as much as sharing a moment in time with what they’ve found for themselves to be cool. When they lost that, they lost the band.

I don’t want to perform this show. I want the show to happen as it used to when there weren’t any microphones around. That’s not the way this current show got made. Maybe I was real about 40% of this recording, the rest of it was scripted to some degree. And I don’t think or speak like the script writer, but the presentation is supposed to make you believe I do. That sucks to me. Feels dishonest.

It’s really wierding me out, that’s why I came here. Looking for objectivity from a group of people I trust.

#5

^ i understand perfectly.

#6

If you are having fun with it, then stick with it, but if you are not comfortable then get out. or really just do whatever feels right for you.

#7

I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but I wasn’t a big fan. I think your objections are justified and it kinda sounds like you don’t really wanna do it anymore. and if thats the case, i don’t think you should do it.

#8

so have you come to any conclusions about this Bill?

#9

I told Steve that the last show pretty much sucked imo, both doing it and listening to it, and I told him why. He whined and begged me not to bag it, and said we needed to rehearse more in order for him to be more relaxed with doing it ‘off the cuff’.

I kind of doubt that he’ll be able to be natural about it, but I told him I’d give it another shot. Told him I’d rather not break up a friendship over this thing, and would rather have him find someone else to do it his way if that was the way he really believes the podcast should go. Frankly, I find more satisfaction in gardening right now.

#10

it’s alright, bill, but not great. your buddy steve makes it sound so rehearsed…his delivery totally gives that away - so i definitely hear what your complaint is about the format.

i will say that you have a great radio voice though

#11

i say i love the idea of you having a podcast, but this might not be the one. And that’s okay.

maybe you could just do a short weekly commentary or something. Spread that wisdom around as much as you can.

#12

it sounds scripted and I wish it didn’t, I like the way you guys sound. Do you have any recordings that you do like?

#13

^not yet. we try again on the 8th, and so far no scripts. We’re going to try to work topics within defined time slots to see how that works. My job will be to keep Steve from sounding like a radio announcer, which he thinks is what he’s supposed to sound like. He’s really much funnier when we’re just batting this shit back and forth. He just needs to relax and stop thinking he’s a personality.

#14

Recorded our third and what has become our last podcast a week ago. Don’t know if it’s posted to the Rutgers web site, but don’t care if anyone listens to it or not.

Although I wasn’t quite as annoyed with this guy and the process during the recording process, I was totally disgusted with the finished copy and told him to go ahead and continue the effort without me.

There were things that were going on during the process that I wasn’t aware of until I heard it played back that really pissed me off, and it has to do with Steve’s continued assumption into this jerkass personna that he thinks is ‘professional’ and ‘marketable’. I find it deuchy and unprofessional, and in this last case, demeaning and patronizing to most of what I was providing to the show. Didn’t realize it completely until this last recording, and on Sunday I told him that I didn’t want to continue.

He must have gotten something similar from the engineer about the show, because he sent us both an email cancelling the show based upon our emails to him. So I wasn’t the only one who saw how jerky he made the whole thing sound.

It’s kind of a shame, because in talking with some people who are connected with the baby boomers (aka senior citizens), there are more websites for the elderly who would probably be interested in the trivia topics we were delving into, and that there is a ‘target audience’ that would find something like this mildly entertaining.

But Steve was aiming for a radio career with this thing, because that was more important to him than reaching an interested audience with material that would benefit them. Had to tell him that this whole effort was more about his ego than it was about something viable for an audience to enjoy. He didn’t get that, and I couldn’t convince him, so I bailed.

He hasn’t contacted me since Sunday which is way out of character for him. Know he’s pissed, and that’s understandable. If he’s willing to let a friendship die because of this, that will be up to him. My door is always open especially to talk with him about this nonsense as long as there aren’t any microphones around.

Live and learn.

#15

“didn’t you do your homework?”

What a douche!!