The Chronic Rift

This summer sucked.  It really did.  I'm not going to get into the specifics as most of you know why, but it really threw me off and continues to throw me off.  Unfortunately, I have this thing called a life and with it, responsibilities.  These responsibilities can be put off for only so long.  I can't allow my grief to overwhelm me to the point that I can't get anything done.

I'm getting it together.  I'm making the effort.  School starts on Tuesday and I'm sure that I'll lose myself in my work as I have done in the past.

And then there's the Rift.  It's taken all summer, but with the release of episode 99, we're finally back on track and will be releasing one episode a week on Tuesday as we did before the summer started.

And thank you all so much for your patience and kindness during this time.  I hope it was all worth it.

We're going to be ramping up here as we release not only the podcast, but the public access show as well.  We're going to begin an aggressive publicity campaign in the form of press releases, audio and video promos, and promotion of the show via social networks.  There is also the planning of a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the public access show that was put off by events this summer.

Stay tuned, folks.  We're far from done and the best is yet to come.

I don't post a great deal here as I've found that Twitter allows me to get right to my point in such a short amount of words.  (There's something to be said for all this.  I stopped using the phone as email allowed me to send messages and then I got hooked on texting as I could get to my point even faster and hopefully get a faster response.)

Twenty years ago, if you told me about all this, I'd have thought you were crazy.  And twenty years ago I was roaming midtown Manhattan, looking for a bar that would be willing to change the channel on their television to a public access station.  I was doing this as it was when the first episode of the public access version of The Chronic Rift premiered.

At the time, we were only going to do six episodes, an exotic resume stuffer as The Village Voice would come to call it.  But the first episode and the ones that followed went so well that I managed to convince the others to keep going, even though it was costing us $100 a pop to do so.

And we got creative with the show.  We scheduled big episodes during the sweeps like the networks would.  We came up with ways to allow for sponsors to be on the show to help subsidize the cost.  We developed a reputation that most people, despite some hesitation, came on anyway at the urgings of others.  (There were two who refused to do the show and I still feel a twinge of annoyance at their snobbery to this day.)

We had Peter David, Robert Greenberger, Gary Gygax, Ray Harryhausen, George Takei, Mark Lenard, Majel Barret Roddenberry, Sarah Douglas, Kenneth Johnson, Ben Bova, Susan Schwartz, Thomas Disch, Wendy Pini, Roy Thinnes, Conrad Brooks, Angus Scrimm, Marie Wallace and the Toxic Avenger himself at one time or another on our program.  And that's only a handful of the names.

Or more like, things that make you go "Huh?".  If you look to the right, there's a listing of our current top ten episodes for the month.  Look at what's at number one.  It's weird.  It's the kind of stuff I saw over at Podomatic all the time.  We'd get these odd bumps on odd days for no rhyme or reason and then on the days when we should have had more traffic, it was kind of quiet.  Couple that with the fact that I wasn't hearing anything from hardly anyone about the show and I knew it wasn't getting to as many people as Podomatic said.

With that said, I did some checking to see if such spikes occurred with my other two feeds on Mevio, Chronic Rift Classic and Chronic Rift Post-Mortem After Party. Neither one showed that kind of a spike.

All right, next I contacted Mevio.  They claim it's mostly traffic from iTunes.  And then I started seeing it.  Look at the other shows on the list. Last year's "Match Game" and "The Evolution of Horror" episodes are also on the list.  And shows from earlier this season like "Podcasts We Love" and "Paul Cornell".  Now, sometimes these older shows pop up because I repost them on Facebook for new followers there to listen to, but this isn't the case with these particular shows.

People are sampling the shows.  New people.  New listeners.

So, I just wanted to take a moment, in my usual roundabout way, to welcome any new listeners here to the show and ask that you please take a moment to let us know what you think about what you've heard, both old and new.  We appreciate you taking the time to listen and we hope to be serving your listening needs for a long time to come.

So, I'm trying to find a copy of our catalog from the days of the public access show.  We used to sell custom-made VHS copies of the show and the catalog listed topics, guests, review segments, interviews, and airdates for those trying to make up their three choices on the tape.  I had one out recently, but I seem to have misplaced it, so I went up into the attic to look through the Rift archive boxes.

I didn't find a copy of the catalog, but I think I found something better.  Keith made up a listing of all the first season episodes with the information I listed above as well as the Memorable Moments, the date the episodes were taped, and the repeat dates.

I mention this as I completely forgot that the first episode was taped a month before it aired.  As we moved into the season, we shortened the gap to three weeks and then two weeks.

In looking at the dates, I'm trying to pinpoint exactly when it was that we made the decision to continue beyond the initial six.  It might have been as we were preparing for the sixth episode and Keith got us author Susan Schwartz and editor Jim Frenkel.  Once we saw who he was capable of getting, it seemed only natural to continue.  The next episode featured editors Bob Greenberger and Dave Stern as we talked about Star Trek: The Next Generation.

And then there was the end of the first season.  Maybe Keith can fill in my gap here as I can't remember.  There was an episode that was supposed to air earlier on science fact in science fiction with authors Ben Bova and Charles Platt.  Instead it aired just before the season finale on Blake's 7.

One of the nice things about this list is that it gives me proper names, especially ones I cannot remember, in a quest to find them and let them know that the show and their appearances live on.

Over on the Rift's Facebook page, I post links to fan pages I think people might like or may not be aware existed.  Today, I posted a link to the The Greatest American Hero fan page.  I simple put the link and said, "This really doesn't need an explanation, become a fan today."  I assumed everyone was aware of the show and if they didn't like it, they simply wouldn't go "Like" it.  One of our fans pointed out that she wasn't from America and didn't see any reason to become a fan.

I do this at times.  I forget that the Rift is a global show now.  Back in the days of the public access show, we were a regional show, focusing on New York mostly.  I did hear stories of episodes making it on to other public access systems in the country, but I never found any credulity to the stories.  We were producing the show for our New York audience.

Now, the show goes out on the world wide web and I forget that people listening may not always be aware of what we're talking about.  I've tried being conscientious of it, but I do lapse, as I did today.  It wasn't intentional, but I hope she wasn't offended.  Another problem with the internet is that tone doesn't translate well.

I have to admit, my website building experience has mostly been the cut and paste variety.  Now, this website has many options that open up many more possibilities, but it's not always something that is obvious to someone like me.

As you can see, I've been tooling around with the website and have added a few new items to it.  In particular, I'm embedding players for individual episodes in an archive section.  I did this so that finding these episodes would be easier.  I removed the podcast player to the right and replaced it with a simpler player that automatically starts up when you visit the page.  You can immediately stop it though.  It will only pop up on the homepage.  (That was a bit of a feat in itself.)  I want to toot our horn about the show, but I don't want to drive people away when it comes to navigating the site.

The archive will be complete by the end of next week.  I hope those of you who are new to our show will take advantage of this and listen to some of our past episodes.  I realize that not everything we do interests everybody, but I figure at this point, with over 75 episodes, we have something for everybody.

This entry has nothing to do with our latest episode, an interview with actress Juliet Landau.  It's very cool and I'm excited and all, but it's not my gauge for determining the arrival of the show as something that is recognized as being a force for promotion for others.  Every interview we have done, right up to this point, has been due to the efforts of Keith, Judy, and myself securing guests for the show.  We approached them.

Yesterday, I received my first email from a potential guest, requesting to make an appearance on our show.

This is my signal that we have arrived.

Someone wants to come on the show.  He wasn't asked.  I am chuffed.  (And I don't like using that word as it's overly used, in my opinion.)

Now, I must place a caveat that we have had three of our guests on the show due to a friend of the program who is in public relations.  He did approach us and asked us to have his clients on the show.  But I temper that victory with the fact that he is a friend.

This email was a cold call email from a complete stranger.  I've looked over the guest's materials and I can happily say look out for his appearance in April on the podcast.

Yes, we have arrived.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a time where we stop and remember all those things we are thankful for.  In regards to this podcast, I'm thankful for:

- my friends of old, Andrea, Orenthal, Judy, Dan, and Keith who indulged the lunatic when he said he wanted to do a podcast.

- my friends of new, Paul, David, Jay, Derrick, and Rhymephile, who answered the call when I asked for help in shaping the show.

- David Finnerty, who makes this website hum and who has been a great cheerleader for the show.  (You can drop the pom-poms now, Dave.)

- Our guests for these past fifty episodes who have been gracious enough with their time to grant an interview, opine about a Roundtable topic, or just simply record an opening bumper for the show.

- Mevio, who has been a great help in getting the show noticed and in offering us the storage space we now have to maintain our audience with interruption.

- My wife, Sue, who has been incredible in all this as I moved the show from a once a month deal to a weekly one.  It's not always been easy, but she's loved and supported me so well along the way.

We've got a great year ahead folks and we hope you're all there to share it with us.  Happy Thanksgiving.

John

Keith brings the TV
Orenthal brings the Fiendish
It's a review show

Great topics abound

Our guests offer thoughts profound

It's the Roundtable

So this weekend was a good one for me, despite it seeming to go bad.  We picked up a virus that mimicked a virus scan that insisted we needed to purchase their virus scan.  It would open IE windows to porn sites just to prove the point.  I managed to remove the virus, but the internet connection was shot in the process.  I'd been meaning to reinstall Windows XP on the desktop for some time now and this seemed as good a time as any.

It's nice having the computer start right away.  After determining that I forgot to save my drivers, I found them online, and it's nice to have my browser pop up and not keep me waiting to load.

It's got me thinking I should do the same with the laptop.  I bought a 500gig drive in order to store everything from the desktop, more than enough memory.  I can store everything from the laptop there as well.

I also managed to get some classwork I had been putting behind finished.  As you can see, I updated the website as it was badly needed.  I got a ton of yardwork done.

This is going to be an easy week in terms of school and the Rift.  We have an interview with Paul Cornell that has already been recorded.  All I need to do is do the wrap-arounds and it'll be ready to go on Tuesday.  It's nice to be able to say I have the balls in the air and in place at the moment.  September is never a good month to have too many things going on.