A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
No wait, that’s not right. Let me try again:
A few years ago, in a mindset much like today’s, the Encaffeinated ONE decided that the local campus/community radio station, CHSR-FM, needed some sort of news programming — and that he was the one to deliver it.
He started humbly: getting stories off the newswires, broadcasting about 5 minutes daily (or so; he had classes which interfered with the “daily”, and wasn’t the only newscaster).
Soon, and almost immediately thereafter, ONE discovered that he really didn’t care for news. Or at least, didn’t care for the news that everyone else covered. Within those wire stories he found odd things, things that usually fell by the wayside and would only be marginally mentioned. These wayward stories were not mainstream, and he wasn’t working for a mainstream radio station, so why would mainstream news be the norm?
After a remarkably short period of long time, the radio program CAFFEEN! was born. Billed as a two-hour medley of odd music and offbeat news, it was a weekly show, airing on some forgotten timeslot (something like Sunday morning, although the massive centuries or decades or years or something has clouded perceptions of the past).
Eventually, the show transformed into two shows, of vastly different characters: an hour long show of odd, wordless, experimental, soundtrack, new age, space music, with occasional downbeat, electronica and surf leanings. This was dubbed the first cup of CAFFEEN!, entitled CAPPACINO!
A second hour followed the first (as they are wont to do). This hour concentrated all the weird news of the week into an often rambling, somewhat amusing and usually caffeine-fueled concoction known as EXPRESSO!
This went on for several years, and despite being up unfortunately late every Friday night and miserably early on Saturday morning, ONE perservered. Then, one day, on browsing the Web or reading someone’s mind or devouring a dram of instant knowledge or something, he discovered podcasting.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Of course, it’s all history, since it all happened in the past. Unless I’m making it all up, and then it’s fiction. Either way, the last nail in the coffin of this explanation will be this transition of EXPRESSO! from a radio-only program (with radio music) to a podcasting-and-radio empire (with only podsafe music) given the probably blander but very direct name of Esposito, then changed immediately to The Weird Show.
Where the journey goes from here is entirely up to me. Or maybe the odd little green guys from Amigdolonica 4, I always get those confused. Or maybe my cat. If I had a cat, that is.
If you tune in your podcatcher to The Weird Show, you are almost certain to hear something very strange. There will be news articles, gleaned from other sources, which are presented with a loosely-held theme or inspiration, glued together with mind-snot and cabbages and chewed up like yestereday’s coal dust. Some of the stories you may hear elsewhere, but most of the rest you won’t hear anywhere else.
And that’s a good thing.
Dial in your podcatcher to the frequency band of
and strap in for the ride. It may not always be funny, but it’s always going to be weird.