Jolt Country

Welp. The first one was in the can. I think it brought forth a lot of strong opinions, takes and regret.

My two big takes are:

1) Adam Leschack is hilarious. Every thing he said cracked me up.
2) Paul is gifted at this.

I was completely unprepared for what happened and I will not pretend I did a good job. However, I have the desire to improve and turn it around.

It is amazing how much of this show you miss when you're on the show.

And Flack, though you were muted, you brought the content at the beginning of this.

Hahahaha -- Retro: "I sound angry, because I lead an angry life."

I am regretting the cup of coffee I had at 7:00 PM though.

I think I'll write two reviews, one from the perspective as a listener, and one from the perspective as a participant.

I expect the response to the first to be "Well then, don't listen," and the second, "Well then, don't participate," so I'm looking forward to that.

Here's my review of the show from a listener's perspective.

The show begins with 18 1/2 minutes of Skype troubleshooting and Ben getting upset at people for dialing in. If it were me, I would cut the first 20 minutes off the show and post them separately. I can't imagine the average listener getting through that part and making it to the show.

People's voices sound ok at 96k. Music sounds terrible at 96k. From 18:30 for almost 4 minutes we hear a scratchy song that nobody knows and is not named. (Correction: the song and artist are named at 65 minutes into the show.) At around 22:30 the Rush into kicks in. It sounds great.

On the mic, Ben sounds very natural. He sounds like he's been doing this for a long time.

The first half (?) of the show is spent with Ben taking calls and then telling those people they are interrupting his show. The simple solution to this would be to not answer those calls. This is after he asked everybody to call in.

The show is full of inside jokes and unknown people. I don't know who DJ Mike and Chris Whoever are (no offense to those guys). Adam got an introduction, sort of. I think Robb was supposed to get one but Ben didn't get to it. There was a comment about Robb going to Hawaii that I didn't get at first. There was a joke about a grant that I didn't get. Eventually Paul dials in and nobody except JC people know who he is or why Ben's buying him a pizza or why he likes salt that even makes sense as a bit.

The first show was called "Guest: Robb Sherwin (FIRST SHOW EVER!)" and the bit "10 Questions with Robb Sherwin" got cancelled. I realize that the show ran long, but if that's how the show was pitched, maybe other things should have been cut.

The segment about listening to a pop-punk song backfired. It seemed like the idea was Ben would either listen to it for 5 seconds and cut it off, or listen to it for a minute and talk poorly about it over the top of it. So the fact that he actually liked it kind of ruined it.

I thought Adam did a great job as a sidekick. His timing was great and his comments were perfect.

I thought Robb did a good job, technical issues outstanding. For all the money we've pitched in to get Tdarcos to do things, we should raise $20 get him a new microphone.

Overall I thought it was a good first effort. I think a little bit of streamlining it will get better.

People's voices sound ok at 96k. Music sounds terrible at 96k. From 18:30 for almost 4 minutes we hear a scratchy song that nobody knows and is not named. (Correction: the song and artist are named at 65 minutes into the show.) At around 22:30 the Rush into kicks in. It sounds great.

Yes, I have no idea why Don decided to play a four minute song that nobody was familiar with, when he had already played an hour of streaming music before 8 Pacific, and had already had twenty minutes of horrible pre-show connection issues.

The only thing I can think of is that Ben knows we all (from the BBS) hate the Ting Tings and he was trying to punish us.

THAT BEING SAID, that being said, THAT BEING SAID, Flackwell.... the playing of that song was completely redeemed by Adam saying that he torrented it when Ben put him on hold to talk to DJ Mike Dronkers.

The show is full of inside jokes and unknown people. I don't know who DJ Mike and Chris Whoever are (no offense to those guys). Adam got an introduction, sort of. I think Robb was supposed to get one but Ben didn't get to it. There was a comment about Robb going to Hawaii that I didn't get at first. There was a joke about a grant that I didn't get. Eventually Paul dials in and nobody except JC people know who he is or why Ben's buying him a pizza or why he likes salt that even makes sense as a bit.

On the other hand, all 10 people listening had all the context about Paul from the previous test sessions. I think Don Rogers would agree with the following statement:

"The listenership is wholly made up of 10 people I (Don) already know, so why pretend otherwise" and "It's OK, for the show I (Don) am trying to do, if not everyone has complete context."

I didn't hear the bit with DJ Mike Dronkers because when Don puts you on hold you hear nothing. But DJ Mike Dronkers was fantastic.

The first show was called "Guest: Robb Sherwin (FIRST SHOW EVER!)" and the bit "10 Questions with Robb Sherwin" got cancelled.

But that's kind of funny, right? A guy is announced to be the first guest ever and he is completely marginalized, he has Dig Dug music played as he is on his hands and knees trying to fix his $2 mic and the interview section for him is nixed? I think that's pretty funny.

I thought Adam did a great job as a sidekick. His timing was great and his comments were perfect.

Selfishly, I hope Adam and Ben quit their jobs and just do this all day. Holy shit, Adam mistaking Junior Seau for Tebow was just... well, that was just radio magic.

I thought Robb did a good job, technical issues outstanding. For all the money we've pitched in to get Tdarcos to do things, we should raise $20 get him a new microphone.

If I can get assurances from Don Rogers that I will be on the show regularly, I will get a sub-$50 mic.

Here are my other notes for the show and such:

1) Spontaneous news is better than trying to plan for stuff. When news of Junior Seau's unfortunate suicide broke in the afternoon, all our thoughts about it were witty and fresh. Six hours later it was just awkwardly brought up. So if I ever get on the show again I am going to avoid reading any news until the show is live, and then just react to it naturally.

2) At the beginning I asked Don Rogers for money and then asked him to put his fiancee on. The effect I was going for was, two minutes into his first show, he's hit up for a loan and asked to give control over of his show to a third party by his first guest.

3) My mic got unplugged at one point and I figured out that Volume Control for Windows XP default to putting the fucking thing on "mute" when it's unplugged and plugged in. However, if I yelled with the "mute" checkbox checked, I could KIND of be heard. 15 years of this shit from Microsoft and there are multiple fucking bugs with "Volume Control."

4) I feel that Don Rogers should have Flack on tonight to address the many concerns last night's show brought up. I am preparing 10 Questions for Rob "Flack" O'Hara so that Don Rogers can read them on the air. Or perhaps Don can just ask Flack the ten questions he never got round to asking me. Whichever.

My review of the show as a participant:

Last week, several JC members were asked to call (Skype) in to the Don Rogers show to test things out. On Monday, Ben e-mailed me, asking if I would be around during the show. I assume he did this to other people as well, because when the show kicked off there were six people dialed in.

For the next 20 minutes. everyone who dialed in was met with impunity ("Why are you dialing in? Why is everybody calling me? You're ruining my show!") when everybody ... well I won't speak for everybody but speaking for myself, I thought that's what we were supposed to do. So to get treated like a pestering asshole for doing what I thought we were supposed to be dong to help make Ben's dream come true was ... awkward.

On top of that, everybody got yelled at for dialing in early. "Why is everybody calling me at 8pm instead of 8:30pm?" Well, here's why -- here are the last four tweets discussing the show's time:

@DonRogersShow
May 2, 2012 8-9 PM *PACIFIC*, alright? Jesus. You all know where I live.

@DonRogersShow
Okay: Wednesday, May 2, 2012. 8-9 PM. The Future of Radio begins, with guest @icecreamjonsey. http://thedonrogersshow.com for details.

@DonRogersShow
The show may get postponed thirty minutes, to 8:30 PM.

@DonRogersShow
We'll get it fired back up around 8 PM pacific tonight.

And of course, the website:

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 8-9 PM Pacific

So that's why people thought the show was at 8pm.

Then it was agreed upon that we would all sit out the show on mute. So, and again I would chalk this up to a misunderstanding and not an intentional slight, but based on the e-mails and the tests and all of that, I assumed we would be dialing in to the show. So what I brought to the show was getting hung up on while the Spirit of Radio played.

About an hour into the show my iPad lit up and someone on the call called everybody who had been previously connected. I don't know if Ben hit a button or if someone else did or what happened, but I do know that, to quote Wargames, "Joshua called me."

I should go back and count, but at least half a dozen times, Ben mentioned how people calling in to the show were ruining it. That's why I didn't call back in, because I knew Ben really wanted this to be good and the last thing I wanted to do was soil his show.

I think one thing that might improve the show is to announce a time when you will be taking calls. I was also thinking you could have someone (Robb?) during the show monitoring Twitter, and e-mail box and maybe an IRC channel, so that people could make comments or suggestions using those methods and then Robb could repeat the good ones on the air.

Anyway ... I wasn't mad about not being on the show. I was embarrassed that I misunderstood that I would be on the show and that I told my ~700 Facebook friends and ~300 Twitter followers that I would be. And I felt stupid for dialing in because I thought I was supposed to dial in and then was told that we were ruining the show for dialing in. So I think for future potential callers, you should more clearly explain what you want people to do. That way the folks here at JC can give you what you want and be seen as assets rather than hindrances.

Thank you both for your feedback.

Well, what is your TAKE on our feedback, Don?

Here is my take on your feedback.

Go here: http://thedonrogersshow.com/050212-show.mp3

...and listen to 52:08 to 52:14.

That's my TAKE on your feedback.

Flack wrote:Here's my review of the show from a listener's perspective.

The show begins with 18 1/2 minutes of Skype troubleshooting and Ben getting upset at people for dialing in.

It could be worse, it could be 18 1/2 minutes of dead air. That first time it happened that 18 1/2 minute gap became very famous.

Lest anyone forget, and it's on the tape of the "secret test" with me and Jonsey (and sorry I kept calling you "John-say" instead of "Jones-ay", it's how I thought it was pronounced), where Don specifically invited me to call in at the original time the show started, 11pm EDT, and requested me to do so.

Flack wrote:If it were me, I would cut the first 20 minutes off the show and post them separately. I can't imagine the average listener getting through that part and making it to the show.

I agree, technical glitches of more than say 30 seconds should be deleted. Less than that, they can be funny.

Flack wrote:People's voices sound ok at 96k. Music sounds terrible at 96k. From 18:30 for almost 4 minutes we hear a scratchy song that nobody knows and is not named. (Correction: the song and artist are named at 65 minutes into the show.) At around 22:30 the Rush into kicks in. It sounds great.

On the mic, Ben sounds very natural. He sounds like he's been doing this for a long time.

Absolutely, he sounds better on audio than I do. I sound terrible.

[ PORTION DELETED ]

Flack wrote:Overall I thought it was a good first effort. I think a little bit of streamlining it will get better.

I think he did great. I have a suggestion on something he can do to make things better and I have a story about why I think the suggestion works.

At one place I had a job where we were moving everyone from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. It was my job to copy the system image onto each machine which had all the standard software that everyone was issued, which was not the same as the image on the machine, so I had to wipe it and install the replacement image. Then, for a specific user, I had to install any custom software they had, log into the particular Novell server with their user name and password so it would be automatically set, set their CC:MAIL address, and other things.

I knew how to do it, and after I'd done it about ten times, I created a checklist. Which helped because at one point I was sometimes doing two and three machines a day. (Feeding diskettes can be done on several machines). So I would go down the checklist I created, and when I ran out of items it went to the other guy in the office, John, who, while the person was out getting training on Windows 95 and away from their desk, would remove the user's computer from their desk, copy the local files and such off their computer onto the network, would take the computer I'd set up for them, copy the user's files back from the server, then return the new machine in place of their old one, hook it up and when the person came back from training, they had a brand new Windows 95 machine with all the settings exactly as they had left their original machine. He'd put their old computer in storage for two weeks in case someone noticed a file was missing, before wiping the hard drive.

The result was that John and I installed 65 machines perfectly, and exactly one came back because the customer messed up the settings on it after we delivered it. Not one had an error in anything we did.

The other team with two guys, in the same period of time, installed 5 machines and every single one they did came back because something was wrong.

So the motto of this story was, by using a checklist I never missed anything.

So, given the above story, I seriously recommend that you create a checklist or a script, and stick to it. Give potential time limits and if you're running over on something else so that something on the checklist might not get done, cut whatever is happening right then and there so you can get it all done.

I'd rather wait to respond to some of these criticisms until the next show, but I really gotta say this, because I can't believe that NOBODY seems to understand this:

The first 18 and a half minutes were NOT PART OF THE SHOW. You can tell this because I say it several times, the show hasn't even started yet. IT HASN'T STARTED YET.

IT STARTED WHEN THE TING TINGS STARTED.

To try to make this as clear as possible, I've broken up the mp3 on the website. You can now download the SHOW separately from the PRE-SHOW.

Got it?