Thinking about starting a podcast

I've been thinking lately about starting a podcast. I was inspired by Kyle Hendricks who has the AK47 podcast with his buddy, Aaron. But more than that, I've been thinking that doing a podcast could help me improve my ability to speak. Speaking has always been a bit of a struggle, but it seems to be getting worse with age. I've developed George Bush Syndrome where I can barely get through a sentence without stumbling over my words, or saying the wrong thing, or not being able to think of a word. Listening to my interview with Kyle was really cringeworthy because of the awful speech patterns I noticed. For example, I kept saying. . .

* anything like that
* and stuff (like that)
* you know
* or something like that
* Kind of
* Kind of a
* Kind of like

At one point, I was talking about how in face to face conversations, people aren't going to sit through a 30 minute explanation of an argument without continuously interrupting you. You have to go back and forth and weave your argument into the conversation. I wanted to say that people are unwilling to listen to you monologue, but I couldn't think of the word, "monologue," so I said, "pontificate." That happens to me all the time where I can't think of a word, so I'll find a substitute. I'm kind of like Porky Pig (even stuttering sometimes) except that many times the substitute word is just wrong and doesn't express what I meant to say.

Also, I sounded like I had a sock in my mouth or sand in my throat. I listened to the other interviews Kyle did, and everybody else seemed to speak clearly and smoothly, and they had pleasant voices. I hate my voice!

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I'd sometimes make a cassette recording of me talking, and send that to people in lieu of a letter. For the most part, those went pretty well, I think, and I enjoyed doing them. Every now and then, there'd be an awkward pause where I'd have to gather my thoughts, and I'd use those pauses to play a song on the guitar. There's no way I could do that now. I just can't speak smoothly enough.

My inability to speak has even made ordinary conversation difficult. I struggle so much trying to find words and trying to get through a sentence smoothly that it's very hard to keep my train of thought. Shooting the breeze with people shouldn't be so hard! I suspect a lot of my struggle isn't even noticeable to other people. For example, when I can't find a word I want to use, I may pause briefly, but I'll quickly plug in a substitute if it doesn't come to me right away. The substitute may not capture what I was trying to say as well, but the other person can't know that because they can't read my mind.

I fully expect my podcast to be horrible in the beginning, but I'm hoping that with practice it will become easier, and this will bleed over into my personal life.

The question now is what my podcast should be about. Ideally, it would be an interview type podcast. I did some YouTube interviews with the fine folks over at debate.org one time, and those went really well. The only problem is that I doubt I'd be able to get a steady stream of people to interview. Plus, it's hard to schedule interviews with people. That's why I stopped doing it at debate.org. As some of you might remember, I also tried vlogging a long time ago, but I quit because I didn't think it went well.

I have two other ideas. They're not terribly original. One of them is to do a course on apologetics. My audience would be other Christians. That could probably last a while.

Another idea is to have a broader audience, and give an over all defense of Christianity. This would be aimed both at Christians and at non-Christians. It would be sort of like a book one might write in defense of Christianity except it would be oral. I've been working on a book for a while, but it's hard to motivate myself to write in it. This could help. The only draw back is that I wouldn't be able to have footnotes. I'd have outlines to go by, and probably some notes, but I'd mostly be talking off the top of my head. This podcast probably wouldn't last as long as the one on apologetics since it would be more focused.

Neither of these podcasts would be perpetual. Eventually, I'd get through all the information I had, and I'd be done. That's the way I would want it to be. But who knows? If I actually got good at it, I might enjoy it, in which case I may either start a different podcast or find an excuse for the present one to continue.

It's unlikely that I'll announce new episodes here, though. I'd be too self-conscious about it. I'll probably just post them on Anchor (and wherever else Anchor posts them), and let random strangers listen to it who can't leave comments and make me too self-conscious.

If this doesn't work, I suppose I could always get a speech therapist.