Podcast 426

How Media Has Changed. I’m about to go to my high school reunion, but for me, it’s a different kind of high school reunion. At over a thousand in my graduating class, it was way to big and impersonal for a full reunion. So, we’re having a reunion of graduates of the school’s ‘radio lab’ program, which included the high school radio station, where the ‘radio bug’ first bit. In a mid fall relaxed conversation on the deck with a fire, on a warm midnight, it’s time to talk about how television and radio have changed over the years giving way to social media, time shifting, video games, You Tube, cable only series and now serial dramas, really produced exclusively for viewing on line, or on specific sites. We used to have a collective experience — watching the same shows when they came on or watching events as they unfolded in real time. Those shared societal experiences don’t happen very often these days, aside from sporting events or monolithic breaking news stories. We do have collective experiences, but they happen at different times. What are you watching these days? Dramas? News? Comedy? Documentaries? Most people aren’t watching commercials anymore, taking the feed direct from the line, but they’re time shifting, watching more TV, consuming more information, but in a different way. How have opportunities to message the public changes. Besides, its fun sometimes to talk about what we’re watching. What is media? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Eric and Erum Lucero of Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate.

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Podcast 400

Scoutmaster Tribute. Live from North Central Wisconsin, best friends who grew up together pay tribute to a father to one, and a scoutmaster to the other. Both friends are eccentric enough, as was the father and scoutmaster. Their conversation takes place at a rural hideaway built with anything that could be scrounged, or used. The setting sparks a conversation about what they learned in scouts. In ‘Stand By Me’ Stephen King’s narrator says that the friendship’s he forged around twelve or thirteen were the strongest of his life, that he never had friends like that again, and wondered if anybody does. Through thick and thin, on and off through the years two friendships have been the most important to me, largely because of our experiences camping with the Boy Scouts, and for me, especially because of our scoutmaster, who also happened to be my best friend’s dad. Sure he was eccentric, but he taught us all so many great lessons. Later he built a complex of crazy quilt cabins — where this podcast was recorded — which are packed with every kind of thing you can imagine, from every kind of era, and who knows where he got most of them. He never said no to anyone who offered something they didn’t want anymore — and most of that stuff is up in Wisconsin. Given the current situation, all commentary on politics these days sounds like an echo chamber. It’s nice to sit outside on a classic hot summer day in the middle of nowhere in North Central Wisconsin, and talk about things that are, or were real. Friendships that last a lifetime, friends who are as much family as they are friends, experiences we’ll never forget, and people we met over the years who were real characters. After all, aren’t friendship and family the most important things anyway. Sponsored by X Government Cars.

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Podcast 358

Back In The Bunker. Another special announcement concerning more distribution of the The Bob Davis Podcasts. Plus, a discussion of what it’s like to be back in the studio after weeks on the road in the Mobile Podcast Command Unit. This weekend – in podcast time – is Earth Day, 2015. It is, essentially, a secular, if not pagan Easter; a celebration of mother earth and spring, with political overtones. In truth, environmentalism has become a religion for some. Some environmental policy is good, and some — most of it — has been not so good. We start with California’s water problem, which could be solved with desalinization, but the state is spending billions more on a bullet train to nowhere. Desalinization actually costs less than the bullet train. Meanwhile Californians are talking about billions of gallons of fresh water poured into San Francisco Bay to save the Smelt Fish. Federal and State Governments in the US offer thousands of dollars in subsidies and tax credits if consumers buy electric cars. When gas was more expensive some calculated it would take five years to make up the difference in costs for a gas versus electric car. Now that gas prices have plunged it will take even longer. What are consumers doing? They are trading their electric cars in on SUV’s at the highest rate in years. Despite the prediction of the President that there would be millions of electric cars on the road by the end of his presidency. Continuing along the lines of government engineering. We’ve been seeing a lot of policy devoted to subsidized growth in major cities to create ‘Hipster Havens’ where the ‘creative class’ will collaborate and create thousands of new jobs. Suddenly though, not only are millennials starting to move into first ring suburbs, but exurbs are starting to grow again as well. Pretty hard to raise your baby in Hipster Heaven. This podcast also includes a list of 13 predictions, on Earth Day, that sounded really ominous in 1970, but which ended up being hopelessly wrong, as a reminder that just because ‘scientists agree’ doesn’t always mean you can take it to the bank. Do you think buying food at the farmer’s market — another feature of every Hipster Heaven — helps the environment. A new study says maybe not. Find out why. Finally, the media has discovered that the economy just isn’t growing fast enough. Where is the consumer? If the media isn’t spreading disinformation in its quest to focus on personalities and not issues for the presidential cycle of 2016 (which hasn’t even started yet) it’s spreading disinformation about the ‘growing’, ‘booming’ and ‘recovering’ economy. It’s just that the rosy scenario story line isn’t materializing. What might people think about the economy as an issue, heading into 2016. Will there be an economic crisis, and how will that impact the presidential race? Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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