Podcast 488

Sick Of Politics. Yeah. Sorry. Sick Of Politics. I’m not the only one. When it’s above 70 degrees and sunny for an entire weekend in the upper midwest, no one wants to talk about whether or not the delegate selection process in Georgia and Colorado is messed up. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, people headed up to the lake to put the dock in, raked their lawns, washed their cars, sat on the deck blinking in the sun, and were amazed, tantalized and thrilled with late May weather in Mid April. I certainly remember mid April tax return mailings when it was snowing, or 30 degrees and raining. Aside from the ‘bring on more of this global warming’ jokes, it is pretty amazing to be able to get a sunburn around here at this time of year. Meanwhile, the cable news jockeys continue to drone away about what this one said about that one, whether the primary process should be scrapped for something else – don’t ask – and how the byzantine ‘state delegate selection process’ is flawed, as though anyone ever gave a damn before this ridiculous election cycle. God! Bring back the smoke filled rooms, cigar chomping, pinkie ring wearing, bourbon drinking ‘operators’. What would happen if we woke up tomorrow and suddenly there wasn’t anymore 24 hour cable news, talk radio, Facebook or Twitter? What would we think about? Is it possible we might discover what we have been thinking about below the crust of all this 24 hour news cycle generated angst and frustration? How would that sit with you? What do you think about when you’re not receiving or transmitting? A late night live podcast from the deck of the broadcast bunker, complete with planes, sirens and a very large mosquito. Mosquito’s already? And so it begins. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

Podcast 484

The Fort. Boys need independence and Freedom. This is the story of my quest for independence and freedom in the form of my own ‘fort’. The Fort. A place where I could go with my friends. To dream. To Talk. To Plan. You know, boy stuff. As adults we spend a lot of time thinking about what we want, or need, or those moments in life when we could have been better, the mistakes we’ve made as well as the hard won victories. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t take much to experience true bliss. It’s also a story of manifesting the things we desire most in our lives. The story of an stubbornly independent boy, with this idea of a ‘fort’, who spent months scavenging lumber from all over town, and started building without any idea of where he was going or how to get there. And, a story about a father who did not share the same temperament as his son. A father who’s personality was introverted, a man who valued action over words. A story of a father and son who didn’t have very much in common but came together one summer to build something great; The coolest fort in town, by far. Dreams and acting individually can get you pretty far down the road, but that summer my father taught me how to accept help, how to work together, to create something far more than I could have by myself. It’s also the story of how that perfect moment fades as we reach adolescence. Sometimes when we look back, we realize that there was a perfect moment back there when we had much more than we realized at the time. Then again, maybe I did realize it. Sponsored by Brush Studio at The West End in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota and by Hydrus.

Podcast 479

Midnight Moonlight Talk. Spring is here. A lunar eclipse is hours away, so the time has come for a midnight walk and talk in the full moon light. The rules of the walk and talk are, no prep, no notes, just walk and talk. That’s the agenda for Midnight Moonlight Talk. The origins of the ‘walk and talk’ are probably the walks with my grandfather and grandmother back in Ohio on hot summer nights when I was a little kid. We talked about everything on those walks. I learned a lot, and became a night-owl. After the mega-cast about media in Podcast 478, I promised some discussion about coping. Given that there is no prep for this podcast, listeners get a glimpse in how we prepped for shows back at KSTP around 2000, how that has changed, and how the media has changed. How do you cope with the onslaught of highly partisan, snark-media these days? You start by cutting the cable, keeping your WIFI so you can watch what you want, when you want it, and you don’t have a constant, twenty-four-seven audio track of people telling you what to think. Every now and then a news cleanse is necessary. If you’re reading books, or newspapers you’ll find that your analysis will actually get better, because your powers of discernment will improve. Why? Because you’re actually reading the news rather than skimming, and you’ll start to recognize how much of today’s news is gleaned from other websites and rewritten. Getting out and doing whatever it is that you do outside, and perhaps some kind of exercise that teaches you how to breathe — martial arts, CrossFit or Yoga — or even just walking whenever you can, clears your head and deglazes all that nonsense. It doesn’t hurt to stand outside, drink a cup of coffee (or whatever it is you drink) and take in the night air and the moon on an early spring night. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul, Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate and X Government Cars.