Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast that over the years has made its into my listening routine off and on, and it got me thinking. The show is called “Yeast Radio”, and it is hosted by a guy named Richard Bluestein, who, when podcasting, goes by the alter ego “Madge Weinstein”. When I first started listening to podcasts, Yeast Radio was one of the first that made an impact on me. Largely, this was because the content was so completely tasteless, anti-mainstream, often aimless, and generally the opposite of what one finds on the radio, that it was a breath of fresh air to me. Also -- the fact that the host was a gay man who was masquerading as a lesbian, while at the same time, being as provocative and offensively free-spirited as his warped sensibilities could take him made it very appealing to me.

    Unless you are really into podcasting, it is likely that you do not know about the company called Podshow (now called “Mevio”). Without going into too much depth, I’ll just say that Podshow was a company set up by an old MTV VJ, named Adam Curry (who, in my opinion, is very L.A. -- even though he lives in the UK -- in all of the worst of ways). Podshow went around and hired most of the better-known podcasters at the time, which basically diluted a significant amount of my interest in their shows. One of the things I really like about podcasting is the independent spirit of it. Almost without fail, podcasters who have ended up making a living off of their work by being hired by an external entity lose a bit of their edge (or, at least that is my perception). No matter how free their employer says they can be, something changes. In the case of Podshow, it is clear from little bits that I have heard from other podcasters shows who were on the payroll of that company, there was definitely a lot of self-censorship going on. I stopped listening to Yeast Radio for the entire time that it was on the Podshow network. As soon as I found out that Podshow laid off all of their people, I instantly started listening to the show again. So -- the thing that spurred this writing, is that after being laid off, Richard has been looking for work, generally to no avail. He attributes this largely to the fact that potential employers have been having adverse reactions to his show, and are chased away. It got me to thinking about my show, because, as I’ve commented on innumerable times, it could end up as a similar career-limiting move at some point in the future. The way I approached it up to now (and will likely continue to approach it) is that the most important thing to me is being able to create freely. If being a giant inappropriate weirdo in a public forum ends up limiting my potential career outlets, then so be it. In the case of Richard, it’s really unfortunate that he is having difficulty getting creative-oriented work due to his previous creative-oriented output. Admittedly, whether he likes it or not, his show is misogynist and racist, as well as a number of other “-ists”. His take on that, is that his show is merely satire. I think that is a bit of a copout. He has said on numerous occasions, that his show is a form of therapy for him, which I can certainly relate to. He freely admits that he (like so many artists and intellectuals tend to) has wrestled with some pretty intense psychological demons over the span of his life, and for him to just disregard any critical analysis of his content that is unpalatable presupposes that he has the constant presence of mind to be completely aware of what is coming out of his mouth at any given moment. While I am fully accepting of the notion that his intent is that of satire, there is clearly something else that comes out during his performance of Madge. In many ways, I see him in a similar place to Robert Crumb, who just unchained his id and lets it flow forth, all caution be damned. I do a bit of a similar thing in my show. As a matter of fact, Yeast Radio influenced my show in a number of ways. The alter-ego that I put forth in my show—though having the same name as I go by in real life—is a two-dimensional caricature. I unchain my craziest, most manic self and let it loose. It is liberating to do, and once I get fully swept away, it’s kind of like surfing.

    This brings me to a topic that I’ve thought a bit about over the years: a number of the podcasts that I listen to are hosted by individuals who in real life seem to clearly be anti-racist, yet who have shows whose tones tend towards a certain degree of racism. Now, bear in mind that I’m not saying that I think their shows should be different. I listen to them because I find them to be of value, and I think that it is the purview of artists to be provocative, and to throw caution to the wind, even though it carries with it an inherent risk.  I like risky stuff. I don’t think the world should be safe, and while I do think that there is something to be said for a certain modicum of rational, prudent forethought, I think that unchained, exuberant creativity isn’t important for us to let free upon the world, even though, it carries with it a potential for destruction. I just wish that the podcasters that I listen to, when they get confronted with accusations of racism, misogyny, etc., would just own up to the fact that when one lets one’s creative JuJu free to flap around in the wind, it just might well end up producing something that, even though the intention is satire, might still carry with it some unintended destructive consequences. This means to me, that though the individual might truly be anti-racist (since just about everybody has a certain degree of racism buried within), racism (as well as other ugly, potentially damaging forces) is likely to manifest when one is unchaining the creative impulse. Merely saying that one is engaging in satire is somewhat of a copout, since it is a way of washing one’s hands of responsibility for what one produces. I don’t think that these podcasters should change anything they produce, as much as take ownership and responsibility for what comes out of them. But -- there is always the chance that I am missing something here. Perhaps I am just full of shit. Who knows?

    Ultimately, what I’m getting down to, is the issue  that so many people are encountering nowadays with the Internet (and that so many people have written so much about already). When you put something online, you are just setting it free out into the world to do what it will.  That is what art is all about. Art is not safe, and while everything I do online does not constitute “art”, I do not have a clear separation in my life between what is my art and what is not. Everything feeds into everything else. Also -- I am not under some sort of false impression that anyone is even aware of the stuff that I put online. While I know that there are a handful of people that are, I generally assume that a maximum of 3-5 people are likely at any given time to be aware that I have any sort of web presence at all. If I end up manifesting the type of career that I hope to, that is likely to change, and then I suppose at that point I will get to see what sort of fallout, if any, comes from putting so much out into the ether...  If it has negative consequences, at least that will be more fodder for the production of new material.