Finnegan’s Wake in a Year
And other rejected podcast ideas
Here at Dad News Network, after a grueling day of writing music and movie commentary, tending to my state in life as a husband and father, and making sure to read all of the news that Geoffrey posts on the other side of this site, I am often asked, “When will you launch a podcast?” To be clear, I was asked this once–but I think of it often.
Why should we be the only fifty-something husbands and fathers without a podcast? DNN is largely niche-resistant, willing to cover hard news, soft news, film, music, parenting, finance, and the like. Our niche is no niche which drives our marketing team bananas (sorry, marketing team–but Get Back to Work!). A podcast needs to be about something. A thoughtful conversation about any topic can lead many different directions, but we need a very good place to start–we need to start at the very beginning–of something.
With that in mind, I have begun the important work of rejecting beginnings for that podcast. Here are four of those ideas:
Finnegan’s Wake in a Year
Attempting to ride the coattails of Father Mike Schmitz most-popular-podcast-on-earth, The Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, Geoffrey and I would delve into James Joyce’s impenetrable text. No one ever read Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” and thought, “I wish someone would write a 400 page novel like this.” If you did, then Finnegan’s Wake is for you. Joyce claims that he wrote Finnegan’s Wake in 17 years–and that it should take you at least that long to read it. It appears to be written in his own language.
Also, the last words of the book appear to lead into the first, suggesting the novel doesn’t end but begins again, every time. For podcast purposes, this would make it easy to go from season one to season two of the podcast without missing a beat.
[from the end] A way a lone a last a loved along the
[from the beginning] riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
(Yes, the “last word” of the “novel” is “the”). Having read only the first and last pages of the book, I am reminded of a friend of mine who went to film school in New York. Running into him years later, I asked what kind of things he was working on, expecting to learn if he was making suspense films, or music videos, or commercials. “I am really focused on manipulating the raw video signal.” After a few more questions, the nature of his project became clear. Static. He was producing actual static. On purpose. His interest in the technical “source” of his art—along with some terrible instruction—had so consumed him that he found interest in dancing dots of light and dark on a screen broadcasting no information at all. Finnegan’s Wake seems to be approaching that kind of fascination with the raw elements of literature, words nearly detached from the attempt to convey meaning—free jazz on the page. Maybe a never-ending podcast would be the way to start to understand it.
Opposites Day–A Weekly Football Betting Preview
One thing is clear in the podcast market. There is a shortage of shows aimed at the sports betting public. This podcast would seek to capitalize on the fact that multiplying negatives results is a positive. We would multiply our ignorance of and aversion to online betting to create the positive of this podcast. It would seek to fill the need for a totally uninformed sports betting information that anyone could reliably ignore—or do the opposite of. We could fill a very real need by producing the least useful guide to weekly football—and other sports—betting options.
The Most Annoying Noises in The World
Many podcasts achieve popular status simply due to their sound quality. Classic radio voices intoning minimally relevant information can achieve significant audiences in the traditional podcast markets. But that’s the old school. We are the new school. This podcast would be a compendium of annoying noises, arranged without an order and without any commentary at all. Some noises might drone on for the entire sixty minutes of the show (less advertising time, of course), while others would be so short, sharp, and loud that they would shock drivers of nearby cars. Still others would be subtle and distant, leading many listeners to search under chairs and behind doors to find to source of the sound only to realize it is a smoke alarm that needs a new battery in the basement. Each season would feature a theme, but one so obscure that listeners will only learn of the theme at the end of the year when Geoffrey and I alternately announce it with our only voice recording for that season. For example, the word at the end of season three would be “dentistry.”
Academic Fitness
This podcast would provide tips on using old academic books as a way to improve your overall wellness regime (you have an overall wellness regime, right?). Previously thought of as “ponderous works to ponder,” the great books can also be lifted up and then put back down again, which, we are told, is exercise. Also, due to the high quality manufacturing process used at the time, many old books can be ground into a fine powder, mixed with eggs and flour to form a nutritive paste, or the powder can be soaked in grain alcohol and turned into a powerful tincture that no scientist would dare to test, but that we would promote (but not use ourselves) for a small fee. The alt-academic-fitness-health space would never be the same.
One thing is clear. We have considerable work to do before we arrive at the very good place to start our podcast. If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments.