Audio Chimera

In Academia and Higher Ed, you expect to jump through a series of hoops when interviewing for a position. An interview can involve multiple days, many discussions, and several meals (and if you are lucky, the food is good at least). Some of my interviews left me checking right and left for Rod Serling to see if he was about to narrate the experience.

I wrote much of this podcast at a conference in Las Vegas, which was held at a major casino resort hotel. While there, my toilet backed up twice in my hotel room—you know, when you pull a handle in Vegas you expect to win, but for me, with every flush, well, that was where the real gambling happened. And that's the way it is with a lot of travel--you throw the dice and hope for the best!

When people say TMI, they generally mean, “too much information!” But when I hear that phrase I flash back to March 1979. I remember vividly hearing the fear in a woman's voice on the phone, asking if I thought she should evacuate the area and take her baby to safety. We'd received no orders to evacuate but how could I, a young DJ, tell her to just sit tight if she was so panicked?

In my life I have spent many hours listening to music, as many of us have. My experiences began with an old Japanese-made AM transistor radio (that still works!) and continue in the digital realm--though I still have my original vinyl. Can't see surrendering them just yet!

The easiest way to put it is, "I do believe in ghosts!" I have experienced strange sensations in various locations that suggests that spirits do exist and can remain or haunt a place. But none of my pre-disposed beliefs prepared me for the moment when someone seemed to be possessed by an evil spirit right in front of me!

It turns out, my affinity for the Victorian era fed into a desire to get into Steampunk. And then I even created my own costume, and even entered my first costume contest at the age of 59. And the 10 year-old boy who lives inside me? He tried to stop me. Listen in and find out if he succeeded.

People in York, PA still talk about those days. The unrest happening around the country came to us. Fires, shooting, National Guard...how quickly a place can devolve into a war zone. And for what--ridiculous outmoded ideas that we are somehow so different. Let's take another, closer, better look at others.

I attended the University of California, Berkeley for my PhD. Besides a solid education (and some real academic cred), I retained many memories of my time there--street people, social protests, and wild times.

Yes, Thom McAn and the Pneumatic Tubes sounds like a band. What it was, however, was a fun workday. This is what happens when the manager of a shoe store decided to take a young employee in a tour of the building to check out the old pneumatic tube system. And no, that's not a euphemism. That's exactly what happened.

Coffee beans and human beans were meant to be the best of friends! While I had long flirted with the effects of caffeine in soft drinks, it wasn't until coffee that I truly solidified my relationship with the Bean. Note that I take my title from Stanislavsky's work, "My Life in Art," but what life is there without caffeine??