Tales from the "LiberryCAST"

(Welcome to Best Of Week. As Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

Summer Reading, oh how it burns!

Yes, it's the time of year when snot-nosed crumb-crunchers descend upon the "liberry" to craft crafts, hear stories, fill out reading logs and create chaos. That is, if their parents can manage to get them signed up to begin with.

And who is the queen of Summer Reading Chaos? Why our old nemesis, Little Kayla, of course.

(This episode also includes a cameo by Parka as well as one by his shag carpet of torso hair.)

(Welcome to Best Of Week. As Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

From the cast of 16 And Pregnant to the Octomom, bad moms are in the news and are seemingly more common than ever before. And while the majority of the moms who I knew at the "liberry" were awesome, there were a handful whose parenting skills I at least had to question, when not being actively driven nuts by the ladies themselves. Welcome to the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Bad Mother's Day Special.

(Welcome to Best Of Week as Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Theatre is proud to present, the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Christmas Special: "A Christmas Carol Satan."

Hark back to a time and possible alternate reality where Mrs. Carol Satan remained the Nastiest Patron Ever and we the "liberry" staff became bloodthirsty dispensers of "liberry" justice. This dispensed with, the Ghost of Carol Satan and her other newly and rapidly growing number of deceased Rogue Patron brethren must band together to save the soul of the next rogue in line for a killin', before their eternity becomes any more hellish.

(Welcome to Best Of Week. As Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

When I was first planning this podcast, there were two entries from the original Tales from the "Liberry" blog that I knew I had to adapt. The first you can hear as the first episode. The next is this episode.

For all the entries I wrote in my "Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries" series, only a few were labeled as paraphrased and none were outright fiction.... well, except for one. I got pissed off at a certain set of real circumstances one day and started writing unreal dialogue.

So I now present Non-Actual Conversations Not Heard in Actual Libraries #74--a completely fictional conversation between a number of real rogue patrons, inspired by actual events if not actual words.

(Welcome to Best Of Week as Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

When one works in a library, one hears a lot of conversations. Often they arrive in person, often by phone and sometimes by second hand retellings of tales from fellow employees. When I heard a good one, I tried to write it down for use on the blog. Sometimes they were funny. Other times just odd. And occasionally they were downright terrifying. These are a few of my favorites.

(Guest starring Rogue Patrons: Mrs. Carol Satan and Barbara Turdmurkle)

(Welcome to Best Of Week as Tales from the "LiberryCAST" rockets toward its final episode, this is my chance to have a look back at some of my favorite episodes from this podcast adaptation of favorite blog entries from Tales from the "Liberry.")

The second episode of the LiberryCAST features a classic story of both poor customer service and insane customer behavior. It also marks the debut appearance of long time "Liberry" Rogue Barbara Turdmurkle on the podcast.

Okay, so way back in Season 1 Episode 16 of this podcast, I did an episode called Stanky Patrons and Other Dusty Turds. In that, I introduced the concept of the woefully stinky patrons we often had to deal with at my "liberry" and it’s the first appearance of their king, Mr. Stanky. And because the entry I was adapting in it ended with a quote about stinky patrons, originally penned by my friend and former library worker Glen B, I decided to call Glen up and have him read his own damn quote. And afterward, we'd just shoot the shit for a while since we don't get to very often.

Of the hour and two minutes we talked, I wound up only using 27 minutes for the podcast, which was mainly where the library talk happened. But I threatened that one day I would release the rest of it because it too was good stuff. Today is that day.

If you've already heard Episode 16, the first 27 minutes will seem awfully familiar (though with a few DVD extra changes from the original aired version, such as the first draft of my awkward and line-flubby reading of the entry). The rest has only been lightly edited. If you haven't heard Episode 16, don't bother going back for it cause it's all contained herein.

Over the two years that I've been adapting entries from the Tales from the "Liberry" blog, there have been occasions when I've recorded entries for an episode and then removed them during editing. Sometimes this was for purposes of keeping an episode below a certain length; sometimes because another entry in the same episode made basically the same point; sometimes because the entry just wasn't funny or satisfying to begin with; and sometimes because the sound quality of the recorded file turned out to be abominable. Most of the time, I deleted those lost files. But once in a while, I saved them for a rainy day, thinking I might one day need a B-Sides episode I could quickly throw together in case I needed a week off. (Unlike last week, which I just took off with no substitutions.)

This week's special episode presents a few of those saved entries, warts and all. Interspersed between them, however, are a few tales featuring a member of the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery who somehow never really made it into an episode of the podcast. Which is a tragedy, because he was the very first Rogue Patron I ever mentioned in the blog itself. And then there's the matter of his secret identity.

For the penultimate episode of this podcast, I chose to tell some stories `bout my goodly wife. Unfortunately, because I recorded this particular episode, like, a month and a half ago, I've been doing callbacks to the references in it not realizing I hadn't made them yet. Among these references were the medical mission trip to Central America we both took in the mid oughts, and a brain tumor scare. One of those stories gets told this week. But several episodes back I also referred to the first of the rare occasions when I was able to actually surprise my wife with a gift on one of her major days. That story appears here as well. And, to wrap things up, I have a never-before-blogged-or-really-told tale from our time on the aforementioned mission trip--a story that involves giant condoms.

(A BONUS REPOST IN HONOR OF A DUMBASS THING I'VE DONE THIS WEEK.)

I've often maintained that if a person is going to go around pointing fingers at the foibles of others (or recording podcasts adapting blog entries about the foibles of others), it's only fair for that person to occasionally point a few at some of their own. I did this pretty frequently during the course of writing Tales from the "Liberry" and even devoted an entire week to it.

Adapted here are a few entries from that week, as well as dumbass things I did beyond it. Guest stars include Mr. Stanky, Mr. Perfect, my moms-in-law, and, unfortunately, my junk.