Okay, so it's Thursday, and on Thursdays, we sometimes, we're supposed to like all the time, but we just kind of do it sometimes, talk about podcasting. And that's kind of an important topic today because I want to talk about this podcast and the future of this podcast, if it has one. Let's... I need your help.
Let's talk about it. And here we go. Welcome to The Daily Grateful. I am Michael Cross, and this is my podcast.
Let's see, five days a week, so it's Thursday, and we're going to talk about podcasting, in particular, this podcast, The Daily Grateful with Michael Cross, that's me. And why did I want to do this podcast? I just wanted to do this podcast because I wanted to spread gratitude. I wanted to talk about, you know, doing things that make you happy, that make your heart sing, that I wanted to tell stories.
I wanted to do all that in short little spurts, seven to 12 minutes. I think I did an 18-minute podcast here one day because I just got on a roll and I didn't stop. And it's my podcast. I'm allowed to do that.
And this is all wonderful, except for one thing. I started looking at analytics. Oh, no. Analytics.
Yeah. I used to do a podcast called Home and Garden Radio or Ask the Garden Geek. And what that was, was I used to do that as a radio show, a nationally syndicated radio show for a... In the 90s, it was like really big.
Okay. It was like hot stuff in the 90s. And then radio changed and consolidation happened and the radio network I went for, I worked for initially disappeared. And I went to work for another network that was owned by a gentleman by the name of Chuck Harter.
Just a wonderful guy. Radio show took off there, but then Chuck kind of disappeared. He sold the network. By the way, this is the second time he sold a network.
Every time Chuck would sell a network, the new owners would immediately fire him. And everything would just go to hell in a handbasket in no time. And that's exactly what happened. Both times.
Both times. I worked for the Sun Radio Network. He sold it and they got rid of him. And then he started the People's Radio Network.
And I left the Sun Radio Network and went to the People's Radio Network because I was loyal to Chuck. And the show just took off. It just took off. Then I don't know why.
Maybe he did it for the money. I don't know. I wish I had the inside scoop, but they broadcast out of the Telford Hotel in White Springs, Florida. It was a beautiful old hotel that he went in and refurbished.
Just made it wonderful. I had a suite up there that I could stay in whenever I went up to do the show live from there. It was very wonderful. Nice.
And then one day at a restaurant, and I would eat dinner with Chuck and his wife and his mom would come over. She had a suite there on the first floor and we would all eat dinner and it was just wonderful. Chuck's wife, Diane, was a nice lady who didn't like me. And, but that's okay.
I liked her. She didn't like me. You want to know why she didn't like me? I'll tell you why she didn't like me.
Because she didn't quite get it, but Chuck knew how to use me well. He would use me to get information out that he didn't want to put out. So I would get an order from one of the big wops there, you know, that worked under Chuck saying, do not talk about this. And I have this mental illness on radio.
It's just a mental illness. As soon as you told me, especially if you told me just as I was getting ready to go on the radio, not to talk about something, I immediately talked about it. And Chuck loved that because he could get all kinds of information that he wanted to get out through me and make it look like I was in trouble for doing it. And Diane didn't quite get that, so she was not happy with me.
And Chuck broadcast from a studio that was in the lobby of the Telford Hotel. And because Chuck was paranoid, and just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. He had bulletproof glass put on there. And, you know, and he didn't broadcast to the world that he had bulletproof glass put on there, but we all knew that he had bulletproof glass put on there.
And I didn't broadcast from that studio. I broadcast from a studio that was in the presidential dining room, which was really a bar that had the bar from the original Six Gun Territory Florida attraction in it, and a little tiny room behind that bar that had an air conditioner that used to shoot out like spouts and everything. And I had, well, I made up, that I had double bulletproof glass in my studio. And it wasn't just my studio.
Anybody who wasn't Chuck had to use that studio when they were up there. And the board ops were on the other side of the double bulletproof glass. And I used to talk about the double bulletproof glass. And I let it out that Chuck had bulletproof glass and my contract stated, you know, that I had double bulletproof glass.
I had a crappy studio, but it had double bulletproof glass. And it was funny. Everybody loved it. Chuck loved it.
Diane did not like it. But anyway, it was okay. It all worked out in the end. Well, it didn't work out in the end because Chuck sold the radio network to the United Auto Workers.
Why the hell did he do that? I guess for a bunch of money. And as soon as he sold it to the United Auto Workers, they fired him. I mean, instantly, just like that.
Boom, goes the dynamite. Chuck's out the door. He's gone. And he appeared on the Art Bell show to talk about it.
It was a great, great radio show that he appeared with Art Bell talking about that. And I was left there and all of a sudden I got the job of being fill in guy. There was another guy there that went by the name of Joel Vincent, who had a show at night. Joel was a great guy.
His name was Joel Bush. Just a wonderful guy. He's no longer with us now. But just a wonderful, wonderful guy.
And they brought in a guy that was now the new boss and the new program director. And his name was Jay Clifford Curly. And he had no radio experience whatsoever at all, but he thought he knew stuff. And he had a Cadillac convertible that he was very proud of that he would drive around White Springs.
And he would go into, you know, while while Joel was doing a show, he would get into his headphones and say, I don't want you to talk about this. I want you to talk about this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I heard about that.
I didn't like that. And I'm filling in for Chuck because they dumped Chuck. So I was filling in for Chuck. And then all of a sudden I'm filling in for Joel.
And I was filling in for Joel one night and he popped into my headphones and he started to say, no, don't talk about this. Talk about this. I want you to do this. I want you to do that.
Don't ever do that to me. That is something that is a jailable offense. Okay. Talking into my headphones or any talk show host headphones and telling them what to talk about and what not to talk about is a jailable offense.
And I just I ignored him. You know, I took my headphones off, as a matter of fact. And then we went to a commercial and because I was doing the show from my home, my studio in my home, and he's up in White Springs. And I called him up and I said, it is 220 miles from my house to the Telford Hotel.
I happen to know what room you are living in. If you ever come into my headphones again, I'm going to drive up there and beat the living shit out of you. And well, then we just might have to reimagine our relationship. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I just said, you know, that's nice. And then I said something that I will not repeat here. And he stopped bothering me, but I just had all of it I could take. I was just done.
Joel was done. Joel walked out on the show and they brought in a bunch of new talent that, you know, the very liberal talent that they brought in. And, you know, I didn't have a problem with that. That was fine.
They could do that. But they weren't talented. They weren't good. They brought in liberal talent that wasn't good.
You know, if you're going to be liberal, be good. If you're going to be conservative, be good. Rush Limbaugh was good. Okay.
He, the talent they brought in, was not good. It was bad. So, you know, I quit. I just said, I'm all done.
You guys have a nice day. Bye. See you. And I figured, okay, now I'm done with radio.
I am done with radio. By the way, that radio network, another fun story. They had an ISDN line built into my home. An ISDN line is a special super duper telephone line.
It's how Rush Limbaugh got his show from his house in Florida to New York. It's how I got my show from my house in Florida to the Telford Hotel. Well, the UAW kept paying for the ISDN line. And it was very expensive.
As a matter of fact, a couple of us ex-hosts But it's not being listened to. And there's a lot of reasons. And by the way, I know all of these very successful podcasters. I speak at PodFest conventions or podcast conventions.
I do all of these things. Yet here I am. How can I say this? I'm like dying over here.
Yeah, I'm dying over here. So something's got to change. Do I have to do interviews? This studio is set up for video.
Do I do a podcast once a week as opposed to five times a week? And do I put it on YouTube at the same time? I've got everything in here to do that. It's not set up.
I need help from some techno wizard. In the old days, I would call up and they would send a guy named Blinky, who was the engineer, and he would come 220 miles down here and he'd do whatever I needed. I remember when my son Zach was born and I had a studio at the other end of the house that they had come and built. And I decided that when he was born, I didn't want him away from me.
I wanted to be with him all of the time. So I called up Blinky. Blinky said, yeah, I'll be right down. And like three and a half, four hours later, he's down and he moved everything into my master bedroom next to the, you know, the crib.
And what people didn't know, because I didn't tell them, is that I had my hand on Zach's back the whole time I was doing the show or he was in my lap or he was pooping and I was changing his poopy diapers live on the air, but nobody knew I just was there taking care of Zach and usually he was on my stomach and his head was at my chest, listening to my heartbeat and listening to me breathe while I talked. And that went on for over a year that I did that. And then Blinky came back and moved it back to the other room, which was very nice of him. But yeah, that's what I did.
And Blinky is now dead and he doesn't work for anybody. And he can't come down and help me with this. But I will find someone around here who will help me do this and get this all set up. And I think what I'm going to do, I think, and I know, I think the love I have for you will never, never die.
Oh, that comes from Frank Zappa. But anyway, from a song called Prunes, and when I see the prune in June reveals, anyway, but great song. I'm going to ask Alexa to play it for me in a little while. But anyway, I might make this a YouTube thing and I will do interviews and I will do interviews remotely with people so they can be where they are and I can be where I am.
Or I could make it a solo show. I don't know, but it's all going to change and things are going to change quickly because the rest of my life is designed. Here's my only one goal for life now at this current age is to create beautiful things every day. So all I really care about, creating beautiful things every day.
I'm just changing out every aspect of my life and it all has to do with that. And so the podcast is going to change. If you have suggestions, my email is michaelcrose at gmail.com. Send me an email, give me a suggestion, and we will go on from there.
And wow, 19 minutes and 10 seconds. This was supposed to be nine minutes. Oh, well, you know what I do every time I'm done recording a show in here? I put on these Sennheiser headphones that I'm wearing and through my very high-end audio interface, I listen to the best freaking music in the world.
That is so good. It gets me crying. That's what I'm gonna do when I'm done talking to you. Then I've got to mix this thing and get it up on the interwebs so that you can listen to it.
And if you're listening to it, I did that. All right, we'll see you Friday.